At the behest of the old mage, the gates were opened one last time, letting Demadara slip through into the night. She looked back at him, and the tall, pale woman standing next to him with a wide smirk on her face.

Then she faced forward, and ran as fast as she could.

Behind the gate, the mage inserted the staff, and the square elevator began to slowly ascend. He cursed under his breath.

"So why exactly must I go through this unsightly work, while you get to remain how you are?"

Parsae could not stop chuckling as she looked upon the man that had been, that was Timae.

"Well my dear Furball, because you are better than me. Sure, I could take over his body or make mine appear like him, but I would not have his soul, his memories, nor would I manage to mimic his voice so well like you. No, for this you are just perfect."

Timae shuddered and growled under her breath. "The moment my lord has no need for you anymore, I swear."

"Oh hush dear, hush."

They stopped on the highest floor, and looked around. All four doors were closed. The only noise came from the council chamber, though only muffled.

"Seems like we don't have as much time as we wanted. So furball, time to shine. Where are they keeping the records, and where are they keeping my book?"

Timae looked around, walking from door to door, before stopping beyond the one opposite of the council chamber. "It should be here. Though they are using some sort of mechanism to seal it, and I am fairly confident that just trying to break through would alert far too much attention."

Parsae rolled her eyes and stretched. "So? Unlock it then, I figured this idiot whose face you stole knows how to?"

"No you damn parasite, he does not!" Timae struggled to keep her voice down. "Wait, where are you going?"

Parsae had turned and was walking towards the council chamber. She was juggling seven blood crystals while humming to herself.

"Are you mad?!" Timae hissed at her. "You'll get us both killed!"

Parsae stopped in front of the door and turned around. "Will I? They are sitting in the middle of their lair, miles away from anyone who would wish them ill. And besides."

She caught three of her crystals in her left hand and crushed them. A red flickering glow spread across her arm all over her body.

"These amateurs are three hundred years too early to make a dent in me."

Parsae spun around her axis and kicked down the doors. They were sent flying through the air, landing behind the crescent table. The archons of war were quickly on her feet, as was Khao. Turinan still struggled to leave his seat, while Utria did not look up.

"My oh my, is this the best that decrepit crazy fool of a god could chose as his succesors?" Parsae slid her hands into her pockets as she wandered into the room.

Ninia and Thileos jumped over the table and walked to Parsae´s flanks, while Jenafari took the centre.

"I don't know if you are exceptionally lucky, brave or stupid to come here, whoever you are." Jenafari spoke calmly, flames starting to spread around his fists. "But you will be dead."

"Oh really?" Parsae stuck her tongue out at him and shrugged. "Make me."

She saw the light flash in the corner of her eye, and stepped over to the left. The surge of lightning breezed past her. The battle had begun.

Ninia let out a cry that turned more beastly by the moment as her body contorted and changed shape.

Parsae moved forward to stop her, but her path was cut off by a blaze of flames that enveloped her.

Jenafari stood calm, the fires enveloping his body. She could see his earrings, the bright shine the gems inside them gave off. Clever.

Turinan had finally gotten up and was quickly rushing past the table to join his comrades as Khao had already done. He rose his hands up into the air, as he called out a large axe of pure air appeared in his grasp.

Parsae had closed her eyes as she flames grew closer. So they had power, what a neat trick.

She opened her mouth, and exhaled. Her breath was an icy cloud, and the ground around her began to freeze over.

Where the ice touched the flames, it froze them solid, a twisting shape caught in time. Free of the encirclement she slid across the frozen ground towards Jenafari, who rose his hands.

Fire met ice, but his little earrings could not match her. He was pushed back further and further, and when the shine of his earrings faded, so did his flames. The ice enveloped him, freezing him solid.

Parsae was struck from behind, and sent flying. Ninia had fully transformed, into a massive bear standing on two feet.

She looked across the group, and her eyes rested on Turinan, who had sunk to his knees and begun reciting. Her eyes widened as she heard the words.

Parsae kicked the air and sent herself hurling forward towards him, moments too late. He had finished his recitation and clapped his hands together. His skin began to turn golden, his features frozen in a permanent, wide smile.

Turinan leapt to his feet and charged Parsae, fist raised. Parsae waited.

The golden mage could not halt his momentum, fist forward he crashed into, and through her body. where they touched, she turned to smoke, manifesting again after her was through and stumbling to halt. When he did, it was too late.

Parsae´s hands were crackling with lightning, and wrapped both around Turinan´s neck. His body shook and trembled without a sound, before it gave out, and his corpse fell face forward on the ground.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Is this really everything that you people got? This is all that you can make of the magic I built for you? I am-"

Khao´s axe screeched through the air, and severed her torso from her waist. For a few moments she staid in the air, looking at him with genuine surprise. Then with amusement. "Well, this body was getting boring anyways. Yours looks like much more fun."

Her mouth opened wide and her spirit left through it, enveloping Khao in a thick black cloud. He struggled to breathe, then grasped for his throat. Once, twice it twitched and thrashed, then he let go as his eyes turned blue.

"Oh you really have more reserves than normal. But yuck, your fashion sense is horrendous!"

Fire began to envelop her new body, and she ran at Thileos. He sent wave after wave of light against her, it severed an arm, it cut through her stomach, but it did not halt her. With her new, taller body she pushed Thileos down and grinned into his face.

"Goodbye."

Her body´s skin began to wither and wilt, aging within second as Parsae drew every last ounce of life from late Khao´s body for her spell.

The flames condensed around them, only to burst. The fires covered the room in an inferno, and Parsae´s shadowy form flew over it, cackling as she watched Ninia in her beastly form roar and run from the flames, out of the hall.

Parsae rose her hand, and a thin red line burst out of her fingertips and down towards Ninia. It pierced her back through the heart. She collapsed and fell dead, right on the edge.

Throughout the carnage, Utria had stayed at her spot. Even now, with the flames raging around her, she continued to write. Parsae sat down on the edge of the table next to her.

"So you're not the fighting type, hm?"

"What is the point. What children could hope to best their mother?"

Parsae´s form did not have a mouth, but her amusement rung in her voice. "So you know who I am, clever. So you know what I am going to be doing now."

Utria let go of her feather. She looked up, and nodded. "Will you forgive me for turning my back on you?"

She laughed and laid a hand on Utria´s shoulder. "Oh dear, that you even know that is enough. Well, that and your body."

Parsae faced no resistance as she entered Utria. Her body quivered twice, and Utria was no more.

Timae had waited at the door with bated breath, and let out a shriek as Ninia´s body flew towards her, landing at her feet.

Parsae had already gotten to work with her new body, extending her hair, changing her skin tone, her eyes. By the time she had crossed the room towards Timae, she looked like the exact same ivory as before.

"Don't tell me you made those undead freaks too." Timae snarled as she ran her hands across Ninia´s face.

"Me? Oh no, I don't care about the dead, though I have to admit that they do look gorgeous. And now that I'm living and breathing again it gives it such a charming touch, don't you think?"

"Shut. up." Timae had closed her eyes, both her hands covering Ninia´s face. Her body began to shift and change, growing smaller, thinner. Even her clothes mirrored the change, and within moments Timae was a spitting image of the dead mage.

When she took her hands off Ninia´s face, there was nothing left, her head was nothing but smooth, featureless skin.

"Now that, is quite unnerving." Parsae focused her eyes on the door, watching Timae run her hands across it. A small muttering, and the doors flung open.

Beyond it laid a massive vault, brimming with everything a mage would desire. Ancient tomes, golden and silver artifacts, but she had eyes for none of it.

"Quick, grab every single damn book that says "Heart" on it that you can find."

They split up, and Parsae delved to the right. She knew it was here, her book. Past the original manuscripts of the histories, past a large clock, whose ticking was the only other noise in the room.

There, things pertaining to her. Parsae let out a sigh. Her old "Treatise on crystals", she was getting close. "On the nature of the eight gods", fun but pointless, it had to be here. She ran her hands across the different books, and then a gap.

"Are you looking for this?"

The clock had stopped. Parsae stood frozen solid, yet her breath ran faster than ever. She did not want to turn around.

"I wont just go away you know."

She began to sob, and turned around.

Behind her stood Seraph, the lady in white. Holding it, her codex.

"You didn't think that I wouldn't notice, did you?"

Parsae was staring at the ground, all she saw was the fluttering of her dress. She couldn't look up, she mustn't look up.

"You went through all the trouble to get here, and now you don't want it? That is very unlike you. You do so love things that you have no business knowing, no?"

Her head began to move. She wanted to scream and stop, but her muscles did not obey. How much rather would she tear her eyes out, but even her eyelids stayed open.

She had to look, look into those endlessly black eyes.

"Stuck away for two hundred years, and the moment you are free you continue going as if nothing happened, clawing at the same secrets. Did you really learn nothing?"

She got closer. Why did she have to come closer, every step her feet tapped on the ground, Parsae was pleading and begging for her to stop but no voice left her lips.

"But your role is not over yet. Your endless, shameless curiousity still has a use, I find. That is why you are still breathing."

She put the book in her hand, and for a moment Seraph´s skin touched her own. The terror suffocated the last remaining bit of her mind. All that rung through it were Seraph´s words.

"Like Aeterna, you are going to take care of that girl for me. I graced her just the same. And don't forget:

I will know if you try finding me again. Some things are not for your eyes."

The clock ticked again, Parsae was once more in control of her body, and she ran. Past Timae, through the hall of carnage, and to the balcony. It was barely a noticeable distance, yet she was out of breath. The touch, the single touch of skin.

Parsae´s body contorted as she threw up, her legs trembling. Timae had caught up, holding a massive stack of books. She had given up on Ninia´s form and was herself again.

"Will you get yourself together, we need to hurry!"

With a low hum the square plattform was descending downwards, and the loud yelling from below reached them even on the balcony.

Timae shoved the last remaining blood crystals into Parsae´s hand. The surging power was a comfort. She crushed them in her hand and held tightly onto her codex.

"Yes, yes. So hold on tight!"

Timae´s look was of pure disgust, but she coiled her tails around the books to get her hands free, then clung onto Parsae.

Together they jumped off the balcony.

Parsae closed her eyes, and bit her teeth together was a pair of large black wings sprouted from her back and carried them up to the sky. Transmutation of a living body in this way was painful, but this once she welcomed it.

It let her push away the thought of Seraph. The repulsive thought that such a being existed.