A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Immediately, time slowed for Erik. His omnisense unfurled, stretching out across the battlefield, revealing every detail in painstaking clarity.

Each droplet of sweat on Emily's brow, every crackling spark of dark green energy forming in the possessed man's hand, and the slow, sinister swirl of another dark green puddle manifesting behind his dark sorceress of a wife—all of it etched into his awareness.

Emily's eyes widened in alarm, her own omnisense screaming warnings. Her lips pulled back in a snarl as she began to turn, darkness surging to her call. Dark tendrils writhed around her, but they were surprisingly threaded with crimson veins of corruption—a dangerous sign.

But Erik could see it; she wouldn't turn in time.

In front of him, Lilith had just disappeared through her own portal, leaving behind only some last sneered taunts that Erik no longer paid any attention to. The portal immediately closed behind her.

All of this happened around him in slow motion while his gaze was focused solely on the possessed man in front of him. The fairy-controlled man, who was about to do who knew what to his wife… and so, he didn't hesitate.

Power surged, cataclysmic and undeniable. The air crackled as lightning arced across the battlefield. Space warped, temperatures plummeting as frost and flurries of thundersnow blanketed the desert sands. A sound like shattering glass reverberated and overlapped.

A sickening crunch followed, accompanied by an explosive spray of blood and viscera. Time snapped back to normal as the remnants of both Erik's and the fairy's barriers dissolved into glittering shards. Erik now stood further ahead, steam rising from his battered form. His claws dripped crimson, the remains of the man's head reduced to pulp.d turned to mulch.

Beside him, Elora and Emma had appeared. They stood frozen, wide-eyed and breathless.

At the same time, Emily had finished turning around, but now faced a flickering, unstable portal rather than a finished one. Yet, it wasn't long before it formed completely. Erik's unexpected strike had caused the fairy to be distracted, but since the man Erik killed wasn't even her real host, it had just delayed her.

Suddenly, a dark, likely underground facility came into view. A handsome, middle-aged man with cruel eyes and a wicked smile stood just on the other side of the portal, extending his hand towards her. If this person's physical strength was anything like Lilith's, there was no way Emily would be able to resist him.

At least… such would have been the case if Erik hadn't caused the portal's creation to be delayed.

Emily just barely managed to face the portal in time. She looked at the arm reaching out towards her with disdain, hatred, and sadness. The corrupted darkness billowing around her surged forward, accompanied by Emily's cries of defiance and excitement. "Nice try! Now suffer for it!"

At first, the man looked disdainful, but as soon as the strange darkness touched his skin, his expression changed. The man's smugness dissolved as Emily's corrupted shadows coiled around his arm. His face twisted in agony, mouth open in a soundless scream as tendrils of darkness latched onto his skin, burning and corroding. His arm jerked back, but Emily was relentless.

Sound may not be able to travel through this portal, but Emily's darkness could.

Even with the man's retreat, Emily continued producing pure darkness with dark red streaks, and it kept flowing into the portal. At the same time, Emily's laughter became a little more unhinged, and the crimson grooves in her black eyes pulsed.

"Emily! Stop!"

Suddenly, she heard the voice of a man she'd already conditioned herself to obey instinctively. Blinking, the madness in her eyes retreated, and the darkness stopped flowing. At the same time, she finally noticed her surroundings. The darkness she'd been creating had not only flowed into the portal but her surroundings as well.

It was starting to threaten her allies. Explore more at My Virtual Library Empire

As soon as the billowing stopped, a determined Elora flew over, just above the darkness and the portal, before using her own Seidr magic to envelop the portal in dark green magic. Sweat tricked on her brow as she pitched her own magic against that of their enemy in an attempt to force the portal to close.

Meanwhile, Emily looked at her own hands with a hint of confusion. Just as with Katya's brother back in England, she'd reacted on instinct as soon as she was in danger and drew upon powers she barely understood or controlled. "A corrupted core…" she muttered to herself, remembering what Elora had called it.

She wasn't sure how to feel about it. It obviously increased her power, but she also easily lost control of herself because of it. Both times, only Erik had snapped her out of it.

Yet, she didn't have much time to think about it. With her sanity restored, she realized everyone around her was busy with something else: Erik.

Just before, after Erik had mushed the possessed man's head, and while Emily was dealing with her attacker, Erik was dealing with the consequences of his actions… because there was really only one way he could have accomplished what he did: by flooding his body with Elorium.

As soon as his target was dead, Erik stopped moving. For a moment, he looked fine. Two moments. Then, he fell.

Where moments ago he stood tall and unyielding, now his armour buckled under the strain of his body betraying him. His form spasmed violently, grotesquely, as skin split open, bones cracked, and flesh tore. His helmet obscured his face, but the guttural snarl of agony that escaped him cut through everyone present as he fell face-first into the blood-soaked desert sand.

"Erik!" Astrid, Emma, and Elora screamed in unison.

His face was still fully obscured by the helmet, so no one could see for sure what the damage was, but no more sounds came out of him… and Eira was panicking. Her medium lay in tatters, but she didn't care. Frantically, she engaged whatever healing sigils there were still intact.

Meanwhile, Erik's consciousness was rapidly fading, but he used his last moments to check up on Emily and ensure that his efforts bore fruit. The last thing he did before darkness took him… was stop her from invalidating his efforts.