With every passing moment, problems continued to pile up for Haruki and his companions, and one such problem was about to be piled on top. Having killed the guards outside the underground shrine where the meeting between the two chieftains was being carried out, Riley's mind was in complete control of the prince of hell and had something devious planned.
Taking control over her mind, he ordered Riley to kill the guards and get inside the shrine to the chieftains. And without much effort at all, Riley took out her potion savers and dropped the demi-human guards to the ground one after the other.
"What now master?" Riley muttered, confusing the rest of the demon soldiers accompanying her.
To them, surrounded by the carnage of her own doing, Riley stood there amidst it all with her whole body covered in blood. Her nails, her face, her skin, and to some degree even her lips and teeth.
'Knock out your companions and then get me to that Maria girl.' Intending to take control of the soldiers as well before heading inside, the prince ordered Riley through their mental link.
"Very well," jerking the blood off of her blade, the swiftwind spy turned to face her battalion.
Feeling concerned by her behavior, the soldiers took a few steps back, not sure exactly what was coming their way.
"Is something wrong? What did Master Haruki say?" Asked one a demon-goblin hybrid, inevitably making herself the first victim.
"Lonesome widow..." After quickly turning invisible, Riley used wind magic to circle around the girl and strike her at the back of her head.
Knocking her unconscious in just one hit, she had the others freaking out of their minds. Not having a clue as to why their leader was suddenly knocking her own soldiers, they all turned around in a desperate attempt to flee. However, given their disparity in strength, Riley knocked them all out before any of them even had the chance to breathe another breath.
Not long after the knockouts, dark slime-like creatures started crawling out of the woods and planted themselves on the faces of the unconscious soldiers. Slowly penetrating through their skin, ears, and noses, the parasite made its way to their brain so it could be malformed into whatever shape their master intended.
Once the parasites began taking hold of the situation, Riley turned back to the shrine and started walking down into its dungeon. The silent dusty oath reeked of rats and iron, but Riley didn't mind the smell, because she simply couldn't. Her mind had submitted to the reconstructive parasite eating away at her will, and slowly turning her into a puppet of the prince.
At this point, there was no return for her. Even her vision, her memories, all of it was growing muddled with blood, so much so that she couldn't even remember why she was fighting the demi-human guards and under whose orders she was working before the hell prince took over.
Still, under the cloak of invisibility, Riley finally came to the site of the meeting. Seated across a table bickering with each other the two chiefs had no clue what had become of their clans on the surface or what they were going through.
'What do you want me to do now?' Standing motionless before the table, Riley asked the price of hell.
'I need them under my control as well, knock them all out, even that Maria girl.' Knowing full well about Michael and Razor's plans to free the captured demi-humans from the tribes, The prince wanted to control the chiefs so he could better make a stand against Haruki in the overworld.
"As you say," those phantom words spoken by Riley peaked everyone's senses, but as swift as the wind, she managed to knock them all out in less than a second's time.
Her strikes had been so brief yet impactful, not even a peep had left their mouths before they were all foaming against the dusty floor of the dungeon.
Once again the crittering parasites crawled in from towards the dungeon's entrance and made their way to the unconscious bodies. Witnessing the parasites taking hold of their victims again, Riley felt her murderous intent crawling up from her stomach. Despite the mental rewrite her desire to draw blood was too overpowering to be diminished by a parasite just yet.
'Let me...' Clutching her sabers tight, she began walking towards one of the chiefs and his guards. 'I need to!'
Hearing her mind scream, she raised her blade, ready to tear into the throats of some demi-humans, but the moment she tried to swing, an illusive dark mass appeared before her and grabbed her swinging arm.
Looking right at it for a moment Riley realized that it was none other than an illusionary version of herself, trying to deter her from doing what she wanted.
'Stop!' It yelled but the voice sounded like that of the hell's prince.
'Why would I?' Ignoring her new master, Riley slashed through the illusion before kneeling down to the bodies and stabbing them without any restraints.
With each stab, she went deeper and deeper into their flesh until their whole bodies were left as nothing but a pile of gaping holes. The parasite in her kept writhing and squeezing her brain inward, but taken by her instincts to destroy she couldn't care less if that thing killed her then and there.
Thankfully, however, since the parasite had taken her as a host, killing Riley would've caused its own death as well. Thus with the parasite left in a predicament, a moment of clarity washed over Riley's consciousness.
'What am I doing?' She thought, drawing her blades out of the carved flesh of the demi-humans. Looking all over herself, all she could see was blood, and from the smell of it, she knew it was not limited to the chiefs and their bodyguards. 'It...Smells like other demons, the demons I was leading more specifically!'
Glancing across the desk, she finally noticed Maria laying on the floor with a meager pool of blood under her masked body.
"Shit! What did I-" The moment she tried to get off to her feet, the parasite managed to take hold of her consciousness once more, rendering her mind thoughtless.
Although left coughing blood from the mental exertion, Riley wouldn't even remember what had happened, much like the goblin queen who was still oblivious of Klaus' command over her mind.
'Set her up, I'll push the blame for this mess to those puppets of Helga.' Ordering the parasitic hellspawn one last time, the prince of hell had Riley fall unconscious before cutting off his link for the moment.
Much like the shrine, and the hell's prince, there was yet another heavenly body impressed by her pupil's performance. Although kidnapping was not her choice of doing things, nor was it honorable for her to commend this as a Valkyrie and yet Helga couldn't help but feel as though both Michael and Razor were finally on path to bringing down Haruki.
"Not only a demonic war general, but that cheeky fox girl, and the queen of demi-cats and her daughter too?" Peering through the seeing mirror held by a pair of lions, Helga couldn't put her smile to a rest.
Brimming with joy, she glanced over at her guards standing in front. Capsuled inside her tent, there were a handful of them present, much unlike the usual quantity since they were all just as excited about the progression as their queen.
"Raise a banquet, the end draws near!" Lifting her visor, Helga stared right into the eyes of the girls.
Glowing like jewels, her emerald gaze had all bewitched in a spell none of them could escape from, yet powering through, one of the girls barely managed to voice a doubt.
"But if the demon lord is pressed to a corner then wouldn't he-"
"Fight till his last breath? Perhaps bring the world to an end even?" Looking more crazed than ever, Helga rose from her seat and moved around the desk to get closer to the girl. Resting her gloved hands against her cheeks, she let the spell of her beauty work on the unsuspecting soldier. "I know they've doomed us, when I sent them saying that I wanted them to keep Haruki in check, I didn't mean to steal his women and sow the seeds of betrayal amongst his ranks, but, as a Valkyrie, the world is of little importance to us, and the chance I gave it was only but a short blessing."
Saying it all while looking right into the girl's eyes, Helga showed the young Valkyrie a vision of the world's end burning inside her own gaze. For better or for worse, she had deemed the world worth saving, but with her puppets having messed up so hard, all she could do was relish in its destruction. Which was the prime purpose of a Valkyrie's unending life.
"Now go," pushing the girl away with a gentle push, Helga took off her helm and ordered. "The end draws near, let us have a banquet before marching to a death we may never wake up from!"
Steeling their hearts, the soldiers knew they had little choice but to be joyous in fulfilling their purpose, finally...