Chapter 323 Chapter 323 - The Last Son and Daughter, Dead?
Right after the quarrel with Haruki and the rest, Serena headed for the room Dominion was being chained in. Upon her arrival, however, something struck her as extremely odd. For whatever reason, the guards stationed outside the dungeon with access limited only to her and some others had stormed inside with looks of great concern riding on their faces.
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" Serena heard someone screaming out loud in a tone of absolute annoyance.
Moving closer to the half-opened gates to the room, she peeked inside all the while making sure nobody had noticed her just yet. Encircling someone at the very middle the guards all appeared like they'd seen a phantom. Some even paced around with their nails being nervously trimmed under the teeth like wood chippers.
'Where's Dominion?' Scanning the room with her gaze, what struck Serena even more odd was the missing body of Dominion which was supposed to be dangling in the air, held exclusively by the familiar called Lulu.
"Dusk, dawn, come out…" Summoning her protective dolls, Serena barged into the room.
Shocked by the sudden creaking of the door, the soldiers stood frozen in terror as their eyes met Serena's hollow dark stare. Just one look into them was terrifying enough, especially since her body appeared like a pale ghost with large bubbly eyes.
"What is going on here?" She asked, and the soldiers frantically started looking around, unsure as to who should address the priestess. Realizing that she wouldn't get an answer quickly, Serena summoned her staff of truth and stomped it against the ground with each step she took forward.
Hearing the loud bells atop the golden staff was enough for the soldiers to know that their fate was sealed, and if any of them wanted to escape a torturous punishment it was best to come out and let her know the truth. Yet with nobody willing to take charge of the situation, none of them dared to step up and come out with the truth.
"Do not make me do this," Serena muttered before looking at her dolls from the very edge of her eyes.
Nodding at their master, the dolls turned their spiraling gaze of reflecting dusk and dawn towards the soldiers. The longer they looked at them, the more the seasoned men and women were pulled under their spell of eternal entrapment. Falling to the ground by the spell, their minds envisioned a never-ending journey through a desert. At day it would burn their skin and parched up their throat, and at night it would freeze them to the point where their fingers and teeth would fall off.
Leaving them all to struggle, Serena brushed her hand into the wind to summon a pair of angelic hands who would carry them to the corners. But after only a few of them were dragged away, her eyes widened at the sight revealed beyond their fallen bodies. Hit with a grim realization, her summoned hands as well as Dusk and Dawn were undone the very next second.
Rushing towards a corpse laying in the very middle of the encirclement of soldiers, she stood there taking a good look to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
"Do-Dominion?" Standing by the demi-god's dead body, she had not a clue what she was supposed to do in this situation or even what to feel at the demise of a man who'd once stripped her soul away from her body. "You fucking idiot!"
Throwing away the pretense of grace, she pulled her dark gown slightly upwards and began kicking Dominion's dead body. With each kick, her strikes grew stronger, and a hint of mercury began pouring out of all orifices in the dead god's body. While the priestess continued on kicking, Dusk and Dawn summoned themselves and pulled against her garb to try and get her away from the poisonous metal gushing out of Dominion.
Even the soldiers who'd been pulled under a spell raised to their feet wondering if she'd gone mad, after all, she was known to be erratic but really good at hiding her true colors.
"Mercury…Who could've thought he could use his own powers to kill himself?" Muttered one of the guards as he continued watching Serena beating the demi-god's body to a pulp.
"You think you can just die without consequences?! That too on your own terms?!" Beyond anger, Serena wished to bring him back to life just so she could kill him with the poison Haruki had been feeding him.
"Your Highness, stop!" Cried Dusk, the twilight gazed doll.
"Pleaseee!" Cried the other, her small fingers barely able to hold onto Serena's flailing dress.
"SHUT UP!" Turning back with her eyes all bloody, the priestess gawked her own summons with a look of pure hate. "DON'T YOU DA-"
The sight of genuine tears flowing down their porcelain skin jolted Serena out of her fit of rage. Blinking a few times, she kept staring at them for a moment before pursing her lips to gulp down her emotions. Trying her hardest not to fume in rage or even tear up herself, she corrected her posture and began making her way to the exit without looking back at Dominion.
Moving past the dolls, she unsummoned them for a moment before summoning the back on her shoulders. The sudden change in character would've been astounding if it was anyone else, but knowing that the priestess masked her true self often, the soldiers decided not to question what they had just seen.
"Forget that happened," Serena whispered to her dolls.
Summoning a pair of angelic hands, she caressed their heads with them to comfort them even further. Saying not a word, the dolls simply let out a muffled giggle. By the time, Serena was out of the room, she healed parts of her skin that had been burned by the mercury, then taking a moment just to herself she tried to contact Haruki to relay the news of Dominion's suicide.
To her further surprise, however, Haruki wasn't in any of the dungeons and even Hawthorn wasn't answering to her mental link.
"Dammit…" With no way left to contact Haruki, Serena decided to find the goblin queen and let her know how their experiment had been jeopardized at the very least.
But before she could leave, one of the soldiers from before rushed in her direction to relay something important, something they didn't have the gals to tell her before. Taking a few deep breaths, the girl puffed her chest and just laid out what she had in mind.
"The Nabe girl, she's-"
"Dead too?" Before the girl could finish, Serena took a lucky guess.
Blinking in a bit of a daze, the female soldier nodded.
"Master Haruki drained her too much, and after that, she didn't survive the excess torture…" Telling Serena that information, the soldier simply turned around and left to deal with the aftermath of the poisonous mess the priestess had left behind in the room.
Watching her head back, the priestess couldn't help but wonder how convenient the timing of their deaths was. After all, Nabe was a devil, known for their resilience, yet she couldn't survive some minor torture after being drained of her levels? Something about that just didn't sit right with her. The piece of the puzzle she was missing was an essential one, something that signaled the doom of all, the overjoyed voices of moaning Valkyries.
Being so close to a heavenly body like Atlas for long, both war generals knew what was coming, and death felt like a better alternative than sticking around for the horrific end of times. Even the most infamous, angelic choir of Melicia was hiding away to stay clear of the onslaught about to commence in a few days' time.
'Where is he?' Serena wondered while rushing to get to the queen of goblins. Sensing something sinister trying to sneak up on them, she wanted to be prepared, and perhaps even have Asmodia use time manipulation to age up the demi-god offspring for any upcoming battles. 'The only thing is…I have no clue what's wrong exactly or who this phantom enemy is?'
Despite her keen intuition, she had no way of knowing about Helga, the prince of hell, or the upcoming apocalypse. Thus all she could do was prepare an army the best she could in the absence of Haruki.
"Margarette, isn't she a war tactician and a queen? Perhaps it's time to get her to step up to those duties too!" She exclaimed to herself, planning to send a pair of her acolytes to incorporate Margarette's help from the Larian land.
If somehow they managed to escape the dungeon without Haruki's help, her men would need to make a long journey to Laria and warn Margarette to get her soldiers and the slaves ready for battle. But even then, missing yet another crucial piece of the puzzle, Serena had no clue about what was happening back at the minotaur dungeon.
Taken by the parasites, all of its inhabitants were under the hell prince's command, and although they would fight against the Valkyrian army, the moment the winged forces were weakened enough, the parasites would force the demonic souls to kill their own so the prince could take over.
'I need to hurry.' Thought Serena, not realizing that she among many others was only marching towards her own death.
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