Back in the foyer of the Mana Well Chamber, the silence was thick enough to be carved with a knife. Ti seed to have frozen solid the mont Bel of the Abyss and Leonard S. Dunning both vanished. The only thing that broke the stillness of the picture was the slow, deliberate drip of crimson lifeblood from the black thorn that had pierced Bel's chest, now suspended in mid-air where he once stood. The spire of abyssal magic, a monunt to Crowy's sudden betrayal, remained for a heartbeat, then it turned into a viscous liquid and was greedily sucked back into the Abyssal Lord's outstretched hand.
Noir Irdu Inanna stood motionless for a mont, his chest heaving, his face a curious mixture of disbelief and raw, unbridled elation. He had done it. He had killed the Emperor. Nothing stood between him and the culmination of his ravenous ambitions anymore. Nothing, except for the cluster of young heroes arrayed in front of him.
Penelope Dunning was the first to break the spell of stillness. Her knuckles, wrapped around the hilt of her zweihander, were bone-white. A tremor ran through her arm, vibrating up the blade, a silent chord of fury and confusion.
"Knave!" she yelled as she levelled her weapon at him, and the single word rang with the force of a war cry. "Have you no sha?! Even if it's Bel of the Abyss, you can't just stab soone in the back like that! It's just not done!"
Her words were harsh and determined, yet her mind raced, and her eyes fluttered left and right, looking for traces of her brother. There was nothing. Not a single scrap of shimring ether, not an echo of displaced air. They were simply gone.
"Did... did he take Brother with him, or the other way around?" she whispered, the thought a cold shard of ice in her throat.
Her confusion only lasted for but a heartbeat, and she swiftly reaffird her grip on her sword and squared her shoulders. She knew her brother the best, or so she believed, and whatever might have happened just now, she was confident that he was safe. After all, this wasn't the first ti he had shocked them with sothing that made no sense on the surface, only to reveal a masterful plan down the line. Co hell or high water, she had boundless, unwavering trust in his capabilities.
...
There was a familiar man standing next to her, and as soon as their eyes t, the Ninurta patriarch, still covered in bandages after his last encounter with Joshua's companions, let out a throaty roar and pointed his hand at her.
"Begone!"
A wave of heat washed over her as a massive fireball materialised out of thin air and shot towards her. She was still carried by the wind blast she had previously conjured, so the best she could do was to instinctively ball up to make herself as small a target as possible.
The blast of heat washed over her, straining against the Wards of her Magiforr, but they held, their protective glow flickering but unyielding, yet the impact and her posture made her lose all montum and she crashed onto the ground hard.
She rolled and ca to a stop, the world a dizzying blur of pain and confusion. The impact had knocked the wind out of her, but adrenaline was a potent anaesthetic, and she scrambled to her feet, her gaze darting towards her opponent. It appeared the Abyssal Aristocrat only just recognised the person he was facing, and his face contorted into a scowl.
The Ninurta patriarch wasn't a man of half-asures though, and he imdiately conjured another fireball, which he would've no doubt launched with the sa ferocity if he wasn't interrupted by the deafening sound of the chamber's doors exploding inwards.
Their hinges failed, torn from the stone with a screech of tortured tal, and the great slabs of steel were hurled across the chamber like discarded toys, turning into endless fragnts of ever-hungry jaws and beaks and snouts and maws violently devouring all that ever was, had been, or will be in a cacophony of—
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