The bloody banquet, continued…

With a mighty roar, Sabik charged at Elena, its massive claws at the ready to maim and destroy. Moving swiftly, like shadows in pursuit, the newly-reborn Shadowlord was a lot quicker than its gargantuan size purported it to be, rapidly closing the distance between itself and its little Countess.

Taking a step back, Elena steadied her arm, and screamed her fury to the heavens. Blood trickled forth from her crimson eyes, and her sigil’s light coalesced into a massive fireball. Runic circles of Enochian paved its burning path as it blazed headfirst into Sabik’s advance as an all-consuming inferno, exploding upon the Shadowlord’s titanic frame in a cataclysmic burst of heat and red and orange light, illuminating the town square with the intensity of a blazing star, and blanketing the air with a thick fog of grey smoke singed with the stench of burning flesh and fetid sludge.

Wordlessly, Elena grit her teeth, her hand trembling and her vision bloody as her legs struggled to keep her afoot. Had she obliterated Sabik, just as easily as the accursed guardian of Amon had betrayed her? The smoke all around her, thick like a solid wall of grey and black, made it impossible to tell. And yet, surely, nothing could survive such raw power!

“A WORTHY EFFORT…”

“No way…”

Fighting back a gasp, Elena stood her ground as Sabik’s voice pierced through the smoke like an arrow of darkness through a chamber of light. The smoke was dissipating, bit by bit, but the Shadowlord was nowhere to be seen.

“BUT ULTIMATELY…”

With her gaze darting warily from side to side, and with more blood trickling from her eyes to empower her crimson sigil, Elena released salvo after salvo of fire, arcane, and necromantic magic, releasing them blindly into the smoke. But much to her mounting despair, the sounds of the ensuing destruction caused by her magics that rang out towards her, were that of furniture and buildings, and nothing more.

“FUTILE…”

Sabik’s voice made itself known, once more. This time, much closer than before. Elena readied herself for the Shadowlord’s inevitable appearance, but before she could prepare her sigil to counterattack, a sharp pain cut directly into her chest that shattered her concentration with the force of a sharpened spear, puncturing her flesh and shattering her ribs.

“Damn… you…”

Gasping bloodily, with blood leaking profusely from her jaws, Elena glared at Sabik. And then, down towards the writhing mass of solid shadow warped into the shape of a black lance that had impaled itself through her torso.

“YOU ARE A POWERFUL SORCERER,” Sabik declared. “BUT NOT POWERFUL ENOUGH…”

Laughing mighty, it lifted Elena up high like a piece of skewered meat. And as she bled and gasped for air, she could not help but notice, even in her dying moments in between bloody breaths, that the Shadowlord’s armour lay destroyed and shed upon the snow. Now, black fumes reeking of burnt metal simmered upon the nakedness of its dark body, on its hulking shoulders and writhing arms.

“WHAT A SHAME, THAT IT WOULD END LIKE THIS. WHAT WOULD HE THINK OF YOU NOW, DARE I ASK? TRAITOR.”

“I’ll… kill… you…”

“THINK ABOUT IT, SLOWLY…” Sabik taunted. “YOU WILL HAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO DO SO. FOR THE DARK GODDESS, YOU WILL DIE SLOWLY, AND…”

But before Sabik could finish its sentence, a bolt of lightning struck true from the side upon its exposed shoulders and elbows, with the force of a crashing boulder. And then, another, aiming for those same spots. The combined barrage was enough to break the Shadowlord’s focus, enough to force it to drop Elena upon the snow as it reeled forward, shrieking unintelligibly in pain while it searched for its new assailant.

“Impossible…”

Elena let out a bloody gasp, before gritting her teeth to distract herself from the pain of breathing. Her vision was bloody and blurry, and her wounds were still open and bleeding. And yet, her eyes were not deceiving her – Grinnaux was still alive. He had a hand upon his chest, bleeding just like her, but he was still standing. Somehow.

“Elena…”

“Brother…”

For a moment, they looked each other in the eye, and Elena looked away. It could have all been easily dismissed as a fever dream, one seen through eyes bloody and a mind delirious with certain death on the horizon. And yet, she found herself watching on as Sabik rushed clumsily at her brother with its claws, its movements now sluggish, broken, and unfocused, and she watched as arcane chains sprung forth from the snow, willed forth by her brother’s crimson sigil, that pinned the Shadowlord onto the ground, just out of claw’s reach.

“Don’t… don’t just stand there…” Grinnaux barked, a hand upon his chest and the bloodiness of his crimson eyes stealing a glance at his little sister. “Elena…”

Pressing a hand against the hole in her chest, Elena forced herself onto her feet. She brandished her sigil at Sabik, who could do nothing more than leer at her with blackened eyes wild with delirium at the white-hot flames forming upon her hand.

“I… I am… the master of the Grimoire… I… am…”

“YOU ARE UNWORTHY…”

“Shut up, I… I’m…”

The flames of Elena’s sigil surged forth and consumed Sabik, setting its gargantuan but fettered frame alight and overloading the arcane chains to burst one after another into fiery explosions upon its body that filled the air with black smoke. Soon, all that remained of the once-mighty Shadowlord upon Melodia was its black and oily core, and the souls of the lost and the damned of Eldia that had formed its titanic frame fizzled out into the heavens above, their collective voices screaming for release.

“Elena… Elena… de L’Enfer…”

When the words escaped her lips, Elena collapsed upon the snow. Defeated, with what little remained of her blood and her magic spent, she lay amongst the corpses of her people, each breath of cold and burnt air growing more painful than the last as her vision of Eldia and the heavens above, of what it had become all thanks to her, turned darker and fainter with every passing moment.