The first chain snapped with a crack that seemed to ripple through the entire Arven Manor.
It wasn't just metal breaking.
It was something deeper.
Something structural.
Something alive.
The scream that echoed through the property reverberated off the walls, down the corridors, and onto the very floor beneath their feet. The dark structures hidden beneath the marble began to writhe violently, like exposed muscles reacting to extreme pain. The columns pulsed. The burning tapestries on the walls twisted under bursts of unstable arcane energy. The fire spread even faster.
And the Duchess—
Or what remained of her—
Staggered backward, letting out a grotesque sound, an impossible mixture of human voices, animalistic roars, and something far deeper, older, and utterly wrong.
Parts of her body literally disintegrated.
