Lazily sitting on a comfortable, green leather chair, in the centre of a room that would put most kings to shame, sat a thin woman in a black and white dress holding a small, silver goblet. Her skin was so pale that it was hard to tell where the white parts of her dress ended and her skin began giving her an odd, otherworldly feel.

If one were to take a quick glance, they would be concerned about the woman's health, being so thin, but upon seeing her face, they would probably pale and do one of two things, kneel and press their heads against the floor or, more than likely, quickly make an excuse and escape.

The woman was often called the Goddess of the Fallen, or to those who knew her well, Styx. She was a Soul Eater, and because of her race, she did not have a face in the conventional sense. If someone were to paint a portrait of her, it would be fair in assuming that the artist had forgotten to add her features before considering she was anything else than human.

As a Soul Eater, she was a spiritual entity and did not need any physical substance or features to interact with the world around her. The only reason she had a body similar to a human female was to lure potential prey into offering her their souls, though she preferred to use deals instead of trickery. This was one of the main reasons her existence was overlooked by the majority of religions in the world that held souls as sacred. Once consumed, a soul would become a part of her, slightly changing her personality.

In the past, she and her race's allies, the Valkyries, were seen as messengers for the old gods, collecting souls of the fallen so they would not rise as undead but after a rogue soul eater became infatuated with a mortal, a being with a finite life span, and revealed their secrets, they were despised as foul, ungodly beings. The Valkyries got off lightly, assimilating into the many races armed forces but the Soul Eaters were persecuted mercilessly.

When it was found out that they could only take willing souls, things calmed down significantly but they never regained their past glory and were often shunned by society.

This lead to her attempting to attain divinity, using the faith of millions converted into raw power, she would be able to ascend and evolve into a being known as a lesser god. This was primarily due to her being the last of her race, losing the need to consume souls and wanting to ensure that her kind would not be annexed to history like so many others.

Her race, although disliked, was still stable until they came.

The summoned heroes, at the orders of the Alliance, had mercilessly hunted her kind down as they were exceptional spies and infiltrators due to their spiritual bodies. In the end, the handful that remained surrendered and, reversing their allegiances, were put to work fighting the Demon Lord.

When the dust settled and the Demon Lord had been trapped, she was the only one that remained and none of the leadership wanted the stain of ending an entire species, so she was left to be the warden of one of the most feared places on the planet, one she had a hand in creating.

Swirling the empty goblet in her hand, a habit she picked up when socialising with physical races, she tilted her head towards the ceiling.

"Three hundred and fifty-five years." Sighing the wannabe goddess let the goblet fall to the carpeted floor as she stood up and walked to an ornate window, overlooking a sprawling, medieval styled city. Plumes of smoke rose into the air as, what appeared to be a floating island, circled the perimeter. The occasional flash of light emanating from one of its many launch bays.

When she reached the window, she stared at the ruins of what seemed to have once been an incredible fortress on the mountain in the distance. She was currently residing in the new, occupied capital city of the Demon Nation. The old capital was stripped bare for its construction only leaving the Demonic Palace standing.

Though time had taken its toll and it now lay in ruins, it was still an impressive sight, even with the dreary weather. "I hate this dull place. I am just as much a prisoner as they are. Why can't they find another spirit type to stand watch? It's not like those two monsters are going to die of old age or that I am the only one that can pass the barrier."

Dark grey clouds block out the fading sunlight as a hazy rain falls on the city, flashes of lightning flicker in the distance. "What keeps them going in that damn crypt? They don't even talk anymore. Just sit there, day after day, year after year. Two souls are forgotten by time."

She sighed again, another bad habit she picked up that didn't need to do. She knew the Demon Lord from when he was just a child and the hero; she was sure during the time the spent together during missions, he started to develop feelings for her.

Nothing in the romantic sense but he would always drag her to bars when they were off duty, nearly killing any that mentioned her race or were stupid enough to try and discriminate against her before forcing her to sit there in silence as he drank, muttering something in a strange language from time to time. She didn't need protecting but it somehow made her feel appreciated. It was a weird feeling and it was at that point she decided she needed to be a little more picky on what she ate, realising that the stable diet of heartbroken youths was not doing her mind any good.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few willing to offer their souls to her, but unlike the myths, they were not battle hardened soldiers seeking rewards for their lifetime of grizzly deeds, but often the young who were in hopless situations or, more commonly, were over reacting and wanted to end it all over, what she considered, trivial reasons. Still, she had to eat so she did little to discourage them.

However, due to this, even though she was around four hundred years old, the soul's influences made her act a lot younger than she was or even looked. As such, the weird, anti-social human that was like a magnet for trouble and mayhem sparked her interest and she found herself spending more and more time in his company.

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His behaviour was way outside the norm, even for his summoned peers, but the church and the Alliance leaders really took offence that he was more willing to accept and embrace monsters and the dark races, like her, as equals than his own race, often stating that at least they were honest about their nature and so worthy of his time.

More often than not his assumption that they were any better backfired on him, and he soon started treating everyone equally. His 'kill first, ask questions later' attitude caused nothing but trouble for the military and it wasn't long before they assigned him to a death squad, a unit that specialised in high-risk, covert operations.

It took six years but eventually a team of summoned formed around him, each one almost as much trouble as he was, and it wasn't long until they treated each other as family. Even though on the outside the Hero seemed to be pretty much the same, she had spent enough time with him to know he was starting to enjoy life.

Three years later, they were the last of the summoned, the rest having fallen in battle or due to assassinations. Not only did this make them pretty famous, but their infamous deeds caused people to fear them almost as much as the Demon Lord. Rumours spread about the heroes giving themselves over to the dark gods for power, though the military vigorously denied this.

Their unit was soon given the nickname, The twelve Angels of Death. Feared throughout the Alliance and Dark races alike for their merciless, brutal and often near suicidal tactics, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

As the war drew to its end, the Alliance leaders began to worry about what they would do with them. No matter the mission they sent them on, they always returned and even with the enslavement collars, they always managed to figure out a loophole, even managing to 'lose' a few of their handlers on the way, making them almost impossible to control. In the end, they made the decision to eliminate the problem once and for all.

When she was ordered to prepare the God Binding ritual for them and Demon Lord, Styx was conflicted but knew that refusing would only lead to her death. The group was fun and never excluded her, seeing her as, in their own words, a faceless spectre mascot that kept the irritants at bay and wouldn't steal their drinks, but her own survival took precedence and she quickly got to work.

It was made worse by the fact that the one organising the operation was an elf that had managed to gain the hero's interest, though she admitted that it had been the hardest seduction mission she had ever taken and retired soon after the mission was confirmed as a success.

Styx knew that the Hero would take this betrail badly, worse than anything the leadership could do, and if they failed, then the Alliance could probably say goodbye to their entire ruling class, maybe even a few of their smaller cities

Even though she was relatively sure that the summoned could not fight the whole world on their own, the group did not work like normal units and specialised in stealth hit and run tactics, making it very hard to pin them down. 

Where the army was a sledgehammer, they were a surgical blade, or more accurately, twelve surgical knives that you could not see coming. Their entrance into the Demon Lords palace was a prime example. They avoided an entire army, thousands of elite troops and even the many deadly magical arrays, formations and barriers and appeared right before the Demon Lord as he was relaxing in his throne room.

When news got out, it threw the major powers into chaos, realising that their very expensive defences were almost useless to a highly trained hit squad. They all demanded to know how the summoned had achieved it but apparently, the death squad had gone rouge on this mission. Their handler's beacon was never found.

Even Styx had not heard much about how they did it, but she saw them boarding a customised observation balloon with weird looking shields and knew that had something to do with it. There were twelve holes in the ceiling of the chamber so she assumed they arrived from the air but the observation balloon travelled at an almost impossible height. Not even an iron dwarf would be able to survive that kind of fall so she dismissed it as a decoy.

Before the summoned left, most celebrating the possibility of returning home after this mission, which Styx knew was impossible due to their mutated bodies, she did something she still couldn't believe. Only pure bodies, those not effected by mana could pass through the interdental arrays. They could never return home, no matter what the higher ups told them.

Styx shook her head. She remembered walking up to the hero, his dark armour oozing malice and, for a reason she didn't understand, gave him a hug, causing him to freeze in an almost comical way.

Dragons, liches even the fabled death worms and the man would laugh fearlessly and turn into a killing machine. A hug from a faceless girl and he locked up like a little child. Styx chuckled, wondering if this is why the elf had such a hard time.

She remembered wanting to laugh at the time, but the pit in her none existent stomach lurching so much she could only manage a weak smile.

"Be careful, We are surrounded by darkness, even in the light," muttered Styx to the empty room, her last words to him before they became enemies.

Those words seemed to snap the hero back to reality and a bestial grin appeared on his face. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

Attempting to force her mind from the memories, Styx's gaze shifted to a magnificent statue below, her figure briefly shaking. The statue was in the same shape of herself but where her face should be a decorative mask, with bright red and blue patterns along its edges. "So much has changed. Would you even recognise this world anymore?"

The woman's shoulders slumped in sadness as she pressed her hand to the window. "I am not even sure I do. You damned summoned changed everything."

The memory of the hero standing up to the others, demanding that the stop influencing this world made her chuckle, relieving some of the sadness. "The hero was alwa-"

"When did I stop calling him by his name?" Abruptly the woman turned around and marched to a wooden desk with a large yellow crystal on it.  Without missing a beat, she pulled an ancient looking parchment out and scanned its contents. Some of the words were blurred, causing her to rub her eyes before looking more closely. She did the same with multiple documents, getting more frantic as she started throwing them on the floor. "How?"

Styx took a calming breath before placing her hand on the yellow crystal. "Tathaln Karthell".

She was clearly impatient for something but continued to wait, her foot tapping on the floor.

Eventually, it flickered to life and a sleepy, masculine voice emanated from the device. "What is it Styx? It's the middle of the night here."

Ignoring the man's words, Styx leant closer, placing her hands on the oak desk, tension evident in her voice. "Tathaln, what was the hero's name? The one we have imprisoned?"

The voice from the crystal sounded annoyed. "Styx, what's wrong with you. How could you ever forget? It's..."

Silence emanated throughout the room, the sound of rain drumming the window only increasing the tension.

The crystal glowed back to life, all signs of tiredness from the voice gone. "Styx, secure the palace now. I will alert the others and get to you within a few hours. Do what you must to ensure neither of them escapes. With any luck, we have caught this before it turns into something serious."

"Fuck," Without waiting another moment, Styx's figure flashed, and she disappeared from the room causing the scattered parchment to flutter around the room.