"And where, pray tell, is my coffee?" Eldra inquired, her voice a chilling monotone.
The tray in Seraph's hand held but a single service: one cup, a small carafe of milk, and a lone plate of chocolate biscuits. There was not so much as a crumb intended for the Grandmaster.
"Ah! Had you a thirst for coffee, why didn't you apprise me sooner?" Evelyn asked with staggering innocence.
Seraph caught the first flicker of a literal fiery aura manifesting upon Eldra's form. He interjected with desperate celerity.
"You may have this service. I've already had a brew before my arrival," the young man declared, his words practically tripping over one another. He made haste to place the tray before Eldra, offering it as a peace treaty.
"I'm beginning to discern the shape of the future," Eldra remarked, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinised the pair. "I'll deal with the intricacies of your... acquaintance at a later date!"
Her tone shifted, anchoring into a grim, professional gravity. "The reason I've recalled you and handed the hunt for the Piperclowns to another isn't due to a lack of progress. It's because you're required for a mandate that no other magis can execute."
"I? Capable of a task that all others find impossible?" Seraph asked, his bewilderment total.
"You surely haven't forgotten the schedule for this year's Bloody Hunting, have you?" Eldra remarked, her brow furrowing with a sharp, expectant edge.
"The Bloody Hunting!" Seraph exclaimed, the words erupting from him in a fit of genuine shock.
In that heartbeat, the visage of a girl with rose-pink tresses flickered across his mind. He realised, with a mounting sense of dread, that he was now besieged by complications on multiple fronts. He'd previously offered a promise of sorts to Lenora—a commitment he was now inevitably bound to betray.
"What? I spoke only in jest at first... have you truly let the date of the Bloody Hunting slip your mind?" Eldra asked, her voice laced with incredulity.
"I... has the season of the demon hunt truly arrived? I'd entirely lost track of the days," Seraph admitted, averting his gaze.
The young man was a creature of singular focus; once he commenced a hunt, he became so consumed by the eradication of the demonic that the world beyond simply withered away. Throughout the past month, he'd been tethered to a relentless cycle of mandates; even while scouring the shadows of Arkpolis, fresh tasks had been foisted upon him with staggering frequency. As for the Bloody Hunting Eldra had mentioned a moon ago, the memory had been utterly scoured from his mind.
"Hah... perhaps I've indeed driven you with too heavy a hand," Eldra sighed, her features anchoring into a grim, professional gravity. "We've begun to detect a surging multitude of demon packs manifesting along the outer reaches of the realm once more. Thus, the season of the hunt has officially commenced. The Bloody Hunting begins within the same window. I've recalled you to ensure you're at peak readiness—to mitigate your chances of perishing once the slaughter begins in earnest."
As the year draws to a close across Laurasia, the winter chill arrives, carrying the reek of a demonic curse from the glacial continents. In this realm, the onset of frost is synonymous with the Season of the Hunt; it is the time when the undead and low-tier demons emerge in harrowing numbers from the ancient battlefields scattered across the land.
Though the Demon Legion has only launched its full-scale incursions within the last century, the preceding millennia saw hundreds of human kingdoms locked in a ceaseless, bloody strife. These realms tore one another asunder until only seven great kingdoms remained standing upon the face of Laurasia.
Consequently, the continent is a patchwork of archaic slaughter-grounds, carpeted with the skeletal remains of fallen warriors. Layers of gore and the detritus of a thousand wars have piled into macabre mountains. In the frozen reaches, the corpses of high-ranking knights remain uncorrupted by time, preserved exactly as they fell—grim legacies waiting to be reanimated by the touch of a demonic curse.
With every year's end, a tide of lesser demons spills forth from these battlefields and the demon realms alike. These packs descend first upon the vulnerable hamlets at the forest's edge. Once they've feasted upon the peasantry and grown in strength, they strike at the frontiers and the fortified cities of the seven kingdoms.
Thus, a grand offensive is orchestrated annually across the heptarchy—a massive hunting operation known as the 'Bloody Hunting.'
Arkflame is not alone in this vigil; the other six kingdoms initiate similar purges during this same window. Demon hunters from every corner of Laurasia converge to enlist, drawn by the grim necessity of the slaughter.
The Bloody Hunting offers a bounty of staggering proportions—treasures and rare artefacts of such provenance that no other mandate could hope to match. Yet, the hunters pay for these riches in blood; they serve as a desperate vanguard, purging the burgeoning demon packs to deny them passage into the heart of the seven kingdoms.
Every hamlet and township are compelled to keep its own vigil during this Season of the Hunt. Local bands of demon hunters scour the peripheries of their homes, struggling to cull the demonic multitudes that swell to a fever pitch as the year's end draws nigh.
Make no mistake: the Season of the Hunt is no festival of levity. There is no joy to be found in the Bloody Hunting; it is a tenure of slaughter and expiration, true to its grim name. It is a double-edged blade—for while man hunts the demon, it is the demon that truly preys upon man.
The plight of humanity remains dire, fracturing further with every passing cycle. Year by year, the boundaries of the human realms recoil toward Arkpolis, ceding more territory to the encroaching dark. The majority of the lifeblood spilled upon the earth during this season is not the dull green ichor of the demon-kind, but the crimson tide of the defeated human spirit.
Most who enlist for the Bloody Hunting never find their way home again. It is a stark, universal truth that the Demon Legion possesses a strength that dwarfs our own—a crisis that escalates annually with the crushing momentum of a snowball effect.
Even the gifted magis of Sanctus are not spared; many of our own kind are reaped during the Season of the Hunt. For them, the journey back to the citadel is a hope that is frequently, and violently, extinguished.
No matter how dire the circumstances, Sanctus is bound by duty to deploy its magis into the fray of the Bloody Hunting and across various townships. They serve to bolster the Arkflame frontiers, culling the Demon Legion's ranks by whatever means human hands can muster.
To remain idle is to invite the abyss; should they fail to act, the Demon Legion might well be hammering at their very gates by the morrow. It is a forced hand—a path devoid of any alternative. Since humanity possesses no true choice, Sanctus elects to dispatch its most illustrious magis, desperate to ensure even the slimmest margin of survival.