Hanna was furious, almost blind with anger, as she wiped away the blood of her previous victims from her face and stumbled to her feet again, sending wooden parts clattering onto the floor and splashing blood as they landed in the many puddles of the crimson liquid.

Her eyes immediately surged back towards the people responsible for her impromptu meeting with the hard wood and floor, these children, that were still simply cowering in the far corner of the room, now dared to look at her with fire in their eyes, well at least two of them did, the third one was now a screaming mess on the floor, holding her now stump of an arm with the one remaining one she still had, as blood continuously flowed, now staining the only part of this chamber, that had remained blood free.

Suddenly there was a sound coming from behind her, from the entrance tunnel, but Hanna paid it no mind, she simply assumed it might be a mouse or another small critter, she had made sure that absolutely no one would come back here under any circumstances. And even if the survivors had managed to find other parts of civilization and told them what happened, they would be far to busy investigating the other parts of the village to find this small underground section of this random, unimportant house of the village.

She took a step forward, making sure to stomp her foot into a puddle of blood and splashing it around the room even more, then she took another and another, she made sure to stare right into the eyes of these children that dared fight back against her, her face in a constant angry sneer, though she stayed completely silent, the only noise she made were he slow but strong stomps of her approach.

And with every single stomp forward she could see that fire in the eyes of the two children quickly flicker out like a candle in the middle of a hurricane, with every stomp of hers they seemed to shrink before her until they were nothing but mice standing before a hungry tiger with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Then, without any warning or indication, Hanna surged forward and grabbed them both by their throats holding them above her head with her claws, leaving red marks along both of their necks.

They kicked and tried desperately to remove the claws from their necks, but Hanna held them in a iron grip and their planned attempts to free themselves from her grasp quickly turned into useless flailing about, and not for a moment did Hanna’s grip weaken, slowly, but surly she was squeezing the fire of resistance until it was nothing but a campfire before a storm.

Or at least that’s what Hanna had hoped for, but reality was that even now, with her claws directly above their throats, their movements reduced to weak little kicks and desperate swats of their hands and pitifully weak moans of pain and whimpers being the only sounds they were capable of, the fire in their eyes still didn’t diminish.

The small smile that had formed on her face immediately disappeared into one of anger and confusion, never before had anyone dared deny her this long, never before had anyone dared fight back in these situations, be they seasoned adventurers, old elven priests and even warriors in the army of the kingdom. And yet here were these random children that dared to still have hope in their eyes, who still dared to try and resist her.

Hanna was absolutely furious and her rage now focused onto the boy, the oldest, the one who first fought back against her.

She raised her other claw still holding the other sister and with all her might she threw the young girl against the nearby dirt floor. A loud cracking sound rang out, immediately followed by a wail of pain and anguish in it‘s highest form, at that moment the girl wailed louder than even her sister, who had by now fallen unconscious due to pain and blood loss.

With her one claw now free, Hanna began to move two long sharp claws now mere inches away from the boys eyes and even then, the fire didn’t dim.

Hanna‘s claw rushed forward and the following scream was so devastatingly loud and filled with agony that the birds above the ground flew away in terror.

Now, finally, Hanna felt truly satisfied, the fire of resistance was now finally put out and she could finally begin to revel in the agony and pain she had caused, she could finally enjoy the hard-earned fruits of her labor. 

She dropped the boy to the floor, who now simply wailed like his sister, just like those two seasoned adventures, just like that elderly elven priest, and just like that solider she had shared a cell with, finally these children were brought to their knees in absolute despair, pain and hopelessness. Finally, she could truly have her fun once more.

Raising her foot up high, she placed it immediately onto the boys legs, another good and satisfying crunch was exactly what she needed to finally get back into the right headspace to enjoy this as much as possible, but just as she was about to crush the boys leg-bones into nothing but dust, a gasp rang out into the air and a voice, full of shock, horror and surprise.

"Kayne!"

Before Hanna could properly understand what was happening, she could see two figures standing at the entrance to her little hiding hole in the corner of her eye and just a single blink of her eyes later, one of the figure was gone and in the next blink, a great force was hitting her in the back and she went flying, smashing into the nearby wall, sending dirt flying and the sound of something breaking filled the air.

Once Hanna‘s body fell to the ground, the pain began to fully register and the following scream was so incredibly terrible, the sound could be heard for many miles away from the village, and people who heard it felt a shiver run down their spine they couldn’t truly describe.

And some claimed that even months later, they could still feel that terror inside their very bones. The elven priests and knights, who where still helping the terrified villagers, had heard the scream and later went even so far as to give the place a new name in their ancient language, the language only the clergy nowadays knew to even read, and they called it 'Dalughari nat Dehror', 'The Desolation Of Terror'.

And standing beneath a tree near the field where the civilians were being looked after, were two titans of the Elven clergy world, the High Priest of the Elves and The oldest elven priest alive, and clergy leader of the nearby elven enclave,

As the sound rang into the sky, both froze at the sheer amount of hatred and anger and suffering in that scream, with both of them being high Level clergymen, they felt the pure amount of evil that scream contained, though the elderly priest seemed even more affected, leaning on his staff even more then he usually did and his knees shacking.

"This was it… this was the same malice I had felt that very day…" The old man suddenly began to mumble, old elven words began to mix into his speech and he got faster and faster, soon seeming more like a raging lunatic then a wise and powerful priest of old.

He grabbed the High Priest by his shoulders and began to shack him violently, as he almost screamed in his face.

"The Seal! The SEAL!!! How could it break it so easily?!! Was it broken out… or did I make a mistake!?!!"

As The elderly priest continued, the High Priest looked on in confusion.

"Priest, what on earth are you talking about? What seal? Are you talking about that girl you found recently? Why would you seal her?"

The rambling suddenly stopped and the way the old priest moved his neck to stare at the High Priest definitely should not have been possible.

"Girl? Your Holiness? Did you not fully read my letter about it?"

“No, I had been interrupted by the news of the hero returning and had to set out immediately, I‘ve only read the first few para-…"

"That thing was not a girl, it is something else!! Its body looked like one, but I saw the depths I saw inside of her and what I saw… what I saw….. It was… It was…"

"What, what did you see, tell me,  stop speaking in riddles and tell me! Was it a demon hiding behind a facade or something, wouldn’t be the first one around these parts."

"No… it was something… I-I can’t even describe it… but it was dark, no… dark would mean there was any light… it was a complete stillness a complete nothingness, but still there was something there, I could feel it and it also called to me… to go deeper and then And then…"

“W-what did you see?"

"I saw a dark face, it was smiling and all I could feel was endless dread and endless terror, it was like I was stealing the very concept of evil in the face, it didn’t move it only stared and stared and stared, and then I could hear a whisper, a whisper of corruption endless corruption upon the lands, let them all burn in external torment.“

Suddenly a dark liquid began to flow from the old man’s eyes and mouth and the moment it came into contact with the ground below a sizzling could be heard, as black smoke began to rise from the many droplets now hitting the ground and most horrifying to the High Priest, the old priest body began to melt away whenever the substance came into contact with his body. And yet the man continued, his voice now sounding completely different an edge now to it the High Priest could only describe as utter evil.

"She may not understand her own existence in this world yet, maybe she never will, but it doesn’t matter! My master and creator will plunge the people continuously into a world of pain and misery, she will be unrelenting in this pursuit, her hunger for suffering is endless and eventually she will lead this world into an age of nightmares and endless pain!"

At that point, the elderly priest collapsed and a ghostly laugh rings out and gets carried away by a sudden gust of wind, the body of the old elf continued to leak that black liquid, continuously burning away the body it was emerging from, until most of the flesh was burned away, revealing the bones underneath, charred and barley holding together.

As the horror of the situation began to sit in, the high priest mind went into overdrive, trying to understand just what on earth had happened, until one of his knights began approaching out of breath, requesting his help.

"Your Holiness, we require your aid! That sudden scream seemed to have put all the humans into a panic, we can barely control them anymore! We nee-…"

The knight stopped mid-sentence once he saw what remained of the elderly priest, his eyes bulged and his stomach twisted upon seeing that brutal display, soon the stench of burning flesh was also thrown into the mix and the knight had to turn around as to not throw up and accidentally losing his composure in front of the High Priest.

The High Priest for his part, suddenly had a horrifying realisation, as he remembered how a certain old woman had described the appearance of the the thing that attacked the village: Something covered in a slime-like substance, with a horrifying smile, that set fear even into a seasoned adventurer.

And looking down at the now almost completely disintegrated corpse of the old priest and the strange black substance that had covered his body almost completely by this point.

As realisation dawned on him that this attacker is not, as he had suspected, a rouge demon warrior hell-bent on retribution for the war or a crazed monster infested with a magic parasite, but something even far more dangerous, he quickly turned, and began to run towards the crowd of refugees.

Leaving the knight that had come to fetch him baffled and confused, but thinking he had done his task, he simply followed suit, never realising the High Priest never even heard his words in the first place.

——————————————————————-

The world was spinning, and everything hurt, the fact that had been a state she found herself quite often these past few days wasn’t nearly as much of a concern to Hanna as they probably should have been, at least this time she wasn’t in complete darkness, rather she was simply surrounded by a pile of dead bodies and gallons of blood, much easier for her to understand and rationalise, compared to whatever the last time happened she awoke randomly without being able to properly move.

With a grunt, she tried to move, but she barely had any feeling left in her limbs and it took multiple tries to finally get the outcome she desired and eventually she managed to stand up, but not upright, she was slumped and her legs were shacking like grass in a strong wind or storm, she held onto a nearby barrel for support but all it did was almost cause her to slip and fall, when she missed and grabbed onto nothing.

Everything was hurting her and with every movement it felt like the entire place was spinning at absurd speeds.

It was oh so frustrating.

Frustration quickly turned into anger,

and anger quickly turned into unabated rage.

All of this happened because of children, this sorry state she was in was all because of three damned children who dared to fight back against her. She would make them suffer, she would haunt them forever, there wouldn’t be a waking moment in those children’s lives were the specter of her wouldn’t be over them.

"I will find you, no matter where you hide… I will kill everyone you hold dear right in front of you, before ripping each and every finger of your hands to feed them to you… I will rip the still beating heart out of the people you hold dear and feed them to you piece by bloody piece…“

In her delirious state, she didn’t even notice the sudden gust of wind that blew past her face, or rather into her, and with it the sudden return of feeling in her limbs, giving her enough to finally get herself up with a grunt and a snarl of anger.

And only moments later she took her first step, her legs wobbled about and she nearly toppled over again, yet she continued and with every step she took she became more secure and more firm in both her stance and stride.

And while a normal person might be shocked by pure amazement how their body still functioned, Hanna had her mind filled with only one thing, she didn’t care when she almost slipped in the puddles of blood all across the floor, she didn’t care when she actually tripped over the body of one of her previous victims, landing face first in the bloody mud, simply standing right back up, and she didn’t care when she stomped onto the arm of one of her victims, and a cracking sound rang out into the silence of her hiding hole.

And she certainly didn’t care at the sinister laugh in the wind that seemed to follow her around where ever she went and neither did she seem to hear the ghastly voice inside that wind, or if she did, she simply didn’t care.

"Tihehe~ Tihehe~ Master is back, Master is back~ Now it’s time for more beautiful corruption and torture~ Tiheheheheh~"

And soon enough she crawled out from the hole and found herself standing in the bedroom the hole connected to, the man who once owned the house was still bolted to the floor, but she, once again, didn’t care as she simply turned to leave the house, she slammed the front door open and for a moment halted her relentless march forward, as she had to squint and shield her eyes from the harsh sun beaming down at her, as her eyes hadn’t actually seen any sunlight for a long time now.

But once her eyes adjusted to the brightness that was a completely cloudless sky at midday, she continued her march forward, to find those who dared to resist and show them the true meaning of torture and pain and luckily she didn’t have to move for long to find her target, as in the middle of the marketplace they were, and for the first time she could take a closer look on the two that dared to interrupt her.

And of course it was those two, the woman living in this village while hiding her true demon self and the big shot, whose mere presence had sent shivers down her spines only a night prior. The man was treating the children’s wounds, bandaging up the many open wounds using pieces of his clothing to stop the blood from spilling any further and the demon woman was holding out her hands in front of them, a green light surrounding both her and the children.

They were undoing all her beautiful work, she clenched both her fists and jaw, strong enough that her own claws managed to break the skin of her hand trickling her black blood to the floor below.

Hanna knew these people were powerful, extremely so, but right now? She simply didn’t care, and with all the unabated rage inside of her she raised her arm into the air and focused as much hatred as she could into it, as she readied herself to unleash a storm.

In an instant, hundreds of light blue arrows formed out of nothing above her head, as well as thousands of black ones, born from the immense amount of hatred and rage she felt at that moment, burning the very magic she released into this incantation.

She let her arm fall, pointing where the arrows should fly towards, and the hail began. In but a few moments thousands of arrows would pierce both flesh and bone filling every single one of the family with thousands of holes causing them all to collapse in a lake of their own blood. Pain and surprise edged in their faces.

Or at least that was supposed to happen. What happened instead was, that suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, a sphere formed around the family, off of which the arrows bounced off, fell to the floor and disappear in a smoke of blue and black, looking up Hanna could see three additional people running towards them, one of which was holding an elegant staff, which glowed in the same colour as the sudden sphere did.

Hanna, seeing this, released a scream of complete anger and frustration and raised her arm again, causing another storm, with even more magical arrows burned black by her rage. And she released it towards both the family and the three, rapidly approaching figures.

Of course, it failed, a second sphere simply formed around the group approaching and all the arrows simply dissipating into a thick, black and blue fog around the sphere, blocking Hanna’s sight completely, but she didn’t let up, the arrows kept coming, eventually all arrows were as black as her own blood and though Hanna couldn’t see it, the sphere around the family was starting to crack.

And maybe, if she had kept going for a few more seconds that would have been it, but unfortunately for Hanna, running out of the fog she had created, two elves came storming forth, swords drawn, glowing with a bright white light.

Primal instinct, more then anything else took over at this point, jumping backwards to create further distance between herself and her assailants, she stopped her magical assault to focus on what was in front of her. She crouched down and jumped forward, arms outstretched and claws pointing at the neck of one of the knights.

The knights, probably not anticipating such a reckless and suicidal actions, reacted to slow and one of them was toppled over as Hanna‘s entire weight crashed into him, his grip on his sword waned and it flew into the sky. Luckily for him, his armor protected his throat from Hanna‘s claws, but much to his shock, he could see actual dents in his armor slowly starting to form as Hanna desperately tried to find a weak spot for her to drive her claws into the knights body.

Finally shacking off the shackles of confusion and shock, the knight tried to throw Hanna off of him, but Hanna held on, and they both began to wrestle on the ground, rolling in the dirt and kicking up a cloud of dust and sand. The other knight meanwhile, was trying to find a correct angle to strike, as to not accidentally cause harm to his brother in arms, their armor was strong, but their blades were even stronger.

Eventually, the impromptu wrestling match came to a stop, the knight laying flat on his back, arms and legs both outstretched to create the largest possible amount of distance between himself and Hanna, who was still ferociously and viciously clawing and biting towards the knight beneath her.

The other knight, now saw a perfect opportunity and moved in quickly, ready to slash the beast attacking his comrade in half.

However, this was not to be,  and maybe unconsciously rather then actually planned, Hanna had managed to strike the knight beneath her during their struggle on the ground.

It weren’t her claws, and it weren’t her teeth either, but through a single small gap in the knights lower armor, her tail had snuck in and has now embedded itself, through the soft fabrics, and into the flesh of the knights upper calf.

And his strength was rapidly leaving him as Hanna’s deadly poison rushed through him, but luckily for everyone but Hanna, he continued to hold onto her, refusing to let her escape the slash of his comrade, the blade slashed downwards and a scream echoed through corpse of what was once a beautiful quaint little town.

The knight who had swung his sword down looked on in horror as Hanna continued to roll in the dirt, a trail of blood following her, as the severed hand of his comrade still clung onto the wrist of her left arm, the other one now laying limp on the ground, his sword having pierced his armor easily and swiftly.

He looked up towards the direction Hanna had dodged his slash and in the next moment he too screamed into the sky, as something hit him in the face and a liquid splashed into his right eye, he swatted it away, never even realising that his comrades severed hand would now seal his fate, as this distraction was effective long enough, for Hanna to jump onto him with a roar of hatred and anger, he fell to the ground and tried to get her off of him, but Hanna moved quicker and slashed with her claws, once again easily cutting through the thinner armor along the wrist and severed the knight hand. She then pined down the other one and did it again.

Hanna then ripped the man‘s helmet off of his head, and despite the pain he endured in that moment, despite the knowledge that he had accidentally killed his comrade and despite the knowledge he was about to die, there were no tears and no despair in his eyes, only the flame of deviance and determination.

The knight said something in a language she didn’t know, but Hanna didn’t care, because there was it again, that flame, this defiance to everything she stood for. She hated it, she hated it so much.

She needed it gone, every single one of these flames needed to be extinguished.

She raised both her thumbs towards these flames, she would squash these flames until they couldn’t bother her anymore.

She reached them soon, and despite the increase in futile struggling to throw her off, the flame was still there, blinding her, standing against her and her beautiful work and everything she stood for.

Hanna truly hated it and with a distorted laugh leaving her mouth, she pressed down squashing the flames that dared defy her.

A last scream echoed into the sky, like a last flicker of candlelight before it suffocated to death, the man’s limbs soon went limb, but Hanna didn’t stop, she continued to slash and gauge at the man’s eye sockets, until she had finally penetrated through the other end of his head and felt the dirt of earth underneath.

Hanna stood up with a crazed laugh and looked upon the dead body before her, she placed her foot upon the man’s head and with all her strength pressed down, sending flesh, blood and bone flying, much to the horror of the family and the priest who had just emerged from the cloud of smoke her earlier magical assault had created.

Hanna tilted her head slightly, her crazed, toothy smile only increasing in length as she saw the sheer amount of terror on each of their faces.

"Take them and run, I will hold it off."

The man, the hero said, before drawing his sword and stepping forward.

Hanna‘s smile widened even more.

"YOu CAn CeRtaInLY trY."