The master spy or Puss in the boot adventures

The rеturn of the Demon Lord 4, Part 192

As the sun dipped below the twisted trees and the blood-red sky faded to a sickly purple, the witches Gnash and Maleficent emerged from the shadows of the swamp. Their cloaks of raven feathers swirled about their hunched forms, and their eyes glowed with an eerie, sickly green light.

They moved with unnatural grace through the mire, their gnarled feet gliding over the bubbling mud and fetid pools without leaving so much as a ripple in their wake. The very air around them seemed to warp and writhe, as though the fabric of reality itself recoiled from their presence.

Their eyes, gleaming with an otherworldly light, scanned the riverbank for signs of life amidst the desolation wrought by the Demon World's curse.

It was then that they spotted him - a figure lying prone on the muddy shore, his form wreathed in an aura of palpable darkness. With cautious steps, the sisters approached, their senses tingling with the familiar energies of demonic power.

As they drew closer, the witches gasped in awe and reverence. Before them lay a creature straight out of legend - a demon of immense power and terrifying visage. Massive leathery wings unfurled from his back, their clawed tips glinting in the fading light. Its body was a mass of rippling muscle and obsidian scales, pulsing with an inner fire that seemed to burn with the intensity of a thousand suns. Great curving horns sprouted from its brow, their tips stained with ichor that glittered like liquid onyx in the fading light, one of them shattered and embedded deep within his chest.

„ Do you think he ... is alive?" asked Gnash.

But it was the gaping wound in the creature's chest that drew their gaze, a ragged hole from which protruded a single, shattered horn. Dark blood oozed from the injury, hissing and steaming as it mingled with the brackish water of the river.

"Sister," Gnash breathed, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and exultation. "Do you realize what this means? The prophecies were true... He has returned to us at last."

Maleficent nodded, her eyes glinting with a feverish light. "The Unicorn, The Fallen Angel" Maleficent breathed, her eyes widening in disbelief. "The the legendary demon who would return to cleanse this world of its impurities. And we have found him, here, on the very cusp of his rebirth!"

"Sister," Gnash breathed, her voice trembling with barely contained excitement. "Do you realize what this means? The prophecies...they were true!"

According to the ancient tales, whispered around flickering campfires and scrawled in crumbling tomes, the Unicorn was an Astral being of immense power and contradictions. Born of the purest light, he had fallen from grace, seduced by the promises of the Demon World. In embracing his darker nature, he had become a creature of nightmare, a harbinger of destruction and chaos.

But the stories also spoke of a time when the Unicorn would return, reborn in the body of a mortal, to cleanse the world of its sins and usher in a new age of darkness. And now, here he lay before them, the key to their wildest ambitions.

With gentle hands, the witches lifted the unconscious demon, marveling at the raw strength that emanated from his form even in repose. They carried him deep into the heart of the swamp, to a hidden grove where the trees wept tears of blood and the very air thrummed with the pulse of forbidden magic.

There, in a ritual circle carved from obsidian and adorned with the bones of sacrificed innocents, the sisters laid the demon down upon an altar of blackened stone. They removed the shattered horn from his chest, whispering incantations of healing and dark blessings over the gaping wound.

As the witches worked their fell craft, the swamp came alive around them. Glowing fungi bloomed from the sodden earth, pulsing with an eerie bioluminescence. Twisted vines writhed and coiled like serpents, their thorns dripping with a sickly, iridescent sap. From the depths of stagnant pools, the croaking of demon toads arose like a profane a chorus, their discordant song weaving into the fabric of the witches' spells.

Slowly, under the ministrations of Gnash and Maleficent, the demon began to stir. His eyes fluttered open, orbs of molten amber that smoldered with an infernal light. As he sat up, the witches prostrated themselves before him, their foreheads touching the damp, loamy soil in submission.

Suddenly, the demon let out a guttural groan and collapsed to the ground, slipping back into unconsciousness with a heavy thud."I think he's too weak," Gnash said, his voice tinged with desperation."We have no choice," Maleficent replied, her tone resolute and unyielding. "We have to perform the Blood Sacrifice... It's the only thing that will unleash his full strength!"

Unicorn, once a mighty Angel and one of the most potent astral entities, was cast out from the celestial realm for his defiance, condemned eternally to the hellish domain of Demons. But fate twisted when he burst through a temporal rift into the World of Humans, reincarnating within the feeble form of a mundane creature, Mer-mer. As the demonic portal's curse struck, Mer-mer's true infernal essence erupted forth. Yet, the frail human vessel buckled under the strain, driving him to the brink of madness and suicide. In a twist of fate, the formidable witches, Gnash and Maleficent, intervened. Now, the question seared through the air: How would the Unicorn  respond? Would he forsake his vendetta to tread the arduous path of redemption, or would he be consumed by the intoxicating allure of vengeance, plunging into darkness once more?