The floating stone pulsed.
A violent wave of power exploded outward and slamd into Asmodeus, knocking him away before his hand could reach Elion’s throat. His body tore through the air and crashed into the cavern wall with a deafening impact, stone bursting around him.
Then the impossible happened.
The Philosopher’s Stone slowly floated toward Zenith.
It stopped in front of her outstretched hand for the briefest mont before gently dropping silently into her palm.
Shing!
A vibrant, blinding light shimred through the cavern, then the stone vanished. Zenith gasped sharply as her entire body shuddered.
She stared upward as her eyes opened wide, an unbelievable brightness spilling out of them. Her pupils and irises disappeared completely until her eyes were nothing but glowing white light.
Then her mouth opened wide as the sa brilliant radiance poured out from between her lips as she spread her arms wide in agony.
"Haaaaaa!"
Her roar echoed violently through the open cavern, but it quickly twisted into a scream of pain.
For a figure of her strength to scream like that was enough to paint a clear picture of the agony ripping through her body.
Whatever the stone was doing to her, the pain was beyond anything she had ever experienced.
Her short canines suddenly lengthened before retracting less than a second later. Her blue skin shimred, briefly shifting into a pale, almost human complexion before returning to its usual demonic hue.
Then the pain reached her back.
It felt as though a thousand swords wreathed in fire had pierced through the flesh beneath her shoulder blades at the sa ti.
Zenith scread louder.
Elion stared at the scene with wide eyes.
’What is happening to her?’
He tried to rush toward her, but the violent pressure radiating from her body blasted him backward. His feet left the ground, and he crashed into a pile of rubble, just as Asmodeus had monts earlier.
A disgusting, continuous squelching sound echoed throughout the cavern as thick crimson tendrils began to erge slowly from beneath Zenith’s shoulder blades.
The tendrils split apart, then they divided again and again as they stretched outward, forming long, jagged branches that curved around her body in a wide, nacing span.
It took only a second to understand what they were.
The crimson tendrils were made from Zenith’s own blood, and they were forming so kind of construct.
Badum!
The blood construct pulsed.
The tendrils continued extending outward as Zenith’s screams grew even louder. Two primary branches ford first, one spreading from each shoulder blade. From there, thinner tendrils split away and branched outward, weaving together into a vast, intricate network that frad her silhouette like the crown of a blood-soaked demon.
The protrusions finally stopped growing when their ends sharpened, tapering into razor-thin points and thorn-like extensions that resembled cruel spears.
But the pain did not stop there; it spread through the rest of her body all at once.
It felt as though hundreds of thousands of thin, razor-sharp needles were piercing into her flesh without care or rcy, burrowing deeply into her body before twisting inside her.
Zenith dropped to her knees. Her screams beca cacophonous booms that shook the cavern violently.
Cracks began to spread across the ceiling. Thick blood poured from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
Then large chunks of stone began to break loose overhead, crashing down around them as the cavern slowly started to collapse.
It felt as though her entire body was being reconstructed from the inside out, down to the very foundation of her being, down to her soul itself.
Asmodeus watched the scene from where he had been lodged deep into the cavern wall, his eyes widening in shock.
"Impossible!" he roared.
His body burst free from the shattered stone that had trapped him. He didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was unfolding directly before his eyes.
His own child had claid the lifeblood of his obsession.
The Philosopher’s Stone.
The relic he had spent countless years searching for, studying, and attempting to control had chosen her, and not him.
Asmodeus flashed forward, his body becoming little more than a blur as he tried to reach Zenith.
He didn’t make it far.
Boom!
The sa invisible pressure erupted outward and slamd into him with brutal force, launching him upward into the cavern ceiling.
Crack!
The entire cavern trembled. That final impact was more than the already-damaged ceiling could withstand.
The stone above them split apart, and the entire upper section of the cavern collapsed.
Massive boulders and slabs of rock ca crashing down like an avalanche, swallowing the hollow beneath an overwhelming wave of dust, rubble, and shattered stone. The earth shook violently beneath the impact, and a deafening roar rolled through the underground chamber.
However, none of the rubble reached Elion or Zenith.
The sa unseen force surrounding Zenith pushed the falling debris aside, creating a safe space around them while tonnes of stone crashed harmlessly against the invisible barrier.
Outside, a massive section of the nacing Demon King’s castle began to cave in. Chunks of black stone broke free and tumbled down the cliffsides as a thick cloud of dust rose into the crimson sky.
Far from the castle, Maya and the others had already crossed a considerable distance when they noticed the destruction behind them.
They stopped in silence as all four stared at the distant castle with their breath held, watching as one of its largest sections crumbled into itself.
"So..." Maya said quietly. "The final battle has begun."
Uta looked toward her with a grim expression, but he said nothing.
Despite everything that had happened between them, despite the humiliating defeat she had suffered at his hands, Maya found herself hoping Elion would make it out alive.
She wanted to see him again. She had to.
’That way, I can have my revenge firsthand,’ she told herself bitterly.
Back beneath the castle, the violent creaking of falling rubble gradually slowed. The last few boulders rolled to a stop, and the heavy rumbling faded.
Zenith’s agonised screams had vanished as well.
An eerie silence slowly settled over the ruined cavern. For ten long seconds, nothing moved, until eventually the rubble shifted.
A section of shattered stone exploded outward as Asmodeus tore himself free from the debris beneath which he had been buried. He cursed beneath his breath and dusted off what little remained of his tattered robe.
His chest rose and fell slowly.
The powerful muscles along his fra tightened as he flexed his body, shaking loose the final fragnts of stone clinging to his skin. He lifted himself into the air.
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