A place within herself—the all-too-familiar void. Where fear had once gripped Anneliese, only cold detachment remained.

  She moved unhurriedly to her seat before the standing mirror, wary of what was to come. The glass wavered, her reflection distorting before dissolving into the smirking visage of the Ghost King. Youthful and vibrant in this twisted realm, he toyed with his crown in one hand and twirled his dagger in the other—the casual arrogance of a predator savoring its prey.

  “Does my subject come to express her gratitude?” he drawled.

  His taunts barely stirred Anneliese, falling flat against years of pent-up anguish. Slouched in the armchair, weighed down by melancholy exhaustion, she muttered, “I used to fear you. Now it’s just loathing. Like old joints in winter, the pain’s just... there.”

  The ghost-king’s grin widened, taking her scorn as a twisted form of flattery. “Splendid isn’t it. You moving on, taking charge. Do you feel it? That control? Because I do. This journey of ours has been quite... invigorating.”

  He stepped aside, his smirk widening to unveil a grim display—the demon slayer himself, bound and bloodied. Bjarke’s chest heaved with labored breaths, his body battered, his spirit fractured.

  The Ghost King’s dagger hovered at his throat, a whisper away from ending him.

  “A present for my subject,” the king taunted, condescension dripping from every syllable. “Admittedly still alive, but I figure you’ll want to savor it—to truly find closure.”

  He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. “Perhaps a few questions for our dear hunter? Not that he’s much for words, but there’s no harm in asking.”

  Anneliese sat in silence, her gaze fixed on Bjarke as memories surged to the surface—her village swallowed by flames, the screams of the dying tangled in the crackle of burning wood. Yet now, seeing him beaten and bound, tormented by the very hands that had tormented her, she felt no vengeance. Only a deepening disgust. Not just for Bjarke, but for the Ghost King and his manipulative games.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Before she could respond, a new voice rippled through the void. “Lascivious… is that you?”

  The words carried an unsettling warmth, like the whisper of a long-forgotten friend. The Ghost King stiffened, his composure fracturing at the sound of his true name.

  “It’s been sooo long,” the voice hissed, drawing closer.

  The air shifted. Anneliese snapped upright, torn from her loathsome slouch by the sensation of pressure rippling beneath her—a bubbling undercurrent straining against the couch’s leather lining, as though some alien presence was probing for a weakness, ready to rupture into the void.

  For the first time, the Ghost King faltered, his confidence replaced by wariness. Bjarke seizing the moment, twisted his double-jointed arms until loosen ropes gave way to freed hands.

  With a desperate surge, he lunged past the Ghost King toward standing mirror. Finding not a gateway to Annelise’s realm, but the fragile glass pale that shattered to the floor. Fragments scattered like shards of light. The connection between the two voids severed, and the illusion crumbled.

  Light swallowed the darkness, and Anneliese’s wizard state ignited—a cascade of untapped magic ripping her from the void and hurling her onto the cold granite floors of the stronghold. Her breath hitched as she struggled to adjust to the abrupt shift in reality.

  Yet the air offered no reprieve. It pressed in, thick and stifling. A faint hiss echoed through unseen corridors, something massive slithering at the edges of her awareness.

  “Lascivious… don’t be like this,” came the voice again, reverberating through the stone. The walls trembled as the unseen creature dragged its hulking form forward, its weight grinding against the stronghold itself. The ground beneath Anneliese shuddered, dust sifting down from shifting stone.

  “This is my domain. I own my own,” she whispered fiercely, her mind’s eye reaching out to command the stronghold’s structure. She willed the walls to seal, to close off the passages—but something pushed back.

  A foreign resistance. Unyielding. Smothering.

  The air thickened. Behind her, the sound of labored, wet breathing filled the space.

  She turned sharply—only to come face to face with a frantic black wolf.

  Its massive paws scrambled against the ever-shifting stone as it darted from corridor to corridor, ears twitching, tracking something unseen. Then, suddenly, it froze. Its fur bristled, muscles coiled, eyes locked on a dimly lit passage.

  From the shadows, something began to emerge.

  A writhing, amorphous black mass, its presence swallowing the space as it bellowed, crushing everything in its path.

  The wolf’s head snapped back toward Anneliese, its snarl fierce—desperate.

  With a sudden lunge, it knocked her to the cold granite floor, amber eyes flashing toward her neckline.

  Its voice ripped through the chaos, a guttural growl that shattered any illusion of safety.

  “Wake up. WAKE UP!”