Devoria leaned toward Duality while licking her lips. Her fingers tightened around that crackling neck. Gargling noises escaped from Duality’s pursed lips, filling her soul with a murmuring sense of suffocation.

Her unyielding eyes stared into Devoria’s evil countenance despite the blood dripping into them. Silhouettes of ghostly teeth gnawed at her demonic and angelic horns, halo, and wings. Not even her scream could escape their all-devouring appetite.

“Such an exaggerated reaction,” Devoria said. “Have you misremembered your nemesis?”

Duality’s wings expanded. A fleshy demonic blackness spread on one side while a holy luminous whiteness covered the other. Flaming blades and cursed scythes manifested around Devoria, looking down on her, awaiting the verdict of the invisible judge.

The swords raised until their tips pointed at the peak of the sky. Beams of black light descended onto the blades. Their sparks evolved into serpentine shapes which slithered around the mighty movement.

Scattered by their forceful swings, the clouds formed a thundering vortex. Milky white liquid rained on the dry, lifeless land. The living mists dispersed under their own shrieks while luminous flowers and grasses sprouted to cover the world’s festering wounds.

Duality closed her eyes. The spear in her chest shone. The Divinity contained in it gushed out of her, burning her body, searing Devoria’s rotten hand.

The divine swords slashed groundward. The earth split into countless rocking landmasses, separated by dizzying pits whose darkness consumed all that fell into them.

Iris covered her face, but the shockwave flung her away from the epicentre. Sharp fragmentary winds rend her membrane and vaporised her slime.

An explosion created a dome of crimson lightning and a tornado of golden petals. Their lightest movement generated breezes that collapsed inwards and expanded outwards, in a circle of compression and expansion, until they reached a mountain-crushing pressure.

Above the disasters, an array of scythes loomed. Their dull, rusty edges reflected countless bloody eyes, eyes on Devoria’s body, on her arms, her chest, her legs. These eyes mocked each other but also searched for a certain slime girl.

Her long flowing brown hair danced around her, curling between the flying rubbles. Each strand caught its favourite piece and crushed it into dust before swallowing it.

The fire on her palm infected her arm, but she remained nonchalant. Only the spear in Duality’s chest commanded her two main eyes. The arachnid strings connected the spear with the scythes. They weaved into a dim silhouette.

Devoria stared at the illusory young man draped in a pitch-black cloak. His humble statue, suppressed by the mountainous scythes, blended in with the world itself.

Yet his presence weighed most heavily.

The young man gently swiped down his hand. His fragile body crumbled.

The scythes came down. Another geyser of colourless blazes and molten rocks spewed from the ground. A river of blood flowed down the abysses, forming violent torrents.

Iris manifested a dagger and stabbed the ground. Multiple arms grew from her back and, with an assort of weapons, rooted her against the upside-down world, the rotating continent, and the destruction of the firmament.

She looked up. Dots in the sky splintered. A swarm of shooting stars plunged through the gaps between the thunderstorms and the hurricanes, splashing lavas and gemstones on the surroundings.

Her vision blurred, and she could feel her consciousness waning. Everything around her was in shamble. Waves of colours clashed and merged and disengaged, but no distinct shapes persisted in this chaos.

She hated this. She was slipping down an endless slope, a continuous fall where darkness concealed both the beginning and the end. She reached for something to grab, but her feeble hands could not hold onto the small opportunities teased at her. Only rising and falling winds could change her motion.

Iris looked at herself. The Shadow Heart Core lay dormant. She gritted her teeth and carefully rose to her feet. Her myriad arms melted into her body, which regained their fleshy structure.

She was a mortal facing the transcendent. The world turned unfamiliar, the ground hell, the sky heaven. She began treading the broken earth, stepping on the quaking rubbles and enduring the barrage of cutting shrapnel.

Through her messy hair, she stared at the origin of destruction. Her breathing quickened, clutching her throat, but she didn’t care.

The tired whispers urging her to let go rang unheard. Her pupils turned grey, her memory white. Infinite symbols flickered in and out, in and out, of existence, of her vision, of her memory. Her Shadow Heart Core vibrated, pleaded to her.

She laughed. Her hoarse, broken, fragmentary, but also crystalised, steady, and delightful voice reverberated throughout the world.

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Even the storms and the earthquakes quelled themselves to listen to her otherworldly voice. And the incomprehensible symbols brilliantly appeared in tandem. They commenced the interplay for their sole audience, whose impermanence was patiently waiting.

Within the turbulent sea of shades, the black scythes fractured the land and themselves. The golden swords stubbornly held on the ground, though their handles and edges were no more. Nothing but remnants of energetic particles, the unpredictable streaks of light, floated around the two unapproachable figures.

Duality knelt in a pit walled off by thorn-like shadowy tendrils. She held the spear in her chest, her frail hands slowly disintegrating. The feathers and flesh on her black and white wings shrivelled.

Opposite her, Devoria licked her charred hand. Her right arm was devoid of flesh, exposing her veiny bones, held together by pulsating crimson tumours. She didn’t stare at Duality but at where the young man was.

“I did not expect to see him again,” Devoria said. “What a terrifying power.”

“How . . . was it?” Duality coughed. Blood splashed down her tattered clothes and gaping wound surrounding the spear. “This gift, we’ve been preparing it since the day you tore apart my core.”

“Marvellous. It would’ve cleaved down a Heavenly Kingdom. Unfortunately, you’re missing your other half.”

“We’re complete in our oneness.”

“I’m happy for you two. Together forever, never to part. In death, though not yet in life.”

“A deal with you is worse than with a devil.”

“As if I have even once deceived anyone.”

“If not for you—” Duality’s voice faltered. She reluctantly covered the right half of her face. “Are you not afraid of Virtue?”

“My heart only holds Death in such a high regard.”

Duality shifted her hand to cover the left half of her face. “Yet his power can’t even take out your clone.”

“Such flattering!” Devoria giggled. “Your fragmentary existence can only invoke a sliver of his power. If only you also have Life’s legacy.”

“Who would dare covet your prey?”

“No one, of course. I’m giving you a gift, a commemoration for our reunion.”

Devoria reached out her hand. The crimson veins crawled on her charred bones. Flesh grew out from them, interweaved into delicate, fair skin, and assembled as a new untainted arm.

Duality smacked away the helping hand. She held onto a pile of rubbles by her side, supporting herself with it. Her bleeding eyes never considered the offer. Nothing could be more terrifying than accepting that hand.

“We’ve already lost too much, too much to give you any chance.”

“Yet you give her a chance, a blessing unparallel.”

“We have a pact.”

“And I have the authority.”

Duality didn’t speak. Her broken wings gradually healed themselves, but she had no intention of escaping or preparing for her meaningless struggle. The determination in her unflinching posture stood against the chill emanated from Devoria. Only the slightest tremble was permitted.

“Death as a threat has always been boring,” Devoria said. “And eternal torture is merely a long wait.”

As Devoria contemplated her next action, Duality grabbed the spear in her chest. She gritted her teeth and exerted herself. The heat from the blade seared her fingers. Liquid gold enveloped her hand, transmuting it into rocks.

Shadows beneath her splashed. Mighty claws rose to control her arms. They wrenched out her frozen fingers and waited for their master’s command.

“A complete heart may face death undaunted.” Devoria licked her lips. “But your heart is chipped—a tiny, insignificant mark on it.”

Devoria swiped down. Her hand caught a pulsating, slimy heart. It rested weakly in front of Duality, who couldn’t take her gaze away.

“Why should I care?” she said.

“Because she carried your regret, carried your unlived future.”

Despite her hesitation, which prompted her to close her eyes, Duality relaxed. The shadows binding her disappeared, and she folded her wings. Her tall statue towered over the little lady, yet she appeared still meek and subservient, unable to defy her enemy.

“One day, she will bring you down,” Duality said. “We might not be there to witness it, but it’s inexorable.”

“I too excitedly wait for that day.”

“There’s . . . no need to wait,” Iris said.

She stumbled her way into the impact crater. A trail of slime followed her tottering walk, painting the fractured world a hint of warm blueness, the blueness that contaminated everything. Her dissolving, reforming, viscous silhouette persisted until she came before her unholy guest.

Duality wanted to step in between Iris and Devoria, but she found herself unable to move. Her voice, muffled by an air of fatigue, could no longer ring.

Devoria held Iris’s dying heart close to her face. Its tantalising fragrance drove her body temperature wild. She shifted her legs while brushing her body against herself.

“You could’ve given me your core,” Devoria said. “Your sincerity won my heart, Dear.”

“Your dining etiquette leaves much to be desired.”

“Please forgive my impertinence. This excitable heart is sometimes unstoppable.”

“A piece of my heart for a piece of Duality.”

Duality turned to Iris. She covered the right part of her face, revealing her angelic yet weary smile. Her hand shifted to the left, and she gave a frown that refused to explain itself.

Iris paid no attention to it. She only focused on Devoria and her terrifying eyes.

“Have you already captured her heart?” Devoria said.

“Why are you doing this?”

Devoria pouted. “Why should I let go of her? She hurt me first; I was merely defending myself.”

“Because . . . I hold power over you.”

Duality’s eyes twitched. Devoria froze. She broke into a laugh. Her distorting voice scratched the sky, whose illusory surface splintered into countless shards. White voids flowed inward, but the radiant stars kept the foreign tide at bay.

The metallic tone infected all noises, assimilating, corrupting them. Duality covered her ears and crouched on the ground. The spear in her chest dimmed. Iris’s ears ruptured. Reddish slime flowed out from them, but she stayed motionless.

“What authority must I answer to?” Devoria said.

“The authority over my Destiny,” Iris smirked. “Return me my ally, and I shan’t fault you any longer.”

“What would my disobedience entail?”

“I . . . will do nothing.”

Devoria patiently waited for the stretching pause to pass. Iris touched the open wound on her chest.

“I am powerless, too powerless to protect those whom I love. I can only be a puppet, a pawn in the game I cannot hope to transcend.” Iris covered her face and playfully swayed. “I have no choice . . . but to surrender myself.”

Devoria frowned. “Is freedom not your essence?”

“It’s meaningless without my family.”

“Are you forcing my hand?”

“I am forcing your hand.”

Devoria looked at the heart, at Iris, at Duality, and at the heart. She pinched its slippery surface. It threatened to escape her grip, to vanish from her view. She amusingly snickered.

“Show me a miracle, Iris. Save yourself from my insanity, and Duality will be yours.”

Before Iris or Duality could speak, Devoria opened her mouth, exposing her saw-like teeth. She ruthlessly bit down on Iris’s heart.

Iris’s world went black.