Chapter 240: Elizabeth solved the problems.

But you touched what belongs to me.

The sentence wasn’t uttered with explosive fury.

It was worse.

It was uttered with conviction.

The hooded woman tried to speak—perhaps to plead, perhaps to lie—but the words never came out. The shadow at her feet detached itself from the ground like living pitch, rising up her legs, enveloping her waist, her chest, her throat. She tried to pull the hood back, perhaps hoping to reveal a human face, something that would evoke mercy.

Elizabeth had none.

The darkness tightened.

Her bones began to crack one by one, not all at once, but slowly—first her fingers, bending backward; then her wrists; her elbows breaking with a damp sound; her ribs sinking inward as if invisible hands were crushing a ripe fruit. The scream finally came out—thin, torn—before the pressure completely collapsed her chest. Blood trickled from her mouth in thick streams before her entire body was compressed until it became something unrecognizable on the floor.

Elizabeth was already walking.

Two assassins, positioned at the side of the hall, managed to activate a containment device—chains of blue energy shot from the ceiling and walls, converging on her in a complex geometric pattern. The seal closed with a luminous bang, trapping her within a prison of arcane light.

For a split second, there was hope in their eyes.

Then the light began to dim.

It wasn’t broken.

It was contaminated.

The blue turned purple. The purple turned black. And then the chains began to rust in the air, as if decades were passing in a single breath. They shattered into fragments that fell like ashes.

Elizabeth raised her hand.

The blood splattered on the floor responded.

It moved.

As if it were alive.

Crimson rivulets rose from the scattered puddles, snaking through the air in liquid whips that pierced the chests of the two men simultaneously. They looked down, incredulous, before the blood that pierced them began to expand within them—swelling beneath the skin, tearing muscles, bursting eyeballs.

They exploded in a hot rain that painted the walls.

Those further back finally broke the stupor of terror and ran.

Side doors were opened. Evacuation signals were shouted. One group descended a spiral staircase leading to the lower levels of the facility. Another tried to reach a corridor leading to the armory.

Elizabeth closed her eyes.

She felt every heartbeat.

Every desperate breath.

She disappeared.

In the armory corridor, three assassins ran side by side when the lighting failed. The magic torches went out at once, plunging the space into absolute darkness.

Something landed behind them. They turned.

Red eyes.

That’s all.

Then the wings opened within the narrow corridor—not colossal in size as in the sky, but compressed, dense, made of pure solid night. The sharp wingtips slid along the stone walls, cutting like blades.

She advanced.

The first was split in two diagonally; the second lost his head before even understanding the movement; the third tried to throw himself to the ground—a black claw pierced his back, exited through his abdomen, and lifted him into the air for an instant, struggling, before being hurled against the wall with enough force to turn bones to dust.

On the lower staircase, the fugitives heard the impacts above.

They ran faster.

One of them began to chant a spell of total concealment, sacrificing part of his own vitality to erase his magical presence.

Elizabeth appeared before them on the last step.

The spell ended.

He smiled.

She tilted her head.

“You think,” she murmured, “you can hide from the night itself?”

The shadows from the ceiling descended like spears.

They didn’t pierce immediately.

First, they restrained.

Arms and legs were immobilized, pinned against the walls. One of the men shouted for someone to do something—anything—but no one could even move a finger.

Elizabeth walked between them.

She touched the chest of the one closest.

And pulled.

Not flesh.

Not clothing.

She pulled his shadow.

She ripped it from his body as if peeling off skin. The black silhouette was extracted in a dry tear, and with it came something deeper—vitality, essence, soul. The body instantly turned pale, withered, the eyes losing focus before falling inert.

She released the torn shadow.

It dissolved.

One by one, she did the same.

Until only one remained.

He trembled so much that his teeth chattered loudly in the silence of the underground.

“W-who… who paid for this wasn’t—”

She crossed the space and gripped his jaw.

Not with immediate brutality.

With control.

“You weren’t important enough to know,” she said softly.

Her hand clenched.

His head shattered like pottery under crushing pressure.

Silence.

The main hall was covered in bodies.

But there were still levels below.

Hidden chambers.

Laboratories.

Torture chambers.

Elizabeth descended.

In a secluded room, three alchemists worked frantically to destroy documents and records of the contract. Papers were thrown into an enchanted furnace. Vials were broken.

The door behind them didn’t open.

It simply ceased to exist.

Elizabeth entered.

They turned.

She raised her arm.

The furnace fire surged out of her like a living serpent, enveloping the three men. But it didn’t burn them immediately. First, it warmed them. Their skin began to bubble. Blisters appeared on their faces, arms, and necks. They screamed as the fat beneath their skin began to melt.

Then the fire intensified.

The screams ceased as her vocal cords were charred.

The smell of burning flesh filled the chamber.

She walked through the ashes.

Further on, a final group barricaded themselves in a room reinforced with black metal and anti-teleportation seals.

They believed they were safe.

The door began to vibrate.

One knock.

Two.

On the third, she was shoved inside as if she were made of paper.

Elizabeth didn’t run.

She walked as enchanted arrows, poisoned darts, and magical blasts were fired at her. Everything disintegrated inches from her skin, consumed by the aura that enveloped her.

She opened her arms.

The shadows of the entire room rose.

Not just theirs.

Those of the tables.

Of the chairs.

Of the walls themselves.

They transformed into blades.

And then they descended.

It wasn’t a clean death.

It was a massacre.

Bodies were sliced ​​in multiple directions, limbs severed from torsos, heads rolling across the metallic floor as blood ran in thick waves through the floor’s grooves. One man tried to crawl even without legs—his shadow transformed into a gigantic jaw and ripped the rest of his torso from his chest.

When it was all over, pieces were scattered like the remains of a profane ritual.

Elizabeth stood in the center.

Breathing slowly.

The smell of iron and death saturated the air.

She closed her eyes for a moment.

She felt.

No heartbeat remaining.

No hostile intent.

The Shadow Guild of Akalizeht had ceased to exist in that facility.

She opened her eyes.

The fury still burned.

But now it was contained.

Controlled.

She dissolved into a cloud of bats, abandoning the silent fortress—leaving behind only ruins, blood, and the clearest message that could be sent to the underworld:

Whoever touches what is hers…

Does not survive to tell the tale.

…

The smell of smoke still hung heavy in the air when the scene returned to the mansion. The once immaculate marble of the entrance was cracked and stained with dried blood; partially destroyed columns supported what remained of the ceiling, and pieces of wood and stone were scattered as if a hurricane had decided to sweep through the main hall just to prove a point. In the midst of this scene of devastation, Damon knelt on the floor, his shirt sleeves torn, his hands firm despite the evident weariness in his eyes. Before him, Ester remained seated on a fallen stone block, her arm resting on her knee as he wrapped her forearm with clean bandages that contrasted brutally with the dirt and blood around her.

Ester didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor, as if staring at something only she could see. Her fingers trembled—not from physical pain, but from something deeper. Wounded pride. Humiliation. The suffocating feeling of powerlessness.

“I am weak.” Her voice came out low, almost choked, as if each word had to pass through a throat constricted by shame. “I was exiled from the empire… they sealed my strength… and now I can’t even protect the house that sheltered me.” She let out a bitter, short, broken laugh. “Even my dignity is gone along with my title.”

Damon finished adjusting the sash before tightening the knot firmly, but carefully enough not to hurt her. He looked up at her, his expression serious, but not hard.

“Calm down.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried enough authority to cut through the heavy air of the hall. “It’s not your fault.”

Esther finally looked at him. There was something feverish in her eyes—a mixture of anger and self-loathing that seemed ready to overflow.

“It isn’t?” she retorted, her jaw clenched. “I was on the ground, Damon. On the ground. While they stormed in, while they broke everything, while they laughed. I fought, but…” Her breath hitched for a moment. “It wasn’t enough.”

A few feet behind, Aria leaned against one of the still-intact columns, clutching her bandaged shoulder with a makeshift strip of fabric. Her hair was dusty, a strand stuck to her forehead with dried blood. She watched the conversation in silence until she finally glanced at the stained ground.

“She’s not wrong.” Aria’s voice was more controlled, but equally heavy. “We barely managed to defend ourselves. If you hadn’t arrived…” She bit her lower lip, her fingers clenching against the torn fabric of her clothes. “We would have died. All of us.”

The silence that followed was denser than any explosion that had shaken the mansion earlier.

Damon took a deep breath.

He stood slowly, running a hand through his hair as he surveyed what remained of the hall—the battle scars on the walls, the blood still fresh in some spots, the metallic smell permeating the air. He felt their guilt as if it were a physical presence, a suffocating fog trying to swallow what little stability remained in that place.

Then he turned to the two of them.

“Enough.”

The word echoed louder than he intended, but there was no room for gentleness at that moment.

Esther and Aria looked up at him.

“You two need to shut up.” He pointed to Ester’s arm, then to Aria’s shoulder. “Focus on healing yourselves. That’s an order.”

Ester frowned, ready to retort, but Damon’s gaze wouldn’t allow it.

“They came prepared.” He continued, his voice more controlled now, yet firm as steel. “It was an ambush. Strategy. Insider information. It wasn’t a simple invasion by opportunists. You fought against trained, organized assassins who knew exactly where to attack.”

Aria looked away again, but this time not out of shame—but because his words were beginning to sink in.

“You’re alive,” Damon concluded. “That’s not weakness.”

Esther pressed her lips together.

“Survival isn’t victory,” she murmured.

“Sometimes it is,” he retorted immediately. “Sometimes survival is exactly what keeps the war going.”

The wind blew through the destroyed entrance of the mansion, carrying the distant scent of rain. Or perhaps it was just the change in air pressure caused by the residual energy that still vibrated in the air—remnants of what Elizabeth had released before leaving.

Aria closed her eyes for a moment.

“She’s furious,” she said softly.

Damon didn’t respond immediately.

He knew. She felt it.

From the moment Elizabeth left, dissolving into that cloud of bats, something in the bond between them vibrated differently. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t fear.

It was… intensity.

A colossal presence moving through the world.

“She should be coming back soon,” Damon said finally, crossing his arms as he walked a few steps through the destroyed hall. “And when she comes back, the last thing she’ll want to see is you two wallowing in self-pity.”

Esther let out a heavy sigh.

“Self-pity…” She repeated the word as if savoring its bitter taste. “I hate it.”

“Then stop,” Damon replied without hesitation.

Aria let out a small, nasal laugh, despite her state. “You’re terrible at comforting people.”

“I’m not trying to comfort,” he retorted, looking at them with renewed firmness. “I’m trying to keep everyone whole.”

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