As if responding directly to Wednesday's words, the ground around them suddenly cracked open.
Hands burst upward from beneath the scorched earth.
Dozens of them.
The creatures pulled themselves free slowly, bodies thin and distorted, their skin hanging in burned strips across exposed muscle while fire flickered beneath the cracks in their flesh.
Their mouths opened far too wide, packed with rows of sharp teeth like piranhas, and their movements jerked unnaturally as they dragged themselves toward the three of them.
Then they saw them.
The creatures shrieked together.
"SKRRRRAAAHHHH—!"
The sound scraped across the wasteland like metal tearing apart.
Morticia watched the approaching swarm with remarkable composure considering the situation. "Wednesday, dear," she asked calmly, "do you happen to have anything useful hidden in that bag? A knife, perhaps. A small apocalypse."
"Unfortunately, mother," Wednesday replied while staring at the advancing demons, "even I didn't anticipate falling directly into Hell today."
Ethan looked at both of them for a second before immediately opening the system shop again.
Then two relics materialized in front of him.
The Gloves of Saint Marcus.
White cloth wrapped around reinforced golden lining, ancient crosses stitched into the backs of the gloves while faint holy light pulsed beneath the fabric itself.
Ethan pulled one onto his left hand and tossed the other toward Wednesday.
The moment the glove sealed around his skin, golden lines spread across his arm instantly, holy energy surging through him hard enough to distort the air nearby.
VZZZZT—!
Wednesday caught the second glove cleanly and slid it onto her right hand.
A sword materialized instantly in her grip.
The blade gleamed silver-white beneath the burning sky, holy symbols carved along its edge while faint golden light moved through the steel.
"Well," Wednesday said softly as she examined it, "that's charming."
Ethan looked toward the creatures rushing toward them. "These things are extremely lethal to demons, so—"
He stopped.
Because Wednesday was smiling.
"Kill anything that isn't human," she finished for him.
Then she swung the sword.
SHRAKK—!
The first demon split apart instantly, holy light tearing through its body before the remains ignited midair.
"SKREEEEEE—!"
"Yeah," Ethan muttered. "Exactly like that."
The rest of the creatures screamed and charged together.
Ethan stepped forward, holy energy spiraling violently around his gloved fist as the air itself began cracking under the pressure. Ripples spread outward across the scorched ground beneath him.
Then he punched.
BOOOOOOM—!
The shockwave tore through the wasteland like a bomb detonating at ground level.
The front line of demons exploded instantly, bodies ripping apart under the impact while the scorched earth behind them split open in long jagged fractures.
Fire and black blood sprayed through the air as the force kept traveling forward, flattening dead trees and sending the remaining creatures flying across the burning landscape.
Several slammed into the ruins nearby hard enough to splatter against stone.
Wednesday moved before the dust even settled.
Her sword carved through the air in clean silver arcs, every swing precise, efficient, almost elegant in a deeply concerning way.
A demon lost its head.
Another split open across the chest before holy light erupted from inside its body and burned it away from the inside out.
The creatures kept screaming as they rushed her anyway.
Wednesday looked almost insulted by their persistence.
"One of the disappointing traits shared by both demons and men," she said while driving the sword straight through another creature's mouth, "is an inability to recognize when they've already lost."
Another demon leapt at Ethan from above.
Its jaws opened wide—
BOOM—!
Ethan punched straight through its skull midair, the holy energy around his fist detonating on impact and vaporizing the upper half of its body instantly.
Two minutes later, the wasteland had gone quiet again.
Burning corpses littered the cracked ground while black blood steamed across the scorched earth. The last remains of holy energy faded slowly from Ethan's fist as he stepped over what used to be one of the larger demons.
Nothing around them was still moving.
Morticia looked across the destruction before her eyes settled back on Ethan. There was curiosity there now. Careful curiosity.
"Hmm," she said softly. "Where exactly did those gloves come from?"
Her gaze lingered briefly on the relic still wrapped around his hand.
"And they simply appeared out of thin air." She tilted her head slightly. "You continue becoming more difficult to categorize, Ethan."
That was putting it mildly.
His powers had already moved far beyond anything considered normal for an outcast. Even the monsters Morticia had encountered throughout her life had limits she could understand.
Ethan did not seem to operate by those limits.
Before Ethan could answer, Wednesday spoke instead.
"Mother, if you want the simplest explanation," she said calmly while wiping black blood from the holy sword, "then you should consider him the first of his kind."
Morticia's eyes narrowed slightly.
"One of his enemies referred to him as the Father of Blood," Wednesday continued. "Which can mean many things." She glanced toward Ethan briefly. "But considering he's a vampire, there's only one interpretation that matters."
The air around them felt quieter after she said it.
"A progenitor," Wednesday finished.
Morticia looked at Ethan for several seconds.
"…A vampire progenitor," she repeated softly.
***
A/N: And on Patreon, The Boys arc started.
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