Y/N POV

I wasted no time making my way back into the courtyard. Now that I had that key, I'd hopefully be able to finally unlock that door from earlier. I instantly made my way over to that set of double doors and ascended the staircase.

Walking along the familiar corridor, I went past Lady Dimitrescu's dressing room. I had no idea where she was now but I'd still have to be careful, she could show up at any moment and she'd no doubt be furious now that Daniela had been taken out as well.

It didn't take me long to arrive at the door with the gold-plated insignia on it. Inserting the key I'd found into the lock, with a click I was now able to push the door open, revealing another corridor.

I stepped through, allowing the door to close behind me. This corridor was much shorter than the last one, a few doors on the left hand side, the right had more windows which actually looked out into the courtyard.

Inspecting each room, I found not much of interest. I found some ammo and a herb which may have been of use. Aside from that there wasn't much. At the end, the corridor turned to the left, then right so I was going in the same direction, I was before, an unnecessary turn if you ask me.

There were more rooms but they seemed to either be locked or hold nothing of great importance. That was until I came across one room in particular. It seemed to just be another storage space, containing old-fashioned wooden barrels, at the far back though I found a ladder.

I decided to investigate by climbing it, now finding myself in a loft-like area. More barrels were found here along with strangely enough, rifle rounds? Even if I didn't possess one, I still took the ammo case with me.

At the far end of the room I came across a strange sight. The wall at the far end of the loft area had been blown open. A large hole in the stone was visible leading outside. I knew Daniela couldn't have made it earlier so it piqued my interest.

Stepping out through the crack, I found that I appeared to be standing on part of a balcony overlooking the rooftops of the castle. The large towers were just about visible through the fog. I stepped along the balcony, wondering where this connected to.

And it was here I found what appeared to be a small hiding spot safe from prying eyes. Rested on the stone railing was an F2 SNIPER RIFLE! Surrounded by several cases of ammunition just like the ones I'd picked up before. I didn't know what the rifle was doing out here, I assumed a previous victim had left it here at one point.

Image of the F2 Rifle:

Either way, I didn't think twice about taking the weapon, it would prevent me from having to rely on my handgun so much. With the rifle in hand, I was about to turn and head back inside when the sound of gunshots sounded through the air!

Considering I could hear them quite clearly, I assumed they were coming from outside. With my newfound rifle, I looked through the scope, trying to spot anything. I followed the balcony along, looking through the scope constantly until I spotted the source of the commotion.

ETHAN! He had somehow also found his way up onto the ramparts of the castle. He was walking along one of the rooftops, shotgun in hand. Attacking him were several strange winged monsters I couldn't clearly see clearly.

Image of the Samca:

Ethan was managing to fend them off with the shotgun however there were several of them there. I decided to lend a hand. Once again, I was grateful for the military training I'd undergone, teaching me how to properly handle a sniper.

Looking through the scope, I aimed directly at one of the creatures and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and just like that, the creature fell to the ground. This caught the attention of the others and Ethan as well as they all turned to look at me.

I took aim and shot at another one, causing that one to drop down as well. Ethan snapped back into reality as well and together we began taking out the creatures one by one, they didn't seem all that durable, in fact one rifle round was all it took to take one out.

Once they were done, Ethan turned to face me, he gave a thumbs up gesture, clearly not being able to say anything due to our distance. I just returned said gesture as he moved on, making his way across the rooftops.

I knew I shouldn't just stay here. I noticed the balcony actually connected onto one of the rooftops. I realized I may be able to follow Ethan, continue to provide cover fire until we could eventually meet up again.

Hopping down onto the roof, I followed along, trying my best to keep up with Ethan. It wasn't long though before I was interrupted, as four of those winged creatures flew up from either side of the rooftops.

Looking at them closely, I noted similarities to the Moroaica. They seemed humanoid in stature with a robe covering parts of their body. The major difference were the giant wings that replaced their arms.

One of them suddenly swooped down, attempting to attack. I quickly went back to my handgun though and shot it several times in the head causing it to fall face-down to the ground. I swapped back to my rifle and shot at a second, it only took one shot for that one to fall as well, dropping down onto the roof in front of me.

The third and fourth also tried divebombing towards me. I shot one before it could do so, causing it to fall down into the abyss, landing in the snow. The fourth actually managed to nick me, drawing more blood from my arm.

I swapped to my handgun though and it didn't take long for me to take that one out as well. With them out of the way, I was left to continue along the roof. I could still see Ethan off in the distance so I just kept on his tail.

The roof I was on soon gave me access to another balcony area which I was able to hop down. This lead to a series of stone paths and staircases along the castle's walls. At the end, I reached a balcony where I found a zipwire leading down to another area.

In the distance, at another point on the castle's ramparts, I saw Ethan reach another zipwire connected to the same point. If we both swung down we'd be able to meet up. I reached up and gripped the rusted hook.

Kicking off the wall, the hook began to zoom down the wire. I looked down at the snow beneath me, not wanting to fall, I kept a tight grip on the hook until at last, it reached the building at the end and I let go.

The hook fell to the ground as I was just about able to maintain my footing and land on my feet. As I stood up straight I heard Ethan call out "Y/N!" I turned to see him run over to me as I sighed and said "Thank god you're alright. What happened?"

Ethan replied "Rose isn't here." I nodded "I know that much." Looking down I noticed Ethan's left arm, a massive gash circled the entire limb. Pointing to it, I asked "What the hell happened to you arm?!"

Ethan looked at the blood on his jacket as he said "That giant bitch, ambushed me in the cellar. I barely made it out. Nearly lost my arm in the process, I don't know what happened, she cut it off. But I was able to reattach it."

I just stared at him in confusion at his story. How had he reattached a limb completely? I wanted to ask however I deemed it a question for later. Instead I said "Right, we'll talk more about that later. For now we need to find those masks."

Ethan commented "I saw the one you'd get before. I got two of them. There's just one left, right over there, that's why I slid down here." He pointed towards the other side of the tower we'd landed on. I saw another of those large statues, at the base was another mask, this one held a more angry expression.

Image of the Mask of Rage:

Approaching the statue, I reached out and picked the mask up. Behind me, I heard Ethan say "OK, we should be able to get out with these." I nodded again but said "Yeah, but we need to be careful, Dimitrescu is still lurking around. With her daughters gone, she's bound to be pissed."

It was true, we now had the means to escape, but there was one final obstacle we'd have to overcome. The hardest in the castle...

Author's Note: And that's it for this chapter. This took way longer than I wanted it to and I found it really difficult so I'm sorry if it's bad. Hopefully the next one will be better, just as I thought, it will be the last one of the castle with the Lady Dimitrescu boss itself. I hope you like that one and as always, thank you for reading.