Chapter 4: The Tea That Doomed the World - 4
The last intact jar on Rein's shelf cracked down the middle.
A fine dusting of dried wildmint drifted down like ash as the cottage groaned, bent inward by the force of whatever she had just become.
Rein stared, unmoving.
Asmodra, Demon Lord of Crimson Flame and Queen of the Burning Legion, hovered in the heart of his home with a look on her face that said "worship me" "Sell me your soul" just as clearly as it said "touch me again and I'll never let you leave."
She raised her arms.
The thorned vines that had burst from the floor obeyed instantly—wrapping around the cottage's wooden beams, lacing the walls like hungry serpents, pulsing with red-hot veins of fire.
Rein's humble home was becoming... something else.
No—someone else's.
Why the hell did he help her.
The table where he mixed his tinctures shattered beneath the weight of an altar-like slab of obsidian.
His ceiling stretched upward, impossibly high, vanishing into an illusion of crimson sky.