Chapter 43: Ash and Blood

  Vessikar was a lesser demon of the Ashen Lands, known among his kind for his cunning and unyielding ambition. Unlike many of the beasts that shared his plane, he possessed a disciplined mind and a burning desire to rise above his station.

  The demon plane, or what mortals just called hell, was not one single place but a collection of realms layered upon each other. The Ashen Lands were the outermost circle, closest to the mortal world. There had been a time, when both realms were connected through the Hell-Lands that once existed in the mortal realm, but that was long before Vessikar’s birth. All he knew were the old stories told by ancient demons who had survived that era. They spoke of a great war that tore apart the planes, leaving only fragments behind.

  He was descended from those who had fled the mortal world when the rift was sealed. The Ashen Lands had become their prison, the first circle of hell, cut off from both directions—barred from the mortal realm and from the deeper circles below. There was no true ruler there, no order or civilization. Every demon born in that wasteland had only one path in life: to fight, to kill, and to survive long enough to evolve.

  There were no cities, no fortresses, not even ruins. Only ashen plains, ashen woods, and pits that spewed black smoke from endless fissures. The entire land was a scar of gray and fire. Demons wandered it like predators in constant motion, because to stay too long in one place was to invite death. Hell beasts prowled the wastes, creatures without reason that attacked anything that moved. Smaller demons sometimes gathered in packs for protection, but that only made them bigger targets.

  Vessikar knew the deeper circles were different. The elders spoke of them often, of sprawling cities built from bone and iron, of courts and armies, of wars that never truly ended, and of high-blooded demons whose power could shatter entire legions. They said the deeper you descended, the more structured hell became, and the more monstrous it was. Nothing like the Ashen Lands, which were wild, brutal, and empty.

  But Vessikar did not want to die as another nameless scavenger. He wanted to climb. He wanted to become more than a beast. He wanted to be a demon that mattered. And above all, he wanted revenge.

  Revenge against the mortals who had destroyed the Hell-Lands and cast his kind back into chaos. Revenge against those who had forced demons like him to live like animals while they thrived under their sunlit skies. Even the higher demons from the deeper circles looked down on those from the Ashen Lands, calling them feral and unworthy. He had promised himself he would prove them wrong.

  So, when the Demon Moon appeared above the horizon, Vessikar had paused mid-battle. He had been locked in a struggle with a massive hell beast, its fanged maw dripping molten saliva, when the strange light washed over the land.

  At first, he thought it was just another storm of fire. But when the glow reached him, it did not scorch his flesh, it seared his soul. And in that moment, he understood.

  Something was calling to him.

  The light spoke without words, its meaning pouring directly into his mind. It promised power, purpose, and a way out of this forsaken land. All it asked in return was his will, his strength, and his soul.

  He did not hesitate. He reached toward it and offered everything.

  The next moment, the Ashen Lands disappeared.

  He felt himself pulled through a vortex of flame and shadow, and when he opened his eyes again, he was somewhere else. He was bound to a vessel, but he was not alone within it. Another soul shared the body, a mortal one, strong and alive. He could sense it moving apart from him, guided by its own will, struggling against the intrusion. Yet he held control, and he felt how their souls began to intertwine, how the mortal’s presence anchored him to the material world and stabilized his being.

  He could feel the confusion and fear of the other soul trapped with him. It resisted, but resistance meant nothing. This was his nature—he would take control, because he had to, because he was the stronger one.

  In the first moments of merging, when his hold began to settle, curiosity crept into him. He wondered about this mortal world, about the Demon who had summoned him. He had never seen a mortal before, never breathed air that wasn’t ash and smoke. Everything here felt strange and vivid. He could feel colors instead of just heat and darkness, and the sensation both fascinated and unsettled him.

  And when he saw the Princess for the first time, he was struck silent.

  Her presence was overwhelming. She was beautiful beyond measure, but not in a fragile way. Power radiated from her like a heartbeat, cold and absolute. In that instant, he knew what she was, one of the High Bloods, the kind of demon the old ones had spoken about in tales. A being born from the deepest circles, where even nightmares knelt.

  For Vessikar, it was like stepping into a legend. A fairy tale of his kind made real. The call had not been a curse. It was his chance to ascend.

  He would serve her, learn from her, and rise. And perhaps, through her, the mortals would finally pay for what they had done.

  When the Princess left after their first meeting, she had given him a task. His first duty in the mortal realm.

  Now, he was hanging upside down from the ceiling of an inn’s lobby, his claws buried deep in the wooden beams as he watched the girl below. She stood in a puddle of blood that had long gone dark, completely motionless. The scent of iron filled the room. The Princess had spoken to her not long ago and then disappeared, leaving Vessikar behind to watch.

  The girl still hadn’t moved.

  Vessikar tilted his head, his eyes narrowing with faint curiosity. She still held a small potion bottle in her hand, but her body did not even tremble.

  Are all mortals like this? he wondered, his thoughts echoing quietly through the bound link that connected him to the vessel. So fragile… and so strange.

  He let his tail sway slowly behind him, observing the human with interest. This was the first mortal he had ever seen, and it was not like he had imagined. How were such fragile creatures able to conquer the Hell-Lands in the mortal realm? he wondered.

  While he hung there for a while, nothing special happened, but Vessikar still was not bored. The feeling of being in the mortal realm was far too strange to feel dull. So, he began to muse about how his life might change, when suddenly the door opened and a man came in.

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  “Tessa, you won’t believe what happened!” he started, but then stopped dead, staring at the scene in the lobby. The bloody mop, the bucket full of dark, half-clotted blood, the floor streaked with red, and the girl standing motionless in the middle of it, her clothes soaked, her expression empty.

  “What happened…? Tessa, are you okay?”

  Vessikar, still hanging from the ceiling, had already prepared to protect the girl when the door opened, just in case someone came to harm her. But as he watched curiously, he saw that the newcomer was different. The man was much more alive in every sense then the girl.

  So not all mortals are like her, he thought, intrigued. He decided to wait and see what would happen next. The man did not seem hostile, and from the way he spoke, it was clear that he knew the girl.

  The man walked toward the girl. “Tessa? Are you okay? Tessa, what happened? Hey!”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her around. The movement made her drop the potion she still held. It clinked against the floor and shattered, splattering its liquid across the tiles. She looked at him with blank, lifeless eyes.

  In that same instant, Vessikar felt the air shift. His head snapped toward her as something rippled through the room, a crack in reality itself. He reacted on instinct, leaping down to protect the girl. Whatever was coming was not the man; Vessikar had already sensed his weakness. It came from behind her, directly from the fissure that tore through the air.

  But he was too late.

  Reality twisted at the girl’s back, bending like glass under pressure. Vessikar slammed into an invisible barrier just before reaching her and was thrown backward against the wall. Inside the barrier, the man barely had time to notice that something was wrong before it was already happening.

  A black hand, dripping with thick, dark liquid, pushed its way out of the fissure and rested on the girl’s head.

  Vessikar got to his feet again, his claws digging into the wall, but he didn’t charge. The brief impact with the barrier had told him enough, he couldn’t break it. He cursed under his breath, damning his own hesitation. He had been too curious about the mortal realm, too fascinated, and now he had failed his first task for the Princess.

  Then, out of the fissure, came a voice, low and distorted, pressing down on the air like a storm about to break.

  “Mortal child, bathed in the light of the Demon Moon. Your soul has been seen. The all-seeing Moon has marked you. Your essence has been judged and chosen to bear its gifts and its curse alike. The eternal Moon deems you worthy—be its herald upon this plane, and bring forth the balance long denied.”

  As the voice spoke, dark energy flowed from the black hand into the girl’s head. She screamed, her body convulsing as a sick red light poured from her eyes and mouth. The sound pierced through the lobby, shrill and desperate. It was the first real reaction Vessikar had seen from the girl since he started watching her.

  After a moment that felt eternal, the hand released her and withdrew back into the fissure. The tear in reality sealed itself shut, leaving behind only silence.

  Vessikar straightened slowly, watching as the girl’s body changed. The agony on her face faded, replaced by confusion. Her eyes burned crimson now, and tears of blood ran down her pale cheeks. Her nails had lengthened into sharp black claws, and when she opened her mouth, her canines had grown long and pointed.

  For a heartbeat she seemed lost. Then her gaze snapped toward the man still cowering on the floor. She let out a frustrated scream and lunged at him. With a single motion, she lifted him as if he weighed nothing and sank her teeth into his neck.

  The man’s cry was short. Wet, gurgling noises filled the air.

  Vessikar watched silently as she drank, his expression unreadable. Then he began to walk toward her, slow and steady, his clawed feet clicking softly on the wood. The girl’s eyes were wild, her breath ragged, yet there was something new in her.

  When he stopped beside her, he smiled faintly.

  “I see why the Princess wanted me to protect you,” he said quietly. “Congratulations. The god of the Demon Moon has noticed you.”

  ???

  While outside on the square the fight still raged, the priest descended deeper into the catacombs. His steps echoed quietly through the narrow tunnel, the light from his spell casting faint reflections on the wet stone. After a while, he reached an old chamber, half collapsed and covered in dust. In the center stood a grave sealed by a thick stone slab, its surface carved with worn runes of devotion.

  He muttered a short incantation, and the slab shifted with a low rumble. Beneath it, a narrow ladder descended into darkness. Without hesitation, he climbed down. The air grew colder with every step, and the faint light from above disappeared completely as the slab slid back into place behind him, sealing the passage once more.

  Now deep under the city, he followed the tunnel until two armored figures appeared ahead. Their silver armor, dulled by dust, caught the faint glow of his light spell.

  “Ser Elron. Ser Windale,” he greeted, his voice calm despite the distant tremors from above. “I hope everything went well.”

  “Yes, Father,” Elron answered, his tone steady but low.

  “Good. Then let us leave this cursed place. I never liked this provincial city anyway.”

  “Where should we go?” Windale asked.

  “We will meet with the rest of the devoted from Tiara later. They already left, I assume?”

  “They did,” Elron confirmed with a nod.

  “Good,” the priest said softly. “Then we follow the path west. There is an old exit that leads into the valley. From there, we head toward the Sanctum at Burma, maybe meeting the Holy Saint half-way.”

  They walked in silence for several minutes. Only the distant drip of water and the clink of their armor filled the darkness. Eventually, the tunnel widened and opened into a small cavern. Several passages branched off into the unknown.

  “Which one?” Elron asked, lifting his lantern to scan the tunnels.

  “The left,” the priest replied without hesitation. “That one will take us outside within the hour.”

  Elron nodded and turned to lead, but froze as a sound echoed from behind them, a slow, scraping noise against stone.

  The three turned.

  A voice came from the darkness, dry and sharp, like bone dragged across gravel.

  “So, since you helped me find the exit,” it hissed, “you are no longer necessary.”

  “Get back, a lesser demon!” Windale shouted, stepping in front of the priest. Both paladins drew their swords, the steel flaring with faint holy light.

  “Foul creature, why are you following us?” Elron demanded.

  The priest whispered a spell under his breath and vanished from sight, his cloak of invisibility forming again. He stepped backward, keeping close to the wall. As he moved, his foot brushed against something heavy on the ground. He glanced down and saw the sack of artifacts Ser Elron had been carrying, dropped when the creature appeared.

  Carefully, he reached for it, his hands trembling only slightly as his fingers closed around the worn leather. He pulled the sack toward him and slung it over his shoulder beside the relic chest. The faint hum of divine energy inside the bag reassured him that the contents were intact.

  He looked up again toward the fight. The paladins were standing their ground, steel flashing, their voices echoing prayers that almost drowned beneath the growl of the demon.

  From the tunnel’s shadows, a shape emerged—twisted, half-human, half-beast. Its skin was gray and stretched too thin over its bones, and its smile was wide and wrong. The thing tilted its head at their question, its voice wet and broken when it spoke again.

  “Why?” it repeated with a laugh that grated against the walls. “Because you’re running away, little priests. Because your Goddess does not protect cowards. Because I want to feel your bones crack and taste the light in your blood. And,” it added, baring a row of jagged teeth, “for fun.”

  Then it moved.

  The creature launched forward with impossible speed, claws scraping sparks from the stone floor. The paladins met it head-on, their swords flashing in the confined space. The first strike hit, but the demon didn’t even flinch. It twisted, grabbed Elron’s arm, and slammed him into the wall hard enough to shake the tunnel. Windale shouted a prayer and drove his blade into its side, light spilling from the wound, but the thing only laughed, its voice echoing unnaturally.

  The priest stepped back farther into the dark, clutching the relic chest tight to his chest. His spell flickered, light bending around him as he whispered another prayer.

  Behind him, steel clashed, and the smell of blood filled the tunnel. The laughter of the demon grew louder, rough and gleeful.

  “Your Goddess tastes bitter,” it crooned. “I wonder if your hearts taste the same.”

  Elron screamed as the creature tore through his armor. Windale roared in defiance and swung once more, but the blow went wide. A clawed hand caught his throat, and his voice was cut short.

  The priest didn’t wait. He turned and ran deeper into the left passage, his footsteps echoing in the darkness. And still, the laughter followed him, crawling along the walls like a whisper.