In the blighted fields outside the obsidian gates of Kalazeth, where once-lush meadows had long since withered into blackened, ash-drenched earth, the ground trembled beneath the weight of armored warbands locked in cataclysmic conflict.
The knights of Kalazeth, dressed in ornate crimson and alabaster plate etched with ivory crosses, moved like iron phantoms beneath a bleeding sky. Their armor shimmered with faint enchantments—blood runes stitched into steel, flared collars embossed with angelic iconography now flecked with gore. Enormous tanks led the vanguard, wielding tower-shields as wide as oxen and flanged mauls charged with blistering firelight.
They barreled through the battlefield like siege engines with souls, smashing through waves of shrieking, bramble-entwined beasts—creatures once thought extinct, now reborn by darkness. One such creature, its back a crawling mass of shriveled arms, lunged with jagged talons. A Tank named Harven braced his stance, roared, and slammed his shield into the monster's jaw with enough force to split its skull down the middle, gray matter erupting like rotten fruit. Clerics, robed in fluttering tabards laced with protective script, weaved between corpses, muttering sacred syllables and igniting healing sigils mid-motion while ducking under feral claws. Their allies screamed for aid—legs severed, eyes burned out, bodies torn in half—and the Clerics either saved them with a golden flare or gritted their teeth and moved on.
Warriors danced through blood and smoke like divine avatars of violence. Sword mages flung themselves into the fray with feral elegance, vaulting over dying men, spinning mid-air while casting flaming crescents from twin sabers. One warrior—his armor filigreed with ancestral gold—somersaulted between two beasts, twisting at the hip mid-fall to parry a snapping jaw before carving both of his blades upward in a twin helix, slicing through throat and spine in one fluid, reverent motion.
Another hurled herself forward with explosive momentum, colliding into a bramble-covered brute that stood three heads taller. She ducked low under a bramble limb, let her knees buckle, and then spun in a kneeling arc, cutting through tendon and bone with a blade charged with hero's fervor—its glow like sunlight distilled into vengeance. They clashed with witches too—half-floating women with eyes like scorched stars, lashing with blackened chains and plague-bolts of viridian fire. The knights retaliated with divine smite spells that ignited on contact, warhammers exploding bone on impact, and piercing flurries that turned witches into unrecognizable heaps. Gore painted the field like a mural of divine madness—flesh split from soul, blood soaked into cursed soil that refused to drink it.
At the center of the battle, Captain Camelot was a living storm. Blonde messy hair and a hush blonde ears with pure white eyes, and a bushy blonde beard, Clad in reinforced crimson-enamel armor layered over burnished white scale, his pauldrons were shaped like lion jaws, and his helm bore a vertical slit that glowed faintly red—almost like a judge's gaze. A crimson cloak, torn and bloodstained, whipped around him as he danced the line between command and carnage. His greatsword was nearly as tall as a man, its blade engraved with a cathedral's worth of runes, and he swung it in range so wide and ferocious that bodies were cleaved in half mid-scream.
"FORM THE LINE! PUSH NORTHWEST! TANKS, BRACE THE LEFT—WARRIORS, FLANK THROUGH THE DEAD TREES!" he barked, voice echoing like a cathedral bell in the storm of war.
He kicked a cursed deer-beast in the throat, its jaws still gnashing as it collapsed, and immediately pivoted—his sword coming up in a spinning uppercut that bisected a bramble-cursed centaur through pelvis and rib. He advanced like judgment made flesh, ducking under the wild haymaker of a mythic brute with bramble antlers, vaulting up its back, and driving his blade down through its spine, using the momentum to flip off the beast before it exploded in a hail of cursed viscera. "KEEP MOVING! KILL EVERYTHING THAT FUCKING LOOKS AT YOU!"
'We've come a long way since we were only a rising town. Now we've become an Empire, a Kingdom, a city state of the world…'
Then came the shift—the moment everything snapped. Dozens of witches floated up into the bruised sky, cloaks billowing like torn prophecy. Their eyes turned inward. One began to chant in a tongue older than magic itself. Another slit her throat in a graceful, practiced motion, and her blood, thick and dark as ink, spiraled down like falling sigils. Others followed. One by one they carved open their own necks, releasing rivers of corruption into the air. Below them, the soil cracked with a deafening groan.
A massive, blood-red crest ignited beneath the battlefield, stretching across the field like an ancient glyph awakened from sleep. Dead witches, torn beasts, severed limbs, and all the blood spilled that day were pulled inward, drawn to the crest like it was breathing them in. Then it began to rise.
A cursed being—bare, grotesquely divine, and impossibly still—ascended from the center. Pale skin stretched over cords of taut muscle, black horns sprouting sideways from hollow sockets where its eyes should be. Seven hexed orbs, black with glowing dark purple veins, floated behind its back in a spinning halo of arcane malice. Its hair flowed like milk in water, and its arms—four of them—twitched with unnatural grace. A black halo hung jagged above its crown. One wing shimmered crimson like burning feathers, the other was leathery, black, almost molten. The air bent around it as it descended in silence.
Captain Camelot watched with fury painting his brow in sweat and blood. He spat on the ground, adjusted his grip on his sword, and roared into the smoke and death, "WHERE IN THE GODS' NAME ARE THE WITCH HUNTERS?!"
'Idrathar took a risk with this, into bringing two of the strongest witch hunters in our empire. Leaving the 100+ other witch hunters behind at the capital…why?'
Atop a wind-bitten hill, cloaked in the velvet of war-smoke and duskfall, King Idrathar IV—the Sovereign of Kalazeth—stood with his gloved hands behind his back, flanked by his most elite knights clad in ceremonial blacksteel. His crown was a jagged circlet of ancient silver, forged with the broken symbols of witchkind—cursed runes carved and bent into mockery. His crimson cloak curled around his heels like a serpent. Weathered lines clung to his face, he had shoulder length grey and a grey beard, but his posture bore the regal rigidity of a man not yet bowed by time. He stared down at the battlefield with eyes like frozen ash, watching as his knights fought and died beneath the rising shadow of the cursed being.
"Do you see it?" Idrathar's voice was gravel laced with grief, each syllable slow and full of unspent wrath. "The witches gather like rot on the edge of a wound. They think to infest my kingdom—my blood—with their darkborn filth."
He exhaled slowly through his nose, jaw clenched. "They advance to take what we've bled years to protect and grow. They come with bramble beasts and dead gods wrapped in flesh—but they forget why I made this empire of a kingdom a crucible." He turned his gaze to his knights. "My father… choked to death on his own breath. My grandfather, a coughing husk before he could hold his second grandson. They never found a single spell on their bodies. Not a mark. Not a trace. But I know it was the Blackmark."
His voice dropped to a tremor of obsession. "The witches cursed my line. Now, my daughter lies rotting in silks. Pale. Cold. And no priest, no healer, no spell has worked. So if I must become a tyrant in the eyes of man and god alike to end every last one of these witches—then so be it. I will not bury my child. I will not be the last leader of my name."
A beat passed. Silence stretched under the winds of war.
Then the king turned abruptly, cloak snapping, and scoffed toward the treeline with sudden disdain. "IS HE DONE YET?!"
Behind the gnarled tree, crouched like a shamed animal with his pants half-down and dignity hemorrhaging by the second, was 19 year old Cainan. His glassy, gray-green eyes were narrowed in betrayal as he clutched his stomach, sweat beading on his brow and his light brown hair wavy short hair. The red tattoo branching up the side of his neck pulsed faintly like it was annoyed with him too. "Almost," he called out to the king, forcing a tight, almost deranged grin. "Just… praying. Deeply."
He was wearing a black tattered cloak, and black pants and black boots, with black wraps around his fists.
Beside him stood Lynzelle—and if sin had a smile and caffeine had a soul, it wore her face. Her eyes were gleaming red madness, pupils sharp like knives, and her black hair fell in sleek, elegant curtains, only to be uuuuyo uuin ouuo fully completely betrayed by her chaotic posture: leaning forward, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet like a child about to explode with forbidden secrets. Her jagged black horns spiked straight up like blades, and her crow-feathered dress flared slightly as she practically vibrated in place. Her red tattoos shimmered with mischievous pulses, crawling over her collarbones like living ink.
She threw her arms dramatically toward the hill, voice too loud and too cheerful. "He'll be done soon, Your Majesty! He's really squeezing his soul into it, y'know?"
Cainan growled from the bushes, "You're so dead. So fucking dead…"
"Ohohohoho!" Lynzelle clutched her chest like he'd just flirted with her, eyes wide and wild. "Death?! How romantic! But I'm your precious wife, remember? Aren't you supposed to love me forever and ever and ever?" Her voice cracked on the last word like it was straining to contain all the chaos barely stuffed into her ribcage.
He sneered up at her mid-squat. "You poisoned me…damn devil..!"
She gasped—gasped—with theatrical shock, throwing a hand over her mouth. "I would never! Okay maybe just a little—but only because you stole my kill! That witch was mid-summon, and I was gonna stab my scythe into it and ride the demon corpse like a war dragon into the sunset! AND THEN YOU CUT HER HEAD OFF."
"…She was trying to light you on fire, fool!"
"I don't like to be saved! And I had it, human!"
They bickered in fierce, whispered chaos. Cainan's shoulders tensed with every guttural grunt, trying to maintain some semblance of pride, while Lynzelle dropped to a crouch next to him, grinning like a devil on her lunch break.
"This marriage is fake," he hissed. "Just wanted to remind you before I skew your head off after this.."
"Oooooh," she leaned in, eyes inches from his, voice dripping with manic glee, "You say that, but you keep looking at me like you wanna kill me. Which is basically foreplay where I come from. Though…I've never done anything with anyone before actually. Whoops."
"I'm only keeping you alive so the Empire doesn't string you up thinking you're part of the witch cult. You're from Hell, remember?"
"Exactly!" she chirped, rocking on her heels. "Which means you married up! C'mon, don't be shy, say it—'My hot demon wife is helping me take revenge on the witches who ruined my life.' Say it or I'll scream it in front of the king right now."
Cainan groaned, face in his hands. "Tch. No."
"And yet, here you are. Taking a demon shit behind royal foliage," she sang. "That's true love, husband."
Cainan accidentally let out a chuckle, then fixed his face. Finally, with a deep grunt of soul-level regret, Cainan stood, re-fastening his belt like a war survivor. "Never. Never again."
Lynzelle beamed and held out a cluster of crunchy, suspicious-looking leaves. "Here you go, darling! Nature's napkins!"
He stared at them like they might bite him. "WHAT THE—?! You're not serious…"
"I am always serious! Except when I'm not!" she replied brightly.
Just as he prepared for disaster, Lynzelle suddenly revealed a neatly folded napkin from somewhere in her crow-feathered dress and offered it with a shit-eating grin. "Just kidding! I brought the good stuff. But you looked so funny when you thought I didn't!"
Cainan looked at it with suspicion and curiosity, reaching for it then pulling his back slowly over and over. "…Really? I can really have it? You're not gonna eat it or something and laugh in my face?"
"Hm? No. I had my laughs for now, dear husband. We got witches to kill now. This is just a normal day for you."
Cainan snatched the napkin from her hand, muttering curses and regrets, while Lynzelle threw her head back and cackled, arms stretched wide like she'd just pranked a god.
The walk up the hill was the longest damn walk of Cainan's life.
Lynzelle clung to his hand with the smug grace of a queen drunk on power and sugar, swaying ever so slightly as she walked, her black crow-feathered dress glimmering with every step like she was about to twirl into a blood ballet. Her smile was pure chaos bottled up behind porcelain teeth. Cainan's face? Red. Red like a burning forge. Red like he'd just fought a three-headed ogre and the ogre had rendered him nude in front of the entire army.
They passed row upon row of knights—red-and-white plate gleaming with righteous steel, helms shaped like screaming angels, crimson crosses etched into every breastplate, some wielding halberds taller than Cainan himself. These were the finest warriors of Kalazeth, the Emperor's elite, lined up with grim reverence… and all of them were staring. Cainan kept his chin up, jaw tight, but he felt every pair of eyes like needles piercing his pride.
'This is embarrassing. This is so embarrassing. Stop smiling, demon. Stop swaying like you're in a damn wedding march.'
He glanced at her. She gave his hand a squeeze and threw him a wink.
His eye twitched. 'I'll get you back. I swear on every saint in this cursed land.'
Plan one: slip ghost pepper extract into her rations. Watch her choke as he holds water in her face.
Plan two: sedate her, tie her to a wyvern, and let it carry her around the capital while she screams about how married she is.
Plan three: all of the above, on her supposed birthday. Though she claims it's every day she's away from Hell.
'So many plans I gotta take into effect…gotta time it right.'
Before, he had sold it perfectly, too. Played it straight with the king—told Idrathar that Lynzelle was his late wife, cursed by a witch in a cruel twist of fate, and that it was the same curse said to haunt the king's own bloodline. He hated using that. He hated even speaking of it. But it had been the only thread that made the lie believable enough to pass under the Sovereign's brutal scrutiny against witches. The curse, the tragedy. All lies—but woven so tightly into half-truths that even Idrathar had finally nodded with a scowl and permitted her to live. Under Cainan's binding. Under his watch.
And now here he was, holding her hand like they were newlyweds arriving at a royal ball.
"Cainan," Lynzelle cooed, leaning her head against his shoulder for just a second. "You're squeezing my hand so hard. Is this the part where you kiss me before battle? I love when couples die dramatically."
He flinched like he'd been shot by an arrow that wasn't from cupid. "Don't touch me. If we ever were to kiss, you'd probably eat me alive."
"Aww, getting squeamish? Remember this is an act right? Besides, I can't fall in love with a human anyway. If we end up making a baby or something, it'll become a vessel of destruction. All demons are born into chaos, but hybrids like me…it's a 50/50 chance."
"..Guess I got lucky in that area then."
"Yep! Ya sure did, husband."
"You know we don't have to act like a married couple when it's just us, right?"
"Oooohhh! Yeah no. I need to stay in this act so I can become a better actor over time. I've always wanted to be a part of a theatre play, you know the ones they have in kingdoms and stuff?"
"Theatre? I'd pay to see you embarrass yourself."
"Orrrrr I'll force you up there with me and if you don't become part of the play, I'll tell everyone we're fake married."
"YOU WOULDN'T!"
"Try me." Lynzelle grinned.
"You fucking demon…"
"Demoness, darling. Demoness."
They finally reached the summit, and as one, they dropped into a formal half-kneel before the Sovereign. Idrathar IV stood like a mountain sculpted from scorn, flanked by his elite knights. His silver crown shimmered, his red cloak trailing in the wind like a banner of war. The fire of hatred still burned in his pale eyes.
Cainan bowed his head. "My deepest apologies, my king. The delay was mine. I—"
Lynzelle, voice barely a whisper, leaned toward him and giggled, "Such a man. Taking the blame for your wife."
Cainan whispered loudly only for Lynzelle to hear, "I'LL END YOU!" His hand twitched dangerously.
But Idrathar merely raised a hand in dismissal, voice stern and unshaken. "We stand at the edge of annihilation, Bloodhunters. The blight of witchery shall be burned from the land. The flame of the Sovereign will never dim." He stepped forward, steel boots echoing against the stone. "This empire—this Dominion—was carved from the Cradlelands by blood, fire, and a single vision: Purity. Order. Legacy. It is not a kingdom. Not in the eyes of the old world. But calling it one—believing in it—gives it power. I built this empire from the dust of corpses. From the bones of traitors and witches. We stand because we do not falter."
His eyes narrowed at the two before him.
"You are two of the strongest witch hunters we wield. Do not let the witches get anywhere near where my daughter lies."
Lynzelle snarled with a snicker, "Yeah yeah, kill the witches, save the day, super easy. Let's do this, husband!" Lynzelle looked like she might burst into gleeful laughter if given another second.
Then—without warning—they were sprinting.
"Hey! Ya think the other witch hunters are are jealous right now?" Lynzelle asked. "You're witch hunting friends are gonna kick your ass.
"Of course they are. Idrathar only chose us two out of the 100 witch hunters in the empire?"
"Because we're super famous! Obviously."
Cainan smirked, "Yeah, because of me."
"The hell? No it's me! Everyone calls me beautiful and unique and strong, and you're just…you. I barely know you, I met you two days ago when I woke up naked in a lake. Then you tried to touch me with your filthy human hands, trying to caress me."
Cainan became flustered. "SHADDUP! I was trying to take you to a healer! You were all hurt and stuff!"
'She's insane!'
Cainan said. "Yeah yeah whatever."
Boots struck stone. Feathers flared. Wind whipped past them as they raced toward the cliff's edge. The battlefield roared beneath, a sea of fire, steel, and monstrosity.
Cainan broke into a grin.
'On my way to feel pain… I'm still trying to survive in the mist of fate wanting to kick my ass all the time. Unlucky all the time, things never going my way majority of the time…the pain I allow myself to feel, lets me know I can still change fate and kill it..'
Lynzelle was already laughing like a maniac. "See ya, darling!"
They leapt.
They hit the ground like twin calamities.
Cainan landed in a three-point crouch, chains forming, covered in a destructive red aura, coiling and slithering around his arms like vipers, their red aura flaring with raw destructive chaos.
'Sometimes I feel I don't belong in this world, feels like it fucking hates me or something. Things always end up bad, even when hope comes I'm scared to do shit, because I think I'm gonna die or just somehow suffer from whatever is about to happen. Why me though? Am I cursed?'
Stone cracked beneath his boots as he launched forward with a feral lunge, shoulder-first, into the side of a lumbering mythic beast—a Wyrmhorn. It was twelve feet tall, its body a gnarled amalgam of rotting elk bones and bloated muscle wrapped in thorny black bramble, each step leaving a scorched imprint on the ground. It roared, a sound like a thousand children crying backward, but Cainan didn't flinch.
His chains shot out mid-stride, wrapping around his fists and ankles, embedding into his body like muscle. He vaulted onto the beast's back, somersaulted over its shoulder, and with a brutal twist mid-air, brought his chain-wrapped knee down into the base of its spine, shattering it in a single seismic crunch. The Wyrmhorn screeched, reared up—and Cainan wrapped a chain around its neck, dropped, and ripped down with enough force to bisect the beast in two. Blood sprayed like a fountain across the battlefield as he stood, body soaked, eyes locked on the next threat.
'Now an evil pretty hybrid demon from Hell, or so she claims, is under my watch, how do I know this will end up horribly for me? Should I have left her there? Was I too scared of fate screwing me over that I got desperate? Yeah, I've been desperate lately. Gotta stop it, but it's hard not to be desperate or anxious, when you're me.'
Beside him, Lynzelle had already carved her own grotesque path. She laughed like a banshee mid-frenzy, black liquid dripping down her arm as her scythe clawed itself from her flesh. The weapon was as much a curse as it was a blade—black metal humming with malignant life, red veins pulsing like a heartbeat through its jagged edge. She spun with manic grace, the crow-feathered dress fluttering like wings as she lunged into a pack of witches. They screamed words in old tongues, eyes glowing with dark glyphs, hands raised—but none of it mattered.
Her scythe sliced the first witch in half from shoulder to hip before the spell left her mouth, and with a flick of her wrist, Lynzelle dragged the blade into a wide spin that severed the arms of two more mid-chant. She cackled in their faces, red eyes glinting with glee, then vaulted upward, landing on a bramblebeast—a doglike horror with eight legs, no face, and tendrils of muscle twitching from its back. It tried to bite her. She plunged her scythe into its head, spun on its skull, then hurled herself backward mid-flip, carving its spine from behind as she landed on one knee, dripping in gore. "Come on!" she screamed, laughing, "WHERE'S THE REST?! Come on! I'LL KILL THE LOT OF YA!"
A nearby warrior, face scorched, barely parried a cursed centipede-lion as it lunged at him, its hundred legs clicking across the earth like death drums—only to see it collapse as a chain coiled around its mouth and crushed its skull like fruit. "By the Saints," he muttered, "They're—unstoppable. As expected of Cainan and his…wife?"
Another warrior added, "Trust me, I'm just now seeing her for the first time. She's pretty, and strong, but might be psychotic."
"Might?!"
A cleric shrieked in awe as Lynzelle passed by, painting the air with severed limbs, "It's like competing—like it's a damn game!"
Another tank, shield shattered and breath ragged, barely blocked a charging boar-wyrm before Cainan tackled it, drilled a chain through its chest, and detonated it from the inside out in a burst of shattered bone and flame-like chaos. The tank gasped, staring at the gore-soaked hunter. "Why do you keep letting yourself get hit? I can see it..that's the Tank's job."
"So what? No point in telling me how to fight."
Cainan grunted, brushing a chunk of horned skull from his shoulder. He'd taken a bite to the arm and let it fester just long enough to bait two witches closer. As one raised her hand, he spun, letting the blood from his wound splatter across her face—she hesitated. Too late. His chain lashed through her mouth and yanked back violently, tearing her jaw clean off. Then he darted towards her, spun, red aura and chains coiling around his legs, and he kicked the witch in the chest, blasting her away in pure destruction , shattering the ground under them from the force of the punt.
Lynzelle landed beside him mid-spin, bisecting a flying bramblewing with one graceful scythe slash, showering them both in fetid black ichor. She winked. "Stealing my kill?"
He sneered, "You were too slow."
She huffed, jumped again, and carved a witch's spine out like she was plucking a flower. "Now I'm winning."
"In your dreams, demon. Let's bet gold on it."
"You dream about me?"
"..Maybe once or twice."
"Awww! Really?!"
"Yeah. You tried to drag me to Hell, and I kept running from you, and you kept dragging me back. You chased me and were laughing the entire time."
"Haha! Sounds like me!"
"It was a nightmare."
They twirled between wreckage and steel, a duet of destruction. Cainan smashed his fist into the ground, sending his chains in spiraling drills through three crawling giants, their limbs exploding in every direction. Lynzelle danced between spires of blood, spinning her scythe like it was part of her soul, laughter rising above the screams. Together, they struck with uncanny synergy—Cainan launching a beast into the air with a brutal uppercut, Lynzelle slicing it in half before it landed. They darted through the storm like demons in love with the slaughter. Death wasn't just a tool—it was their canvas.
Lynzelle exclaimed, "YES! Badass combos! We're like, connected!"
Then—the air shifted. Screams cut short. Blood froze in midair.
At the far edge of the battlefield, a figure stood like a curse made flesh. Wounded and kneeling in blood was Camelot, the knight-captain, sword cracked, armor shattered. His breathing was a growl, blood pouring from his temple.
"Ah…ah…that bastard…that witches summon..how did they create that monster?? Where do they even drag them from…?!"
Above him, floating like a god of nightmares, was the witch-summoned being. The ground still burned where the crest had bloomed. Its pale, flawless body rippled with power, black horns spearing through its eyes like divine mutilation, a halo hanging crooked above its head. Seven black and red hex-orbs spiraled slowly behind its back like orbiting omens, each humming with an unnatural rhythm. One wing was shadow-black, the other red as wrath, and four arms hung at its sides like war drums waiting to strike. It stuck its hand out, and the dead witches on the ground began to scream, and their voices were absorbed by the summon. And the summon snarled with a dark voice, "Ah…No one here is strong enough…we are close…to true freedom…I am Azrael…yes..thats my name.."
Other knights and soldiers said:
"It talked!"
"T-The bastard just stole the dead witches' voices!"
"It gave itself a fucking name!"
Cainan and Lynzelle skidded to a stop before Camelot, bodies soaked in blood, weapons still humming. The wind was dead. The air, electric. The witchspawn summon stared down at them in silence.
Cainan cracked his neck.
Lynzelle grinned wide, eyes crazed.
"Now this looks fun."
The clash-hollowed field had gone silent in anticipation, blood mist hanging in the air like incense from a sacrificial rite. But when Azrael hovered higher, black and dark purple hex-orbs slowly orbiting his form like shattered moons, the silence ruptured with a rising roar. Knights, soldiers, battered clerics, tanks with shattered shields—all of them surrounded the jagged pit of battle. Their armor glistened with gore and flame-glow as they raised their blades, spears, and staves high in defiance.
"SLAY THAT THING!"
"FOR KALAZETH!"
"FOR THE FLAME OF THE SOVEREIGN!"
"CAINAN! LYNZELLE! KILL THAT BASTARD!"
Cainan tightened his chains around his arms with sharp metallic clicks, red aura igniting into a crackling halo around his fists and shoulders.
"A witches summon…"
'They're always annoying..'
Lynzelle giggled beside him, her scythe humming, the black-red shadows rippling around it like it breathed. Her dress of crow-feathers fluttered in the windless air as her smile stretched wider than it should've.
But Camelot's eyes didn't leave Azrael. His voice was low, slanted in suspicion.
"How the hell do witches even create something like that?" he muttered. "I've seen their curses, their monsters, but this—" he jerked his chin at Azrael's towering form, "—this is something else. This isn't just a summon. This is… war incarnate. Every time we fight witches, it's like they can do new shit all over again. Make's their dark magic unpredictable.."
Figures, he's never seen a witches summon before, unlike Cainan had.
Azrael raised one hand. The seven hex-orbs flared, and the sky darkened. His voice was neither loud nor echoing—but it resonated, deep as the ocean floor.
"When the first queen drowned her bastard daughter in a silver basin," he said, voice cruelly calm, "the infant's soul did not scream to the stars… but to the dark root. Vargometh heard her."
Cainan's brow furrowed as Azrael descended slightly, arms spreading like a priest. Around him, the cursed air pulsed.
"From such grief," Azrael continued, "were born the Witches of Tharnum… later known as the Hearthless. These were not hags in swamps. They were queens. Farmers. War-orphans. Widows. All abandoned by the justice your kingdoms worship. They did not seek power to rule. They sought to end the game of the world's tyranny.."
He gestured toward the soldiers screaming his death. "They believe in ruin. In the crumbling of fairness that was never fair. No kings. No divine order. No chosen bloodlines. The world must be weakened before it can be made just." Azrael continued, "—The unmaking of order. The corruption of myth. These beasts you face?" He grinned with his mouth, but not his eyes. "Once noble spirits of creation. Now—tools of unthreading."
Suddenly, a rustle behind them—hooves. Camelot grunted, blood still dripping from his nose, as a horse galloped forward. King Idrathar IV arrived atop his black war steed, golden armor shining like fury, sword already drawn. His eyes were fixed on Azrael—and behind them, the burning thought of his dying daughter shimmered in his gaze.
But Camelot, still kneeling and soaked in blood, raised a shaking hand. "My liege… hold. Let them do what we cannot. Let them fight. They are the experienced witch hunters. Don't die when you have your daughter that needs tending." Idrathar clenched his jaw so hard it creaked. His hand twitched on the reins—but after a long, ragged breath, he pulled back.
"It pains me that I'm here and not there with her…both sides call me, and I chose the side away from my angel."
"You're doing what a leader does. This is the 4th witch raid upon this land, making sure they don't reach the foundation you've built."
"I still think…they want my daughter…something in me screams it at me."
Azrael hovered a moment longer, his white hair stirring in a wind no one else felt. "I am Azrael," he said at last, lowering his four arms slowly. "First step of the unmaking. Proof that your Order can be bled away. And the Witch-Queen… she will smile when she sees what I've done." His grin widened with twisted joy. "Your empire ends at the root. I am her champion."
Then he shot forward—blurring through the air like a thrown blade, arms outstretched, wings flared, hex-orbs spinning with a scream of unnatural energy—straight at Cainan and Lynzelle.
Cainan bared his teeth, chains flaring with chaos. Lynzelle laughed wildly, eyes lighting up like infernos.
'That's it then. The witches of Tharnum..they curse mythic beings and beasts and animals with dark magic to make them go berserk and cause havoc. And the witches are wanting a world free from order and law. It's gotta be deeper than that, right?'
"Let's see what your 'freedom' tastes like, freak." Lynzelle snarled.
In a thunderous instant, it happened.
Cainan and Lynzelle moved—no, exploded—from their place, a seismic blur of red chain-light and shrieking black shadows. Their strikes collided into Azrael with a cataclysmic crunch.
"Haha! We got him!" Lynzelle laughed.
The ground shattered beneath them like glass, and the dark summon was sent reeling, sliding back through the dirt with his wings cracked and a full half of his torso obliterated—raw gore spewing as his body buckled. But what spilled from his torn frame wasn't mere flesh or bone.
It was tiny skeletons.
Childlike bones, brittle and malformed, tumbled from his hollowed side—ribs, tiny femurs, misshapen skulls with black etchings carved into their craniums. Azrael choked and gagged, staggering to one knee as he tried to shove the remains back inside himself, clawing at his own leaking body.
Cainan saw it—stared, frozen for a moment. His gray-green eyes darkened beneath the glassy strands of his hair, and the red tattoo on his neck pulsed like a heartbeat. His voice, low and venomous, cut through the chaos. "You sick bastard."
Lynzelle cocked her head and blinked, noticing the quiet shift in Cainan's aura. "Ohhh… he's mad now," she grinned, her tone bright and sing-song. Lynzelle wanted to reach for him, but she didn't.
From behind them, even the King's voice growled out, trembling with suppressed fury. "Children….?"
Camelot, wounded but burning with conviction, spit blood to the side. "Let me see that witch queen's skull smashed against my boots."
Azrael trembled, whispering "Impossible…" as his remaining eyes locked on Lynzelle. But she was gone. "I'm…im her champion!"
Then—Lynzelle was in front of him.
The grin she wore was beyond human, and her eyes blazed with full demonic radiance, red as bleeding suns. Crows scattered behind her in a flurry of feathers. Her fist, wrapped in chaos-shadow, crashed into Azrael's face with explosive force, sending him careening like a meteor. Trees—massive and twisted, older than kings—exploded into splinters as his body smashed through them. He tore through jagged stones etched with old witch-sigils, splitting them like brittle eggshells. The ground ruptured under the impact of his body, black and red blood splattering all over the place.
And Lynzelle didn't stop. She raced through the wreckage like a possessed storm, twirling her scythe as the black and red shadows trailed behind her like a second cape of screaming souls. Her laughter echoed like broken bells across the battlefield, manic and wild. "You made my husband angry, bitch!"
Back on the ridge, the King narrowed his eyes as the wind whipped around him. "Does your wife… usually fight with such manic energy?" He asked Cainan.
Cainan— red in the face now after hearing that—cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to look directly at her. "She's just, uh… real glad to be fighting witches. Cursed with all that power, you know? Figures she'd use it for revenge."
'I'm such a bad liar. Forgive me. You built this empire from the ground up and you gave me an opportunity of a lifetime to be a witch Hunter, and I'm over here lying to you. Craaaap. But I need this demoness.'
Idrathar stared a moment longer, then gave a nod. "A righteous fury, then. I respect that. All of you—ride with them! Once the summoned beasts are slain—we'll hang the witches' heads on banquet pikes tonight!"
A unified roar rose. Soldiers, knights, and clerics charged forward like a flood of steel and vengeance. Camelot led them, dragging his sword as he sprinted, eyes locked ahead.
Meanwhile, Azrael was staggering, still mid-air, pleading now. "Witch Queen… I call to you… grant me reprieve—grant me shape—let me be remade—"
"Aww," Lynzelle cooed from behind him, voice dripping with wicked glee. "Is the lil' freedom summon praying for his mommy now?"
Azrael turned just in time to see her leap—roaring into the sky like a hellfire comet. Her black-red shadows spiraled around her in a vortex of writhing chaos as she hurled her scythe forward like a divine guillotine. It spun with unnatural speed, howling through the air toward Azrael's throat. He dodged—barely—gritting his fangs—
Only to feel reality flip.
She laughed again, now behind him—she had swapped places with her scythe. His eyes widened in horror just as her arms closed around the weapon, now reformed in her grip, and her voice hit his ear like a devil's kiss. "Surprise!"
Schlick—CRUNCH—BOOOOM!
Her scythe punched through his chest, pinning him like a broken puppet. Then came the detonation.
Azrael's body was launched through an entire mountain—a jagged black cliff veined with glowing red witch-sigil veins. The mountain collapsed, the explosion swallowing its top half in a storm of dust, flame, and fractured stone. Massive boulders rained from the sky, and a wave of force surged outward.
And from the edge of that storm—Cainan burst through it. Chains flying, red aura bursting as he punched aside a falling monolith. Knights ducked and countered, leaping, striking, surging through the dust storm, their armor catching firelight as they pressed forward in the chaos.
'She's gonna get carried away! What happens when she does? Does she go into some full demon goddess form or something? Blowing our cover?!'
As Lynzelle and Azrael disappeared into the dusk-warped forest, tearing through ruin and terrain like two living calamities, Cainan, Idrathar, Camelot, and a squadron of knights gave relentless chase. They followed the blood-drenched trail of destruction through blackened woodlands and scorched earth, catching only flashes of blinding movement in the distance—Lynzelle's silhouette spinning in the air, Azrael's form shifting like broken glass in motion. Amid the thundering footfalls and cracking branches, Idrathar broke the silence beside Cainan, voice low.
"Will my daughter… become like that?" he asked, gesturing toward the inferno of motion ahead.
Cainan paused, jaw tightening. He lied with practiced sorrow. "The curse affects everyone differently. Lynzelle's case is… unique. But I've heard it kills quickly. She may not live long. For your daughter Espen, I hope she does live long."
Idrathar nodded solemnly, grief tightening around his eyes like a vice. "That's a mercy, then. And thank you, for your concern. When I read her stories at night, she always asks if you could come in and reenact the story. She sees you as the hero of this empire instead of her own father, haha."
"Oh yeah? Espen has a wild imagination. It's been awhile since I've seen her in person, since she's been in her room."
"Ah. It'll make her day if she sees you again. I don't allow so many in there so she won't be overwhelmed, if you understand."
"Yeah, I do."
'And here I am lying about Lynzelle's condition…I'm the worst liar in this damn empire,' Cainan thought bitterly. 'He's clinging to a hope I stitched out of pity and spit. Lynzelle's not dying. She's just batshit, fake-married to me, and somehow enjoying all of this.'
Camelot, just ahead, glanced over his shoulder briefly—he'd heard the exchange. He said nothing, but his brow creased in quiet suspicion.
Far ahead, Lynzelle tore through the air in a tight corkscrew spin, her scythe carving rings of death through the trees as Azrael lunged to meet her mid-arc. The cursed summon twisted unnaturally, shoulder dislocating backward, knees bending the wrong way as he caught her blade with a sudden thrust of bone-forged claws erupting from his forearm.
The contact rattled the trees. Lynzelle spun off the clash, landing on the trunk of a horizontal tree mid-run, and flipped back toward Azrael with a backward handspring, her shadows trailing like ink in wind. Azrael surged forward, his cursed dark aether magic contorting the space around his steps—his body blurred in fragmented frames, teleporting in bursts that looked like reality itself glitching. The two clashed again, blades and limbs moving in a flurry so intricate it looked like a dance scripted by nightmares.
Azrael parried three rapid swipes from Lynzelle's scythe, only to be caught by a low sweep that collapsed his leg. As he fell, he twisted and stabbed a rib-like blade from his elbow up toward her chest. She backflipped over it, landing on his back with one boot and vaulting off as he roared, spinning around to catch nothing but flame and ash.
Lynzelle landed upside-down on a falling tree, crouching like a spider before launching off again, twirling midair with her scythe held close to her torso before whipping it outward in a brutal slash. A glyph flared briefly along Azrael's arm as it tore open—not flesh, but soulbound aether, severing his power from his swing. He screamed, clutching his shoulder as dark smoke hissed from the wound.
"RAGHH! I can't lose..I'm her champion…I'm her champion….
With wild, desperate aggression, Azrael hurled himself into a flurry of jagged lunges, snapping his spine backward to avoid each counter-strike. His cursed magic surged—his very skin rupturing in controlled detonations, bones erupting like flaming arrows from his chest and knees. Lynzelle vaulted sideways off a crumbling monument, twisting through the air with one hand dragging her scythe beside her in a vicious arc that narrowly missed Azrael's eye.
"Ooooh!" Lynzelle laughed.
They landed opposite one another, Lynzelle grinning wide, covered in streaks of black and red blood, her eyes glowing like hellfire. Azrael crouched, panting—his ribs visibly moving on their own under his flesh, writhing like serpents. With a roar, he launched forward again, body held together by curses and hatred alone.
Lynzelle met him halfway with a surge of rapid motion, slashing low, then high, then reversing grip in the blink of an eye to catch his inner thigh. He staggered, and she pressed the assault, chaining movements fluidly—an upward cleave, followed by a pirouette-heel kick that cracked his jaw, then a downward plunge of her scythe that tore into his back. Azrael retaliated mid-fall, pulling his own spine free to wield like a whip, slashing it toward her head. She ducked, grabbed the weapon, and used it to pull him toward her, driving her knee into his face before hurling him into a jagged boulder. He struck it so hard the entire cliffside trembled, dust rising in clouds.
The soldiers, catching up, watched in awe and horror as Lynzelle ascended the broken cliffside with a running leap, twisting with gravity-defying grace. Crows trailed behind her now, streaming from her shadows. Azrael staggered to his feet, but he was too slow. Lynzelle landed in front of him and drew her scythe back—not for one glyph, but all five. They flared silently. No names. No chant. Just her wicked smile as she carved the air with an impossible spin, her form consumed in shadows and glyphs pulsing in layers. The blade carved across Azrael's torso, across his limbs.
Then silence.
"Lynzelle!" Cainan called out.
Smoke poured from the ruin of the mountain. The wind held its breath. Cainan and the others skidded to a halt just before the blast radius. Pebbles clinked against their boots. Eyes scanned the swirling ash.
And as it cleared, they saw her.
Lynzelle sat casually atop the charred remains of Azrael's corpse, blood running down her arms and face, her scythe stuck into the ground beside her. Black rose petals burned upward from the body, drifting into the evening sky. She waved theatrically toward them.
"Oh, dear husband!" she called, beaming. "I've defeated the enemy who wished to destroy our love!"
Cainan stared at her, and then let out a soft smile, saying, "Shit."
'Was I really worried she died? Did I remember if she did leave, I'll be alone again? Pfft. It's whatever. Or maybe it's fate trying to screw me over and ruin me again. I won't let it. She can handle herself anyway. She's way too strong.'