(In the point of view of Violet Belladonna)

***

After a few more levels of stairs, we finally reached the end of this seemingly endless spiral staircase. Thus, we took our first step on the coldest, darkest, and the lowest level of the catacombs, the halls where the dead lie. The catacomb halls are even quieter as if noise cannot permeate its walls unless some dares to disturb it from within. We are those defilers who seek the help of the resting place of the dead to help the living.

We ran through the halls of the catacombs, the resting place of queen Lara lies beyond the furthest and deepest part of these halls, the halls wherein those men of royal blood rest.

We continued our never-ending chase towards freedom. As we did so, a scream of a lone man started to mix with the screechy laugh of a woman that had an immensely shrill voice; the intensity of her cackle alone could form a crack on these walls of time immemorial.

"DO NOT TOUCH MY LOVE!" The voice of a man echoed throughout the corners of the catacombs.

The woman continued to cackle.

We could hear the dreaded gnarl of hundreds of teeth as their barking ran towards us as if every step we took was double their speed. We cannot outrun them, but we still have the benefit of being far from them.

A soldier stopped running, making his feet slid on the stone floor of the catacombs as he turned his body away from us. "Go! Go!" He said as I looked back at him, gazing at his back, respecting his valor. 

Without stopping, I waved three of my orbs to come forth before me; as I did so, a sturdy and transparent wall appeared in front of the soldier, stretching from the ceiling to the walls, down to the ground—not even a single crevice left untouched. Those who are coming on the other side of the wall would not be able to cross the barrier, but anything and everyone in the warrior's side can—they can swing their sword and shoot an arrow, and it can pass through the wall with the greatest of ease. Therefore, he can swing his sword at his enemies, but those who are following our tracks would not be able to touch him. It's completely and utterly impossible to penetrate through that barrier from the other side. If it needs to happen, that barrier will protect the lone warrior forever, and it will remain unbroken, unmoved, untouched, unscratched.

With that barrier, I have depleted the few remaining mana energy I have in my body; the only thing I can do now is to coat a strong barrier around the princes and my orbs. I can do nothing else other than that.

"NO MORE!" A scream coming from above us reached my ear. I looked back and saw that my barrier is still intact. "NO MORE PLEASE! YOU'RE TEARING MY BODY APART, NO! NOOOOOUUUGHHHH-"

"THE WALLS HAVE MOUTHS!" Another man shouted with a cackle.

I ignored the agonizing scream of the soldiers who lagged behind us. It was as if hell itself had risen from the earth to give us a kiss of death.

However, we're almost there. Our destination... we've almost reached it, we're almost there! Just a bit more, and we are almost inside the royal mausoleum in the grand catacombs of Izrecael. Around us are tombs plastered on the walls with the names of unimportant people printed over it to show the world that it is, indeed, their grave.

However, this one tomb that stood a few meters before us differed from everything else around it. Two gigantic pillars and a metal gate with a rather basic and simple structure with no design engraved on it yet large, almost towering us even if I combined my height with Sir Damia's, lies before our reach. Above the metallic gate is the arched letters forming the name of our glorious empire: "IZRECAEL," and a carved figure of the empire's sigil lies on top of it. 

The base of the pillars that stood around the great metallic gate shouts our pride, for our might never falters even in the afterlife. Meanwhile, the shafts of those same pillars that are now filled with holes and cracks carry a drawn history of how the pioneers of Luxael made the empire of Izrecael, one stone at a time.

Sir Damian pushed the gate with all his might, and although his attempt to make it budge is working, it's still taking a really long time for the gate to open. I could have helped him, but I really won't be much of a help with two of the important princes of our empire on my hands. Instead, I used my psychic powers to push the door with Sir Damian using the few remaining drops of mana left in my spirit. 

Sweat dripped from our bodies, and Sir Damian grimaced as he pushed the monolithic metallic gate with all the strength he could muster; compared to those other soldiers I've seen, Sir Damian's strength is near impossible to emulate. This man was once dying earlier with a deep wound on his stomach earlier; now, he could push the weight of a thousand tons with his own two hands as if his injury earlier did not happen at all! That is enough for me to hail him as the strongest man I had ever seen in my life, and believe me, I had seen countless strong men fall before my very eyes. This man is undisturbed, his strength is unstoppable, and his power is uncontested.

However, all those efforts might be in vain.

BAM!

The door swung open.

A powerful gust with a tremendous force strong enough to send me forward helped us open this metallic structure of monolithic proportions. I was about to exclaim in excitement upon seeing this wondrous act of divine providence, for I cannot explain the arrival of this powerful gust aside from it being a call from divine authority, intervening these hell spawns from laying a finger on the princes.

When I was about to shout out with glee, the corpse of the soldier I protected with a barrier earlier slid towards my feet. As his corpse crashed onto the cobblestone floor, the sound of the distant cracking of the translucent barrier I created earlier resounded into the air; it was synced with the sickening growl of the hounds from afar.

Only then did I knew that god doesn't favor us.

"I will not surrender."

I ran. I ran as far as I could.

There were countless tombs inside this mausoleum, but I knew exactly where the tomb of queen Lara lies.

"Sir Damian, it's around here…" I then noticed that he's not with me anymore. From far, in front of the mausoleum gates, there he stood. Ready to die, ready to kill, ready to protect.

However, I have seen the fate that befell those who were as foolish as Damian Carmichael before.

"It was nice to meet you, Sir Damian," I said, trying my hardest to suppress my tears. "it was goddamn nice to meet a man as great as you."

I ran again as I heard the sickening snarls of countless hounds and the war cry of a lone warrior, a steadfast soldier.

As the sound of gnawing and growling feeds the violence all around, I saw it—a tomb on the farthest side of the mausoleum on the northwestern corner; there I saw two lion statues hanging from each side of the opulent-looking tomb with gold highlights.

The tomb of queen Lara confined itself in a mini-mausoleum surrounded with flowers that never wilt, made by steel that never rust, while the material of the tomb itself is that of dark mud that never breaks.

As I ran towards the late queen's tomb, a shadow befell onto my body, covering my trembling skin with what seemed like an endless maelstrom of darkness. 

"There you are, sssssssssssssssssweetheeeeaaaarrt!"

A woman appeared with her head drooped like melted glass, her back shaped like the bottom of a ship, and her head leaned forward. Her ass is perched upward to overemphasize the voluptuousness of it, and her feet were half-crouching while her knees were pointed from one side to another.

I looked up to see a tall, no, gigantic woman who's wearing a torn black wedding dress that had an insane amount of scratches and tears, ruining the beautiful ruffles and floral embroideries that's beautifying her otherwise impossibly ugly figure. A huge scratch created a slit at the center of the bottom part of her wedding dress, revealing her unappealing genitalia that reeked like the smell of a dead fish. The giantess carries a humongous glowing crystal on her back; its gleam was casting a pitch-dark shadow, eating the light away from where it lands, bathing me with its enormous weight. A shadow could make someone fall on their knees, but this one is enough to make my feet wobble like a weak jelly.

She cackles. Her doing so made me raise my head to look up at her visage, and oh my god, she looks horrible! Disgusting, even! Her face looked like it's melting, and I mean that literally! The skin on her face is sagging a lot on her left side, while the other side looked more like what an ordinary old woman would look like: wrinkled and decayed. Her grin reveals her darkened teeth, some yellowing in color, pointed and sharp, but most of it is missing. Her eyes bloodied, veins appearing from around her pupils, with a thick and dark layer of black eye bags sagging beneath them. An in-depth look at her fucked up face reveals that she is wearing makeup—an abundant amount of pink blush on over her cheeks, a violet eye shadow begging to be removed, a poorly placed contour on her nose, and a white powder covering her face and neck. I noticed some marks of blemishes such as a considerable amount of wrinkles especially visible around her lips when she smiles, and a lot, and I mean, A LOT of acne peeking all over her skin—not just on his face, it's all over her. Not even those thick layers of white powder could hide it. She's wearing a veil that I wish she wore every second she breathes.

Her eyes looked as if they were about to pop the soonest possible moment and would surely fly from out of her skull and splat towards my face. Her smile is a genuine display of her utmost happiness, but I cannot say if this applies to her eyes too. As her smile grew bigger, her eyes opened wider, popped even further, its color got even redder, the way it shoots its gaze at me felt even crazier.

Her belly is sticking out of her wedding dress, but her arms are too slender for the gown, making it look loose on her arms. However, her belly is so bloated that it's almost tearing the side of her stomach. I can see the abundant amount of violet veins popping from her body inside of her see-through wedding dress, making her black wedding dress look like it has a few violet designs.

"I beliiiiieve, you have something I neeeeeed." The giantess said as she took a step inside the mausoleum. As she utters those words, her spit rained from all over me, covering me in a disgusting goo with an even more disgusting smell.