Chapter 302: The Beauty Slaughter

Location: Caldron City

Place: City Plaza

Caldron City had once been known as one of Liebu’s most diverse cities, a place where people from different communities lived together without much concern for where someone came from or what they believed. Its streets were usually crowded even late into the evening, filled with merchants, families, workers and travelers passing through the city.

Tonight, those same streets were filled with blood and corpses.

Captain Erika’s Hemut Division had been dispatched toward Caldron City after all communication with the local Agency forces suddenly disappeared. At first, they had expected damaged communication towers or interference caused by the invasion, but the moment their vehicles entered the city, everyone inside understood that something far worse had happened.

There was almost no sound.

No civilians running through the streets, no Agency officers calling for assistance and not even the distant noise of demons attacking buildings. The deeper Erika’s division traveled into Caldron City, the more bodies they discovered scattered across roads and sidewalks.

Erika stepped out near the city plaza and stared silently at the destruction around her.

"Spread out and search the surrounding area," she ordered.

"Look for survivors, demons, anything that can tell us what happened here. Don’t move alone."

"Yes, Captain!"

The division immediately separated into squads. Several teams began examining nearby buildings and checking the bodies scattered throughout the plaza, while another group established a temporary communication point near their vehicles.

Erika turned toward the operators working with their equipment.

"Contact the Agency. Request whatever information they have on Caldron City and tell them we may need reinforcements."

"Yes, Captain."

The operators immediately began working.

Erika remained near the center of the plaza, her eyes slowly moving across the bodies around her. Something about the scene made her increasingly uncomfortable. If demons had attacked an entire city, there should have been signs of resistance. There should have been evidence of fighting, damaged demon bodies, abandoned weapons or at least something showing that the local Agency forces had managed to fight back.

Instead, it looked like they had simply been slaughtered.

Just how powerful was the demon that did this...?

Several minutes later, one of the search squads returned.

"Captain."

Erika turned toward them. "Report."

"We’ve searched the surrounding sectors. So far, we’ve identified two hundred and thirty-four civilian bodies. We also found forty-eight members of the local Agency forces among them."

Erika’s expression immediately hardened.

"Two hundred and thirty-four civilians?"

"Yes, Captain."

"And forty-eight of our own people are dead?"

The soldier nodded.

Erika looked past him toward the blood-covered streets. "What about the demons? How many demon corpses did you find?"

The squad member hesitated.

"None."

Erika slowly turned back toward him.

"None?"

"We haven’t found a single demon body in the sectors we’ve searched."

Her teeth clenched.

Two hundred and thirty-four civilians and forty-eight Agency members had already been confirmed dead, yet whoever attacked them apparently hadn’t lost even one demon.

Something wasn’t right.

"Show me the bodies."

"Yes, Captain."

The squad immediately guided Erika farther into the plaza. Several corpses had been gathered near one section of the street after being examined, and as Erika approached, her expression gradually changed.

She stopped beside the nearest body.

One of the squad members carefully turned the corpse over, allowing Erika to see the victim properly. It was a man, his clothes torn and stained from whatever had happened here, but the condition of his body wasn’t what immediately caught Erika’s attention.

It was his face.

The man was smiling.

Not a peaceful smile, nor the faint expression someone might have carried before death. His lips had been stretched into an unnaturally cheerful grin that remained frozen across his dead face, creating a disturbing contrast with the blood covering the road beneath him.

Erika’s expression changed.

Her eyes immediately moved toward another corpse lying only a short distance away. It belonged to a woman, but unlike the smiling man, most of the woman’s face had been violently torn away. The two deaths looked completely different at first glance, yet something about them created the same uncomfortable feeling inside Erika.

She knew this.

"No..."

Erika crouched beside the woman and examined the wounds more carefully. Her hand slowly began trembling as an old memory surfaced in her mind, one she desperately hoped she was mistaken about.

"No, it can’t be..."

"Captain?" one of the squad members asked.

Erika ignored him.

She immediately moved toward another corpse and checked it herself. Then another. Some had suffered horrifying injuries, while others carried expressions that didn’t belong on the faces of people who had died in terror. There seemed to be no consistent method behind the killings, but that only made Erika more certain.

Her breathing became heavier.

"She’s here..."

The soldiers around her exchanged confused glances.

Erika abruptly stood and turned toward her vice-captain.

"July!"

Vice-Captain July immediately approached her. "Captain?"

"Gather everyone. Abandon the search and report everything we’ve discovered to the Agency immediately. Every movement, every casualty and every piece of information we’ve collected since entering Caldron City. Send all of it now."

July could hear the urgency in her voice and didn’t waste time questioning the order.

"Yes, Captain."

She immediately reached for her communicator and began contacting the squads scattered throughout the surrounding streets.

Erika raised her own communication device.

"Listen carefully, White Wolf Division. Abandon your current tasks and return to my position immediately. I repeat, abandon the operation and regroup. Prepare for combat."

The order reached every member of the division.

Across the nearby streets and buildings, search teams immediately stopped what they were doing. Soldiers who had been examining bodies withdrew from the area, while those searching nearby structures quickly returned to the main road. None of them knew exactly what Erika had discovered, but the urgency in their captain’s voice was enough to make them move without argument.

Within minutes, the White Wolf Division had gathered in the middle of the blood-covered street.

Confusion remained among several members as they looked toward Erika. They had entered Caldron City expecting a rescue and investigation operation, yet now every search had suddenly been abandoned and they were being ordered into combat despite not having found a single living demon.

Erika walked toward the center of the formation.

"July, contact the Agency."

"Yes, Captain."

"Tell them the White Wolf Division is preparing to engage an enemy in Caldron City." Erika paused briefly before continuing. "Enemy identified as Mae-hwa, one of the Upper Blood Demons."

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then several soldiers reacted almost simultaneously.

"Upper Blood Demon?!"

The name alone changed the atmosphere among the division. Some instinctively tightened their grip around their weapons, while others glanced toward the surrounding buildings as though expecting something to emerge from them at any moment.

Erika looked across her soldiers.

"Yes."

She could see the tension appearing on their faces. She couldn’t blame them for it. They understood what that classification meant, and after seeing hundreds of bodies throughout Caldron City without finding a single demon casualty, fear was only natural.

"But don’t lose your composure," Erika said firmly. "I’m here with all of you. Stay together, follow my commands and don’t break formation."

Her words helped settle some of the immediate panic. The soldiers quickly began preparing themselves, weapons drawn as they formed defensive positions across the street while July continued transmitting their situation to the Agency.

Then something changed.

Erika noticed it first.

A faint fragrance drifted through the air.

Her eyes narrowed.

It was sweet.

Fresh.

Completely out of place in a street filled with blood and corpses.

Several soldiers slowly noticed it as well. Their confused expressions changed as the fragrance grew stronger, carrying the unmistakable scent of freshly blooming flowers through the ruined city.

"Captain...?"

Erika didn’t answer.

A thin pink mist began creeping along the distant road.

It moved slowly between the abandoned vehicles and bodies, spreading from one side of the street to the other until the pavement ahead gradually disappeared beneath it. More pink mist descended between the surrounding buildings, carrying that increasingly powerful floral perfume with it.

Erika’s hand tightened around her weapon.

The White Wolf Division fell silent.

They no longer needed to search for Mae-hwa.

She had found them.

"Oh, my... You knew I was here?"

The woman’s voice drifted through the pink mist with the same sweetness as the floral fragrance surrounding them. It sounded playful rather than threatening, as though she were genuinely delighted that Erika had recognized her presence.

Erika kept her weapon raised and stared into the mist.

"Of course I know about you," she replied. "Upper Blood Demon."

A soft giggle echoed through the street.

"Well, hearing that from you brings me such joy, cute lady."

Erika’s eyebrow twitched at the nickname, but she refused to let the demon’s playful tone distract her. She still couldn’t see exactly where Mae-hwa was standing, and with the mist continuing to spread around them, allowing the demon to control the pace of the encounter would only make things worse.

"If you’re that happy, why don’t you come out and greet me properly?"

There was a short silence.

Then the woman laughed again.

"Of course. How could I refuse such a cute invitation?"

A figure gradually appeared within the pink mist.

The White Wolf Division immediately tightened their formation, but as the distant silhouette became clearer, the expected attack never came. Instead, a woman simply walked toward them at an unhurried pace, her footsteps calm and elegant despite the blood and corpses scattered throughout the street.

Erika had seen Mae-hwa’s reports before.

Mae-hwa, the Beauty Slaughter.

One of the Korean Upper Blood Demons.

Among the information attached to her records were repeated descriptions of her appearance. Survivors had compared her beauty to something almost divine, while others described it as unnatural enough to make people forget, even briefly, what kind of monster they were standing before.

Erika had always considered those descriptions exaggerated.

Now she understood why they existed.

Long blonde hair fell smoothly around Mae-hwa’s shoulders, framing a face so perfectly proportioned that Erika found herself staring despite knowing exactly who she was dealing with. Her pink eyes complemented the blossom-colored mist surrounding her, and the gentle smile resting on her lips made her appear closer to an angel emerging through flowers than a demon responsible for the massacre surrounding them.

For several seconds, even Erika struggled to reconcile the woman approaching them with the bodies she had examined moments earlier.

So the reports weren’t exaggerating...

The reaction among her division was even worse.

Several of the male soldiers had gone visibly distracted. Their weapons remained raised, but their eyes followed Mae-hwa’s every movement with an intensity that immediately concerned Erika. Some looked almost entranced by the way she smiled and walked toward them, their earlier fear temporarily replaced by obvious attraction.

The female members weren’t unaffected either. Some stared at Mae-hwa with the same fascination, while others became visibly self-conscious as their eyes moved over her flawless appearance. One soldier briefly lowered her gaze toward herself before seeming to realize what she was doing and hurriedly looked forward again.

Erika noticed all of it.

Damn it.

This wasn’t normal attraction.

They were standing in a city filled with hundreds of corpses. Every soldier here knew Mae-hwa was an Upper Blood Demon, and they had just been told she was responsible for what happened. Yet merely seeing her was already affecting their concentration.

Erika tightened her grip around her weapon and forced herself to look beyond Mae-hwa’s appearance.

The smiling man.

The woman whose face had been torn apart.

The mummified bodies.

Two hundred and thirty-four civilians.

Forty-eight Agency members.

Erika repeated those images in her mind until the woman standing before her stopped looking like an angel and became what she actually was.

A monster.

Mae-hwa finally stopped at a comfortable distance from the White Wolf Division. Her pink eyes slowly moved across the soldiers who couldn’t stop staring at her before settling on Erika.

Her smile became slightly brighter.

Erika stared back at her and felt irritation mixing with the uneasiness already building inside her.

"Shit..." she muttered beneath her breath. "Out of every demon I could’ve encountered tonight... why did it have to be this monster?"

TO BE CONTINUED...

__________________________

🎂 Post-Credit Scene — Happy Birthday, Yuuta

Yuuta stared at the small cake sitting on the table.

Then at Elena.

Then at Erza.

Then back at the cake.

"...Why does it say Happy Birthday, Idoit Mortal?"

Elena immediately pointed toward Erza.

"Mama wrote it!"

Yuuta slowly turned his head.

Erza sat on the sofa with her usual composed expression, one leg crossed over the other as though none of this concerned her.

"I did not."

"Mama told Elena how to spell stupid!"

"I did not do that either."

Yuuta narrowed his eyes. "Erza."

The Dragon Queen finally looked at him.

There was a long silence.

"...It seemed appropriate."

"You...."

"PAPA!"

Before Yuuta could complain, Elena climbed onto the chair and shoved the cake toward him with both tiny hands.

"Make wish!"

Yuuta stopped.

For a moment, he simply looked at the two of them.

A wish?

There had been a time when he would have needed several minutes just to decide what he wanted. Money. Peace. Answers. Maybe a life where troublesome dragons didn’t suddenly appear and turn everything upside down.

But now...

Yuuta closed his eyes.

I hope everyone reading our story stays healthy.

Healthy enough to keep reading our adventures until the very end... and maybe, somewhere along the way, they’ll learn something from our mistakes, our happiness, and all the stupid things we do.

A small smile appeared on his face.

That’s enough for my birthday wish.

Yuuta opened his eyes and blew out the candles.

Elena immediately threw both hands into the air.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAPA!"

Yuuta smiled.

"Thanks."

Erza quietly looked away.

"Happy birthday... Yuuta."

His smile grew a little wider.

Then Elena plunged her hand directly into the cake.

"ELENA?!"

—End of Post-Credit Scene—