Chapter 25: Quality Time With Lil ZaZay~

For now on, I will be putting 🩸when it's a gore chapter

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Azazel didn't scream when she carved the first rune into the air.

He didn't even look up.

But he flinched.

That was enough for her to smile.

"Still pretending you're above fear?" Hespera's voice was soft—soothing, even—as she slowly walked a circle around him, her blade lowered, trailing sparks of corrupted magic across the "floor" with every step. "You used to talk so much when we were cherubim. I almost miss it."

The air around the summoning circle darkened, twisting into slow-turning spirals. The runes glowed black and violet, reacting to her will. Reality here was her paint, and pain was her palette.

Azazel finally looked up.

That was a mistake.

She was already in front of him again, crouched so their faces were inches apart. Her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"Do you remember how many times you cut me open?" she whispered, almost dreamily. "I do. I counted."

With a flick of her fingers, the runes floating around them shifted. From the void behind her, mirror-like fragments shimmered into existence—each one displaying a memory.

A child with silver hair, sealed in glass. Outside her body, ahe was calmly asleep, unbothered by what the mad man was doing to her. But her soul. Her soul was crying. Screaming.

Over and over.

"You made me watch myself suffer," Hespera murmured. "So now… it's your turn."

One of the mirrors cracked—and turned.

Azazel gasped as it faced him—and began to pull.

Not his body.

His mind.

His soul.

The spell she cast wasn't pain in the flesh. Not yet. It was deeper. Ancient magic, from the chaos that existed before divine order was written. The mirror wrapped around his spirit like vines, peeling memory from memory. Every word he spoke to her in the dark, every incision, every false promise.

She forced him to relive it.

But now, through her eyes.

Azazel convulsed as the vision shifted again—his own face reflected in her broken glass, distorted, monstrous.

"You wanted to rewrite me," she said, rising to her feet with slow grace. "You wanted to reshape what Father made and call it genius. So now, ZayZay…"

She raised Pandemonium Noctis, and its blade shifted—lengthening, fracturing into pieces that floated midair like surgical instruments orbiting a star.

"…Let's see how much of you I can unmake."

With a single flick, one shard sliced across his chest—not enough to wound physically, but enough to sever the divine circuit woven through his essence.

Azazel screamed—not from pain, but from the disconnection.

He had been unbound.

A second flick—another shard cut across his shoulder, removing the anchor that allowed him to regenerate.

"You're going to feel everything," she whispered. "And this time, no stasis field to dull it. No lab to numb it. No power to shield you."

Azazel's breath caught. Sweat dripped down his temple.

Pandemonium Noctis hovered closer, its shards humming a soft, almost mournful tune as they awaited her next command.

Hespera leaned in again, whispering against his ear.

"Don't worry, little brother. I'm only just beginning."

She stepped back, eyes glowing brighter now—both beautiful and terrible.

The circle beneath them flared.

The screams that followed did not echo.

The Dimensional Gap swallowed them whole.

Azazel was trembling.

Not from physical agony—not yet—but from the unraveling of his own mind. The stolen memories, the ghost-visions of his own sins mirrored through Hespera's eyes, fractured him more deeply than any blade could.

Hespera? She was smiling still. Calm. Composed. Almost… affectionate.

But then she stood tall, and her expression shifted.

Colder. Sharper. Final.

"Let's try something a little more… intimate," she murmured, flexing her fingers. The obsidian steel of Pandemonium Noctis pulsed once—then unraveled along her arms like black liquid.

In its place, two gauntlets formed—elegant, segmented pieces of armor, obsidian-veined and blackened with chaos-forged scales. In the center of each, embedded into the palms, burned the split emerald-and-amethyst eyes of the sleeping dragon sealed within Noctis.

Draig's Gauntlets, twisted to form something worthy of its new owner.

Forged not in flame, but in defiance. Resonating not with power—but with dominion.

Azazel's body stiffened. He recognized them.

He had wanted to study the Red Dragon Emperor once upon a time—obsessed over the limits of that legendary force. He had even attempted to create fragments of his own.

But these?

These weren't stolen. These were twisted—a fusion of Pandemonium Noctis's sentience and the ancient rage of the Dragon sealed within.

Hespera raised one gauntlet, examining it with amusement. "Ddraig once said my soul was too dangerous, too powerful to exist. He even dared to call me a monster! Can you believe it! Me, a monster? So I fed it to my very hungry companion here. And now…"

She clenched her fist.

A snap cracked through the Dimensional Gap as raw power surged through her arm. The blackened scales glowed like molten metal, and Azazel's shackles strained beneath the divine backlash.

"…Now you get to see what it looks like when a tribrid uses a dragon's strength."

Before he could even gasp, Hespera vanished—blinked—and reappeared beside him, her gauntleted fist slamming into his side.

Not a punch. A crushing, reality-bending blow that collapsed the very air between them.

Azazel screamed.

Not because of the force—but because the Draig gauntlet didn't hit his body.

It hit his grace—the divine core that powered his fallen nature.

"You always loved cutting things open," Hespera whispered, dragging the emerald eye of the gauntlet across his ribs. "So let's see what you look like on the inside."

The gauntlet flared. Tendrils of magenta wrapped around Azazel's midsection, glowing with ancient draconic power. It began to pull.

Not flesh.

Not bone.

Power.

Azazel howled, convulsing violently as golden and abyssal light began seeping from his mouth and eyes. The Draig gauntlet's special ability activated: Render Core. A technique created through the fusion of the Boosted Gear's mechanics and chaos-soul binding.

It didn't drain stamina or magic.

It devoured the foundation of what made him divine.

"Boosted Gear was meant to multiply power," Hespera said with a lilt, voice low and fascinated. "But this version…? It reverses."

The gauntlet pulsed—once, twice—then detonated in a silent flash of emerald fire, reducing the flow of Azazel's corrupted divinity to a mere trickle.

He collapsed to the ground, choking, his seals sizzling as they strained to keep him alive.

Hespera stood above him, gauntlets steaming, eyes glowing like twin supernovas.

"I'm not finished," she said softly.

And the worst part?

Azazel knew it was true.

Azazel lay on the ground, twitching—his mouth frothing with light, his breath ragged and shuddering through clenched teeth. The Draig gauntlets glowed faintly on Hespera's arms, whispering their hunger for more.

But she didn't strike again—not immediately.

Instead, she knelt beside him, tilting her head as if studying some fascinating new insect pinned under glass.

"Still breathing," she said with a mock pout. "You used to be so durable. How disappointing."

Azazel's eyes fluttered open, dazed. The pain had dulled to a searing hum, but what lingered was worse—he could feel the decay inside himself. She hadn't just broken his body. She had broken the framework of what made him immortal.

And she wasn't done.

"Let's go deeper, then," she said, brushing her fingers down his arm.

With a thought, the Draig gauntlets dissolved into crimson and black mist, returning to Pandemonium Noctis, which shimmered at her side. In their place, tendrils of chaotic memory-magic unraveled from her fingertips.

Azazel's eyes widened.

"No… don't—"

She touched his temple.

And invaded.

---

Inside his mind.

They were in the laboratory again. Not the memory she had shown Heaven, but a more personal one—deep in the pit of Azazel's hidden sanctum.

He was younger. Sharper. Crueler.

And there, inside a glowing containment sphere, floated her.

A cherub—barely formed, wings glowing silver, hair like starlight. Eyes closed in deep, cold slumber.

A child, no older than the abyss.

She was curled in a fetal position, covered in divine chains and strange sigils, tubes running in and out of her limbs.

Azazel was outside the sphere, humming softly as he took notes.

"She's stabilizing faster than expected," he mused aloud. "The Phoenix blood combined with Chaos strain #7 seems to accelerate regenerative response. A pity the Chaos Dragon strain keeps rejecting integration… perhaps higher infusion temperatures…"

He paused. Then—

"She's… beautiful."

The memory Azazel frowned at himself. Disgusted.

The present Azazel screamed in the real world.

Hespera stood calmly, watching the memory loop.

"She was a child," she whispered. "And you… were proud of what you made."

With a cold flick of her wrist, she burned the memory. Not just from Azazel's mind—but from reality. The lab room exploded into shards of broken thought, severed from time.

Azazel collapsed again, bleeding light from his ears.

"Don't worry," she said, standing once more. "I'll make sure you remember what matters. Not the science. Not the ambition. Just the screams."

---

And then—

A shift.

The air grew warmer. Denser.

Not in threat.

But in presence.

She felt it before she saw it.

The lazy thrum of power older than most gods. The heat of a soul forged in the pit of dragons and legends.

The sound of a tail thwacking against reality itself.

"…You know," came a gravelly, amused voice behind her, "I was wondering how long you'd play with your food before saying hi."

Hespera didn't turn right away.

She exhaled softly, then smiled.

"You've been there since I broke his core."

"Since the part with the gauntlets. Nice touch, by the way. Kinda hot."

She rolled her eyes—then finally turned.

Sitting atop a floating piece of ruined stone, lounging like a lion sprawled on a sun-soaked rock, was a massive red dragon—scaled in fire and muscle, eyes glowing like molten suns.

Great Red.

The Apocalyptic Dragon. The Dragon of Dreams.

And… technically speaking…Her uncle.

Hespera finally looked up, brushing a speck of blood off her cheek with an elegant flick.

"Uncle Red."

"Hey, Niece of Mass Destruction."

He grinned a maw full of glinting teeth.

"Having fun?"

Hespera blinked. "Define fun."

"You're smiling. Azazel's twitching. And half the Gap's power grid is dimming because your sword tried to bite a memory again. So, yeah, I'd say this is peak family bonding."

Azazel groaned under her boot, and Hespera clicked her tongue.

"Tch. Ruined the mood."

She turned to the side and flicked her wrist, summoning a new stasis pod forged entirely from the Dimensional Gap itself—silver, violet, and laced with eldritch seals. She kicked Azazel into it like garbage.

He didn't resist. He couldn't.

The pod sealed with a hiss of entropy and magic.

Great Red raised a brow-ridge. "You done?"

"For now." She dusted off her hands. "I promised mom I'd be back for dinner. Can't be late."

"And the soul?"

Hespera smirked. "Secured. Noctis is already feeding it berries and whispering chaos lullabies to it."

Great Red snorted. "You're such a weirdo."

"You're one to talk, you big cosmic lizard."

They exchanged a look—one heavy with years unspoken.

Then—

Great Red chuckled. "So, what's next?"

Hespera's wings unfurled, shimmering with divine and infernal grace. "Not sure. I still have to crash a fire chicken's playtime with a certain red head I've been enjoying teasing. Maybe after that, I'll play with the greek pantheon."

-‐‐‐

I think I already added this to the synopsis page, but I'll announce it here anyway.

I've decided on a schedule for this story (and don't worry, it's still my main project). Updates will be every other day—specifically on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Saturdays and Sundays will be wild cards. If I have time, I'll post an update; if not, I won't.

Anyway, enjoy your day/night.