Chapter 113: Blizzard, part 6/6: Clearing

Chapter 113: Blizzard, part 6/6: Clearing

Tia stood, her platinum-blonde hair and raven coat fluttering softly in the wind, a stark contrast against the nightmarish visage of ice and shadows before her. Her heart thundered like church bells in a storm, yet her face remained an unmoving mask of calm.

Step by step, she drew nearer to the boy, his shivering form buried in the snow and girls, as she already expected the demon to attack as its furious words still resonated inside of her head.

A curse almost escaped her lips as she considered the boy's folly. 'To think, all this trouble was sparked by a single reckless actventuring into a blizzard, into these barren plains, to provoke a demon.'

As Tia slowly advanced, almost reaching her target, the demon's raging form seemed to quiver, and its rageful and fierce aura began to ebb, like the receding tide after a vicious storm.

The swirling mass of ice and shadow that constituted its body started to lose its fierce, threatening edge, the sharpness of its movements softening.

"This time, mortal, you shall be spared, not out of mercy but because your pitiful existence is not worthy for us to fight over. Cross my path again, and I assure you, your soul will be mine." With the chilling words, the demon's roar crescendoed into a sinister symphony of fury and foreboding, vibrating through the air like a dark promise.

While it spoke, the demon's form began to unravel, disintegrating into a whirlwind of black snowflakes, swirling menacingly in the blizzard's wrath before disappearing in the wind.

'It is finally overthe demon is gone.'

Tia exhaled slowly, her breath turning into a ghostly mist in the cold air.

'Who would have thought that a demon could be so reasonable...'

She only snickered at their feeble attempts to escape her presence, her heightened senses tingling with the awareness of every soul aboard. But her eyes flickered with a frenetic, threatening intensityshe couldn't feel her. She was gone.

'Don't you dare think you can run away!' Elyra's mind screamed, her internal turmoil boiling over as she halted abruptly before her chamberthe last place she sensed her presence.

She wasn't angry about her disappearance, as she had already decided to give her a bit of freedom to explore the world, but the abruptness of it made her worried.

With a violent, crazed energy, she flung the doors open, almost ripping them from their hinges. Her blood-red gaze swept the room.

'Still not back. She's never been gone this long before.' Panic laced Elyra's thoughts. She was accustomed to her cat-like tendency to wander, but this time it screamed danger.

'Her body, not just her soul, is missing. And for hours alreadynot the usual seconds. Also, it feels different than usual. It doesn't fit her powers. What if someone stole her?!'

Closing her eyes, Elyra's mind twisted, warping into a vision of the curved plane of space dimensions. Her expression contorted into a relieved, twisted smile as she noticed scars in the spatial fabric.

'Space was warped here...' Though it had reverted to its original state, she knew she could unravel it again, like tracing the creases of a once-folded paper.

'With her body gone too, the disruption is stronger, the trail clearer.' Time seemed to crawl as her eyes blazed with a crimson light, her powers of spatiokinesis and telekinesis overlapping to grip the space itself. She pulled, her powers clawing at the very fabric of space, distorting and twisting it.

'I won't sit idle. I'm coming for you!'