Pain shook the very core of my being as the arrowhead embedded itself into my heart. At first, I couldn’t understand why my body was convulsing involuntarily and I had no strength left. The grinning face of this bitch was completely unhelpful to uncover this mystery.

“You thought of yourself as invincible, didn’t you?” She said and grabbed my chin while I choked on my own blood. “There is holy water inside your heart, I wonder how long it takes for you to die.”

This whore poisoned me, undoubtedly something I should have expected. Weakly, I raised the dagger but was soon stopped by a strong hand that held my left arm in place.

“You are … nothing without … without …” I stumbled over my own words and noticed how the skin on my chest was slowly turning black. I went completely limp a few seconds afterwards and fell on my knees, only upright because of the knight who still held my arm.

“I …” I whispered and slowly closed my eyes as everything was finally coming to an end. She leaned downwards and brought her head close to my mouth. “I … don´t …”

“You don’t want to die?” asked the Devourer, slightly amused. She was so sure of her victory at this point that I nearly spit on her face.

“I don’t … need my heart.” With the last remaining strength I still had, I grabbed a burning wooden piece of the ground with my right hand and noticed how the sap I touched earlier started to burn nicely on my skin. At the same time as I rammed the wooden piece into the knight´s arm, I lunged forward and sunk my teeth deep into her neck. Her blood tasted like shit, just like I expected, but it did return a lot of strength to me. Within a matter of seconds, my burning right arm wrapped around her back and pulled her closer to me.

Right at this second, I leaned myself backwards and pulled down on the hand that still gripped my arm and was currently on fire. With my back, I fell onto a few wooden splinters and merely got a light wound. I was the least wounded in this endeavour, while the knight, or what was left of him was completely blown away by my actions, sadly took the majority of my hand with him.  As he was on top of the Devourer, she didn’t fare better. Her whole black was on fire and she was completely unconscious as the ringing in my ears already receded and I rolled her off me.

“Fuck …” Holy water inside my body, multiple explosions right next to me and burns all over the place certainly weren’t great. Luckily, I completely stopped breathing as everything started, otherwise, I would have to deal with a scorched lung as well. The devourer was in better shape overall, but it was probably more than enough to kill her human body. Slowly but surely, I bit into her neck and started to rip out the flesh, in search of something squishy. This thing was hiding deep inside her body, waiting for her children, or however her little wormlings were called, to save her.

I bit open her whole neck and back until I simply grabbed her heart and yanked it out of her. For some reason, I knew this bitch was hiding inside there and happily watched how the mother worm fell out of the organ as I ripped it in two. Laughing like crazy, I stood up and looked down on the slimy, disgusting worm who squealed in the dirt like a pig.

A knight with a broken leg was approaching me from my left, slowly but surely, trying to save the brain and the soul of the hive mind as fast as he could.

“Oh, have you killed Markus?” The knight didn’t answer, not even as I squished the worm more with my heels. He didn’t even stop but continued to run towards me while dodging all the fires on the ground.

“For Luna~” The worm burst underneath the pressure as I stepped on it. Little, unidentifiable organs spilt out of her into a circle around my foot. Disgusted, I lifted my bare foot once more, only to see thin threads of a slimy substance hanging from it.

“Eww.” Her death wasn’t a grandiose one. It was a simple, anticlimactic stomp that killed the being who tried to devour the world. But honestly, it was a horrible experience. I would never forget her crimes against the innocence of my right foot. Disgusted, but still incredibly furious, I stomped her remains over and over until her corpse wasn’t recognizable anymore.

After cleaning my foot with the corpse of the mage, I turned around towards the knight who was now laying on the ground, completely still.

I quickly collected my daggers and stabbed into his flesh, in search of a worm. I found one very quickly inside his neck, but it was incredibly dead. Not even poking it with my dagger reanimated it. My assumption that these worms would go out of control after the death of their queen was wrong, not that it mattered in the end.

Quickly afterwards, I started cutting open my own flesh at the wayside. The forest was still burning brightly and screams of pain resounded here and there, including from my own mouth as I yanked the arrow out of my flesh. It hissed and the wound didn’t close right away, but at least it wasn’t bleeding any more. I dealt with the other arrows similarly, albeit less loudly.

A lot of groaning and loss of blood later, I sat down against a tree which miraculously survived and closed my eyes, listened to the distant screaming, the fire still raging in the distance and far, far away explosions. It was so relaxing, so peaceful that my head slowly sank down and I took a nap, mostly due to exhaustion, but also because my task here was finished. All that´s left was cleaning up the surviving trash of the army after all.

A close crackle awoke me from my deep slumber and I opened my eyes immediately, only to see a bunch of elves passing by under the light of the stars.

“Wazzup?” I asked, incredibly groggy and with a still hurting heart. One look downwards proved that the wound was indeed not healed at all. The black skin around the wound was still there, although it receded a lot and my chest hurt each time I moved my upper body.

“Who?” The elves turned around one by one, some with swords, but most of them with longbows. “There!” Said one elf and fired an arrow towards me. Luckily, it harmlessly struck the wood above my head.

“Alright, alright.” I said in the human language but then switched to elfish for good measure. “Uhm, me Lucinda am. Need to see … dictator … queen! King!” Well, I could do a lot better than this, but there was no need for them to know how good I actually was with their language.

“She is one of the three. Come with us.” Said the commander in the human language. I smiled innocently and switched the language back as well.

“Thank you very much. There is a slight problem though … I´m too injured to walk.” I explained and pointed towards my chest. Reluctantly, an elf stepped forward and gave me a piggyback ride. I was constantly humming in his pointy ears and grinned as he gave his best to not fall over as I tickled his sides from time to time. In the end, I grew bored of him though and rather looked at the completely destroyed street with charred bodies everywhere. The forest was badly damaged as well with ash covering the ground and no green in sight.

The sight alone filled me with so much joy. I was the reason for all of this. This was my destruction, my mass murder and my revenge. Satisfied, I giggled creepily until we arrived at a certain bridge with a familiar white tent before it.

The king, clad in green and brown armour, wore a rather grim expression as he saw me. Maybe he thought of my plan as cruel or whatever, maybe he just couldn’t believe I was giggling until I saw Arthur inside the tent and switched my expression to a rather bored one.

“You can let her down now.” The king commanded sternly.

“She said she couldn’t walk on her own.” I chuckled as the elf who carried me said that, pushed myself away from the soldier, only to land perfectly on the ground and walk towards the king with a smile around my lips.

“Oh wise king, how was your day?”

“Tiresome, do we really want to do that?”

“No … no, alright, no chattering then.” I said loudly for everyone to hear, but continued way quieter afterwards. “Have you dealt with everyone?”

“Only three should have survived until now.” I smiled at his blatant threat he wouldn’t actually make come true, not in the night and not while he stood right in front of me.

“Are you sure? Are you sure Markus died?” I inquired, worried about him alone. He wasn’t the smartest, but he was definitely an enemy I didn’t want to have.

“Who is that?” I tapped my daggers a few times and thought about his question, only to let it slide. I barely survived all these explosions, there was absolutely no reason to believe he did so as well.

“Have you killed everyone else? No prisoners?” I tilted my head and looked deep into his eyes. His soul was always completely calm as if nothing really surprised him.

“None, just as you wished.”

“So everyone is happy now? You could destroy the human army with minimal losses, Arthur got rid of the worm and I …” I smiled happily as I waited for him to finish my sentence.

“You got your second pawn.” He was good, I had to give him that. “A woman at that.” I laughed loudly at his revelation.

“Let´s pray we will never work against each other.” I said with a grin on my face.

“I don’t have the fetish of mutual destruction.” I giggled even more and tried to figure out what else he knew with my next question.

“So, when are we going to meet again you cheeky voyeur?” I tilted my head slightly, incredibly surprised by his nearly all-encompassing knowledge.

“How about a year from now?” He answered and made me chuckle once more.

“I was mistaken about you. You are more difficult to deal with than the Devourer.”

“The same goes for you. I know what your next steps are, but only because they are logical. Neither do I know the reason behind your actions, nor how far you will go to achieve them. You are shrouded in darkness that blocks off every attempt to inquire more about you.”

“Don’t look too deeply into the abyss … it could come back haunting you.” I warned sternly.

“I will keep that in mind. If you allow one last question … what god are you praying to?”

“None.” I winked and went past him without saying anything further. The elves made a lot of noises as they packed their few things and leisurely walked towards their forest. Still incredibly curious about the wise elven king, I entered the tent to meet the two, or rather three survivors of the human army. One was obviously Tom who evacuated to this place just as everything even began, the other one was Arthur who I still needed and the last one, possibly the luckiest of all was the coachmen. Someone had to bring us back after all …

“They are all dead.” Muttered Arthur underneath his breath and instantly ruined my mood. I still had to live with the fact that Luna and the other kids were gone now, either killed through a certain worm, or through me. “I´m ruined … everyone will blame me for the complete destruction of the army.”

I rolled my eyes as I couldn’t believe this was already happening. I knew my attempt at drowning everyone already changed him, but he was taking his whole depression a bit too far in my opinion. I definitely didn’t want to travel with a depressed human back to the mansion as such, I had to at least try to cheer him up.

“Hey, Arthur. We did the right thing. We saved the world today and tomorrow, we will start saving the White family. I can turn this situation around completely, you just have to trust me.” I didn’t even lie as I said that …

“Look at what trusting you brought me so far!” He screamed towards me with teary eyes. I was quite taken aback by his expression, but his emotional state was probably inevitable after he accurately assessed his situation.

“Arthur! Snap out of it! We saved the world! Even when the whole army is dead now, you still have me! I can turn this around, have faith in me.” I said calmly and place my palm on his shoulder. For a short moment, we held eye contact until he averted his gaze.

“You have ten days to turn this mess around after we arrived at the mansion, otherwise I will make you fall with me.” The threat did hurt slightly, although the timeframe was embarrassingly long. With enough preparation, I would only need two days at best.

“I won´t disappoint you.” I smiled sweetly as he nodded and ran his fingers through his hair. It didn’t take long for us to leave the tent, only to stumble over several bottles of fine elven wine. This king really thought about everything.