The wind died down, leaving an agonizing, breathless silence in its wake. The demons truly believed they held the ultimate leverage of life and death. They were completely blind to the terrifying reality: they were standing in a cage with a god.
Kael's lips curled into a dark, cold smirk. He drew his sword, Crystal. Without a shred of hesitation, he lunged.
The air hissed as Crystal sliced through the dark. They died in single, effortless swings. The demons scrambled, desperately trying to mount a defense, but none could even stand properly before his wrath. To Kael, they were nothing but air. He carved a path right through them, shattering the heavy double doors at the end of the hall.
Behind him, the illusion of Sara's broken wings vanished, but she remained hovering steadily in the air, watching him with growing dread.
Kael ran toward the inner chambers, his sword dripping a continuous trail of crimson. The grand staircases were heavily painted by the falling drops. He tore through the corridors, kicking locked doors off their hinges with deafening cracks.
Nothing. Empty.
Then, he threw open a heavy, bolted door at the end of a secluded hall. The breath caught in his throat. The room was a slaughterhouse. Blood stains marred every surface—splattered across the walls, pooled on the floor, and dripping from the ceiling.
A blinding, suffocating rage took hold of him.
Sara landed softly beside him, her eyes wide. "What happened, Kael?"
Kael turned to her, his eyes bloodshot, tears finally cutting tracks through the grime on his face. "M… My parents are no more."
Fuelled by pure, unbridled fury, Kael drew his secondary blade, Replica. He tuned out the world. He didn't hear a single word Sara said as he bolted back toward the remaining demonfolks. This time, he didn't bother opening doors—he began tearing down the structural pillars, shattering the very corridors in his rampage.
Sara watched the ceiling groan under his wrath. 'If he keeps this up, he's going to bring the whole fortress down on his parents' heads,' she thought grimly.
She let out a soft sigh, whispering to the empty air, "Then I will save them."
With a sharp snap, her pitch-black wings flared out. She took flight, racing through the collapsing hallways, her X-ray vision piercing through the stone walls to locate the survivors.
The Rescue
Deep within thestructural sub-level, a ring of demonfolks stood in a tight circle, their blades pressed against Adrian Redgrave's throat.
Sara's brow furrowed. She smashed through the reinforced doorway. Without wasting a single heartbeat on words, she tore into the circle. She used no weapons—only her bare, demonic hands, ripping through the guards in a flurry of brutal, calculated motion.
Elara Redgrave watched the absolute bloodbath in stunned silence. As a specialist surgeon, she was no stranger to blood, but the sheer, raw violence of the display made her stomach turn.
Suddenly, the ceiling above them cracked wide open. Heavy stone blocks began to rain down.
Moving with supernatural swiftness, Sara shattered the adjacent window. She grabbed Elara and Adrian, throwing them forcefully out into the open air.
The parents braced for impact, but instead of the hard ground, they landed on a massive, protective pair of shadowy hands. As the hands lowered them safely to the earth and vanished, Elara and Adrian scrambled to their feet and looked back up. For a fleeting second, the silhouette of a woman appeared in the air—horns curling from her head, massive black wings flapping steadily against the smoke.
They looked up at the window. Sara was staring down at them, her expression unreadable.
Then, the roof collapsed. The entire upper floor caved in, burying Sara under tons of broken concrete.
Aftermath and Awakening
Kael tore into the ruined room, desperately heaving massive slabs of concrete aside to find the demons. But as he cleared the debris, his heart stopped.
Sara lay crushed beneath the rubble, covered in blood.
He glanced out the shattered window line. Down below on the lawn, his parents were standing alive, staring up at the ruins in shock. The pieces clicked together in Kael's mind. The rage evaporated, replaced by a sickening wave of guilt. He had done this to her.
Sara's vision was failing, the world turning into a faded, bleeding black.
"Hey! Please, carry her," Kael choked out, turning to Drakes, who had just managed to catch up.
Drakes nodded solemnly, lifting her broken form. "Done."
Kael didn't waste another second. He broke for the exit, flying out of the ruined estate with Drakes right behind him.
They burst through the perimeter doors just as the authorities arrived. Elara Redgrave ran toward them, her medical instincts overriding her shock. "Is she okay?!"
Drakes looked down at the small girl in his arms and shook his head. "Ma'am, she is severely injured. She's in a coma."
Elara didn't recognize her. Because of the toll of her powers, Sara's physical body had regressed into that of a ten-year-old girl. Yet, Elara pulled the child tightly into a hug. "I don't know her name... but she saved my life. So I will save hers."
Flashing lights illuminated the courtyard. An ambulance was arriving, though the paramedics and police were frozen in fear, staring at the dissipating remnants of the giant black hands that had saved the Redgraves.
Elara waved them over urgently. "Please! Get the stretcher over here!"
Recognizing the prominent Redgrave family, the police snapped out of their stupor and rushed forward, helping load Sara into the back of a police van to bypass the traffic. Inside the cramped van, Elara kept her fingers pressed to Sara's pulse, continuously checking her shallow breathing. Kael sat at her feet, desperately rubbing her cold skin to friction-heat her body.
Drakes watched the girl's pale face, whispering under his breath, "Sara will awake. We need her. She is the only one who knows about us... more than we know ourselves."
The Emergency Ward
The van screeched to a halt outside the hospital doors. Two orderly boys rushed out with a stretcher, transferring Sara's fragile body and wheeling her at a dead sprint toward the emergency ward.
The trauma bay was already swarming with on-duty doctors. But the moment Elara Redgrave stepped into the room, a collective gasp echoed through the staff.
"Ma'am? Are you here to treat her?" one of the attending physicians asked, completely stunned.
It was a known fact in the medical community: Elara Redgrave was a world-class specialist surgeon who hardly ever took surgeries unless they were incredibly complex, or heavily funded by elite families.
A young, newbie doctor stepped forward, sweating under the tension. "Ma'am, we need to establish an airway and prep for surgery fast. We can't waste a single second."
Outside the double doors, the family was forced to wait. Drakes let out a long, heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair as he looked at the sterile white walls.
"Hmmm… This is my second time entering the..."