It was a dark, moonless night.
The primordial energies were restless.
Dark fog crackling with red arcs of lightning blanketed the pine forest, spreading slowly without obstruction.
Growls and low rumbles filled the night air.
Even the Gods would shudder to think of what might happen should an unfortunate person find themselves in such an environment.
Shadows wove through the trees, jumping from branch to branch, scaring the little birds that made their homes in the area. The surrounding plants shriveled up and turned gray and dead as the apparitions flitted past, their vitality; devoured without a trace.
The perceptive animals dashed away from the gathering of uncouth auras, but even they weren't spared.
Soon they shriveled up and died like their homes.
It was quick and painless; all they left was a squeak before their souls joined chaos. Even these nefarious powers were feeble before substances such as souls, unable to seize them.
Suddenly, they stopped moving.
They reached a clearing.
In the center, two people, as naked as the day they were born, were passionately entangled with one another on the slowly withering grass.
They were absorbed in their worlds and each other as they failed to notice a single stream of darkness inching towards them.
From the darkness slowly emerged a young woman. But chaos knew she had stolen this vitality as it reacted violently to her presence. It seemed to want to turn and attack her, but alone and incomplete, it was no match for her.
"Sinful mortals. They make love like wild animals." Her lips curled into a sneer.
It wasn't until she finished speaking that the buck-naked couple realized she stood before them.
"W-who are y-you?!" The man quickly pulled the lady behind his scraggly, nude figure. The woman could only screech beside her partner.
They were both visibly terrified as though, deep inside their bones, they felt death incarnate.
Black shadows obscured her face like a veil. They lingered and swirled around her like silk cloth. Her lithe but voluptuous figure-enough to send Kings and Magistrates to their knees in worship-slowly descended onto the grass.
Gray streaks lined her arms down to her fingers, adorned with claws that gave off a silvery sheen under the absence of light; those were no ordinary ornaments.
Her average height masked her threat, but her bearing remained chilling and laced with bloodthirstiness.
After taking a closer look at her, the man gulped hard.
She hummed in a low voice, raised a claw, and pointed at the man.
"Worship me.." she whispered, her lips curled seductively.
The atmosphere shifted, a low electric hum spread out, and the primordial energies seemed to rush to obey her will.
Suddenly the man pushed away his lover, every trace of fear gone from his eyes, replaced by an insatiable hunger.
A vicious spell she placed.
"Yes!! My lord."
Without blinking, his clothless figure lay on the dead grass and began to kiss her feet.
Out of the shadows, a burly and threatening-looking man-shadow charged out with a white bone axe and moved to slice the man in two.
"How dare you touch her-?!" His roar was interrupted by a soft voice.
"Presumptuous!"
Shortly after, an axe dropped and lodged itself into the soil, its wielder gone, wiped out of existence without a single trace.
Only the sound of heavy breathing from the sycophantic man who kept licking her foot remained along with the thrums from the rest of the shadows.
"The nerve some of you have to interrupt my fun." She sighed lazily.
Then she looked down at her new servant, her eyes glowering with evil, "Kiss me."
"Y-yes," without hesitation, he raised himself from her legs, like a dog, slowly to her blood-red lips, revealed gradually by the shadows.
Just as he was about to get close enough to initiate contact, she grabbed his chin violently, her glistening claws digging into his face, drawing his blood.
He looked like he was in heaven, as an ecstatic expression overcame him, not realizing the hell that stood before him, ready to snatch his life.
She placed her lips right above his, just centimeters away. Then she made a sucking motion.
Suddenly, the energies surrounding her shuddered in anger and trepidation as she activated her spell.
Wisps of white fog rose directly from the man's mouth, his expression remaining ecstatic as she sucked the life force out of him.
Soon, the man shriveled up like the rest of life around them, leaving bones before he turned to dust that dispersed into the atmosphere.
His companion, who was previously scared out of her wits to dare let out a squeak, finally found her voice to scream incoherently.
She shook her head hysterically, her body trembling violently, as she mourned the death of her lover and begged leniency against her impending doom.
"Quiet."
Suddenly, the woman went silent, her voice gone. Horror poured onto her face as she realized what had happened.
"He wasn't pure... What a shame. I would've added him to my collection." She murmured, obviously unsatisfied.
"But. You. Are..." Anger and disdain rang in her voice.
"And you're pretty too." She let out a low hum at the end, pursing her lips which were slowly shrouded by the fog.
"Destroy her." She turned her back on the silenced woman.
Tears built up in the woman's eyes; she remained where she was as she couldn't move nor speak. A heavy pressure lingered on her as though she held an entire building up.
"She should end up worse and should last longer than the last one this time. I wish to savor her misery." She commanded.
Shadows jumped and consumed the woman, signaling the beginning of her doom. They destroyed the last vestige of humanity she had left, just as their master wanted.
She didn't scream; She couldn't. She could only curse the bloodcurdling witch with every last drop of blood she owned.
Futile effort.
As the shadows dispersed, leaving dead soil and absolutely no trace of life, the woman turned to face the dead of the night.
"We don't have much time." The deadly woman spoke into the darkness.
"He demands our results. Our entire world demands it." Silence fell in line with her words.
"He's running out of patience. We must acquire it at all costs. We must acquire what is rightfully ours!" Her lips curled in excitement as she screeched.
"My soldiers..." The shadows parted, revealing glowing blood-red eyes and the bloodcurdling gray sheen of metal.
"Find it before any other and bring glory upon yourself and your Master." She stared intently at the lights.
"Otherwise, I'll hand over a thousand of you as compensation during the next Malum-ritus." Her expression turned deadly.
A second shadow rose, revealing a dark-cloaked personage with piercing purple eyes tinged with crimson red.
"I will do as you command, My Liege." The voice croaked.
A lithe sword flashed into the air, held up by the man.
"No need to conceal yourselves. The ones who can threaten us will have sensed our arrival in this plane."
"We will face a long and arduous battle. Many will die, but our plane will live!" He spoke.
"Also... do not underestimate the target." A grim smile etched into his face as he spoke.
"Get to work."
Following the order, blood-red light burst from the shadows, ascending into the sky.
Nefarious-looking creatures of different magnitudes swarmed out from every dark crevice - the ground, forest - with such speed that they disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"I will handle the Hero, My Liege. He will not get in our way. Glory to You and House Sanguala. Glory to His Eternal Majesty. Glory to the Realm," and he was gone.
"Good, you have two years!" The woman sneered.
Shadows materialized out of thin air, merging with the others lingering around her. They enveloped her in a cocoon, compressed, and disappeared.
Not a trace of their presence could be found by one without ability.
The nearby village woke up the next day, begging forgiveness from the goddess of the harvest, fearing that they'd offended her somehow.
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