At first, there was only cold, the taste of rust, and the agony of approaching death.
Her swaying vision was filled with the bars of an iron cage, smeared with filthy blood.
Outside, burning torches illuminated the shifting faces of human demon hunters, excited and cruel.
She could no longer remember what she had originally been. A creature of the dark depths, unfortunate enough to be discovered?
Or perhaps the unfinished product of a failed transformation through some evil ritual?
It did not matter.
What mattered was that those rune-inscribed spears and swords were about to plunge down. Purifying light seared her inhuman essence, sending a tearing pain through her very soul.
Fear gripped her throat so tightly that she could not even whimper. Despair drowned every inch of her awareness like the deepest ocean.
Just as her consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness-
BOOM!!!
The top of the iron cage, along with half the cellar's vaulted ceiling, was violently torn open by an irresistible force of pure strength!
Moonlight and dust flooded in together, but a towering figure descended before either.
With a simple wave of his hand, the demon hunters who had been swaggering a moment earlier, along with the holy relics in their hands, instantly shattered like clay dolls struck by an invisible sledgehammer. They did not even leave behind a scream.
Only the night wind moaned through the opening.
The figure turned and approached the cage.
As he drew closer, that suffocating pressure strangely receded, replaced by a profound stillness.
A hand covered in markings effortlessly snapped iron bars as thick as a child's arm and reached out before her.
Palm up, it waited calmly.
She trembled, curled into herself, and did not dare move.
"...Have you nowhere to go?"
A deep voice rang