Extra: Yandere Milfs Obsessed with me!

The air saturated with demonic mana, Aeshma delved into the bowels of the earth. The ground beneath her boots seemed to have been vitrified by a heat exceeding all human understanding. She walked with confidence, her eyes piercing the moist darkness of this gallery that reeked of death and damp stone. She had not come here to admire the stigmata of battles engraved on the walls, but to meet a living relic from a time that most mortals had forgotten.

At the end of an oppressive tunnel, she finally emerged into a vast natural chamber where the silence was so thick that it seemed to absorb the slightest of her heartbeats. In the center of this cathedral of dark rock, a silhouette stood out, chained directly to the structure of the world. Sulyvhan was there. His emaciated body, reduced to an almost skeletal state by centuries of deprivation, was held in a cross by two swords planted so deeply into the ground that they seemed to be part of it. Chains of black metal extended from the pommels to wrap mercilessly around his arms and legs, marking his skin with an alabaster pallor.

When she approached at a respectable distance, the captive slowly raised his head. A cascade of silver hair, of immeasurable length, slid over his bony shoulders. His eyes, once inhabited by a power capable of shaking continents, now emitted only a residual glow, although his gaze retained a serenity that instantly irritated her. He remained silent, observing her as if he were scrutinizing the very essence of her soul through the veil of time.

"So this is where the great conqueror ends, the first human to have tamed the aura?" she exclaimed in a drawling tone, letting a cruel smile stretch her carmine lips.

She took a few slow steps around him, observing with undisguised contempt the bonds that restrained his limbs. "Look at yourself, Alexander Sulyvhan. The true founder of the Empire of Alexandria has become a pile of forgotten bones in the most infamous hole in Tenebris. Your generals betrayed you, your mistress Loriel delivered you to the angels, and your name was erased from every archive, replaced by a grotesque fiction that humans recite like a prayer."

Sulyvhan did not respond. His chest barely rose, each breath seeming like a battle against oblivion. His mutism was an insult to her position as Princess of Death.

"Do you perhaps think that your silence gives you dignity?" she continued, stopping in front of him, her claws almost brushing his translucent face. "You are nothing but prey that finally let itself be captured by predators far more patient than you. Your generals prosper on your stolen legacy while you rot here, waiting for an end that never comes."

Yet, despite her provocations, no wrinkle came to disturb his brow. The lack of reaction began to weigh on her own nerves, reminding her that this man was not a simple mortal.

He is even more mentally resistant than one might think, she thought, her pupils contracting slightly under the effect of annoyance.

She abruptly changed her attitude, abandoning derision for a cold gravity. "Enough games. If I am here, it is not solely to mock your failure. The situation of the world is far more critical than what your atrophied senses can perceive from this cell."

She placed her hand on one of the white metal chains that bound his wrist, feeling the organic vibration of the energy that kept him prisoner. "Our true enemies, Sulyvhan, are neither the demons I command, nor the hypocritical angels who blessed your traitor generals. Our enemies are the Constellations."

At the mention of these primordial entities, she thought she saw a spark of lucidity cross his dull gaze.

"As a human, beating them is an impossibility," she continued, her voice resonating against the vitrified walls of the cave. "They observe us from the upper strata of reality like players contemplating a chessboard. The Thousand-Year Holy War, the massacres, the betrayals... all of this is nothing but entertainment for them. It serves absolutely no purpose for angels and demons to kill each other, and it is even more futile for humans to exhaust themselves in these endless conflicts."

She drew closer. "We are all toys of a will that surpasses us. But if we decide to unite, if the forces of the abyss and the remnants of your human power stop fighting each other to focus on these distant gods, the chances of victory will increase significantly."

Sulyvhan closed his eyelids for a moment. When he reopened them, the silence was finally broken by a hoarse voice, worn by years of isolation but of absolute clarity.

"You speak of union... with a demon," he articulated, each word seeming to tear a piece of life from him. "You want me to entrust the future of my species to a person such as you."

"I offer you a pact of survival, not a friendship," she retorted without flinching. "The Constellations are preparing for a new cycle of destruction..."

The former emperor remained motionless, his skeletal fingers clenched on the iron links. The ground vibrated slightly beneath their feet.

"I have spent many years meditating on my fall," he finally resumed, a smile of infinite weariness touching his chapped lips. "I have seen my name erased and my dreams perverted by those I loved."

He raised his eyes toward the high vaults of the cavern, where the darkness seemed alive. "You are right on one point, demon... Alone, I am nothing anymore. But my essence still possesses a value that neither time nor these chains could corrupt."

A strange calm suddenly invaded the room.

"I accept your offer," declared Sulyvhan in a voice that regained part of its past grandeur. "I am not doing it for you, nor for your vile species. I am doing it to give humanity a chance to no longer be a simple resource for the celestial powers."

He straightened up as much as his bonds allowed, his bones creaking under the effort. "I will give my essence. I will bequeath it to the one who will be capable of bearing my burden and using my art to tear the veil of the heavens. May my power serve as a blade against those who believe themselves untouchable."

An invisible shock wave traversed the grotto, extinguishing the few residual gleams. Aeshma stepped back, feeling the raw power that began to condense in the old man’s body. It was a decision heavy with consequences, a sacrifice that would irrevocably alter the course of destiny and prepare the advent of a new order.

"So be it," she murmured, observing the light.

As his body slowly began to transform into ashes, Sulyvhan cast one last look toward her, a gaze charged with terrifying lucidity.

"Survive, demon," he breathed in a final rattle as his essence escaped to join the currents of destiny. "Because the world to come will make no distinction between our two races when the new moon awakens."

Aeshma remained alone in the restored silence of the grotto, contemplating the two swords now empty of their prisoner, but vibrating.