She was going to die.

Zoe gulped. Shivering, she stared at the paladin. “I was just using that as a distraction. I knew you could handle them, and I thought —”

“You thought that you could delay me long enough to escape.”

“I —” Zoe trailed off. She was at a complete loss for what to do. Alexander was clearly not going to put up with anything she could spin up, and she was once again completely dead on mana. And even if she wasn’t… Well, there was no way that she would have been able to match him.

But suddenly, she realized she had one advantage: he hadn’t killed her yet.

The paladin had massacred the cultists with carefree abandon, and yet, she remained untouched so far. His sword was drawn, angled at her — but he hadn’t moved. If he was definitely going to kill her, why was she so far still alive? No, there had to be a reason. Something she could use.

Alexander shook his head. “Cat got your silver tongue?” He gave her a derisive snort. “I shouldn’t have expected anything more of a demon. It seems that even a newly arrived worldwalker isn’t crazy or innocent enough to resist the corruption.”

Zoe furrowed her brow. What was he going on about? And how could she use it to her advantage?

“You haven’t killed me yet. If I were you, I would have attacked immediately. You want something.” Zoe stared him down as intently as she could. It was quite forward of her, she knew. She was pretty much laying all of her cards flat down on the table. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what else to do.

Silence didn’t really seem to be a better option.

“Quick, aren’t you?”

The way he said it straddled the line between a begrudging compliment and condescending sarcasm. Zoe clenched her fists. She wanted answers. It didn’t matter that she was in the much lower position — the paladin’s disdainful superiority was finally starting to really get to her.

“Well? What is it?”

Alexander grinned. His brilliantly white teeth glistened unpleasantly. “The truth is, a Rank A demon core is an exceptionally valuable resource, even despite its profane origins. It’s best harvested while the subject is alive.”

Zoe recoiled quickly, but the paladin was faster. His gauntlet closed around her neck and shoved her down to the steps in one rough motion. She tried to scream on instinct but she couldn’t breathe.

She kicked her legs, and then those were pinned down under her as well. “You know,” he grunted, “I don’t find this particularly pleasurable either.” Reaching to his side, he withdrew a small knife. “Now I would advise you to be still. If you’re lucky, you might live. I’d be willing to allow that, by the way. A demon is only dangerous with their magic intact.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Zoe kicked him. It didn’t accomplish much other than him slapping her across the face, hard. But she continued to struggle. She wouldn’t go down like this without a fight — even if it might cost her her life.

Blood was rushing to her head. She was struggling to breathe, struggling to thing. The knife sank into her chest. It was a sharp pain, but it didn’t even register much over the raw panic coursing through her. And yet her struggling continued in vain — what could she possibly do? The way she was positioned wouldn’t even let her bite him.

Zoe activated her storage ring.

The second mana crystal popped into the air right between them. It seemed to hang in the air for a fleeting moment before dropping down onto her forehead. That accomplished nothing!

Gritting her teeth, Zoe kept scrabbling — and then a wave of demonic mana washed over them. As it passed through her core, Zoe absorbed the little that she could. And then she activated {Mana Manipulation}.

It wasn’t much, not at all. But it was just barely enough for her to activate {Cleansing Hellfire}.

The spell only ignited for a singular pitiful moment before fizzling out. And yet Alexander flinched back enough for her to grab the mana crystal and smash him in the forehead.

The paladin reeled back just slightly, clearly not terribly hurt. Zoe rose to her feet. Shaking, she glowered at the man now below her. Her fists clenched so hard that her nails drew her own blood.

And then he began to laugh.

He was laughing at her, slapping his knee — he actually slapped his knee — and shook his head. “Girl, do you really think you have a chance?”

Fuming, Zoe averted her gaze and looked around the chamber again. That pulse of mana had to have come from somewhere — was it the last ritual activating? She looked over to where the formation had been carved.

Returning her gaze to Alexander, she calmed herself and shook her head. “Not really. You’re too much stronger than me.” She paused, then pointed. “But you might want to deal with that first.”

Alexander sniffed, his eyes not leaving her face. “Do you really expect me to fall for that?”

Leaping backward, Zoe just barely managed to dodge the worst of the debris as the man-sized fist crashed down right on top of the paladin. The monster was huge — easily a story tall, and made entirely of muscle. Literally. The whole thing was a writhing mass of twisted, entwined flesh with no skin.

As she staggered backwards, Zoe caught sight of thick tendons of flesh grasping around behind it, dragging in more cultist corpses to assimilate.

The monster roared. It didn’t have a face — or a head even. The center of its chest was a circular hole with an assortment of miscellaneous bones acting as teeth.

Zoe turned to run.

Something coiled around her ankle.

Cursing, she allowed herself to be dragged towards the monstrosity. Along the way, she just barely managed to grab the little knife Alexander had been using. It cut into her palm — she had grabbed it by the blade.

Turning it around and ignoring the pain, Zoe hacked at the tendril that snagged her. To her surprise, the blade barely cut into it, and the monster only began pulling her in faster.

As she slid up towards its toothy maw, she caught a glimpse of battered, once shining armor rising up from the rubble.

And then it was all teeth and wetness and warmth and immense pressure.

As Zoe slid down into the thing’s stomach and the acid began to eat away at her skin, she screamed. But not in pain or fear. No, she was pissed. First, she had woken up cold and alone in the dark. And then cultists had tried to kill her. And then the holy warrior who was supposed to have saved her tried to cut out her heart, and now some stupid abomination was trying to devour her. Like prey.

Zoe wasn’t prey.

Grasping the folds of the monsters stomach, she pressed her face against it and bit down.

Before, she just wanted to escape this hell alive. Now, she wanted blood.