“Something smells funny here.” Sooyoung said as she gave her surrounding air a sniff. 

It had certainly been a while since she had last smelled this particular smell. A nostalgic smell indeed, but also one that brought in saddening memories that she would rather not remember. So, she made herself to give it another a hard sniff just to be sure of it and sure enough, it was indeed what she had thought it was. 

“Damn, it really is that smell.” Sooyoung knew exactly what it was after her last try, it was the smell of concentrated the dark energy and mass gathering of sins. 

“Should I, go?” Sooyoung asked herself as she stood still in her spot, pondering whether or not she should give them a visit. It had surely been a while since she last joined a ritual raid. To be exact, two centuries since she last publicly feasted on demons. 

During Seulgi’s menacing rampage on the estate grounds, the penultimate battle of the First Holy War had also occurred at the same time. After the Lord of Pride opened up a way for Seulgi to escape and cause mayhem and chaos amongst the church, the real fight between the Demon Lord and the seven Knights of the Church of The Seven Virtues started.

The long and arduous battle that took place for days ended in the Demon Lord being sent back to the Inferno with a heavy injury that had caused him to never appear on Earth for the centuries ahead but it didn’t mean the church nor humanity had won the fight against demons.

The Lord of Pride was greatly injured but not dead, the church on the other hand suffered even greater loses as five Knights excluding Yunho and Taeyeon were killed gruesomely by the Demon Lord single-handedly. There was also the four Guardian Beasts that needed to be taken into account. Four of them went into battle but only two had come out alive after the tragic battle. 

After the war, the remaining two Guardian Beasts -Sooyoung, the White Tiger of the West and Kyungsoo, the Black Warrior of the North- went into hiding to keep themselves out of sight from humans and demons alike in order to preserve the last two Guardian Beasts. This resulted in humans no longer celebrating and honouring their protectors as they all thought the five guardians were no longer alive and sacrificed.

“Ungrateful bunch of s.” Sooyoung would condemn but once in a while, she would find herself encountering humans who still honour and celebrate the heroic deeds of the Guardian Beasts. 

Contrarily, although Kyungsoo was also hiding, he wasn’t doing as much like Sooyoung. Instead, he had been travelling around the world sealing gateways to the Inferno and spreading the teaching and beliefs of Mystical Guardians but the funny thing was that people didn’t know he was actually one of the Mystical Guardians that he was teaching about.

The church had also lost greatly due to the other human turned demon, whose actions completely destroyed the last of the resources the church had, leading them to depend on the Son household more than ever. 

After the death of Bogum, there was less corruption amongst the church members or so Sooyoung had heard but Minho was the actual driving force for the Son family to do good and get involved in the church anyways, the absence of Bogum would only serve to demolish the supposed corruption he had imposed. 

However, that was all two centuries ago. Whatever that was happening in the church was none of Sooyoung's business anymore. If the Sons are doing good deeds then good for them, if they were still corrupted then karma will find its way to them.

As Sooyoung continued to weigh her options, her stomach grumbled. It had been a while since she last ate a demon and no amount of human food would suffice for her hunger. 

“ it, I’m going there!” She cussed as she gave in to her hunger and rushed toward the center of the mass gathering of dark energy. 

*****

“We’re all set, Lord Greed.” Sunmi a Grand Mage from one of the remaining sects announced when one of her subordinates brought in the last batch of human offerings.

“Good, we can start now and be quick, I don’t want to deal with the those mage hunting bastards.” The Lord of Greed ordered them as they started the ritual, drawing up blood magic circles and lining up the scared less offerings. 

Usually, it would have been the Lord of Pride who would be along side Sunmi and the members of her sect during their rituals. After all, Sunmi and her sect were followers of the Lord of Pride. Jiyong was truly one strong demon that Sunmi herself was fortunate enough to bare witness. 

To her who wanted to become a demon and gain powers beyond imaginable, Jiyong was the ideal demon whose footsteps were followed by her. Whenever they held rituals in his name, he would be able to off the life force of his offerings to make himself stronger. In exchange, Jiyong would grant immortality to the mages but Sunmi was different, she didn’t just want immortality.

No, she wanted to be reborn as a demon. The Lord of Pride however was adamant to allow her to hold the demonic rebirth rituals as he saw her more valuable as a mage rather than a demon. 

“We shall offer them to Lord Jiyong.” Sunmi said as she lit up the blade of her dagger in fire. 

“Don’t kill them off completely, I need their bodies intact.” Seunghyun ordered once again. 

Since Jiyong was too weak to appear on Earth, Seunghyun would help him perform rituals in exchange for the bodies of the offerings. 

“They might become good puppets, you never know.” He would say to Jiyong.

During the Holy War, humanity wasn’t the only side that lost many as the demons had also suffered just as much lost as the church. Five Demons Lords were slayed and half of the demonic population was wiped out. Jiyong was also too damaged to the point that he wouldn’t be able to move out of the Inferno until he had fully recovered. 

After the first Holy War was the Mage Hunt following it, many believers and followers of the various demons were completely hunted down and exterminated by the Church of The Seven Virtues. 

Just when Sunmi was about to set the blood drawn magic circles on fire with her blade, the ground beneath them trembled before a huge beast appeared from above and crash landed.

The ground broke and collapse as it quaked, shaking off everyone who couldn’t keep their balance and it didn’t even take more than seconds before the intruder charged at the demons.