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The Empress Luna

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There was an ominous silence as billowing cloud, aloft in black and white, emerged.

As Luna threw a coughing fit, she waved her hand in front of her face, driving the smoke away because she couldn't see.

Luna had a stroke of rotten luck.

The thick ice of the frozen lake cracked and dissolved into water in an instant, and she fell right into it.

She opened her mouth in a silent scream.

Gasping in shock due to the cold water, Luna panicked, and she couldn't think straight.

It wasn't easy to make a rational decision on how to extricate herself from the water when she couldn't swim.

Everything felt like it was in slow motion as the thick red velvet coat along with the layers of her purple gown weighed her down because of how heavy it was, dragging her to the bottom of the deep lake.

She fought against the currents.

Luna lifted her hands to the drawstring around her neck and untied it, shedding pieces of clothing one at a time to make herself lighter.

Mayhap, that would make her float better.

Luna can't swim, and she had proven that fact when she went to the entrance of the underground tunnel of the Valley of Kings so that she could get to the other side.

Luna had almost drowned, and Jon dragged her out of it.

That was the first, and the last time Jon did something kind to her.

It was still a shock to know that from the High Priestess initiation, she had come this far and survived as the wife of the Vampire King and blood-bonded to two Archdemons.

The rest of her adventure at the caves was a dark history she wouldn't dare repeat.

Luna didn't know how to float, either, and she had taken Sloth's advice into account.

There was no use struggling to get to the surface.

Luna let the ice-cold water penetrated her ears and nose, her body turning slack as she descended.

She was drowning, and there was no one to help her.

It was her fault but at least on her last breath—if an Archdemon even had one—she already knew how to harness her Archdemon magic.

'No.' Luna shook her head as she thrashed her arms in the water. 'She wouldn't let herself die.'

This was a mere test of her immortality.

Luna heard a song sung in her ears with her eyes closed.

It was a beguiling and intense wind-like song.

She let the freezing water currents slowly envelop her body as the ice molecules tightened into her skin, penetrating her bones.

The wind song became more insistent and charming around her as if she could hear and feel the music through her five senses like it was an intangible thing.

With the water filling her lungs as she drowned, Luna had appreciated the harmonies blending in together.

Her curiosity was so intense she wanted to open her eyes to know where it came from.

Still, Luna noticed that the more her entire being focused on it, the more it resonated into the walls of her brain as it vibrated into her eardrums in a much stronger frequency.

The effect had certain euphoria as if it was a hypnosis drug.

It calmed her down.

It was the kind of song that was mysterious and alluring because of its unpredictability.

It was like a song that didn't sound like a song.

It was as if it was talking to her like a conversation.

Nobody could have anticipated its next melody, catching one off-guard and therefore keeping the listener's ear ripe for seduction.

Seduction?

Song?

Luna opened her eyes and opened her mouth in a gasp, silently screaming at the sirens encircling her with their hands pressed together, showing their small shark teeth that were as sharp as a vampire's.

The sirens had long flowing black hair and pearl necklaces settled on their naked chest.

They swarmed around her excitedly.

One of the sirens in their group had smacked her fishtail into Luna's face like it was an intentional slap.

The sirens had stared at her menacingly, smiling from ear to ear as they continued to lure her with songs.

Their melodic, angelic vocals had successfully taken over her mind as she felt her body relax as if she was releasing her problems in life.

The black sirens had clawed at her leg, dragging her farther down the lake, and all Luna wanted was to hear their song longer and longer with a torpid obsession.

The more they went deeper, the more Luna noticed the ice-cold waters changing colors.

Luna swore she was hallucinating as she saw more sirens swimming towards her as their insidious faces came closer.

The siren's song in her head never stopped.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Luna covered her ears, but it was in vain.

The group of sirens who had taken her brought Luna to what-seemed-like ancient ruins of a temple with broken columns covered by moss and barnacles.

There were also large glowing jellyfishes around it, swimming and propelling themselves forward without a care in the world.

Corals and bioluminescent aquatic plants encompassed the temple.

There was a large basin at the center of the temple which contained a glutinous red liquid.

The crimson liquid was bright and rich.

It probably had a higher density than the water because it had stayed put in the basin, not mixing with the lake's blue water.

When the sirens brought her closer to the ancient ruins, what Luna had witnessed made her feel like the tiny hairs on her neck had risen and her blood had turned cold.

Heaps of corpses rot away inside that basin, rags of skin shriveling in their bones.

Luna couldn't believe that these sirens were present in Hell.

Sirens charm men through their irresistibly sweet voices, lulling them to jump from their ship into the vast ocean, tear them to pieces before eating them.

Perhaps, they were not sirens.

They were ice demons who were similar to them.