The Rotting Cathedral pulsed with unnatural life. Fungal growths stretched across the decrepit walls, glowing with eerie bioluminescence. The air was thick with the scent of damp decay and something sharper—alchemy at work.
Selene Nocturna stood before a stone altar, her gloved fingers delicately adjusting a vial of sickly green liquid. Her smirk widened as she watched the thick, bubbling concoction twist and shift, forming tiny writhing shapes within the glass.
"One more drop," she mused, her voice silken and deadly, as she let a thick, black liquid swirl into the vial.
The mixture reacted violently, twisting, screaming—yes, actually screaming—before settling into a thick, pulsing gel. Selene tilted her head in admiration.
A rustling at the cathedral's entrance made her pause. Without looking, she raised a hand, and the torches lining the walls snapped to life with pale, greenish flames, illuminating the figure who had dared to enter her domain.
A scout from Kruger's forces.
He had made it past the horrors lurking in the shadows outside, past the rotting sentinels that lined the courtyard. But now, standing before the Widow herself, his courage faltered.
He raised his gun—a mistake.
Before his finger could squeeze the trigger, Selene flicked her wrist, and the vial in her hand shattered. A cloud of black, mist-like venom coiled through the air, moving with unnatural purpose before plunging into his mouth and nose.
He choked, stumbling back, hands clawing at his throat as the alchemical toxin burned through his veins. His eyes darkened, his body trembled, and his skin took on a rotting pallor.
Selene watched in fascination as the transformation completed. The man who had entered as a soldier stood now as something else—a thrall bound by her will.
She stepped forward, tilting his chin up with a single gloved finger, her smile widening as she studied her new creation.
The cathedral doors groaned open again.
This time, it wasn't a lone scout. It was Kruger himself.
His blade was drawn, his stance rigid. The bodies of her failed experiments lay behind him, slain in his wake.
Selene's eyes glinted with amusement. He had come for war.
But she had already won.
With a slow, deliberate motion, she gestured to the newly turned thrall. The former soldier's head snapped toward Kruger, his jaw unhinging in a silent scream, his hands twisting into clawed appendages.
Selene laughed softly, the sound dripping with cruel delight.
"General, do be careful. My potions are… irreversible."
And the Rotting Cathedral echoed with the sounds of battle.