The blinding white light faded quickly, revealing Julia’s new appearance. Although she looked mostly unchanged, her succubus characteristics became overly heightened.
Her circular horns turned from the previous dark-brown color into a reddish hue, while her pink hair grew in length and spread wide to the floor. Even her ears turned a bit sharper at the ends, becoming elongated.
The small wings on her lower back grew a size larger and released a dark mystic glow, while the arrow-tipped tail from before turned into a reverse heart shape instead.
The only unfortunate thing was that her chest remained flat. Hers was even smaller than Wan Er’s, making me doubt if her succubus bloodline even did its f*cking job.
I checked her pulse and breathing, and they both returned to normal.
“She should be fine now.”
I stood up as I spoke, wiping the sweat off my forehead with my arm. The link between servants and tamers isn’t as powerful as a contracted monster’s, but I could still feel that she wasn’t in pain anymore and was just sleeping peacefully.
After looking at her figure, wearing clothes that barely covered her body, I knelt beside her before lifting her up in a princess carry. I moved to one side of the room while sending a mental message to Ember.
Ember quickly took out a simple bed from her subspace storage and placed it before me. I then placed the still-unconscious Julia on top of it and covered her with a blanket, letting her rest comfortably.
“She should wake up in time. Before that, we need to do the same with you too, Fina.”
I muttered as I looked at her, shivering like a cold child in the middle of the night, hugging her own body tight.
*SCREEEEEEEEEECH!*
At that moment, an ear-splitting scream was heard. Everyone in the room tried to cover their ears, but it was ineffective in preventing the noise.
“Ugh! It’s that thing’s scream again!”
I prepared for the worst, but after a short bout of ringing pain in the ears, nothing else happened. It must be because we’re further from it now.
Changes happened in the sky just as I was relieved. The dark-blue night sky suddenly warped into a glowing red color. The ground started releasing bloody mist, covering the entire town in an instant.
“What’s going on?”
Looking at the atmosphere, it felt like the whole place got turned into the set of a horror movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if zombies started appearing beyond the red fog. 𝘦𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑜𝑟𝘨
“…!”
And it did appear. But not zombies. Bats, hundreds of thousands of them, started rampaging right outside. Even the window we had been using to look outside was bumped by bats repeatedly as if they were trying to break in.
Outside, one could hear the voices of the guards, busy fighting off the bats. Those guards are at most in the fifth stage, so they’re not very powerful compared to us.
“Ember! Stay here. The rest, go and help the guards wipe out those bats!”
Fang and Igni quickly left the room through the window, slapping away the bats that were trying to break it. The bats slammed into the floor and splattered like black ink.
The three others went to Ember and asked her to create a gate leading to the Luo family. Ember nodded her head and opened one right outside the window. As soon as she did, seven tamed monsters rushed out and started fighting the bats without waiting for their tamers.
Wan Li and Wan Er went out, joining the fray. However, Ying Yue stayed in the room.
“You’d need someone to protect you in close quarters too, right?”
She said this while crossing her arms.
Ember may be good at supporting, given her specialization; however, she lacks the raw stats to fight mano-a-mano at a rapid pace. Ying Yue, on the other hand, specialized in fighting techniques. It really is a good plan to leave one extra fighter at hand, so I just let her stay.
Seeing that the immediate surroundings of the government office became quiet, I finally faced Fina once again.
“Fina, all you need to do is agree. I promise not to abuse the contract with you. Please believe in me.”
Looking at her, still shaking in either fear or pain, I felt a bit of urgency. Fina nodded her head immediately, giving me permission to proceed.
I smiled and closed my eyes. Then, I willed to place her under a Servant Contract, just as I did with Julia. However, something went wrong.
[Servant Contract Failed. Target isn’t eligible for undergoing Servant Contract.]
As the voice echoed in my head, my vision spun. I slumped down to the ground and vomited blood. I felt like my internal organs got messed up, but I didn’t actually receive any damage.
“Damn… Nobody told me that there’s a backlash when failing a Servant Contract!”
I cursed as I slowly looked up. Ember and Ying Yue had worried expressions, as if they were about to jump and help me up. With shaking legs, I slowly raised my body and stood up. Then I started thinking.
“Why did the Servant Contract fail?”
The system said that she wasn’t qualified for a Servant Contract, but all tamers should be viable targets for it, based on what I heard from God Zeshion.
“You’re a tamer, right?”
Just to confirm, I asked Fina, to which she quickly nodded her head in reply to my question. As I was scratching my head, wondering what else had gone awry, the voice from earlier echoed once more inside my mind.
[She’s no longer a tamer, but a monster. You must hurry, she doesn’t have much time left.]
Leaving another incomplete sentence, he immediately vanished. Although I’m thankful that he’s trying to help me, wouldn’t it be better to leave more words for me to work with?
While I was lost in thought, Fina suddenly raised a loud scream. She twisted her body in pain as she curled up on the floor. The energies inside her started fighting against each other, just like what happened with Julia before.
However, this time, three clumps of energy were chaotically fighting for supremacy.