Chapter 299 The Third Fang Conclusion V

Annilysa who had been crying during the entire ordeal could no longer weep.

There were no more tears left to give.

Lenara wished to know what sounds she would make so halfway through she returned movement back to the girl's head. Annilysa screamed and called for her parents until her throat had torn itself hoarse from all the screaming. Her voice was reduced to nothing more than a rasped whimper echoing uselessly across the marble floor of her family's atrium. Her skin, pale and slick with sweat, clung to the silk of her nightgown, torn and soaked by the blood dripping from her father.

She was paralyzed again—not by Lenara's lingua, but by something worse.

A soul frozen in the moment before breaking.

Baron Eldric Varnes had stopped begging.

Where once there had been nobility in his posture—even restrained and bleeding—now he was just a man. Just a father. Just a voice of fury bellowing into the uncaring void.

"You will burn for this," he growled. "You foul demons. The Creator will find you! You will choke on your sins!"

Blood foamed from his lips with every word, teeth bared like a wolf cornered.

Lenara giggled. "The Creator?" she echoed. "Oh, darling… then he should've acted before we laid hands on your wife."

Her claws extended again—graceful, gleaming, and wicked. She stepped behind him, and with one smooth motion, she peeled back another layer of skin from his back. A flap of flesh flopped down, exposing the red sinew beneath. He roared in agony, his body convulsing as the chair creaked under the tension.

Each scream Annilysa heard was another needle driven into her soul.

Another breath she couldn't take.

"I will kill you!" Eldric howled. "You think this ends with you!? You think the world won't rise against—"

Lenara flayed another strip. His scream echoed like a beast's.

"Then let them rise," she whispered in his ear, licking his blood from her claws. "We'll drag the world down to hell with us."

Nick leaned against a pillar, watching. He cracked his knuckles. "She's close," he said, gesturing to Annilysa.

"So close. Just one more push," Lenara replied.

Annilysa twitched—finally. A faint motion in her fingers. Her eyes flickered, unfocused. Her mind reeled inside itself, searching for something—anything—stable to hold onto.

That was when Lenara knelt in front of her.

"You can still end this," she said softly. "One life for another."

Annilysa blinked.

"Choose," Lenara said. "Mother. Or father. One dies. One lives."

Annilysa opened her mouth—but no sound came. Her gaze snapped between them.

Her mother, still curled on the floor, sobbing, her body limp and defiled.

Her father, upright only by bindings and rage, blood dripping down to form a pool beneath his chair.

Both were barely alive.

Both watched her urging her to choose the other person.

Caelia's mouth moved: Please...

Eldric's eyes burned with defiant pride—even as they trembled.

Annilysa tried to speak. She shook her head. "I… I can't…"

Lenara smiled.

Nick's grin sharpened.

"You choose neither," Lenara whispered. "So we shall."

She stood.

Before Annilysa could beg, scream, or breathe, Lenara drove her hand into Eldric's chest.

The sound was wet. Final.

Annilysa screamed, voice cracking—too late.

Nick knelt beside Caelia, brushing her hair one last time. "You could've lived a quiet life," he murmured.

Then he snapped her neck with a twist.

Annilysa retched, choked, and screamed so hard that her body convulsed. Her hands now able to move clawed at the floor. Her fingers dug grooves into the marble, bloodied and cracked.

Then… she laughed.

It was soft at first—barely audible over the horror.

Then louder.

Hysterical.

Wild.

Her laughter filled the hall like a child's song warped by madness.

"Gone…" she whispered. "All gone. You killed them. I didn't stop you. I didn't save them."

Her eyes glowed faint red.

She turned to the sky—unseeing—and screamed, "I curse this world! I curse the Creator! I curse myself!"

Lenara stepped closer, cradling her gently now.

"There it is," she whispered. "The break. The moment your soul slips out and something… darker slips in."

She lifted Annilysa's hand and pricked the girl's wrist with a talon.

Then she bit her own.

Her blood poured like ink—thick, rich, and full of dark mana.

She offered it.

Annilysa stared at it, lips trembling. "I don't want this…"

"But you do," Nick whispered from behind her, his voice velvet and poison. "You want to forget. You want to never feel again. This is the only way."

Annilysa's body moved before her mind could decide.

She drank.

The transformation was not instant.

It was agony.

Her limbs snapped, then reformed. Her heart stopped, then beat again. Her skin paled, her irises bloomed into twin rings of crimson and violet. Her voice disappeared as her throat restructured itself.

Lenara held her down as she screamed through the change. She patted the girl's head soothing her as a mother would ironically.

Nick stood over her, grinning with pride like a father.

When it was done, Annilysa lay on the floor—not weeping, not shaking.

Empty.

Hollow.

Lenara knelt beside Caelia's corpse and wrenched free her skull, peeling away the flesh with a practiced twist. The skin came off like silk soaked in oil. She scooped what blood remained from the ruined neck into the hollowed bone, mixing in chunks of clotted tissue and shattered brain matter. The brew was thick, viscous, steaming in the cold.

She held it out.

"Drink."

Annilysa—crawled like an animal, eyes vacant, jaw slack. She took the skull in both hands.

She hesitated only for a moment.

Then she drank. Deeply. The blood coated her lips and teeth, dribbled down her chin and soaked the torn nightgown that still clung to her. Her throat bobbed with every swallow, and each motion brought a little more light into her now-glowing eyes.

She dropped the skull. It shattered.

Then she crawled toward her father.

Lenara had left his body whole, but only barely. Elyra leaned down and sank her fangs not into the neck, but into the open cavity of his torn chest, lapping blood from between the ribs, scooping it with her fingers and shoving them into her mouth. She tore a strip of flesh from his heart, chewing it, eyes unfocused.

Her hands painted her own cheeks in red, drawing swirls and spirals of gore across her face as if performing some ancient, forbidden rite.

When she finished, her lips were stained red with blood.

She looked up at Lenara.

"Who are you now?" Lenara asked.

The girl tilted her head.

"Elyra," she said. "Annilysa is dead."

Nick smirked. "A new name huh? Think we broke her too hard?"

"It's fine I quite like it," Lenara laughed.

Nick chuckled. "Good. Now let's show the world what our family looks like."