Page 115 of Demon Monster's Little Human

I will tear my way through whatever hell it has made for her.

"You were never meant to have her."

The dark presence coils around us, slithering through the sky like the unseen chains that have haunted me for lifetimes.

"She was always mine."

It laughs, cruel and knowing. The ruins below tremble, and I feel it, not just the whispers, not just the corruption. The artifact awakens further, feeding off what she’s done.

"She thought she was saving you. How tragic."

I grit my teeth, tightening my hold around her.

The power beneath us shudders, tearing through the air like a monstrous heartbeat. The very fabric of reality warps, something is dragging her down.

"You should let her go, Dain."

The laughter shifts, taunting.

"Isn’t this what you wanted? No more Amara. No more pain. No more curse."

I feel it then. The pull.

Liora is being ripped away from me.

I see the moment her soul starts slipping beyond my reach.

Her breath shudders, barely there. Her fingers twitch once, then go still.

I lose it.

With a snarl, I dive, straight into the abyss. Straight into the void behind the artifact.

The world shatters around me.

Darkness rushes up, swallowing me whole.

I land in nothingness.

There is no sky, no ground, no sense of where one ends and another begins. A void stretches around me—empty, yet filled with whispers.

Shadows coil like living things, stretching, breathing.

Then I hear it.

A voice that is hers, yet not.

"Dain..."

I turn.

Liora stands in the distance, but she isn’t Liora.

She is everything she has ever been, Liora, Amara, something more.

Her eyes glow, burning with unnatural power, her form flickering between lives. One moment, she is the woman I have come to know, the woman who infuriates me, tempts me, refuses to bow. The next, she is Amara, the woman I once loved, the woman who betrayed me, the woman who swore she did it to save me.

"You shouldn’t be here."

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