Page 99 of The Road to Hell

Gremory gritted his teeth, pure power rippling from his body in a desperate final attempt to break free.

I yanked my blade from his shoulder and, using every ounce of strength I had left, drove my knee straight into his ribs.

His body lurched, his breath tearing from his lungs in a violent cough of blood.

For the first time, I saw it.

Doubt.

He knew he wasn’t going to win this fight.

I clenched my fist, and the blood I’d drawn from him surged at my command.

It rose in twisting ribbons, coiling midair, the droplets merging, condensing, reshaping. The air pulsed with unnatural pressure as the fluid solidified, forming something massive—something final.

A massive blade the size of a machete.

Towering, grotesque, carved from Gremory’s own essence, the edge gleamed dark and wet, its form crude but undeniable in its lethality.

Gremory’s eyes widened.

“No—” he snarled, staggering back, his hand rising as if he could undo what had already begun.

I swung my arm and the blade obeyed.

It cleaved through him, separating his head cleanly from his body.

For half a second, it hung in the air, his expression frozen in something between fury and disbelief. Then it dropped, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

His body crumpled an instant later, collapsing into a heap of blood and broken wings.

I straightened, stretching out my aching body. But my injuries didn’t matter. Because Gremory was dead. His head lay in the dirt, his face still twisted in an expression that was half fury and half disbelief. His body slumped beside it, wings limp, blood pooling beneath him in dark, sluggish rivulets.

A weight I hadn’t realized I carried lifted.

The battle behind me had quieted, and I lifted my gaze.

Mephisar stood several yards away, black scales glistening under Hell’s dim light. Blood drenched his maw and dripped from his massive fangs. Raelia lay in ruin at his feet, her body split in half, her torso barely recognizable beneath the jagged marks where he had torn her apart. One of her legs twitched in the dirt, the last shuddering remnants of life fading from her shredded corpse.

Mephisar happily crunched down on something. Bone—a chunk of Raelia’s ribcage.

His glowing eyes gleamed in satisfaction as he tore another bite from her lifeless form.

Across the field, Ezrion, Gavrel, and Miriel stood motionless, their expressions frozen in a mix of horror and disbelief.

Gremory was dead. Raelia was being devoured. And they had lost.

Gavrel’s chaos wavered, the unnatural ripples distorting the air around him growing weak and inconsistent. His grip on his weapon tightened, his knuckles white with tension.

Ezrion’s flames sputtered against his fingertips as his gaze darted from me to Gremory’s corpse, and then to Raelia’s remains beneath Mephisar’s massive form.

Miriel took a slow, trembling step backward.

For all their power, all their arrogance, they hadn’t expected this.

I took a single step forward, my blood-forged blade still hovering next to me.

Ezrion took flight first, streaking toward the horizon. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t look back.

---