CHAPTER 121: CROWS CAGE

Fleur sighed in relief as the domain finally crumbled around her. The heavy pressure in the air lifted, leaving behind only the faint echo of souls fading away.

She looked down at the old woman who had once been her mother and exhaled softly.

"Goodbye, Mother..." she whispered, clasping her hands together in a faint prayer.

"Your soul is annihilated to nothingness and in that abyss, you’ll find peace."

It was her quiet farewell. A signal that her task as an executioner was done, that she had to move forward even if every step meant dragging pieces of her past behind her.

Sarah had been beautiful once, a woman whose very presence demanded reverence. But now she was nothing more than a withered flower, hollow and still, her consciousness shattered beyond repair.

Fleur’s throat tightened, but she forced herself to look away.

"David! David! Wake up!"

The scream tore through her reflection, the voice raw and panicked. Fleur turned sharply toward the pink-haired vampire whose trembling hands reached toward the collapsed figure lying nearby.

The pulsing ball of veins that had protected David was gone, drained completely after the fight. Her Sanguine Veins were nearly spent.

David sprawled on the ground, his breathing shallow. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open.

"Elle... no. Lulu, we need to go," he rasped, pointing weakly toward the crimson sky as the world around them began to change.

The once-grey horizon bled into a violent red, and molten lava surged closer, swallowing the broken garden in waves.

"Tch! Take the damn head!" Fleur snapped.

She moved swiftly, hoisting David over her shoulder. Lulu’s clone threw the severed head toward them, and Lulu caught it before sprinting beside her.

They darted toward the door, slipping through it just before the lava could reach them.

The instant they crossed the threshold, everything changed. The door vanished behind them.

"Damn it!" Fleur cursed under her breath, her eyes narrowing as she scanned their new surroundings.

"I hate domains."

Above them, the sky darkened once more. A storm of crows circled overhead, their wings blotting out the faint light.

The sound of their caws was deafening. It wasn’t just noise; it was an attack.

Each shriek drilled into their minds like invisible blades. Lulu dropped to her knees, clutching her head, and David slumped completely unconscious.

"Argghh! Why pain?!"

Lucien’s voice cracked as his head—still conscious—trembled from the psychic backlash.

Fleur clenched her teeth. Her SP reserves were nearly gone, she’d left only a sliver for emergencies, but now, even that was slipping away.

"Damn it all..."

She moved toward them, kneeling beside each in turn. Her veins pulsed out from her fingertips, thin and glowing faintly crimson as they slithered into their temples.

It was a risky move—forceful and draining—but it formed a barrier against the psychic intrusion, shielding their minds before they could melt from the inside out.

The pink-haired vampire gasped as the pain faded from her head, eyes blinking open in surprise.

"Th-thank you..."

"Yeah, yeah," Fleur replied curtly as she stood.

"Pay me back by carrying this idiot." She nodded toward her "What’s your name again?"

"Ugh, it’s Lulu," the girl replied, struggling to lift David’s arm over her shoulder.

"But, how come you know him?"

"The same way he knows you," Fleur answered simply, turning to move ahead.

"I’ve got to report to the Vampire Hunter Quarter if I plan to stay in their territory without getting shot on sight."

"Ah, that one..." Lulu murmured, following her reluctantly.

Their silhouettes stretched across the blood-red horizon. The deeper they walked, the more disturbing the scene became.

Pools of blood reflected twisted shapes of children’s bodies; undead children dragged themselves through the mire, and the endless caw of crows echoed through the air, each cry sharp enough to drive even Fleur close to madness.

"Your girl is a psychopath," Fleur muttered after cutting down the last of the undead.

"She isn’t," David replied quietly, his voice hoarse yet steady. "She’s just... in pain."

Lulu glanced at him with pity. The man could barely stand, yet he forced his body forward, determined to reach deeper into this nightmarish domain called the Cage of Crows.

"Yeah, yeah. Tell that to the fifty or more undead children we’ve had to kill." Fleur

sighed, shaking blood off David’s blade. "You should be furious at her, not defending her. She’s the reason we’re stuck in this mess."

"I’m the reason," David said firmly. "My girl isn’t the one to blame. Keep walking, and stop grumbling, Fleur."

"Huh! Can’t believe I decided to save you," Fleur scoffed, eyeing his pale skin.

His body looked almost corpse-like, blood dripping from his stomatch.

"You really won’t punish your child? Even after she destroyed the whole world?"

David shook his head slowly. "This is all my fault. I could never hate my daughter. It’s my responsibility to stop her... not to condemn her. So let’s move and talk less, like you used to."

Fleur smirked, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "Sure. Whatever you say, hero."

She was relieved, maybe because if she said the truth about Sarah, Ulrich won’t be mad at her... Or maybe it was just her foolish wish.

"We’re here."

David’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. They stopped before a vast dome: glass panels wrapped in rusted steel, half-buried in the dirt.

It looked like a greenhouse, yet in Fleur’s eyes, it resembled nothing more than a cage.

Inside, the structure resembled a forgotten laboratory. Dust-covered instruments lined the tables.

At the center sat a single chair, fitted with metal arms and crystal conduits that pulsed faintly. That chair was the place where they put crystal inside Elle’s body.

"Come on," Fleur said, her tone softening only slightly. "I know where to find your little girl."

They walked deeper into the structure. On one of the glass walls, Fleur’s eyes caught the faded sigil of the Corvane, a raven perched on the moon.

Luckily, they still had Lucien’s head with them. Fleur took it from Lulu and said,

"Now open the door."

Lucien didn’t say much. It seemed his spirit was already broken after Sarah’s defeat and now, with Elle next, there was nothing left in him to resist.

He murmured a strange mantra under his breath before the sigil began to glow, cracking open in a web of red light.

Without hesitation, Fleur plunged her hand into it and stepped forward, her body vanishing into the rift.

It was just a dimensional tear, unstable but passable.

"Are you okay? There aren’t any traps, right?"

Lulu called out, her voice weary. She was already too tired for another fight.

"No. Just get in here."

David and Lulu exchanged a brief look, then followed.

The moment they entered, their eyes widened in shock. The space they emerged into was a vast red dome, filled with cables stretching from wall to wall, each one connecting to a crow.

The air shimmered with a crimson glow, and the sound of fluttering wings filled the silence.

"Where’s Elle? Which one is she?" David asked, scanning the countless dark shapes above them.

"Just keep walking," Fleur said, weaving her way between the tangled cords. "You’ll know when you see her."

Crows filled every inch of the dome—even the ceiling—like a living, breathing mass. The sight was unsettling, but Fleur knew the truth behind them.

"Where did they even get this many crows?" Lulu asked, her voice trembling.

"They aren’t crows," Fleur said quietly. "They’re children, Lulu. The failed experiments."

The words hung heavy in the air.

Fleur’s thoughts drifted to the name Crows Cage She had seen it in Sarah’s memory, back when Sarah and Roanna were deciding what to call their failed creations.

Roanna had chosen the name. "Because they scream like crows," she’d said with a laugh.

Fleur remembered it vividly. The children’s screams was endless, raw, and inhuman.

They cried and thrashed in their cages until their throats bled, until their voices turned hoarse and broken until all that came out were those crow-like screeches.

Some had gone mad from the pain, gouging out their own eyes or each other’s.

It was horrifying.

And that was why the name stayed: Crows Cage. A place where the failed ones were left to rot, to wail like dying birds in the dark.

"So they turned the children into these crows?"

David asked. His voice quivered as he stared at the black shapes surrounding them.

Fleur nodded. "First, they turned them into vampires. Then they took their Vitalis Core while they were still conscious, kept them alive long enough to implant the core into a dead crow’s body."

Lulu gasped. David froze.

"How—how could they do that? That’s basically moving a soul! And how are they still alive when their Vitalis Core is removed? That’s impossible!"

"Vitalis Cores aren’t just crystals filled with power, David," Fleur explained calmly. "As long as the core isn’t shattered, the soul can still reside within it."

David’s hand instinctively went to his chest, feeling the faint pulse of his own core.

"But... I have one implanted in me. My soul feels the same. I haven’t changed."

"Because you’re still alive," Fleur said simply. "Tell me, have your habits changed lately?"

David hesitated. His expression darkened as he realized she was right, he’d always been left-handed, yet now he used his right hand without thought.

"That’s the price of using the Vitalis Core," Fleur said grimly. Then she stopped walking, her eyes narrowing. "We’ve found your daughter."

They followed her gaze and saw it.

A single white crow perched in the center of the dome, its body encased within a translucent sphere, glowing faintly as if in protection.