The worst was over—at least for now—as there were casualties, but this was something outside of Caleb's control.
Eileen was worried. She had no idea what undoing the seal might have done to him, but she wanted to believe Caleb was more than the events surrounding him.
He was human at heart, but the way he killed the priest replayed in her head—it was instinct.
Caleb aimed at vital points and was going to deliver a fatal blow, even if he didn't exert that much strength to begin with.
That was a blow aimed at causing irreparable harm, regardless of how she looked at it.
Caleb stood above Hilda's corpse and wondered how senseless this loss of life was when it was he, this man, who was after.
This was a death that could have been avoided if Eileen had undone the seal earlier and given Caleb a chance at protecting himself.
Caleb didn't blame Eileen. He was responsible for all of this, but seeing the priest in that state made him throw up.
It was a sight that unsettled him, and he kept on vomiting—he couldn't believe he had done all of this.
But Eileen placed a hand on his shoulder. She hated to admit it, but Caleb had saved her life.
She would be dead without him, and if this priest hadn't threatened to kill her, he might still have been alive.
"I'm sorry, Caleb… It is my fault," Eileen said, knowing that by blaming herself, she would share in the burden he was carrying.
She was the one who called Hilda to strengthen the seal, and that inadvertently led to all of this.
If anything, she was the cause of everything that had occurred, and she wasn't going to shy away from her role in all of this.
"M-Mom?" a voice called out, and Caleb tilted his head in that direction and saw it was Leila.
He didn't know what to say, but something told him she already knew what had happened when she looked at the man dressed as a priest.
This was no doubt the work of a hunter. Eileen had taken the blade he used to sever her soul, because it could prove to be an invaluable weapon.
However, she wondered why it hadn't worked on Caleb. Holy relics were forged for this purpose, yet Caleb was unaffected.
Caleb looked away in shame as Leila slowly approached the corpse of her mother.
"What happened?" Leila asked, trying her best to hold it together.
"She saved me," Caleb responded, but this didn't stop the tears from flowing.
Leila knelt in front of her mother and sobbed profusely—she couldn't believe her mother had died.
-
This act caught the attention of the church because the use of magic was not only detected, but the seal being broken sent a malevolent energy surge that was felt by them all.
This was the purpose of the attack. They knew the priest wouldn't be able to take down Caleb if the seal remained unbroken, and the only way to survive him was to do just that.
He was a necessary sacrifice for them to further their goal, but this was an act separated from the church.
It was the Black Choir—the radical side of the church that had grown in power.
There are a few who would call them a necessary evil, as their acts were always for the greater good, and they didn't care how they got the result.
A few others were gathered in black robes, hidden from the eyes of everyone else.
"Should we fetch the child? We cannot leave him be, or he would be lost again," one of the members said. He had a raspy voice that made it difficult to hear him.
"It is fine… The seal has been undone. Killing him right now would be impossible," another said, but she had the voice of a sweet angel.
The raspy-voiced man looked at the third figure standing, but they didn't say a word.
"Patience, my children. We waited years to get here—what is a few more weeks?" the man said. His voice was authoritative and absolute.
"Yes, Father…" they all said in unison, because this man knew that doing more than they already had would set Luke off.
But the question remained—why were they so interested in Luke to begin with?
They were dismissed, and the members left the chambers of the "Father."
The person who remained quiet instantly left the vicinity, but the other two remained.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" the raspy-voiced man questioned, lowering his hood.
He was a man in his mid-twenties, but looked like he had never had a day of sleep in his life. The dark circles beneath his eyes matched his hair and his emotionless expression, but despite this, he was wary of the dangers that were about to unfold.
They were dealing with something they had no explanation for. It was vastly unknown whether the Father's plan could come to fruition.
"We can only trust the Father…" the lady said, before lowering her hoodie to reveal a woman who looked anything but holy.
She had light blue hair with multiple hairpins holding it in a ponytail, but everything about her screamed danger.
"… After all, Luke was always his favourite, Paul," the lady reminded him. This was one of the reasons—because Luke not only belonged to the Black Choir, but he was one of their strongest members to date.
The Black Choir couldn't do as they pleased because of the church. While they were a fanatical branch, they were ultimately weaker than the main branch.
However, their access to forbidden relics made them more powerful than the average hunter, which granted them an edge.
The soul-severing relic, for example, made fighting the supernatural a lot easier, because anything with a soul could be purged with a single strike.
The demons were gone, the gates of Hell were closed, so it served as a good means to fight other supernatural entities.
"We must find Luke and return him to the Father. We need him," Paul said.