Chapter 326 Chapter 326 - A Final Struggle
Just a night before Haruki's arrival at the Obsidian castle, Asuka, Athena, Alice, and Greta were all bound with a pair of enchanted chains of holy magic that deter the use of all dark magic. Not only that, it was made specifically to keep demons from shifting into someone smaller and escaping through the chains. And as if that wasn't enough, the dungeon itself didn't allow for dark summons, which was the only kind Asuka and the rest could summon.
Bound at hands and knees, they couldn't do anything to fight the carnal curse. Thus, huffing and puffing under their breaths, they laid there on the ground, their faces pressed against the mossy floor, withering away like an extinguishing candle.
After a while of suffering, their minds were filled no longer with lust, but with the memories of those whom they'd held dear. For Athena, having her daughter by her side was both a blessing and a curse. With her eyes locked with her daughter's she kept grunting and growling in a weakened tone to keep Alice from falling asleep.
But alas, having her soul slowly burned by the curse, Alice drifted into slumber from which she would never wake up from. With tears and screams, Athena struggled one last time. Hearing the outburst, Asuka and Greta knew what had happened, but worst of all the guards walked in through the gates to silence the grieving mother.
"Shut up, you monster!" Striking Athena with the blunt side of her sword, the female adventurer screamed at her at the top of her lungs. Frustrated from the guard's duty as well as trying to exert some power over the bound demons, the girl kept striking Athena at the back of her head until the demi-cat's head was bleeding like a river.
Knocked unconscious, Athena barely had any life left in her. Looking at her, Asuka and Greta noticed her eyes were still open, but the life in them was slowly being whisked away.
"L-light!" Using what little strength she had, Asuka cast a light magic spell to blind the girl hitting Athena.
However, being as weak as she was, it didn't bloom as much as it should've and only ended up pissing off the girl even more. Thankfully, however, being pulled away from the cell by her companion, the adventurer was led out of the place and the door was swiftly locked behind them again.
"W-why?" Muttered Greta, not understanding why Asuka risked getting hurt as well when Athena was doomed to death anyway.
With a frowning gaze, the demi-fox glared at the demon and barked.
"Because we're not monsters, never were, never will be," Asuka's reply made no sense to Greta, as being a human before being a demon, she had no clue what it was like for demi-humans to live in a world where everyone considered them monsters. "A-and, I wouldn't want her body to be ruined before Master Haruki revives her back…"
Still hoping for that miracle, Asuka bit her lower lips to keep herself from losing hope. Staring at her dying companions, Greta didn't share the same enthusiasm as Asuka. Instead of believing in that miracle, she shifted her gaze at the female guard now stationed outside. Although Asuka's words barely meant anything to the demon general, in those very words she found something to redeem herself in Haruki's eyes.
'Athena will die soon, so will Asuka, and Alice…well, I'm sure she's not waking up anytime soon either.' Racking her mind for a way to get the adventurer girl's attention, Greta put up a smile and began to laugh. Sounding manically hysteric, she glared right at the girl and kept cackling like the devil himself. Her voice alone was enough to chill the pair of guards, and even Asuka wasn't spared from the chills that resulted from the desperate laughing of a cannibalistic maniac.
"HEY YOU!" Screamed Greta, biting her own gums to paint her smile with a crimson brush. "WHY DON'T YOU TRY AND SWING THAT SWORD AT ME YOU WHORE! HHHHAAA?!"
Smashing her head against the ground a few times, she made herself bleed like Athena before slowly crawling towards the door that separated the guards from the prisoner. With her teeth, she clung onto the bar and pulled her body up and up as far as she could bring herself. Before long, the general was on her feet, however, her hands and knees were still tied together by the holy chains.
"Greta what are you doing?! We have to wait until maste-"
"He's not coming, little fox…" Butting in before Asuka could finish her sentence, Greta glanced back down at her with a look of dumbfounded amusement. "Not in time at least, and I refuse to die rotting on that mossy floor."
All of a sudden, the door flung violently open in Greta's face. It was a cheeky attempt to make her fall, but the demoness was stubborn beyond reason and kept herself upright on her legs. Seeing the adventurer girl trying to get closer to Greta again, Asuka pulled her knees towards herself before kicking her on the knees to make her fall.
The moment the girl hit the floor and her sword left her clutched, Greta threw herself on the adventurer and tore into her neck with her bloodied teeth. As the screams from the girl echoed through the chamber, the other adventure rushed right over to help, but was swiftly brought back down as used her tail to fling the sword right at his belly. Her tail being weaker than any limb, however, the sword only made it to his groin, which was perhaps not as lethal but more excruciating than a strike to the belly.
As it all happened, Greta ate away at the girl's throat until not an ounce of flesh was left on her neck. Then moving on to the guy screaming in agony as he rolled around the cell, she bit on his face and tore the skin right off.
"F-Fucking sc-scream! Y-you bastar-d…" The massacre of two lasting only but a minute was more than enough to drain Greta of what little strength she had left. Even then, while barely keeping herself off the ground, she looked at Asuka and asked for but one thing. "Don't let me die on this floo…"
To her misfortune, she passed before the demi-fox could even collect her thoughts about what had happened. Yet staying atop the male adventurer's body, she'd managed to fulfill her own dying wish by not dying with her face pressed against that mossy floor.
'I…I'm the last, aren't I?' Asuka mused, her eyes growing weary. Letting her eyes bind shut, Asuka began taking deep breaths to make sure to stay alive as long as possible. The curse was eating away at her, yet her lust was nowhere near what it used to be. In its place was a strange calm, a calm that felt familiar as well as comforting.
Then, a land reached for her from the darkness of her mind, attempting to snatch her soul or at least what was left of it. Keeping that presence at bay, she kept her mind free of fear by reliving her memories with her master Haruki Shin.
'Till the bitter end, remember? He'll come…I know he will.' A tear strolled down her eyes while she kept defying her own fate. 'We've been through so much, there's no way he'll let us die here…'
Unbeknownst to her, Haruki was far away confronting the demon lords at the time before eventually returning to the dungeons and dealing with Asmodia. Yet she hoped he would show up, she hoped he would revive her family scattered around her like squashed cockroaches.
'Rose? Hawthorn?' Attempting to reach Haruki through the dragons, she tried to call out to the two, but already having been dismissed by her master, the dragons were now living in a faraway plain. And even if they were not, the walls of the obsidian castle didn't allow for surveillance from anyone but those trusted by the dead god Atlas.
Hearing a pair of approaching steps, Asuka opened her eyes to see who it was. However, at this point, her vision was stripped away and all she could witness was the ever-stretching dark. The cold hand was growing closer, draining her very soul, and all she could do was lay there and wait for herself to be extinguished.
"What the hell happened here?!" A voice exclaimed, and a few other gasps resounded beside Asuka.
Hearing a thud from right beside her, she could smell Greta's blood trailing in her direction. One after the other, the sound of an unsheathed sword stabbing into flesh echoed into her ears, until finally the tip of a sharp blade laid right against her head.
'I'm sorry, I couldn't keep my promise to stay with you till the end.' These were the last of her thoughts before the sword tore into her head.
"Leave the demons here, and take the adventures away!" Ordered the man with the crimson-edged sword as he drew his blade out of Asuka's skull. "And tell the war general that we're all sorts of fucked!"
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