"You will pay for this!" Princess Bloomy shrieked in a fit of absolute wrath.
"And do you not owe a debt for the humans you've slaughtered?" Seraph countered, his voice like frost.
"…"
The young magis's retort silenced her instantly. She stood mute for a heartbeat before a jagged grin split her face once more.
"Heh... you must miss your old friends dearly... if that is the case, I will not deny your desire," she hissed with a cryptic edge.
[Hummmm-rumble...]
Princess Bloomy did not leave him to wonder for long. She flung her four arms wide, assuming the pose of a conductor orchestrating the Darkwood. The earth beneath their feet shivered. For a moment, all fell still, yet nothing seemed to change; the Raffbloom swarm resumed their relentless assault without pause.
The young magis continued to unleash destructive spells, purging any foe that dared breach his perimeter. Both sides clashed with every ounce of their remaining strength, neither yielding an inch.
[Bang! Crash!]
The crimson glare of flamus mageia and the jagged weapons of the demons collided in a ceaseless blur. Mageia rounds tore through demonic flesh with singular purpose. The bellows of war, the thunder of mageia detonations, and the rhythmic screech of steel on steel rang out in rapid succession—the sparking embers of a genocidal war.
If the lightless interior of the briar-dome were a miniature macrocosm, the flickering sparks of carnage made it seem as though two celestial powers were locked in a cosmic struggle.
[Crunch! Tear!]
As the violence reached its zenith, a mysterious claw thrust through the topsoil. A second pair of talons began to rake at the earth, and one by one, enigmatic undead forms hauled themselves from the depths like hungry ghosts rising from desecrated graves.
Undead that had never existed—and should never have existed—within the Darkwood began to stand, swaying unsteadily upon the soil. They rose in such numbers that the ground itself seemed a vast, ancient sepulchre. From ten, they became a hundred. In the blink of an eye, the fallen Raffblooms were replaced by these new horrors. It was only by the grace of the dome's limited span that Princess Bloomy could not summon a greater legion.
The sight of the impossible caused Seraph to freeze, his assault faltering. His mageia stilled. The few remaining flying knives hung suspended, suddenly motionless. The atmosphere turned to a vacuum, stifling and cold. Fortunately, his defensive wards operated of their own accord, continuing to shield their master through a lingering imprint of loyalty.
The Nightshades and other demons did not share his hesitation. They redoubled their fury, striking at the human trapped in the centre, shattering his stationary blades into splinters.
Standing at the vanguard of the undead was Myre. Beside him stood Harbert. The others were the fallen members of their group, still clutching their original weapons, now tainted by demonic fel. Foul black mist drifted from their corpses—a manifestation of pure, malignant miasma. Their faces held no trace of humanity. In this moment, every one of them had been fully corrupted into a demonic thrall.
It was a mere matter of hours since Seraph had spoken with them as men. He had issued the command himself, deploying them to lead their circles in reconnaissance of the hidden lair. He could not fathom how they came to stand here as undead, nor why their forms were so wretchedly incomplete.
The undead Seraph had encountered within Desden Cave had borne missing limbs or disparate wounds, yet their disfigurements followed no pattern. These entities, however, had all suffered the same fate: their brains had been devoured. Their skulls were shattered by the unmistakable bite of razor-sharp mandibles. Myre and Harbert, in particular, possessed not a single trace of grey matter.
Their craniums were split wide, the void where their brains once resided now choked with dull, greyish vines. Their eyes had vanished, leaving only hollow sockets through which the flora writhed and wove across their faces. They were a vision of both profound misery and stomach-turning revulsion.
"What's this...?" Seraph whispered, his voice trailing off like a sleepwalker's murmur.
Though he had maintained a cold distance from the ten thousand contenders, a month of shared air and narrow escapes had forged a brittle bond. He had fought to preserve the lives of Myre and the other hunters time and again. A spark of affinity, however small, had inevitably taken root.
Now, those brave hunters had been reduced to these pitiable abominations. They were warriors of courage... and the fate of the valiant should never have been this.
"Oh? Do you not recognise your old comrades?" Princess Bloomy chimed, her voice dripping with sadistic glee. "Myre and Harbert! Your loyal hounds who followed your every whim for a month... they stand before you now. Why not offer a greeting to your dear friends?"
Seraph offered no laughter in return. Instead, his gaze drifted back, piercing the lightless abyss of her blackened heart. His eyes remained as still and glacial as they had always been, yet within those pupils lurked nothing save the embers of absolute annihilation.
From this heartbeat forth and for all eternity, Seraph's resolve to purge the Demon Legion was absolute—forged into a singular, unshakeable purpose.
"If your intent was to fray my nerves and kindle my wrath... then I concede. You have succeeded," Seraph stated, his voice as flat and devoid of emotion as a dead man's.
The young man's eyes betrayed no flicker of rage, no trace of outward expression. However, the mageia aura surrounding him began to erupt with such violent intensity that arcs of lightning crackled through the air.
[Crackle! Snap!]
"Hardly! I did not orchestrate this for your sake. Do you truly harbour such conceit, to believe yourself so precious that I would grant you special consideration?" Princess Bloomy sneered, her voice thick with derision.
"I merely sought a more intimate acquaintance with the world beyond... I was most fortunate to encounter Mire and Harbert. Did you not know they were Highborn? Scions of nobility, birthed into staggering opulence, yet they cast it all aside to become hunters. As they were among the human elite, I extracted a wealth of intelligence from their dying whispers... such as the fact that you are a magis from the Sanctus Sanctum. You likely remained ignorant that the details of your flamus-ventus affinity were bartered by a Highmaster to the Royal Court before leaking to the world at large—oh, I owe Mire a debt for granting me such purpose. Even their brain matter was exquisite; it fuelled my evolution to this very height. I truly wonder... would the gifted marrow of your own skull see me ascend to the rank of a Demon Lord?" Princess Bloomy spoke with a rapturous lilt, as if lost in a sweet, visceral dream.
"You will never achieve such a feat," Seraph declared, his words carrying the absolute weight of a finished decree. "This night, you cease to draw breath!"
"Children... slaughter him for me!" Princess Bloomy hissed.
Every Blood Flora stirred in a heartbeat. Barkguards, Sawgrazz, Nightshades, and every surviving demon lunged, encircling the magis to strike from every vector simultaneously.