"Are you sure you are okay, Nik?" Seraphina asked, worried. She didn't like the fact that Nik was putting so much strain on himself. "Trust me cousin, I am fine. But we need to hurry... The hunter's base seems a bit agitated, like they are preparing for something big. It's quite an ominous feeling, to be honest." Nik shivered, he couldn feel the anxiety of Victor, even though he had already left the hunter's base by now.

Seraphina put her hands on Nik's shoulders, as she looked him up and down. "I am just worried. What if it messes up your brain too much?" She couldn't let Nik risk his sanity. "Okay! I promise, the minute it becomes too much I will break the connection. Can we focus on going to the base now, cousin?" Nik promised.

"Yes Sera, let's focus on our next step." Syl suggested.

Sera sighed. They were right. They finally got the location of the base! They couldn't lose the chance. But something felt off, Sera had this gut feeling that something big was going to happen tonight. But what was weird was that the feeling she felt almost felt like anticipation, like excitement. That can't be right? Why should she feel like that when they are going to go attack a hunter's base? Was something wrong with her?

"Let's call the others to Celestine. We will discuss the game plan there."

✧✧✧

Seraphina was ready for tonight. She had put on a white shirt with black pants. Her weapons belt was ready for action. The pouch contained the potions she got during her last potions run, and a set of clothes for Sylvia. Sera had also put in a bottle of water in the pouch, just in case she could make use of it. Her dagger sheathed in. Sylvia and Nik were there too. They waited for others to reach Celestine.

The first one to reach was Theron. "Hi! So this is it huh! Another raid," he felt a bit nervous. "It will be alright... I promise." Sera promised Theron, with a smile. They were here to help her but their safety was her responsibility.

Leo and Cassius reached. "So what's the plan for tonight?" Cassius asked Seraphina.

"Well, as I had said earlier there must be some artifact that they are using to store the blood energy. I don't know if it's there at this base. But our task is to search the whole base and if we find this artifact. We grab it and I will destroy it." Sera explained.

"But how can we search around without the hunters stopping us?" Leo asked Seraphina.

"That's where this comes in." Sera pulled out the large vial of Invisibility serum. "This is a group invisibility serum. When we take this we will be invisible to others but visible to each other. The effect will last until you get hurt or make a loud noise."

"But how will we identify the artifact? It could be anything." Cassius wondered.

"Thrust me... If they are using one, you will know when you see one." Sera replied.

"No matter what happens, we need to search the whole base until we find the artifact. We fight the hunters if necessary." Seraphina said solemnly.

"Let's head out to the base."

✧✧✧

As they approached the base, Seraphina pulled out the invisibility serum. "Remember to not talk. If you wish to convey something try to do so by gestures." Seraphina reminded the other. They all took the serum. Initially their body felt tingly and slowly they started to turn translucent for them and invisible for the world. Sera made a thumbs up with her hand while lifting her head upwards. She was asking if they felt alright. They all nodded their heads. She motioned Nik to come forward to lead the way into the bunker.

As they made their way into the bunker the first thing they noticed were three hunters. They seemed to be having a quarrel while one of them held a box and another one was pushing a cart with what looked like unlabelled blood bags.

"These are from the stock of the day before yesterday," the one holding the box said. "Why weren't they given for the ritual yesterday?" the one without anything asked. "I don't know. It was probably missed out." The one with the box, shrugged. "Just dump it in here. It's not like it matters. That witch is just going to dump it on the floor and it ... magically disappears." The one pushing the cart rolled his eyes. "Hey, don't talk like that. That witch gives me the ick." The one with nothing, whispers.

The group moved past them. Well now one thing was certain, this base contained a witch who performed blood magic. As they turned around a turn when they came face to face with the witch in question. There was also a hunter with her. It seemed like he might be the leader of this base. He seemed much more level headed than the one in the previous base leader.

"The boss is asking for some results. We need to try to open a-" The leader was interrupted by the witch. "Not enough! ... Need more... Need MORE!" The witch seemed out of it. Her eyes were surrounded by dark veins. She looked like she had been possessed by a ghost. She kept looking here and there, not being able to focus at a point. But then suddenly she looked directly towards Seraphina. Sera's eyes widened, she almost let out a gasp. Can the witch see them?

The witch looked away. "Let.... go to ... room ... hungry." The witch said to the leader. "Oh! You are hungry ... Fine! But you need to get back to work after this." The leader led the witch away. Seraphina let out a silent sigh of relief. Sera motioned the group to continue further.

The bunker was much bigger than expected. It was teaming with hunters but surprisingly it seemed there were no prisoners here. Only the blood was being transported here from the other base. The group had looked around some of the rooms but found nothing of use. One of the rooms was filled with empty blood bags. Now it seems the ritual the hunters were talking about was probably for charging an artifact with the blood energy. But where was this artifact?

As the group was passing by an almost empty common area. It was on a lower level, on the upper level there was a passage surrounding the area from where they could look down to the lower level.

They were about to go to a door at the end when they suddenly heard a lot of footsteps coming towards them. The hunters with crossbows were being led by the witch as she looked around frantically. The witch pointed towards the group, "There! There I sense it. Shoot! SHOOT!"

The leader signalled to the hunters to shoot in the direction the witch pointed. Seraphina was surprised. The witch was able to sense them. She had to do something to distract them. So she did the only thing that came to her mind: she pushed the others through the door when the hunters shot the arrows. But the arrow pierced through Seraphina, her invisibility effect immediately wearing off. "Find the artifact!" She said as her body hit the floor, unconscious. Blood stained her white shirt. She had six arrows embedded in her. But these were no ordinary arrows, they were fortified with blood magic.

Nik almost let out a scream but Syl stopped him by blocking his mouth with her hand. The other three were too stunned, they had got comfortable with the idea that the hunters couldn't see it. But now there she was, Seraphina lying in her own blood. Syl dragged Nik further into the passage while beckoning others to follow. She heard what Sera had said, they needed to find the artifact before they were caught too.

"There ...are more! Intruders! ... Need to catch them all!" The witch walked away. The leader commanded, "Come on! Follow her!"

"What to do with this one?" One of the hunters pointed towards Seraphina. "She is mostly dead and if she is not, just kill her. You two! Go check her pulse! vampires have a faint pulse." The leader told the hunters. "Now follow the witch, there are other intruders." All the hunters went towards the path where the witch went except the two hunters who went to the lower level toward Seraphina.

The two hunters look at Seraphina. "Do you think she's dead?" One of them asks. "We won't know until we check?" The other one shrugs. One of them grabs her hand to check her pulse. "No pulse, she is dead I guess." He observes. "Let's wait here for sometime, just to be sure."

✧✧✧

The remainder of the group kept going forward. They quickened their pace, fearing the witch might catch up with them. Nik didn't like that they left Seraphina there, what if she was badly wounded, what if she was... But Sylvia convinced him to continue looking. They came across a large room with multiple doors, at the other end of the room, there it was, the thing they were searching for.

There was a mirror which was floating in mid air and they felt a shiver in their spines when they directly looked at it. The surroundings were also decorated for a ritual. It was there at the other end of the room and before it a few hunters kept watch but they couldn't just go from between them and grab it. But before they could do that, the hunters from before poured in from the doors before them. "There! THERE!" The witch pointed towards them. This was it. They have to fight if they want the mirror.

Sylvia looks at all of them and nods her head. She shows her hand with three fingers and starts a countdown from three to zero. Once she hit zero, they started to fight. Nik, Cassius and Leo unsheathed their swords while Sylvia and Theron transformed into their werewolf forms.

Initially the group had the upper hand as they were still invisible. But there were too many hunters and after a few minutes all of them were wounded and the effects of the serum wore off. Now they were seriously outnumbered. Few of the hunters were actively trying to target Theron, to snap his neck. Cassius moved closer to Theron to cover his back. Leo and Nik were helping each other out. Sylvia channeled every ounce of hatred she had for the hunters into power and attacked them. She would die before she ever let them succeed.

They all were seriously injured, the weapons of these hunters were different, they hurt more. Both of Sylvia's hind legs were injured. Nik's arm was bleeding. They were nowhere near the mirror. The witch and the leader stood near it as the other hunters fought. The leader was not pleased with the sight in front of him, he didn't want to lose any more hunters. He turned to the witch. "Open the portal! Summon a beast or something! It's now or never!" The leader ordered the witch. "Not... enough. No... stable" The witch replied. "I don't care. Just DO IT!"

"AM I LATE TO THE PARTY?"

✧⁠✧⁠✧

Seraphina opened her eyes. No she wasn't dead. She had used glamour to trick the hunters into thinking she had no pulse. She just needed to collect herself a bit, she felt as if her body was on fire, these were probably not normal arrows. She needed to go back to the group but those hunters were still there. She didn't feel strong enough to pull off a larger glamour illusion.

"Let's just go and join the others. She seems pretty much dead..." one of the hunters said. "Yeah let's go!" Both of them left.

Now Seraphina was alone. She got up slowly. The arrows had luckily missed her heart. She pulled out the arrows one by one, while trying not to scream from the pain. She grabbed the healing elixirs from her pouch and slowly poured them over her wounds. She was glad she grabbed the elixirs otherwise she wouldn't have been able to heal easily from those arrows, they were probably modified with blood magic. Sera finally felt strong enough to stand up.

As soon as she went a bit further she heard a fight break out. She followed the noise and quickened her steps towards the commotion. She looked inside the room. There were a lot of hunters. The group really needed an upper hand. Sera fished out the water bottle and poured it on her hand and then twisted hand. The water turned into a beautiful sleek sword. The blade was silver and the hilt consisted of blue crystal design. Well it was the courtesy of belonging to the bloodline of the Witch Royal family.

Sera walked in and to gain their attention she shouted, "AM I LATE TO THE PARTY?"

The hunters turned to Seraphina, her shirt red with blood but she didn't seem affected. The hunters were a bit scared. How did she survive after all those arrows? Well, she used the healing elixirs but they didn't need to know that. " Oo! Cousin brought out the sword! You all are so dead!!!" Nik exclaimed.

Seraphina charged with her sword, her movements were smooth and swift, after all she was taught by one of the best swordsmen, Valerius Bloodthorne. Sera moved through the crowd of hunters as if she could slice through anything. The tides were turned. The leader was panicking now, "Summon a Beast! I can't lose all these hunters!"

"It is ... DONE!" The witch declared. The leader needed to get the hunters out of there before the portal opened. God knows what will come through it. "RETREAT! EVERYONE RETREAT!" The leader commanded. The hunters were confused but didn't question the command, they would be more than happy to leave. They all rushed out, a few of them grabbed the witch too.

The group was confused to see the hunters running away. "What's happening? Why are they running away?" Cassius asked, confused. "Look there..." Seraphina pointed towards the mirror. The mirror was vibrating, while it cracked. The next moment the mirror broke and a portal was formed out of smoke.

"Should we leave too?" Leo asked. "If we leave, nothing will stand in front of whatever comes out of there. I will stay." Sera stated. "Then I will too, cousin." Nik promised. "Then we will too." Cassius stated for both Leo and him. Sylvia and Theron growled as they looked at the portal. A loud monstrous screech was heard coming through the portal. Seraphina stood straight facing the portal, sword in hand, ready to fight.

The first thing seen coming out of the portal was a huge black beak. Then emerged a huge majestic bird beast, it almost looked like a dragon. It let out another screech. Seraphina froze but not from fear, she recognised this beast. The word left her mouth involuntarily, "Shyra?" Where did that name even come from? But the beast seems to recognise it, as it looked directly at Seraphina before letting out a screech and came towards her. Before any of them could react, something unbelievable happened, the beast bowed in front of Seraphina. Then the beast turned into a small raven and flocked happily around Seraphina. Wait! This had happened before, in her dream. Seraphina didn't know how to react. She wasn't dreaming, was she?

A deep voice was heard from within the portal, "Where did you go Shyra?... What is this?... A portal? But that isn't possible." And then from the portal walked in a tall handsome man, he was wearing a fitted suit under a long dark overcoat. His eyes, dark indigo, seemed like the galaxies themselves. Seraphina had seen him in her dreams too. What was happening?

At this point the others didn't even know what to make of the situation, they just kept looking at the man and the raven still flying around Sera. The man looked confused at first, taking in his surroundings. His eyes fell on Seraphina. Their eyes met, his eyes glistened. He walked towards her. He held her hand and kissed her knuckles. "We are reunited, my Goddess." And then the portal closed off.

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