Agatha's fingers whirled with practiced elegance, violet mana coalescing like liquid starlight on either side of Camilla's head. The air hummed with oppressive power.
For a split second, Camilla's mind reeled.
Wow… I just killed her. And now her pissed-off ghost is back for revenge?
A cheeky, defiant grin split her face despite the danger. "How the hell did you do that, grandma?"
She twisted, intending to drive a white-hot spinning back kick into Agatha's ribs. But before her greaves could drive through, Agatha's fingers pressed firmly against her temples. The older woman's touch was ice-cold, yet laced with crackling violet energy that seeped straight into Camilla's skull.
Camilla's eyes widened violently. Her body locked up.
I can't move?! Get your filthy hands off me, you old hag! This is straight-up violation!
Agatha's lips parted, her voice low and melodic, carrying the weight of ancient incantation:
"By the magic in my brew, a tiny slumber comes to you."
The spell sank into Camilla like velvet chains. Her vision blurred at the edges. A heavy, unnatural drowsiness crashed over her, dragging her eyelids downward no matter how hard she fought. The chamber spun. Her legs trembled.
From the frozen entrance, where Rate had been encased in brittle ice, a sharp metallic crack echoed. A saber sword punched through the frozen shell.
Agatha's focus remained locked on Camilla, but she felt the shift in the air. She released the younger woman and stepped back gracefully, already preparing her next working. Camilla staggered, desperately trying to stay upright. Her knees buckled. Frostbite stung her cheeks and fingers, but the real enemy was the crushing sleep spell wrapping around her mind.
"No… not yet…" she slurred, eyelids fluttering.
Before she could collapse, Agatha thrust her left arm forward. A violet sigil flared to life in her palm, intricate taboo patterns spinning like hungry serpents. Her voice rang out, cold and commanding:
"Hear my call and lose your spark. Let your soul slide to my dark domain!"
The atmosphere in the ruined chamber changed instantly. The temperature plummeted. A jagged tear ripped open in reality itself, a yawning portal of writhing shadows and sickly green light. Dozens of astral arms poured out: skinny, wrinkled, impossibly long, with grayish skin stretched tight over bony fingers. They moved with grotesque eagerness.
Eight of them seized Camilla first, two pairs locking onto her wrists and ankles, yanking her limbs apart in a brutal starfish position. The remaining four dove straight into her chest with wet, squelching sounds. Camilla's eyes snapped wide open in pure horror as she felt icy fingers close around her very soul.
"Ghh—! Get… off… me!" she gasped.
Her soul was dragged violently out of her physical body. It emerged glowing, translucent, and struggling, a perfect mirror of Camilla, still wearing that defiant expression even in deathly form. The astral arms pulled her backward toward the portal while her empty body crumpled lifelessly to the molten, half-frozen floor with a dull thud.
The soul-Camilla thrashed wildly. At first she stared at the wrinkled limbs in disbelief, then fury took over. She bit down hard on one of the arms, teeth sinking into ethereal flesh that tasted of rot and ozone. The arm recoiled, but more tightened their grip. She kicked, screamed, and clawed, leaving trails of fading light across the dark appendages.
"No! I'm not done fighting! Let me go, you freaky bastards!"
Her resistance was fierce, but futile. With one final, merciless tug, the arms hauled her soul completely through the portal. The tear snapped shut with a sound like breaking glass, leaving only echoing silence and Camilla's motionless corpse on the ground, eyes still half-open in defiance.
Agatha allowed herself a small, satisfied smirk.
But her familiar's warning flared in her mind, danger from behind.
She spun just in time. Quinn, heavily damaged and scarred from multiple wounds, had closed the distance in a desperate, staggering sprint. Golden aura flickered weakly around his fist as he threw everything he had into a powerful, head-on punch aimed at Agatha's spine.
The aura deformed and dissipated harmlessly inches from her back, shredded by her invisible gravitational field. Still, Quinn didn't stop. True to his nature, he immediately reset and barreled forward again like a wounded bull, throwing a second heavy haymaker. Agatha sidestepped with minimal effort, but the sheer momentum of his charge forced her to expend a pulse of gravity just to shove him off-balance.
He crashed into a half-melted pillar, cracking it further, yet pushed himself upright almost instantly, chest heaving, deep several burns from his nose and mouth. Scorched skin.
Quinn closed the distance in desperate & collapsed to one knee, gasping for air, his body shaking from exhaustion and backlash.
"Your kind are rare," Agatha said calmly, as if commenting on the weather. "Because of your potential, your aura is a prize many would kill to possess. There is more room for you to grow… enough to one day withstand even me. But it is a shame. You will die here."
Quinn forced himself back to his feet, staggering. His voice tore out in raw fury:
"Bring her back, you old cargo! I said bring her back, you hag!"
He lunged again, swinging with zero aura left, just pure rage and desperation. Rate burst from the side, dashing in to intercept and protect his comrade.
Agatha moved faster.
She stamped her right palm against Quinn's chest. The impact stunned him completely, freezing every muscle. A cruel smile touched her lips.
"You've pushed your luck, brat. I was planning on letting you leave with only one arm."
She withdrew her hand, then placed just her forefinger against his sternum. Violet mana concentrated at the tip like a tiny sun.
"Gather the fire, ignite the spark, burst into flame and shatter the dark… Explosion!"
A blinding flare erupted from her fingertip.
The world turned white.
A cataclysmic wave of pressure and searing heat exploded outward in a perfect arc. Quinn's form vanished instantly inside the roaring inferno. Rate, mid-dash, was caught at the edge of the blast and hurled backward like a ragdoll. Even Bulk's distant ice statue shattered and evaporated under the overwhelming force.
When the light finally faded, the contrast was horrifying. Quinn's mortal coil dissolves into dust
Behind Agatha and around Camilla's empty corpse, the atmosphere remained cold and misty, frost still clinging to the walls. In front of her, however, was a scorched, glass-like sweep of destruction. The floor had been blasted clean in a wide arc. The ceiling near the entrance groaned and crumbled slightly as its foundations weakened.
Rate lay face-down further away, limbs twitching. Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed himself up. His body was breaking apart. Dark energy swallowed more of his flesh with every heartbeat. What little remained human, just the bridge of his nose, was rapidly disappearing. His eyes glowed a menacing red, and grim, sharpened teeth jutted from his mouth, dark saliva dripping in thick strands. He rose like a creature from nightmare, an Eldritch Myrmidon fully emerging.
He took one shambling step toward Agatha. Then another. And another. Undead determination burned in his gaze.
Agatha's face twisted in open disgust.
"How repulsive," she hissed. "Get out of my sight."
She stretched her right arm forward, immediately Rate dash forward mindlessly. A camouflaged sigil circle spun into existence around her hand, shimmering with lethal intent.
"Spatial Cleave!"
A wide, invisible slash tore through reality itself.
The arc struck Rate with surgical precision. For a fraction of a second, the world around his neck seemed to fracture like broken glass. Then his head simply fell from his shoulders, tumbling and bouncing across the ruined floor with wet thuds. The headless body remained upright for one grotesque moment before collapsing in a heap.
Silence fell across the devastated chamber, broken only by the distant sounds of settling rubble and dying flames.
Then, from the shadowed pathway leading to the sixth floor, came the steady echo of footsteps.
A firm, imposing silhouette emerged into the fifth floor. Hovering above and around his shoulders were six sleek cybernetic drones, each roughly three feet tall and wide, their surfaces gleaming with cold metallic menace. Seth stepped fully into the light, his metallic blindfold catching the flickering glow of the remaining embers.