Upon regaining consciousness, amidst mental mist and altered perception before her eyes, Tristessa let out a prolonged wail. The back of her head sent unstoppable waves of pain throughout the rest of her skull, and she couldn't do anything about it since her arms were immobilized.

"Oh...?" The girl tugged and pulled down her arms, receiving millions of sharp puncture sensations from cramps and a metallic clinking as a result. A sound she knew perfectly well. "What...?"

They were chains, wrapping around her wrists and reaching the ceiling, leaving her almost on tiptoe. A cruel irony, since those chains weren't going to drag her back in time to start the loop all over again.

She wasn't dead. Her flesh-and-blood body felt the extreme humidity of that room plunged into almost total darkness, with only a power crystal emitting a faint blue glow from a corner of the ceiling. The pain where she'd been hit, her growling stomach, and her dry mouth also contributed to the mundane sensations that still bound her to that life.

A life doomed from the moment she decided that the way out of that loop of blood and Death was by begging Aurelia Eramisaptor for mercy.

"Again... Another failure. That damned soul-shard... The Evil Dream delayed the inevitable. Now the Mercer-Archeos will die... I will die... Again." Her train of thoughts left her with an inner emptiness that she could only fill with anger at herself. For her naivety, for her faith in the judgment of someone she didn't know and was warned about. "Fuck... FUCK!"

Her scream echoed inside that room and beyond, echoing into the distance as if it were a hallway.

Almost instantly, a door well hidden in the darkness opened. The light that entered revealed that the girl was no longer wearing her trench coat. Her white shirt was dirty and stained with sweat, and her pants were covered in dirt and dried terrdrak's blood.

That light briefly blinded Tristessa, forcing her to squint for a moment.

"Ah, that soul... Finally. I've longed for you to wake up."

She heard an unnatural female voice from within that light, so deep and guttural that Tristessa's heart lurched with a sudden surge of dread.

"W-who are you...?"

Her worst fears were realized when the door closed and she saw, among the shadows, that silhouette dressed in black and wearing a white mask with a dark bird drawn on its right side.

"No, please..." she thought, cursing the fate that had brought her to this unfamiliar place. "Why her?"

"You can call me Stormcrow. After the species of bird that inhabits the Dominion of Stormfall."

Of course it was that Wraith... The one she'd killed from behind and resurrected with her [Divinity of Accursed Existence]. That woman with that mask, eyeholes saturated with supernatural darkness, and had no openings for her mouth or nose.

Even so, the Imperial assassin's voice sounded clear and demonic, filled with intentions that couldn't be good.

"[Stranger]... As I said, I've been waiting for you to wake up," she heard her say. "For now, there's no one here. Just you and me... And that means I have you all to myself."

"W-what?!"

She detected a hint of excitement, mingling with the sinister sounds emanating from within her mask. Letting Tristessa know she had to prepare for something almost as terrifying as Death.

"Shall I tell you a secret?" Stormcrow asked, not waiting for an answer as she began to pace around Tristessa. Slowly, her footsteps almost making no sound against the damp floor, ensuring the chills that gripped her captive remained. "The Goddess Xiliarra blessed me with a very particular Divinity of Life… It's called the [Divinity of the Evil Eye]. I can detect Discord in dark souls with more ease and intensity than normal."

Stormcrow leaned her head over Tristessa's shoulder and whispered with the sweetness of a poisoned apple offered by a witch:

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"If there is anything in this world that stimulates all my instincts, it is the intensity of the Discord I receive through my Divinity. Souls abounding in Darkness give me great pleasure..."

"..."

The young woman made no comment, her will to speak or scream robbed by the halo of hopelessness that fell over her.

"From the moment I felt all this Discord surrounding you... Oh, from the moment I was able to envelop my soul with your essence..."

Behind her, Tristessa felt the sharp nails of that assassin, running up and down. Slow, gentle, erotic. Grazing the surface of her linen shirt, scraping and barely reaching her epidermis. Deep chills, the kind that leave their mark on the deepest confines of one's being.

"I've never felt anything like this before. You must understand that I'm controlling myself, because I want to do many things to you... Outrageous and unethical things."

Her breathing, blocked by her porcelain mask, emitted a phantom aura against the back of her neck. Triggering a chill of fear, combined with the pain left by the weapon of Aurelia Eramisaptor.

"I want to kidnap you. Take you to a place where no one can find us. I want to feel your naked body against mine, feel your Discord embracing my spirit as you and I become one. I want you to be all mine... Mine and no one else's."

Whispers so sweet they were sickening, like the temptation of a demon of lust. A succubus in rapture, only that this one was human and used a mask to hide her own mortality.

"P-please..." Tristessa begged, crying and so scared that she found it difficult to breathe or speak.

"Please what, lass?"

"Kill me."

From the infinite vortex of her mind flowed a vile darkness that refused to see the outside, bubbling and smelling of noxious poison. It announced, it warned, that dying was an infinitely better option than remaining there and being subdued to that fiend...

"…That would be too easy, and I would be left empty-handed," she purred with sadism in her voice, making the gray-eyed girl tremble with no control over her limbs. "Are you afraid? That only makes you emanate more Discord... You'll make me lose my mind."

Behind her, Stormcrow began running her fingers down the sides of her torso, starting at her waist and delicately moving upwards, feeling her meager muscle mass and ribs. Those black, claw-like nails grazed the sides of her breasts, her shirt the only barrier between them.

"You drive me crazy, lass. Seriously, I feel like I'll go insane in here with you. To others, your dark soul is repugnant and undesirable, but to me, all that Discord that composes it is so... so... so delicious...!"

Tristessa shook, desperate, but the chains wouldn't budge one bit. She was trapped, at the mercy of that terrifying woman.

"You killed Auron, you almost killed me, you almost killed us all." Her thoughts were racing, escaping that horrifying reality. The threshold to madness. "You killed Auron... Auron, poisoned because of you. Because of me..."

She wanted to throw up. She wanted her stomach, burning with flames, to burst out of her throat. She wanted to die.

"Kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me...kill me…"

Stormcrow chuckled. Quietly, with no intention of stopping.

"I don't mind if you cry your eyes out... Your suffering makes your soul taste so much better. And it makes me want you so much more... Ah, I want you, Stranger. No... Tristessa Irandell."

Her hands caressed her belly, her waist, and her fingers toyed with going lower, feigning indecision… Tristessa could feel her excited, frantic breathing inside the mask, charged with lust, unlike the hyperventilation that overwhelmed her and sought to crush her lungs to oblivion.

"No training prepared me for such a circumstance. Everything I trained for, everything I gave up to be an Imperial Assassin… I'm about to throw it all away, and my cursed soul will fall into the Abyss for an eternity of suffering."

At that erotic contact, the ocean of stagnant waters within Tristessa's soul was about to overflow and shatter her mind into a million pieces. The memories hidden in those depths that light could not reach, promising a descent into madness that only Death and Resurrection could heal.

Her heart was about to explode inside her chest when the door suddenly opened again, and Stormcrow was forced to step back, releasing her from her torment.

"Interrogating the prisoner, Wraith?" Through the light, the stern and unmistakable voice of Aurelia Eramisaptor rang out. A paradox Tristessa experienced as she felt relieved by the presence of the one who was most likely to be her future executioner. "Leave, before I sever your cursed head off."

"…of course, Lady Eramisaptor."

The lust was gone from Stormcrow's voice, and she obediently walked toward the door with both hands behind her back. But not before bowing to the silhouette standing in the doorway, enveloped in the light coming from the hallway.

The door closed, and the figure of the ruler of End-World came into view. Beautiful, long black hair contrasting with the darkness of the cell thanks to its bluish hue. Those violet eyes that paralyzed hearts with their deadly beauty. A powerful presence, even without her weapon in sight and without Mystia's presence.

That woman emanated an aura of absolute respect. The aura of a Lady, authority throughout the Dominion.

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