Rachel’s eyes narrowed while waiting outside the room housing a blood clinic’s stock, gut churning as the ominous waves of misfortune circled around her like vipers coiling to strike.
She tilted to the left, ears twitching upon hearing Relica betray her friend and the information that passed between Aleister, Lifen, and Relica; it came entirely from left field, agitating her.
A great many pieces were being taken off the board; even as Rachel accelerated her plan to a degree she couldn’t follow to the end. The haste had been necessary, though; if she didn’t speed things up, she knew something calamitous would happen to herself or someone she cared for.
All misfortune collected to this location, and she’d been too late to stop Scarlet from entering the trap; it was infuriating how even after all the information she’d collected the day before, things were flying off the rails.
Balling her fist, she lashed out once more, Hadesfire coating her body with the movement for it to disperse against the shimmering enchanted door. The recoil tightened her jaw as she backed away, fingers shaking a little; nothing she’d tried had shown the slightest chance of breaking the barrier.
Left hand reaching for the black leather stick attached just above her tail, she swung it around for the Hadesfire whip to slide across the glimmering wall to no effect. Useless… not that I know how to use a whip in the first place. I know if I wait here, I’ll be invited inside, but why… It has to be a trap. Relica and her people are handling Miora’s spirit extraction, so who’s here?.
The answer was obvious; she just didn’t want to recognize it—Adele—Scarlet’s mother that Relica had broken free from her military confinement. All the pieces were lining into place, and with this writing that resembled in some degree the colossal Hades Gate ritual, she was left with one conclusion.
I’ve been dancing to someone’s strings… but is it Adele, Fulgencio, or Twilight herself… Someone else entirely? I have to…
Her thoughts broke as the door slowly swung open for Scarlet’s voice to meet her ears, and, as she anticipated, Adele had been the one to open the sealed space.
Knowing it could be a trap but having no other option but to enter, Rachel didn’t allow this opportunity to pass her by, and the instant she walked inside, the entrance was sealed.
She froze at the snap of the door; Nia was separated from her consciousness.
Not allowing her internal shock to show, she tried to activate Emotional Detachment to no avail. I’m locked out of my Seed? How is that even…
Remaining calm, she checked Scarlet’s mental state and responded to their inquiries, assessing the disconnect as best she could. Not long after, another surprise came, Yseress’ soft moan as she began to wake. Nia is locked away, but Yseress isn’t … That all but confirms it; these symbols are a Hades design.
Ice raged through Rachel’s veins as a black rip appeared in space, and Fulgencio stepped through, yet the chill wasn’t from the fake drunk; a demonic figure stepped out of another fissure of red sparks beside Adele, the room’s occupants oblivious to the intruder.
“How… exquisite,” Izanami’s rotten visage materialized as her stone throne rose out of the fracturing floor between the symbols; the Hades Lord’s illusions slowly filtered into place
Rachel kept her focus on the two humans, and it took everything she had without the Seed’s support to not quake from the horrific entrance of the fallen deity as reality shattered around them.
The room crumbled to the occupants’ blissful ignorance, leaving the writing in place as the smallest drip of unnatural pulses fed through the shell; the knowledge that beyond this protection—this collapsing structure—fathomless agony and endless torture awaited.
A horn unlike anything she’d heard, low and guttural, bellowed across the hellscape, making her tail stand on edge and ears twitch against her will. Hadesfire leaked out of the yellowing concrete, crimson lightning sparking to life to rip the building apart and dance around them to reveal what lay beyond.
Scarlet was just as unaware as the others while the apocalyptic sensations rippled through Rachel in such ferocity that she had to lock her jaw for a moment to prevent them from chattering. They’d stepped into Hades—closer even than the Gates to the infernal plane—Izanami was just beyond the veil.
Trying to support Scarlet and discover what she could about the insanity unfolding around her, Rachel divided her attention to get answers.
What… is this, Izanami? Why can’t they see you… feel this?
“Hehehe,” the Hades Lord’s voice caused her tail to flick and ears to fold a tad, despite her attempts to restrain them. “My darling little Hades Hare, you are connected to Yseress, and she is a denizen of Hades … Naturally, you would perceive the truth of what these words of power attempt to hide.”
The woman’s revealing dress fluttered as she floated to caress the ceiling, yet it was vaporized long before she neared it, only leaving the lettering. “How… beautiful,” she whispered, black tongue sliding across her lips as her infernal irises drifted to observe the glowing scribbles and symbols connected throughout the space.
We’re in Hades?!
“Hmm … A bridge to draw upon Hades in a way I have never experienced … to mitigate the needed cost to achieve that which these humans tend to employ. A barrier has been constructed to provide a temporary ground between the mortal plane and the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hades. Hehe, how brazen.”
Rachel’s lungs locked for a moment as a colossal entity of magma-like skin rose from a sea of flames for its four-fingered hand to come down nearby, except the fiend raising out of the ocean was over five hundred meters tall, releasing a low growl that dwarfed Selvaria’s.
Armies of demons and devils came into focus as they filled the ashen sky, creatures of such power that Rachel could see all of humanity being destroyed had a single entity stepped foot on their planet, and some so massive they could likely cleave the entire sphere in two.
Doing her best to respond to the inquiries and process the hellscape taking shape around her, Rachel responded to Fulgencio while dealing with the greater issue collapsing around her.
Are they going to open a gate to the Seventh Circle?! It’s all connected; the things they learned in Camagüey were for this. We were being distracted by picking up the pieces they went through… Adele and Relica have used over a million lives to achieve this final goal; it’s already in motion.
“Not entirely accurate,” Izanami mused, finished with her inquiry of the symbols and taking her throne beside Adele, engaged in listening to Rachel and Fulgencio’s discussion. “Think, Rachel, even if you do not have the same aptitude while disconnected from your Seed, you have the information to still cause significant harm.”
The Hades Lord grinned, flashing her perfect teeth while gesturing around them. “So you are aware, I myself could not have developed something of such elegance myself, nor could the other Hades Lords, and you are to believe they achieved this with a poultry million souls? It isn’t in the power that this display is profound but in its efficiency and knowledge.”
Her blazing orange irises wandered to Fulgencio as he spoke. “Above the Divine, he says? Hmm-hmm-hmm, why do you suppose I can be here when your little Goddess protection squad would be up in arms with us being so close… Hmm, where are Eostre and Moongmor?”
The longer Rachel sat in the overwhelming presence of the Seventh Circle, the more accustomed she became as Yseress’ connection to her grew; it was as if the energies cycling around them were hastening the effects of their bond, yet it wasn’t the devil drawing closer to her but the opposite.
The Divine is being blocked … Hades is being barred from entering inside, she muttered, noting the horrific legions of ungodly entities hovering nearby. Heh, you have a backdoor because of the connection we share with Yseress. A flaw in their design?
“Mistress, mmh … Why have we returned to Hades?” the confused voice of the deviless came through as she woke. “No, this … The Seventh Circle?”
Izanami glanced at the Legendkin as he opened a rift to exit the conversation. “Ooh, how wonderful you are, Rachel … What do you sense, Yseress?”
Rachel spoke to make him pause, listening intently; she heard Relica and Lifen speaking, but her disgust came from Aleister Crowley.
The Mythickin fox sniffed. “I’ve inserted her spirit, Aleister, what more do you want—I gave you over two hundred thousand spirits for whatever it is you write and eighty thousand for your little jewel—do you know how hard I had to work for those? I have done my part.”
“You could be a tad more helpful, Love,” he grunted in a deep voice, the sound of several corpses being dragged to pools following. “Adele and I have worked without rest—weeks I have performed heated erotic and esoteric rituals—you could at least take part in some since I’m running short on men and women… Relica keeps sacrificing them.”
“It’s all a part of the plan,” Relica sighed, “and you’ve already accomplished the needed activation sectors with your sex magic; you’re just trying to blow off steam. Be patient!”
“You say while slitting the throat of my last woman,” Aleister grumbled.
“It isn’t my fault we’re running low on bodies and need blood.”
Rachel felt Yseress shiver. “Wolfgang’s Soul Stone… It’s fully charged. A ritual is underway to a grade I have never felt.”
Considering the deviless has seen multiple apocalypses, Rachel took that as meaning something. What is the ritual?
Fulgencio left but not before Rachel noticed his means of transportation and memorized the motion of his fingers in activating it.
“I cannot say without being there to study it, Mistress,” Yseress responded.
I see…
Rachel’s mind settled, now focusing on the things Adele was explaining; seeing as she had met Twilight and received her interpretation to the lullaby, Rachel found similarities popping up between the two, and the devil in her began to smirk.
Izanami, you’re not allowed to tell me certain things because of some restriction placed on the Divine that you are not bound by, which is why Eostre wove that law into our contract … So, this is one of the things they’re hiding.
Scarlet’s Lullaby … Blood of gods and blood of men, meet in union to ascend; fate has chosen, and your fading light is at its end … I am no longer fully Rachel and not whoever my Seed passed through but something combined.
The Hades Lord giggled, crossing her legs the opposite way to look at Adele’s fervent story. “What an interesting tale … So many odd deviations to the story Twilight told. How many are you noticing?”
Rachel eased back, arms folding under her bust; her Hades-enhanced mind quicked to process the information and cross-referenced it as the woman told her tale.
Twilight said her story was lost to time, and by Adele’s account, the entirety of this place called ‘Existence’ was broken down and reforged, yet… Twilight and Adele’s versions have different connotations.
Adele sees it as a spark of hope to find peace … Twilight says her story is the sins of judgment, born of blood, which heh, doesn’t sound like peace.
She took a name from the one profaned… Twilight isn’t her real name but a guise she took on, and the chosen know of this darkness or void that she entered, but let it rest… Twilight didn’t.
Adele’s side starts with her seeking help from this Blood Sun, but not what advice she received … She speaks to this thing, which is interesting since she talked of a ‘dark sun’ that was hollowed by something called ‘the fade.’ I have a sneaking suspicion they aren’t the same. One is similar to her, you could say, the twilight of a star.
Twilight entered beyond this great wall, journeying into a mist that everything feared, and she did it to find power … Hmm, which sounds a lot like her second verse… Born of graves and left below, painted ashes, painted snow; when the dark—or in Adele’s version, the Great Deep—awakens, the fires of your last hopes are burning low.
Izanami’s head tilted against the back of her hand as she watched the elated mother, finally able to speak her truth. “Doesn’t it sound like Twilight discovered a Seed herself in this Great Deep and used the dying deities in her Existence—perhaps using the corpses of all those she killed in that shattering—to rise above all? Could your Seeds not be the same but a replica of what she’d first accomplished?”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Yseress chuckled, floating in Rachel’s mind while examining it herself and Rachel pondered on the information, mind accelerating; Hades’s energies became more comfortable while passively feeding off the deviless’ natural attunement that invigorated her, thereby strengthening Rachel.
Are the verses broken up into past, present, and future? It seems that way … Also, I would trust Twilight’s account over Adele’s version, even if hers is more clear… Although, it does give some insights.
“Such delightful inner workings,” Yseress whispered, “Adele assumes Twilight was betrayed by this Blood Sun, yet what she found lurking below the Great Deep was something overlooking or watching a dark star, hollowed by the fade—imprisoned, no doubt—a debt this hollowed-out blood star lives to repay. This silhouette is the blackness that Twilight saw, promising to spare the chosen that let it rest.”
It was beginning to click as Rachel listened and compared. Twilight took the name of that which was imprisoned—the hollowed-out blood star had been profaned—she became the Reaper of Blood and stole something from within to gain her power … A pact embraced, a road unsought—the present, a blight upon the light, a terror for the night, she became the bringer of twilight… The name and power she’d taken.
Vengeance is her only ward; beware the blood-red rose’s thorn, for it will end with Scarlet … Is Adele the blood-red rose’s thorn… Scarlet’s mother? Twilight must do what she’s contracted to do … Is she hiding in Scarlet to escape her fate?
A snicker from Izanami brought Rachel’s gaze as Adele was pleading to her daughter. “With flowers and my love, both never to come back, her wrath is known within the black … She assaulted the Great Deep … the tide within it stole away her grace, but the depths would not claim her… hehe, she lost her fight.
“Twilight took on the name and power of this hollowed-out Blood Star, escaped, reforged her Existence, reaping all within, and when the toll came, she fought and lost. She was betrayed and the betrayer … undone; all is black.
“Alone with her visions, or her past … Alone with the sound; her collapse of everything around her … Twilight sought for an end; she saw the darkest night and brightest day that was lost to the pages of antiquity…
“The history of this Existence—Adele’s tale—tainted, and the cycle of death returns as was her punishment in taking the name of Twilight, hovering above gravity’s lure … In other words, unable to be torn down, leading to…”
Rachel’s mind stilled, hearing the uncertainty in Adele’s voice mirrored by Scarlet as she confessed her feelings to her mother. Born of graves, left below, no time for rest, nowhere to go … She released a storm with tear-stained eyes … The Oscillation … Come down to the red sea, swimming with me; she’s made us a part of her story.
A wretch bound to the harvest, born of the shadows, or the Great Deep—between the Hollowed Blood Star and Darkness Below—who will save you now? Incinerate our shackles… It’s a cry for help … Twilight is crying for help.
“Mmh,” Yseress finished the lullaby. “The Maiden of Death will tend to her fields if she is loosed, as is her unsought contract … Although, I wonder about the specifics regarding her punishment and why she would be wrathful following her theft and loss? Eternity will fall into silence… hehe, Heaven or Hades, Rachel … Where do you land in the red sea?”
Returning to the beginning, Rachel muttered, rising while preparing to reject Adele’s offer and side with the girl she had begun to see as a sister. I have a tale that time has lost … sins of judgment, initiated by the Hollowed Blood Star, perhaps Twilight’s lover and betrayer… Now, she is a wretch, bound to the harvest, and how this Blood Sun fits … Who can say?
Knowing things were not as they seemed, Rachel carefully took Adele’s stone from her pocket, eyeing the restless fiends hovering just beyond the veil of mortal eyes.
Izanami’s left eye narrowed in a smirk. “Have you finally come to the correct conclusion?”
Arms tightening around Adele’s more petite frame, her ears scanned every twitch she made, still on high alert. Heh, Twilight is bound to Scarlet, or she would be tending to her fields … If she is asleep—or at least hovering at the edge of it—who is giving Adele her current visions? An imposter.
My question is if Twilight gave Adele the visions in the first place and this entity commandeered her devotion or if it was all a trap for Twilight to trap her in Scarlet? Still, hehe, Twilight introduced a flaw when touching Relica … Relica is the unknowing mine that tripped all the right wires. Twilight truly is a mystery to have even planned for even this once Scarlet and Relica met…
Releasing Scarlet’s mother, she shoved her away and grinned at Scarlet, reaching out to take her hand and pull her in and rubbing the black occult stone; Rachel created the rift and pulled them through.
Rachel reversed the motion on the transportation artifact as she’d heard done, closing the rift to trap Adele; she felt the ominous waves of misfortune everywhere, stumbling into a vast military aircraft hangar that had been repurposed.
Blood pooled in various holes drilled into the ground, and crimson lettering like the previous room painted the entire empty space. In its center was a brilliant ruby shard the size of a 2-liter bottle with lightning and fire encircling it.
“Wha—Rachel?” Relica stammered in confusion as red lights encircled them, locking their muscles in place. “How—Aleister—Adele!”
“She’s fine,” Fulgencio sighed, running his hands through his hair and looking at the chessboard in front of him. “I was afraid something like this would happen, but Adele refused to listen to reason; she had to hear it from her daughter herself.”
Rachel couldn’t speak or move, and she suspected Scarlet was the same as the trigrams hovered above them, but a smile was on her lips nonetheless; Izanami was already at the Soul Stone, a dark smirk twisting her alluring devilish features as she slowly walked around it, tail swaying with her hips and her bat-like wings folded slightly.
Partially ignoring the proceedings that followed around her, Rachel passively watched Fulgencio rise and walk over with a forced grin. “What did you think you were going to do, Rachel; did you not think I had a plan for if you managed to strong-arm Adele into bringing you back here? I have countermeasures sent in place for just about everything.”
“Fulgencio,” Adele whispered, showing puffy red cheeks, still wet with tears while walking through a rift Aleister had created for her. “Can we skip the gloating? Yes, you were right… My vision was right… My daughter will not rise to be the hero we need.”
Fulgencio forced a chuckle. “I did tell you, Adele, based on everything I’ve learned through the spy network Relica gave me to utilize, she’s a standard trauma patient; our savior was too much for her to handle, which is why she’s given us an alternative.”
Aleister grinned, walking forward while adjusting the ceremonial robes he’d just put on, and Rachel made a note of dozens of naked women and men by the pools of blood that had likely been used in his sex rituals before their lives had been taken for the cause. “Oh, you didn’t tell me they were so pretty, Adele.”
Adele’s eyes narrowed as she turned to him. “Aleister.”
“Ho-ho, I meant it in the highest regard! Why don’t we see what they have to say? I want to know why the Lunar Hare is still smiling.”
“That … is concerning,” Relica hissed, shivering a little while keeping her distance. “What is your devious mind plotting in this situation, Rachel?”
Lifen’s luminous sapphire eyes went from Rachel to Scarlet before swiftly returning to Rachel, vision and lips narrowing as she studied her.
The occultist snapped his fingers, and Rachel’s voice returned, yet their Seeds were still blocked by the cryptic writing and symbols; clearly, they’d written in an exception to the rule for themselves.
Scarlet’s eyes were already watering, blood leaking down her cheeks. “Mom…”
“It’s fine, my angel,” Adele choked and cleared her throat. “Twilight knew you would not be ready … I, eh-heh, I suppose I put too much pressure on you too soon… I apologize.”
She weakly held up a handkerchief, stained red. “You don’t need to worry … With your blood, we can bring back someone capable of handling the threat that is coming… Ravilla, Twilight’s holiest apostle.”
“But Mom—this is wrong—it feels wrong… Stop, please!”
Adele’s hand clutched her breast as pain crossed her face. “I’m… sorry, Scarlet, but … this is the only way I know how to protect you from the horrors I saw… I’m sorry.”
She turned away as Scarlet cried, but Aleister, Relica, Fulgencio, and Lifen were focused on Rachel’s snarky expression; she couldn’t help it, the hilarity in their flaw was monumental, and she continued to speak to the two devils as the figures talked amongst themselves.
I can taste the misfortune … Hehe, for you, as well, Izanami. Why is that?
“It is better to show you,” she mused, infernal irises drifting to look at Rachel. “Yseress, relinquish control.”
“Hmm-hmm-hmm … No, ‘Izanami,’ ” the devil laughed in a savage, gloating, bitter tone. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen … And who was it that didn’t need me, my ‘former’ mistress?”
Mmh, you need to control her, as you did in Camagüey, but I am her master now.
“Indeed, my new mistress,” Yseress relished. “Hehe, and as my ‘former’ mistress knows painfully well, you are far too proud to make use of me in combat and will not force me to do something I do not want to … Heh, because you value free will where ‘Izanami’ does not, which is a reason she also gave me to you.”
Rachel could feel the deviless’ spite at being thrown away as if a tool to bind a contract, gradually expunging her life in the process. I see, hehehe, quite the mistake, Izanami.
“Hmm,” the fallen deity turned to face her, amusement still in place, “are you so sure, my little Yseress? My little Yes Girl that will do anything for my attention? Hmm-hmm, do you think I do not know you and what you desire?”
“I will not fall for such a trick from you, Mistr—mmh-Izanami! You have no power to grant it.”
“Maybe not… Rachel certainly can, though, and I can show her the process.”
Lifen walked a tad closer, shimmering black tail flicking to the right in irritation. “Relica… Why is there a corrupted human spirit inside of her … It’s… chilling—unnatural … An abomination.”
“Hmm?” Relica’s eyebrows pulled together. “A corrupted human spirit… Not her own? What are you talking about, Lifen?”
Fulgencio's face turned ashen as Adele wiped the bloody handkerchief on the Soul Stone, causing the room to shine a radiant ruby hue; the Seventh Circle of Hades began breaking through the walls, an anchor to the plane connecting the spaces, yet the throng was again, utterly oblivious.
“Explain, in detail—now, Lifen!”
“Ugh—it’s repulsive… similar to how the Soul Stone makes me feel—this room, when interacting with it … A mutation of purity, yet this is something twisted beyond recognition… I couldn’t recognize it for a moment because it’s hard to see beyond the rotten scent of that outfit she wears that resembles the sensation … I need to go throw up,” she growled, holding her stomach and moving away.
“Stop!” Fulgencio shouted, drawing their attention. “Relica, is she saying…”
Rachel laughed as Izanami gave her the thing Yseress most wanted, shocking the deviless at how serious the fallen deity was to find her way into this ritual.
“You won’t,” Yseress defensively muttered. “It will weaken your ability to channel Hades … No one ever gives up power.”
Relica took a step back. “A Devil… She actually made a contract with a Devil in Camagüey—no, that doesn’t … Rachel would never relinquish control.”
Yseress, I promise you, on everything I hold dear … If you wish to purify yourself and become a Nephilim again, I will do all that is within my power to grant you that right. No longer will you have the ax hanging over your head of being dragged back to Hades.
A long sigh came from the Devil within her. “Rachel … I can feel the binding nature of your words … Do you mean it?”
Is that really the question you want to ask? Haha, I was sure your greatest desire would be to regain total freedom, but you’re okay with me being your master so long as you don’t have to return to Hades?
“I… do not have any aspirations, my mistress … I couldn’t,” Yseress mumbled. “I was born during the apocalypse on a planet… A union of angel and devil … Not of free will but the torture of the captured … corrupted before my mother’s eyes—an angel—forcing her to fall after she’d carried me. My Mistr—mmhg … Izanami bought my contract as I was a tainted Nephilim… considered the scum of devils.”
Even past Hades’s energies numbing her heart, Rachel’s emotions went out to her after knowing the woman’s backstory. Yseress, I already told you, if you die, I hold no leverage over Izanami, and I said I would become your favorite mistress … And you’re right, I won’t void your free will; although, I can see why me boasting how great I’ll be may be difficult to believe when Izanami took you from Hades’s gutters and lifted you into the proud devil you are today…
Rachel’s leery eyes shifted to the slight smile on the fallen deity’s lips as Fulgencio sought for more details, and Adele noticed the upset. It makes me wonder if you really are the Hades Lord you appear to be, Izanami.
“I welcome all to join me in my sorrow,” she whispered, fingers caressing the Hades Stone. “It will not be easy, Rachel, but you are capable of it … There has been a seldom number of times in my long existence that I have felt fear, and whoever these humans have been tricked into summoning, be it this Ravilla creature or something else… I may not be able to stop its resurrection, but I can block its complete revival.”
“Rachel?” Scarlet choked. “What are we going to do—I’m sorry—I want to help! I can’t do anything…”
“You’re fine, Scarlet,” Rachel reassured in a low tone that made their captors pause to listen. “They made several flaws but one so significant, I can’t believe you missed it, Fulgencio.”
“What are you talking about? No! Aleister, Relica, prepare a devil bind—”
“Hehe, who made your Soul Stone, Relica, and what was his primary concern and life’s goal, hmm? Was it to leave humanity’s fates to the Gods or to bring power to humanity to rise above the Divine … You should have never underestimated Wolfgang.”
Relica’s face drained of color. “No, but… He knew nothing about the purpose—we needed someone that could craft it, and—and it’s beyond his understanding for its purpose—too complex… Wolfgang couldn’t have sabotaged it.”
“Sabotage? What is she talking about, Fulgencio?” Aleister growled, pulling up his sleeve for several tattoos to cause several pentagrams to appear above Scarlet and her. “What kind of demonic bonding am I performing here? Bloody Hades, give me some context, boy! What are we dealing wi—oh, bollocks…”
Black flames encompassed Rachel, large crimson arcs of lightning branching off to shatter the magical wards and blackening the occultist’s arms as fire spread across them.
Straightening, Rachel rolled around her neck with Scarlet hesitantly recovering beside her; the inferno split away, taking the form of Yseress. The corrupted Nephilim set one foot on the floor, time practically standing still as she relinquished control for her features to change further.
“May I introduce the fallen Japanese deity of life and death, now a Lord in Hades, Lady Izanami.”
The room was silent as the illusions masking Hades’s presence collapsed, revealing the horde of ungodly fiends that blotted out the burning heavens; an audience roaring their unearthly screams that deafened the mind and made Rachel shiver, welcoming their overlord.
Brushing back her silky silver hair, Izanami’s wings extended to their full length, flaming orange irises opening as her bare feet hovered off the ground. “Hmm … won’t this be fun? Rest assured, I won’t interfere, Rachel; I leave you to your wrath.”
In the next instant, she had teleported to the Soul Stone’s side, fascination in her gaze as she slid a single fingernail down the Soul Stone’s length, ignoring the humans, and a grin spread across Rachel’s full lips as she felt her power return; Izanami had broken the link binding their Seeds.
Skin illuminated with her Lunar Energy, Rachel looked up at the sky as an unholy force filled her—the Hades Moon shining overhead—hair darkening, empowered by Hades itself instead of her connection through Yseress, she’d never felt stronger.
“Are you ready to end this, Scarlet?” she laughed, looking right at Relica, the sorceress’ face ashen.
Scarlet puffed out a sharp hiss of air, blood forming into her scythe. “Right behind you!”