With a sideways movement, he strikes the air. A shockwave of vacuum pressure hurls Ignis against the opposite wall with such force that the stones shatter. Before she can fall, the Demon points his shadow blade, firing electric beams that strike Ignis, immobilizing her in an endless shock. The demon throws her against the wall and binds her hands and wings with iron stakes, making her scream in agony.
King: "So that's it? You hid your face behind a corpse because you were afraid Thor would see you from up there?"
King doesn't wait for an answer. He knows this is no longer a fight of endurance, but of mutual destruction. He summons the anchoring rune Janclécio gave him. The rune glows in his pocket and he crushes it against the blade of his axe.
The dwarven metal absorbs the power of maritime stability, becoming immensely heavy and glowing with a pale golden light.
He advances. The Storm Demon unleashes a continuous beam of negative energy, but King uses his axe as a shield, advancing step by step against the gale. Each step shatters the marble beneath his feet.
King: "IGNIS! NOW OR NEVER!"
Ignis, even pinned to the wall by the iron stakes, roars. She focuses all her will not on freeing herself, but on her own nature. Her copper scales begin to glow a blinding white. She transforms into her true form, breaking the stakes with ease.
The fight becomes a spectacle of brute force and collapsing elements.
The Storm Demon (Malthazar's true form) fights not with the elegance of a mage, but with the violence of a natural disaster.
He strikes the ground, and columns of lightning erupt from beneath King's feet. The Goliath is thrown high into the air, but in mid-air, he grabs one of the elevator's adamant chains, spinning his massive body to fall like a meteor upon the monster.
King: (The impact of his axe against the demon's obsidian shoulder generates a shockwave that extinguishes nearby torches) "Your brother may be the darkness, but YOU are just the noise before the fall!"
The Storm Demon grips King's axe handle with one hand and, with the other, unleashes a blast of cutting wind that carves deep furrows into the warrior's armor. King's blood boils as he touches the enemy's electric aura.
The demon prepares to attack with King's axe, but as the axe is about to strike his chest, the weapon stops in mid-air, stopped by a little girl who grabs the weapon by the blade, receiving only a superficial cut on her left hand.
Little Girl: (In a sweet voice that sends shivers down the spine) "Noisy as always, huh, Malthazar? You always had this habit of thinking that lightning and screams would compensate for your inferior nature."
The silent impact of the blade against the little girl's palm echoes louder than any of Malthazar's thunder. King, his muscles tense and his blood boiling with electricity, watches in disbelief: his weapon, capable of splitting mountains, is motionless.
The girl doesn't push it—she doesn't have the mass or leverage for that—she simply holds it, as if the axe had reached the end of its own existence. The thick, human, red blood runs down King's runic blade, dripping onto the stone floor.
Samael: (His voice is soft, but carries the weight of ages) "Noisy as always, huh, Malthazar? You always had this habit of thinking that lightning and screams would compensate for your inferior nature." Malthazar, the Storm Demon, releases the axe handle and recoils, his storm clouds losing their cohesion. The terror on his face is clear. He retreats, his cloud and lightning form flickering and diminishing, terror replacing the fury on his demonic face.
Malthazar: "You... What are you doing here?!"
The instant she releases the blade, the sadistic calm and the facade of indifference crumble. Time, which seemed suspended by her will, resumes its course with a sensory vengeance.
She staggers backward, her wounded hand pressed against her chest. Her face, once icy and superior, contorts into a purely childlike grimace.
Her brown eyes begin to glisten with the accumulation of tears she desperately fights to hold back. She bites her lower lip so hard that it bleeds, emitting a muffled sound, a sob she tries to swallow.
Little girl: (Her voice choked with pain) — This... this shouldn't... it shouldn't hurt so much... You worms...
Malthazar, seeing the little girl's tears, lets out a nervous, maniacal laugh. The aura of terror that immobilized him begins to give way to opportunistic cruelty.
Malthazar: — Look! The great Hunter is crying! The Hunter Kyton has been reduced to a spoiled child by a piece of dwarven iron!
The scene in the Adamant Anchor chamber becomes a chaotic mix of conflicting intentions. The air smells of burnt ozone and fresh blood.
King explodes into action. The flashback of torture merges with his fury. He sees in Malthazar the architect of all this misfortune. The Goliath ignores the pain of the lightning whipping his skin and charges against the colossus of clouds and electricity.
King leaps, grabbing what should be the Storm Demon's neck. His fingers close around pure energy and atmospheric density. He begins to deliver punches directly to the center of Malthazar's chest, where the blue gem pulsates. Each blow is a thunderclap that drowns out the demon's screams.
Meanwhile, Ignis does the unthinkable. She walks calmly toward Samael's small figure. She ignores the fact that this "child" is the Hunter Kyton, the architect of pain who nearly destroyed King's mind. She sees only the red blood and the sobbing cries.
Ignis: (Her voice is low, muffling the sound of King's struggle in the background) — "Shhh... stop fighting it. The pain is real. You are in a body of flesh, Samael. And flesh needs care."
Ignis kneels before the little girl. Samael raises his teary eyes, his face contorted in confusion bordering on panic. He has never been in this position; she is the one who causes the pain, not the one who receives it under the light of compassion.
The cat Mephisto, the intangible essence of Darkness, floats beside them, his pupils fixed on the wounded hand.
Ignis extends his scaly hands and encircles Samael's small, bloodied hand. The Dragonborn's heat isn't aggressive; it's a healing heat, attempting to seal the blood vessels opened by the deep axe cut.
Samael: "This... hurts... it hurts a lot."
Ignis: "It's natural. A blow like that would have not only torn your hands off, but also split you in two, if it weren't for the fact that you're a demon."
Samael: "No... pain isn't natural for me. I wasn't supposed to feel pain... why?"
Samael's question echoes through the chamber, laden with a vulnerability that shouldn't exist in a Kyton Hunter. The crying, now quieter, is replaced by an existential doubt that seems to paralyze even the shadow currents around him.
Ignis: (Keeping his voice soft, as the heat of his hands begins to close the broken tissues of Samael's small hand) — "Because you chose this body." "You wanted to feel the world to better torture it, didn't you? But flesh is a double-edged sword. If you inhabit red blood, you inherit the nerves that scream."
Samael: (pushing Ignis's hands away with a light, weak slap) "Don't talk nonsense, Draconata. I absorbed thousands of souls, all of them to keep me alive and feel my pain in my place. I feel nothing." Or at least he didn't feel it."
Mephisto the cat tilts his head, his intangibility rippling. He seems fascinated by the sight of Samael's blood being contained. For a fraction of the Demon of Darkness, seeing fear in the eyes of one who should be fearless is a new and perverse lesson.
In the background, the sound of bones—or whatever sustains Malthazar's form—cracking under King's fists creates a violent contrast. The Storm Demon roars in agony, his electricity failing with each blow from the Goliath, who seems possessed by a divine fury.
Malthazar: "SHE'S DECEIVING YOU, DRAGONBORN! HER PAIN IS OUR DEATH! SHE WILL... AAARGH!"
King: SHUT UP, BITCH!
King silences him with a direct punch to the core, and silence returns to the circle between Ignis and Samael. The atmosphere in the chamber becomes suffocating. The pain, which was once a prison, becomes the fuel for a dark metamorphosis.
When Ignis finishes sealing the cut, Samael doesn't recoil in gratitude; he rises with icy clarity. He looks at his own hands, now scarred, and then at Malthazar, who crawls under King's control.
Samael: "You're right, Draconata," (his voice is now double: the girl's thin voice and the metallic echo of the Kyton Hunter) "The flesh needs care. And mine needs to be avenged for having been forced to feel."
In a fluid movement of combat, Samael ignores the others for a second and focuses on the Storm Demon, he channels the agony he has just experienced and transforms it into pure arcane force to end the demon's existence.
Samael: "Third Circle Magic: Lightning!
Ironically, he uses Malthazar's element against him, but in a corrupted way. Samael fires a linear beam of blue-violet electricity that smells of burnt flesh.
The blow strikes Malthazar's chest with a deafening crack. Samael's electricity is "dirty," mixed with shadows, and corrodes the demon's ethereal form from the inside out.
Malthazar: — "NO! SAMAEL, WE ARE ON THE SAME SIDE!" "THE PACT... THE CONTRACT!"
Samael simply replies that the contract is over, since he no longer belongs to Hell, and is now an exile. The lightning bolt pierces the Storm Demon, causing it to explode in a shower of black sparks and ozone. Malthazar is disintegrated, leaving behind only his elemental core—a crackling gem that spins on the ground like spoils of war.
Samael takes a deep breath, his face returning to the expression of a porcelain doll, though the hatred in his eyes is undeniable. He turns to King, who picks up the axe, and to Ignis.
Mephisto, the black cat who carried a fraction of the Dark Demon's essence, wastes no time. He is a millennial survivor and knows that, with Malthazar's death and Samael's exile, the balance of power in the chamber has crumbled.
Taking advantage of the lightning's smoke, the blinding glow of Malthazar's elemental core, and With Samael's absolute focus on King and Ignis, the cat liquefies into shadows. Without making a single sound of paws or clinking of claws, it glides through the cracks in the rocks, skirting the Adamant Anchor.
It flees to the upper galleries of Ratavabaros, disappearing into the deep darkness. Samael, still intoxicated by his own liberation and the pain he has just overcome, doesn't notice the departure of the creature he so feared. Now, he is alone with Ignis and King.
Samael: (His voice sounds drier, the physical exhaustion of the little girl's body beginning to take its toll) — "Where were we?" Ah, yes... the part where I decide whether to let you live to tell the story of my birth as a free being, or whether to use what remains of my strength to ensure that King never again manages to hold that axe."
He takes a step forward, but stumbles slightly. His fleshly body is still adjusting to the shock of the injury and the use of 3rd-level magic.
Samael lets out a short laugh, a crystalline, high-pitched sound that sounds bizarrely innocent given the horror that has just unfolded. He looks at his own hand, where the scar left by Ignis still glows faintly, and then at King, who remains tense, ready for an attack that never comes.
Samael: (In his usual sweet, childlike voice, while wiping a last drop of blood from his chin) — "You know... I should turn your tendons into harp strings right now. It would sound so beautiful, wouldn't it, King?" But... today was a day of many discoveries."
He pauses dramatically, a mischievous smile appearing in his brown eyes.
Samael: "Pain, freedom, the taste of a fellow being's blood... I feel generous today. Besides, I need to find out why I felt pain... maybe... shit. Lilith took my souls."
He begins to walk calmly towards the shadows where the cat Mephisto escaped. His childlike steps echo in the silent chamber, light and rhythmic. He stops for a second and looks over his shoulder, the expression of a little girl playing hide-and-seek.
Samael: "Consider this forgiveness, Goliath. But don't get used to it. The world out there is now my playground, and you two... you've become my favorite toys."
The air around him seems to cool drastically, but the little girl's voice remains soft, almost like a secret whispered in his ear.
Samael: "Don't be so relieved. Now that I no longer answer to hell, I don't need to wait for you to come to me. We will meet much more often than before... in every dark alley, in every scream you hear in the night. I will be nearby, watching."
With a childlike wave and a little finger wave, he disappears into the deep darkness of the galleries. He simply ceases to be there, leaving King and Ignis alone in the Anchor chamber, with Malthazar's pulsating core glowing lonely on the floor.
The lightning storm ceased, but the silence that remained, filled only by the echo of that child's voice, is far more terrifying.