Chapter 31: Walpurgis Invitation

"...1...2...3...Nio comes again...4...5...6...she already sees you...7...8...9...no use running anymore...10...close your eyes...and she’ll appear." Typhon hums a "song"—a melody almost childish, yet utterly disjointed.

It lacks proper rhyme, and the tone is nearly grim, impossible to tell if it’s something positive or an insult to Nio’s very existence, made all the more disturbing by Typhon being drenched in blood in a small, isolated village.

A place far from any other civilization, built by a nearly primitive tribe, and one Typhon is hunting through.

"1...2...3...Let it start again..." Typhon continues humming the tune as blood drips from the arm impaled on her horns, washing her face in that crimson liquid, each step producing a dripping sound that echoes in the dark of the night.

"4...5...6...Found you." She grabs a woman through the wall, crushing her head violently, and as she does, a magic circle already covering nearly the entire village expands. The poor people of this remote village can’t even flee because of the barrier she erected.

They can only hide—if they manage to stay hidden until Typhon finishes her spell, she’ll let them live, or so she said. But at this rate, she’s already killed well over half the village.

"7...8...9...Nio is—" Typhon’s humming is interrupted by a noise from a crate. She approaches and sees a mother clutching her baby, crying as she looks at the monster before her with eyes full of despair, fear, and tears.

"P-Please d-don’t kill my baby... l-let him l-live... p-please... I-I’m begging you... h-he’s all that m-matters to me..." She begs, barely able to speak, her voice choked and broken by sobs, while drops of blood from Typhon’s horns fall onto the mother’s face.

"..." Typhon looks at the magic on the ground and gives a slight nod, grabbing the mother’s face and crushing it. The skull bursts easily under Typhon’s hands, staining her body even more with blood as the mother’s blood bathes the baby.

"I’ll consider your request." Typhon lets the body fall as she moves on to the next person. Typhon didn’t spare the baby out of pity—she only spared it because if Nio were in that situation, Typhon would beg for Nio to survive and give her own life. Understanding the feeling of giving one’s life for another, she simply accepted the request.

But deep down, she doesn’t understand that emotion. She only knows that Nio should always survive above her, so she would give her life in that situation, even if she believes such a situation would never happen between them.

"Y-You monster!!!" A boy who looks around fourteen appears with an improvised spear. He’s crying, unable to hold it back no matter how hard he tries.

"W-Why did you kill my mother!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US, YOU MONSTER!!!!" Driven by hatred, he musters the courage to show himself and speak to Typhon. While everyone else is hiding, the boy’s courage strikes Typhon as pure foolishness.

"S-She was a good person!! Everyone was good people!! W-Why are you destroying everything we built!! M-My mother w-went out every day to gather plants to help feed the village!! And Aunt Hut a-always made cookies for me!! You killed everyone!!!" His tone is full of despair and sorrow, but Typhon merely stares at him with disinterest in his personal ’story.’

"I’m performing a spell. I need human blood for it—it has to be specifically humans. There’s no reason beyond that. Just as humans need animal meat and kill them, I now need human blood."

"YOU WRETCH!! AAAAAHHHH!!!" The boy charges screaming at Typhon with his spear, but before he can even get close, his head is blown apart by Typhon’s tail striking him. Blood and brain matter rain down on Typhon as she watches the magic circle grow.

’Probably five more... maybe three...’ She resumes walking, ignoring the deaths and suffering she causes. In her mind, there is only one thought: to generate a [Walpurgis Invitation].

[Walpurgis Invitation]—Witch Invitation Sacrifice Magic. By sacrificing humans in a ritual, it generates an invitation that forces the teleportation of the Recipient if they accept. The invitation itself lasts ten minutes, and the Recipient will return to their original position, though with the disadvantage that the Recipient doesn’t know who sent the invitation.

"There are still twenty-four humans alive. I need at most five of you. If you wish to surrender the positions of others to survive, I would be immensely grateful." The polite tone of Typhon’s request permeates the night as something deeply unsettling.

"N-No!! K-Kyaaa!!! P-Please stop!! N-No!!!" A man driven mad by fear drags a woman to Typhon, tying a vine around her mouth to stop her screaming.

"P-Please, t-take her and l-let me live—" Typhon’s tail kills the man with a single clean blow, destroying his head down to the neck. Why? Because she asked for positions to be surrendered, not for people to appear before her.

"..." She steps on the girl’s head, crushing it as the magic circle feeds on the blood and expands until it’s nearly at the activation point.

"Hmmm..." Typhon could have easily ended this in seconds instead of making a "river" of blood through the village. She spent hours killing people in brutal ways simply because she was pondering what to do. Her unnecessary cruelty, done solely for the purpose of needing time before sending the invitation.

Like someone "knitting" slowly even though they could go faster, merely taking their time because they’re thinking about what looks best.

And not doing this delay out of malice ends up being mentally worse for the people around her than if she were being deliberately sadistic.

"Two left..." The large horns with branches like tree limbs that Typhon possesses gleam in the reflection of the bonfire and blood, and quickly Typhon hears the sound of quiet crying. She walks toward it, grabbing a man who screams in terror.

But before his scream can complete, she crushes his head and grabs the person who was crying—a girl who can’t even manage to speak, her body merely trembling in pure despair as Typhon’s slit pupils stare at her.

"..." Typhon grabs her leg, dragging her as she thrashes and cries in terror, but ignoring that, Typhon tosses her upward. The girl spins like a mere ragdoll and falls onto Typhon’s antlers.

Being brutally impaled by her sharp horns, her body dies slowly as Typhon is bathed in blood and the magic activates with the magic circle reaching its maximum size.

Immediately the barrier around the village vanishes, but Typhon, seeing the mess of hundreds of bodies on the ground, feels dissatisfied.

"The ’game’ is over. All of you who survived, I recommend you flee while you still have time. I won’t chase you or anything." Typhon begins preparing a spell to literally obliterate the village area to clean all the blood off the ground and her body.

Immediately, the people who survived this sick game run as fast as they can, while a young girl saves the baby that survived this and runs with the others. Typhon ignores this, kneeling and clasping her hands as if praying.

"Nio... please accept my invitation... I’ll be waiting patiently until this invitation is delivered... please don’t refuse it... if you refuse it... I’ll get angry... and I’ll punish you..." Typhon, knowing Nio’s paranoia, knows there’s a high chance she’ll refuse because she doesn’t know who it’s from, so she hopes everything goes well, giving a smile almost too gentle for the bloody scene around her.