It felt like I had been drifting in that void for years. Time didn't just stop; it stretched until it became a physical weight, a crushing pressure of loneliness that threatened to flatten my soul. But as the hours, or decades, passed, I stopped fighting the dark. I stopped fearing it.
The only way out was through. I realized that if I let the darkness be an enemy, it would win. But if I treated it like a resource...
"You can do this," I whispered, my voice sounding small in the infinite black.
I closed my eyes and stopped trying to hold myself together. I opened the "pores" of my spirit and began to draw it in. Breathe in. Breathe out. With every inhale, I invited the void into my lungs, into my veins, into the marrow of my bones. I felt a surge of ancient, starved energy. It was like feeding a beast inside of me that had been dormant since the day I was born, a part of my demon heritage that had finally found its proper fuel.
It was hungry. It was ravenous. It demanded more, and I gave it everything. I drank the darkness until my blood felt like liquid lead and my skin hummed with a frequency of pure shadow.
Then, the world tilted.
I blinked, and the suffocating void was gone. I was standing in the middle of a room. My room. The familiar carvings on the obsidian walls, the scent of expensive incense, the velvet of my bedsheets, it was all there. I looked down at my hands. I was wearing the same maroon dress I'd been wearing the day Lilith trapped me.
"Is this another illusion?" I muttered, my voice echoing.
I stepped out into the hallway. The palace was exactly as I had left it. I started to run, my heart hammering with a mix of adrenaline and newfound power. In my haste, I forgot I even had wings until I took a corner too fast and skimmed the ceiling. I snapped them open, the leathery membranes feeling stronger, more solid than ever before. I flew straight for the Royal Wing, heading for my father's study.
As I approached the massive oak doors, a familiar, icy chill washed over me. He was in there. I could feel the aura of a Great Lord. Without knocking, I threw the doors open, the wood slamming against the stone walls.
"Father! Lord Asmodeus!" I called out, my voice booming.
The room was dim. The heavy desk was empty. I scanned the shadows, my wings twitching with a strange, new instinct.
"Ria?"
The voice came from the corner. My blood turned to fire. The chills I had felt weren't from my father, they were from him. That traitorous, golden-eyed snake.
"Nagas," I hissed. My vision blurred with a dark, oily haze. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want explanations. I wanted to see his eyeballs rolling on the floor.
"You bloody snake!"
I didn't just move; I vanished. With the speed of the darkness I had consumed, I dashed across the room, an enormous amount of dark energy oozing from my skin. I felt it coil around my arm like a lash as I swung a punch directly upward, catching him beneath the jaw.
The impact was sickeningly satisfying. I heard a sharp crack, the sound of a fang snapping, and he went flying backward. He hit the floor hard, but before he could even groan, his body began to shift. His limbs dissolved into scales, his spine elongated, and a massive, black-scaled serpent took his place, hissing in agony.
I looked down and saw a white shard on the floor. "You lost a tooth," I said, a dark, jagged smirk pulling at my lips. "Want to lose another?"
"I'm going to end you once and for all, half-breed!" the snake hissed, his voice a distorted rasp.
He moved with terrifying speed, a blur of muscle and scales, lunging for my throat with his remaining fangs.
"Oh, no you don't."
I flared my wings and shot upward, hovering just out of reach. As he slithered beneath me, I dived, my fingers curling into claws. I raked them down his spine, from the base of his head to the tip of his tail. Thick, black demon blood sprayed across my maroon dress and dripped from my nails. Nagas winced, a high-pitched shriek escaping his throat.
"YOU!" he bellowed.
Before I could bank away, his massive tail whipped around like a coil of iron, wrapping around my waist. He squeezed, his grip tightening until I heard my ribs begin to groan.
"I'm going to enjoy eating you," he growled, pulling me closer to his gaping maw.
"TRAITOR!"
I didn't fight the grip. Instead, I reached back into that well of darkness I'd absorbed in the void. But this time, it wasn't cold. It began to boil. My skin turned a deep, obsidian grey, and the air around me began to shimmer. I felt like a volcano about to erupt, a pressure building in my chest that was too great to contain.
In a split second, I didn't just emit energy, I erupted in flame. True, hellish fire. I was in my full demon form, my horns fully manifested and glowing like embers. The heat was so intense that Nagas's tail didn't just release me; it began to melt.
"ARGHHHHH!"
The serpent thrashed as I landed gracefully on the floor, the flames licking at the air around me. Nagas collapsed, his form shrinking back into a man, his body charred and smoking.
"Did that hurt?" I asked, my voice sounding like a choir of shadows.
I walked toward him, my footsteps leaving scorched prints on the rug. I reached out and touched his shoulder. The moment my fingers made contact, the fire jumped. Within seconds, the great Nagas was nothing more than a pile of grey ash and bone fragments.
The flames receded, and I felt myself return to my "normal" state, though the power still hummed under my skin. I spotted a glass vial on my father's side table. I picked it up, scooped a handful of Nagas's ashes into it, and corked it.
"Lilith is next," I whispered.
I turned and walked out of the chambers, heading straight for the Great Throne Room. I didn't hide. I didn't sneak. I walked with the heavy, measured stride of a Queen.
I pushed the double doors open. The sight was enough to stop anyone's heart. All the Demon Lords were present, a high council meeting. Even Nagas's father, the King of Serpents, was there. And Lilith. She sat near the head of the table, looking smug and untouchable.
The room went graveyard-quiet. I walked past the Serpent King, past the Lords of Greed and Envy, my eyes fixed forward. I didn't stop until I reached my own throne, the one reserved for the General of Gaya. I sat down, crossing my legs, and adjusted my maroon dress, which was still stained with Nagas's blood.
My father sat on his main throne, silent as a statue, watching me with an unreadable expression.
"Now, now," I said, breaking the silence. My voice carried to every corner of the hall. "Why are we quiet? You seemed to be having a very important meeting before I walked in. A meeting without the General... that's a bit odd, isn't it?"
I looked directly at Lilith. She looked like she'd seen a ghost. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with a mix of shock and pure, unadulterated fury.
"Word spread that you were dead, Your Highness," the Third Demon Lord stammered, his voice trembling as he looked from me to my father.
The other lords nodded frantically, shifting in their seats. My father still said nothing. He just leaned back, his chin resting on his hand, his eyes burning with a dark curiosity.
I let out a long, slow sigh and leaned into my throne. "As you can see," I said, holding up the vial of Nagas's ashes, "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."