Worried about Shade, the doctor and priest moved quickly. The closer they came to the manor, the thicker the fog became. The doctor, who had insisted on leading the way, wisely let Priest Augustus walk ahead.
The priest held a compass made of white bone, but rather than guiding them to the old house where the banquet was being held, it led them farther and farther away from town.
"Priest, this..."
Looking at the trees shrouded in dense nighttime fog, Doctor Schneider spoke hesitantly. He was too embarrassed to directly say that Priest Augustus had gotten lost as well. But Priest Augustus did not think he had taken the wrong path, and events proved him right. Five or six minutes later, they sensed the tremendous roar of battle in the distance.
"Quick!"
It was called "the distance," but only because the fog made even nearby places seem far away. The two rushed toward the source of the sound. Then they first saw a glowing green giant, flickering in and out of sight amid the night fog, and felt its immense Life Force.
Then even Doctor Schneider, who knew little about the power of death, sensed an indescribable force of the dead.
The two powers of different natures clashed against one another. The collision of life and death caused the weeds on the red earth of that tiny graveyard to grow wildly, decay, revive, grow, decay, endlessly repeating the cycle.
Only when the doctor and priest truly entered the graveyard did they see that the creature fighting Shade was a strange humanoid draped in a tattered dark-red robe, floating in the air.
No legs showed beneath its robe, making one seriously doubt whether it had legs at all. Its shriveled face was gray, and ghostly green flames burned in its eyes.