Nezra of Eralon stood at the water's edge, his brows drawn into a faint, thoughtful frown.
He was not truly staring.
He could not.
He was blind.
Yet the world was far from dark to him.
It revealed itself in other ways—living things as radiant masses of energy, pulsing with life, while the inanimate lay mapped out through the quiet precision of his spatial perception. The lake before him shimmered faintly in his awareness, still and deceptive.
He crouched slightly, dipping his fingers into the water.
A pause.
Paralytic toxins.
The conclusion came instantly.
If he had been someone else—someone desperate, someone broken by the desert—he might have already drunk from it. But Nezra was neither careless nor foolish. The very existence of an oasis in such a place, untouched and pristine, was reason enough for suspicion.
Too convenient.
Too deliberate.
Who poisoned it?
The thought had barely settled when something shifted beneath the surface.
Nezra stilled.
In a single smooth motion, his hand moved to the sword resting in the sand beside him, fingers curling around the hilt. His head tilted slightly, his sightless gaze fixed precisely on the point where the disturbance had formed.
Then—
It emerged.
A long, dark-purple serpent rose from the depths, its massive body marred by deep, ragged wounds. Blood drifted from it in slow, dissolving streams, staining the water like ink. For a brief moment, Nezra considered the possibility that it was already dead.
But his perception told him otherwise.
Its soul burned too brightly.
A dense, compact mass of energy, brimming with life despite the damage. And within that energy—
Something else.
Something… higher.
His frown deepened.
Divinity.
Not faint. Not diluted. It saturated the very core of her being, unmistakable and overwhelming. Nezra's grip on his sword tightened ever so slightly as curiosity stirred beneath his calm exterior.
What is something like that doing here…?
Under the merciless weight of the desert, in a place designed only to kill.
The serpent shifted.
Its form began to change.
Darkness seemed to fold inward as her body reshaped, condensing, refining. The massive coils receded, and in their place emerged a figure caught between beast and something far more unsettling.
Her lower half remained serpentine, coiled and powerful, while her upper body took on the form of a young maiden. Her limbs were slender, her movements graceful despite the exhaustion etched into them. Her skin was pale—almost unnaturally so, like untouched ivory—and her features bore a beauty so precise it felt intentional, as though sculpted with care bordering on obsession, her breasts were full, heavy and naked.
Two small, crystalline blue horns curved subtly from above her brows. Her hair fell in dark, inky waves,sidelocks threaded into long braided locks that reached her waist. Her eyes—if they could be called that—held violet pupils set against black sclera, giving her gaze an otherworldly depth.
Nezra's expression hardened slightly.
"A demon…"
The word was quiet, more observation than accusation.
Nyx exhaled weakly, her body barely holding itself upright.
"Ah… I wonder if today can get any worse…"
She paused.
"…Wait."
A faint shift in her expression.
"…I didn't say that out loud, did I?"
Nezra didn't hesitate.
"Loud enough."