Pain exploded through the core of my being as the arrowhead lodged itself deep in my heart. At first, the spasms wracking my body felt like betrayal—I didn’t understand why my muscles convulsed uncontrollably, why strength slipped away like water through my fingers. The cruel grin on her face, so close, so unrelenting, offered no mercy, no answers.

  “You thought yourself invincible, didn’t you?” she sneered, her fingers curling around my chin, forcing my gaze upward even as I choked on the bitter taste of my own blood. “There’s holy water inside your heart. I wonder how long you’ll last before it kills you.”

  Her words hit me like poison—no, she did poison me. I should have known. Weakly, I tried to raise my dagger, desperate for one last strike, but a rough hand clamped down on my left arm, pinning me mercilessly.

  “You’re… nothing without… without—” My voice broke, stammering as my chest began to blacken, the skin curling and cracking like burnt parchment. Darkness swelled in my vision, and the strength that had stubbornly lingered fled at last. My knees buckled, but the knight’s iron grip kept me upright—just barely.

  “I…” I whispered, the world narrowing to a blur as my eyelids grew heavy. She leaned in close, her breath hot against my face, her lips hovering near my mouth.

  “I… don’t—”

  “You don’t want to die?” The Devourer’s voice was a cruel melody, dripping with amusement and triumph. So sure she’d won, I nearly spat at her arrogance.

  With a rasp, I forced out, “I don’t… need my heart.”

  Summoning the last flicker of life within me, my right hand shot out and seized a burning shard of wood from the scorched earth—the sap I had touched earlier now a raging blaze against my skin. The pain was exquisite, but it fueled me.

  With a sudden, desperate surge, I drove the burning splinter into the knight’s arm. His scream was raw, his grip faltering just enough.

  Before she could react, I lunged forward and sank my teeth deep into the mage’s neck. Her blood—bitter, foul, a filthy taste—but it flooded me with raw, chaotic strength. In seconds, my burning right arm slithered around her back, pulling her close, binding her in a twisted embrace.

  Right at that second, I leaned back sharply and yanked down on the knight’s burning hand still clenched around my arm. The heat seared through my skin, but adrenaline dulled the pain. With a harsh thud, I fell backward onto a bed of jagged wooden splinters, scraping my back but miraculously only sustaining light wounds. Compared to the devastation around me, I was the least harmed in this chaotic battle.

  The knight—what remained of him—was utterly obliterated by my violent motion, his body blasted away in a fiery explosion that tragically tore off the majority of my hand. Blood spattered everywhere, but there was no time to mourn.

  She fared no better. The Devourer lay beneath me, her entire blackened form engulfed in flames, utterly unconscious. The ringing in my ears was finally fading, and with a grunt of effort, I rolled off her onto the scorched earth.

  “Fuck…” I muttered, the weight of it settling in. Holy water coursing through my veins, multiple explosions detonating inches from me, and burns searing my flesh—this was far from ideal. If I’d been breathing properly at the start, I might’ve been fighting scorched lungs too. But the Devourer’s condition was far worse. Her human shell was battered and broken, probably beyond repair.

  Slowly but surely, I bit into her neck and started to rip out the flesh in search of something squishy. This thing was hiding deep inside her body, waiting for her children—or however her little wormlings were called—to come save her.

  I didn’t give them the chance.

  Her blood tasted like moldy ash. It filled my mouth with the stench of rot, but it also brought strength. Warmth surged through me as I tore through tendon, through nerves, through charred muscle.

  “You think this ends me?” she rasped, barely conscious, but her voice crawled into my head like the worms once did. “You can kill this flesh. But something else will take my place, Lucinda. You’re no savior. Just another monster that will be forgotten.”

  “Probably,” I muttered. “But you’ll rot first.”

  My right arm, still burning, wrapped tighter around her back, pressing her against me as I found the core — her heart — still faintly pulsing with something wrong.

  I yanked it out. It squelched in my palm.

  The organ pulsed once, and from its center spilled the queen — the Mother Worm, slick and twitching, gasping in open air like a newborn parasite.

  I stared for a second, caught off-guard by how pathetic it looked outside of its kingdom. It flopped onto the dirt like a slug in a furnace.

  “You killed Luna,” I whispered. “And all the others. That′s what you earned.”

  It squealed.

  That was enough.

  My foot came down hard, smashing the worm flat with a sickening crunch.

  It popped like overripe fruit, splattering ichor and little bits of unidentifiable organs in a perfect circle around my heel.

  “For Luna~,” I whispered mockingly, grinding the worm’s remains into the dirt. I recoiled briefly, staring at the thin threads of slime stretching between the crushed segments. There was no grand demise here. No epic final stand. Just a sloppy, anticlimactic stomp to silence the beast who’d tried to consume the world. Still, it was a brutal experience—one I would never forget, especially not the assault on the innocent flesh of my right foot. Angry and disgusted, I ground the remains relentlessly until nothing of the creature was left to recognize.

  Using the mage’s still-warm corpse as a rag, I wiped the slime and gore from my foot, then turned my gaze back to the knight. He had collapsed, lying on the ground twisting, his broken leg grotesquely beneath him. Under his skin, a worm was chewing its way through him without a thought.

  Swiftly, I gathered my daggers and plunged one into his flesh, probing for the parasitic worm. Almost immediately, I found it nestled in his neck. Not even my dagger’s poke made him change behaviour. Angrily, I stabbed through it and waited for its demise, hoping the elves would do so with the rest of the race as well.

  Not too long afterwards pain lanced through me as I began tearing open my own flesh at the forest’s edge. The blaze roared behind me, smoke curling into the sky as screams—both human and otherwise—echoed around us. I hissed sharply – of strangely thrilling pain - wrenching the arrow from my shoulder. The wound hissed back, slow to close, but mercifully stopped bleeding. One by one, I extracted the other arrows with less noise but no less agony.

  After what felt like an eternity of groaning and bleeding out, I finally slumped against a gnarled tree that had somehow survived the inferno. My eyelids drooped heavily as I tuned in to the distant sounds—the frantic screams echoing through the night, the relentless roar of the fire still devouring the forest, and explosions faint but persistent, like ominous thunder far away. The chaos felt strangely peaceful in the darkness, and my body, utterly exhausted, surrendered to the lull.

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

  My head slowly sank, my breath grew shallow, and before I knew it, I had slipped into a deep, much-needed nap. Not just from sheer fatigue, but because my part in this brutal symphony was over—now, all that remained was to tidy up the remnants of the wreckage.

  Suddenly, a sharp crackle shattered the stillness, jerking me awake. My eyes snapped open to the dim shimmer of starlight filtering through the trees. Silhouettes of elves moved cautiously nearby, their forms slender and swift under the night sky.

  “Wazzup?” I croaked, dizzy and painfully aware of the relentless throb in my chest. A glance downward confirmed the wound was still far from healed; the blackened skin remained stubborn, though it had begun to recede. Every small movement sent fresh waves of pain stabbing through my ribs.

  “Who?” The elves spun around, hands moving to swords and bows. “There!” one barked, releasing an arrow that whistled over my head, embedding harmlessly into the tree above.

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. Switching from human to flawless elvish, I croaked, “Bring me to your king.”

  “She is one of the three. Come with us,” the commander replied in heavily accented human.

  I smiled sweetly, switching back to elvish with a wink. “Thank you very much. There is a slight problem, though… I’m too injured to walk.” I gestured weakly toward my battered legs.

  Without hesitation, one elf stepped forward, carefully lifting me onto his back. I grinned wickedly, humming softly in his pointed ear as he tried, and often failed, to keep steady beneath my weight. Every now and then, I tickled his ribs, drawing a frustrated grunt from him while I controlled the rising thirst within me. Eventually, boredom overtook me, and I let my gaze wander to the ravaged street below—charred corpses littered the ground, twisted and blackened beyond recognition. The once-lush forest was now a graveyard of ash and scorched earth; not a single leaf or blade of grass survived the carnage.

  The sight sent a thrill racing through my veins. This was my doing—my devastation, my massacre, my retribution. A dark giggle slipped from my lips as we neared a battered bridge, where a familiar white tent stood sentinel.

  The king awaited me, clad in green and brown armor, his face grave and unreadable. Perhaps he found my plan merciless or simply couldn’t believe I was giggling after all this. My smile faded when I spotted Arthur seated inside the tent. I snapped my expression into one of casual boredom.

  “You can let her down now,” the king ordered sharply.

  “She said she couldn’t walk on her own.” The elf who had carried me spoke up as I pushed myself off his back, landing with surprising grace. I straightened and strode toward the king, a slow smile curling at my lips.

  “Oh, wise king,” I greeted brightly, “how was your day?”

  “Tiresome. Shall we?” he replied, raising an eyebrow as if daring me to waste more time.

  “No small talk then,” I boomed, voice ringing across the tent’s entrance before dropping to a softer tone. “Have you dealt with everyone?”

  “Only three should still be alive,” he said calmly.

  “Are you sure Markus died?” I asked, unease tightening my chest at the thought of that particular enemy surviving. He was reckless but dangerous. Dumb, but strong enough to be considered one of the best in the kingdom.

  “The one who rode with you in the beginning? My scouts told me he used the chaos to find Arthur in the middle of the convoy, but he never arrived.” The king’s answer didn′t reek of certainty, but I let it pass. After surviving everything, there was little reason to believe Markus could.

  “And the rest? No prisoners?” I tilted my head, eyes locking onto his steady gaze. His soul was always unnervingly serene, as if nothing could shock or sway him.

  “None,” he confirmed. “Just as you wished. My troops continue to scour the area, but no signs of survivors have surfaced.”

  “So… everyone’s happy now?” I said, voice light but carrying a razor’s edge. “You’ve crippled the human army with minimal loss. Arthur removed the worm… and I…” I let the sentence hang.

  “You gained your second pawn,” he finished with a quiet grin. “A woman, at that.”

  I laughed, dark and genuine. “Let’s pray we never end up working against each other, my dear king.”

  “I don’t share your fondness for mutual destruction,” he replied with a wry smile.

  I giggled, eyes twinkling with mischief as I pressed on, probing what he knew. “So, when shall we meet again, you cheeky voyeur?”

  “How about a year from now? When my armies march into your lands?” he answered smoothly, drawing another chuckle from me.

  “I was mistaken about you,” I admitted. “You’re far trickier to deal with than the Devourer.”

  “The same applies to you,” he said. “I know your next moves because they’re logical—but not your reasons, nor how far you’ll go. You’re wrapped in shadows, blocking every attempt to uncover your true intentions.”

  I smiled at that. Even if he could see the shape of my plans, but that didn’t mean he could stop them.

  “Don’t look too deeply into the abyss…” I said, voice low and eyes narrowing. “It could come back haunting you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” The king gave me a small nod. Then, after a pause: “If you’ll allow one last question… what god do you pray to?”

  “None.” I winked and brushed past him, not sparing another word.

  Behind me, the elves were already packing what little they had, drifting like smoke back into their wounded forest. The scent of ash lingered in the air, a fitting end to this grotesque play. I, still curious about the ever-so-wise king, stepped into the tent—where the true aftermath waited.

  Three survivors. That was all.

  Tom, lucky in the most cowardly of ways, had fled before the worst even began. Arthur, the fool I still needed. And the coachman, bless his boring soul, because someone had to get us back to the mansion.

  “They’re all dead,” I muttered.

  The weight of it tried to sink in. Luna, the others—their blood was tangled in the soil, soaked into the smoke, twisted with the screams. Some by the worm, others… by me.

  And then Arthur, ruining the silence with one bitter breath:

  “I’m ruined… they’ll blame me for this. The whole damn army.”

  I rolled my eyes. Seriously?

  Yes, drowning him once had definitely cracked something, but now he was spiraling again, and I had no patience for that—not when I was still half-burnt and had a victory to enjoy.

  “Arthur.” I crouched slightly, catching his eye. “We did the right thing. We saved the world tonight. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we start saving the White family. I can turn this around. Trust me.”

  I meant it. For once, I wasn’t even lying.

  But Arthur snapped—tears sharp in his eyes.

  “Look at what trusting you has brought me!”

  His words hit harder than expected. I didn’t flinch, but I felt it. His anger was earned, even if it annoyed me.

  “Arthur, listen to me.” I placed my hand gently on his shoulder. My voice softened. “The army is gone, yes. But you still have me. And I’ve never lost a game I cared to win. Trust in me, just a little longer.”

  He met my gaze for a moment. I could see him teetering—rage, fear, hope. And then… resolve.

  “You have ten days,” he said coldly. “After we arrive. If you haven’t turned this around by then… I’ll make sure you fall with me. I will make sure everyone knows you are a vampire – every pitchfork in the whole kingdom will be coming for you.”

  A threat. A fair one. But ten days? That was a gift. With proper planning, I’d need two at most.

  “I won’t disappoint you. The prophecies have never been wrong, have they?” I smiled, sweet and wicked.

  He nodded, running a hand through his hair—tired, broken, but still standing. It almost reminded me of petting a stray dog who hadn’t bitten me yet.

  We exited the tent, only to nearly trip over several bottles of elegant elven wine. Of course.

  That king thought of everything.