The master spy or Puss in the boot adventures

Тhe return of the Demon Lord 6, Part 194

Maleficent rose to her feet, dark power crackling around her gnarled hands as she advanced on the demon, her eyes blazing with a feverish light. "Mighty Unicorn," she intoned, her voice resonating with the force of her fell sorcery, "I bind you now to my will, in the name of the ancient pacts that grant dominion over demonkind!"

Shadows coalesced around the witch, writhing and pulsing in time with the eldritch syllables that spilled from her lips. Tendrils of inky darkness lashed out, seeking to ensnare the demon's limbs and smother his nascent power. The very air trembled with the force of her incantation, the fabric of reality groaning like a ship tossed upon a stormy sea.

But the demon merely laughed, a sound that echoed through the grove like the tolling of an immense, unholy bell. With a negligent flick of his wrist, he tore through the witch's shadowy bonds as though they were cobwebs, the strands dissolving into acrid wisps of smoke.

"Foolish crone," he growled, his voice dripping with disdain. "Do you truly believe your paltry magics can hold sway over one such as I? I, who have tasted of the Celestial Essence itself? I, in whom the blood of arch-fiends flows?"

He rose to his full, terrible height, wings unfurling like a thunderhead blotting out the moon. His eyes blazed with balefire, twin pits of amber flame that seared the sight of any who dared meet their gaze. The crystal embedded in his chest pulsed with a hungry, reddish light, drinking in the fear that radiated from the witches in palpable waves.

Gnash, seeing her sister's peril, launched herself at the demon with a howl of desperate rage. Blackfire wreathed her taloned hands as she raked at his obsidian scales, dark sorceries of rending and corrosion seeking to unmake his unnatural flesh. But it was like assailing a mountain with a twig - for every scale-shard she managed to gouge free, a dozen more grew in its place, harder than adamant.

With a contemptuous snarl, the demon seized Gnash by the throat, hoisting her writhing form high into the air. His claws sank into her neck, ichor oozing from the punctures to sizzle and hiss upon the sodden ground. Gnash's shrieks of agony mingled with Maleficent's cries of dismay, the two witches bound by a lifetime of dark purpose, now poised upon the brink of annihilation.

"You dare to command me?" The demon's voice was a low, malevolent hiss, his breath a miasma of brimstone.

The demon tightened his grip around Gnash's throat, his claws digging deep into her withered flesh. Dark ichor welled up from the wounds, hissing and steaming as it dripped to the fetid ground below. Gnash's shrieks of agony rent the air, mingling with Maleficent's desperate incantations as she sought to free her sister from the demon's grasp.

But as the Unicorn savored his triumph, a flicker of uncertainty passed across his cruel features. For a moment, his grip on Gnash's throat slackened, and his molten gaze grew distant, as though seeing into a realm beyond the mortal plane.

"No," he muttered, his voice a ragged whisper that cut through the cacophony of the witches' struggles. "It cannot be. Not now, when my vengeance is so close at hand..."

Maleficent, seizing upon the demon's momentary distraction, redoubled her efforts. Weaving eldritch signs in the air with her gnarled fingers, she unleashed a barrage of sorcerous bolts that seared the darkness like captured lightning. The missiles struck the Unicorn's obsidian hide in a shower of hissing sparks and acrid smoke, but he seemed not to notice, his attention fixated upon some unseen vista.

Gnash, feeling the demon's grip loosen, wrenched herself free with a burst of desperate strength. She staggered back, dark blood sheeting down her neck from the ragged puncture wounds left by the Unicorn's claws. Her eyes met Maleficent's, a flicker of understanding passing between the two witches.

"The prophecy," Gnash rasped, her voice a ruined croak. "It spoke of a weakness, a chink in the armor of even the mightiest demon..."

Maleficent nodded, her brow furrowed in concentration as she dredged up the ancient words from the depths of her memory. "Yes," she hissed, "a flaw born of the very Celestial Essence that grants him his power. A remnant of his angelic origins, buried deep within his corrupted soul..."

The demon shook his head, as though trying to dislodge an unwelcome thought. His wings twitched and spasmed, shadows leaking from the membranous folds like wisps of oily smoke. The crystal embedded in his chest flickered and pulsed, its sanguine light faltering like a guttering candle.

"The mortal realm," he growled, his voice thick with contempt. "Its taint clings to me still, a lingering poison that saps my strength. The memories, the emotions...they cloud my judgement, dull the edge of my fury..."

The witches exchanged a glance of triumphant realization. 

"My name was once Mer-mer. In this realm of humans, I forged powerful bonds with extraordinary beings... Shadow-cat, Spartacus, Lanita, Ragnar... Vespera, the dragon princess Aurelia, the black panther Kira, and countless others. I even fell deeply in love with two remarkable creatures... Shadow-cat and Vespera. Shadow-cat rescued me from the brink of death countless times, pulling me out of the clutches of peril, and Vespera... she saved me from Solaris himself when he attempted to drain me of my magical essence."You were Mer-mer?" gasped Gnash, eyes wide with disbelief. "I caught a sneaky kitty attempting to pilfer my broom...""Unlucky witch... you think I didn't see through your guise? You and your deceitful sister, trying to toss us into the cauldron as your meal...""Forgive us, lord... we had no idea you had taken the form of that wretched kitten..."The Unicorn cackled with a chilling mirth. "The pitiful irony of fate," it sneered. "But now, I am no longer Unicorn, and my ties to the human realm and the astral world are shattered. I shall demonstrate my transformation by annihilating those who were once my allies... Ragnar, Princess Aurelia, and Shadow-cat... From this moment forth, I am not Unicorn, The Fallen Star. I am One Horn, The Demon Lord!"