In a flash, Adam moved.
His large body, for a moment, seemed to defy physics.
He dropped into a low crouch and then streaked along the inside of the wall, like a shadow given form, his movement so swift and unexpected that his own demons on the wall stared in surprise; many unable to even clearly see his figure.
This was his first time showcasing his mid-tier strength.
He used his own horde, the chaos of the opposing demons, and the angle of the wall to his advantage; keeping his movement obscured from Kaelgor's view.
In seconds, he moved to the far right, before darting towards the barrier's edge.
The shimmering wall hummed before him, and on the other side, less than forty meters away, behind a swarm of rampaging demons, was Lyra.
Her silver-mercury eyes were still scanning, her body tense with the instinct to flee.
Then she felt it.
That same psychic violation from before, the feeling of being utterly seen through and dissected, but now it was a focused, searing beam; lacking any desire to hide its origin. It wasn't just a glance; it was a groping, intrusive stare that scraped against her mind; prying her open and caressing her at the same, nauseating time.
Her head snapped up, her elegant features twisting in a mix of shock, revulsion, and anger.
Her gaze locked onto Adam.
He stood there, separated only by the translucent energy field.
One hand was raised, leaning against the barrier, observing, like looking through a pane of glass with a fascinating insect trapped on the other side; or more like a beautiful courtesan to be viewed.
The mental invasion was short, as Lyra immediately, instinctively drove him out of his mind, causing him a small mental shock and backlash as a result… but it was all worth it.
The small glimpse was enough to see a glaring emotional weakness within the recess of her mind.
A slow condescending smirk spread across his face.
His eyes, burning with hellish embers, held a possessive amusement. He looked her up and down; a collector appraising a new acquisition.
The blatant lust angered Lyra, but a shiver couldn't help but run through out her body; the warning at the back of her mind was louder than ever at that moment.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and intimate, cutting through the raging battle, meant for her ears alone. His words were laced with a psychic energy that drove the words like stakes into her mind.
"Still putting on a strong front, little elf?" He murmured, his tone dripping with false pity, "I can still see the ghost of the fragile creature you were. Hiding at the back, letting the brutes do the work while you look for a hole to escape into. Some things never change, do they? Even hell couldn't burn the coward out of you."
Caution, no, cowardice and the loathing she had for feeling it!
Why she held hatred for such a feeling, for an emotion, was still unbeknownst to Adam, but he could make some simple guesses.
Such as: it was likely an emotion that was strongly tied to her fall, to her becoming a devil.
Lyra trembled, his words dug into her fresh wounds; wounds that were carried across a lifetime and festering with hate.
Adam leaned forward, his forehead almost touching the barrier, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper.
"Run along then. Go, run away, with your tail between your legs. You're a pathetic excuse for a royal of hell; letting your fear guide your instincts… you embarrassment!"
The effect was instantaneous and explosive.
Every word was meticulously, designed to shred the pride of the powerful being she had become and resurrect the insecurities of the mortal she had been. Vague enough because of the lack of information, but still directed at her most potent of insecurities and hatred.
Luckily, they were still at the lesser devil realm, being susceptible to such emotional turmoil. If they had been at the Awakened Devil realm, then such taunts and emotions attacks would have been much less effective; as a devil's journey included mastery over emotions and sin.
For Lyra, being fresh to this new life, to her new start, hasn't learned to control such volatile and intense emotions just yet.
Her past, her regrets, her insecurities, everything she wished to forget and overcome with her new life, was being agitated. Even if she knew that such words shouldn't garner much of a reaction from her… her anger still won in the end.
Her mind was clouded and her backward steps halted.
A devious smirk tugged on Adam's lips; his mastery of observation and emotions were growing in a rapid fashion. The subtle hint, the slight smell of cowardice and anger was all Adam needed; the chip in her mental state that Adam used to tear open her defenses.
"Argghh! You bastard!" A snarl was ripped from Lyra's throat.
The delicate traces of shadows beneath her skin erupted, swirling around her like a violent storm. Her silver eyes flashed with pure, undiluted fury.
The calculated caution, the survival instinct, everything was incinerated in the face of this profound, personal insult; her emotions ran deeper than Adam could have ever expected!
With a shriek of rage that startled and silenced the demons around her, she launched herself forward.
Dark, shadowy energy coalesced into a massive, jagged spear of solidified darkness in her hands. Her elegant, slender body launched into a blur. Her attack was aimed directly for the smirking face of the devil who dared to mock her!
She charged at the section of the barrier where Adam stood leaning, as if she could personally shatter the wall and rip his heart out.
Adam's taunt plunged a dagger into the raw, festering wound of Lyra's very existence.
The words "hiding" and "coward" didn't just insult the devil she was; they resurrected the elf she had been; the one she hated more than the devil before her.
Lyra's past was a one of peace, brutally ended and burned.
She had been Lyra of the Silverwood Clan, a simple keeper of knowledge in her villages library.
Their crime?
A lie, spun by envious neighboring clans who coveted their sacred, resource-rich lands.
The accusation: consorting with demons.
The truth: a pretext for genocide and plundering.
She remembered the terror of that day vividly; the air thick with smoke from torches that set their homes ablaze. The smell of burnt flesh and ash seared into her nostrils. She remembered the screams of her family, her friends, cut down not by monsters, but by the blades of their own kin; of a rivaling, though thought to be friendly, elf village.
And she remembered herself; cowering behind a thicket of glowing ferns, her body frozen by a paralyzing, shameful fear.
She was no warrior.
She was a scribe, a dreamer at most.
She could only watch, helpless, as her entire world was mercilessly erased. Her cowardice was a poison in her veins, a memory more painful than any flame. The terror of watching her life being slaughtered and burned was equally burned into her mind.
In the end, it was all for nothing: for they had found her too.
They dragged her into a burning longhouse, her resistance futile against their strength. Elf kin, known to be wise, righteous, and peaceful, threw her into the fire.
The agony was unlike any other, scarring even till this life; her skin blistered and melted off her flesh, her eyes popped and bursted into slush, her silver hair caught on fire before fading into ash, her voice screaming faded into a choked rasp as her strength faltered.
But her hatred did not.
In those final, agonizing moments, as her mortal body failed, her spirit did not pray to any god of light. Her broken sobs and animalistic growls were a prayer of pure, undiluted hatred, of rage!
A vow spat into the face of her enemies.
She damned her soul.
She begged to join the very demons they feared. She would embrace the darkness if it gave her the power to scour her enemies from her land.
They claimed her clan to be in alliance with the demons, so she wanted make their 'wishes' come true!
Her screeches and maniac curses gave the onlookers shivers, seeing a flaming elf still moving and cursing even with their throat melted into mush…
A subtle feeling of regret had been seeded that day.
They have created the very monster that they had accused the village of aiding; an irony that one day will come to bite them in the ass.
Because, in that moment, hell answered and cradled the rage filled soul; allowing her to be born in hell.
And now, this devil opposite of her, this arrogant bastard, had somehow reached across time to rip that shame wide open; to bring these hate-filled memories back to her.
The vengeful spirit of the burned elf, of hatred, took over.
"I'll KILL YOU!" Her shriek was the sound of a soul tearing in half.
Shadow energy, blacker than the void, erupted from her in a torrent; a spear of pure hatred in held in her hands.
She wasn't thinking of tactics or escape.
She had one goal: to shatter the barrier and impale the smirking devil who had just become the living embodiment of every elf who had ever looked down on her, of every hand that had held a torch.
Of revenge meant to hide her shame and regrets...