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Chapter 86

Seren

Cadomir hurled the child violently at Seren, his small body sliding across the cold stone floor until he came to rest at Seren’s feet. Like he was nothing more than a piece of garbage.

Heart pounding painfully, Seren dropped to her knees, fingers trembling as they reached out, desperately seeking the warmth of breath, the faint flutter of a pulse. A thread to heal. There was nothing. The boy was gone. Grief threatened to overwhelm her as she gently closed the little one's staring eyes.

Garbled, guttural noises escaped the demon’s salivating maw. Seren strained to make sense of its words, her stomach churning as she realized it was asking Lilja for permission—to taste Seren. Rage flared within her chest, hot and primal, mingled deeply with sorrow and despair.

Lilja slowly rose, a cold, amused smirk playing at the corners of her bloodied lips. "You've brought friends," she drawled, running vague eyes over the newcomers before losing interest. Her voice echoed through the air, dripping disdain and curiosity. "I'm curious. How did you escape?... and why you were foolish enough to come back? But, of course, there's nowhere else for you to go, was there? Your bond is muted, so perhaps you failed to sense your fated has given up the ghost. Your tribe is fodder for the worms."

Seren drew a sharp, agonized breath. A chilling thought sliced through her heart—was Hagan dead? A wave of devastating grief flooded her, nearly buckling her knees. It had to be a trick, a cruelmanipulation of her worst fears. Yet, the possibility lingered painfully, twisting sharply in her chest. Because her bond was muted. Would she know?

Despair clawed through her like talons, raw and consuming, but beneath it surged a wave of anger so fierce it frightened her. She'd felt this only once before, in a moment she had long fought to forget—when invaders had attacked her village, and a man had nearly stolen more from her than she had to give.

Barely having time to meet Ana and Ryn’s eyes, she conveyed a single, desperate command: Run.

But before either could move, a scream ripped itself from Seren’s throat, feral and unstoppable. It exploded from her in a wave, shaking the ground and air like a sonic boom. Lilja flew back, smashing against the hearth with bone-shattering force, lying still and unmoving. The demon howled a high-pitched shriek as its skin began to peel away, dissolving to reveal rotting flesh beneath. Chunks fell away, dropping wetly to the ground as the demon sank to its knees, oozing black sludge.

The silence that followed was deafening. Ana and Ryn, unharmed by the chaos looked around.

Ana stared wide-eyed, lips curving into a stunned grin. "I am seriously digging your banshee power," she breathed, eyes sparkling with interest. "Go girl."

Ryn nodded slowly, her voice calm and knowing. "It has to be your fifth element." After all, she was the raven of prophecy.

Lilja groaned weakly, gripping the edge of an overturned chair. Blood poured from her nose and eyes, the skin around her mouth hanging grotesquely loose. She attempted speech, her voice a pained croak, "You…you…"

Ana stepped forward and squatted down to her level her voice shifting into an eerie, singsong croon. "Eeeew, your demon has splattered sludge on my brand-new boots." she sighed dramatically "You’ve been a bad little kitty, haven’t you? I think opening a portal would do just the trick to make you feel better. Can you do that for me, pet?"

As they watched, Lilja opened her mouth. Her eyes widened in alarm as her mouth became wider and wider. Her jaw stretched grotesquely wide, impossibly huge, her mouth becoming a swirling vortex of darkness.

Through it, Seren glimpsed a nightmarish realm: a twisted, tortured landscape of perpetual torment.

Ryn smiled grimly. "My turn."

Effortlessly, she seized the demon’s clawed foot and dragged its mangled body toward the yawning abyss. With a powerful swing, she hurled it into the nightmarish void.

"I'm all for migration," she quipped dryly, "but that one needed to go back to where he came from."

The three watched, breathless, as Lilja’s ruined body began folding inward, involuting, disappearing piece by painful piece into the swirling darkness, leaving behind only her grotesquely stretched mouth. Slowly, it closed, shrinking until it vanished completely with a soft pop.

Ana chuckled darkly, turning back to Seren. "She doesn't have the firepower to hold a portal for more than a few minutes. After that...boom...she implodes" Ana said.

"Since she loves demon cock so much, I'm sure she'll enjoy the free-for-all." Her voice took on a sinister intonation that Seren had never heard before. "You see, you cannot die in the demon realm. She will die a thousand painful deaths, only to respawn and suffer over and over again."

Seren shuddered.

"Let’s go home"

Hagan

Far away, on the battlefield of Varghrheim, Hagan felt his limbs grow heavy, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Beside him, Veyr clutched at a sword deeply embedded in his shoulder, his face pale and drawn. Vir lay unmoving on the ground, his fate uncertain. The warriors around them faltered, beaten back by relentless attackers. Hopelessness flooded Hagan; defeat seemed inevitable. But as despair overtook him, an eerie stillness suddenly enveloped thebattlefield. The invading soldiers froze mid-motion, many collapsing instantly, death rotting swiftly through their bodies. Others blinked, confused, as if awakening from a dark enchantment. Weapons dropped to the ground in surrender.

"When I said their breath could kill—guess I wasn't exaggerating!" one warrior asked incredulously.

"Either they're reconsidering their career choices, or someone farted." another joked weakly. " Was it you Threk?"

Threk chuckled breathlessly, holding his injured shoulder, "Nah, they finally smelt themselves and decided death was better than their BO."