Chapter 44 – Black Vespers
The arrow came before the sound did.
It tore through the air like a whisper turned scream, a jagged spear of pure heat and velocity.
Space buckled around it.
Lazaro couldn’t see it. But felt it—
a pressure drop,
a shift in time,
a breath too late.
He twisted, coat whipping as the arrow passed a hair’s breadth from his face,
grazing the skin just enough to draw out the blood.
“...Too slow now, are we?” he murmured.
The archer didn’t speak.
Her eyes were glassy, distant, high on the third dose—her pupils were dilated, and blood vessels cracked.
The bow was no longer a weapon. It was an extension of her rage.
She pulled back again.
Lazaro snapped two fingers. The world staggered.
Gravity bent sideways, time stopped.
The arrow launched—and froze, hovering like a blade waiting to fall.
He spread his arms, palms open,
dragging force fields from the ether, and then spun,
tossing the arrow back with even more force.
Then she moved. Faster.
No hesitation.
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Three more arrows released at once, each coated with something destructive.
They sang as they pierced through warped air, leaving behind a white trail of air.
Lazaro ducked, rolled, the arrows exploded into the surroundings.
He kicked himself off the ground.
And landed—bending the ground inward from the force. The archer lost her footing, but then.
Above him.
Ash.
No—Asmodeus.
She descended like a curse. A blade in her hand that wasn’t hers.
But His.
The Ancient Weapon pulsed with a malignant light, wrapped in ghostfire, coiled with red veins of death.
It had chosen her—or corrupted her.
Same thing, Belphegor thought.
Ash’s eyes glowed with an unnatural scarlet, her veins darkened like, ink spilled over porcelain.
Her smile was crooked, and wrong.
She lunged, and the world was left behind.
Lazaro blocked. Just barely.
The impact sent him skidding backward, boots digging trenches into the frozen field.
His arms bled from the impact.
She didn’t pause. And blurred.
Another strike—then a third—then twenty. All within an instant.
Each hit reeked of delusion.
He saw things—shadows, enemies, and his own corpse.
Then came the others.
Two figures landed beside Ash.
Chain-wielder variants, each with their own grotesque signature: one with a staff-blade, spinning it like a possessed monk; one with crescent sabers chained to their arms like pendulums;
They hesitated, then nodded.
And came together.
Lazaro grinned. Just a little. His frame bleeding from all the strikes.
“Alright then,” he said.
“Let’s see what a lazy man can do when pushed.”
He snapped.
And gravity inverted.
The sky pulled downward. The snow lifted in pillars. The world flipped inside out.
He rushed forward—not away. Into them. Almost resembling light.
Ash met him mid-air.
Belphegor spun.
They collided. And vanished in force.
Below them, the earth cracked again.
Another ripple. Another crack in the ice spanning a mile.
The archer fired through the chaos. Her arrow spiralled, catching light, cutting colors.
It reached him.
But it stopped.
And then exploded.
End of Chapter 44 – Black Vespers
