Reza lay there, her body still trembling, the echoes of her violation still fresh on her skin. Yet, despite the horror, despite the unbearable shame, she forced herself to move. Slowly, painfully, she rose.
Her limbs felt like they were made of stone, her breath shallow, but her will remained unbroken.
Iblis watched, his ember-like eyes flickering with amusement. "Impressive," he mused, his voice a cruel caress of heat and shadow. "Most would still be sobbing in the filth."
Reza clenched her jaw, her gaze locking onto the demon. "Let them pass. Let my people go, and I will submit to you."
The cavern shuddered at her words, as if the very earth recoiled. Then, Iblis laughed. It was not just a laugh—it was a storm, a quake, a sound so utterly inhuman that the walls trembled and embers rose from the stone floor.
"Oh, humans," he sneered, stepping closer. "Always so desperate. Always so willing to trade what was never truly theirs to begin with."
The air around them grew suffocatingly hot as he raised a clawed hand. Before Reza could react, an invisible force wrapped around her throat, her limbs, her very soul.
She was lifted, dragged forward like a helpless puppet. Then, in a single, fluid motion, Iblis cast her onto her knees.
She gasped, her body shuddering as the heat from his form burned against her skin.
Iblis leaned in, whispering. "You kneel so easily," he mocked, his voice dripping with cruel amusement. "Tell me, warrior—was it truly a bargain you wished to make… or is this simply where you belong?"
Reza gasped, her throat raw as she choked on the dust, her back pressed into the cold, jagged stones of the ruined temple.
Above her, Iblis loomed like a god of death, his onyx horns curving skyward, his molten eyes alight with cruel amusement. His boot rested heavily on her chest, pinning her down with the weight of his dominion.
"You fought well, little girl," he mused, his voice a whisper of embers carried by the wind. "But in the end, all mortals kneel."
Reza clenched her teeth, her once-pristine robes now tattered, stained with both her blood and dust. She had fought until her limbs failed her. And yet, despite her defiance, she had lost.
She stared up at Iblis—theFallenOne, the LordoftheAbyss, the architect of dwarves greatest suffering.
A twisted smile played upon his lips as he crouched lower, his clawed fingers tracing the air just above her bruised throat. "Tell me, Reza," he murmured, his voice intoxicating and venomous. "What will you trade for your life?"
Reza coughed, her body trembling not just from exhaustion, but from the undeniable gravity of the choice before her. Her lips trembled as she spoke, the words foreign even to her own ears. "I will serve you."
Iblis chuckled, his laughter a cascade of shadows unraveling in the air. "Of course, you will."
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the words out. "Not just my soul…" she hesitated, knowing there was no return from what she was about to offer. "But my body as well."
Silence. Then, Iblis exhaled, a pleased growl rolling from his throat. He leaned down, his lips mere inches from her ear. "A generous offering," he whispered, his breath searing her skin. "But tell me, do you understand what you have just promised?"
Reza opened her eyes, her body aching, her resolve the only thing keeping her from breaking completely. "I do."
His clawed hand slid beneath her chin, tilting her face up to meet his gaze. For a moment, she glimpsed something ancient in those abyssal eyes—something beyond cruelty, beyond desire. Something that had existed before time itself. "You will conceive my child."
The words struck her like a blade to the heart. Her breath hitched, and the very air around them seemed to shudder in response.
Reza trembled, her mind warring against itself. She had heard the legends—of the Cambion, the spawn of demonlords and mortalblood, creatures of unfathomable power. She had known this bargain would cost her dearly, but this—this was something else entirely.
Iblis grinned, his fangs glinting in the dark. "And through that child, the world will burn."
A shadow coiled around them. The cave trembled, its blackened walls cracking as fire surged through the veins of the earth. Smoke curled and twisted like spirits in torment, filling the air with the scent of sulfur and death. Reza barely had time to scream before the world shattered around her—rock and flame exploding in a violent cascade of destruction.
Then, silence. When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the ruined temple. She was falling.
A void swallowed her whole, dragging her deeper than she thought the world could reach. Cold, suffocating darkness wrapped around her limbs, yet it was not empty. Shadows whispered in tongues she did not know, clawing at her skin like lovers' hands, pressing against her as if measuring her worth. Then, with a jarring stop, she landed.
Beneath her was black stone, polished like glass, reflecting her battered form. A cavern stretched infinitely around her—jagged cliffs and spiraling obsidian spires, illuminated only by a crimson glow that pulsed from the depths of Khal-Turaz, the Pit of the Forsaken. This was a place no mortal had set foot in and lived to tell. Above her, laughter echoed.
Iblis stood at the edge of a crumbling throne, carved from the bones of forgotten kings. His golden eyes burned with cruel amusement as he stepped toward her, his form shifting between shadow and flesh, between nightmare and temptation.
"Pathetic," he drawled, circling her like a predator toying with its wounded prey. "You fought so hard, and yet here you are, beneath me—where you were always meant to be."
Reza pushed herself up on shaking arms, but her strength was gone. She had traded everything, yet still, she was powerless before him.
Iblis knelt beside her, gripping her chin between clawed fingers. "Do you regret it?" he murmured, his voice dangerously soft. "Do you regret offering yourself to me?"
She hesitated, her breath shallow. Fear curled in her chest, but deeper still—beneath the horror, beneath the weight of her fate—there was something else. A treacherous whisper in her own mind. "No," she breathed.
Iblis smiled. He moved like a serpent, coiling around her, his presence suffocating yet intoxicating. The air thickened, heat radiating from his very being as he leaned closer, his lips barely grazing the shell of her ear. "Good," he whispered.
Dark tendrils of power wrapped around her wrists, pulling her toward him, forcing her to feel the weight of his presence. He was both fire and void, consuming her, claiming her. His hands moved slowly, deliberately, trailing over her skin like worship—each touch a reminder of his dominion, his absolute control. "This is not love," he murmured, his voice laced with wicked amusement. "This is ruin."
His lips ghosted over hers, teasing, tormenting—until the moment she parted her lips in surrender, and he finally devoured her. The cavern trembled. Shadows writhed.
Reza's scream was lost in the abyss. The shadows of Khal-Turaz pulsed with malignant life, watching, whispering. The black stone beneath her burned with unnatural heat, searing into her flesh as if the pit itself sought to brand her for what was to come.
Iblis loomed over her, his golden eyes filled with cruel amusement, his form shifting between shadow and substance. He did not move like a man, but like something ancient—something beyond mortal comprehension.
She tried to crawl away, but her limbs refused to obey. The air itself felt thick, pressing against her skin like invisible chains. "Do you think you can escape?" Iblis murmured, his voice a dark caress.
Reza trembled. She had made the pact in desperation, but now, faced with the consequences, her body recoiled, her soul screaming in protest. "No," she gasped, shaking her head, her voice raw with terror. "No, I—"
Iblis silenced her with a touch. A searing, unbearable agony erupted in her core, as though his fingers had reached through her flesh, past bone and sinew, to grasp at the very essence of her being. Her back arched violently as a surge of darkness poured into her, her veins igniting with something foul, something unholy.
Her body twisted, spasming in ways that should not have been possible. Every nerve burned, every muscle clenched as if trying to resist the intrusion of something that did not belong. She could feel it—him—carving himself into her, branding her from the inside out.
She screamed until her throat bled. The cavern walls wept black ichor, the very pit of Khal-Turaz shuddering in time with her agony. Iblis did not stop. His presence consumed her, wrapped around her like tendrils of living night, forcing its way into every part of her being.
"This is the fate you chose," he whispered against her ear, his breath scalding. "You are mine, Reza. Mind, body… and womb."
She sobbed, her fingers clawing at the stone, trying to ground herself against the tidal wave of pain and corruption.
Something moved inside her. Her breath hitched. "No—"
The shadows coiled tighter around her, forcing her still as the horror unfolded. Her stomach contorted, distending grotesquely as if something monstrous had already taken root within her. She could feel it writhing beneath her skin, something foreign and hungry, something growing far too fast.
Her own body fought against it, rejecting it, yet the corruption was stronger. It seeped into her bones, reshaping her from within, forcing her to become the vessel he desired.
"You will bear my heir," Iblis murmured, pressing a hand to her abdomen. "And through you, the world will kneel."
Reza screamed again, not just in pain, but in the sheer, overwhelming horror of what had begun. Reza's body convulsed, wracked with agony as Iblis's corruption seeped into her very essence. The Pit of Khal-Turaz trembled, its walls slick with darkness, the air thick with the scent of brimstone and ruin. She had fought. She had resisted. But the shadows did not yield.
Her mind teetered on the brink of madness as something unnatural coiled inside her, reshaping her from within. The pain was unbearable, a grotesque violation of flesh and soul. And yet—through the torment, through the horror—something began to shift.
The agony dulled. The resistance faded. Her body no longer fought the corruption—it embraced it.
She gasped, her breath hitching as the unbearable heat turned into something else. Something forbidden. The sensation of darkness caressing her skin no longer felt like an invasion but an embrace. Her heartbeat thundered in her chest, not from fear, but from something far more primal.
Iblis chuckled, the sound vibrating through the cavern, rich with amusement. "Ah… there it is."
He loomed over her, his golden eyes burning with triumph. His fingers traced the lines of her trembling body, no longer forcing, no longer demanding—because he no longer needed to.
Reza shuddered, her mind screaming at her to resist, but her body betrayed her. Where there had once been agony, now there was fire, desire woven into the very magic that had broken her. The shadows no longer bound her—they carried her. His touch, once searing pain, now set her ablaze in ways she could no longer deny.
She exhaled, a slow, shuddering breath, her lips parting as she whispered his name. Not in defiance. Not in hatred. But in surrender.
"You fought so hard," Iblis murmured, brushing his lips over hers, slow, deliberate, savoring her descent. "And yet, in the end, all things bow to me."
He claimed her then—not with violence, not with force, but with the insidious, undeniable weight of temptation fulfilled. His hands worshipped where they had once tormented, his lips tracing the path of her downfall. The abyss itself seemed to breathe with them, the air charged with the echoes of something ancient, something irrevocable.
Reza moaned, her fingers curling into his shoulders, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. She had lost. And yet, in this moment, she no longer cared.
Iblis watched her with wicked amusement, reveling in her final undoing. His pace was slow, torturous in its gentleness, making her crave what she had once feared.
He devoured every sound she made, every tremor of her body, every flicker of hesitation that crumbled under the weight of his seduction.
And when she finally shattered, whispering his name in a voice heavy with pleasure instead of pain, he laughed.
Low. Dark. Triumphant. Then, just as suddenly as he had consumed her, he vanished.
Reza gasped, her body still trembling, her mind reeling as the warmth of him dissipated, leaving only the cold air of Khal-Turaz. She was alone. Yet, she was no longer the same.
The shadows whispered her name, no longer taunting—but welcoming. And deep inside her, in the place where his darkness had taken root, something pulsed. Growing. Waiting. Iblis had won. And Reza… had become his.