"Goodness! Even without a face, you still manage to be ugly. That takes talent."
I crouched before Asphodel's severed head, poking it with my dagger with a wide grin plastered on my face.
"You nasty bastard," I muttered, my tone slipping into something much more venomous, something broken. "The bane of my existence. You killed Felix, took my arm, dragged me into this hell, and tortured me for a decade."
My grin flickered as the words left me.
The dagger plunged again. And again, turning into a twisted rhythm with my blade as the instrument.
Thick black ichor spattered across my face as the blade tore through his rooty flesh, turning it into a mangled, oozing pulp.
The rhythm continued.
Dagger up. Dagger down. The squelch of tearing through black flesh joined the pleasant rhythm.
"You were always going to end up here," My voice trembled, breath ragged, my arm trembling with the force of each ecstatic blow. "At my feet. In pieces."
I didn't stop until the dagger screeched against stone, sparks spitting out as the blade carved the floor.
My chest heaved, black blood dripping from my sleeve, pooling around the ruined mess of what used to be his head.
And still, it wasn't enough.
I wasn't satisfied with this. He died too easily.
I should've torn his limbs apart, ripped out his cursed roots along with his heart.
I should've carved his disgusting grin into a grotesque grimace and made him watch as I slowly pierced his still beating black heart with pieces of his own roots.
He should've had a gruesome ending.
Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths and calmed myself down.
"Yes, think happy thoughts, my love." Iris's mischievous and calm voice broke through the swirling haze in my head.
When I opened my eyes, her hallucinatory form was crouched beside me, her bright sapphire eyes flitting between me and the mangled remains of Asphodel's head.
"Goodness. That was a bit excessive," she remarked, her voice tinted with awe and concern.
She shrugged. "Although I must say that he deserved this."
"You followed me here." My voice was low as I tried to chuckle, failing spectacularly.
Iris's smile turned warm but tinged with melancholy.
"I am wherever your mind is, love," she scooted closer, the edges of her form flickering the closer she got to me.
"This nightmare will be over soon," she tried to comfort me, and surprisingly, it worked.
My voice trembled. "I don't know if I could continue."
Iris chuckled. "You can. You are Mordred Pendragon! The High Prince of the Kingdom! You are a Deathwalker, forged by the sadistic flames of Blood Valley!"
"You were trained by one of the best sword masters in the world and even trained by the most powerful daemons!"
Pointing at Asphodel's remains, she continued. "You see that? You did that. Destroying that rooty bastard is another step in your journey to reunite with me."
Her voice turned soft, hand hovering over my chest, flickering and glitching upon proximity to my body. "I know it hurts. But please endure it. For me and for yourself."
Her words soothed me like a soft, cool balm on a burn that had tormented me for so long.
"Thank you, Iris," I said, giving her a small smile.
"There's your smile!" she chuckled, her small laugh like a small and cool stream of water washing over me.
Something caught her attention, and her gaze went over to the black arch.
"Looks like somebody's here for you," she turned to me and winked. "Well. All the best, love."
Her form flickered before glitching out of existence.
Looking at the arched entrance, I sensed a change in the air. The silver dust floating around froze, and they trembled in the air.
The silence was broken by soft footfalls that crunched the silver dust beneath them.
I felt a deep pressure pressing down on my body, an overwhelming energy that bound me in place, making me unable to move a muscle.
The shadows beneath the arch thickened, coalescing into a humanoid form.
A really tall female figure made completely out of black cloth bindings stepped out of the darkness, with long strips of black cloth trailing and floating from her body like live serpents.
Her neck and head were composed of the same black bindings with a vast amount of thinner strips trailing from her body to form very long hair that swayed in the absence of any form of wind.
Two bright lights peeked out like eyes between the twisted bindings, like glowing stars amidst strips of blackness.
The aura she emitted increased tenfold with each step she took toward me, but I felt no malice, no Bloodlust, just an overwhelming power, like a massive wall before me.
I had only seen her once, a glimpse of this being while embroiled in the turbulent tides of battle against an unfortunate friend.
The only daemon I know little of, the one who even Naberiax feared.
The previous High Commander of the Lumini.
Asphodel's voice echoed in my mind just before the battle that claimed his life.
"She wouldn't allow dangerous powers like ours to run rampant. After all, this is quite a delicate place."
"Indeed. She is fair to all."
"Elariax." My mouth moved on its own, uttering the name of the overwhelming being before me.
The powerful aura pressuring me suddenly lifted, the air stopped trembling, and the silver dust resumed floating around and settling down on the ground.
"You know my name." Although her voice was slightly distorted, it was regal and commanding, resonating everywhere, even in my mind.
"Naberiax must've told you about me." Her voice, calm yet brimming with power, felt like a bowstring drawn to its limit.
Silent, restrained, but ready to unleash death with a single breath.
Like twin neutron stars, her pale, shining gaze drilled into me like a million invisible needles that pressed against my very existence.
I just knew it instinctively. She was unlike any daemon I had ever faced, even Lilith.
The ancient energy
Was that alien energy coming from her?
No, that is not possible.
Her voice doesn't match the one I heard whenever I felt that alien energy.
Many questions swirled in my mind, but I doubt now would be the time to think about them.
"Yes, he did," I said, returning my dagger to my bracelet and looking up at her. "You are Alisax's sister."
"Indeed, I am." Her voice resonated in my bones. "You almost killed her back then."
Every single muscle fiber in my body tensed as I chose my words carefully. "I had to. I'm sorry."
Elariax tilted her head, and the air shifted. "You brought her here."
"I didn't know about your agreement with Naberiax, nor did Alisax." I locked eyes with her. "She guided me here because of her hatred of Lilith."
My next words were dangerous, but I spoke them regardless. "Perhaps her hatred also extends to you."
Surprisingly, Elariax didn't kill me when I said that.
She let out a distorted sigh, something I didn't expect. "Well… What you said was true. She hated me the most."
Her gaze went over to Asphodel's remains. "Zygaxis," she breathed out, sounding exhausted. "I always told him that his arrogance and thirst for chaos would be his end."
She moved away from me, black cloth strips softly brushing against the floor and trailing behind her like live serpents as she walked towards the entrance I passed through earlier.
"I will not hinder you, Pendragon." Her voice was calm. "It would be quite difficult to get out of here without your powers."
She looked back, her brilliant, glowing, piercing my soul. "Perhaps… you would make good company."
With that, she disappeared into the arch, swallowed by the shadows surrounding her.
Silence enveloped me again, and I let out a breath I hadn't noticed I was holding in.
"What… The fuck was that?" I muttered before turning towards the arch on the other side of the hall.
The air shifted as soon as I passed through the black arch. It became heavy, and the temperature fluctuated like crazy.
One moment, it felt like I was trapped in a glacier, then it immediately turned into a warm summer day, only to change to a tolerable cold.
I winced as a wave of intense heat prickled my skin before being hit by a frostbite-inducing chill that flayed my skin raw. Each breath burned and froze my lungs at the same time.
Placing my hand on the black walls to steady myself, I was hit by an even more intense surge of that alien energy.
And along with them came certain other things as well.
Like the flood of memories that hit me when I first woke up in Asteris, images flashed through my mind so quickly that they almost looked like a blur.
Tall humanoids of unparalleled beauty stood in crowds, their entire beings shining as if they were made of light.
I saw soldiers of light clad in pure white and silver armor, holding long spears of solid light.
Leading them were distinct figures, like commanders; their forms hazy, but I recognized the silhouette of the one at the very head.
A tall angelic humanoid with vast wings of gold and white, holding a very familiar sword, though here it gleamed white, etched with golden runes.
Was that Naberiax when he was a Malakh?
And then I saw her.
Sitting on a lounge chair, Lilith was overlooking a drastically different land. The landscape was the same white, but it was wholly different, with lush trees and plants of silver, gold, and white.
And the sky was unrecognizable, a deep azure, like a vast upside-down ocean dotted with billions of golden stars.
Even Lilith looked different. Her skin glowed with a soft color, and her smile was as bright and warm as her eyes.
There was no malice, no madness, no cruelty in them.
She looked… genuinely happy.
I immediately let go of the wall and shook my head.
What was that?
Hallucinations? Or something bleeding into me from this place?
Or perhaps…
Those images surely felt like a glimpse of someone's memories, along with the voices.
Only one of them stuck with me even now.
A phrase uttered by Lilith herself.
"It is a good life we live, sister."
What does it mean? What is this place?
But the alien energy flowing within the walls wasn't the only thing that had increased.
The silver dust had thickened into a glittering haze that blurred the path ahead of me
And it wasn't just the air; the floor gradually became uneven and slightly raised as I continued walking.
There was no longer a layer of silver dust on the floor. Instead, it warped into solid silver that was uneven and jagged.
It was as if someone poured molten silver somewhere ahead, and it spread till here, cooling and solidifying into an uneven mess.
And so I walked and walked. Even though I am traveling on a straight path, it felt like I was going in a circle.
The silver dust in the air was gone, all settled on the weirdly uneven silver floor.
Whoever made the floor really did a poor job at it. They didn't even smooth out the silver after pouring it.
The air became heavier, making it difficult to breathe, and an unrecognizable aura was pressing down on me.
I don't know if it was my sanity crumbling, but I could see my surroundings distorting, the air and walls glitching and stuttering like broken glass.
Either my sanity had gone over the edge, or it appears that reality itself is breaking all around me.
The crackle of static and a constant hum filled my ears as I felt the ambient ardor fluctuating like crazy.
I could literally feel the ambient ardor tearing itself apart and reweaving in an endless cycle of destruction and restoration.
Something is causing this phenomenon. Something so powerful that its mere existence is too much for reality to withstand.
Then I saw them.
Two massive doors of smooth black stone loomed ahead. They were the only objects that remained unaffected by the weird reality-bending phenomenon.
Like massive monoliths, resistant to the chaos.
I squinted as I approached the doors, the silver floor becoming thicker and more uneven with each step, and my surroundings glitched more than ever.
Heart pounding, I propped my shoulder against the smooth black stone of one of the doors.
A surge of alien energy passed through me as I began to push, threatening to rip me apart.
Gritting my teeth, I poured out every shred of willpower and aura to hold overcome the overwhelming energy, to hold myself together.
The door began to move inward noiselessly, and a blinding sliver of light slammed into me with an immense pressure that buckled my knees.
What in the bloody hell is happening?
Using my strength, I pushed open the door.
The bright light swallowed me, blinding me in white.
And I didn't have sunglasses.
Great.
Just great.