Damon stepped forward through the storm, blood tendrils tearing apart strands of moonlight one after another, blood, darkness and miasma swirling around him like an unshakeable force.
A single glance at Damon told the entire story. His eyes were glowing with a deep, poisonous red. His fangs were bared almost lazily. A thin smile curved at the edge of his lips. The seven moons flickered again, their brightness dimming as the miasma wrapped around them like serpents, draining their light.
"I am taking my fiance with , one way or the other." He patted the petrified elf on the back and walked forward. A casual wave of his hand once more opened up the cavern for him.
"STOP!" Erelion scread but black veins spread all over his body, completely paralyzing him. Damon would have simply killed him but he did not want to make an enemy of the entire elven clan just yet.
He continued walking forward as he could already sense Lirae’s aura right down in the cavern in front of him. She was silently sitting with her eyes closed, ditating on sothing.
Damon smiled and blinked right next to her. "Co on, sleepy head. I am here to take you ho. Sorry I am late." He reached forward to touch her when suddenly an ominous feeling welled up in his heart.
At the sa ti, the woman in front of him crumbled. She beca nothing more than a ss of colorful petals.
Damon’s hand froze mid-reach. The petals drifted through his fingers and scattered, dried and withered in the hot winds of the desert. An illusion. A decoy.
Damon’s smile vanished. His eyes turned cold. All this while this was what he had been talking to? Everything was a lie? Since when did they know?
He clenched his fingers som tightly his knuckles turned white. His overconfidence had cost him everything. Just because he was able to talk to her, didn’t an she was fine. He should have co here sooner. He should have sensed that sothing was wrong.
Maybe he would have won against Erelion. Maybe he wouldn’t have. He would have at least been here in ti to stop this. Now what was he supposed to do? Where the hell was she?
He once again tried to reach her through his ntal connection but... he couldn’t. Sothing blocked him. Sothing was preventing him from reaching her. Where was she? What did they do to her?
Damon’s gaze imdiately shited to Erelion who was lying on the ground like a blackened chicken. He instantly appeared next to him. "What did you do to her? All those talk about saving her and protecting her! What the hell did you do to her?" He quickly took back so of the poison so the elf could talk.
However, Erelion only smiled.
His smile wasn’t triumphant. It wasn’t mocking. It wasn’t the grin of a man who had beaten an enemy. His lips were charred from the black veins crawling up his throat. His jaw trembled, but the smile stayed. His eyes, red and bloodshot, lifted to et Damon’s with a wild, feverish intensity.
Damon’s expression darkened. He had severely underestimated his opponent yet again. There were so many things in this world he had no idea about. He should have gotten Lirae back a long ti ago, one way or the other. He wanted to be cautious and now, it was too late.
The elf in front of him finally opened his mouth to say the sa thing.
"You’re too late, bloodsucker," he rasped. "Far, far too late."
"Where," Damon said, each word razor-sharp, "is. Lirae?"
Erelion coughed a spray of silver-tinted blood, the kind only elves with high-born lineage possessed. It evaporated before hitting the ground. "She’s... not here," he whispered.
Damon grabbed him by the collar, lifting him effortlessly. "Stop playing gas."
But Erelion only laughed. It was clear that he was never going to answer his question. "If you are not going to answer , then you are useless to ."
Damon lifted the man and tossed him roughly on the sands. With a flick of his finger, Damon then started absorbing the silvery threads of blood from the elf with a cruel glint in his eyes. "If you are not going to answer , then you do not have to live anymore."
Erelion’s body convulsed violently the mont Damon began pulling the silver blood threads out of him. Pale moonlight oozed from the elf’s pores, each strand shimring with centuries of inherited power and each strand ripping free under Damon’s grip like flesh being torn from bone.
The elf scread, the raw, primal sound of soone having his very soul peeled apart. His fingers clawed uselessly at the sand. His back arched sharply. His eyes rolled upward, blood spilling from the corners in silver rivulets, all flowing towards Damon.
However, Damon did not stop. He kept going and going until the elf was at the very doorstep of death. "I am asking you this one more ti. Where is Lirae?"
Even now in this pitiful state, the elf only smiled.
His chest heaved in jagged spasms as Damon ripped out the last shimring threads of his high-born lineage. His skin was turning paper-thin, veins collapsing, light dimming. He no longer looked like a proud elven lord, he looked like a dying specter in the sand.
But the smile stayed.
Damon’s blood tendrils tightened around his throat. "Last chance."
Erelion didn’t answer. He wheezed, a horrible, rattling sound as more of his silver blood evaporated into Damon’s grasp. His eyes fluttered, and when they opened again, there was... clarity. And sothing else. Happiness.
"She is not here," he managed to talk. He was barely holding on. "Even if you kill ... even if you tear out every drop of my blood... you won’t find her. You will never find her. She is safe and forever out of your reach."
A cold, suffocating silence fell over the desert. Damon’s expression sharpened into sothing murderous, sothing ancient, sothing inhuman. "And why is that?"
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