I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

This simple response took the edge off the leader’s anxious, nervous expression. After the handshake, whatever brown-nosing pleasantries he’d been preparing to bridge the gap died in his throat. The leader gave an awkward, harried nod, mumbled, “A pleasure, My Lady,” and beat a hasty retreat back to his squad.

Betty watched the exchange, her lips parting slightly as if to speak. In the end, she said nothing, though her expression grew incredibly complicated. There was surprise, realization, and maybe even a twinge of... unspeakable disappointment.

Pandora paid no mind to the leader’s retreating back, nor did she dwell on Betty’s reaction. Her focus shifted back to Ophelia Sterling.

“Anyway,” Pandora cut to the chase. “Since you’re here on an Academy commission, you must have some dossier on this world. Mind sharing what intel you’ve gathered so far?”

The white-haired girl shook her head. “Unfortunately, contrary to what you might assume, we’re just as much in the dark.”

“Which is exactly why, in a way, the moment right after we step off the train is usually the most dangerous for us...” Ophelia looked at Poppy. “That’s why we need Poppy’s abilities.”

Pandora glanced around. The dense, pale blue vapor crafted by Poppy’s powers was still blanketing the rooftop. It clicked instantly. That smoke wasn’t just a smokescreen to block line of sight; it was undoubtedly doubling as Poppy’s sensory web, her feelers for probing the environment and sniffing out danger.

“We prepared for the worst-case scenario—like a desperate brawl the second we stepped off the train,” Poppy chimed in with a nod. “Thankfully, things aren’t off to that rough a start.”

“As far as my senses can reach, there are no hostile lifeforms or obvious ‘Anomalies’ nearby. For now.”

Anomaly...? Pandora’s ears perked up at the term. Ophelia had used it earlier, mentioning their job was to clear out “Anomalies.”

Never one to stay in the dark, Pandora looked at Ophelia. “What exactly is an ‘Anomaly’?”

Ophelia didn’t answer right away. Instead, she exchanged a quick word with Poppy. “The train has left. We can start our recon. Lift the fog a bit—let’s get a look at our surroundings.”

Poppy nodded. Without any visible gesture, the dense pale blue vapor blanketing the roof began to thin out. It still offered cover, but the field of vision widened significantly. Through the clearing haze, Pandora got a better view. The building they stood on was surrounded by a sprawl of lower structures and intersecting streets.

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Only then did Ophelia turn back to Pandora with an explanation. “To put it simply, ‘Anomalies’ are the monsters that spawn inside Fragment Worlds. They come in all shapes and sizes, but they’re invariably dangerous and they actively impede the Academy’s plans. We have to purge them before this place can be converted into an Orchard.”

Pandora nodded thoughtfully. She looked up, her gaze drifting across that impossibly blue sky, fixing on a spot right beside the sun. Then, she raised a finger and pointed. “Like that thing?”

By now, the dense fog over the rooftop had mostly dissipated. The view opened up dramatically, revealing the sprawling majesty of a massive metropolis in the distance, unfurling like a vibrant oil painting beneath the sun.

Following Pandora’s pointing finger, Ophelia looked up. Then, she saw it.

The thing stood motionless against the azure canvas of the sky. A colossally massive, Pure-White Silhouette figure loomed in the heavens, looking as though it had been directly painted onto the retina with stark pigments. The moment it entered their perception, its silhouette snapped into hyper-focus, every detail crystal clear. It was a distinctly defined humanoid “creature,” utterly devoid of facial features.

The only reason they could classify it as a “creature” rather than some sort of statue or projection was the milky-white, faintly pulsating umbilical cord sprouting from the dead center of its forehead.

The other end of the cord plugged into a bloody, mangled mass of flesh. Sprouting from either side of this fleshy knot were a pair of long, pristine wings. The feathers were immaculate, gleaming with a pearlescent sheen under the sun, fanning gently in the breeze and shedding a dusting of glittering powder.

“That’s...” Ophelia’s violet eyes instantly sharpened to ice picks. The cold aura she usually kept leashed flared out, dropping the temperature of the sweltering rooftop by a few degrees. “Yes,” she said, her voice low and absolute. “That is an Anomaly.”

As her words landed, as if to validate her claim, the thing in the sky reacted.

A faint, vast, and holy singing rang out abruptly in everyone’s ears. There were no lyrics, just pure syllables and melody, yet it carried an indescribable sense of divine majesty and penetrative power, drilling straight into their minds.

Ophelia snapped her head toward Poppy. The Smoking Fox’s brow was furrowed, a flicker of alarm in her eyes, but she quickly shook her head. “It’s not coming from my end. That song just kicked in.”

Ophelia’s expression froze over, a layer of frost crystallizing over her features. “Which means... that thing is here for us.” She murmured to herself, “So much for slipping under the radar...”

“No,” Pandora’s voice cut in, utterly calm. Her finger had already changed trajectory, no longer pointing at the sky, but aiming straight down at the base of the building they stood on. “I don’t think it’s here for us.”

The group followed her pointing finger, peering over the edge. Directly below the rooftop was a standard campus athletic field. Right now, the field was packed. A sea of black, at a glance, there had to be hundreds of people down there. Under normal circumstances, a billowing cloud of smoke popping up on a school roof would’ve drawn every eye and triggered a panic. But right now, not a single soul on that field was looking their way.

They were all facing the exact same direction, heads craned back, staring up at the heavens. Staring at the colossal “Pure-White Silhouette” in the sky. Or rather...

“Is that... an ‘Angel’?” the squad leader muttered under his breath, his tone laced with disbelief.

His choice of words wasn’t unfounded. Because as that holy, vast singing swelled and echoed through the air... the crowd on the field below grew increasingly frenzied. More and more agitated.