After taking a long and hot shower, Michael was standing in front of a large mirror and sink, grumbling “Damn it, the worst thing about living in the country is the shitty water-pressure… Well, on the other hand, if this was the city, the water wouldn’t even work anymore. I guess something is better than nothing…”

His crimson irises glowed brightly, as he grinned, then opened his mouth wide and stared at his over-sized canines. He muttered “Seems like I managed to wash all the hair out… Am I a vampire now? I don’t crave blood or anything like that; I mean, I’d much rather drink some iced-tea or fruit juice… Maybe my vampiric bloodline stems from a fruit-bat? Meh, whatever~, I’m sure it doesn’t really matter either way.”

A pitch-black skull tattoo appeared on his right palm, then an obsidian straight-razor materialized in his hand. Michael complained “Such a pain in the ass~, but oh well, my beard is getting way too long.” as he started shaving.

Once he was finished, the razor transformed into a pair of scissors and he ‘attempted’ to cut his unnecessarily long hair. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as ‘easy’ as he had expected it to be; he murmured “Ugh, I wonder if I can conjure the spirit of my mother… so that she can cut my hair for me.”

At that moment, a beautiful woman’s face was clearly revealed in the mirror; she was standing behind him, but her entire head was easily visible. Those jade-green irises were glowing brightly, while her extremely long blonde locks were pulled back into a ponytail.

“Finally, Miguel, I was starting to wonder if you had perhaps… forgotten about me.” He immediately turned around, seeing the extremely tall and lithe High Elf with fairly large breasts. She blushed faintly, as he casually scanned her naked and exposed form; obviously, he became aroused instantaneously.

Michael smirked, asking “Talia, are you really here? Or, am I just hardcore hallucinating right now?”

However, when she reached out with her hands to caress his freshly shaved cheeks, her arms seemed to become transparent. The elven woman vanished, accompanied by a raging whirlwind, which knocked over the various items that were laying on the counter behind him.

A few seconds passed, before the strange weather phenomenon disappeared and Talia’s semi-physical body seemed to ‘reform’ itself. She frowned, “Apparently, this ‘avatar’ is merely being created by condensed ‘Wind’ aura…”

It was then that the Nephilim made a casual ‘suggestion’, “Can’t I just like, I don’t know, cut off a piece of my flesh and let you channel your mana into it until a baby-version of you grows? Or something like that?”

Talia glared at him, but then furrowed her brows, wondering “What you just said is completely absurd… However, it may be possible for ‘you’ to activate a dryadic transformation; afterwards, you might be able to produce a ‘seed’, which you would then need to nurture with mana until it grows into a physical avatar for my soul to inhabit.”

“That sounds like a lot of work…” Michael frowned, while reaching down and picking up the random items, such as nail-polish, moisturizing cream, and hair brushes that had fallen onto the floor. Of course, he immediately washed his hands thoroughly once he was finished with that.

The High Elf smiled wryly, saying “Indeed, it may not be necessary to invest so much time and effort into creating a weak avatar… I seem to have full control over this Wind Elemental, so perhaps, with sufficient practice, I may be able to reach the point of physical substance? Hmmm, you should make use of my equipment; I shall return to my mana-core for now… My students are likely to be worried about my sudden disappearance.” before abruptly vanishing.

The Nephilim dejectedly muttered “I still need a haircut though…” as the pair of black scissors in his hands, transformed back into a tattoo, then faded into his flesh.

His expression suddenly changed for the worse, as he gagged uncontrollably and vomited out a bright-blue ball of slimy fur. Then he heard a familiar, high-pitched and feminine voice, coming from the adorable kitten that was stretching its body in the sink.

“Nyah~, Mikey~, I was so~ bored~! Oh~, Mikey~, let’s go outside and play~! Ah! Do you smell that?! Guns! Loads of guns and, and exploders! Nyah~, I wanna play~ with~ them~!” The pink-eyed cat frantically scurried onto the counter and jumped around the bathroom; it eventually stopped by the bottom of the wooden door, desperately trying to scratch its way out.

Michael grumbled “For fuck’s sake… We’ll, maybe Linda knows how to cut hair? I mean, somebody around here has to know how to use a goddamn pair of scissors, right?” as he opened the door and allowed Jasmine to wander around the house unsupervised.

***

In the ‘briefing room’, the five elves and one gorilla-man, were all gazing up at that holographic screen. Beatrix whispered “This is our greatest enemy…” Then she typed a name into the search engine and double-clicked on a Facenovel account.

The display picture was a selfie, taken of a gorgeous, porcelain-skinned woman. She was wearing an obsidian gown, her eyes and extremely long hair were pitch-black, plus her ears were long and pointed.

Iris frowned, “So what? It’s just a photo-shopped pic of some bitch on the Moon, who gives a shit?”

Gabriel smirked, “That would be the most ‘logical’ conclusion…” Then he scooted his chair over and reached out, grabbing the mouse and clicking on a different tab; after typing in some words really quickly, he pressed enter and a video popped up. He explained “This was actually taken by some Russian astronauts on a ‘formerly’ secret Moon-base… Watch the corner of the screen; yep, she just randomly appears out of nowhere, walks around for a while and bam! She teleports inside of the room and says some shit in Russian that I can’t understand, but look at what she does next…”

The elf smiled and a small copper coin materialized in her right palm, while the subtitles read “There will never be another supply delivery from Earth. If nothing is done, you will all die soon… However, I have a suggestion; play a game with me. If you win, I shall grant you a ‘power’ of your choosing… If you lose, I will send you back down to your planet. Whether you can survive there or not, at least you will have a ‘fighting’ chance.”

Unfortunately, the video ended there, so Beatrix murmured “They played chess, three of the astronauts lost and were sent back to their homes in Moscow, where they likely died or were infected. One of them, Katarina Abramov, managed to win; she remained on the Moon and gained the ability to survive without oxygen, food or water, by relying purely on mana. She was the person who created our enemy’s Facenovel account and ‘traveling blog’.”

Luke furrowed his brows, reading the name of that ‘mysterious’ woman and sighing dramatically. He leaned back in his comfortable leather office chair and said “It’s Arcana… She was the ‘demon-god’ that told us she was going to destroy the world.”

Gabriel grumbled “It’s seriously hard to figure this bitch out… I mean, since she appeared on the fucking Moon, she’s been traveling around the planet like crazy. Starting from November twenty-fifth, when she visited the President of Russia and he beat her at poker; the very next day, she was in Israel… There was a little boy whose mother was killed by terrorists; she didn’t even challenge him to a board game or anything like that, she just handed him a map and ten copper coins. For each coin he placed on the map, he would rapidly age by ten years. In the end, he died, but the spots he picked were immediately destroyed by what ‘seemed’ like nuclear explosions. Of course, in response to the sudden ‘attack’, Iran and the other countries that were targeted, used their own nuclear arsenals to bomb the shit out of Israel… Basically, the Middle East is pretty much a ‘dead zone’, where even mutated monsters have trouble surviving.”

Beatrix whispered “She never ‘directly’ kills or saves anyone. Arcana plays with people, granting them power ‘almost’ at random… There is a pattern though; throughout the entire month that she was traveling around the world, she mainly chose abused women and children. It seems that she prefers to pick those with very little personal power, in extremely desperate situations. The Butcher of Beijing, now known by the name ‘Immortal Empress Chang Yue’, was a preteen sex-slave. She’s essentially a living neutron bomb now… Similar cases occurred all throughout December; Arcana does occasionally choose ‘men’, but as far as we know, it doesn’t happen very often.”