They open the oversized chariot. Before them stands a small figure. It's Misanthria, the supposed ruler of the Arcana empire, the voice of Zernebog, god of death, one of its many arms, or rather tentacles. She doesn't look all that intimidating, although for a little girl, she does look a little off. She stands with her shoulders slightly forward and hunched, like that of a depressed person, but her head is held high, so her posture compares to that of a shady figure you find scheming in the corners of a tavern or at the edges of an event, dealing in shady wares. Even though she surely has access to the best food available, given her position, she still looks a little underfed. The most notable thing about her are her red glowing eyes, which gives away her demonic blood. Although they've heard that demons aren't all that uncommon within the borders of the Arcana kingdom, so maybe its just noticeable to them because this is the first half-demon they've encountered.

  Well. I see you made it here. Congratulations.

  I'll be honest, I think this is all rather pointless. You know how many people have tried to assassinate me in the past few years? You even have the audacity to try to fight me in the open, rather than trying to poison me or something. Anyway, to answer the hypothetical question I just asked, the answer is a lot. A lot of times, and I've evaded every attempt. It's because Zernebog is on my side. You are powerless to defeat me. What do you think sets you apart? The power of friendship? Your own ideological and naive delusions? The only difference between you and other assassins I've faced is that you are younger and less organised. And even if you somehow managed to defeat me, I'm just one of many. This plane is doomed anyway, from your perspective at least. You'd merely postpone the inevitable. You should've just focused on living happy lives and not have involved yourself with these types of things. I'm not a very powerful mage unfortunately, even after many, many decades of training.. I still don't come close to Sakaraths power. After a certain point, it's all about talent instead of skill, and unfortunately I suppose I lack that. But that's alright, because I got the most powerful beings on my side. I don't need to rely on my magical power. But I can still hold my own.

  You killed my family! How could you be so cruel? They had nothing to do with this! Mona yells, with tears in her eyes.

  I don't even know who you are. Oh how sad, you don't have a family anymore, hard to imagine what that's like... I grew up as an orphaned slave, and my own sister tried to kill me, you idiots. Where's the pity for me? You don't even know anything about me. And besides, I didn't give any orders to kill your family, that's just how things are run here, I only direct orders and make sure things are going according to plan, I'm not out there micromanaging every single action the Arcana kingdom takes. If you want to avenge your family you'd have to find whatever general controlled your unit.

  As the highest ranking leader you bear end responsibility for all the actions taken under you, everyone knows that, Amaru says.

  But Misanthria doesn't see it that way. It's no use to explain it to them, they wouldn't understand since they don't rank highly anywhere, and besides they're unimportant soon-to-be-dead fools. Still, Misa desires some sympathy once in a while, most people just do what she says out of fear, nobody ever cares to listen. And in all her years she's never managed to convince an assassin not to follow through. Being sympathetic was never her greatest strength.

  Misanthria drinks a sanguine potion, for a few seconds she suffers from convulsions then she starts glowing a red aura.

  It's hard to imagine what to expect from Misanthria, she doesn't even wear any combat armour, just regular old robes, but after fighting Sassarak they know not to underestimate someone by their appearance.

  She instantly summons a large dark orb around her, which destroys the chariot and knocks back all her assailants. Then the orb implodes and sucks in all the debris, before exploding violently again, not harming Misanthria who has summoned some sort of protective shield barrier around herself. Then she follows up by summoning a path of tentacles, forged from dark energy. The tentacles slap around almost aimlessly, and one manages to strike Zad in his chest, sending him even further backward.

  Then she unleashes a barrage of smaller dark orbs in Mona's direction, she's caught completely off guard and starts her teleportation too late, and she's knocked down instantly. Several explode on her body. Mona stops moving. Just like in the fight with Sassarak, Misanthria has no issue rapidly casting various spells without pause, they have to constantly be on their toes.

  This isn't good guys, I'll have to use my revival spell right away to save Mona, Alina says. She revives Mona.

  Foley runs forward and fires a volley of enchanted fire arrows from close range, whilst Kilian runs in Misanthria's direction, aiming for the path she is most likely to dodge in. Misanthria summons an orb that sucks him back, then it explodes sending him flying forward.

  You don't stand a chance. Tell you what, if you surrender now, I'll make your deaths painless.

  We will never surrender! Kilian yells.

  She swings her staff forward and launches another darkness orb at Kilians position, it's moving too fast, he can't dodge it. But right as it's about to strike Baldric jumps in front of him, blocking the orb with his shield. The resulting implosion sucks them towards its direction but Baldric can prevent the worst of it with his shield.

  As they are busy with the implosion, Amaru rushes forward, he uses his spear as a vault and jumps high into the air, then starts swinging his spear before throwing it at Misanthria, simultaneously with another volley of arrows from Foley. Misanthria tries to destroy it with her dark orbs but she's too slow. The spears' anti-magical properties easily pierce her barrier and hit her right in her lower abdomen.

  Aaah that fucking hurts! She yells.

  Then with some difficulty she removes the spear from her body and her wounds heal instantly.

  What the hell, are you guys seeing this? Her wound is gone? Amaru says in disbelief.

  She must have some sort of super healing ability, Kilian adds.

  I don't know guys, maybe we should try to escape, I don't think it is going to work, Mona says, anxiously.

  We can't go back now, we have to defeat her. We've only just started, we got lots of tricks up our sleeve, don't worry Mona, Kilian reassures her.

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  Next Misanthria takes the initiative and focuses her attention on the most annoying part of any party, the healer. She summons a great deal of dark orbs and has them rain down on Alina. Alina summons a light barrier but it breaks halfway through and she's injured quite severely.

  Go back Baldric, you should stick with Alina, we can't afford to lose her. Kilian says. Baldric hurries back and protects her from further orbs so she can cast healing spells on herself.

  A still injured Kilian starts running forward, Zad throws a smoke bomb at Misanthria to disorient her, whilst Mona fires a burst of arcane blasts. If they all attack at the same time something is bound to hit her. The shield easily blocks the arcane blasts however, but Kilian manages to close the distance on her and he pierces her chest with his sword. Misanthria starts to spew some blood.

  Goddamnit.. that fucking hurts.

  She explodes a black orb on herself, sending Kilian flying back, he manages to keep a tight grip to his sword. Misanthria's wound heals again, and in mere instances of a second it's like nothing bad happened to her.

  What the hell is going on, that would've been enough to incapacitate anyone.

  We have to remove the amulet guys, he yells. This is what my brother was talking about!

  This has gone on for long enough, you guys really need to die for me now.

  Foley charges forward, preparing to flank her with his daggers.

  She summons a portal near Foley, which slowly starts sucking him in. Guys this is bad, I don't have the power to move away from it! He yells.

  Meanwhile Zad signals Mona to teleport him from behind Baldric to behind Misanthria when he gives the signal.

  Amaru extends his spear to Foley who grabs it and he starts pulling him out with all his strength. Then Misanthria follows up with more darkness orbs and destroys his spear, Amaru has to jump out of the way to dodge it, Foley is hit and now holds half of a destroyed spear. He falls over backward and gets sucked in. Goodbye guys, he says.

  As he approaches the center, it explodes, Foley's limbs are thrown off and spread in several directions.

  She killed Foley! Amaru yells.

  The sight of the now lifeless pieces of Foley's corpse casts a shock in the mind of his former friends. Just mere moments ago he had been alive and by their side, it is quite unreal. They don't have time to mourn his death at this moment. Zad lets it fuel his anger to perfectly execute his next move.

  Now Mona! Amaru throws another spear at Misanthria to distract her. Kilian starts charging her. Zad is teleported behind Misanthria, he throws another smoke bomb at her then he kicks her in her back so she falls over forward, face first. He cuts her necklace off, before stabbing her in her head. With her necklace removed, she should die instantly. He lands in front of her and turns back to face Misanthria. She's laying on the ground in a pile of blood. To everyone's shock, Misanthria pulls the knife from her head and stands up again. Well now you guys know my secret, I really can't let you live now. Misanthria smirks, then a more forced smile stays on her face, but her eyes tell a different story.

  Impossible, we removed her necklace and she's still alive. No wonder she survived all those assassinations. People think the secret is that her amulet grants her immortality, but its merely a distraction, the truth is that she is invincible, so there is no point in trying to assassinate her. Misanthria summons a darkness tentacle which grabs the now exposed Zadkiel by his leg and slams him on the floor, crushing his bones, he screams in pain. But the third slam he has stopped making any sounds and his lifeless body falls to the ground.

  She killed Zad! Why?! Mona starts to cry.

  This is bad, we should get out of here Amaru says. There's nothing we can do, she's going to kill all of us.

  Baldric is in shock too, and Misanthria uses this moment to attack the now exposed Alina. She throws a barrage of darkness orbs in her direction. Baldric regains his composure and runs over to intercept them, but he fails to block all of them. Several break through the light barrier and strike Alina in her chest, defeating her. But she revives instantly at the temple of light. The altar crumbles to dust. "For your services to the god of light you have been granted another chance at life" a dark voice whispers to her.

  Meanwhile the situation with Misanthria is dire. I hate that it came to this but we have to execute our escape plan, if we all spread out in different directions, most of us will survive. Kilian yells from behind Misanthria. Mona, you have to focus, we're going to escape now. Kilian says, trying to get her to pay attention to the situation at hand.

  She killed Zad, Mona says again. You have to run or you will die too! Zad and Foley would've wanted you to live! Run Mona! Kilian says as he makes his escape. Amaru throws a smoke bomb at Misanthria, which buys them some extra time.

  They all spread out in different directions. Mona hesitantly runs a short distance. She knows that with her teleportation she stands the best chance of escaping out of all of them, and she tries to make herself an attractive target to draw Misanthria's attention. She pretends to fall over so Misanthria goes after her. I guess I'll kill you then, the rat mage of betrayal, Misanthria says, running after Mona. As she draws closer, Mona prepares to cast her remaining two teleportation spells in quick succession to rapidly increase the distance between her and Misanthria. First she throws a flurry of arcane bolts at Misanthria that she has to dodge.

  She teleports away from the path, preparing to teleport further away but she is knocked back by the explosion of a dark orb that strikes her right in the side of her torso. She falls to the side, her body hurts, it feels like her ribs on the left side of her body were smashed into pieces. She coughs up blood and stands up again with great difficulty.

  What, you really thought I was going to just let you get away? You think this is the first time I've fought an arcane mage or something? I knew you were going to teleport and I knew approximately the maximum distance of your skill, so I just predicted which directions you'd most likely take and threw orbs to intercept you.

  Mona falls on her knees, she puts her hands to her head, covering her face. It's all over now. She tries not to cry and stay strong, but she's defeated after everything that has happened that she can't hold back her tears. She failed her family too, their suffering was in vain.

  Misanthria walks over to Mona. Come on now, is this really all you got? No last ditch smoke bombs or unexpected sneak-attack arcane blasts? Mona doesn't even reply, she just sobs and hides between her arms.

  At least I saved my friends. Misanthria is too far into the forest now to catch up to them, there's nothing she can do to them. They will avenge me, she thinks to herself.

  Damn you're boring, what a defeatist attitude. No matter what your group does, it's all inevitable anyway. Nothing they will do can stop the turn of events. I see you have a pet raven. You know, I used to have a pet raven too, many years ago. I was still a slave back then, when they found out I kept a bird in my room they killed it in front of me. It made me so angry, but I couldn't do anything back then. After I assumed power I hoped to find the bastards who did it, I was looking forward to personally torturing them to death. But of course, they had already died by then. Quick, painless deaths too. I had to take solace by killing their families but it didn't alleviate my anger. It still upsets me when I think about it. Anyway, tell that bird of yours to fly away, it has nothing to do with this. Mona takes Avias with her hand then extends her arm and opens her hand, and flies up into the air, where it circles around, to watch over its soon to be former master.

  It's time to die now Mona. Misanthria summons black orb above Mona's head, then has it explode, blowing Mona's head and part of her torso to pieces.

  That went really bad. Now they know my secret. Still, I knew it would be revealed eventually, it's amazing I managed to keep it for so long. Gone are the days of travelling freely without guards or planning trips. Now I'll have to hide everything I do, and I'll have to require guards to accompany me everywhere I go. Misanthria sighs. If only I had been a more powerful mage, then I could've destroyed all of them. Maybe I should spread a rumor that I'm invincible in certain areas or something, they have to believe I have some sort of weakness, otherwise they will just try to contain me. Since I can't die that would mean possibly eternal torture.