Chapter 1127: Poor Etiquette

Chapter 1127 – Poor Etiquette

Kaelmor laughed.

Soft at first. A polite little sound, like she had complimented his coat rather than promised to drag a scream out of his lungs. It slipped through the ruined chamber with terrible cheer, brushing over the dead guards, the shattered siphon crystals, the cracked coffin, and the ancient demoness standing barefoot in the center of all that damage like a nightmare who had woken up annoyed by interior design.

"My, my," Kaelmor said, cane tapping once against the floor. "Still dramatic after all these years."

The demoness tilted her head. "Still alive after all these years. How irritating."

"Oh, I try."

He moved first.

Kaelmor stepped forward as if beginning a dance.

The shadows behind him exploded.

They did not surge like normal darkness. They opened like curtains, folding outward from his back in tall, jagged wings of black-red power. Each shadow carried a smiling mouth with too many teeth, laughing silently as they lunged for her from five directions at once. The floor cracked beneath their passing. The remaining guards outside the chamber stumbled backward.

The demoness did not dodge.

She lifted one hand lazily.

The first shadow struck her palm and stopped.

Her fingers curled.

It screamed.

The sound bent inward, a spiritual shriek that made the chamber walls bleed dust. She squeezed, and the shadow-mouth shattered between her fingers like glass dipped in blood.

The other four hit.

One wrapped around her waist. One around her throat. Two snapped toward her wrists.

For half a heartbeat, Kaelmor’s smile widened.

Then the demoness smiled too.

Wrong.

Too calm.

The shadow at her throat blackened, then shrank, pulled into the glowing marks along her collarbone. The ones at her wrists twisted, thinned, and dissolved into dark streams that slid under her skin. The one around her waist tightened as if trying to crush her.

She looked down at it. "How nostalgic."

Then she inhaled.

The shadow vanished into her body.

Kaelmor’s eyes sharpened. "Ah," he murmured. "Hungry."

"I did say your guards tasted awful."

"Then allow me to improve the menu."

He snapped his fingers.

The dead guards moved.

Their bodies did not stand fully. No. Kaelmor had too much taste for common corpse puppetry. Instead, their armor rose while their bodies stayed inside it, hollowed by royal command. Red-gold strings of authority stitched through the joints, dragging them upright with broken, jerking elegance. Twelve empty helms turned toward the demoness.

She looked unimpressed. "Recycling now?"

"Efficient governance."

"Cheap."

"Sustainable."

The armor attacked.

Fast.

Too fast for dead things.

A hooked blade came for her ribs. She twisted aside, hair whipping like black water, one hand catching the wrist joint. The armor screamed as she bent it backward and tore the royal string free. Another blade came from behind. She leaned into it, letting it graze the shadow-silk at her hip, then spun, elbow slamming through the helm hard enough to collapse it inward.

Three more closed in.

She moved through them like violence remembered grace.

Bare foot on broken crystal.

Turn.

Palm to chest plate.

Armor caved.

Step under blade.

Fingers through red-gold string.

Rip.

A low laugh left her lips as she fed on the power holding them together. The royal strings snapped into ribbons and flowed into her mouth, her eyes brightening with every stolen thread.

Kaelmor watched.

Still smiling.

But his cane hand tightened.

The demoness saw.

She threw one empty armor at him.

Kaelmor flicked his cane.

The armor split in half before reaching him, both pieces flying past his shoulders and smashing into the wall behind. Dust rained down. His coat did not even wrinkle.

"My lady," he said brightly, "throwing servants is poor etiquette."

"You made them servants after death."

"Yes. Waste not."

She appeared in front of him.

One moment she stood among ruined armor.

The next, her hand was around Kaelmor’s throat.

The chamber went still.

Kaelmor’s smile remained.

But his feet left the floor.

The demoness lifted him easily, her fingers tightening around his neck, nails pressing into skin beneath his jaw. Ancient power roared up her arm. The markings along her body flared red and black. Her hair lifted around her, filling the air like a living storm.

Kaelmor’s cane dropped from his hand.

It hit the floor with a clean, delicate sound.

The demoness leaned closer.

Her lips were almost touching his ear.

"Now," she whispered, voice velvet over murder, "let me hear it."

Her hand squeezed.

The walls cracked.

Kaelmor’s body shuddered.

For the first time, the theatrical shine in his eyes fractured.

Something real flashed beneath.

Pain.

The demoness smiled.

She drove him backward into the wall.

Stone shattered around his spine. The impact sent a shockwave through the chamber. Outside, distant alarms finally began to scream properly. Red light bled through the broken seal lines. The remaining royal guards fled or froze, neither option useful.

The demoness did not care.

She lifted her other hand, fingers spreading over Kaelmor’s chest.

Her nails pierced fabric, then flesh, then something deeper.

His royal authority.

Kaelmor’s smile trembled. "Oh," he breathed. "Forward."

She pulled.

A strand of black-red power tore from his chest.

Kaelmor’s eyes widened.

Not fear.

Fury.

The demoness’s smile sharpened.

She pulled harder.

More power came free, writhing between her fingers like a live vein. The chamber groaned. The shadows behind Kaelmor thrashed violently, mouths snapping, wings splintering. His assistants outside shouted something, but their voices sounded far away beneath the pressure of her power.

She was going to rip him open.

Not physically.

She had found the seam beneath the crown.

The place where king, thief, and old hunger were stitched together.

Kaelmor’s grin stretched too wide.

Her fingers sank deeper.

The power in her hand turned brighter.

Kaelmor’s body jerked.

The demoness’s eyes burned red.

"One scream," she murmured. "That is all I ask."

Then she drove her hand toward his core.

To end it.

To crush the heart of his authority and leave the King of Hell as meat inside a pretty coat.

And stopped.