Seraphina stood across from Kylien and Kayla. Her barrier was a labyrinth designed to break the mind by flooding it with endless possibilities of horror and despair. Most people wouldn't last more than a few seconds before their sanity shattered.
But Kylien had countered the sure hit effects with the Box and made sure Kayla was within the confines of the Box as well.
Kylien smirked, "Cute trick, Seraphina. But let's not pretend this is anything more than a mental game. No real threat here."
Seraphina just looked at him with minimal interest,
"You do realize this is only the second time I've ever used this barrier, right?"
"What?"
"Why yes." She smiled faintly, "The first time I used it was against Prince John. You know, Solomon's son? He never recovered. I still feel guilty about that. But you…"
"…I don't think I'll lose much sleep over using it on you. See, we both can use the box, but I won the barrier clash. To override me, you'd need more mana than I have and judging by how shaky your constructs are getting, I doubt you're capable."
Kylien felt frustrated hearing that and unleashed chains of purple fire toward Seraphina. Kayla followed suit by launching electric chains. Both sets of chains aimed to bind her but Seraphina simply put up her hand and nullified the attack.
She didn't flinch or even seem impressed,
"I'm bored, half-demon. Why don't you tell me about yourself? Like why you decided to use Ashwick as your personal piggy bank?"
She turned her gaze to Kayla next, "And you—what's your excuse? How are you so utterly weak despite being at the pinnacle of strength? Honestly, you're kind of an embarrassment to us grandmasters."
Kayla took offense to that obviously, "FUCK YOU! YOU THINK YOU'RE UNTOUCHABLE!?"
Seraphina shrugged, "Ehhhhh. Judging by how my...h..."
She paused for a moment as it was still difficult saying those two words back-to-back,
"...husband managed to hurt you with just a weapon and no magic involved? I'd say yes. You're quite inferior."
Kayla flipped her off as her face looked like she took the greatest insult in history while Kylien was slightly amused at Seraphina nonchalant behaviour,
"Well, I'm Kylien. A half-demon, courtesy of my dad screwing anything that moved…and one of them happened to be human."
Seraphina raised an eyebrow as she was intrigued,
"Huh. So you're half-demon, half-human. If your mom was human, then why did you make Ashwick suffer? Taking money from everyone through Sebastian, making people suffer for no good reason… What's the end goal?"
"Do you know about SABRES?"
"Yes. Just rumours, though. Something about an underground syndicate dealing in illegal trades, sacrifices for power, demons pulling strings behind the scenes… That sort of thing. Why? Should I care?"
"I founded SABRES. As for why I do what I do… well, it's complicated. Being born a half-breed, my father couldn't care less about me. He fucked my mother, knocked her up and then vanished. "
"He barely showed up in my life. And my mom?"
Kylien took a deep breathe to prepare himself and exhaled deeply,
"Well, she tried her best. She sacrificed everything to protect me, worked many jobs to put food on the table and kept me safe from the world. But humans… they didn't see me as anything other than a monster."
"Still...I had an okay childhood I guess. No father but a mother that did everything right. It wasn't until one day when I was 12 when my mana became more unstable. I had no teacher and my mom didn't know how to use magic either but she tried her best."
Seraphina put her hand over her chin, "Hmmm, but clearly you're strong now. I'm sure she would've been proud to see how far you've come."
Kylien's eyes looked a little sad now, "That doesn't matter. One day when I attempted to create a simple fireball, it backfired instead. The explosion hit a nearby church. It only burned slightly and maybe an apology should've been enough but apparently that was all it took for everyone in the village to decide I deserved to die"
Seraphina crossed her arms now, "So what happened?"
"They were going to stone me to death right then and there but my mother grabbed me and ran. We fled from the village and hide wherever we could find shelter. We evaded the mob for an entire week. She… she gave everything to keep me alive. She would prioritise food, water for me then herself."
"I won't bore you with the small details but eventually they caught us. Before we were caught, she saw them first and hid me in a hole inside our makeshift shelter. She told me to stay quiet no matter what happened."
"I obviously obeyed and when the mob did find us, I remember hearing punches thrown, slaps and every insult under the sun towards my mom and me. I still kept quiet but eventually the voices was gone and my worries became too much that I got out to find my mom."
"We demons could smells specific scents and I remembered my mom's scent so I tracked her. By the time I got to her location, it was too late. All I saw was my mom hanging on a cross, burning at the stake. They called her a traitor to humankind, said giving birth to someone like me was a mistake."
Seraphina's face now looked sad as well, "That's...horrible."
Kylien's face also had the look of sadness and regret, "I must've awakened my true demonic powers then because the next thing I remember is holding her charred body. It crumbled in my arms as I hugged her. The entire area burned in flames, leaving nothing behind. So yeah… it was then I decided to take my revenge on humanity."
There was silence between them for a moment. Seraphina genuinely felt empathy for Kylien.
This...is unexpected. To hear a demon with such a story...I can understand why he hates humanity and killed the people who killed his mom.
I would've too.
But...I'll still kill him because he has caused so much suffering to the people of Ashwick. So many people went hungry and broke because of him. Alongside Leone and Sebastian.
He threatened to burn everything if he didn't get Aric's invention. But even if he did get it, he would've bled the people dry eventually.
Killing the people who got your mom should've been the end of it but...clearly something went wrong. Hah...maybe this is why demons are always inherently bad. Their nature doesn't go away even when they have receive love.
Maybe never trusting another human was understandable...but turning that pain into cruelty, spreading suffering just to spite the world? That's something I can't excuse.
"I'm… sorry that happened." she said softly, "I know what it's like to lose a mother but obviously not in the cruel way you did. Still… I have to ask, you know what love is. You know what it means to be loved. Your mother gave you everything, yet you've spent years taking away from others. Why?"
Kylien stared at her with anger, "You think I owe you an explanation? After everything I went through?"
"No. But maybe you owe one to yourself."
"I don't know if you've killed more people but I've read the financial records. You siphoned a significant amount of money from Ashwick, blaming it all on Vayne for the last 2 years which, to be fair, he also deserves some blame for. But you've been doing this since Callista's reign and probably long before that."
"You weakened the local economy, denied welfare to countless families and left them starving. You know hardship better than most and yet you inflicted it on others. Did you think they deserved it too?"
Seraphina looked at him with sadness in her eyes,
"If your mom were alive today, would she be proud of you?"
Kylien's anger reached at its peak and purple flames was around his body,
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT HER! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER!"
"You were dealt a bad hand in life, Kylien. Nobody except your mom truly cared for you and she was taken from you far too soon. You sought revenge against humanity for their cruelty. Wasn't that enough? At this point, are you even doing it for her anymore? Or are you just punishing the world because you don't know how else to cope?"
"From what I understand and I'll take your word for it, your mom was a hero. She was a single parent who tried her best to raise you up. She defended you, love you, cared for you, made sure you live before herself. Do you think she would like the you no—"
Kylien had enough and manifest a greatsword of purple flame that was about 100 metre. He swung it at her but Seraphina blocked it in time.
Seraphina was a little unprepared as the strike actually made her bleed as each strike was strong enough to level an entire country.
UGH! He's serious now! This is an extraordinary amount of mana he's using and he's still maintaining the Box.
Kylien kept swinging his sword at Seraphina while also shooting flame lances. Kayla stayed in the box and attacked with ranged spells like lightning bolts, energy rings, arcfall and electric cages meant to trap her.
To deal with the barrage, Seraphina summoned her Cocoon of Darkness and use it as a passive barrier. Each attack from Kayla was nullified by the cocoon while Seraphina was parrying and dodging Kylien's attacks.
Fucking HELL! They are not giving me a break! If I want to end this, I need to push them out of the Box. Looks like it's time I got serious too.
Let's use Aric's story about flashbangs and smoke grenades.
She slammed both palms together and created a black sphere. She thrust it forward and the sphere detonated mid-air that released a blinding dark light and thick smoke.
Kylien and Kayla recoiled as they were blinded by the sudden flash and smoke.
When the smoke cleared…
Seraphina stood 100 meters away and behind her floated 1000 swords of darkness, each one enhanced with spells of explosion and decay.