Huh! Hu! Huh! Hu! Syllis panted. Her throat could hardly operate as it normally did. She felt her mind threatening to pull itself apart. Coryzan’s influence had long set in. She laughed as she tore apart the bodies of dozens of legion members.

It had been a gruesome battle but it was nearly over with now. Syllis looked forward to it. To have a chance to breathe—literally and metaphorically.

Syllis looked ahead of her. An entire mob of bodies were littered across the ground. Their clothes were torn revealing grotesque figures underneath. Maliciously warped by the very flame they ended up wielding.

They were vaguely humanoid but features such as their noses and groups of muscles were entirely impossible to discern. If they were ever there, then they had been disfigured beyond what Syllis could even comprehend.

‘Another one…’ Syllis thought. She locked eyes—or where they would have been. She was sick and tired of dealing with them, it was a hassle.

The legion member in front of her stood solemnly and took a glance at the bodies it walked on top of. It crouched down and began to tear the limbs from them, devouring them in less than a minute each.

‘Freaks.” Syllis had seen them do this same thing dozens of times. Though, now that the battle was almost at its conclusion, she wondered what the point could be.

The secare nymph looked around. There were only around twenty-five stragglers left. Each of them looked terrified. They tried to consume the limbs and organs of their fallen comrades.

Clyde had been the main force in this battle. Syllis’ sanity had dwindled once the fight had hit the halfway point. And Aura… her value quickly deteriorated. Now, she was only muttering to herself, curled up in a ball on the ground.

Thankfully neither Clyde nor Syllis needed to dedicate their time and efforts to protecting her. The occasional ephemeral green flames wafting was a reminder of her sworn protector. Her bone-dragon was doing an exemplary job.

Syllis did not mind the fiend in front of her deciding to eat a meal. It would be his last, after all. Besides, she needed a minute to form a suitable weapon.

A slight knife that would have shone under the moonlight in Ethrailia was merely dull under a swirling purple sky. There was no moon with any moonlight to give.

Syllis laughed wryly. “Who knows… maybe the four suns’ ate the moon as well. Or a couple of them. Or a whole slew of them. What do you think Mr. Cannibal?”

The cannibalistic member of the legion turned his head upwards towards Syllis. She was sitting on top of a hefty corpse.

It did not understand the speech. Syllis understood this very well. They had not yelled to communicate once, let alone make any sounds to each other aside from cries of pain. They were primitive in the ways of intellect.

“Its unnerving Mr. Cannibal. Seeing all of you humanoid peo—animals, acting just like that, Animals. I wonder… is it wrong to eat your meat, Mr. Cannibal?” Syllis asked. Her eyes were full of genuine curiosity.

The cannibal rose, stepping backwards slightly. It nearly tripped over a particularly large corpse.

“Don’t act like that Mr. Cannibal…” Syllis looked down for a moment. “Come on, take a seat. You’ve eaten them. What do they taste like? Do they taste good?”

‘What am I doing?’ Syllis felt she had snapped out of a trance. ‘Hmm? Since I hardly used my bond, the corruption relinquished whatever part of my mind was enabling me to act in that way?’ She quickly formed a theory.

Syllis firmly gripped her icy-blue knife and rushed forward.

The cannibal rose flame from the ground in an attempt to stop the nymph from coming any closer.

It proved ineffective. A small wall of icy-blue was all that was needed to deflect the flame. It lacked the intensity of the four suns, perhaps only a tenth of the heat.

Ack! The cannibal cried out as the icy knife cut through its throat. It vomited blood and fleshy chunks of its fallen comrades up onto its own stomach as it fell backwards.

“Goodbye, Mr. Cannibal,” Syllis said, sincerely.

Syllis looked around at the remaining members of the legion. There were only a few. Clyde seemed to have dealt with nearly all of the twenty-five that were left.

‘Wait! Why is—’

“Aura!” Syllis yelled out to her. In a panic, she formed a lackluster spear and breathed in. She adjusted her view. ‘Ready… What!?’ The secare nymph dropped the spear. Her entire body felt like it had gone up in flames.

‘Why now, why now!’ Syllis thought internally as she watched the spear bearer approach Aura.

The world almost seemed to move in slow motion. Syllis hit her hand against the gravel to draw blood and hopefully break it. She needed to be distracted from her episodic pain. It had gotten worse. The last time it arose was a mere three days earlier. Before that… five days.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

‘That time is nearing damnit… Why did her dragon? No! That witch!’ Syllis knew exactly why the dragon vanished. Aura had recovered just enough sanity to realize that the secare nymph was not going to follow through in executing her, so she did it herself.

Syllis stood, there was no time to criticize that witch. She needed Aura to keep Clyde fully intact. “Wait!” she called out.

Just as the spear was about to pierce Aura, Clyde stepped in. Splat! Blood painted the surrounding ash and washed over Aura’s face and hair. The spear cut clean through his chest.

Aahhh! Aura cried out. Crimson fluid leaked out from her right eye. She fell over, writhing on the floor and moaning in pain.

Syllis arrived, kicked the spear-bearer backwards and indirectly tore the spear out of Clyde from the angle it had entered. “Press your shirt into it!”

The secare nymph quickly took the man’s remaining life as well as the two other legion members that were serving as a distraction. She spun on her heel and moved to check on Clyde. Her hands tore at his clothing as she examined the wound.

Due to the tall stature of the spear-bearer, the spear entered at a downward angle. It had pierced his chest and cut into Aura’s eye.

‘Damnit!’ Syllis thought internally. Though she did not dare say it out loud, she knew what the outcome of this was. ‘I—I can’t deal with something like this!’ Her ability to supercool the skin was great for superficial wounds. But for something so advanced—that had pierced a lung—she could not fix that.

“Clyde, I—”

“I know, Syllis,” he said, falling to the ground. His eyes drifted to the blood that drained from him.

Both of them ignored Aura, moaning and writhing in pain as they stared at each other, solemnly.

“God, Clyde,” Syllis said with a sigh. “I know what he said but… I don’t know if he really wanted you to die for her.”

Clyde looked at Syllis with a warm smile. “You didn’t know the man as well as I did. He would have wanted the world to die out before she did.”

“That’s true, I didn’t know him that well. How well can a murderer know their victim?” Syllis asked before laughing wryly. She coughed slightly, her mouth dry. “I want you to know that you did the right thing, pulling us into the fable rift. Better us than all of Asanoch, right?”

“You’re still… a damn bad liar.” Clyde tried to laugh to no avail.

“I’ll give your parents and Anahita your regards,” Syllis said, seriously.

“Omit them from that manipulator…” Clyde said as his eyes began to twitch and roll. “I wonder, what heaven will look like?” His fleeting life faded away.

“I’m sorry Clyde, but I can’t let you die yet. I’m much too selfish and cruel for that,” Syllis said, apologetically.

She formed a large coffin of ice and quickly laid Clyde’s corpse inside. Then she froze over the top of it, forming an airtight seal. No sound leaked out and most importantly, nothing from the outside world got in.

‘As long as this body is intact, maybe, just maybe Edward could bring him back.’ It was a long shot but she had heard of his miracle working before and though she had never seen such an extreme case, it was worth the try.

Syllis then focused her attention on Aura.

Her cries had grown louder. She cupped her hands overtop her rapidly decaying eye, drowning in blood. Her black coat had been turned more of a maroon color, tainted by both Clyde’s and her own blood.

“You see what happens when you act stupid like this!” Syllis yelled at the woman, fuming.

Aahhh! “W—who cares! You killed Korman and you won’t even let me die? How is that fair!?” Aura said, looking up at the secare nymph and her dulled seafoam eyes.

Syllis crouched down to Aura’s level and spoke. “This is going to hurt… a lot.” She slid a slight shard of ice from her jacket sleeve and swiftly cut the damaged eye out from its socket.

Aura cried out as Syllis threw the eyeball to the ground. She then supercooled the area, relieving her of this pain.

“Yes Aura, I killed Korman,” Syllis said, honestly. “If I could go back, then I would do it again and again, because someone had to die. I wouldn’t let it be Clyde I couldn’t. And you were too important for us to survive.”

“Then what about you,” Aura looked into Syllis’ eyes with great disdain.

Syllis looked down into Aura’s own, sharp, emerald eye. It had a deep fire within, reminiscent of her ephemeral dragon’s flame. The area around was stained red with blood. Some of it even seemed to mix in with her healthy eye’s color.

“You want me to give myself up? I would never. And you wouldn’t either. You would do the same thing I did if you had the chance, only to me or Clyde. So yes, I killed Korman because I had to.

“But you just killed Clyde, when he could have lived. And he just might because of me. How's that for Karma? You think I’m redeeming myself for killing your lover?

“I’m sorry, just… Come on Aura, let’s get out of here,” Syllis asked her, extending her hand.

“And what would we do, Syllis? Those four suns rise again and what do we do? Strain our bodies with lacking amounts of water and even more scarce food. Then what? We hope to find another rift in that abyss over there?”

Syllis looked down with a complicated expression before flicking back to Aura’s face. “Three days, Aura.”

“What?”

“Take three days. If we can’t leave in three days then you can die, if you want,” Syllis said, plainly.

Aura stood and moved closer to Syllis. She stood only a foot away, looking into her eyes. “Why would I believe you? You weren’t going to uphold your deal after we dealt with the legion. So why would you tell the truth now?”

“Because I’m tired now. I don’t have any more room to argue with you. But I can’t just leave Clyde behind. So, if you want to die, do it in three days. You’ll only be finishing the job with Clyde,” Syllis continued.

“Enough!” Aura snapped. “I didn’t try to do this to Clyde. You made a conscious effort to kill Korman!”

Syllis took a couple of steps backwards and looked up into the dark sky. She could tell that the four suns were just about ready to begin their rise overtop the great sky chasm.

“I’ll admit that,” Syllis said. “Why are you so opposed to the idea? I know that the both of you grew closer but that was for less than half a year. I’ve always found you to be a logical person before then.”

“You wouldn’t get it, Syllis,” Aura said. “You’re a cold and callous scarecrow too messed up to be able to see the world in a normal way. What looks like an imperfection in me is the only thing separating me and my human self from a monster like you.

“He wanted to marry me, you bastard. And I said yes.”