Akansha stood frozen behind the translucent dome Ashleen had created, watching the battlefield unfold like a nightmare she couldn't wake from. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides—not from fear of death, but from something worse: helplessness.
She'd thought the barrier was meant to protect the civilians, herself included. But as she saw Ashleen moving freely inside its limits, as if dancing through the chaos, she realized the truth. The dome wasn't to protect the people. It was to keep them from interfering with her.
Ashleen wasn't just fighting. She was enjoying it.
Akansha's breath caught in her throat when she saw her smirk—Ashleen's cold, deliberate grin—just as she manipulated an older orc into slaughtering its own kind. Even the young ones. The sight of those orc children—terrified, cowering—cut through Akansha like a blade. The brutality was too much. Orcs were enemies, yes. Killers. But these were children regardless, doing what they were taught to do...
Ashleen did not flinch. Not when blood spattered across the earth. Not when shrieks echoed through the battlefield. She never looked back.
Akansha's heart twisted. How can someone adapt to this cruelty so quickly? They were all new to this world.
They still had memories of Earth—of kindness, of compassion. Yet here was Ashleen, a girl she had begun to care about, becoming a monster in real time.
The other civilians stood silent outside the dome. Some puked. Others turned away, shielding their children's eyes. But no one spoke. No one dared interrupt the nightmare.
Ashleen stood face to face with the orc leader, her crimson eyes locked onto his. Neither moved. It was a standoff of wills, of pride. Who would make the first move?
But far from them, Anik fought for his life.
He was surrounded—bleeding, staggering, gritting his teeth through pain. The orcs attacking him were relentless. One after another, they surged like wild bulls, devoid of pain, devoid of thought. He landed blow after blow, but it changed nothing. His enemies didn't stop. Didn't scream. Didn't bleed the way he did.
He was human. They were something else, angered by the deaths they just witnessed.
His thigh throbbed from a deep gash, and his left shoulder burned with every movement. He felt his strength slipping, his vision blurring. This isn't like the stories, he thought. There's no power-up coming. No miracle.
Weapons appeared in orc's hands out of thin air.
His knees nearly buckled. Now? Why?
Reason? Leader wanted to pressure Ashleen, make her anxious, emotional, feel; once she did it was leader's win. Humans lose when they lose their cool.
Orcs closed in, one extra bulky with a hammer in his hand. Another lean but agile, carried a sword. Anik buckled up.
There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to fly. Just an encroaching ring of death.
And yet, in that moment of despair, a sound like thunder split the air.
BOOM.
Ashleen had moved—not toward the leader orc, but toward Anik's battlefield; not physically but mentally. Her hand raised, she unleashed a blast of energy that tore both orcs—one with a hammer, the other with a blade—into pieces mid-strike. Blood and fragments splattered across the field. The remaining orcs fell into stunned silence.
Anik collapsed to one knee, panting. Adrenaline ran out. He looked up, eyes wide. Ashleen didn't even glance at him. She just raised an eyebrow at the leader orc, daring him to retaliate.
She hadn't saved Anik out of kindness. She'd done it to provoke.
And provoke she did. The leader's eyes narrowed, rage surging through him. In a desperate attempt to repay the insult, he turned his mana toward Anik, building an attack to erase him from the battlefield.
Ashleen saw it. She felt the spike of power and the malicious intent. With a flick of her wrist, Anik's body was yanked out of danger and flung toward safety. He hit the ground just outside the barrier with a grunt. Dazed. Barely conscious.
But alive.
Inside Ashleen, something shifted. The stored memories of her premonitions surged forward—Anik's death again and again. Each version of the future a graveyard. The pressure in her mind burst like a dam. Frustration. Rage. Sorrow.
Her sclera turned black. Her irises blazed red. Imagination surged, not as a weakness but as a weapon. She was no longer Ashleen, not entirely. The demon inside her had taken hold.
From where he lay, Anik looked up, groggy. He'd read this scene before—right here in the comic. But it wasn't playing out the same way.
He had read this scene playing out differently in each premonition. he found it repetitive. But this time it was different, he suddenly felt all the emotions written in the repetitions. The Agony, the gloom, he wanted to help somehow. But he knows he is not the one who will be of any help. It was the being residing in Ashleen, in the beginer level, here in this kingdom; has been residing for last century.
After all the premonitions she decides to get the help she is being offered, but it was different this time. She wasn't supposed to toy with the orcs. She wasn't supposed to enjoy the bloodshed.
She was supposed to end it in one swift, merciless attack, leaving everyone in fear.
But now, she was toying with them—exerting power, yes, but savoring it too.
This isn't how it went, he thought bitterly. Is it because of me? Because I chose to be her teammate?
He had always wanted to change her story. To save her from the darkness. But right now, he felt useless. Powerless. He could only watch.
BOOM.
A crater exploded where Anik had just been. The orc leader's attack landed, a second too late. If Anik had been pulled out just a second later, he would have been squished between the invisible palm and the land. Gasps echoed around the dome. Even those who had turned away earlier turned back now, unable to believe what they'd witnessed.
Ashleen and the leader orc stared again—but this time, the orc's gaze wavered.
He had lost.
Not in battle. In spirit.
Ashleen approached. Slow, measured steps. She didn't want to kill him—not yet. There was still something she was testing. Still a decision left to be made.
And far away, in the deepest recesses of her mind, the real Ashleen trembled. She was buried beneath layers of dark mana and twisted emotion. She knew she couldn't stay there long. If she waited too long to break free, more people would die—maybe by her hand.
But if she came back too soon, devil might lose control altogether, Ashleen alone won't be able to handle those monstrosities of orcs.
But what if devil does something wrong..? Fifteen minutes. That's how long she will wait. If nothing changed, she would claw her way out.
For now, the demon held the reins.
The orc leader hovered in the air, suspended like a marionette. His army began to falter. Fear overtook them. They saw what she had done to the younglings, to the strong. They were nothing to her.
They tried to flee.
They couldn't.
Invisible walls kept them locked in.
Ashleen's red eyes scanned the fleeing orcs and smiled—small, cruel. She drifted toward them, the orc leader still hanging like a puppet in her grip. She moved him toward his own kind. And they ran from him.
Even he—battle-hardened, monstrous—looked away in shame.
Then, with a final flick of her fingers, she released him.
He dropped to the ground, uninjured but changed. And both he and Ashleen understood what had just occurred.
This was a test.
She'd offered him a chance. A choice.
Submit—or die.
To prove his loyalty, he would need to destroy his own kind. And he would.
Because he knew what she would do if he didn't.