The Girl Inside the White Flame

Darkscale looked at his most miserable state. Even in his worst moment during the battle in the Blood Woods, he never looked so pathetic.

His plan was simple: pretend that the pressure that Carelia was emanating was enough to keep him restrained and almost causing him to die, then when she came closer to deliver the final blow he will assault her.

One shot. He only had one shot to kill her or damage her so badly that he would have a chance in fighting her after the surprise attack. Darkscale already knew how to attack her. He was sure that the method he had thought of would work against the traitorous woman, even if she tried to defend herself. The problem was to foresee how much the method would work.

Would she give up and die? She would die but leave him a last dying attack, trying to bring him away to the other side with her? Or she would survive and then proceed to calmly kill the serpent? Darkscale didn't know what the future had in store for him.

The plan wasn't perfect, but it was better than just waiting for death or trying to bravely fight against someone that was visibly stronger.

Keeping his nerves calm, he continued with the act. He felt the pressure from Carelia strengthen even more. If he just continued acting hurt without any change of his behavior that damn traitorous bitch would definitely sniff that something was wrong.

Not wanting to let his cover be blown so easily, he used his own energy to spit a mouthful of blood on the hard ground where his triangular head lied, trembling for the alleged pain he was feeling.

'Tsé, you want to test me in acting? I spent the last year perfecting my game.'

Moreover, not even Carelia knew of this. He had acted both in front of her and Star Leaf. Since the time where she refuses to help him with the strange blue skinned man, he had lost all his trust in her.

In front of the green haired girl and the MAID he always acted as someone else, lying about what he was doing in his private training ground and using the time he said he was using for training to better himself in Runes and to build the most complicated formation that he ever worked on.

They both never suspected anything. He was a good actor.

'She won't suspect anything until it's too late...'

The serpent didn't even move his head to watch the approach of the furious aggressor. He kept his body on the ground, almost as if he was glued to it. He wanted to play his role as well as he could.

In the eyes of anyone who watched him, he was a beaten, miserable being that couldn't even muster the strength to watch the arrival of the enemy that came to deliver the final blow. His eyes looked void into the blood that he had masterfully reversed around him, not touching at all the flying white flame rapidly moving in the sky.

'Come closer, came on'

Obviously, it was all a scene. A well-planned decision, made to make his enemy think that he had lost all hope.

He knew exactly where Carelia was. Or to be more specific, where the white flame was.

He didn't use his eyes, it would be too much evident, nor some type of energy probe, it would be easily identifiable by his foe. He used another sense, one that had been incredibly enhanced when he became a Devil: his sense of smell.

Even so, his powerful smell sense was only able to capt the scent of the white flame that surrounded Carelia. As for the body that hosted her, it was hidden behind layers of wild energy that made it impossible for the small snake to capt any scent.

Darkscale didn't care much though; he knew that the woman was inside the white flame. He just needed to trace the movement of that giant mass of Ghost Energy.

However, when the flame arrived a couple of hundred of meters from his position, he started to sense a very peculiar scent coming from it. No, coming from inside of it.

It was a scent so strong that not even the annoying white spectral flames were able to keep it inside, away from his Devil smell sense.

'Star Leaf'

Darkscale immediately recognized the scent. However, there was something very wrong with it.

Normally, the scent that Star Leaf emanated wasn't that strong. She loved to use use a perfume, a delicate but expensive flowery fragrance that came from the Antlers, the inhabitant Elk Outpost. Even Darkscale, that cared very little about this things, found it incredibly pleasing.

The scent that the black reptile picked up this time, however, wasn't that enjoyable. Death. She reeked of death. Death and pain.

He could tell, instinctively, that she was dying in a very painful way.

His mind went blurry, the plan that he had devised was immediately forgotten. His eyes suddenly opened, cracking discharges of energy twisting away from them.

The white flame stopped in its tracks for a second. It wasn't much, but way enough to allow his eyes to register clearly the silhouette hiding inside that wild flame of Ghost Energy.

No matter how much good of an actor he was, no matter how much he tried to be a cold-blooded rational being, he wasn't ready at all to see what was inside that white flame that was swimming in the air towards his location.

He could see her, right in the middle of that wild flame: a green-haired girl, her face covered with dark blood, her eyes completely red and an expression of agonizing pain on her face. He noticed dark liquid flowing from all her facial cavities: ears, eyes, nose. Was that blood? How could blood be that dark?

Darkscale's mouth snapped on the air, unable to remain still.

The flame started again moving towards his location, the face of the green haired girl turning towards him. Her wounded lips contorted themselves into a grimace. A wicked smile of a sort.

Carelia. She was laughing at him.

If before he was left with a loss of word, a confusion on what to do next, now a slow fire started to burn inside of him.

He looked at the body of the girl that he had passed so much time with: it was in a more terrible state than her face! Her entire being seemed like it was covered by some sort of creepy wrinkled black dress. Yet, observing it more closely he could tell that she was completely naked! She wasn't covered by anything more than the weaving of dark bulging veins.

He gave another sniff to the air. Death. Death, desperation, and pain.

The small fire inside him erupted into a sea of flames. His entire body felt like it was immersed in a lake of molten lava.

The force that burdened him before, was now like a leaf on his shoulder: he felt it, but he wasn't hindered by it anymore. Rage, like he never felt before started to shine in his violet eyes.