451: Sacrilege
All three balls of fire stopped short of hitting Merillia, crashing into an invisible barrier and exploding upon impact. But the residual flames flew past the Queen, as well as Beatrice and Olivia, who now appeared to be within that very barrier.
The Queen then swung her fan and blew Chris back to his starting position as well as evaporating the fire around his fists.
“I’m afraid you are mistaken,” Merillia said. “I am no demon.”
“You are!” Chris shouted, rising back to his feet. “You, your daughters, that insane, so-called king, the lot of you! Demons and monsters! Torturing, mutilating, killing for sport and laughs! You are worse than the demons!”
“‘Mutilating’?” Merillia asked and paused a moment. “Oh! You’re one of those ‘Black Masks’, aren’t you? But a bargain was struck, to which you agreed. And now you throw around grievances?”
“You call that a bargain!?” Chris’ anger grew and his flames reignited, engulfing his arms whole, growing wilder, larger, and brighter still. “As if any of us were given a choice!”
“There’s always a choice,” Merillia said. “Just like the choice you made when you broke an agreement. A bargain is sacred. And a breach is sacrilege. Noel!”
The catkin disappeared from where he stood and reappeared behind Chris, bathed in red.
“Kha—” Chris barely let out a breath, stunned, his eyes wide in shock. For his body could do nothing more. Chris’ brain instantly cut off all sensations to prevent an explosion of pain that would tear it apart. Not that it did any good to help Chris in anything more than grant him a few short seconds of pain-free existence before his organs and fluids collapsed into the gaping hole where his stomach and groin were supposed to be.
“CHRIIIIIIIIISSS!!” Beatrice cried out for her loyal eunuch as he collapsed into a gory pile.
“UWAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!” Liam and Jeremy fell to their knees and hugged each other as they screamed in terror.
“M-mercy!!” Carl begged and ran toward the queen.
Noel turned in Carl’s direction, but Carl jumped to the floor and prostrated himself before the Queen long before reaching her.
“I beg of you! I was confused!” Carl wept as he spoke, daring not to even look in Merillia’s eyes. “The succubus must have put a spell on me! My thoughts were not my own! If only I could drive her out of my head!” Carl slammed his forehead against the floor. “She corrupted my thoughts! I could only think of cock! Cock and pussy! My mind was cock and pussy! I still crave cock and pussy! Help me, My Queen! I beg forgiveness! I beg for help!”
“Fufufu,” Merillia chuckled from behind her fan. “A turncoat for life? You’re amusing. Bang your forehead against the marble some more!”
And he did.
“US TOO!!!” Liam and Jeremy ran to Carl and jumped to their knees on either side of him.
“She’s a witch!”
“A succubus!”
“Temptress!”
“Demon!”
“She used vile magics on us and our brothers!”
“Bringing death to so many!”
“We were scared!”
“Confused!”
“Bewitched!”
“Please, oh Wise, Glorious Queen Merillia!”
“Mother of our people!”
“Savior of our Kingdom!”
“Find it in your heart to forgive these poor clueless fools!”
The three men begged as they slammed their foreheads bloody.
“Fufufu, aren’t they adorable?” Merillia asked Beatrice. “So splendidly and shamelessly pathetic that they’re almost cute!”
‘Cute’ wasn’t the word that Beatrice would use, but she had bigger issues. The power that bound her and kept her in the air next to Merillia simply would not budge. Beatrice could not move her arms, nor her legs, not even her tail.
“Do not stop!” Merillia encouraged the three eunuchs. “Show me your devotion! Paint the floor red! Purge your thoughts, purge the weakness! Let them flow in a bloody river!”
“YES, YOUR MAJESTY!!!” the three men slammed their foreheads yet again, firmly on their knees before their Queen, where they belong.
“And what about you?” Merillia asked Ember, who now stood out like a sore thumb in the middle of the ruined hall, standing next to defeated Annie. The only conscious person close to Ember was Noel who stood like a statue and seemed to pay no mind to the blood and guts that slowly trickled down his face and body.
“I don’t crawl.” Ember’s reply was short.
“You just haven’t been with a proper man yet,” the Queen chuckled.