In Mavis, the nights were dark and damp, chilling shrouds that settled into the bones of the village and the souls of its inhabitants. The cold here had a wet, clinging quality… a humidity that defied the season's frost and seeped through cracks in shutters, through the seams of cloaks, into the very marrow of the stone. It was the kind of cold that promised a slow… subtle decay.
But tonight was different…
The low clouds that usually choked the sky had bled away, leaving a vault of endless black, pierced by a brilliant… and cruel scatter of stars. A moon, so full and bright it felt like a violation. This was no soft… romantic luminescence; it was a merciless, silver-white spotlight, exposing every flaw… every grimy stain… every weary line on the face of the world. It bleached the color from the village, rendering the familiar in stark monochrome… a ghost of itself painted in shades of bone and bruised shadow.
Under this judgmental gaze, the village did not sleep… it spoke in a symphony of quiet, ugly truths. From the rooftops came the slow, rhythmic plink… plink… plink… of residual moisture, a lingering echo of the day's drizzle falling like a dying man's heartbeat into the puddles below. Somewhere a loose shutter, stirred by a vagrant breath of wind, tapped a restless… irregular rhythm against a moss-eaten frame thump… th-thump… a sound like a tired, anxious heart.
From the deep shadows between two storehouses, the low… guttural argument of two feral cats over a scrap of offal erupted in a sudden… spitting hiss that was cut short by a yowl of pain.
Then, a silence that was heavier and more profound than the noise that preceded it. These were the night sounds of Mavis… the unvarnished whispers of a place where life was a constant… gritty negotiation with filth and each other.
In this stark, silver-lit world, Arya sat on the back step of the inn… a statue of simmering fury carved from moonlight and shadow. The brilliant, pitiless lunar rays fell upon the tools of her trade… the twin golden hand axes that were as much a part of her as her own silver fur or her fierce, golden eyes…
They had been.
Now, they lay across her knees… and the sight was a fresh, open wound.
The glorious gleaming metal was… blighted. A leprous corrosion had claimed the gold where the Pupa's viscous ichor had consumed. No longer bright now pitted and scarred… the intricate whorls and rivers she had polished to a mirror finish for years now blurred and defaced into a topographical map of ruin. One of the hafts… where Aamon's demonic healing had fused it for a terrifying moment, was warped… its perfect lethal balance ruined. They were no longer extensions of her will; they were damaged, ugly things. They felt alien and wrong in her hands… a testament not to a victory, but to a profound contamination.
She looked at them not with a craftsman's sorrow… but with a low, simmering… almost animal whine building in the back of her throat… a sound of pure, visceral disgust. Her lips were peeled back from her teeth in a silent snarl and her ears pinned flat against her skull. Her large, fluffy tail, usually a banner of her mood… was a stiff, bristled line pressed tight against the grimy wooden step.
The inn door behind her clicked shut sealing away the common room's warmth… leaving Arya alone in the damp embrace of the night. The silence that rushed in was almost a physical presence, broken only by the drip of rainwater from the eaves. She didn't need to turn; the shift in the air, the subtle scent of ozone and cold stone, announced the elf's presence.
"What?"
she snarled, the word a low… gravelly threat thrown over her shoulder. She kept her back turned, a wall of defiance. Her hand white-knuckled against the splintered grain.
"Come to stare at the broken shit?"
Ciel's gaze was not on Arya's face, nor her tense posture… rather on the twin ruins of the golden axes lying across her knees. The sight of them, snapped and scarred was a deeper wound than any flesh could bear.
"They are just metal…" Ciel stated, her voice devoid of inflection.
"A blacksmith can make new ones."
"Tch. You don't know a damn thing."
Arya shot back, her fist clenching around a broken haft until the wood groaned and her knuckles popped.
"A smith can't forge this."
Her claw, usually poised to kill tapped with surprising delicacy against a specific… blurred engraving near the hilt… a stylized, snarling wolf head, its details worn soft by years of her grip.
"This isn't some bought trophy. This is my fucking life."
The words ripped out of Arya… her voice hitched on the last syllable, a stark unwelcome crack in her armored exterior. She drew a sharp, shaky breath trying to smother the vulnerability with fresh kindling for her anger.
"I'll get new ones tomorrow, I won't be dead weight."
Arya muttered, more to herself than to Ciel.
"You are not dead weight."
Ciel's reply was immediate… her voice flat and absolute as a stone tablet. There was no comfort in it, only pure… unassailable logic.
"You are the blade. Aamon is the fire. Ciel is the shield. A warrior's tool can be replaced. The warrior cannot."
Her pink sapphire eyes finally lifted from the axes to meet the tense line of Arya's back.
The observation was so devastatingly simple… so clinically accurate, that it stole the air from Arya's lungs. It bypassed all her defenses… acknowledging her value not as a person, but as a vital component in their deadly machine… and in doing so, affirmed her worth more profoundly than any hollow praise ever could. The hot shameful pressure behind her eyes intensified, blurring her vision of the dark yard. She swiped a furious hand across her face, smearing grime and the first… traitorous tears she'd allowed in years.
"You don't know a damn thing about it. Piss off."
Ciel didn't. With a patience that felt both alien and absolute, she slowly and very carefully lowered herself onto the damp… cold step beside Arya. ciel maintained a careful inch of space that felt like both a chasm and the most intimate distance Arya had ever known. She said nothing… simply offering her presence as a silent bulwark against the judging moon.
The dam broke.
"I'm not crying! It's the damn cold."
Arya hissed, though her vision swam and a hot… traitorous tear traced a path through the grime on her cheek. She swiped at it angrily.
Ciel said nothing. She didn't agree or contradict. She simply existed beside her… a quiet anchor in the storm of Arya's pride.
The silence stretched. It filled only by the hitch of Arya's ragged breathing and the distant drip of water. Finally… the words clawed their way out, low and guttural. It tore from a vault deep within her soul.
"I earned these."
Arya whispered, the admission feeling like a physical wound.
"They weren't given."
Her voice hardened… laced with a venom that was years old and still potent.
"I took them! From the alpha of my pack. A big, proud bastard from Duskarra. His mate died, and he decided I was the replacement. Started trying to claim what wasn't his when I was just a pup."
She let out a sharp and humorless laugh that was more of a choke.
"When I was around twelve, he had me pinned. His breath stank, all rot and entitlement. Told me I'd birth his pups or he'd break my spine."
Her golden eyes, blazing with the ghost of that childhood terror and the fury that had answered it… slowly turned to Ciel.
"So I took his prized axes. And I gave him a new scar to remember me by. Took his eye with his own damn steel. Been running ever since."
She finally set the axes down with a dull clatter, the confession leaving her hollowed out and exposed… the fight drained from her.
"This job… killing a Succubus… it's my chance. To be more than just the runaway who mutilated her alpha. To be a legend, not a story whispered in shame."
She looked at her empty hands.
"I am weak…"
Ciel was silent for a long moment… processing the raw data of Arya's pain. The silence wasn't judgmental; it was analytical. She cross-referenced this new information with the vast cold library of her own experience.
"Arya fought…"
Ciel said, her voice soft but impossibly clear… a scalpel of truth in the emotional fog.
"Ciel did not."
Her gaze drifted inward… to a cold… dark place of survival.
"When the slavers came for Ciel's mother, Ciel did not fight. Ciel calculated the odds of survival and found them insufficient. She observed. She complied. She let them take her. She let her mother die."
Her pink sapphire eyes refocused on Arya… holding not just shared pain… but a universe of quiet logical regret. The confession was not a plea for sympathy, rather establishing a brutal equivalency.
"Arya is not weak. Arya is a fighter. That is the variable Aamon needs. Not another observer. A fighter."
She looked at the broken axes, a final assessment.
"Aamon can fix the metal. He knows many spells. But he cannot give you back the story. Only you carry that."
"I don't want his demon shit all over them."
The protest was weak… the last ember of her defiance sputtering out. Almost helplessly… she lifted her leather cuff revealing the dark, obsidian tracery Aamon's healing had left woven beneath the skin of her wrist. The mark seemed to drink the moonlight.
"Look what he did. It's still there. Like a brand."
"Ciel sees it."
the elf replied, her head tilting as she examined the mark not with disgust… with a detached clarity.
"It is a mark of survival. Not a chain."
Ciel stood, her movement fluid and final… the conversation clearly concluded. She had given what she had to give: not comfort,a pitiful truth.
"It is time to go."
The inn door clicked shut behind her, leaving Arya alone once more. The silence felt different now. Less accusing… more contemplative. The moon's pale light no longer felt like an interrogation lamp exposing her failures; it was simply a cold fact illuminating the path forward. After a long moment… a shuddering breath escaped her. She leaned forward and gathered the broken pieces of her past… the weight of them familiar in her hands, but somehow they were inexplicably lighter.
Then she stood and followed.
Inside their room, the air was still and thick with the scent of old wood and the lingering coppery ghost of ichor. The only sound was the soft… even rhythm of Aamon's breathing. Arya's eyes, sharp even in the gloom, went immediately to him… asleep on the bedroll. In the forgiving dark the harsh lines of his demonic features had softened. his formidable horns and sharp jawline made him look less like a terror of the Abyss and more like a lost… exhausted pup.
Ciel moved like a ghost in the background… her hands silently organizing the contents of Betty's care package with a monk's precision, almost against her will.
Drawn by a curiosity that felt like a betrayal of her own instincts, Arya found her hand reaching out. Her fingers… usually calloused and curled around a weapon, gently brushed against the base of one of his horns. The pure obsidian was unnervingly smooth… almost warm with a latent living energy that hummed against her skin.
"Mother? Mommy…"
Aamon muttered, shifting in his sleep, his voice a vulnerable and heart breaking whisper.
"He does that often." Ciel chimed from the corner, her voice a soft murmur that didn't disturb the stillness.
"To us, she is a monster. But to him… she is his mother. Ciel cannot understand what he is feeling."
"...Tch. The shit we carry."
Arya conceded, the words leaving her in a rough acknowledging exhale. She pulled her hand back as if scalded… the intimacy of the gesture feeling like a crack in her own armored shell. The warmth of his horn lingered on her fingertips… a disquieting sensation.
With a single decisive motion, she slammed the broken axes onto Aamon's chest. The clatter of shattered metal was a violent intrusion in the quiet room.
"Wake up, shit-for-brains! We're leaving. And you're fixing these. Now!"
Aamon woke with a shocked jolt, his ruby eyes flying open glowing like embers in the dark.
"Arya? Ouch, that's mean."
he said, his voice thick with sleep and genuine offense as he rubbed the spot on his chest.
"I can fix them."
he continued, sitting up and carefully lifting the pieces as if they were sacred relics. His touch was surprisingly reverent… his bone-ringed fingers tracing the splintered hafts and the faded wolf head engraving.
"I just didn't know if that's what you wanted. Also, there are nicer ways to ask… that just hurts."
He laid the axes carefully on the bed in front of him, arranging the fragments with a scholar's precision.
"That was me being nice."
Arya growled, crossing her arms tightly over her chest… a defensive posture against the strange tenderness of the moment.
"Now stop whining and make my axes whole. I'm not walking into another damn demon nest with broken tools."
"Then look no farther! I will show you the strength of a knight!"
Aamon declared, a bright… earnest energy flooding his posture. He placed a hand over the broken pieces, his expression shifting to one of intense focus.
"Reformare."
A black, shimmering shadow… a piece of the Abyss itself… erupted from his palm, swallowing the axes, consuming them completely in an instant. There was no sound… only a profound absence of light.
"They better be repaired, or I'll gut your demon as-"
she began, the threat a raw… panicked reflex, was cut off as the shadow dissipated into nothing.
The axes were not merely repaired. They were reborn.
They lay on the bed, gleaming with a deep… liquid light. The familiar engravings, including the snarling wolf head, were now more intricate. The lines deeper and sharper… as if freshly carved by a master artisan. The years of wear, the nicks and the polished smoothness from her grip had vanished. In their place was a pristine… mirror like finish that seemed to devour the weak light of the room, the metal now humming with a subtle abyssal vitality.
"There. I promise they are better than before…"
Aamon said, standing and placing a hand over his heart with a small… proud bow. The weariness was back in his eyes, the memory of the pupa taking a visible toll.
"Tch. That isn't too impressive… any blacksmith could fix them."
Arya muttered, her tone lacking its usual venom. She grabbed the axes. They felt different in her hands… not just whole, but more. The balance was flawless, the leather grips supple and new… they settled into her palms as if they had never left, the cool metal seeming to hum in recognition against her skin.
Without another word, Arya turned and walked out of the room her ears pinned back and her tail giving a single, slight, almost imperceptible twitch of… something that was not anger. It wasn't gratitude, not in any language she knew how to speak. But it was the quiet… solidifying acceptance of a truth she could no longer deny.
This was no longer a temporary alliance... This was her pack.
The sun crested the jagged, iron-grey peaks of Varnmoor… a kingdom of spires and suspicion that lay like a crown of thorns upon the mountains.
From this distance it was a breathtaking, almost brutal spectacle. The dawn's first true light, a molten… merciless gold did not gently wash the landscape carved into it, slicing deep elongated shadows that pooled in the valleys like spilled ink. It illuminated a world of stark contrasts: the brilliant gleam of a distant river against the black stained battlements of a keep. This was a beauty that felt less like a gift and more like a taunt… a magnificent stage set for a perpetual… grim drama. The air is thin and cold at this altitude, and carries the faint… metallic tang of forge-smoke and the ever present, subtle dread of a land that had known too much war… a scent that even the overwhelming perfume could not entirely erase. The silence was not peaceful… but watchful, as if the mountains themselves were holding their breath.
Aamon, Ciel, and Arya remained within the sanctuary of the tree line. A tapestry of shifting gold and shadow just off the main trail. The morning light was a beautiful lie; where it dappled through the leaves, Aamon flinched… his wings pulling tight against his back like a protective cloak.
"The sun is really pretty,"
Aamon murmured, shielding his ruby eyes with a clawed hand. The beams that slipped through the canopy were a thousand tiny… searing needles on his skin.
"It's just sad it stings me…"
"It is fine, friend. The sun is not something to miss."
Ciel stated, her voice a quiet constant in the forest's murmur. Her pale skin seemed to absorb the light… rendering her a ghost among the living wood. She gave his hand a slight… grounding squeeze.
"Khhh… speak for yourself. The sun feels good on my skin."
Arya mocked, a cruel edge to her voice as she deliberately tilted her face into a sunbeam. Her silver fur glowed and her tail gave a lazy… contented flick.
"You just shouldn't be a demon."
"Ciel does not agree. The sun means work. Fields to till, masters to serve. Night means you only have to hear others cry… you do not have to see their faces."
Ciel replied, her tone flat and absolute. Her gaze swept the forest for threats… not beauty.
"Oh, Ciel, I'm sorry to put you to work!"
Aamon's voice flooded with such genuine, heartbreaking concern it was almost painful. He looked at her… his expression full of a knight's guilt.
"Should we sleep? I'm sure with the trees, if I just-"
"Dumb shit! She's speaking of her past."
Arya barked, cutting him off with a frustrated snap of her jaws. Her patience for his innocence was a thin… fraying thread.
"She obviously doesn't see this as work. Now stop coddling her and pay attention."
"The wolf is correct. Ciel does not see us as work. She is not tired yet."
Ciel confirmed, her sapphire eyes meeting Aamon's for a brief steadying moment.
"Let us continue for a few more hours."
"Oh, ok… I was just remembering what my mother said, 'A good rest can mean life or death'. Also…"
Aamon's head tilted… his short pointed ears twitching independently like a bat's. The cheerful note vanished replaced by wary curiosity.
"Do you hear something screaming again?"
As the words left his mouth, Arya and Ciel stopped dead. Arya's silver ears swiveled… rotating like precision instruments pinpointing a direction southeast of their position. The forest's ambient sounds… the rustle of leaves, the distant call of a bird… seemed to recede, swallowed by a new… faint sound carried on a wayward breeze. A woman, screaming not in terror… but in furious imperious demand. It was the sound of authority not victimhood.
"Should we investigate? I remember what happened last time…"
Aamon asked, his voice tight with worry. His tail went still. The memory of the pupa in the clearing… the thing that wore a child's face… was still a fresh wound.
"Ciel thinks we should be careful... Let us just look."
she calmly replied, already calculating the risks. She took a silent step forward… a phantom guiding them through the undergrowth in the direction Arya's ears had pointed.
"We go fast! And you listen, pup."
Arya commanded, her golden eyes boring into his. All traces of her earlier laziness were gone… replaced by a hunter's lethal focus. She unslung one of her golden axes, the metal gleaming with a hungry light.
"If we can't handle another damn demon… then what chance do we have against a Succubus?"
Aamon's tail gave a single, determined thump against a tree root. The question was a challenge… he would not back down. He nodded, his expression settling into a mask of resolve that was still too soft… too open… but it was his.
He stepped forward, falling in behind Ciel, with Arya a bristling, watchful presence at their backs… the three of them moving as one uneasy entity toward the sound of trouble.
They slipped from the wooded cover like shadows… emerging at the edge of a manicured clearing that felt unnaturally silent. The source of the commotion was a spectacle of terrifying grandeur.
A Valkyrie, a figure torn from the pages of a war torn saga… stood before the vast estate, an immovable monument of divine wrath. Her armor was silver, polished to a blinding sheen that reflected the grim scene in distorted fragments. It was etched with spiraling sigils that seemed to writhe in the periphery of one's vision, actively drinking the light around them and leaving a subtle aura of shadow in their wake. From her shoulders fell a cloak of pristine, white fur… a stark and brutal contrast to the great onyx wings that arched from her back. Their feathers are as dark and depthless as a starless midnight… but her hair, it's a flowing cascade as black as her wings. They spilled from beneath the helmet's rim… framing a visage of pitiless judgment
In her gauntleted hands, she held a spear that was less a weapon and more an extension of her will… Its cruel point was pressed against the throat of a girl with a red flower, pinning her helplessly in the damp grass… a single bead of crimson welling where the skin had broken. The Valkyrie's helmet is a masterwork of silver and cold steel that obscures all humanity. It was crowned with the symbol of the never-ending serpent: a gleaming onyx ouroboros… its tail clamped in its own jaws. It was the story of an eternal… consuming hunger… a tale Aamon knew from the most grim and whispered of his mother's lullabies.
"Open the gates! Bring your master out here!"
The Valkyrie's voice boomed a demand that shook the very air… it hurled at the mansion looming behind the iron fence.
The estate was a monument to silent… brooding power. It was constructed from a jet black stone that seemed to devour the sunlight casting a perpetual twilight around it. There were no gentle arches… only spherical towers that bulged against the sky like the shoulders of a slumbering titan. Between them… vast mosaics of stained glass depicted not saints or heroes, but cosmic violence… shattered planets, dying stars, and silhouetted figures locked in battles that spanned galaxies. The wrought iron gates, twenty feet high and topped with spikes like blackened fangs… bore a single prominent stylized 'A' in their center, a sigil of unmistakable ownership.
"Tch, down, Aamon."
Arya whispered, her voice tight as she yanked him lower into the brush. The scent of ozone and old violence was thick here.
"This is one of the Lord of Mayhem's mansions. His vacation home, probably."
"How do you know?"
Aamon whispered back, his wide slit eyes taking in the terrifying architecture.
"Think about it!"
she hissed, jabbing a claw toward the property.
"It has the 'A' on its gates, it's in the middle of fucking nowhere, and look at the place!"
Her gaze swept over the stained glass carnage and the oppressive black spheres.
"Only a guy named Atom builds something that doesn't just scream 'go away' but 'I murder gods for fun'... it politely informs you that you and your entire bloodline will be erased from history if you take another step."
"You have a point. Should we leave?"
Aamon asked, his voice laced with a profound sense of being unwelcome.
"Ciel thinks we should let 'him' deal with his mansion's business… It is not our conflict."
Ciel stated coldly, her eyes fixed on the Valkyrie…
"Don't you dare."
A sharp, resonant voice cut through the air… laced with an authority that brooked no disobedience. The Valkyrie's head was now turned directly toward their hiding spot… the dark slits of her helmet seeming to pierce through the foliage and see the three hearts beating within.
"Who is there? Is this the demon?"
she demanded. With a brutal, dismissive kick… she sent the girl skidding several feet through the grass to land in a crumpled heap between the Valkyrie and Aamon's position.
"Yes…"
The girl gasped, pushing herself up onto her elbows. Her eyes, wide and knowing, devoid of pain and full of intent… locked onto Aamon.
"This is Aamon… the Son of Abyss."
Arya snapped her head to the side… looking at Aamon as if for the very first time. Her golden eyes widened, then dropped to the pale… unmistakable bone rings on his fingers. The rings he had always worn. The bones he had never hidden. The bones of his mother.
"How do you know my name?"
Aamon said, tilting his head in confusion.
"Have we met before?"
"Abyss?"
Arya hissed, her voice a mixture of shock and dawning horror. The pieces… the power, the innocence… the sheer untapped potential… clicked into a terrifying, world-shattering picture.
"No… It can't actually be… I thought it was a different demon, some minor lordling… not… not her."
"This is true."
Ciel confirmed, her voice steady as she stepped slightly in front of Aamon… a protective gesture that now felt terrifyingly inadequate. "Baculus Glacialis," she whispered… her ice staff materialized in her hands with a faint chime of forming crystals, the air around it dropping in temperature.
"Friend is son of the Witch. We were telling truth."
"Yeah."
Aamon said, turning a worried… apologetic face to Arya. The guilt in his expression was for the omission… not the heritage.
"I thought you knew. I've been honest about it. It just never came up to say my mother's name was Abyss."
"Enough of your nonsense!"
The Valkyrie yelled, her patience shattering like glass.
"Tch… we can talk about this later."
Arya growled, her grip tightening on her axes until the leather wrappings creaked… She moved defensively to Aamon's other side, falling into a low ready stance. The revelation changed nothing about the immediate threat… and yet it changed everything about the future. "Anyways." she muttered.
"I probably should have guessed you were no normal demon."
"My lady told me to end you,"
the Valkyrie spat, lifting her spear. The weapon now hummed with a palpable… lethal energy… the air around it shimmering with heat.
"I am Valtheris, one of the Succubus of Sloth's guardians. You will die, and so will your party."
"Sayerra? Wow… I've heard that name."
Aamon murmured, a flicker of what felt like an ancient memory in his eyes.
"But I won't just let you hurt them."
he declared, his voice gaining a resonant… demonic strength that seemed to vibrate in their bones.
"We have come too far, I c-"
In an instant, Valtheris was gone. She didn't run; she moved… a streak of silver and righteous fury faster than Arya's hunter eyes could track… faster than thought.
A blur of gold…
The smell of a fur coat…
The ruffle of feathers…
It was all cut off by the spear… its point a sliver of concentrated death aimed with unerring precision straight at Ciel's heart.
"Reflectu-" Ciel began, her mind working faster than her voice. Her body already moving into a defensive pivot. Not even half the defensive spell left her lips before the spear was upon her… a line of inevitable doom she could not possibly evade.
And then, everything stopped.
Valtheris's spear stopped. Not because it met its mark with a sickening crunch of bone and ice. No. It met a force stronger. Aamon's hand, moving in a blur that eclipsed even her divine speed had snapped forward. His clawed fingers, gentle enough to cradle a dying mouse… now pinched the twin blades of the spearhead just inches from Ciel's sternum. The impact sent no shockwave; he simply absorbed it… his arm not even trembling… the impossible force dying in his grasp as if it were nothing.
"I said no."
Aamon's voice was low, a guttural rumble that was entirely new. It was not the voice of a cheerful pup, but the echo of the Abyss itself. He glared at Valtheris, his ruby eyes blazing.
"You… you jerk!!"
He yelled the word as if it were the most vile curse he knew.
A fraction of a second of stunned silence hung in the air. Valtheris's head, encased in her helm… tilted slightly. Then… a laugh… sharp and metallic, grated from within.
"Ha! I should have gone for the wolf… she loo-"
She was quickly cut off. Not by words… by action.
Aamon's free hand shot out. He didn't grab the shaft; he simply shoved the spear tip he was holding down… slamming it into the earth with a force that buried a foot of the metal deep into the turf. In the same motion, a blur of black and crimson… he pivoted. His leg, clad in the fine fabric of his suit, swept up and forward. His shin connected with Valtheris's chest plate.
The sound was not a dull thud. It was a catastrophic CRUNCH of shattering enchantments and buckling mythril. The ornate armor… capable of turning aside ballista bolts… caved inwards. The force of the blow lifted the Valkyrie from her feet and sent her hurtling backward like a discarded toy. She crashed through the iron-banded fence surrounding the estate as if it were kindling… vanishing into the dark interior of the garden in a shower of splintered wood and twisted metal.
Silence, deeper and more profound than before, descended upon the clearing.
Aamon stood, his chest heaving… not from exertion… from the surge of adrenaline and protective fury. He looked at his own hands as if seeing them for the first time.
"Friend."
Ciel's voice was, as ever a calm… analytical anchor in the sudden quiet. She had not even flinched.
"Do not worry about Ciel. She will keep up support."
Her icy gaze shifted to Arya, who was staring… axes half lowered… her jaw slightly agape.
"Arya… keep back for a while."
The message was clear. The calculus of the fight had just been irrevocably altered. The "pup" was no longer just fire to be directed. He was the storm. And for now… they were standing in its eye.
The silence that followed Valtheris's explosive entry into the estate was short lived. broken not by a cry of pain… by the shriek of tortured metal from within the garden's gloom. Aamon stood poised… his chest still heaving with the aftershock of his own power. The air itself felt charged with the ozone of shattered magic and the black dust of pulverized stone.
From the wreckage of the fence, a figure emerged… moving with a slow… deliberate menace that was more terrifying than her initial speed. Valtheris rose, her once pristine armor now a testament to violence. The magnificent breastplate was a crater of buckled mythril… the central impact point, a spiderweb of fractures around a deep fist shaped dent. A trickle of something too gold and shimmering to be blood seeped from a crack near the collar and dripped onto the scorched grass with a faint sizzle… The elegant spirals obliterated.
A crack ran up one side of her helmet, her left pauldron hung by a few stubborn straps. The spear in her hand was still steady… and the eyes behind the fractured visor burned with a cold, reassessed fury. She no longer saw a naive demon; she saw the son of the Abyss… and her entire posture shifted into that of a hunter facing a leviathan.
"So…"
Her voice was a distorted scrape from within the helm.
"The stories are true. The Abyss left an heir."
She took a step forward, her boot crunching on debris.
"A pity you inherited her blood but not her ambition. You fight to protect. A fatal flaw."
Aamon said nothing. The cheerful, inquisitive pup was gone… locked away behind a wall of instinctual rage. His ruby eyes were narrowed… his body coiled. His usually wagging tail was now a rigid, spiked scorpion's sting held low and ready.
"Agian Ciel will provide support. Arya, wait for Ciel's signal."
Ciel's voice cut through the tension… calm and analytical. She had repositioned herself behind the cover of a shattered marble planter. Her glacial staff held at the ready, The air around her began to crystallize with a soft… freezing hum.
Valtheris exploded into motion again… but this time her approach was different. She didn't aim for Ciel. She knew the true threat. She became a silver blur, zigzagging across the manicured lawn. Her movements unpredictable… She was a needle trying to find a seam in Aamon's defense.
"Cingulum Ignis!" Aamon's voice was a guttural command. A whip of abyssal fire… darker and hungrier than before, snapped from his palm. It wasn't a wall of flame meant to obliterate; it was a precise… living lash that sought to entangle. It missed Valtheris by inches as she sidestepped, the fire scorching a blackened trench in the grass where she had been.
She used the momentum of her dodge to launch herself into the air… her great wings beating once, sending a gust of wind that tore leaves from the ornamental trees. She hung for a moment, a vengeful angel against the sky, before diving… her spear aimed at Aamon's head like a thunderbolt.
He didn't dodge. He met it.
His claws, wreathed in a corona of black energy… shot up and caught the spear shaft just below the head. The impact was a concussive blast of force that shook the ground. Aamon's boots dug two furrows in the soft earth… he held fast. The two of them were locked in a contest of pure strength, demonic power against divine might. The spear groaned… the metal straining.
"You are strong, child."
Valtheris grunted, her voice strained.
"But strength without focus is noise."
With a brutal twist, she disengaged… flipping backward and landing lightly. The moment her feet touched the ground, she thrust her spear forward. "Lux Purgatio!" A beam of concentrated holy energy, blindingly white and searingly hot… shot from the spear tip.
Aamon crossed his arms in front of his face… his wings snapping forward to form a leathery shield. The beam struck with the sound of a forge hammer hitting an anvil. The holy light sizzled and spat against his demonic flesh, for the first time… a grunt of a new kind of pain escaped him. The scent of burnt ozone and something sweet… like scorched sugar, filled the air.
"Now, Ciel!"
Arya barked from the sidelines, her body tense. Every muscle screaming to join the fray.
Ciel was already moving. "Pruina Glacies!" she chanted, her staff flashing. A sheet of black, and impossibly slick ice erupted from the ground beneath Valtheris's feet. The Valkyrie, expecting solid footing… faltered. Her boots lost all purchase, and she skidded… her wings flaring to regain balance. It was only a second of distraction but it was enough.
Aamon capitalized instantly. He lunged through the dissipating holy light, his form a blur. He didn't use magic this time; he used his body as a battering ram. He slammed into Valtheris… his shoulder connecting with her damaged chest plate. The already buckled metal screamed in protest, as she was thrown back… skidding across the icy patch and crashing through a stone bench.
She was on her feet in an instant… but her movements were slower now. Aamon's relentless assault was taking its toll. She glared at Ciel. "A nuisance." She pointed her spear… and a volley of smaller… sharper beams of light shot toward the elf's position.
"Cingulum Ignis!" Aamon roared again, this time sending his whip of fire not at Valtheris… but in a wide… defensive arc in front of Ciel. The dark flames intercepted the holy light, the two opposing energies canceling each other out in a shower of sparks and a deafening hiss.
"Arya, her left flank! She favors the right leg after the bench!"
Ciel called out, her voice still eerily calm. Reading the fight like a chessboard.
That was the signal. With a feral grin that was all teeth, Arya exploded from her cover. She didn't roar; she was silent, a golden predator closing the distance in heartbeats. Valtheris, turning to face the new threat… was a fraction of a second too slow.
Arya's axes were a whirlwind of gilded death. She didn't aim for the heavy armor; she went for the weaknesses. One axe hacked at the back of Valtheris's knee. The mythril greave held… but the force of the blow was enough to hyperextend the joint with a sickening… wet pop of tendons straining past their limit. Valtheris staggered a choked gasp hissing from her helmet. The other axe swept up toward the straps holding her damaged pauldron. The Valkyrie was forced to parry frantically with her spear… the clang of golden axe on silver spear filling the garden.
"Annoying vermin!"
Valtheris snarled, swatting at Arya with the butt of her spear. The blow was powerful enough to shatter rock… Arya was already gone, ducking and weaving. Her agility is her greatest weapon, keeping the Valkyrie off balance.
This was the opening Aamon needed. While Valtheris was distracted by Arya's relentless assault… he gathered his power. The air around him grew heavy, the light seeming to dim. The bone rings on his fingers glowed with a sickly… phosphorescent light. He placed his hands on the ground.
"Fractura Terrae."
The earth beneath Valtheris's feet did not just crack; it unmade itself. A chasm opened, not of soil and rock… but of pure… devouring shadow. Jagged spikes of obsidian, sharpened from the very essence of the Abyss shot up from the void… seeking to impale her.
Valtheris cried out, a sound of genuine shock and pain as one of the spikes scraped against her armored thigh. It didn't just gouge the metal; it punched through, the abyssal stone tearing through the mythril and into the flesh beneath. A spray of golden ichor… arced through the air, each drop burning like a tiny star where it landed on the grass.
She beat her wings furiously… lifting herself from the collapsing ground, but the effort was costly. She was airborne… but unstable.
"Lancea Frigoris!" Ciel's voice rang out. A javelin of ice… sharper than any diamond, shot from the tip of her staff. It wasn't aimed at Valtheris's body, at the joint of her right wing. It struck true, a spiderweb of frost instantly spread across the primary feathers… weighing the wing down and throwing her into a spiral.
She crashed to the ground in a heap of metal and feathers… rolling several times before coming to a stop near the mansion's grand sealed doors. She was slow to rise this time, using her spear as a crutch. The holy light around her was flickering… her divine energy being drained by the relentless, coordinated assault.
"It's over."
Aamon said, his voice hollow with spent power. He began to walk toward her, his pace deliberate.
"You can't win. Please leave."
Valtheris pushed herself to her feet… her breath ragged. She looked at the trio, the demon prince, the icy strategist, the feral warrior. A strange, resigned laugh echoed from her helmet.
"You think this is a victory? You have no idea what you are interrupting. My mistress's will is but one thread in a much larger tapestry."
She straightened her back, a final act of defiance.
"And I am not finished."
With a last surge of power, she slammed the butt of her spear into the ground. "Lux Finalis!" A dome of blinding… purifying light erupted from her. It expanded outward in a wave of concussive force. a last… desperate gambit.
Aamon braced, his wings forming a shield again… the light was meant to disorient, not damage. Arya was thrown back… her axes flying from her hands as she was blinded. Ciel hissed, her staff flaring as she threw up a hasty wall of ice that shattered on contact.
When the light faded, Valtheris was already in motion. She had used the distraction not to attack… but to gain the high ground. She leaped, her frost encumbered wing giving one last,... powerful beat… carrying her onto the mansion's portico, directly before the massive… obsidian double doors.
"Sorry, this ends now."
Aamon growled, his patience gone. He sprinted across the garden… his demonic speed carrying him faster than any mortal could follow. He didn't bother with the steps. He simply jumped, clearing the entire flight and landing on the portico with a crack of stone.
Valtheris turned to face him, her spear held in a two handed grip. She was cornered… with the immense doors at her back.
"You are a fool to follow me here."
she spat.
"This place is not my own, it's his…"
"I don't care."
Aamon said simply, and he charged.
It was a brutal, close quarters exchange. Spear against claw. Mythril against abyssal flesh. Valtheris was a master technician… her strikes precise and economical, aiming for joints, the throat, the eyes. But Aamon was a force of nature. He tanked blows that would have pulverized a castle wall… the impacts sending sparks flying. He grabbed the spear shaft again, and this time, with a terrifying wrench… he bent it. The metal screamed, and Valtheris was forced to let go, the weapon clattering to the ground… now useless.
She was defenseless.
Aamon didn't hesitate. He stepped in… his movements fluid and final. He grabbed her by the throat and the edge of her ruined breastplate. He lifted her, the divine warrior kicking and struggling in his grasp… her gauntlets beating uselessly against his arms.
"This is for trying to hurt my friends."
he said, his voice a low… demonic rumble.
With that, he spun… putting all his weight and power into the motion. He didn't throw her back into the garden. He hurled her, like a discus… directly at the mansion's grand sealed front doors.
Valtheris's body became a silver projectile. She crashed into the obsidian doors. The sound was less an impact and more a deep… resonant gong of shattering divinity. The already cracked helmet took the brunt of the impact, the visor splintered, revealing a flash of a perfect… furious mouth now gasping and spitting flecks of that same golden blood. The sound of her body tumbling into the darkness wasn't just clattering metal; it was the wet meaty sound of a broken doll, followed by the distinct snap of a wing being crushed under the weight of armor. It shook the entire facade of the mansion. The intricate… galaxy shattering stained glass in the windows nearby rattled in their frames. For a moment, it seemed the doors would hold. Then… with a splintering crack that spoke of immense, ancient enchantments failing… the locks and bars within gave way.
The doors exploded inward.
Valtheris vanished into the profound darkness within… her armor scraping and clattering as she tumbled end over end into the unseen interior. The sound echoed for a moment, then was swallowed by the waiting silence of the house.
Aamon stood on the portico, chest heaving. His suit torn in places, faint wisps of smoke rising from where the holy light had seared him. The shattered doors yawned open before him… a gateway into darkness. The fight on the grounds was over. He had won.
But as he stared into the abyss of Atom's mansion… a new… subtle sound reached his ears, carried on a cold draft from within. It was the light… cheerful… and utterly terrifying jingle of a bell…