It was here that she had spoken with Khz'iel for so long, and so many times.

The cave between Valmasia and Gehenna. Where the fort of Galeford once stood - though she was ignorant of that fact. A stinking lair of evil, destruction, and chaos - so close to where she had done her first feedings, and so close to her heart.

The rainbow lights dimly lit the cave walls, struggling to burst through the shadows which seemed more like a thick goo than the darkness of a cavern. Her aura chipped away at them, her magic only <I>just</I> illuminating the malefic creatures she could hear all around.

She could smell it. She could taste it. She could hear it. She could <I>feel</I> it all around. The essence of Khz'iel -

consuming, destroying, hating, feeding. Cannibalizing each other, that they might become as strong as what birthed them. Corpses litter the floor in layers. Corpses of animals, of stray humans - and of the demon brood as well. For all its effort, this was Khz'iel's legacy. The proof that perhaps it did deserve to die. Perhaps Khz'iel was a threat to humanity - a flame of destruction which needed to be snuffed out before it became a wildfire consuming all life on Agartha.

If the brood were found, then they would know. They would know that her most trusted ally was nothing but a monster. A slobbering, skittering, screeching, murderous, hateful beast - just like all of the things in the darkness around her. She can feel their hatred. Their hunger. Their bloodlust, their willingness to kill. She can feel them surrounding her - no doubt, to these weak creatures she was a plentiful feast. No doubt, to these weak creatures - she seemed an easy meal. Small. Fragile. Helpless. Prey.

Those were the words which Khz'iel described people with.

She can hear louder screeching from deep within the cave. A shout of alarm. A call to feed.

She shuts off the rainbow lights, succumbing to the darkness. It falls around her like a blanket, a shell - hiding the motes of un-color surrounding her. Hiding the circle of death that awaits the brood. The horde which closes in.

Surrounded in a protective shell of entropic magical force now, she falls. She falls straight to the ground, disallowing her wings to beat. The weakest of the brood are sapped entirely - the mana necessary for their bodies to properly function quickly flowing into Osonia's body.

It's disgusting. It's awful, it's terrible, it's disgusting. The taste of pure evil, of rot, corruption, bile, blood, infection, infestation.

She's writhing from the pain of it. Of the mana which so viciously <I>bites</I> at all of the goodness in her. She can feel the rage, the hatred, the will to destroy building up -

as the swarm, as the skittering, crawling, slimy, chitin-bound horde crawls over the shell she's erected, she can feel her heart ripping itself apart. She can feel the horror of Khz'iel's victims - the corpses torn asunder, ripped, flayed, broken. She can feel the hatred, the will to torment, to consume, to devour overpowering it.

She cannot absorb this filth. This rot. This corruption.

She had hoped to have Khz'iel's essence live on in her - but no.

This? This needed to be destroyed. This needed to be purged, to be cleansed, to be massacred.

The shell burns hot with the power of elemental flame - motes of un-color slowly warming up from black to red. It explodes outward, taking a multitude of vermin, pests, monsters with it.

The sound is awful. The cries of pain from beasts that she knew -

that she knew were intelligent, that she knew could feel, that she knew looked just like the monster she knew so well. The screeching echoes out, bouncing off the walls of the cave, and louder, higher-pitched screeches call back to it.

Hungrier screeches. Ones that could fight back.

She can barely control herself. The defiled mana <I>desecrates</I> her judgment. It <I>rots</I> her ability to put together a single reasonable thought that isn't getting the hell out of there.

This isn't something she can handle alone. She'll just become another meal of the brood. A nice morsel which helps the next Khz'iel grow.

No, no.

She leaves before the larger members of the brood heed the feeding call - leaving a path of burning, screeching corpses in her wake.

Osonia would be back with an army.