Page 105 of The Road to Hell

I bared my teeth and twisted in my bonds, but the shadows tightened every time I struggled. As much as I wanted to break free, I couldn’t. Not yet. Not with Lucifer’s influence controlling every tendril, binding them tighter than chains.

Alright, if I couldn’t take control of the shadows, then perhaps I could destroy them. I wasn’t only darkness—I was light too. Fire. And light always chased away the dark.

Heat surged beneath my skin, hellfire coiling in my chest, gathering in my palms. I forced it into the bonds, flame licking along the tendrils like a living thing, devouring the darkness, purging it with light.

They recoiled with a hiss. Then screamed and vanished.

I lifted my newly-freed sword arm, Inferno’s Kiss in hand.

Lucifer watched me, his expression furious. “Still defiant.”

Hellfire rushed down my arms, engulfing my blade. “Always.”

“You know, I had hopes for you. I’d believed I could mould you into something greater than us all. Something beyond power. But you proved to be no better than your siblings. Weak. Disposable.”

I ground my teeth. Siblingshehad killed the second they’d become an inconvenience. Exactly as he intended to do to me right now.

“Well, you know what they say. Faulty design leads to faulty results.” I shot him a cocky grin. “Maybe if you weren’t such a defective creator, you’d have managed to produce something that made you proud.”

Lucifer’s eyes darkened, rage tightening his countenance. Then he laughed. But the sound wasn’t warm or friendly. It was entirely devoid of amusement.

“Defective?” he repeated in a dangerously low-pitched voice. “You stand here because ofme. Youexistbecause of me. Your entire being is a product ofmydesign. Your weakness is because of your mother’s blood. Perhaps thatis where I went wrong, breeding with such a lesser creature.”

Lucifer’s lip curled, his golden eyes gleaming with contempt. “A flawed creation will always blame the one who forged it. But tell me, little girl, was it my design that failed, or did your mother’s blood poison you from the start?”

I bared my teeth, heat surging under my skin, fire licking at my blade. No more insults, no more banter, it was time to end this. I lunged, ready to strike him down where he stood.

Lucifer didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. He simply sighed—clearly bored—as if swatting down a fly. Then he lifted his hand.

Power slammed into me like a wave of molten lava. My body seized mid-lunge, locked in place by something foreign. My limbs refused to respond, my wings frozen half-splayed, my fire snuffed out as though it never existed. I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.

Lucifer’s magic wrapped around me and gripped my very bones, anchoring me in place.

“You truly thought you could strikeme?” he asked, his voice low and calm, as though he couldn’t decide if he was amused or insulted. “Please.”

I tried to speak. Tried to summon my fire. Summon the shadows. Fly. Anything. Nothing obeyed me.

He stepped forward, each movement slow, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. “You’re not ready to face me, daughter. You never were.”

His magic tightened, then slowly turned me around so I was facing the battlefield and not him and forced me to my knees. His power pried open my fingers until my sword slipped from my grip, clattering uselessly to the ground. I could only kneel there, locked by his will alone, my body trembling with the effort to resist something I couldn’t evensee.

“Look,” he said simply. “Behold what your defiance has wrought.”

I didn’t want to look, but I had no choice. His magic held me firm, head tilted just enough to force my gaze across the chasm now carved into the ground.

All I saw was…carnage. My army—mypeople—were dying.

The battlefield was a storm of fire and ruin, a churning tide of steel and screams, of blood soaking into the hellscape. My forces—once an unbreakable front—were being torn apart, not just by strength, but by something worse. Corruption. Sickness. Madness.

Gavrel’s influence slithered through the ranks like an infection, unraveling discipline, twisting alliances into carnage. Miriel’s pestilence clung to my soldiers, weakening them with every breath they took. Raelia’s corruption coiled around their limbs like hungry vines, draining their will to fight. And Calyx’s illusions—monstrous, warping nightmares—kept them stumbling in terror, slashing at shadows while the real enemy gutted them from behind.

Korrak tore through the battlefield, his fists smashing through hellspawn as he tried to force his way toward me. But for every enemy he crushed, two more took its place. Miriel’s pestilence curled around him like a choking fog, eating away at his strength, slowing him down. He snarled, shaking it off, refusing to stop, but I could see the hitch in his steps, the weight dragging at his movements.

Calder was a blur of silver and shadow, his blade carving a direct path toward me. He was moving fast, too fast, trying to reach me before it was too late. But he wasn’t just fighting against steel—Raelia’s corruption had latched onto him. Darkness surged beneath his flesh, diseasing him from the inside. He pushed forward as hard as he could, but he weakened with every step.

Varz fought next to them, his twin daggers flashing, his strikes surgically precise. He wove through the chaos, a crimson shadow cutting a line toward me. His eyes locked onto mine, filled with fury, with desperation.

Mephisar and Sable loomed over the battlefield, their massive, coiling bodies surging through the enemy ranks. They were unstoppable—but not fast enough. They crushed and burned and devoured, bodies crumpling beneath their claws and fangs, but for every hellspawn reduced to ruin, the fallen sent more, determined to keep my hellwyrms from reaching me.

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