Blood Cup

Birmingham, Lower District, beneath an apartment building.

Police officers in navy-blue uniforms busily set up cordons, driving away curious children who approached. During brief lulls in their work, they exchanged furtive glances and whispered about the growing number of bizarre murders this month, as well as rumors of uncertain truth.

The lower their voices became, the more fearful their eyes were when they looked toward that apartment building.

Layers of purple radiance rippled outward. On the street, a tall girl wearing a brown wide-brimmed cowboy hat, her eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses, lightly tapped the ground with her leather boots as her figure flickered.

Her appearance and clothing were clearly out of place in the Lower District, yet at that moment, not only the drunken vagrants by the roadside, but even the stray dogs seemed unable to see her blurry silhouette. They merely focused on rummaging through the trash cans for food.

Her strides were not large, yet in only a few steps, she crossed half a block, advancing in an absolutely straight line while ignoring pedestrians, walls, and even the terrain in her path.

As though she were walking through another world.

She was practically like a phantom or a ghost.

The girl passed openly through the cordon at a gap guarded by two officers chatting about their recent overtime, approached the apartment building, glanced lightly at the closed door, and raised an eyebrow.

Without needing to reach out, much less use a Key, the closed door opened on its own, welcoming its honored guest.

"Mm-hm."

With a hint of mischief, the girl stepped inside, extended the fingertips of her right hand, and gently poked the back of the black-haired girl who was diligently writing a report.

"Ah—"

Startled into a shudder by the sudden touch, the black-haired girl had clearly failed to notice anyone approaching from behind. She hunched her shoulders like a small animal and looked around in panic. The report folder in her hands dropped to the floor with a clatter.

On the upward-facing page, the title was clearly visible: "Birmingham's Fifth Supernatural Crime This Month."

"Emma, you're far too unguarded. A newcomer like you wouldn't last a month in the Gate Legion. As a consultant, I have a few more thoughts about the Prevention and Suppression Bureau's training procedures for new agents."

The blonde girl bent down, picked up the fallen report, brushed off the dust, and handed it back to the still-shaken Emma, offering the suggestion casually.

"Even if you're wary of the Night Roaming Art, you should at least learn how to deal with it. For example, add an Illumination Art technique—Contemplation of Dawn. What do you think?"

Rubbing her unsteady chest, Emma Moore, who had only recently joined the Prevention and Suppression Bureau, caught her breath and could not help complaining, "Don't joke around, Miss Cessno. As border guards, the Gate Legion's training priorities are still different from those of Prevention and Suppression Bureau agents."

"And weren't you..."

"Just call me Veronica. The situation is urgent. Frank Mills, deputy director of your Birmingham branch, originally wanted to handle this Scarlet Plague-related incident himself, but unfortunately, he couldn't keep it contained and it still got reported to the higher-ups."

"You know how those bigwigs are. They can't stand seeing me idle, so all the dirty, exhausting work has landed on my head again. Sigh, sigh. Life really is unpredictable."

"Ah, no, I..."

"Heh, you don't trust me that much, little Emma?"

She flicked Emma on the forehead. Seeing her eyes welling with tears despite her curious expression, Veronica Cessno sighed and patiently instructed her for the sake of Emma's uncle.

"Don't look at me like that. You'd better not ask. For an Apprentice of Candle, curiosity is important, but it isn't more important than your life. This isn't a joke."

"Okay, okay, I understand. I won't ask."

Nodding repeatedly like a pecking chick, Emma quickly changed the subject.

"Then, Miss Cess—um, Miss Veronica, since you're here, take a look at the scene. I've already recorded some traits, it's just a little... nauseating."

With an indescribably subtle expression on her face, Emma led Veronica to the nearest apartment door. After opening the already broken door, she turned her head aside and held her breath. Even so, her stomach still churned violently.

The stagnant air was disturbed, and the bloody stench that had been sealed inside the room rushed forth, brutally forcing its way into their nostrils and ravaging their fragile olfactory nerves. It conveyed the most direct impression.

—A massacre.

On the dining table in the center of the room, the food originally served on plates had begun to spoil slightly, yet not a single fly had come to enjoy the feast.

Because there was far more delicious food nearby.

Beside the dining table, four corpses of varying sizes lay scattered across the floor in disarray—one could even say torn apart. Their no-longer-moist eyeballs still held the panic and terror of their final moments as they stared fixedly at the ceiling.

They had died with their eyes open.

"A family of four: two adults, two children. All died at the scene. Their bodies showed signs of being torn apart, and almost all their internal organs had been eaten."

As Emma explained in a voice still trembling with nausea, bright yellow light flickered in the depths of her eyes. Phantoms formed, reconstructing the scene from that time:

A savage, bloodstained figure roughly twisted open the lock and broke into the home, pouncing upon the family of four gathered around the dining table. It first knocked down the two children, then pinned the terrified middle-aged couple firmly to the ground with both arms, impatiently tearing apart their limbs before ripping out their hearts and swallowing them whole amid their terror and despair.

"Crunch, crunch."

Even though it was only an illusory image, the humanoid monster's ravenous appearance was still horrifying.

It greedily gnawed on the still-warm corpses until sounds of commotion rose nearby. Only then did the figure smash through the window again, flee into the night, and vanish without a trace.

"All right, these clues are enough."

Veronica gestured for Emma to stop simulating the scene, took the paper and pen from her hand, and wrote down the information obtained from the blurry image.

"Male, around forty years old, approximately one point nine meters tall, weighing around one hundred kilograms."

"His body has already undergone obvious aberration, and he made no effort to restrain his aura. Path of Devouring, Blood Thirster—it can almost certainly be attributed to the Blood Cup Cult."

"His mind is nearly deranged, but something is still restraining him. He could lose control at any moment—just like in that image. Inform the patrol officers to be careful."

As she lowered her head to record the information, Emma felt heartfelt fury at the thought that such a madman had massacred more than a dozen people in the Lower District.

The Blood Cup Cult was a malignant tumor roaming throughout Avalon. It revered the principle known as Grail—an overarching doctrine concerning procreation and Devour, Temptation and suffering. It was a secret religious organization that passed down the hidden knowledge of the Cup of Insatiable from generation to generation and possessed the complete advancement rituals for two Paths.

Rumor had it that it was backed by an Immortal, allowing it to barely survive the Prevention and Suppression Bureau's extermination campaign ten years ago. No one knew in which borderland it had hidden to recuperate and rebuild its strength. Now, it had risen from the ashes once more.

Blood Thirster was the name of the first rank on the Path of Devouring controlled by the Blood Cup Cult. It granted its holder great physical strength and precise control over their limbs... along with an unusual hunger.

Driven by that hunger, Apprentices who set foot on this Path could often consume flesh and blood weighing more than half their own body weight in a single meal, storing it within themselves to quickly restore stamina and heal injuries in battle. Among the generally lackluster first-rank Marks, it was considered relatively practical.

What truly made the Blood Thirster Mark notorious was the Blood Cup Cult's "innovation."

The various harsh prerequisites for becoming a supernatural being had been simplified or bypassed. As long as one drank Scarlet Temptation, specially concocted from high-rank Grail materials through special methods, one could obtain an incomplete Blood Thirster Mark in a parasitic manner.

They could even replenish themselves and continue growing by drinking the spiritually rich blood of others.

So long as the high-rank individual providing the blood did not die, these forcibly promoted Blood Thirsters could not advance normally, but their physical capabilities and combat strength were even greater than those of ordinary first-rank supernatural beings. They were cheap, useful, disposable cannon fodder.

And that was not even the most troublesome part. After all, no matter how strong an Apprentice below Knower was, they were still mortal. A blade cutting into their body would still make them bleed, a gunshot blowing apart their head would still kill them, and artillery bombardment would still leave no corpse behind. Not to mention the military—even ordinary handguns posed a sufficient threat to them.

The key was, what did all this mean?

The technology for creating Blood Thirsters had vanished along with the Blood Cup Cult. So did the reappearance of Blood Thirsters mean that the Blood Cup Cult had new plans once again?

Having infected so many Blood Thirsters and harvested lives without restraint, Emma could think of no other possibility besides wanting to complete an Achievement.

At that thought, Emma anxiously asked the blonde girl beside her, "Miss Veronica, could it be that a ritualist of the Blood Cup Cult wants to complete an advancement ritual in Birmingham?"

"If that's true... unless we draw personnel from London Headquarters, with our current equipment and manpower, we won't be able to fight a supernatural being of at least the third rank if you don't intervene."

"If necessary, I can send word to my uncle and have him come..."

"No need."

Veronica shook her head and reassured her, "Don't be so anxious. If it's something I can't handle, Douglas won't be able to handle it either. The Well of the Woodland has not yet overflowed, and Grail's influence is not strong enough. Whatever they want to accomplish, they will need at least another week to prepare fully."

"As long as nothing unexpected happens."