Just as we were finally allowing ourselves to breathe, to believe it was over, the relief had left us limp as rags soaked in blood.
Our bodies were nothing but walking carcasses: purple bruises, grinding bones, muscles torn to the point of nausea. Rayzo could barely bend his knees. Hiyro, his eardrums burst by the monster's repeated screams, heard only a permanent ringing, and his legs refused to respond. Estris, the only one still vaguely upright, held his sword like one holds a broken bone: the blade, once perfect, was now a dulled tooth, riddled with chips, its edge reduced to an irregular line of metal martyred by the demon's steel-hard skin.
If that thing dared so much as twitch again... even a spasm... we'd all end up as pulp. We all knew it.
And yet, the gods have a particularly cruel sense of humor.
The exploded corpse of the demon didn't just lie there to rot.
It folded in on itself.
The exploded flesh, pulverized bones, the brain reduced to mush... everything began to crawl.
A black, oily, viscous mass, like living tar bubbling. Filaments of meat twisted, knotted, fused into one another with a wet, obscene sound of suction and tearing. The mass pulsed weakly in the center of the hall, a giant heart made of carrion that refused to die. Bubbles of black blood burst on the surface, releasing a smell of rotten iron and sickly-sweet sulfur that caught in our throats.
We were certain we had destroyed its brain.
Yet it beat.
It breathed.
Rayzo didn't wait for explanations.
He gathered what strength he had left a pathetic remnant, a last surge of a stubborn old man and charged, hammer raised to crush it once and for all.
The blow rang out like a death knell: hard, metallic, useless.
An invisible barrier, made of thickened air and pure hatred, repelled him like a mere rag doll. The shock vibrated through his already fractured old bones.
"GET AWAY FROM THERE!"
The voice of Raysley, the blind girl, cracked out, shrill, desperate. She alone felt the tide of corrupted mana rising, ready to drown everything.
Estris dragged Hiyro like a sack. Rayzo, too massive to be carried, got up on his own, groaning in pain with every movement. I, despite my legs feeling like jelly, ran toward him, grabbed him under the arm, and we stumbled backward together, staggering, until we collapsed in a heap against the wall.
His grey eyes, clouded with fatigue, looked at me for a second. No words. Just a mute, almost tender acknowledgment, in the midst of all this carnage.
We were there, sprawling, panting, staring at the horror unfolding in the center.
The mass of flesh began to grow.
To bloom.
Like an inverted carnivorous flower: instead of opening toward the light, it blossomed in putrescence.
The blackened skin split into wet, irregular petals. Tendons cracked like over-tightened cords. Bones reformed with wet snaps, twisting to find their place. Thick streams of black blood flowed, half-coagulating before starting to flow again.
And at the heart of this burgeoning abomination, a figure took shape.
Feminine.
Emaciated.
Morbidly pale, almost translucent, as if the skin had been stolen from a corpse left too long in the cold.
Four immense wings cracked into existence, tearing through the flesh behind her. Black feathers, glistening with ichor, formed one by one, glued by fresh blood, some still attached to shreds of meat hanging like rotten ribbons.
Her eyes opened last.
The sclera was an absolute black, a bottomless pit. The scarlet iris, shot through with dark veins, bled.
Real tears of dark red ink streamed down her face, tracing black furrows that smoked slightly upon contact with her icy skin.
Her arms rose slowly, stretched toward us.
A gesture that could have passed for supplication… but the fingers, too long, too clawed, trembled with a palpable urge to murder.
She was born. Not resurrected. Born from death itself.
And we, we had nothing left. No strength, no weapons worthy of the name.
Just the cold certainty that the real horror was beginning now.
It was the end. Really the end.
The demon towered over us, wings spread like a living shroud, its black eyes oozing scarlet tears. The air still vibrated with its corrupted mana, a pressure crushing our chests with every breath. We had nothing left: no strength, no hope, just the dull certainty that the next move would be the last.
And yet… I couldn't.
Not like this. Not without trying.
In a spasm of pure desperation, my fingers found one of Hiyro's twin blades, abandoned a few centimeters from me. Cold. Heavy. Slippery with blood. I gripped it, straightened up trembling, legs buckling, breath ragged like a cornered animal. The tip aimed for the creature's black heart.
I was going to die standing. It was all I had left.
But a hand rested on my wrist.
Hot. Incredibly hot, despite the thick glove covering it. A warmth that radiated into my bones frozen with exhaustion, like a mute promise: Rest. Let go. I'm here.
I turned my head.
Karla.
Her ivory face, slightly flushed not from shyness, no: from pure, contained fury. Her blood-red eyes burned with an almost painful determination, while strands of brown hair with burning tips floated around her like slow flames. Her hair seemed alive, consumed by an inner fire that didn't harm her.
Her expression was calm. Too calm. The calm of a storm about to sweep everything away.
"You don't have to worry anymore. I'll take over."
These words, simple, fell like a verdict. Not for the demon. For me.
She stepped forward.
Her blade that white, almost lunar metal changed before our eyes. First a rosy hue, then dark red, then incandescent, as if liquid magma flowed inside without ever melting the steel. The edge remained perfect, cruel, sharpened to the impossible. Every step she took drove the tip into the stone: no sparks, no impact noise… just a discreet hiss, and the rock melted silently, flowing like wax around the guard.
Hiyro, still half-deaf and collapsed, lifted his head just enough to murmur in a broken voice:
"I think… we can really rest now."
Absolute trust. Not arrogance. Certainty.
Karla accelerated.
A walk, then gradually a run guard low, fluid, deadly.
Her blade traced red arcs in the air, luminous halos that persisted like fiery scars on reality itself.
First strike! The demon raised an arm to block. It was a mistake.
The blade hissed.
Severed cleanly. No resistance. No spurting blood. Just a perfect cut, instantly cauterized: flesh, bone, everything carbonized in a fraction of a second. The severed arm fell like a dead branch, smoking slightly.
The demon took a step back, surprised.
Karla took a step forward.
Same distance. Same assurance.
Second strike.
The remaining arm stretched out. Same mistake.
Same hiss. Same smell of burnt meat.
Two arms less.
The creature beat its wings backward, lifting off in a vortex of tainted air.
Karla plunged her blade into the ground to anchor herself, a savage smile stretching her lips.
A smile too wide. Too hungry. More monstrous than the thing she was facing.
"You want to flee? That's not nice…"
The demon, now floating several meters away, regenerated its arms with a wet, sickening crackle: bones reforming, flesh crawling, skin re-knitting in black filaments.
Then it stretched out both palms.
Energy condensed.
Black. Violet. Buzzing.
Two spheres that grew until they burst into dozens of smaller projectiles, a voracious swarm that fell upon Karla like a storm of corrupted meteors.
She didn't retreat.
On the contrary, her eyes lit up.
She began to dance.
Lateral dodges, rolls, jumps, brutal direction changes every movement precise, almost insolent. The orbs grazed her, gouged smoking craters in the stone, left corrosive trails that crackled and smoked. But none touched her.
She drew them away from us.
Each time an orb came too close, her red blade sliced through the air: a scarlet flash, a lingering halo, and the projectile disintegrated in flight, reduced to flying ash.
It was hypnotic.
A ballet of fire and death.
A continuous red trail behind her, as if she were painting the battlefield with her own incandescent blood.
Yet… the space was shrinking.
The marks on the ground accumulated, making each step more dangerous.
The projectiles continued to rain down.
She was buying time. She was protecting us.
But she couldn't hold out forever.
The duel was turning.
Quickly. Too quickly.