Puppet Master's Perspective
Humans.
Frail, brittle creatures. Bones like glass. Flesh that rips like cloth.
And yet—they've conquered more land than any beast or divine ever has.
They worship strength, but live by systems. Order. Politics. Masks.
We've lived among them for centuries. Feeding, learning, waiting. To them, we are nightmares. To us, they are nothing more than cattle. The peace they enjoy is our mercy.
The farms. But they are cattle with claws. I used to pity them. Until I realized we weren't so different.
Cast aside by our own kind. Judged. Dismissed.
"Too weak and dead weight" they said. "Too fragile."
So we planned to make our own place. Build a network in the North. Control their soldiers and hide within their ranks.
We were going to prove ourselves.
I was going to prove myself.
Until she appeared. A little girl. Blonde. Pale. Wearing a soldier's uniform like it meant something.
She stood at the edge of the ridge, arms folded behind her back, expression calm.
She spoke first.
"How do you demons radiate divinity?"
I blinked. Her tone was... curious. Like a scholar inspecting mold.
I smiled. Prey.
"What's a little girl doing all the way out here?" I asked, tilting my head.
"Answer me," she said flatly. "I don't have time to chat."
My smile stiffened.
Arrogant brat.
"Kill yourself," I said.
A command. Clear. Heavy.
She didn't flinch. We just stared.
Silence stretched.
Then her voice, again.
"Your friend said you can control those who are weaker than you."
I felt it then. The fear. Uncoiling like something ancient in my gut.
I screamed. Ordered the beasts around me to attack.
She smiled. Then she moved.
One by one, the horde fell. Her blade shimmered with pale light—not divine, not corrupted. Clean. Controlled. Barrier magic?
Absurd.
She wove through them like silk threading a needle—elegant, exact, fatal. And then she stood in silence, surrounded by corpses.
I couldn't move.
"Amara! Get down!" Rasa's voice cut through the air.
Strings whistled as they tore through the trees.
She blocked them all.
She looked up. The moon caught her face.
Calm. Composed.
Beautiful.
"Run!" Rasa grabbed my arm. His voice shook. I had never felt it shake.
"It's just a girl," I whispered.
He slapped me.
Hard.
"Run!"
I ran deeper into the trees. Past blood and rot and ruin.
We were going to control the duchy. We were going to prove them wrong.
But now—
Now I was running from a child.
A human child.
Absurd.
I ran until my lungs burned. Until my limbs shook. Until the moon was a memory.
I stopped. Pressed my hands to a tree. Screamed. Cried.
"Unfair! Unfair! Unfair! Unfair!"
I stomped the ground. Punched bark until my knuckles split.
I breathed. I breathed. I kept breathing.
Then I heard it. Soft. Behind me.
I turned. Nothing.
Branches swayed. Snowflakes drifted down like ash. My breath came in clouds—loud, ragged, too loud. I swallowed hard and turned back.
She was there.
I screamed. Bolted. I didn't think—just ran.
Branches whipped my face. Thorns tore at my legs. I tripped, fell, rolled—kept running. My lungs clawed for air, feet barely finding purchase. Behind me, there was nothing.
No sound. No breath. No footsteps. Just presence.
Wrong. Silent. Closer.
I turned a corner around a fallen pine and leapt over a frozen stream. I didn't hear her behind me—I felt her. Like frost pressing into the back of my skull.
Then, a whisper of steel. Snow kicking up beside me. A flicker of movement too fast.
I ducked. A tree behind me exploded. Not shattered—sliced.
I screamed again. Not from pain. From knowing. She wasn't chasing me.
She was herding me. Guiding me. Toward fear. Toward collapse.
My foot caught a root. I fell hard, the wind knocked from me. My hands clawed the ground as I scrambled to rise, sobbing now—half from exhaustion, half from realization.
It didn't matter. I was already dead.
I turned again—
She stood there. Unbothered. Unhurried. The same calm smile.
The moon framed her hair like a crown. Her arm shimmered with a blade. Black and metallic at the edge, but alive at the root, like nerves turned inside out. They wrapped from wrist to wrist across her back like something parasitic and regal.
A high demon?
"W-we didn't know," I stammered. "Didn't know there was another high demon in this jurisdiction. Please. Spare me."
She said nothing.
Then sliced my legs.
I screamed.
She knelt beside me.
"Why are you radiating divinity?"
"All high demons do! We eat humans for their residue!
She stabbed my thigh. Pain bloomed like fire.
"Are there high demons in the church?"
"We were from the Dax Faction. They're trying! They're working on it!"
I begged. Promised. Offered everything.
"I can help you," I said. "We can conquer the duchy together. I'll be useful."
She tilted her head.
"What makes you think I'm a high demon?"
I stared.
The pressure… it wasn't coming from her. She wasn't radiating anything.
Then the world tilted.
Fell.
My body—light.
My vision—spinning.
I looked up. My head. Falling.
She caught it. Held it gently.
"Thank you," she said. "For your honesty."