"Zaliyah... for you, I would unleash my true potential"
The whispers followed him even now, haunting the gossip of the mortal markets.
"Have you heard?" one merchant asked, eyes laced with a practiced, hollow concern.
"Heard what?"
"The boy. The taboo. Zaliyah sold his soul to Malachi, the Messenger of the Dead."
A sigh followed. "He had it coming. Such a fine upbringing in the Ruohan mansion, cherished like their own blood and he decides to bite the hand that fed him. You can't turn a rubbish demon into a human, no matter how much gold you wrap him in."
It was an unholy truth. A celestial being and a demon breathing the same air was a recipe for chaos as such, a love affair between them was an atrocity.For centuries, the two races had traded loathing for limitless abhorrence. Some blamed the Prince of the Underworld, driven mad by a rejected heart, waging a war intended to reduce the Celestial species to ash.
But for Lilith, history didn't matter. Only the weight in her arms did.
Lilith staggered through a narrow, crumbling corridor, clutching a bundle of bloody sheets.
She sobbed, the sound wet and bitter at the misfortune she had brought upon the child.
"My sweet child... my poor baby. Everything will be fine."
She held the infant so tightly it was as if she wanted to pull him back into her womb, back to the only place he had ever been safe.
The air here was thick with the stench of shattered souls and stagnant rot. Water dripped from a jagged roof, echoing like a ticking clock.
Lilith limped through the dark, her boots catching on the ribcages of dead hell-dogs and slick, mossy rocks.
She moved toward a sliver of light at the end of the hall, her mind a haze of exhaustion.
"Lilith. Are you truly that desperate to save this abomination?"
Lilith fell to her knees. The dread hit her before she even looked up.
Standing in the light was Mephisa.
She was a pillar of ashen skin and malice.
Long, red curls cascaded down her back like a frozen waterfall of blood, framing a face scarred across the left eye. Two horns hummed with dark energy, and her wings, vast and leathery casted a shadow that swallowed the room.
"Mother, please," Lilith rasped, her voice trembling. "I've tried... they won't stop coming. Talk to the Council. Give me another chance?..."
Mephisa stepped forward, her gaze dropping to the bundle in the bloody sheets. Her lip curled in resentment.
This child had drained her daughter's strength, it was a parasite.
"I pleaded with the Council," Mephisa said coldly. "Your life has been spared."
For a heartbeat, Lilith's dull, swollen eyes lit up. Her purple irises flashed with a frantic hope. "Mother? Really? We're safe? I don't have to hide?"
"No, Lilith," Mephisa snapped. "The abomination must be taken care of."
The hope died instantly. Lilith's hands shook as she fumbled for her sword on the blood stained floor. She pointed the steel at her mother, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"To touch my son, you must destroy me first."
Mephisa's face hardened into a mask of stone. She stepped within two feet of the blade's point. "Bet."
With a flick of two fingers, Lilith was launched backward. Her body slammed into the stone wall with a sickening crack.
"You've broken a few bones. Tragic," Mephisa scuffed. "We'll patch you up once we're back in the Underworld."
Lilith collapsed onto a wooden table, her forehead blooming with red. Usually, a demon's wounds knit shut in seconds, but Lilith had been fighting beasts for three nights straight,Her well of energy was dry.
The baby began to cry a piercing, agonizing sound that shattered the silence. The infant had tasted the edge of Mephisa's dark aura and jolted awake from its slumber spell.
Mephisa's face paled, then flushed a deep, angry red. She hated two things, weaklings and the sound of crying.
A ball of red lightning began to hum in Mephisa's palm. Her wings flapped aggressively, stirring the dust and the smell of death.
Lilith screamed, summoning the last spark of her soul. A white energy ball flickered into existence in her hand, and she hurled it.
The colors clashed red and white , erupting in a violent thunderclap that blinded the room.
Mephisa didn't flinch. She caught the destructive energy in her fist, squeezed it, and redirected the bolt straight back at her daughter.
Lilith watched the light coming for her with teary eyes, welcoming the impact if only to stop the sound of her child's distress.
She hit the floor hard. Black blood the sign of a fatal internal rupture oozed from her nose and ears.
She crawled toward the baby like a wounded animal, her fingers clawing at the stone.
Mephisa watched with pure disgust. Before Lilith could reach the sheets, Mephisa tapped her forehead.
"Sleep."
The world went black for Lilith.
Mephisa sighed, the silence finally returning.
With a snap of her fingers, the baby was lifted into the air by an invisible force. She turned and flew toward the mouth of the tower.
Outside, the air was whipped by four massive, black waterfalls that vanished into a bottomless mist.
The stench of raw, dark magic was overwhelming. Mephisa walked to the precipice and, without a second thought, let the child go.
The baby's cries pierced the mist, growing fainter and fainter as he descended into the void.
"Finally," Mephisa whispered.
She turned back, grabbed her unconscious daughter by the collar, and vanished into the dark sky.