It started to grow, the feeling of unease and dread in December's stomach. Madison was not herself, with her Racial and Class traits dulling some of her pain.

The smiles of the people walking by, the happiness and excitement Madison felt, December wanted to scream at her that it would end, but she couldn't!

"Marius, are you excited?" Madison hopped over excitedly, holding a white rabbit with sharp teeth in her arms, where it snuggled into her arms cozily.

"Of course, this town has already been explored by us long ago. Now we can go out and see the world beyond it, with countless races and places to see!" Marius was a handsome guy with soft gray hair and blue eyes.

"With your Illusionist Class, we can definitely explore a lot of places, we have forever after all." The Blood Clan were the least worried about time and lifespan, wishing the world were even larger sometimes to fulfill their endless curiosities.

"Still feels weird to leave mom and go out. I know she'll be fine, but I'm so used to seeing her when I wake up, it will be different." Madison said with a hint of reluctance.

"Your mom also wants you to see the world, or she'd just tell you know. She's lived for five centuries already, even if you're gone for a few decades, just bring her cool gifts!" Marius said with a chuckle when Madison laughed in amusement and then headed to the gates.

December had calmed herself down somewhat, but the dread still rose within her. Madison's joy and her dread made her feel off balanced, experiencing to extremely different emotions at once.

'Not much longer...' The town had slowly arrived at the time of everyone's end, and December who had somehow gotten a backseat perspective from within Madison could only face it.

"When we go out, do you think we'll see other races? We're probably like a bunch of country bumpkins to them? Since we don't know much about them?" Marius said with a grin, finding the unknown to be very novel.

"How are we bumpkins? We just need to learn their traditions and we'll fit right in!" Madison said confidently, but December could feel a pang of uncertainty when she said it, as if she herself didn't fully believe it.

"That's right!" Marius said and then entered the building, the people milling around lacking actual weapons of any kind, even so close to the gates.

December couldn't find a single person holding a sword or spear. The duo headed to a table and sat down, sitting across from a handsome middle aged man who smiled at them.

"Madison, Marius, it's nice to see you both. I'm told you've both received your Classes and want to explore the world beyond... Since you wish to do so, then I wish you the best." The man smiled and then got up, his hazel eyes glinting with amusement.

"Bye Nicholas!" Madison said to the man's receding form, and received a small wave as he left the building. Since the town's Lord said it was okay for them to leave, they simply needed to tell their families good bye and then they could set out.

Halfway back to her residence, Madison felt a tingling sensation as a wave of heat washed over her. The flames seemed to have emerged from everywhere, yet she couldn't find the source.

A few small burns had formed by the time she reached her home, finding her mom standing outside their burning house with a look of worry on her face.

"Madison dear, are you okay?" Madison nodded as her mom embraced her, then checked her over for injuries and then started to pull her away from the burning house.

"My strength seems to have faded into nothing? Maybe a spell was used to weaken us?" Madison's mother said with visible concern. Even though the Blood Clan were long lived, it was inevitable that some of them would choose a lifestyle that wasn't geared towards fighting and combat.

"Mom?" Madison couldn't understand what was happening. Monsters couldn't attack their towns, because their Patron and the Goddess of Monsters had reached an agreement.

"Silly girl, the town's in flames, and we don't know why? The people above Extraordinary Rank don't have any strength either, so someone seems to be attacking us?"  

"But why?" Madison couldn't understand why they were being attacked. Their town didn't hold any troops, nor supplies beyond what any town would have. Madison's mother sighed, then dragged Madison between two buildings with a frown.

"Shhh. Don't speak!" Madison's mother then moved to the other end of the small area and then turned back and ran towards Madison and pulled her along.

"Mom?" Madison said in a hush whisper, but her mother's stern expression didn't relax as she kept moving between the alleyways, sometimes backtracking with a growing frown on her face.

"We're being attacked by humans?" Her mother's face was visible confused, as the armor and smell of the people she'd seen was without a doubt human.

"Thid isn't good, if they're behind the flames and our lack of strength, then they're determined to get whatever they're after..." Her mother then stopped moving after the sound of something piercing flesh rang out in the small street.

"Mom?!" Madison ran forward, but her mother pivoted and swiftly dragged her away, her strides slower than before, with her own blood spilling from a wound that stretched from her shoulder to her upper thigh.

"It's fine dear, just keep running. If I stop, keep going Madison." Her voice was steady, but Madison could see and hear the pain within.

"I won't lea-" Madison couldn't finish the words because a scream sounded from somewhere, one that made them shiver because the pain within made them shiver.

"There!" Crossing a street, Madison and her mother saw a row of armored humans wearing armor and holding weapons, quickly cutting down the town's residents they came across.

"Madison run!" If the attacking forces had attacked a city, they could resist by the more powerful of their races most likely being present, but in a town on the border, the Blood Clan citizens couldn't resist trained human soldiers that outnumbered them, were armed, and had their strength severely reduced.

"Mo-" Madison didn't know what was happening, but a ball of Mana sent her mother crashing to the ground, the impact sending her tumbling several meters.

"Prepare these as well." Madison felt a blade slashing her back as she crouched down besides her mother, wanting to pull her along, and ended up collapsing on top of her.

Then she felt something stabbing into her back roughly, and an armored human stabbed a thin metal rod into her mother's chest, even as she groaned weakly from the pain.

"Place these with the others, when they're drained, throw them into a pile. His Majesty will be pleased." A man who wore different armor than the others said with cold indifference and the human soldiers dragged the two of them, taking care not to damage the rods.

In an open space of the town, there were hundreds of townspeople lying, some still alive and each with a rod stabbed somewhere into their bodies.

Madison and her mother was thrown roughly nearby and the sound of heavy footsteps approached them. A man surrounded by soldiers, with a lance in his free arm slowly approached.

"For a race like yours, blessed with endless longevity and do nothing but stay in your nests, what a waste." The man clicked his tongue and inspected the scene.

"Sir, we've always heard how the Blood Clan were full of beauties, and seeing them like this, we want to..." The man who spoke wore the same armor similar to the one who had ordered them to be brought there, but the look of desire and greed in his eyes was apparent.

"You want to have fun with these dying monsters? Be my guest. However, when you're done, kill them all." The man walked away with his retinue, while the soldiers around them looked at the injured people before them with endless greed and cruelty.

Madison closed her eyes when the screaming began, the sounds of pleading and begging and clothes being torn, of pained cries and curses of the men who couldn't defend their relatives and friends.

Madison opened her blurry eyes her body began to shut down gradually. Her mother wasn't being assaulted by the monsters, instead she had already begun to age rapidly and her hair began to become whiter and more wispy.

"Madison, I'm sorry I c-couldn't protect yo-" Before she could finish her words, her body trembled and her body simply darkened into an ash gray color and crumbled into ashes.

"Mom!" Madison looked around and realized most of the people had been venting on those lying there helplessly, and some of them had already died and crumbled to ashes.

Madison could feel her body struggling to repair the damage to her back, but the general population drank enough blood to keep themselves functioning, and with the severe injuries, she could feel her body struggling to pull Mana from the air, in an attempt to seal the wound, but she simply couldn't.

"Gather the devices." The man who had left before had returned, his eyes looking at the few remaining living citizens with visible disgust.

"If you monsters didn't live forever, you'd just be creatures who had no purpose, but now you can contribute to something greater than your pitiful selves, to a greater existence!" His eyes became excited as he raised his spear and stabbed it through a man's chest.

"Lord N-Nicholas!" Madison said weakly, watching as his hazel eyes gave her a sorrowful look, then his body became gray and slowly dissipated in the breeze.

"Still alive? The tenacity of you monsters is astounding... I've always wanted to know, do you really feel pain? Unlike humans who live for a century, you who aren't special or important can live for thousands of years... How absurd!" 

He raised his lance, a flame bursting to life on the blade, and stabbed Madison's arm, the sharp pain pulling December from the daze she had fallen into unknowingly.

The pain of loss she felt from Madison, her mother, her people, all that she knew being erased like they were meaningless, had driven her into a state where she could only look on numbly.

"Tears? A thing that needs the blood of others shouldn't cry. A race as monstrous and disgusting as yours should be wiped out!" He stabbed Madison repeatedly, each descent of the weapon opening a new wound in her body, while flames licked her skin greedily.

"Like I said, be grateful you creatures have some use. Using your blood, we can extend our lifespans, and we won't need blood like you beasts! Just die!" The spear descended again and Madison felt her body trying to resist the burning weapon, but she couldn't.

She felt her world begin to move in moments she had never thought she'd notice. Her skin began turning chalky white, then ashen gray, yet the time it took felt like an eternity, the pain of her body dying completely, it made December scream herself hoarse!

Every part of Madison's body felt like it was coming undone. She could see the wispy ashes floating in the air as Madison's consciousness and perspective began to distort.

"I just wanted to see the world outside our town, but unexpectedly, it was so ugly I'm glad I couldn't see i-" Her thoughts ended abruptly as her existence simply faded.

For a long time, or maybe it was a second, December just sat in silence, feeling Madison's faint remnant of herself mixing with something, and she could feel it, the pain and grief of all those who had died, she could feel their unwillingness and pain!

Madison's broken remnants reached out and pulled their fading screaming remnants into a blissful dream, using her Class Illusionist, and it had been so for over one thousand three hundred years.

Each moment, Madison would experience her death, so the others could remain unaware of their own deaths. Time was distorted, and in the thirteen hundred years of this endless dream, Madison had died beyond what December could keep track.

"In the end, you regretted being curious, but you did nothing wrong Madison. The blood they took from you all keeps your existences in this state, unable to truly fade away..." December's voice was cold, so cold it lacked anything resembling emotion within.

"I couldn't understand your pain, but I do now. In all your time you've suffered, you've only regretted you couldn't save them... I regret not being able to save you all." December felt her mind churning as her pink red irises turned icy blue.

You have lost the Title - Twilight Frost Princess

You have acquired the Title - Nightmare Abyssal Consort

You have unlocked the new Skill - Indifference. The suffering of everyone has fundamentally broken you, maybe time may heal you yet? 

You have unlocked the new Skill - Ice Type Nightmare Skill Tree. All forms of your Ice Mana are imbued with the Nightmare Effect. 

You have unlocked a new Skill - Retribution. The enemies you hate still exist in the world, drawing breath. The pain of what was done to you is inflicted on the person in the moments before their death.