Chapter 34 - Chapter 30: Her Turn, Part 2

Here's a bonus chapter, in celebration for having such great readers... And because I don't think I'll have time on Easter Sunday.😭

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The battlefield held its breath.

Riser Phenex, for all his arrogance, knew power when it looked him in the eye.

And right now, power was walking toward him in heeled boots and a lollipop smile.

"I said," he barked again, louder this time, flame building around his hands, "Who are you!?"

Hespera stopped.

Tilted her head slightly to the left, like she was trying to hear something faint and stupid in the distance.

And then she smiled.

Not with her mouth—with her eyes.

"You're not very bright, are you?"

The words were barely above a murmur, but they echoed through the battlefield like thunder in a church.

Riser's fire pulsed, and he moved first—cocky, desperate, convinced speed would close the gap between them.

He launched forward, wings flaring, flame gathered into a spear of condensed hellfire.

He threw it with a shout.

It never landed.

Hespera didn't block it. She didn't dodge.

She just raised one hand.

Her index finger and thumb pressed together like she was plucking a string from the air—and the fire spear froze mid-flight, unraveling into a thousand glowing embers that hung in the air for a breathless moment…

…before falling like dying stars.

Riser skidded to a stop, staring. "What the—?"

She didn't give him the luxury of finishing the sentence.

Her wings opened.

Twelve of them—six burning with divine light, six whispering with abyssal black. The sky behind her warped from the sheer force of her presence, as if the Game Field itself struggled to contain her.

Riser flinched instinctively, stepping back.

Too late.

Hespera vanished.

No flash of light. No burst of speed.

One moment she was there.

The next, she was in front of him.

She touched his chest with a single finger.

And that was it.

The explosion that followed was silent. Not a boom, not a crack—just absence. The kind of silence that rushes in when a god breathes wrong.

Riser flew.

No, he was launched—slammed across the battlefield like a comet, his body tearing through ruined terrain, flame sputtering out mid-air. He hit the far barrier with enough force to spiderweb the energy walls of the field and collapsed in a twitching heap, choking on ash and disbelief.

He didn't get back up.

The crowd didn't cheer.

They couldn't.

They were still trying to process what they'd just seen.

Riser Phenex—pure-blood noble, undefeated in Rating Games—had been taken out with a touch.

And Hespera hadn't even unwrapped her second lollipop.

She exhaled slowly, licking raspberry off her lower lip as she turned her head toward the audience stands, eyes locking with every noble who had dared to look amused when Rias fell.

Her smile was gone now.

What replaced it was colder.

Sharper.

An unspoken warning:

"This is the level you praise?"

And then—casually, like nothing had happened—she reopened her portal.

And took out the now conscious Rias.

The younger girl hadn't moved.

Her face was pale. Her pride shattered. Her magic depleted.

But her eyes?

Burning.

Wide open, locked on Hespera.

The goddess knelt.

Brought herself level.

And for the first time since this started… spoke to Rias directly.

Low. Even.

But with no venom. No mockery.

Just truth.

"Next time, I won't clean up your mess."

She stood.

Turned.

Paused.

Then, almost as an afterthought, tossed a tiny, rune-marked crystal behind her—a faint healing charm. Nothing fancy. Just enough to keep Rias from passing out again in shame.

"Train harder, Princess."

The words floated back as she vanished into a ripple of violet and black and appeared back on her throne. The portal leading to the Gremory estate still opened in the arena, closed the moment she sat down.

And this time…

No one argued.

Riser twitched at the edge of the battlefield, face bloodied, limbs cracked, wings flickering like dying embers. But he wasn't unconscious.

Not yet.

Unfortunately for him… Hespera noticed.

She stopped in her unwrapping of her second lolipop. This one was pomegranate flavored. (An odd flavor but so was our sweet psycho)

A slight turn of her head.

Then a sigh.

"Still breathing?" she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "Persistent little chicken."

Her fingers flexed once at her side, and something… shifted.

Deep in the air.

A low hum began to vibrate through the battlefield, so low it wasn't heard—it was felt. Bones trembled. Magic recoiled. Even the field itself began to flicker at the edges like it was glitching under strain.

Hespera exhaled softly.

"I've been wanting to try this out anyway."

Her wings spread wide.

And then—

"Eternal Pyre: Vortex of Ashen Rebirth."

The words were spoken like an oath.

The sky above cracked—not with lightning, but with a jagged seam of glowing magenta fire. Ash poured from it like reverse rain, swirling in a slow, spiraling funnel above Hespera's head. The ash wasn't ordinary—it shimmered with layered runes, burning with paradoxical cold.

The ground beneath Riser sank, crumbling into a perfect black circle beneath him as the vortex expanded, a spiral of divine fire and infernal decay tearing through the field.

He barely had time to scream.

The vortex descended.

Ash enveloped him.

Fire swallowed his limbs, not burning them away, but reconstructing them again and again—each time weaker, more brittle, until he was nothing but a screaming loop of burning and rebuilding and burning again. A karmic cycle. A punishment.

From the sidelines, even the Phenex clan couldn't look away.

"Is she… torturing him?" someone whispered.

"No," another murmured, voice shaking. "She's cleansing him. Like a forge. Like a reset. But how is she doing that?"

But there would be no rebirth for Riser.

Not this time.

The vortex compressed, folding into itself like a dying star, and with one final pulse—BOOM—it imploded.

Ash exploded outward in a ring, then fell in total silence.

What remained of Riser Phenex lay in the center of a scorched, glassy crater. His armor gone. His wings snuffed out. His flames… extinguished.

His body was intact.

His spirit was not.

He lay unconscious, twitching slightly, a thin line of smoke curling from his lips.

He wouldn't die.

That wasn't the point.

The point was humbling...and some torture for flavor.

Hespera lowered her hand, the last glowing rune fading from her palm. She licked the inside of her cheek thoughtfully.

"Bit dramatic," she said to no one in particular. "Needs tuning."

She turned her gaze to the stunned devil on the sidelines.

"I trust that counts as interference," she said dryly.

The Grayfia could only nod, slack-jawed. 'She's a monster. As expected of the twin sister of Lucifer Morningstar.'

And then Hespera closed her eyes, not bothering to explain the spell. Not looking at the crater. Not acknowledging Riser at all.

Because the lesson was over.

The daughter of chaos had judged.

The rest was just ash.

The Phenex Clan shuddered.

That fire—her fire—wasn't just magic. It was ancestral. It throbbed in their blood, whispered in their marrow, and called to the flame at the core of their souls like a lullaby from a forgotten matriarch. It felt wrong. It felt right. Like home should feel… if home carried the scent of smoldering gods and the promise of ruin.

It was Lord Phenex who broke the silence, his voice thick with unease and pride struggling to rise above instinct.

"Who are you really?" he demanded. "Why do we sense Phenex fire coming from you?"

Hespera didn't look at him.

Didn't answer.

Instead, she turned her gaze to the three thrones she'd conjured in the beginning—ornate seats of black marble veined with gold, floating high above the arena along with hers.

There sat her "daughters"—the Hesperides—each one a shimmering vision of eveningstar-tinged grace. Daughters by her own blood. Twilight-eyed, dusk-skinned, draped in silver, gold, and sunset red, they watched the field like silent godlings, indifferent to the confusion below.

And seated at her right, legs crossed with an ageless calm, was Ophis.

Serpent of Infinity. Primordial Void.

And Hespera's adopted mother.

"I'll stay a little longer," Hespera said, brushing a speck of ash from her silver hair. "You all can return home. I still need to deal with that little dragonling poking around behind the Game Field barrier."

Her tone was casual—almost fond—but the atmosphere twisted sharply.

Because they all knew who she meant.

Vali Lucifer.

He had been watching. Waiting. Hunting the one responsible for snuffing out the Red Dragon Emperor. Not just killing—erasing. The human host and Ddraig both, silenced into myth by a power that should not exist.

And now, he had found her.

But before the tension could escalate—

Lord Phenex snapped.

"You dare ignore me?" he roared, flames curling up around him in response to his pride being pierced. "You will answer me! Who are you to command fire older than our line?!"

Slowly, finally, Hespera turned to face him.

Her expression was unreadable.

Not angry.

Not amused.

Just… bored.

"I didn't ignore you," she said, almost gently. "You're just not important enough to prioritize."

His flames surged. "You wield our sacred flame like it's your birthright!"

"It is." Her voice cut through his like glass.

And then—truth followed, slow and deliberate, slipping from her lips like prophecy.

"Before your line ever rose from the ashes," she said, eyes glowing with that terrible, beautiful magenta light, "there was another. A greater flame. Older than your crest, your name, your house. I am not borrowing your power. You are inheritingmine." (Technically, Azazel did infuse it into your bloodline… so you're not entirely wrong.)

Hespera blinked. Looked up. Squinted.

And then—straight into the Dimensional Gap.

Right past the atmosphere.

Past the stars.

Straight. At. The. Author.

(What the—?!)

Her expression turned exasperated.

"Really?" she muttered. "Fourth wall? Fuck off, Author."

She raised a single finger.

"Pop."

Static. A brief shiver of reality. An uncomfortable silence.

The universe rebooted like nothing had happened.

Hespera rolled her shoulders and turned her gaze back toward Lord Phenex, utterly unfazed.

The Phenex flames around him flickered. Shuddered. For just a moment—they obeyed her.

Lord Phenex felt it.

And it terrified him.

Hespera didn't wait for his response. She turned away, the faintest glint of a smile tugging at her lips.

"I'd worry less about my bloodline," she said over her shoulder, "and more about what you're going to do with your precious little Phenex prince. I damaged him a little too much for my liking. Not sorry."

She looked skyward then—toward the barrier, toward the presence lurking just beyond.

"Come out, Vali," she whispered.

"I'm not in the mood to chase."