She turned back to her children and screamed:
"Boys! Run!"
Simultaneously, she cast two spells: one for short-term telepathy and one to attack.
"Linea! Return!" Noémie called.
The rapier, still buried in Blak's heart, flew straight back into Noémie's hand.
"Oh! Oh! That was fabulous!" Blak exclaimed, clapping hysterically.
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap!
She then briefly addressed Vars through telepathy:
"Listen, Vars. I think my path probably ends here. We don't have time. If I die, take care of Kaelle and the others. Dad will help you anyway. And remember these names: Blak, the beast I'm fighting right now, then Yvran and Xavan, the masked men I saw in the vision. They had a sym—"
Blak launched herself violently at Noémie, fist forward. Noémie raised her guard to parry the attack with her rapier. The telepathy cut out: she couldn't maintain it while blocking blows.
Vars nodded, then lowered his eyes.
Understood, Mom.
Itoî shook Vars, furious:
"Fuck, we have to help Mom! Vars, come on! Let's go fight!"
"We can't," Vars replied.
"What are you talking about? Come on!" Itoî exclaimed.
Uyan looked at his brothers while watching their mother parry Blak's blows. He could see, however, that she wouldn't last long.
"We can't, damn it! What don't you understand?!" Vars yelled, fists clenched.
Itoî stepped back two paces.
"But... You showed us you mastered Nature, didn't you? You could help Mom..."
Itoî seemed disappointed by his brother's attitude. After all, he saw Vars as his rival, but also as a role model.
Uyan then asked Vars:
"Can't you at least free Mom from the mud?"
"It's not that simple. The mud is only on the surface: there's also molded stone underneath, which is what's keeping Mom from moving. And to answer your question, the only thing we can do is take the portal. But I want to make sure Mom doesn't need my support," Vars answered, looking down.
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"I understand. And I'm guessing that even if you went to help Mom, the other two watching us would get involved, right?" Uyan asked.
Vars nodded.
"You agree with Vars too?!" Itoî exclaimed.
"I..." Uyan didn't know what to say.
"You guys disgust me!" Itoî continued.
The fight went on. Noémie parried Blak's punches, which were getting faster and faster. She showed her limits, and so did the rapier: the golden light surrounding it was fading.
"Well, well, well, well, well..." Blak said before leaping backward.
"I have to admit, I'm surprised by your perseverance. Maybe that's why Papa doesn't want any more Evekius here."
"Here?" Noémie replied.
"Yeah, here."
Noémie understood that the person standing before her was not human.
"Oh, you figured it out?" Blak exclaimed, clapping again.
Clap, clap, clap!
"I guess I owe you at least that much. I'm less cruel than Papa, you know," Blak continued.
A sinister aura surrounded Blak's body, and dark, shadowy smoke poured from it. The female body vanished entirely, swallowed by the mass of darkness.
It hung suspended for a moment before contracting and taking a humanoid shape. Two round, white eyes appeared in the dark silhouette, like two perfectly pure lights. A mouth then opened, revealing two rows of black, razor-sharp teeth.
Two arms ending in black claws took shape.
Blak was not the shell, but what inhabited it: content without a container, a kind of spirit devoid of a fixed form. It didn't seem to have any defined gender. Was it even possible to call it male or female?
Ultimately, it resembled a humanoid shadow. Nevertheless, it had managed to maintain its true form without much difficulty over the centuries. That being said, it still had flesh, and blood flowed through its veins.
"But what..." Noémie murmured, stunned.
Uyan pressed himself behind Vars and Itoî.
"A demon?" Vars asked.
"You're a demon, aren't you?" Vars shouted.
"Ooooh! Your boy is smart!" Blak exclaimed in its new form.
Blak spun rapidly on itself and became entirely covered in bandages.
"It's been a while since we've seen you like this, Blak," the burly man said.
"Yeah. Well, it shouldn't take much longer now, I suppose," Orazhe replied, turning his head toward his partner.
Noémie took a defensive stance. The demon lunged at her. It delivered several very fast strikes that Noémie managed to block. She spotted an opening and thrust toward Blak's face. The blade grazed it.
Just as the thought of victory crossed Noémie's mind, a sort of hand pierced through her abdomen.
"Mom!" Itoî screamed.
"Oops!" Blak said with a grin.
The third arm, which had erupted from Blak's back, vanished after launching a dagger into the sky, leaving behind a faint wisp of dark smoke. Blak caught the dagger with its left hand, then performed two backflips to retake a defensive stance.
The blow had critically wounded Noémie. She spat blood and seemed truly at the end of her strength.
"Mom! Mom! Mamaan!" Uyan cried before running toward her.
"No, Uyan, come back!" Vars said, eyes wide, reaching out as if to grab his little brother.
Noémie turned around for a split second. That moment of inattention was fatal. Blak rushed at her at inhuman speed and slashed off her head with unimaginable violence.
The body toppled backward, held upright by the feet still trapped in the rocky mud. Blood gushed out. The rapier Noémie had been holding fell to the ground, its golden glow completely gone. It was nothing more than a simple rapier now, battered from the fight.
Noémie's head fell toward Uyan. The boy collapsed to the ground, terrified.
His mother's eyes were still open. Her sky-blue gaze, in which the clouds and flying birds were reflected, contrasted sharply with the violence and cruelty of everything that had just unfolded in a matter of seconds.
Panicked and in shock, the boy scrambled backward, pushing with his feet and his small hands, stammering in a tiny voice:
"M-Mom?..."