Vanessa merely glanced at the four Dukes and the Higher Greater Demon on his knees behind them. However, this time, before they could even utter another disrespectful word towards her master, they exploded. Giving form to the resonant sound of five consecutive booms.

Which were silent, suppressive, yet deep. Like the last throbs of a beating heart. The fragmented fleshy parts of their bodies flying meters away, painting the molten ground in a sight of macabre gore.

The scene was nothing short of morbid and stomach runching.

As for the unquiet crowd, which was eagerly waiting to see a fantastic battle, initially between the Higher Greater Demons and afterwards between the gathered Dukes, they were so flabbergasted by the unexpected ending, that they had even failed to register the deaths of the four Dukes.

The psychological impact of watching actual Dukes dying just like that, without being able to do anything whatsoever, wasn't something their mortal brains could process or take. In actuality, they even found everything to be unreal.

As though, a distasteful joke played by reality itself.

Nonetheless, it didn't take long for the comprehension to hit their malfunctioning brains, which instantly shivered when the disbelief settled in and thus began thoroughly overwhelming them.

However, when the previous shock hadn't even faded, happened something which none of them could ever forget in their entire lives.

The silence was piercing and stifling, yet was broken, from the snapping motion of Vanessa's fingers.

*Snap!!~~* ...

The sound was inconsequential, like the shattering of a simple glass but the impact was monumental, like something vast and life-altering, literally.

The transparent energy waves pervaded the space; they had no reflection so to speak. More specifically, the energy was incapable of reflecting light or in other words, the light passed through the energy without scattering or getting absorbed by it.

Thus the energy, held no color to itself!...

Despite that it wasn't imperceptible, even to the mortal eyes, it could be easily seen. Considering, even aside from potential distortion due to refraction, if something not reflecting light comes into a space reflecting light, than of course, an ultimate boundary between the two would be created and those accentuating outlines was what made the energy perceivable to normal eyes despite being transparent.

The energy was heavy, evoking a sense of awe and dread from all those who merely saw it, since none dared attempted, sense it, on feeling the unknown instinct that they knew they even had, warning them not to.

Whereas, the metaphysical energy on the other hand, in a noiseless slithering motion; surrounded, encircled, enveloped, and enclosed around the fragmented bodies of the four Dukes, devouring them in moments, only to instantly divide into four different parts, one which wriggled like a liquid containing life.

Gradually, which were nothing but five seconds, the four divided parts of the mysterious energy begun their transformation from a metaphysical, spiritual and abstract state to a material, physical and liquefied state. Where the wriggling and rippling motion began even more prominent to the common eyes.

The energy even after devouring the four Dukes had still remained in the same transparent state, but after changing its state of matter and getting compressed into a bolb like shape, it had instead become translucent from transparent.

The four head sized and bolb shaped energy balls. levitated a meter above the cracked ground of the city square. Flickering with high-frequency and low-density energy waves that directly penetrated the soul of every demon currently in or around the whole of Erythron.

However thankfully, this mysterious energy which was the bane and boon of every Soul, Soul Quintessence and True Soul, wasn't harmful to any lifeforms, so long as the one commanding it didn't want it to. Therefore, no one in Erythron would ever know that their souls were mere moments away from getting annihilated for good.

Not like, the poor mortals could've done anything even if they knew.

Meanwhile, on the tenth second the four energy bolbs had already shrunk to some hand-sized balls with their translucency having increased by ten folds, but on the eleventh second, the calm wriggling motion of these bolbs suddenly stopped altogether.

Only to start again on the twelfth second with a chaotic intensity which kept on increasing till the fifteenth second and in these three seconds, the bolbs even started to emit a deep black light of their own which also kept on increasing in intensity correspondingly with the rippling motion of the bolbs.

On the sixteenth second, the deep blackness had become so much, that it actually created a several meters wide black void, like an emptiness in the square itself, which again was nothing but an illusion.

Like an empty zone where the light that entered merely morphed into an absolute darkness, one which came from something beyond profane perception.

Meaning what happened inside was seen by none.

Nonetheless, on the twentieth second echoed the thudding sounds of something hitting the cracked ground. Moreover, this sound didn't come alone, rather it was also accompanied by a few disgruntled and confused grunts which literally made the chills crawl down the many spines.

The next second, the darkness abruptly vanished from the space, like the thick mist before a morning sun. And in came the unbelievable sight of the once exploded Dukes. No, they weren't dead nor was their bodies scattered in fleshy fragments, rather, though sprawled on the ground; they couldn't look more alive. As with wobbly steps they tried to get back onto their feets.

Their confused and dumbfounded expressions were clear for everyone to see. Yet, none amongst the public was in a state of mind to inform them bewildered Dukes of what just had happened to them.

Than again, it was reasonable too, as every one would get dumb after watching literal deads coming back to life.

Although, the mortals had heard about the Revival of Dead; some had even watched it and some had even performed it themselves, however in all this, it was only ever limited to bringing a dead back to life as a mindless undead and not as a perfectly fine; living, breathing and alive demon.

It was outright absurd, something which they had only ever heard about in old stories, forgotten tales, past myths and other stuff, things which no one ever believed in. Since, no matter where one was, death was absolute; and cheating it, either by choice or not ment paying a steep price. Which most often than not, would be once freedom or his very soul.

And that world view of theirs was broken in simple 20 seconds, by a mere snap of a woman's fingers.

The illogical and preposterousness of the event, one which went against the very nature of cosmic Laws and the common sense towards death, they just witnessed could be understood by this.

Meanwhile Vanessa, as it seemed, wasn't done with the Dukes just yet.

Whereas Demon, with his arms crossed firmly over his chest, also did not stop her from venting her frustrations on these mortals. As he was well aware that in his maids eyes even the ants who were audacious before and disrespectful towards him, weren't allowed to live.

His lips curled into a one soft smile. Gaze calm, merely watching in amusement.

Vanessa, with calm steps began walking towards the revived Dukes, who after getting on their feets, immediately growled with displeased expressions. Naturally, feeling unamused and distasteful towards the disbelieving expressions on the mortal faces.

One of them noticing Vanessa's advancing figure. Questioned. "You woman, what did you do to us? And what was that darkness around us just now? How come we were on the ground? And why are these mortals acting so unusually?"

The Duke demanded answers. His voice loud and thunderous. To which, Vanessa merely smiled, but that only made the already displeased Dukes even more displeased.

"Alright fine!... "

Eeynthoz Zelythron nodded. Also smiling, but his smile was a cruel one. "If you don't wanna speak... " He added. His head tilted. The Darkness Energy powered by his Law comprehension materializing around him. Where a portion took a material and a physical form, morphing into a two meters long dark claymore, while another portion in its metaphysical form, flowed throughout him, enhancing him physically and spiritually, both in defense and offence but the augmentation was obviously focused on the latter aspect.

Eeynthoz pointed the tip of his blade towards Vanessa. His lips spreading into a malicious grin. "Than I'll simply make sure to make you such that you'll never be able to speak—ever again... "

"My!.. I feel so afraid~ "

*Boom!!~~* ...

The Duke's head exploded, spraying the warm blood all over the three and the surroundings. The headless body hitting the ground with a deep thud. Which provided enough stimulation to their minds, to finally make the three register the impact of what they just witnessed.

"Huh!... "

"What!?"

"..."

The three Dukes turned towards Vanessa, still unable to grasp the heads or tails of what just happened, but as their eyes landed on her calm smile, out of the blue, a chill ran through their very nerves. They involuntarily took a step back with their heart beats going erratic, palpatating the next moment.

As the smile, though kind and calm in appearance; couldn't be far from it in reality, it was the most evil, a smile of pure malice, one so disturbing that they had never seen a smile like hers which influenced and played with their emotions even without doing anything, in their entire thousand on thousands of years long life.

Henceforth began there nightmare, one that everyone watched. The Dukes were killed, one by one, even in the most simple and painless manner. However, it wasn't once that they were killed- no! Their deaths continued endlessly, though in reality they were only killed three times but in the darkness, they had died so many time, all in the very ways they dreaded the most, over and over and over again that they couldn't even remember anymore, how many times.

The experience was pure hellish and violent.

The trauma and the psychological impact started building up from the third death when they finally realized what sick game was being played on them.

Regardless, they weren't strong enough to do anything, they were killed only for them to revive and die again but then revive again.

Even more interesting was the fact that the four Dukes didn't know that they were actually experiencing this Hell of endless deaths in but a mere illusion playing in their own mindscape because the one responsible for this saw them as unworthy of even getting tortured by her.

However, every time their Wills cracked because of the ever consuming despair, terror, hopelessness or any other negative emotion, Vanessa had already etched the runes in their souls that would heal them in seconds. Considering, she obviously didn't want to obliterate their Wills and make them something akin to breathing empty living shells.

Anyways, after the three real deaths, which took her only about a minute, Vanessa finally stopped and returned back to her master with that same calm smile.

Yet she also didn't forget to completely erase all the four Dukes memories of the deaths they experienced in the illusion while still keeping the memories of the three real deaths perfectly intact. Obviously because if the memories were there than they would've lost all meaning to their lives.

And with that their only purpose too. As how can the seed find nourishment in something which had already died, thus had no negative thoughts and emotions to feed on... ... ... ... ...

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

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