For several seconds, they were evenly matched, Magdalyna’s vast experience compensating for her reduced power, and Morgana’s superior technique offsetting her relative youth.
Then Morgana’s hand shot forward, faster than Magdalyna could fully track, and a spear of pure origin energy materialized. It punched through the ancient demoness’s defenses and buried itself in her abdomen.
Magdalyna gasped, more from shock than pain. She stared down at the weapon impaling her, then up at Morgana’s serene face.
"I told you," Morgana said quietly.
"I can’t let you interfere."
She twisted the spear, and Magdalyna collapsed, her weakened body unable to heal fast enough to compensate.
Baren roared again and charged toward Morgana, his dragon form radiating fury. Taeryn and Darian followed, weapons raised despite their exhaustion.
But the demon general intercepted them, his massive form blocking their path. And behind him, reinforcements were arriving, more demons, drawn by the ritual’s power, eager to witness their god’s return.
Rena tried to reach Morgana, tried to get close enough to demand answers, to understand why this was happening. But Raelana grabbed her and pulled her back.
"We can’t win this," Raelana said, tears streaming down her face.
"Not against her. Not with the Sins here. Not with everything else. We have to retreat. Have to—"
"WE CAN’T LEAVE JAENOR!" Rena screamed, struggling against Raelana’s grip.
Above them all, still suspended in chains, Jaenor convulsed more violently. The darkness pouring from his mouth had increased, forming a pool that defied gravity by floating in mid-air beneath him.
And from his throat came sounds, not quite screams, because his voice couldn’t fully form words anymore. Just raw, agonized wails that spoke of suffering beyond human comprehension.
His bloodshot eyes found Morgana. Found the woman who’d taught him, who he’d trusted absolutely.
And in those eyes, along with the agony, was betrayal so profound it seemed to crack something fundamental in his soul.
*
The ritual was nearly complete.
The seven Sins had stopped chanting; the ritual was self-sustaining now, fed by Jaenor’s own tremendous power being redirected and consumed. They simply maintained their positions, ensuring the circle’s integrity, watching as their planning finally bore fruit.
Jaenor’s body had gone rigid, every muscle locked in rictus as the final phase began.
The darkness pouring from his mouth thickened, becoming more substantial, more real.
And suddenly, he convulsed one final time. His back arched at an angle that should have snapped his spine. His mouth opened impossibly wide, jaw dislocating to accommodate what was being expelled.
He vomited.
Not food or bile, something infinitely worse. Dark blood-red liquid, thick and viscous, poured from his throat in quantities that couldn’t possibly fit inside a human body. It flowed like molten metal, steaming and hissing where it touched air, carrying a stench of copper and rot and something older than decay itself.
Mixed with the liquid was smoke, not grey or black, but deep crimson, the color of arterial blood. It coiled and writhed as it emerged, forming shapes that hurt to perceive, suggesting forms that existed in more dimensions than three.
Jaenor screamed through the vomiting, a sound that combined all his agony and horror and absolute despair into one primal expression of suffering. It was the scream of someone being broken. Of someone dying not just physically, but spiritually, having their very essence torn apart and reconstructed into something other.
He couldn’t stop.
The liquid that gave off smoke continued pouring from him in seemingly endless quantities. His body shook with each heave, bones creaking, skin splitting from the pressure.
Magdalyna, still impaled by Morgana’s energy spear, tried to crawl toward him. Tried to reach the boy she’d protected, tried to do something, anything, to stop this horror.
Morgana’s boot pressed down on her back, pinning her.
"Watch," Morgana said softly.
"Watch what we’ve accomplished. What had all of this been for?"
The pool of liquid and smoke had grown massive now, easily ten feet across, hovering beneath Jaenor’s suspended form.
And it was beginning to coalesce.
To take shape.
Something was rising from the darkness.
Slowly and deliberately.
Savoring its return to physical manifestation.
First came hands, slender and elegant, with fingers that seemed to trail shadows.
Then arms, graceful despite the wrongness that emanated from them. Shoulders emerging from the blood-red liquid like something being born in reverse.
A torso formed. Curves that suggested femininity, but distorted in subtle ways that made looking at them uncomfortable. Skin that was pale, not naturally pale, but the white of things long dead.
A neck.
A head is beginning to emerge.
Jaenor’s companions watched in horror as the figure continued manifesting. Watched as something pulled itself from the darkness that their friend had been forced to expel, using his body as a doorway, his power as fuel.
The face emerged last.
And when it did, several people gasped in recognition and horror.
Because the face was human. Beautiful, even strikingly so, with sharp features and a mouth that suggested both cruelty and intelligence. But the beauty was corrupted, tainted by something that existed behind the eyes.
Eyes that were solid black. Not dark brown or deep grey, but actually black, as if they contained nothing but void.
Hair followed, long and black, falling in perfect waves despite having just emerged from blood and smoke. It moved as if underwater, defying gravity and air resistance.
The figure rose fully from the pool now, hovering in the air, completely formed. She wore a dress that seemed woven from shadow itself, and her presence was overwhelming—not in the aggressive way of the Sins, but in the absolute way of something that was rather than merely existed.
This was the Daemon god - Suyajna
The entity that the Seven Sins had been trying to resurrect for years.
And she was female, elegant, and beautiful in a way that made mortal beauty seem like a crude approximation.
Suyajna’s hands pressed against Jaenor’s chest, and where they touched, his skin began to glow with a sickly luminescence. Dark veins spread from the contact points, crawling across his body like corrupted roots seeking to consume every part of him.