Seraphine's voice, when she spoke, carried the weight of three centuries of power, three centuries of protecting her domain, three centuries of being the last line of defense for those who had nowhere else to go.
"You shall pay for what you did to my people."
The words weren't a threat. They weren't bravado or false confidence. They were a promise, spoken with absolute conviction by someone who'd decided that compromise was no longer an option.
The environment around them responded to her fury. The corrupted spires began glowing with energy that matched her aura. The very ground cracked not from physical force but from the sheer intensity of her rage made manifest. The sky darkened as if reality itself was acknowledging the battle about to unfold.
The Reaper smiled—not his casual, bored smile from before, but something different. Something excited.
"Finally," he said. "Finally, someone who's actually going to make me try."
