The Night Lords V. A Start of Pilgrimage.Sister Esther offers her blood to Ion, but he stops himself from feeding on her blood and stabs himself with the sword to regain control of himself. He then moves to kill himself to protect Esther; however, before he can deal the blow, Father Abel arrives, shoots the sword from his hand, and releases the two, showing that he has an antidote for Ion. When Esther, Ion, and Duchess Astha confront Sir Süleyman about his traitorous actions, Empress Vradica herself makes an appearance alongside Duchess Fortuna, who had not died and been acting as a stand in for the Empress. After revealing herself to be Seth, the Empress is fired upon by Süleyman, who deliberately misses because he cannot bring himself to kill her and is simultaneously dealt a fatal blow by Astha. Elsewhere, Abel confronts the Radu puppet but collapses after trying to activate his 80% Crusnik mode, having not fed on any vampire blood. Seth arrives and uses her own Crusnik form to defeat the puppet and save Abel. Later, Esther prepares to leave for Rome with Abel, promising to see Ion again sometime in the future, while Abel learns that Cain Nightroad is still alive.