Invisible forces, strong and unyielding as iron chains, dragged Veridia through the damp, cold rock. They flung her onto a stone altar, the chill of it a shock that radiated through her back and seeped into her bones. The circular cavern was a crude, pathetic display. Runes, crudely gouged and uneven, covered the walls and the surface of the slab she lay on. The air was thick and cloying, heavy with the clashing scents of burning sage, night-blooming jasmine, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone.
*Amateurs.* The flicker of her old disdain cut through the coiling fear in her gut. *A true ritual chamber of the Court would be carved from a single piece of obsidian, the air itself perfumed with the exquisite despair of a thousand captured souls, not this… peasant weed-burning.*
The High Priestess approached, her face a mask of ancient, unlined focus. She was older than the rock of the cavern, her eyes holding a stillness far more terrifying than any rage. In her hands, she held a simple clay bowl filled with a shimmering, viscous oil. Without a word, she dipped her fingers in and began the consecration.
The oil felt cool on Veridia's skin, but it left a trail of tingling, electric heat. The priestess's touch was impersonal, the practiced motion of a butcher preparing a cut of meat. She anointed Veridia's forehead, her throat, the swell of her breasts, and the apex of her thighs. With every touch, her own demonic Essence thrummed just beneath the surface, becoming pliable, accessible. She was no longer a princess, not even a person. She was an offering being prepared for slaughter.
A dozen other women, their ages a blur from crone to maiden, formed a tight, silent circle around the altar. The High Priestess stepped back, raising her hands.
The chanting began. It was a low, hypnotic drone in a language Veridia had never heard, but the power in the words was undeniable. It pressed down on her, a physical weight that made her thoughts sluggish, her limbs heavy, her will a distant, flickering candle flame.
The gouged runes on the walls and altar answered the call, pulsing with a sickly green light. The glow grew brighter, its rhythm matching the hypnotic cadence of the chant. The magic in the chamber thickened into a palpable, suffocating fog.
"My, my," a voice whispered, thin and distorted, struggling to cut through the overwhelming power. Seraphine's illusion shimmered at the edge of the circle, her perfect face marred by static. "Now this is a production. A bit rustic for my taste, but the sheer energy… The Consortium would pay a fortune for this feed." The usual mockery was there, but it was thin, stretched over a raw, hungry avarice.
The High Priestess moved forward again, her eyes locked on Veridia. The chanting rose in pitch and intensity. She placed her hands on Veridia's shoulders. The contact sent a violent jolt through Veridia's system, an undeniable signal. The siphoning was about to begin. The other witches closed in, their faces masks of rapt concentration, their eyes glowing with the same green light as the runes. Their hands reached for her.
***
The first touch was a shock; the dozen that followed were an unraveling. The witches descended, their mouths and hands a storm of ravenous need. This was not the focused drain of a single partner, but the raw, chaotic pull of a dozen thirsty mouths on a single, shallow well. Veridia's mind shattered into a stream of fractured sensation and pure, undiluted despair.
*Cold stone… hot breath… fingers digging into her hips… the wet, greedy suction of a mouth on her breast…*
The High Priestess took her, her movements slow and deliberate, a rhythmic pumping that was less an act of passion and more a methodical extraction, the steady working of a sinew-pump drawing water. The others swarmed her body, their mouths and hands pulling and tasting, each touch a new point of violation, a new leak in her rapidly emptying vessel.
Her Essence was torn from her, ripped away in ragged, painful streams. The scent of her own power, a fragrance of nightshade and ozone, filled the air, mingling with the witches' musk and the burning herbs. The drone of their chanting was a constant, maddening hum, punctuated by their grunts of effort and the wet, slapping sound of their bodies against hers. Her vision tunneled, the pulsing green runes blurring into a nauseating smear of light.
She was a feast, and they were starving. Her body was a map of their hunger, their mouths claiming her throat, her stomach, the tender skin of her inner thighs. One of them, a young witch with wild eyes, latched onto her mouth in a brutal, plundering kiss that tasted of dirt and raw magic, her tongue a thief stealing Veridia's breath as the others stole her life. The sheer, overwhelming assault left no room for thought, no space for pride. There was only the feeling of being emptied, of her very soul being siphoned away into a dozen greedy vessels.
As the ritual reached its crescendo, the chanting a frantic, fever-pitched shriek, Veridia felt the final dregs of her strength being pulled from her core. She was on the verge of dissolution, her physical form flickering, the world dissolving into a gray haze. But the sheer volume of her demonic Essence—the life force of a princess of the Infernal Court, a power far beyond anything these mortal witches had ever channeled—was too much. The carefully constructed ritual, the one-way conduit of their magic, began to groan under the strain.
The green light of the runes sputtered, flickering erratically. The siphoning stuttered, the smooth pull replaced by a violent, convulsive jerking. The one-way flow of energy faltered, buckled, and then shattered.
The connection became a chaotic, two-way feedback loop.
It slammed into her with the force of a physical blow. The witches screamed, their bodies jolting as the circuit reversed. But it was Veridia's mind that took the brunt of the psychic backlash. As the last of her Essence was violently ripped away, the coven's collective knowledge, their singular, obsessive focus on the great work of their lives, surged back into her through the broken magical link.
Her mind, already stripped bare and defenseless, was flooded with a torrent of agonizing, unwanted information. It wasn't a gift; it was a violation. Arcane mathematics burned through her thoughts, complex equations for spatial distortion and temporal displacement. Detailed schematics for the construction of a stable, interdimensional portal seared themselves behind her eyes. Lists of exotic material components—the heart of a fallen star, the tear of a forgotten god, the silent scream of a dying timeline—scrolled through her consciousness.
And then, the final, world-altering revelation. The key. The one piece of knowledge they had all been focused on in their moment of climax. A precise, perfect sequence of runes that formed the single weakest point in the defensive matrix of their great portal. The master combination. The kill switch.
Veridia's body went limp on the altar, a husk utterly spent and empty. But her mind was a silent, echoing scream, trapped in a prison of stolen, agonizing, and unbelievably powerful knowledge.
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🎬 **[End of Transmission]**
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