Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions-Chapter 367: • She-devil [Bonus Nugget]

• Of all bloody battles of my infernal reign, I truly find the deepest hell in that of tonight — Lilith Firstborn, the Umber dragon.

• 666 DAYS AGO, THE FOURTH MOON, TITANS LANDING

Delilah Manatee, the governess of the Imperial castle had been tasked with a most unlikely duty: the supper of a devil. Her Queen and mistress had commanded it. For this particular devil was no ordinary fiend of the abyss, but the apple of Her Majesty’s eyes. The most feared man of the realms—if such mundane gender could be ascribed to the likes of he.

Delilah heard his kind had shape-shifting abilities, to form, to be birthed in uncanny natures—like that one scarlet woman she’d seen in the Grokain tavern, with the shapely thing between her legs.

In Delilah’s mind though one thing had thus become infallible, which was, that of all the vile minions coughed up by the fiery underworld, this was her favorite devil. So beyond her duty to fetch his supper, she was well honored. In her gathered gait down the polished lodestone steps, she smoothly observed the actions of scullery maids. "The flowers better’d be freshly plucked, ye lot. And make sure the bread’s not burnt and the batter soft, or I’ll be havin’ yer hide when I get back."

She pulled off her drapey coat off a golden hang as one maid hurriedly swept by the colossal brass mantel with a folding of linens nearly taller than she. Delilah remarked upon her. "Yeah, yer arsehole better pucker now than before Him. I hear He can sniff the blood smear off a needle."

With that Delilah turned and headed out the grand double-doors.

He, was coming.

—returning from his blessed trip in the Western country, Rocasus.

He, was the Queen’s lover. And then to two other most disarming madames.

Delilah could not even hope to share a room with Him and not either spontaneously combust in the proximity of his blazing aura, or melt in a puddle of hot woman to his divine nature. Hand to the heavens, Delilah Manatee just wanted to get his supper. And get it right. His supper was to be a willing virgin of the Heathland—with a preferably graceful neck. Her Majesty’s exact words.

The Capital city had not seen of their beloved Anti-Hero since his ambassadorship to Roa; Titans Landing was a live pulse. And even as Delilah’s leather sandals beat the grounds for the open moors, she could trace flickers of lamp light in the immaculate oval windows high on the Queen’s private wing of the Castle. Delilah could hear voices and merry and anticipation on the cold air. The Queen, Angel of the House of the Raven, and her cherished friends: Corazón of the Royal Cavalry, and yet another beautiful creature of Hel, Aya Naamah the Sapphire. All of them, His.

Delilah rushed on her way, tasting the salt and electricity on the breeze. Above her shrouded form, black clouds rolled. It wouldn’t be long now.

Rain.

And what a mighty fall it would be.

But the [Aether] had even more plans for Him tonight. Plans Delilah could not see nor smell as the fucking rain. Plans He too could not scry. For as this dutiful governess hopped across yards and farms, an eerie solitary carriage, drabed in crimson so deep—such that it’d seemed it had just come carting in from a Spartan battlefield—found its way to the foot of the majestic Ivory pillars of the House of the Raven. This deathly wagon keeled at the long steps.

Delilah could not see. Nor discern the omen.

The footmen and Queensguard manning the pillars narrowed their eyes when the macabre little door swung open.

. . .for it was not He.

T’was a woman.

One unflinching baritone boomed forth. "Oi! Lass! Who the shit are ye? ’cuz you are not me Lord, Ser Israfel. And Her Majesty’s not expecting any visitors, especially not tonight."

"A storm’s yonder, yeah," another tall Guard added, "so off with ye." He made a shooing gesture with his armored left hand, not for a moment moving the right clutching to his beam-spear. The occupant of the mysterious carriage: a woman cowled in Spaniards crimson, deep and rich as if blood oozing right out of her in a brash wave made the threads, gently moved forward, her walk creeping up the stones. Her voice slithered, "I am She of whom YOUR QUEEN seeks: the mantis of your cities. Enchantress of the Red Fields. Bane of the Wicca. . . Racquel Serpíente, the Blood Mother."

The Footmen and Guards’ mouths slackened as one.

"Smack me bollocks, mate! It’s the blood-giving whore!"

It was the first Queensguard again. Racquel bit back on her hiss. The men’s jaws were yet agape when she gingerly picked up her hollow skirts, leading her way in. "Shall we then?"

Up above, a fearsome lightning thrashed the Eldorian skies—acidic green.

—THRAAAAP!!!

The mystified protectors of the Queen, stout in their silvery helms and purple capes, were too gobsmacked at the audacity and uncanny beauty of this horrible, bloody woman to notice the little dagger under her sleeve, slowly slicing a path up her milky wrist—

That serpentine blood of hers, notorious for its great occultism, gathering and free-running down her fingers.

SLUSH! SLUSH! SLUSH!

This witch-whore was wanted across the Nine Realms and the Freelands. The officers of the House of the Raven were lost in her surprise, gothic entrance. Same as the stewardship. They failed to notice that she had drawn blood. And the deadly fatality it represented. They mistook her arrival for fortune of the Martyr and not the [Rank S] Devil-level threat Racquel Serpent was literally cooking up her sleeve. Or in this case, bleeding.

The Blood Mother sauntered that dusk into the Royal House like it was a meagre pub on the Rhobine coasts.

Like there was not one hundred and one caped cavalry on the grounds.

A severe underestimation of her witchery.

In the days after this night when bards would sing the legends of Stormanos, they’d rhyme that Racquel Serpent was more than just her evil blood. Her body in itself must’ve been a seductive evil, to have tempted an entire castle into silent hypnosis.

"Will you hold this, darling?" Racquel dropped off her long, floor-creeping, creepy coat into the rigid outstretched arms of a maid. The girl was stiff. She, like everyone else, could not fucking fathom that the ’Blood Mother’ had just walked into her workplace. Her mouth was down to the pristine floors, like, "fuuuuuck!" Racquel stood in place, straight-spined and relaxed in the giant foyer, gesturing—even as she expertly hid out her slashed wrists, "Fetch your Raven, will you?"

She was talking about the Queen.

Normally such disrespect would demand a particular splicing axe and a colossus Executioner.

Normally the royal guard, the cooks, the scullery maids, and ladies-in-waiting will be giving the evil eye to this unsummoned person. But Racquel’s mannerisms, diction, and reverse sanctity had them bewitched. And the woman had not even cast her spell.

"I’ll wait here." Racquel said quietly into the hallowed, candle-glorious hall. She added this to get the girl going.

She gave the foyer a quick sweep. Throats cleared as foggy heads came to. Meeting her bright, swirling crimson pupils, the daze broke from the faces of the bunch. Maids and chaffeurs and guards stirred back to their duties, leaving the astute royal halls stupidly empty. Alone with the gleaming fireplace and chimes of faraway temple bells, Racquel’s red lips split in a cruel smile.

She had reached the crux of her plot.

It was time to summon a Great Devil of the fiery pits.

A she-devil.

Racquel, still smiling, finally released her hands. She opened the cut wrists she had been hiding and let the blood run free.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

It fell first as drops to the polished lodestone of the Castle.

But then with her dagger she opened the gashes wider, not so much as blinking to the pain. She was used to this. Made for this. Her blood was her agency. Her [Bankai].

As more drops of her blood hit the shined floors, a hum began in the air. It wasn’t immediately perceptible to the ear, but soon its vibrations made the candles flicker. The umbras cast by the burning lights—which were nothing unseemly before soon appeared to be as golems rising out of the very stone that made the castle. Dancing shadows. A snarling dark. The skies broke as if in admittance of this eerie aura, and once again furious emerald lightning whipped the obsidian clouds. The tenebrous frights above the castle paled in comparison to the growing smile on the Blood Mother’s scarlet lips. Her ashen face was openly embracing of horror. "It shall not be long now, Mistress," Racquel whispered.

Her blood, now rushing in viscous lines down her torn wrists, made a pool around her pale feet, and coursed on to, of its own form a bright triangle.

Her blood was sentient.

In her bleeding state, almost devoid of sanguine life, Racquel’s lips still rasped, "it shan’t be, my goddess. Lo, the fools are vanished, yes, quietened in the glow of your sacredness through me. Lo, the gift of my body. The blood of this voluptuous vessel. My meek sacrifice, poured out in its torrents. Hark, now goddess, make this castle your temple. This hall, your altar...

This hall, your altar.

This hall, your altar." She chanted.

The thrum in the air grew deafening. Lightnings, colored in hair-raising flashes, thrashed the wet sky. Thunders scattered stones upon the earth. Winds whistled in every direction. Racquel could hear the hounds of the grounds going crazy in their kernels half a mile from her position. She did not stop her chanting but mused upon how the dogs might’ve been the city’s savior tonight. But no. Not with her plan.

The devil she was summoning: her ’mistress’ could not be raised with one less than a twoscore virgins—drained to literal death of their blood. But it was her special bewitching blood that made her worthy for this particular conjuring.

For this was no ordinary [Hellraiser] spell.

No ordinary devil.

Racquel’s Mistress was a Principality. The only female in the [Ninth Circle]—if she could be called that.

The chandelier in the hall suddenly dropped, shattering upon impact. Racquel’s blood swirled into the shards. Every hallowed room of the Castle vibrated visibly now with gothic imbalance.

A [Kaos] energy.

Weird, haphazard lights cascaded in the hall. The candles weren’t even yellow anymore.

It was at the much noise that the Queen and her beloved friends, eagerly awaiting their rugged lover, rushed down into the foyer. Ravenna, Cora, and Aya Naamah widened their eyes as one. But it was Corazón who yelled, "what in the fresh hell is this spooky shit?!"

Her blue eyes strayed to the center of the foyer, the occult blood patterns, and the pale as fuck woman in the middle of it all. Corazón immediately used her [Ghost Eyes].

"Oh hell nah!" She blurted. "That’s that bitch!"

"Where are the Queens-fucking-guard!" Aya surmounted. She and Cora instantly put Ravenna behind, surprising the young Empress with devout love. Inspite of the fact that they all panted after the same man, there was no jealousy between them. Plus, Aya Naamah intrinsically knew her Sire would incinerate Titans Landing if anything happened to his ’little raven’.

’—oh well," Cora tutted, "we’ll handle this bitch ourselves."

Aya’s black horns sprouted horrifyingly as she leaped right off the silver banisters. Cora’s jump was less dramatic; blue revenant light swarmed her mid-lunge.

In that breathless second, Racquel panted her last, "—this hall, your altar."

And the foyer froze in time.

The drops of blood stopped mid-air. The chiming clock careened. Aya and Cora floated fifty feet above the bloodied floors.

Out from the blazing blood triangle, a completely naked Lilith Firstborn arose.

Her ascent was like a ballerina appearing on stage—but without all the clothes. It was Racquel’s blood that coated her skin in defiant rivulets, like sacrilegious tattoos on an errant nun. Stripes of a leopard. Lilith lifted up her eyes, the deep color of amethyst, and as her long infernal hair kissed at her ankles, she curled her lips at the two girls floating above her. A smile blossomed on her face but it was as friendly as that of a crocodile after swallowing a lamb.

Racquel stepped across toward her; she put her dainty feet to the shattered glass, walking on shards that cut into her soles, and if she had any more blood in her she’d bleed. "Mistress," she kneeled on the icicles.

Lilith briefly regarded her worship—as a cow would a fly in passing; the Hel matriarch’s gaze was rooted to the floating girls.

She regarded Corazón and Aya Naamah above with absurd feral delight. She was both mad and merry at the same time, and so devilishly beautiful as she said solemnly,

"I tire of you conniving bitches."

And with a swipe of her hand, the oblong diamond-glass shards of the shattered chandelier rose into the still foyer. The crystals gleamed for the one-thousandth of a second. Lilith moved her hand again and the shards raced for Cora and Aya. Because of the [Chrono Lock], it appeared as though nothing had happened. But then Lilith blinked and time resumed with swift intensity.

SPLAT! TH-THUNK!

Two things happened at the same time.

Cora’s midriff burst outward. Aya’s head hit the floors.

Their stunned bodies fell heavily after.

Ravenna, where she stood, was so disoriented, broken, and mind-flayed at the same time she couldn’t speak. The day she’d dreaded her entire life, ever since dropping rain-wet at a demon Earl’s door had finally come. The deaths of her commune. Murder, murder, her mind screamed. Her body was numb. Her whole life had begun with a devil, and was ending with one. How goth?

The young Empress was open-mouthed over the affair; she hadn’t even seen the kill happen.

Lilith was THAT strong.

She had eviscerated Corazón—a revenant. Decapitated Naamah—a succubus. And she had done it in less than a second, with a smile. Ravenna was wretched within: ’Cora and Aya Naamah put themselves before me. Cora and Aya defended me. Cora and Aya, my sisters. Cora and Aya are dead.’

"There, now my son will have a better surprise when he arrives than whatever you cunts were cooking up." Lilith calmly stepped over their corpses.

One heavy minute passed—an unbelievable one for Ravenna. The doors of the Castle crashed in. With the cold hail of the thunderous night came Israfel Bludthirste. But the demon was two dead girls late.

[A/N: With the sheer influx of comments, I had to write this Chapter. Some might say the kill was too quick. But it’s not that. IT IS rather that Lilith is too strong. Which begs the question: can she die? Spoiler: she did. Refer to Chapter 323: The Umber Dragon. This chap is a flashback. Israfel was not present when Cora and Naamah died, which hurt him even more. He has to visit this memory to heal. But can he, a devil of pure carnage, heal? Or stop running away from the pain to even consider it. Let’s find out.]