Chapter 37 – No Mercy
Umbra gathered Farah into her arms as though she were something fragile and might shatter if held too tightly. Even though she knew her wife was no longer mortal, no longer bound to the brittle limits of flesh, panic clawed at her chest in a way that felt terribly human. Beneath the dimming twilight sky her breaths came uneven and strained, fogging faintly against the cooling air as if she had forgotten how to breathe properly.
“My love, darling, please be alright, please,” she begged, her voice breaking despite every effort to steady it. Tears slid freely down her face, dripping to the fractured pavement below.
Farah was not breathing. For a suspended moment that seemed to stretch far longer than it should have, there was nothing but the terrible stillness of her body in Umbra’s grasp. Then, slowly, painfully, the angel’s eyes cracked open, just enough to show the faint glow still burning within.
“I’ll… be fine… just… keep…” Farah whispered weakly before her voice faded into a strained exhale.
She will be fine, Umbra told herself desperately, clinging to the thought as though it were a lifeline. She was no longer an elf, no longer bound to the fragile biology of her old form. She was divine now, ascended, sustained by something far greater. The old rules did not apply.
They could not apply.
Gently, hands trembling despite her immense strength, Umbra eased Farah away from her chest so she could see the wound clearly. It was worse than she had feared. A gaping hole pierced straight through her wife’s torso, and along the edges divine light shimmered and flickered as her body struggled to regenerate the lost flesh. But clogging the wound was a viscous, dark black substance writhing as if it had intent of its own. It clung stubbornly to the torn edges, preventing the healing from completing.
“I’m sorry, love,” Umbra murmured, lowering her voice as though softness alone could lessen what she was about to do. “This will hurt.”
She laid Farah carefully on the ground and extended one of her talons, its edge catching the dim light. Then she began to cut. Fortunately, her divine core was missed, just barely.
Flesh and bone parted beneath her claw with deliberate care, her movements controlled despite the urgency burning through her veins. Farah’s body remained mostly still, though a strained gasp escaped her lips as Umbra separated the corrupted mass from the wound. Umbra’s jaw tightened, grief and fury coiling together inside her chest, but she did not stop. Slowly, methodically, she carved the dark substance away until it sloughed free and spilled onto the broken street in a wet heap, twitching shortly before lying still.
Just as she prepared to remove the last stubborn fragment, something struck the back of her neck with crushing force.
The world lurched violently to one side.
Her vision tilted and the sky spun. Sensation vanished from her body below the neck as though someone had severed the connection entirely.
“I got her!” called a smooth masculine voice from somewhere behind her.
Umbra hit the ground hard on her side, unable to move, unable to feel anything beyond the ringing in her skull.
“Good work, Jason!” Luna called out, her voice bright with renewed hope. “Everyone, I know things looked hopeless, but we only needed to hold her down for Umbra!”
“Yes, Mistress,” they answered together in unsettling unison.
They had lied. They had surrendered, and they had lied.
Somewhere in the quiet recess of her mind, Umbra offered a silent apology to Samuel. She had promised she would try to save them. She did not know if she still could. Grief weighed heavy in her chest, and rage pressed even harder.
There was only one path left to redemption for them, and it was a thin one. If she slew the Witch of the Void, perhaps the hold over these broken souls would shatter. If not, then they were already lost.
But she would try. She would never stop trying. She had to save them if she could.
Her shield and spear lay discarded beyond reach. Her body refused to answer her commands. Two figures she and Farah had failed to account for stood over her now, unharmed.
One of them, a woman with unnaturally long and thick hair, had wrapped those strands around Umbra’s limbs and torso, the mass of it continuing to grow, to tighten, forcing her into the ground like a pinned insect. The other pressed a heavy boot between her shoulder blades, grinding her into the fractured pavement.
They did not understand. The paralysis would fade, so as long as she did not die before then, the next few minutes would not go the way they imagined.
“Lady Umbra!” Luna’s voice rang with excitement.
Another voice answered her, soft and affectionate in a way that made Umbra’s stomach churn. “Oh, you fought so hard against those meanies, didn’t you?”
The tone was familiar, yet twisted, like a melody played in the wrong key.
So this was her.
The pretender.
The Witch of the Void wearing a stolen name.
“Yes, my lady,” Luna said eagerly. “But we persevered. We lost most of the local servants, but Jason and Samantha pulled through and subdued her after we tricked her.”
“That was a trick?” Rachel asked weakly from somewhere nearby.
“Of course,” Luna replied proudly. “I would never surrender to the bad guys. Umbra told me she was coming. We only needed to endure a little longer.”
Umbra heard more footsteps approaching, felt their presence gathering around her helpless form.
“Good girls get headpats,” Luna moaned with delight.
Umbra ground her teeth together.
Sensation began to return in faint waves, first a distant tingling, then a dull ache spreading down her spine. She did not move yet.
“Alright,” the Witch chirped cheerfully. “Past me said they’re both extremely dangerous, so we need to make sure they stay dead, okay? I won’t even use their bodies for materials, just to be extra safe.”
“Of course, my lady,” Luna beamed.
More footsteps joined the circle.
“Is she really down for good?” the minotaur rumbled uncertainly.
“My hair will hold her if this is a trick,” rasped the woman above Umbra, tightening the constricting mass around her.
“You’re a good girl too,” the Witch sang. “Honestly, I couldn’t ask for better smart servants.”
They crowded around her, blocking out the sky.
Umbra felt her neck mend with a subtle internal shift, the final barrier dissolving as sensation flooded fully back into her body. Strength returned all at once, eager and ready, waiting only for permission.
“Okay,” the Witch announced brightly. “Let’s finish this. Once these two are dead dead dead, there won’t be any more villains to stop us.”
“Yes, Lady Umbra,” the circle answered.
Mana surged through Umbra’s veins like a returning tide.
She did not hesitate.
With explosive force she tore free of the binding hair, the strands snapping and scattering as she rolled and seized Farah in the same motion, launching herself upward into the air before their surprise could fully form.
Instinct screamed at her.
She twisted mid-flight as a beam of concentrated darkness tore upward from below, grazing her side and punching cleanly through both flesh and armor. Pain flared, but she ignored it, correcting her posture until she landed heavily three dozen metres away, noticeably lighter where steel and blood had been carved away.
She laid Farah carefully behind her, shielding her with her own body, then rose to face the gathered circle.
Umbra extended one hand, her gaze burning into them with open fury.
“Halcyon’s Spire,” she called, voice resonant and commanding, “to me.”
Confusion flickered across Sarah’s injured face.
“What?” she managed to ask.
The spear came shrieking through the air in a brutal spinning arc, its blade whirring so violently that the sound alone made the ground seem to tremble. It struck the vampire square through the torso and tore through her in a savage curve before ripping free again in a spray of dark blood. The rotation slowed only when Umbra’s outstretched claw closed around the shaft with perfect timing, stopping it as though she had merely plucked a falling branch from the wind. The vampire collapsed, her body hitting the pavement in a broken heap as she writhed and gasped, her limbs jerking uncontrollably from the agony that coursed through her.
The Witch of the Void watched the scene with an irritated frown tugging at her lips, as though this were all becoming terribly inconvenient.
“Why will you not just be good and die?” she asked petulantly, like a child denied a toy.
Umbra rose to her full height, inky ichor running freely down her side, her eyes blazing with a fury that seemed far older than the night around them. Her presence alone pressed down on the circle of transformed servants, making the air feel heavy and difficult to breathe.
“I will not fall here,” she declared, her voice rolling across the shattered street with a force that made windows tremble in their frames. “I will endure even if every other light in this world has gone out. I will hunt you no matter where you flee, no matter how many worlds you try to hide behind. Your cruelty ends here. Your corruption ends here. This is your end.”
Her words struck them harder than any physical blow, and more than one of the gathered servants recoiled instinctively, their faces paling under the weight of her resolve.
“This is the end,” Umbra finished, lowering her spear into a ready stance.
The Witch blinked, her expression faltering only for a fraction of a second before panic crept in around the edges. “Everyone, keep her busy while I prepare another spell!” she shouted, her hands already beginning to gather a mass of writhing darkness above her head.
The transformed servants hurled themselves forward without hesitation, even those missing limbs or bearing grievous wounds. They came at her with reckless fury, driven by devotion that was as tragic as it was horrifying.
Umbra surged to meet them, and as she did, she could not help but notice how painfully slow they seemed now. Every movement they made felt delayed, telegraphed, almost pitiful compared to the speed at which her body now operated.
The minotaur charged first, roaring as he swung his remaining fist in a desperate arc. Umbra shifted her grip along the spear and drove the reinforced shaft into the side of his skull with a thunderous crack, sending the massive creature skidding across the asphalt before he crashed into a crumpled vehicle.
The incubus attempted to circle her, conjuring a snare of dark magic meant to bind her limbs, but Umbra leapt lightly over the forming spell and twisted midair. She caught his wrist before he could react, flipped upside down with terrifying grace, and hurled him bodily into the oncoming cat girl. The two collided in a tangled heap of limbs and claws, rolling helplessly across the broken street as Umbra landed on her feet.
Luna herself came next, her eyes wild and burning with conviction. From her shoulder extended a grotesque prosthetic tendril lined with jagged spikes, which she lashed forward toward Umbra’s face with a scream. At the same time, the long-haired woman appeared behind Umbra, sending thick ropes of supernatural hair snaking across the ground to entangle her feet.
Umbra did not retreat. With her free claw, she seized the spiked tendril mid-strike, the barbs punching into her palm and drawing blood, yet she did not so much as flinch. In the same motion, she swung her spear backward in a wide, brutal arc, the blade carving cleanly through most of the incoming strands of hair before they could fully coil around her legs.
Then she yanked Luna forward with brutal strength, dragging the succubus off balance and slamming her directly into the long-haired woman behind her. The two crashed together in a painful tangle, and Umbra did not even spare them another glance as she pressed onward.
Her eyes locked onto the Witch.
Above the Witch’s raised hands hovered a swelling orb of pure darkness, dense and pulsing, as though it were a newborn star made entirely of void. It absorbed the light around it hungrily, warping the air and casting long, distorted shadows that stretched unnaturally across the battlefield.
Umbra wasted no time. She hurled her spear not at the Witch of the Void, but straight into the swelling orb of darkness above her hands, and the spell destabilised instantly.
The black sphere folded inward on itself, its surface rippling violently as the magic lost cohesion, and then the entire street vanished beneath a violent eruption of darkness. The explosion tore outward in a deafening wave that shattered windows and sent broken stone spraying across the road. The Witch herself was thrown backwards by her own spell, while Umbra was hurled the opposite way, tumbling across the ruined pavement until her momentum was stopped by the side of an abandoned city bus.
She did not waste time gathering her bearings. Umbra shoved herself upright and looked back down the street.
The Witch lay sprawled motionless in the road, while her thralls were scattered nearby, barely moving as their wounds slowly stitched themselves back together.
Umbra glanced behind herself at the ruined bus, then she looked back at the Witch. A slow, almost offended expression crossed her face.
“Oh, no,” she muttered. Maybe this was somewhat poetic, but it had been a long few days.
She dug her claws into the twisted frame, lifted the ruined bus above her head with visible effort, and hurled it straight at the motionless Witch.