Page 156

Hades

The chaos around them seemed to quiet, if only for a moment.

Guards began forcing the panicked crowd back, forming a rigid perimeter as if to ensure that no one could look away.

Their movements were too smooth, too deliberate—not for protection, but to make sure everyone watched.

They had to watch, or this deadly ploy would have been for nothing.

Their audience was the icing on the cake.

I stiffened, jaw tightening.

This wasn’t containment.

It was a show.

A message.

A slow murmur rippled through the crowd as Ellen stepped down, stair by stair, to ground level. She moved forward, her steps eerily calm against the blood-slicked stone. A guard approached, presenting her with a weapon.

A machine gun.

But not an ordinary one.

Its frame was heavier, its barrel inscribed with faint runes that glimmered under the dull light—the kind used in war zones. The PDL 87-X, a specialized weapon designed for one thing.

Killing Lycans.

Killing Eve.

Ellen gripped it without hesitation, her fingers curling around the trigger as if she had done this before. Her slender frame seemed too delicate for such a brutal weapon, but her face remained still, composed.

Dead.

I felt it then—the sharp, biting scent in the air.

Silver.

It prickled at my skin, a low burn under my flesh, crawling along my veins like fire.

Every Lycan knew that sting.

I gritted my teeth, forcing my body to stay still, to keep control. The scent gnawed at my instincts, a primal warning screaming to shift, to run, to fight. But I didn’t move.

Not yet.

Ellen leveled the machine gun at Eve, who was still restrained, barely able to lift her head. Blood—dark and unnatural—poured from her wounds, but her eyes burned with hatred, with life.

She wasn’t dead.

Not yet.

Ellen didn’t speak.

She didn’t need to.

The gun roared to life.

Silver rounds tore into Eve’s body, each shot punching through flesh and bone, each impact sending brutal shockwaves through the air. Blood sprayed in arcs, dark and steaming as it hit the cold stone.

Eve convulsed against the restraints, claws gouging the ground in one final, futile attempt to break free. Her roar was no longer deafening; instead, it choked out into a ragged snarl.

Shot after shot.

Ellen never flinched.

Not once.

Her face was as hollow as before, her eyes as empty as they had been with the first trigger pull.

The gun clicked empty.

Smoke curled from the barrel, and Ellen lowered the weapon with mechanical grace.

Eve didn’t move.

Her massive form slumped forward, limbs limp, dark blood pooling beneath her. Flesh shredded by the onslaught.

Silence.

For a long, suffocating moment, no one moved.

Then Darius straightened, adjusting his coat like nothing had happened.

"It is done," he declared, his voice carrying over the blood-soaked courtyard.

The words felt heavier than before, final in a way that made my skin crawl.

The crowd remained frozen, too stunned to cheer, too horrified to speak.

My hands curled into fists.

My eyes burned from the silver smoke that contaminated my senses.

Ellen’s footsteps echoed unnervingly against the blood-soaked stone as she ascended back to the platform, the scent of silver still thick in the air.

The machine gun hung heavily at her side, but her grip on it was effortless, as if it were merely an extension of herself.

The crowd remained motionless, suffocated by the horror of what they had just witnessed.

She reached the top of the stairs, standing beside Darius once more. For the first time, Ellen moved without the mechanical stiffness that had defined her before. She turned toward the silent, broken masses below and raised her chin, the cold wind tugging at strands of her pale hair.

And then, she spoke.

Her voice was sharp and clear, slicing through the suffocating stillness like a blade.

"This..." Ellen’s voice carried effortlessly, commanding yet disturbingly calm, "...is what happens when you do not submit to your sovereigns."

The words hung in the air like a guillotine’s drop.

"Death. Gore. Loss."

She swept her eyes over the crowd, their wide, terror-stricken faces reflecting back at her without resistance.

"Let this be a lesson." Her tone was steady, untouched by emotion. "Defiance breeds ruin. Rebellion births only corpses."

Her turquoise eyes gleamed under the pale light, but they remained hollow, devoid of empathy.

"I am the blessed twin," she declared, her voice rising with cold conviction. "And today, I have ended the cursed one."

Gasps rippled through the crowd, mingling with choked sobs.

"The prophecy was clear. One would bring ruin, and the other would bring light.

" She gestured toward Eve’s mangled body, now nothing more than a shredded mass of blood and bone.

"You have witnessed the truth with your own eyes—a werewolf, twisted into a Lycan.

A monster among us. One that many of you were too blind, too foolish, to believe existed. "

Murmurs of fear and confusion stirred like restless ghosts in the crowd.

Ellen tilted her head, her expression sharpening with something that might have been disdain.

"The lies end today. The propaganda ends today. The Eclipse Rebellion, this pathetic fantasy of resistance, is nothing but a path to your own destruction."

She stepped forward, her voice darkening.

"You were told that the second verse of the prophecy spoke of a Blood Moon.

A Blood Moon that would destroy us. But I tell you now—that is a hoax.

A fabrication spun by insidious forces who seek nothing but chaos.

You have seen the consequence of that chaos here today.

The Rebellion works for our true ruin—Lycans. "

Gasps echoed through the crowd.

Her gaze swept the masses, locking onto the pale faces trembling beneath her.

"A real threat has been extinguished." She pointed the bloodied barrel of the gun toward Eve’s motionless corpse. "Another Lycan has been put down, like the beast it was."

Ellen’s eyes narrowed, cold as glaziers.

"But I am not finished."

Her voice sharpened to a lethal point.

"I pledge this to you: I will finish what has begun.

The remaining Lycans of the Obsidian Pack will fall.

The darkness they spread will be snuffed out, and in its place, a new era will rise.

An era of light, as the prophecy promised.

Every Lycan shall be exterminated like insects until their territory is nothing but a ghost town. "

Her hand tightened on the weapon, lifting it just slightly—a subtle reminder of the power she still wielded.

"Yes, an heir has been ended..." Ellen’s lips curved into a thin, mirthless smile. "But another has risen in her place."

The words echoed, lingering like smoke over the stunned and bloodied crowd.

Darius said nothing. He simply stood beside her, watching the crowd drink in her every word. Watching their fear deepen, their hope crack.

Ellen’s expression softened, but only slightly.

"You will kneel," she whispered, though her voice still carried. "Or you will burn."

The silence deepened, heavy and suffocating.

And in that stillness, Ellen turned back to Darius, lowering the weapon to her side.

The show was over.

But the war had only just begun.