They ran down the hallway, their lives depended on it. It was the last that separated them from the entry hall, after which they could enter the palace grounds and go, where? Ellyrie shook her head, she could not think of this now. The guilt was already eating her alive.

They were only a few steps away from the exit when Melthaine stopped dead in her tracks. She stared at the large wooden doors, pale as a corpse. "We need to go back. Take another route. Something's waiting for us."

"And run back into that bastard´s arms?" Cairon had already gripped the handle. "Elias is fighting so we can escape, and this place is crawling with guards, we'll have to fight no matter what."

Ellyrie bit her lip and looked back at Melthaine, then to Cairon. "We should listen to her, she knows-"

Cairon pulled the door open, and they were greeted by a wave of murky black water. It completely drenched them, and Ellyrie felt smaller things, washed along hit her body, but it was hardly the most discomforting.

The stench was horrible. The smell of meat, decayed and rotten for countless years hit over them, it drove tears to their eyes and Ellyrie struggled not to vomit, Melthaine did.

The entry hall was nothing like what it had been just a mere hour ago. The black water was reaching past their ankles, making every step forward a struggle. Body pieces floated about, an arm here, a leg there, a few heads swam past them. Most had been gnawed at, few had little but a few strands of muscle left on them.

The blackness had also reached the walls around them, and even dripped down on their heads from the ceiling, the only thing not covered in it were the large stone pillars, removed from their normal surroundings they made her shiver, expecting whatever creature had caused this to hide behind one.

But it was not hiding.

In the centre of the room laid a pile of bodies, most still wearing the red of Atal. Their steps through the brackish water were joined by a sickening sound of flesh being torn from bone, sinews tearing, and gurgled swallowing.

At the top of the pile sat a girl, her fine clothing stained much like her face. She held the upper body of one of the female guards, ripping chunks out of her stomach with her mouth. Ellyrie could not hold it in anymore, her vomit quickly mixing with the waters.

"More cowards?" The girl looked up, her bright golden eyes shining in the dark, searching lights that landed on Ellyrie. "Abandoning your post? No." She leaned her head back and swallowed down the last bit of innards, her throat bulging out. The girl wiped her face, but it only smeared it more. "You're the ones the old man told me to get rid of."

She bared her teeth as she smiled, an endless row of needle thin fangs. "I've been waiting for a proper meal, these sordid pigs are hardly filling." She grasped the woman´s corpse by her head, and flung it over her shoulder like a ball of yarn, it landed in the stale waters with a loud splash.

Two arrows shone brightly, illuminating the dark as they raced towards the girl, piercing her chest. Aeneya clenched her fist and the tips, lodged deeply within her small frame, erupted into flame.

The girl laughed. Her skin melted under the fire, but unphased she clapped her hands and flicked her wrist in their direction. A large black wave formed behind her, covering the girl and racing towards them.

Cairon rose his staff and ran forward, a bright blue light surrounding his fist. He struck the wave as it approached, and it froze under his touch, the freeze spreading and halting the waters in place. Cairon struck it again, and the wave shattered.

Yet behind it, the girl was now extinguished, and her body began to regenerate, tissue and skin regrowing before their eyes. "So you are insolent pigs as well?" Her smile faded, replaced with a look of pure disgust. "How DARE you raise your hands against me!" Her voice echoed across the hall. Ripples formed in countless places in the waters, which began to part. Figures emerged, bereft of all features, their skin pitch black. They were not solely drenched in the sickening waters, they seemed almost made out of it.

Some had been human, others hillspeople, some were no people at all but beasts. All shared the same tar-like bodies, all had bright golden light emanate from their sockets.

"You raise your hand against the daughter of Aeterna, the second divine blade of redemption! I am Benevolence, and you will pay for your treason!" The girl´s shrill voice echoed, and as one, the creatures moved towards them.

Ellyrie readied her blade, the pale blue flame only illuminating their twisted surroundings more. With Aeneya and Cairon they formed a triangle around Melthaine.

Not even the gluttonous wolf woman had left Ellyrie with such a feeling of despair. Their enemies were weak alone, their bodies could take a lot of punishment, but the fire of her blade, Aeneya´s arrows and Cairons ice still dispatched them with ease. Yet each simply collapsed into the waters around them, becoming one with the waters, only for another to rise up and take it´s place.

And luck always turned on one when given enough chances. A lucky glance here, a badly parried strike there, they all sustained injuries, they burned through the crystals they had, Aeneya emptied her quiver and had to drop her bow into the morass around their feet to take up her sword.

And as they fought, the blade called Benevolence watched them in amusement from atop her mountain of corpses. Her eyes were pinned on Melthaine. "You." She had grasped an arm, tore it from the socket in a single pull and was tearing into it. "Mother told me not to kill you, but she didn't say I needed to give you up in one piece." Her laughter echoed from the walls, joined by a loud hissing emanating not from her mouth. "You look so appetising, I am sure mother will forgive me if you lack a hand or two."

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Melthaine answered the gaze of Benevolence with pure disgust. "Of all the filthy usurpers in this hive of maggots you call an empire, you are the worst I have seen! What leader devours their own!"

Benevolence continued chewing, swallowing before she spoke. "My own? Oh please. I am a divine blade, my mother is the imperator herself! Do not compare me to these lowly pigs that cannot even die properly for us." The arm was gnawed clean of the most meaty bits, half-eaten she threw it to the side, tearing out another. "They failed their purpose of guards, so I gave them a new one."

The ripples grew slower, but bigger. Greater creatures emerged from the waters, their bodies more defined. Their bodies were solid, and instead of tar-like skin, they were covered head to toe in scales. Their heads resembled fish or serpents, a few slithering towards them on a single serpentine lower body.

Melthaine stared at them in shock, gripping her head. "What did you do, what did you do with my children?!"

The only answer she got was laughter. Echoing, howling laughter that stopped as the hall lit up in bright blue. Ellyrie had cut down a swathe of her foes, and for this one brief moment, her path was clear. Blade held over her head she ran, up and over the corpses towards the girl who stared at her in disbelief.

The blade cut through her stomach cleanly, severing her torso from her waist. Both fell and rolled down the pile into the waters, quickly being consumed.

For a brief spell, the hall was quiet, the creatures of Benevolence staggered aimlessly.

Then the water began to bubble and writhe all around them. Massive tentacles shot out of the waters, each as thick as a fully grown tree. They thrashed and lunged at them. Ellyrie managed to cut down one, before being hit by another from the back. The blow was followed by a sickening crack that drove the air out of her lungs. It coiled around her body and pulled her into the air with her head down.

She saw her friends combat the writhing mass, but they too did not last much longer. Cairon stood on a mountain of his own, made up of shattered ice, but when four of the tentacles lunged at him at the same time he was overwhelmed. They held him, Ellyrie saw them tense, and then drop his lifeless body on the ground with a loud splash.

Aeneya was surging back, fear in her eyes. She too was caught, one coiling around her arms, the other her legs. Only Melthaine stood in place, unmolested, her hands shaking.

Once more the waters burst apart, and Benevolence returned. Her body was renewed as she rose up into the air, further and further. Below her dress extended a serpentine body, the scales pale white like her face. She stared at the two sky knights struggling in her grasp. "That, hurt." She hissed, her tongue slipping past her teeth as she spoke. "Do you have any idea, how much that hurt?!"

The tentacle squeezed around her body, Ellyrie felt her bones fracture as she screamed. But it did not seem to satisfy the girl.

"Wait. You're Medias´ child, aren't you." Benevolence came closer, her face mere inches away from that of Ellyrie. She could smell the stench of her breath, see the hunger in her eyes.

"He had a child." Her hands were starting to tremble, the hissing under her breath grew louder and louder. "But tried to have me erased?!"

Her bones shattered, the pain turned Ellyrie´s sight to pure white.

"No. Not yet."

The grip relaxed, Ellyrie still could do naught more than scream. She was turned to face Aeneya, look into her fear-filled eyes. Ellyrie knew what was going to happen.

"No, please!" Her voice was little more than a gasp, the dread overpowering her pain. "Kill me, whatever you want, don't, please let her go!"

Benevolence moved closer, bringing her mouth to Ellyrie´s ear. She could hear the glee in her voice.

"No."

The tentacles twisted, their muscles pulsing as they pulled. Aeneya´s body was split in two, her guts spilling out on the ground, the two pieces dropped in an instant as the tentacles retreated into the water below.

Ellyrie shattered. She could hear noise, but not understand it, she saw a bright light from below that raced towards her, but could not make out the details. It blinded her, and as her conscience faded, she prayed, to whomever would hear her, that it would finally be over.

But it was not.

The light faded, and gave view to a pure white void. She was laying on her back, her body still broken. All she could do was look, as a face moved into her view. She stared right into the dead eyes of Seraph.

"Few people come here even once, you know."

The hall, the bodies, the rot and decay. It had all been revolting. But it paled in comparison to being this close to the lady in white. She did not want to look, but could not close her eyes. Could she not just die, even being eaten alive by that abomination would be better than this!

"No. That wish wont come to be." Seraph shook her head, her long mane of hair blocking out the rest of Ellyrie´s view. "You are a lousy thing. Here I told you to take care of little Mel, and instead you almost got her killed."

Was she going to be punished, executed? How she wished for that to happen.

"You really are human. You lose your faith and instead of remaking it you seek to die. You already accomplish so little, and still seek to throw it away. Just what does she see in you?"

Her lips turned to a smile. Ellyrie felt bile rise in her throat at the sight.

"This makes it twice that you almost died for naught. But maybe this time you will learn your lesson."

Beautiful, blissful oblivion was gripping her, she could almost not see, almost needed not to look at that face anymore.

"My world hates the weak, it hates the blind. Such great power and sight lies in your grasp. So stop being a fool and take it."

White mixed with blue. The open sky, pristine clouds, and Melthaine´s face. She looked even older now, older than Ellyrie, and was holding her hand.

"You're alive." She muttered, tears streaming down her face.

Ellyrie wished she was wrong.