The Alrevia Order [Elisop]

#15 Goodbyes

Reminder that this story is marked mature for various reasons !

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When Luca went down to the bar, he was greeted by chaos. Tables were smashed in half and chairs were knocked all over the place - if he wasn't careful, he could accidentally hit himself with a stake. However, what stood out most in the mess were his friends Eli and Aesop, the former coughing up blood while leaning against a pillar, and the latter pointing his sword at a blonde woman with blood-red eyes, who was surely their enemy by simple deduction. She immediately saw him enter her field of vision like an eagle on the lookout.

'Do you still have a lot of companions hiding up there?' she said sarcastically.

'Luca-!' shouted Aesop. 'You shouldn't stay there!'

'And so I shall instead let you get your ass heroically kicked? Don't worry about the others, they're fine. Although the spell she cast on them is pretty powerful.' He studied the scene briefly before deciding how to proceed, finally smirking. 'The colour of her eyes is quite unusual, with the strange aura of her powers, I'd say she's half demon. Fearsome, but not invincible.'

'You've got a good eye,' Emily replied.

The young woman was not fooled by Luca's idiotic expression and suspected that he was not to be underestimated. She felt that he was the first person she had to get rid of and dashed towards him, but she seemed to have forgotten that her opponent was not alone. Aesop suddenly stepped in between her and Luca, countering her with his sword as best he could. Luca took advantage of this moment of surprise to put his plan into action and move out of the way. He gathered together the pieces of metal he had on hand, the nails from the furniture, the iron from the beer barrels... As quickly as he assembled the formulas in his mind, his creation took the shape of a kind of iron snake with sharp fangs. The beast lunged at Emily, forcing her away from Aesop.

'I can't use my full powers if you're here, get the others upstairs and run!' he shouted.

'We're not leaving you behind!' retorted Eli.

Luca glanced at Aesop, as if to say that he had to make a choice: fight an enemy more powerful than them and risk losing his life, thus throwing away all their past efforts, or swallow his pride and agree to retreat to complete their quest. The blond hadn't been much of a sentimentalist until recently so the choice was quickly made, however bitter the aftertaste.

'Let's go Eli.'

'Aesop-!'

Eli was ready to argue back, but Aesop had already rushed upstairs without hearing any more, forcing the brunet to follow him as well against his will. Luca increased the pressure of his iron snake on Emily to make sure she couldn't follow them until he heard the frantic footsteps of his friends receding into the distance after a moment.

'If you think I'm going to let them get away with it-'

'Not so fast missy-'

The snake's head split into several sharp cords, each one piercing a part of the woman's body, her arms, legs and vital organs. The spikes planted themselves in the ground and dug in as if to take her into the ground with them. The half-demon let out a strident scream as she tried to fight back, but with few options available to her and a mass of spears forming above her, a last resort came to mind. She laughed while muttering something incomprehensible, Luca was wondering what she was going to do when he managed to recognise a few bits of her gibberish.

'That's-! You would go so far as to forsake the rest of your humanity-'

Luca had to stop her before she finished uttering the formula, but it was already too late when he came to this realisation, Emily bit her tongue and finished the ritual. The chains holding her broke under the magical pressure, even causing the great mage to take a step backwards, as if caught in a storm. A seal appeared beneath the young woman's feet before dazzling Luca. The next moment, a muffled scream echoed through the ravaged inn and Emily was on top of him.

The sclera of her eyes was black as night, her ears pointed, and her teeth irregularly sharp. Her neat blond hair almost fell to the floor, its ends stained with blood. Her fingernails had turned into claws as long and sharp as swords, which now pierced the brown-haired man's chest, digging through the fabric of his clothes, flesh and bone in a bloody carnage that spilled out onto the floor, creating a scarlet puddle around them. She could feel the mage's still throbbing heart between her fingers, so warm, so alive, beating at a rapid pace... until she violently ripped it out of his ribcage.

'Not everyone has the same luck when it comes to gambling, and life is just as unfair...' she said in a whisper. She staggered to her feet, looking down at Luca's heart in her hand, a sick laugh escaping her lips before she crushed it between her fingers without remorse. All that remained was the mage's inert body on the floor, a gaping hole in his chest. 'That filthy mage got what he deserved... ha ha... HA HA HA!'

Her back arched as she laughed out loud, licked the blood off her hands and suddenly started coughing. The wounds Luca had inflicted on her were more serious than they looked, and her body couldn't stand her boiling demon blood on top of that. Her coughing rapidly worsened and she found herself vomiting gallons of blood, at the same time as it dripped from her eyes and out of her ears like a multiple-headed fountain.

'N-No- it can't end like this-! Argh-!'

Emily clutched her head desperately, a sordid medley of cries and screams of agony escaping her throat. Her ordeal finally came to an end when her eyes exploded, and the internal bleeding that had overwhelmed her gave her the same fate. A final howl echoed under the full moon, and later, when dawn broke and the rest of the troops reached Hamel, they would find only the corpse of the Great Mage Balsa on the scene, as well as the monstrous remains of another creature at his side.