Souls Online: Mythic Ascension-Chapter 237: Interlude:Procession of Demons

"Let me go back! I can kill them! Let me kill them!"

Warren raged as bloody foam gathered on the corners of his mouth. Even as he held his blinded eye with one hand, his remaining eye gleamed with savage predatory light.

However his screams fell on deaf ears as the woman who had teleported him to safety glared back at him with a look of undisguised disgust.

"If you had been a bit more patient, you could have led them into my trap and their death would have been guaranteed."

"It’s not my fault! Not mine! No! I’m not the one to blame~!"

Elise narrowed her eyes watching the psychotic ramblings of the man who she had essentially recruited when she discovered him murdering a fellow player within the confines of the city.

At the time, he had been cold, precise and methodical. She had appreciated his professionalism and attention to detail. Yet now he had traded that precision for insanity and power.

Warren had been the first to notice that Players could level up from PvP and had taken to grinding his levels through the assassination of players.

He had felt no qualms then, Death in this game was not permanent, at most it gave a debuff for exp gained and towards player stats. Yet when he hit level 5, something changed.

He had met what he could only describe as a demon. A being with a thousand eyes, a hundred mouths yet no nose or ears. It had laughed hysterically when it saw him.

It had offered him the power to kill faster, to see more and against his better judgement, he had agreed. The demon had provided him with experience, power and a message.

"Follow the Procession of Demons for as long as you can."

He had no idea what that meant but when he met Elise, something inside of him clicked. Like him, he could feel a sticky cloying darkness sticking to her body.

He had followed her like a sick puppy, pining for her affection that she refused to yield. Yet that feeling too came to pass as the thrill of murder became more than a passion, it became his obsession.

"My Queen~! Queen! Yes. Queen you are! Let me go present their heads~!"

She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned her back on him, not out of trust, but because she no longer considered him worth facing. He was unraveling too quickly. The demon’s influence had hollowed him out, left him grasping for purpose in broken thoughts and violent urges.

A useful weapon, but only for a time.

And when that time ended, she would discard him like all the others.

"Rest," she said over her shoulder. "I’ll find them. You’ll have your chance again. Maybe."

Behind her, Warren muttered something low and feverish. She didn’t care what it was.Her thoughts were already moving elsewhere.

Toward the voices she had heard whispering in the dark. The demons had noticed something about those three disgusting commoners and that vermin she was related to.

The demons were interested. And luckily for her, they loved to destroy what caught their eyes.

The demons did not simply watch out of curiosity. They sought to unravel, to tear down, to consume. Their gaze was a curse, marking those it fell upon for ruin.

Elise’s lips curled in a faint, cold smile. Let them come. Let the demons feast on what they found interesting. It would only hasten the fall of those who had betrayed her.

Perhaps it was out of habit, her hand touched her mouth, tracing the scars that detestable womanbhad left when carving out her tongue.

No matter how she screamed, no matter how much she begged, that woman had ignored her pleas. How could she do that to her of all people.

She wasn’t like the common peasants, she was noble and pure. They should be jumping with joy that she may have a use for them.

It was unfair that she was made to suffer over one insignificant life. Her future destroyed by a mere pebble beneath her feet.

Now the black gelatin that swirled inside her mouth had replaced her tongue and she could speak once more...but at what cost.

Her beautiful brown eyes had become a crimson while her sclera had become a dark crimson. The area around her eyes had cracked and horns had sprouted from her head.

This was the main reason why she didn’t barge into her family’s office and state her claim and destroy that conniving mutt.

To confront her family now would be to invite an agonizing death. They would not hesitate to tear her apart, to dissect what they saw as a monstrous stain on their name and a potential breakthrough in medical science.

That mutt, Adam, had most definitely already spread enough poison to ensure her fate if she dared to show her face.

So she waited.

She would let the demons stir the shadows, weaving threads of destruction around those who had cast her out.

Her plan was slow and deliberate. She would not rush headlong into the lion’s den. Instead, she would gather her power, strengthen herself as much as she could.

When the time was right, she would make sure her siblings know their place beneath her heel. The company would be hers and she would slaughter anyone who got in her way.

Elise’s fingers curled tightly, her nails digging into her palm without her noticing. The weight of the scars on her tongue was nothing compared to the hollowness growing inside her.

She had vowed patience, strategy, control, but every quiet moment twisted into a restless storm.

Her crimson eyes, sharp and burning, flickered with a heat she mistook for strength. Yet beneath that fire lay a gnawing hunger.

Not for power alone, but for something she could not name. A hunger that clawed at her peace and left her sleepless.

She paced the shadows of her refuge, muttering words only half her own.

The black gelatin inside her mouth moved, a constant reminder of the demon’s cruel gift. The voice it gave her was both a weapon and a prison.

Each plan she crafted, each thread of revenge she pulled tighter, felt like a thread unraveling a part of herself she refused to see.

The same madness Warren wore like a mask was creeping into her bones, but in silence, in stillness, rather than in screams.

She told herself it was strength. She told herself it was control.

But sometimes, when no one watched, the cracks showed.

Her breath hitched. Her hands trembled just slightly.

And still she did not notice.

She was breaking.

And the demon inside her smiled quietly in the dark.

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