Damon advanced.

He wasn't walking—it was as if he were being dragged by the very flow of the aura. Each step scratched the ground, leaving scorched marks that opened like wounds in the earth. His laughter reverberated through the trees, distorted, half human, half something that shouldn't exist. A mixture of ecstasy and madness.

"I finally understand..." His voice was deep, reverberating as if coming from many places at once. "That was true... the strongest survive."

The elf tried to retreat, but there was no space, no time. The entire world seemed pulled toward the center, toward that demon advancing like a storm of fire and blood.

Damon raised his spear. The blow was neither refined nor elegant. It was raw, savage, charged with the force of a primordial hatred. The blade pierced his enemy's chest with a dull crack.

But it didn't end there.

The energy pulsing from Damon coursed through the weapon like lightning. The elf's body trembled, his veins glowing scarlet like magma cracks beneath his skin. He tried to scream, but his mouth only expelled incandescent blood before his entire body shattered in a grotesque explosion—flesh, bone, and ash flung into the air like fragments from a macabre bonfire.

And then, silence.

Not even the crows dared caw. Not even the wind dared stir the leaves.

Damon remained standing, panting, covered in blood and soot. His eyes burned red and gold, and his skin trembled as if something inside him was trying to escape. His body teetered between ecstasy and collapse.

Behind him, the scene was a trail of destruction: broken trees, red-stained snow, mangled corpses.

Ester approached.

His ice blade had already vanished, his arm returning to human form. Fresh blood spattered her pale face, and her blue hair, streaked with purple and red, fluttered in the wind. She showed no surprise. There was no horror, no shock, not even admiration. Only coldness.

She watched him fall to his knees. His body still convulsed in small spasms, his chest heaving for air like someone drowning on dry land.

"Breathe," she said, dry but firm, as if ordering a soldier to regain his bearings. "Don't fight it. Or you will be consumed."

Damon looked up.

The monstrous smile was gone. In its place was only a raw expression—a lost child who didn't understand the weight of what he had done. His gaze trembled, unable to hold the force of hers.

"I... I killed them..." His voice trailed off, a broken whisper. "Esther... I killed them..."

She crouched before him, the shadow of her presence falling over him like a blade. With a cold hand, she lifted his face by his jaw, forcing him to look at her.

Her blue eyes blazed, implacable.

"Yes," she said, and the word sounded like a verdict. "And it will be so from now on."

The silence fell heavier than ever. The smell of blood, iron, and snow dominated everything. The scattered corpses were the only witnesses to what had become an execution.

Ester rose slowly, releasing his face as if releasing a chain.

"Prove yourself always," she said, her back to him. "Or die."

Damon knelt, trembling, his aura flickering around him like embers that didn't know whether to extinguish or ignite the world. The fear was still there, but now there was something more.

Something that burned beneath his skin.

It wasn't just hatred. It wasn't just survival. It was thirst.

Ester walked toward the road, her step calm, indifferent, as if the death around her were just another landscape. Blood still dripped from her stained hair, a brutal contrast against the cold blue of her locks.

Behind her, Damon lifted his bloodstained face. His lips trembled... and then curved into a laugh.

This time, it wasn't hysterical. It wasn't fear. It was low, hoarse, drawn-out... the laugh of someone who had tasted death—and discovered they wanted more.

It wasn't outrageous, nor insane. It was dense, as if it came from a cavern deep in Damon's chest.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to contain it, but the sound leaked out anyway, vibrating between his bloodstained teeth. His shoulders shook, not with hysteria, but with a strange, stifled delight.

Ester stopped a few steps away, but didn't immediately turn around. The wind lifted the blue strands of her hair, stained purple and red, and her silhouette seemed silhouetted by the mist.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, his voice emotionless.

Damon gulped air as if he were drowning again. His hands trembled, still smeared with viscera, and he looked at them as if they belonged to someone else.

The laughter stopped suddenly, replaced by a low murmur:

"I... liked it."

The words came out like a confession, laced with shame and desire at the same time. His eyes, still glowing red and gold, reflected the scarlet-tinged snow.

Ester then turned. Slowly.

Her gaze rested on him like a blade on flesh: cold, precise, inevitable. There was no judgment there, no compassion. Just confirmation.

"Of course you liked it," he said, raising an eyebrow, his voice as calm as steel. "Demons don't feed only on carnal pleasure. They also drink from death."

Damon clenched his fists, trembling. "But... it wasn't just that..." His breath hitched, his voice cracking. "I watched them die, Ester. Garrick... Caelan... and now..." He raised his stained hand, as if he could rip the memory from his skin. "I killed them. I... I blew that bastard up like he was nothing. And... and... inside me... I don't just feel horror."

His eyes filled with red tears.

"I wanted more."

A heavy silence fell between them.

Ester walked toward him, each step measured, the sound of her boots crunching on the blood-stained snow. When she reached him, she crouched down again, bringing herself to his level.

"Then accept it," she said, her voice firm, sharp as cracking ice. "What you are cannot be denied. Denying it will only tear you apart from the inside until there's nothing left but a mindless animal."

She touched his chest with two fingers, right in the center, where his aura pulsed in waves.

"Control this. Master it. Make it your weapon. Or..." Her eyes flashed, icy and relentless. "You will be crushed by your own hunger."

Damon shivered at the contact, breathing deeply. His skin burned beneath her cold touch, and a wave of unstable energy coursed through him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the whirlwind of feelings: guilt, thirst, fear, pleasure.

When he opened them again, the red light still burned. But there was something new.

A focus.

Ester rose effortlessly, turning her back again, resuming her calm pace down the snow-covered road.

"Get up, Damon," she said, without looking back. "You have two choices: crawl like a weak human or walk like the demon you are."

Damon remained on his knees for a few more seconds, his chest heaving, his fingers digging into the cold snow. The laughter had faded, but its echo still vibrated in his chest.

Slowly, he leaned on the spear stuck in the ground and stood up. His eyes, still wet, reflected the bloodstains scattered throughout the forest.

He took the first step behind her.

And, in the back of his mind, a voice whispered—not Esther's, not any enemy's, but his own:

"I want to feel this again."

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