John and Lucia exited the ballroom. The surviving guests already left earlier when Lucia brought most of the guards' attention. 

John and Lucia escaped from the ballroom. The previous hall which they used when they first arrived is now unrecognizable. Eerie darkness filled the space not illuminated with red-orange light. The ornaments that decorated the floor are littered on the ground. The once opulent walls and floors are littered with black and red stains.

"Hopefully there are other guests that survived," John said under his breath.

Lucia nodded with a grim expression as she followed behind John.

The two backtracked their steps to the entrance of the manor. As the two got closer to the entrance door, the hall became cleaner. In addition to the stains becoming less and less, the candlelight also returned to yellow. 

"Let's go. We need to report to the authorities what happened here." John urge.

John grabbed the entrance door handle and swung it open. However, what greeted him was not the outside world; it was a large study room.

John's happiness turned to shock into despair.

"Huh? But this was the way to the manor entrance. Shit! Did I make a wrong turn somewhere?"

"...The manor might have also changed." Lucia, who was silent, said her conjecture.

"Shit." John cursed again. He turned around and was about to take a step, but he slumped to the wall before sliding to the ground.

"What is wrong?" Lucia quickly came near John and asked.

"Ugh, why now! My right leg cramped." John explained to Lucia.

"We need to rest in the study. Moreover, we need a plan on how to get out of this manor alive." Lucia helped John limp into the room. 

The study was spacious. The whole room is lit by the fireplace. The room has a lot of bookshelves and cabinets, but no windows. On the further end of the room were a personal desk and a couple of chairs.

After letting John sit on one of the chairs, Lucia closed the door and also sat in a nearby chair.

John, who is massaging his right leg, looked up at Lucia. "Thank you."

 Lucia massaging her shoulder stopped. She stopped and replied. "This is partly my fault. If you hadn't waited for me, you could have escaped earlier."

"No. Honestly, without your protection, I doubt I would last in a fight with a group of guards." John wryly smiled.

After the cramps in his leg eased, John got up from his chair. Under Lucia's curious gaze, he slowly approached the desk. With a match, he lit the candles and began rummaging through the drawers.

"This might be Arco's study. It should have some clues on what the heck is going on." John explained to Lucia while closely examining the drawers with candlelight.

'Strange... this black cross looks familiar to me.' John thought when he saw a large black cross in the desk's main drawers.

John quickly resumed his search at the desk.

'There is no clue why such an affluent person in society will do such a horrible thing.' John scanned the documents before scattering them to the floor.

Opening the last drawer revealed a revolver and some ammo John. He quickly grabbed the empty revolver and pocketed the ammo in his jacket.

John looked up and saw that Lucia was also searching the room. She was comparing her old sword with a sword she found somewhere in the room. After a while, Lucia placed her old sword into one of the cabinets. She then took the new sword and scabbard with her.

"Are you ready?" Lucia asked John as she saw the pistol in his hand.

"Yeah. I found weapons, but no clue," John nodded.

An unearthly groan echoed through the manor making the two's expressions grim.

John and Lucia slowly went back to the main doors of the study. Lucia slowly opened the door while John readied himself to shoot at anything at the door.

Then, the right side wall of the study exploded; it sent the wall fragments into the room; fragments of wood and dust blocked the intruder's figure.

Cough cough cough.

John and Lucia coughed as the dust went into their lungs.

the dust quickly dissipated revealing a monstrous being with the light from the fireplace. It looks like a giant muscular man with three uneven-sized arms. Its body has a large gap that ran down from its shoulder. Sticking out from the gap were human bodies; some were wearing guest clothes, while others were wearing Arco's entourage clothes. Five deformed legs support its large torso. Littered among its body are faces as if there are people trapped underneath the monster's skin.

"Arco?" Lucia exclaimed in fright as she saw the limped head on top of the monster's body.

Without thinking John aimed the revolver at Arco's body, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit the center of the monster's chest making it stagger back a little.

Afterward, the monster let out a groaning wail. What made the groan was not Arco's head, but the bodies sticking out from the monster's chest.

Seeing the gun didn't kill the monster, John and Lucia quickly escaped the study into the hall.

Soon the monster quickly followed breaking through the door frame as it tried to squeeze out of the room. 

The tall hallway now feels cramped as the large monster filled it.

John and Lucia blindly ran the hall, while John took the chance to blindly shoot at the monster. Thankfully, the shots do buy some time for John and Lucia to put some distance between them and the monster.

"I think we lost it" John stopped running.

"It is best to keep moving. John, this door is unlocked, let's enter quickly."

Lucia told John as she quickly entered a nearby door. 

John stopped on his track when he saw the familiar ballroom. 

"Fuck, I hate this manor" John cursed.

"I agree with you," Lucia nodded while readying her sword.

The messy ballroom is not empty as there are deformed monsters eating corpses. From the monster's ragged clothes, they were the guards and servants. The monsters quickly found the intruders, they let out snarls before attacking the two.

Without saying a word, John shoots at the monsters further away, while Lucia slashed at closer monsters. The two made their way to the other side of the ballroom. 

When they were near to the other side of the room, John noticed something.

"Oh come on, that is so unfair," John complained.

One of the monsters he shot earlier twitched, then its body convulsed before deforming into an abomination. Some of the bones poke out of the flesh while limbs bend in the wrong way. The gruesome monsters got up from the ground.

John quickly shot the monster, making it fall backward. The problem is that this was not the only monster that came back to life.

One monster got close to John as he shoot at the monster. Luckily, Lucia was able to parry the monster's claw. She then took this chance to diagonally slashed the monster from below. 

"I am almost out of ammo," John told Lucia as he loads the last bullets into the revolver.

A familiar groan shook the manor again. 

John and Lucia subconsciously glanced in the direction in which they came. 

John and Lucia looked at each other and quicken their pace. The wall where the ballroom door exploded. Wood fragments, stones, and dust were sent into the room. It was strong enough that John was hit by a couple of small stones on his body.

The monster groaned again shaking the whole ballroom. 

Lucia was busy cutting down the smaller monsters that were not affected by the sudden intruder.

"Shit. ...huh?" John readied his aim at the large monster, but he was distracted by a weird scent.

It was disgustingly sweet yet it is also pleasantly putrid. The contradictory feeling made John's body react weirdly. His mind wants to smell more of the aroma, but John can feel his stomach wrenched and stomach acid rising to his throat.

The room once again shook. This time, the ballroom's ceiling crashed down. John's mind cannot catch up with the sudden changes. From the large gap in the ceiling, he can see the beautiful night sky. It was as if this insane ordeal was simply an illusion.

Five figures slowly descend down from the sky landing softly at the center of the room. The soft moonlight shone on them like a spotlight.

The weird scent now feels like a thick smoke blanketing the whole room.