Zun broke into a sprint, surging forward to initiate the attack, but the little girl stood motionless, as if transfixed by fear. This made Zun hesitate and she quickly changed into a defensive stance, while keeping a safe distance between them to observe the girl.

  The little girl’s expression twisted into an ugly cry, causing her face to swell with choking redness.

  “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I’m really Su! Big sister I’m Su, trust me, please trust me, I don’t know why I am here, I don’t know what is happening, don’t kill ME, I don’t want to die, PLEASE!”

  Her voice came out as raw as the emotion on her face, unrestrained, without a hint of hidden desire. The outburst unleased her oppressed state, and she dropped to her kneel with both palms pressed together, aggressively shaking in a begging position. Every part of her, reflected the vulnerability of a child, who Zun could feel in every inch of her cell.

  Without a warning, a blinding spark flared in the air —then, with a roaring crack, the huge tree behind them split and thundered to the ground.

  Zun leaped back on time to avoid the hit, but Su was violently knocked down with her face flat against the ground.

  Shock and confusion hit Zun like a bolt. “What the hell is going on?!”

  The water underneath Su got tainted red and spread across the ground, slowly reaching the sole of Zun’s boots until she found herself in the middle of a pool of diluted blood.

  Zun leaned down and dipped her fingers into the puddle in the hope of confirming this was a mimic spell, but the liquid was slightly warm and it clung softly to the tip of her finger. A metallic scent rushed into her nose, and with it came a jolt of realisation that was cold and merciless.

  This is real human blood.

  Zun found herself unable to compose a single sentence. She rushed toward the wounded girl and started desperately lifting the heavy branches from Su’s fragile body.

  Hue watched in dumbstruck awe, as though experiencing second-hand guilt. His grip around Tin stiffened to shield the child from witnessing any gruesome sights.

  Is something wrong? He bit down and swallowed hard as dread snuck into his mind.

  Branches, twisted and cracked, knotted together in a chaotic nest, painted with layers of mud and blood. Zun struggled to lift the heavy trunk off Su’s body. Every effort ended with a heavier drop that slipped right off her hand.

  “Arghhh!!!” Zun screamed at the top of her lungs. “What is going on?!! Move! Move! No! Please!! Please move!!”

  Racing heartbeat hammered in her chest, its tremor blurred out every other noises and numbed all the sensation in her body. Even the pain of her cracked nails felt non-existence.

  Seconds turned to minutes. With every drop of the weight, Su’s body was tearing apart and becoming more and more distorted. It was a pathetic scene, an utter failure.

  “Enough! ENOUGH!” Hue shouted.

  Zun’s attention instantly snapped back to reality. She looked over at Hue, dumbfounded. “What?”

  “Can’t you see the mess you are making? Move aside and wait for the captain! This is…this is very strange. We must have been fooled.”

  A sense of guilt tightened around Zun’s chest, strangling her breath like a coil of snake starving for attention. She bit her lips and looked over at Su’s body, repeatedly whispering to herself, Impossible, this is impossible! Su! Su, respond to me. Respond to me please. Her mind swirled round and round, until she caught a faint voice calling.

  “Big Sister, help me. Help me.”

  One, two, three. Zun collected her movement and leaned down to search for Su’s head, tearing through the maze of branches in a hope of finding a part of her body that was still intact and redeemable.

  “Zun! Don’t do that! Step back!” Hue exclaimed. His voice came like a distress signal to Tin and the boy started to struggle once again to break free.

  Almost there. Almost! Zun encouraged herself against the background sound of Hue’s warning.

  But instead of tracing Su’s face, a pair of luminous reptilian eyes greeted her. In the very next moment, several elongated figures lunged forward to bite her. A den of cobras slithered out from the pool of blood and encircled Zun, each of them energetically enriched by her dark emotions. They struck together in perfect sync, lashing out a few quick tease before snapping her flesh with their carnivorous teeth, that of a cold, instinctive brutality.

  “Shit! This is really King Cobra!” Hue burned a talisman with a quick spell and threw it at the cobras to free Zun. “Zun, run!!!!”

  It was barely effective against the snakes. They continued to rip apart her skin and limp muscles and tossed her across the ground like a broken doll.

  A chilling laugh, devoid of any traces of warmth, rose above the deafening sound of the storm and inflated the atmosphere. Su twisted her arm backward, breaking against the limit of her shoulder joint and pushed the trunk off her back with an extraordinary strength. The split tree crashed into the water in a splatter, sending debris scattered across the wave of bloody ripples.

  Then, as though adjusting the disfigured limbs, the girl stood up – each movement jagged and forced like a ghost that had lost the last remanent of its former appeal.

  Hue tightened his embrace around Tin and warned, “Boy, don’t move. We’re all going to die if you run off!”

  Nothing in sight could help him come up with a strategy. Not only were they utterly fooled by some tricks, but this was also a testament to their inexperience in dealing with an elite demon.

  The den of snakes had now arrived in front of Hue, hissing aggressively. Their bodies spread across the ground like strands of hair slicked to wet tiles. One after another, they poked the seal, and backed away, eyes sharpened with an observing glare. Then their pattern changed and they sank into the ground and started cracking the protective seal from beneath.

  Shit! Hue quickly recited a defence spell to strengthen the energy of the seal, but the crack was enlarging with every racing heartbeat.

  “I’m not done yet!” Zun called out, her voice shaken with pain, barely held together by a delicate thread of courage woven from shame.

  Between shivering pauses, she recited a holy spell and dragged both of her torn hands together like she was tugging on heavy loads, then thrusted her sword into the ground. The spell energised the sword and turned the pool of water it contacted with into holy water, dispersing the snakes underground.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “No bad” The demon nodded in light-hearted approval. Zun thought she had managed to push the demon back – if only for a moment - but quickly realised she was wrong. Su was walking barefoot through the floodwater with ease, as if she was immune.

  “Oops, except that it’s not strong enough!” The devil smiled.

  A series of attack followed. Zun’s body felt hardened by the cobra's poison. Bruises started to appear in patches across her skin and cracked open to breed tiny snakes. They grew out from her wounds and attacked her body at close range, sparing no moment of observation.

  Zun swung her sword to cut them down, but they seemed endless. Her speed couldn’t match the flurry of snakebite strikes. With each blow, their numbers multiplied, quickly overwhelming her. Amid the chaos, she tried to recite another spell—to summon a holy flame—but her energy was unstable. The poison had tainted it, and only feeding the dark energy surrounding them.

  Su laughed and moved closer to Hue, “Such a waste of my time.”

  “Stand right there, you stupid demon!” Zun resolved to taunting the demons with no success. Her torn limbs were failing her, and she sank on one knee, crashing straight into the floodwater. All sign of hope had fallen apart. Zun realised the holy energy in the water had also gone and in a matter of minutes, the snakes had gathered around the seal again, attacking it from underneath.

  “Don’t be too eager. Death is very patient.” The fake Su smirked at her.

  Was it a mockery or was it a threat? Zun couldn’t differentiate, but the taste of blood lingered in her mouth with a sour rot that felt like a projection of her own self-disgust and she began to wonder whether Koi was right about her all along.

  Why am I so useless all the time? Every following thought pulsed with the weight of conflicted emotions, prompting the cobras to dance in energetic rhyme and enlarged in size. They toiled around her limbs and waist and tightened their grips, while continuing their relentless biting.

  Hue cried out, horrified by the sight of Zun’s demise. Desperate, he conjured a sigil barrier and attacked Su with laser light, but it phased through her body, leaving her untouched.

  “F*ck you!” He cursed.

  Tin faintly called out, “Is big sister dead? Are we going to die?”

  “Tin…” Hue’s voice came out unnaturally soft as he took off his exorcist coat and covered the little boy. “Stay here and don’t move at any cost.”

  With this abrupt order, Hue threw himself in front of Tin, dagger flashing towards Su’s chest. But with a single, unflinching motion, she broke the blade, barehanded, and ruptured his liver. She then hurled him across the ground, blood trailing in his path.

  “Now, Tin, why don’t you come out and play with me?”

  Su clutched at the sigil barrier and tore open an energetic rift that enlarged rapidly by the second. Hue struggled to get up, pressing against his wound, as it bled profusely. None of the holy spells or protection could waver King Cobra’s dominance- it was a painful realisation.

  “It’s not good to let your sister wait,” Su called out again, teasingly.

  “What do you want, monster?” Tin shot back, his voice topped with a smouldering glare peeking out from beneath the Angel’s coat. When it met the demon’s eyes, a familiar intensity locked in, bringing a flash of excitement across the fake Su’s face. Tin’s eyes bear no fear. There was only suffering left in each dark iris to cradle the child’s sanity.

  So rare to see such a pain-stricken, yet enlightened face. It almost feels gifted.

  That’s exactly what he saw from Tin’s father's memory back in the tower. This boy is an old soul. An old soul that has seen it all.

  “Will you give back Su if I come with you?”

  “Of course.” This time, the demon spoke with his real voice, carved from his wide stretched lips.

  “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  If anything, this bold statement had aroused King’s appetite right at the spot where he harboured his intense hunger.

  Tin continued, “Because in my dream, she never returns. Yet you would come to me night after night with blood in your hands.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes, you did. But I was told not to give up. I was told to wait.”

  King Cobra’s grin widened, exposing all the cannibal teeth. His eyes glowed red and bulging, unable to contain the thrill leaking through his intrusive stare.

  “Who told you that? Who is that person? WHO IS HE?”

  Tin lifted his hand and straightened his index finger to point in a direction. However, without any warning, the ying yang symbol on the coat covering Tin lit up and exploded with an intense light, shredding Tin’s body into pieces.

  Su stood back in astonishment as he witnessed Tin’s body parts being blown all over the place, tainting the scene with a quick shower of blood. His hand lifelessly landed beside Zun.

  Su threw a piercing stare at Hue, who was lying flat on the floor, hanging on his weakening breath.

  “You hide explosive talismans in your coat?!” The demon snarled through clenched teeth.

  “Captain Koi said, if there’s no way to protect Tin, it’s better to kill him to prevent the demon from taking his soul.” Hue pressed his own eyes shut, “I’m sorry Tin, I have no other choice. Please rest in peace.” Hot tears burned down his cheeks, loosed by the surrender of his Angel’s pride. What needed to be done was done, but nothing felt right. His pulse weakened as his desire to rid of this nagging repulsion set in.

  “Is that so?” Su looked at all the scattered pieces of the corpse and walked toward Hue, “Dead or alive, I will still have him. As long as Tin’s soul is still connected to his body on this Earth!”

  The demon lifted Hue’s almost tensionless body and with his jaw snapped opened, he bit off Hue’s face. A scream instantly penetrated the atmosphere, dug out from the deepest of his lungs, but soon his body fell lifelessly to the floor, holding no sign of resistance. The demon licked his bloodied face and started rampaging through different parts of Tin’s corpse and stuffed them into his mouth to identify the part of Tin’s body that still had a spiritual link to his soul.

  Disturbed by the scream, Zun slowly regained her consciousness.

  Am I dead?

  She moved her hand from one spot to another, as if reaching for something tangible within arm reach. After scrambling through random scatters of debris and rocks, she felt a delicate surface. Her blurry eyes run to trace the source and noticed Tin’s index finger pointing at her.

  At that moment, a hazy memory settled in her mind like a descending wave of fog. There, she saw Tin’s dying face lying against the solid ground. She tried to reach for him, but in her chunky vision, her hands looked different. Beside the similar blood-drenched fingers, that skinny hand looked longer and bigger, as if it was someone else’s hand.

  A familiar voice called out, “Tin, wake up! Don’t close your eyes. Don’t give up.”

  Through her eyes, that person dragged itself forward in a series of halting bursts, hands stretched out in the front, calling “Tin! I’m here! I still haven’t fulfilled my promise to you. I promise you I’ll bring back Su. I promise you,”

  Tin looked back in her direction with a pairs of bloodshot eyes penetrating right into her soul.

  “Tin, you’re a good boy. A boy like you, who always makes your mother happy, is sure to have plenty of good fortune ahead. Fate will be kind to you, so don’t you give up. It’s not the time to sleep yet. You’re too young to go.” The voice persisted, each quiver strangling on a dying note, making it too painful to listen.

  “Your eyes are flickering.” Tin finally let out a few words. “It’s like a shower of stars streaming down the sky. Is that…a sign of hope?”

  Zun heard the crying intensified, “Of course!”

  “Please save my sister. I know you won’t give up on her…I’ll wait for you…no matter how…long it takes. No matter how many…lifetimes.”

  “Of course, of course, of course! Pinkie promise.”

  As their pinkie fingers touched tip to tip, Tin smiled faintly and dropped his eyelids.

  Silence engulfed the whole atmosphere, tempered by the silent giveaway.

  I failed. A voice murmured delicately. Tin was just a bait and I was just a ploy…but Lord Father loves good children. That’s what everyone said. Lord Father will protect them and reward them, so I believe…

  With a drop in the tone, the last word dragged in Zun’s ear and her vision started to blur in an abrupt static motion fuelled by a baking heat steaming up her whole head. A dark shadow materialised from the lingering emotions and loomed over her figure.

  King Cobra tilted his head and landed his gaze on Tin's broken hand. “I know you would linger around. The hide and seek is over Tin.”

  The king strode towards his target, however, before the fake Su could reach Tin’s hand, an unparalleled force slammed him back a few metres, almost throwing him off the ground.

  The king was surprised. He peered through the rain and caught Zun's wretched figure rose up. Zun looked different now. Her eyes were pitch black, and all her previous wounds seemed to have stitched back, leaving traces of dried blood across her body.

  “A demonic presence?”