FSE

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Cruelty without restraints. Powers beyond understanding. Lusts beyond any possibility of satisfaction.

Chapter 36: Glacial - Regina

The people of Glacial was living an endless war from shortly after the fall of the Archer family, when Riaku had conquered the kingdom by forcing a younger but always powerful Alexis to surrender to have the lives of her younger sisters saved.

The infamy of that traitorous victory had added to the deep love that the people of Glacial had for the enchanting princess and future queen, and the army that she had commanded, the Special Forces commanded by the formidable Murray in first place, had started a rebellion that had rapidly spread along the whole country. Fact without precedents in the history of the Northlands, a population was fighting against the outcome of one of the ceremonial duels that, following a tradition old like the world, decided the destiny of kingdoms and peoples. Sovereign against Sovereign: that was the way things had always worked. In the Northlands, everything is based on strength, power and honor. The sovereign of a kingdom is legitimated by its strength. Physical and spiritual and morale. The sovereign was the best warrior of its people, and if the sovereign was defeated in duel, the whole kingdom was, and the winner was automatically the new leader to follow. A tradition of honor old as Time itself.

For the first time ever, Glacial changed the rule. The kingdom had fallen because of a disgusting blackmail, not a duel of power and honor. And Glacial was a prideful nation, incapable to accept a so evident insult.

Of course, at the start the rebellion had been "soft". Riaku wasn't a tyrant, not even a bad leader at all... He wasn't the legitimate ruler, no, but the people of Glacial could still live on the lines of its own traditions and in a climate of peace and justice. Much as the armed forces of the kingdom and refused to take orders from the new king and much as the civilians almost ignored the new sovereigns, things had been peaceful enough.

Then, of course, the RA had come. Glacial had been invaded again, and this time by a crushing, merciless military power that had one simple rule: "There's no civilians. There's nothing that's not ours." The new invasion had pushed the kingdom of Glacial into oblivion: Riaku had rapidly moved his troops from Mottram to take stable possession of the towns of Glacial, in a true run against the RA.

He had managed to take for himself most of the largest towns and cities, but the RA had flooded all the rest of the nation, sacking, raping and murdering and enslaving, so much that Riaku, formally allied of the RA, had been forced to build enormous fortifications and walls around the towns, transforming every town in a fortress... a fortress always under siege.

And the new calamity had been the hunger. The RA had conquered almost all of the countryside and all of the cultivable valleys of the mountainous kingdom, so that the towns, even if still free, even if still under the gentle control of Riaku, had been progressively starved to death, despite the efforts of the Black Lightning to send heavily escorted convoys of trucks loaded with food and medicines and all the other goods desperately needed.

The RA had changed Glacial into a warzone, turned entire valleys into wastelands by spreading mines and traps and barriers everywhere a launch of parachutists looked even only remotely possible. The coast had been equally fortified, the roads fitted with enormous arches of steel that were to destroy any glider or airplane trying to use a straight stretch of road as runway to land or take off, and the borders had been fortified in forecast of the intervention of Kesteven in support of Glacial. In forecast of the return of Alexis.

And after that, the RA had started a vicious, merciless war against the rebels and the civilians who were even just suspected of sympathizing for the rebellion: countless villages had been burnt down to ashes, the inhabitants either gunned down or burnt into the buildings, many more, women in particular, taken as slaves and brought in the cruel nations of the Eastern sector of the Northlands to be sold.

And when the war against the rebels had become just too harsh and hard for the RA alone, Hell itself had raged on the unfortunate kingdom, turning it into the poster of the Armageddon day.

In the last years of its history, Glacial had been the darkest place of the world. The set of an endless, apocalyptic war... and the people of the kingdom had had so little to cheer for, and so much to cry for in those years that the sudden explosion of enthusiasm and joy caused by the return of Alexis ceased to be surprising at all. The rebels needed desperately a good piece of news, after so much time of sufferance, especially the rebels under siege at Argolis, since they were by now desperate about any chance of surviving.

It did not cease, anyway, to be impressive, oh no. Killer, and Alexis herself, had had no time to understand what was happening as a huge crowd of soldiers, civilians, elders and youngsters and kids erupted from all the sectors of the barracks to flood the hallway and cheer the return of the queen with a roar of shouts and acclamations that made even the bunker shake.

Killer reminded little of the cheerful confusion that had surrounded them, and he only had flashes of it: Alexis embracing an ecstatic Nigel, and then many more old friends... someone pulling out a dusty bottle of wine from who-knows-where and popping it open with the shouted warning "we only have ONE!"... A little cub somehow making its way across the crowd to poke at the huge, towering Killer with a look of childish awe as everyone laughed... And many, many faces cheerful with gratitude and newfound confidence in the future.

The attention of the people of Glacial had first been for Alexis, of course... She had been away from her homeland and people for years, by now, and they all were eager to take a look at just how incredibly beautiful and powerful she had grown up to be, from the already formidable warrior princess they had known. If in the past she had been the best sniper in the world and by far the greatest warrior that Glacial could oppose to its enemies, now Alexis had powers and strength that dwarfed every fantasy... and her beauty, that already had been legendary in the past, had increased as well. Now, the blond femme fatale was a divine creature to their eyes... and with the extent of her powers, their admiration could be easily understood.

The attention had shifted to Killer afterwards, much as he tried to stay silent and take a backseat to Alexis... but the ligeress had all but encouraged the crowd to turn its attention on the huge male, as she seemed to always do, for a reason or another. And there had been no need to ask twice.

Killer, after all, was quite eye-catching, with how he towered over everyone else, over even Alexis, that already was several feet taller than the biggest soldiers in the atrium, and he was famous and infamous at the same time. He was a legend for good and bad reasons alike... the whole northlands and most of the world had been his battlefield for years, and almost every land had heard his roar and witnessed his exploits, his power and his triumphs. For years, he had been the shining star of Kesteven, the always victorious general that had kept Kesteven and its allies safe and the Northlands ordered and fair, holding the fate of every soul in his hand and crushing under his foot every menacing enemy that arose...

And infamous, of course, because of the bloodshed and destruction that in seven years of murderous fury he had brought on the world. The destroyer of Newbury had gained fame proportional to the bloodshed he had caused... whole kingdoms had ceased to exist because of him, and incalculable numbers of persons had been killed, slaughtered, enslaved, and raped. His power was fearsome, his lonely presence a crushing dominance. Have him as enemy was a sentence of death... but having him on their side, sent shivers of excitement and euphoria in the Glacians, that had finally a queen and a king whose power posed them as Sun and Moon of the kingdom. Sovereigns, Saviors. Their saviors from the apocalyptic disaster that was crushing Glacial out of existence, destroying a new piece every day, day after day.

When things finally calmed down a bit, Killer blinked and found himself suddenly surrounded by a thick group of hypnotized girls, and he coughed a bit as he looked around at them with a slight smile, before he looked up to see dust falling from the roof every now and then as the roars of the crowd ceased and he managed to hear the explosions of the RA bombardment above their heads as the bunker shock with every massive detonation.

"Soon or later, their bombs will dig their way in the rocks deep enough to hit the roof and pierce into this bunker." Nigel said with impersonal voice, looking up at the shaking ceiling with an expression that was by now empty of fear and emotion: he and all the rebels had long accepted that there was nothing they could do about it... and death, anyway, was their closest comrade in every moment of their life of hunted, chased men. "They keep aiming and hitting the very same places... and one moment will come when they reach these rooms and kill us all."

"No way. We're here to bring you all out of here, and we'll be gone long before they can hit these barracks." Alexis stated firmly, and Killer nodded silently, looking around himself thoughtfully. The problem is that they are too many to have any chance to bring them out in a stealthy way... and too many of them aren't fit for fighting, or are civilians entirely. Bring them out alive with all the demons lurking around will be nightmarish. And when we are up...? This is a fucking island, surrounded by a hostile navy with hundreds of ships. No chances to leave...

"What about the army of demons in the main hangar...? There's thousands of demons of all kind camped there." Someone from the crowd asked, and Alexis shock her head with a sly grin this time. "Not anymore. That army has been completely wiped out already."

An astonished silence fell over the crowd as everyone stared at Killer and Alexis openly, with looks that could only be described as full of pure wonder... And despite the fact he was pretty used to it, Killer always found that the feeling of being in such spotlight was a bit creepy. Much as I like it on a side...

"Did you... kill them... them all...?" Nigel hesitatingly asked, and Alexis nodded with a grin.

"We entered from the main hangar and slaughtered everyone inside it." The femme fatale explained calmly, grinning slightly as she leaned her back against the wall and crossed her arms idly. "So stop worrying about that."

Alexis ignored the amazement of the crowd and the stares and the sudden excited murmuring of the crowd, until someone asked to be updated about what was happening outside.

"Yeah, it would be nice to know..." Nigel admitted, nodding a bit. "We've been completely cut out from quite long time, by now..." He snorted, making a bit of a face. "We have the greatest communication and control system here in the bunkers, developed to work even if outside a nuclear holocaust was going on and the air was sizzling with electromagnetic radiations, and yet we are blind and deaf. The Suicide Maker screwed up our systems so badly that we barely managed to keep the doors shut closed and the basic systems running."

"Vera is here...?" Killer asked immediately, turning away from the complacent, huge-breasted girl that had been touching his muscular arm like she was touching a god no less.

"She was... She left the island recently, on board of a Helix chopper." Nigel answered, looking with a bit of envy to Killer as the girl from early all but leaned against the huge male liger with a deep purr, the other girls around giggling cheerfully and imitating her and taking reverent, adoring little touches over the giant male. Killer, anyway, felt a slight grin crest his muzzle not at the sight of his envy, but at the awareness that Nigel's eyes were all but slavering over his powerful body.

"Stop being a pervert, Nigel." Alexis observed idly, and a laugh rose from the crowd as the soldier flushed and straightened, almost backstepping with an embarrassed cough as Alexis looked over him with a grin that Killer knew all too well. Predatory was the best adjective for it... Alexis was a predator, under every aspect, and she loved to play with her prey. That grin, and the glint in her eyes, where unmistakable signs of her predatory nature kicking in at full gear. "The king will have time for you later, I'm sure..." She observed teasingly, winking to Killer as her grin grew a bit wider.

"But back to serious things, anyway. We've freed Sangin, and most of the middle valleys of Glacial, from the Aaran Heights almost all the way to the coast... In this moment, Laura and Murray and Alexander and Siegfried Huxley are leading our forces towards the port of Zangwill. Our air force is attacking the fleet around this island coming from a forwards operating base in the arctic, and five of our nuclear submarines are out there chasing the enemy ships. We still haven't approached the capital, because we turned our advance to head here and bring you all out of this mess... But our next target will be Glacial itself, once we are done with this island." Alexis calmly explained, and no one dared to interrupt her, even as when she mentioned Laura and Murray the faces of everyone lightened up with joy and relief.

"They are both safe...? Laura... and Murray too...?" The crowd asked in a collective, hesitating search for confirmation, and Alexis nodded with a smile, making them all pull a deep sigh of relief as everyone exchanged wide smiles, murmurs of excited joy running through the entire crowd.

"We had heard they had been captured by the RA, and we feared the worst may have already happened." One of the black-armored soldiers in the crowd observed quietly, and Killer shock his head slowly.

"The RA used them as baits to lure us into a trap... but we managed to bring them both out." The huge male explained calmly, and the soldier smiled widely, bowing forwards in respect as everyone looked up and Alexis and him with renewed admiration and awe.

Alexis did not say a thing about their reverent admiration, anyhow, staring instead insistently at Nigel as he stared back at her in astonishment, the femme fatale reading in his mind with just a glance to get the information she needed and that would have took far too long to obtain in a normal, kinder way.

"Regina is based in the northern sector, then..." Alexis murmured, and the crowd fell silent and turned at her with horrified, terrified faces at the name of the demoness.

"She is..." Nigel admitted with a small nod, repressing a shiver. "She took the deepest anti-nuclear refuge of the whole island by slaughtering all the forces that we had stationed in there. There was no shutter that could stop her, nothing that we could do to restrain her. And... and now the sector 5 is her personal dungeon."

"She has prisoners as well." Alexis stated with cold voice as she stared into Nigel's eyes, and he swallowed tickly before nodding again.

"Many. Probably all dead, anyway. We tried to rescue them, but we are powerless against Regina..." Nigel admitted with horrified frustration, rubbing a hand in his hair as he threw away the anti-gas mask he had been wearing when out on guard, the crowd behind nodding with despair. "Bullets are useless against her, and she can tear through our ranks easily, no matter how hard we try to overwhelm her in close fighting."

They were all terrorized by her, and it was a clear sign of just how powerful, and cruel, she was. Regina was around from quite some time, and she was known as the younger captain of the RA. In reality, but this Killer had found out only recently and thanks to Diana, Regina wasn't a mortal, and definitely wasn't young, despite her beautiful 20 years-old look. The serpentine female was a demoness of the highest rank, an exceptional warrior with literally millions of years of direct experience of wars, torture and sufferance. She was the most feared person in the world, because of the vicious tortures she loved to use on whoever she captured alive instead of killing... and she was wanted worldwide for war crimes of the worst kind, and for her unbelievable ferocity over prisoners, civilians, and whatever unfortunate victim that passed by her hands.

They are all terrified, and I know they must have seen her disgusting actions... And I truly can't blame them for their fears...

"At the moment, I can't tell if they are alive or all dead." Alexis said with a bit of a grimace after trying to focus her senses on finding signs of life in the northern area. "There's too much demonic interference in the air for even me to see through. But they sure are suffering, and we can't permit this to happen any longer."

"What do you plan to do, Majesty...?" Nigel asked quietly, and the crowd turned to Alexis as she straightened.

"Well, easy stuff. There's not too space here for coming up with funny tactics or anything... Me and Killer here will have to go in from the only one tunnel for the sector 5 and smash everything to shreds, especially Regina herself." Alexis explained with a shrug, training a grin with Killer as he walked closer to her, leaving behind his back the large group of girls that had been drooling over him, and that now excited talked and giggled between them, even as Nigel and the crowd gasped in shock at the two ligers.

"Majesty... seriously..." Nigel started with hesitating voice, peering back and forth on all the others as if to search help, support and assistance. "I don't doubt you can tear your way into Sector 5, no matter how many try to stop you... but... How will you kill someone that can't be killed...? I saw Regina surrounded by an army that craved nothing else than killing her, and she tore her way through untouched."

"Didn't we do the same a few minutes ago by erasing the army of demons in the hangar, Nigel...?" Alexis asked, a soft teasing note in her voice as she arched a golden brow questioningly, a slight, confident grin cresting her muzzle. "Didn't we do the same in many occasions, rather...?" Alexis insisted, touching Killer's arm gently. "Let it all to us. Perhaps we'll finally face a worthy rival."

Nigel looked shocked by her answer, looking from her to the huge male at her side and back to her, before letting out a low whistle, nodding with a bit of a grin. "So you are saying me you are sure to kill her."

"I won't just kill her." Killer answered with cold, dark amusement, trading a grin with Alexis as she looked up at him teasingly. "I will destroy her."

"Will you use Wyvern...?" One of the girls that were lovingly touching and caressing at his huge body looked up and pointed to the enormous sword on the back of the giant liger, staring at the immense blade with reverence, admiring the weapon that had shaped an age and drawn the borders of the Northlands, and Killer looked down at her with a sly smile that made Alexis grin widely.

"I will use it... But not to destroy her. To tame her. Once I tame her, I have... other plans. I'm gonna use another kind of weapon to destroy her..." The huge male grinned and winked down at the female suggestively, and from how her eyes widened, he understood she had figured exactly what was going to happen.

"Your swords are special, I swear... They are even larger than our Cleavers." Nigel observed amusedly, and Killer looked up to stare with more attention at the thick handle that jutted out over the shoulders of the tiger and of several more black-armored soldiers. The huge male realized with an interested look that every one of the members of the Special Force carried a massive curved cleaver on the back, each massive sword built to fit with the physique of the soldier: in other words, each cleaver had been forged for a specific soldier, and it had been designed with the very greatest sizes and weight that the soldier could manage to use at his advantage. Even a few females were wearing the black bullet-proof tactical vest of the SF, and they carried their own impressive cleaver as well.

"That sword is ridiculously gargantuan." Nigel chuckled, pointing with a tilt of his head towards Wyvern, and Killer snorted amusedly, crossing his muscular arms over his chest as a playful grin crested his muzzle. "They say that a lot about me, not just about my sword. But I've witnessed in my life that when people goes big, it's very rare they want to get back to what they had before."

Alexis snickered a bit, and the girls crowded around Killer and leaning against him giggled cheerfully as well, giving small squeezes to the gigantic bulge in his pants, making his grin grow a bit wider as he witnessed just how fast they had understood.

Nigel got the line as well, Killer could easily tell from the look on his face, but then the tiger moved to raise other questions, and Alexis gently but firmly rose a hand to stop him even before he could start talking. "Please, stop. I can read your very thoughts, now... something I wasn't capable to do when I left Glacial. Many more things of the new me are a completely novelty to you, and you'll learn to know them with the time. But time is cruel, and it is running short on us. I see every one of your worries about Killer's and mine safety, and I thank you all for caring... But I'm asking you to bring your confidence in first place. Trust us and let us do."

The crowd stared at her for a short moment, and then everyone silently bowed at her, with the deepest possible respect and confidence.

Nigel then sent the crowd away, dispatching the soldiers back to their tasks and sending the civilians in the living zones, the girls leaving with one last teasing and giggling glance up to Killer as they left the room, and after a bit of chaos in the hallway were left only Nigel and a thick group of rebel soldiers in black armour, all members of the Special Forces that Alexis had been member and then commander of, years before. Mostly they were males, but a few females could be seen through the ranks, and they all bore proudly the leathery collar that the princess had given them to design them as her favorite pets, and all fitted the tastes of Alexis and the needs of a military unit as powerful and feared as Glacial's Joint Strike Force: they were all powerfully muscled and athletic. A single glance was enough to see the experience and the strength, and the numerous scars that most of them bore were a testament to their long experience of fighting... and they were armed with massive rifles that once had been designed to face even battle tanks, using tremendous high-impact rounds of depleted uranium from a large upper barrel, with an handy submachine gun mounted below this in one only weapon capable to serve excellently any purpose. The large rounds of uranium were adequate to face even the Gigataurs, and the explosive power of such special bullets was almost comparable to the one of a grenade, which allowed each soldier to deploy a formidable firepower, and get rid rapidly of even thick groups of enemies. And the long, thick curved silvery blades of the enormous cleavers on their shoulders suggested that they were more than competent in melee fighting.

The soldiers stood on attention in front of the two sovereigns, and they all loudly proclaimed their intentions like they were one only soul. "We will come to give you support. We are useless against Regina, but we'll keep the other demons away from you as you take care of her."

"We have a well-supplied depot of ammunitions and weapons of any kind, if you need something." One of the females stated, and immediately a couple of young recruits were called from the nearby room and sent collecting several long belts of ammo for Killer's Cobra.

The huge male reloaded his rifle and twisted one more belt of rounds at the ready around the long barrel, throwing the other endless belts of bullets over his shoulders and strapping them across his chest, and finally, when everything was ready, he and Alexis traded a fast nod.

"But please... you two have fought hard to get here. Infinite times harder than anyone else could ever have. You truly should rest before we go, and we can have your wounds treated by our medical bay." Nigel underlined in a pleady voice, trying to emphasize concepts that were very true and very reasonable, since both ligers were indeed tired by all the fighting sustained on the path down the bunkers... but Alexis and Killer shook their heads slowly nonetheless. There were too many lives involved and at deadly risk.

"We don't have time. Every moment that passes, a prisoner of Regina suffers unbelievable agony. And if we wait any further, they may all be dead when we get there." Killer answered quietly, and Alexis nodded firmly. "Lead us to the tunnel for sector 5... and meanwhile update us on the situation of the base. We must start planning a way to get out of here as soon as we get the prisoners back."

"So it'll be, Majesty." Nigel finally nodded, bowing to the queen before he leaded the Special Forces and the two ligers down the main corridor of the barracks, explaining the situation as they walked onwards.

The barracks were quite comfortable, despite having been designed for military personnel only, and for a far lower number of persons than those that now were hosted in it: the Argolis's base had had several underground barracks, and a large living compartment with much nicer little apartments for the families of the military personnel of the base, but all those areas had been progressively lost in the fights, as the pressure of the demons and RA soldiers grew heavier and heavier, and the strain on the rebels simply too great for them to defend more than a single block of the base.

So, now, civilians and soldiers shared the barracks left. The rebels still controlled a whole block of the base and the underground bunkerized docks that lead to the Argolis's bay.

"We still have three nuclear submarines docked inside, but leave the port it's impossible..." Nigel explained calmly, shaking his head a bit. "The RA established solid positions along the coast, around the whole bay, and has positioned teams of soldiers with Exoskeletons and several self-propelled missile launchers even on the groyne barriers of the bay. If we open the shutters of the underground docks, a rain of missiles and fire will obliterate the subs and everything else even before we can make the vessels move."

It was a nasty news, but it wasn't something Killer and Alexis hadn't expected. It could have been worse... the huge male had to admit he had seriously feared that there may have left nothing and no one intact in the whole island, after all.

"Then, after we deal with Regina, we'll have to raid the positions of the RA around the bay to ensure that we can move the subs out. We'll use them to move people out of here." Alexis said calmly, even if Nigel turned towards her with a worried look.

"We can man those subs with enough trained personnel to bring them out at sea, but even filling up all the space left in the ships with people, we'll only manage to bring out of here the wounded ones and part of the civilians, the one that need to be evacuated as soon as possible. But all the others...?"

Alexis bit her lower lip a bit, trading a thoughtful glance with Killer before answering. "I honestly don't know. I guess we'll have to improvise." She admitted with a frown. "Even when our troops get in Zangwill, it will not do us any good, since I see that the RA has either captured or sunk every fucking ship along the coast of Glacial."

"Yeah, they did..." Nigel sadly admitted as they walked into another corridor, soldiers and civilians alike looking at them from every door, from every sideway, bowing with words of gratitude as Killer and Alexis passed by. "They captured everything, even the most insignificant dinghy, the fishing boats... everything. They pulled them out of the ports, where the water is deep, and sunk every ship that couldn't be exploited for their own needs. Several have been kept, along with the crew, and used to constitute a shield of bait-boat around their warships as they sailed towards Argolis." Nigel's voice died away a bit as his face darkened, the bulky muscular tiger looking down at the floor with a grimace of sorrow. "We fired with all of our weapons, despite the presence of those shields. We couldn't avoid to, if we wanted to at least try and stop their fleet from completely surrounding the island."

Silence fell over every soldier of the team, and over everyone that was close enough to hear, a tigress standing on the threshold of an open door turning away and leaning her forehead against the frame of the door as she tried to fight back tears that Killer could already see shining in her eyes, her young child pulling insistently on her tattered blue jeans as he looked up at her in concern, not understanding what was happening...

And the group of soldiers paused, Alexis looking at the crying female with sadness, but with eyes that were even colder with hunger of revenge as Killer gently walked forwards and wrapped an arm around the young tigress, trying to think of a word to say to her to alleviate her so obvious mourning, and hating how every phrase that came to his mind felt abused, empty and useless, almost ridiculous. Words are the most powerful way that we have to express ourselves and the way we feel... But aren't them so ridiculously limited and powerless when it comes to things like feelings...? There are no words for certain things...

Killer squeezed her gently a bit, and she looked up at him in surprise for a moment, and even if the giant male smiled slightly and almost embarrassedly as he found himself incapable to come up with a single nice word of comfort, she smiled gratefully between the tears and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his powerful form and sinking her face in his massive, muscular abdominals as he quietly rocked her in his hold, noticing the Royal Marine jacket she wore and that identified her as a corporal of the though sea's infantry.

"We were forced to kill our own fathers, in many cases." Nigel finally muttered as he looked sadly over to the young female, who was much tougher than Killer had thought at first: her arms were squeezing him with surprising strength, and her body felt toned and strong, athletic and well-trained by fighting... Much as her pain was evident, she hadn't ceased to fight... and Killer admired her for this, admired her immensely. And he also understood from where her pain came...

"Most of the people you'll find here in this base were either in the navy or in the marines... And almost all of who works on the sea comes from Zangwill and the other towns around the coast." Nigel explained, looking up to the roof with an obstinacy that told clearly of sadness and regret being hidden away. "We are all sons of sailors and fishermen... So, the ships that we have sunk were OURS ship. The men we killed, our fathers, brothers, sisters. And what's left of many of our families on the coast is dying for hunger and poverty, since our life came from the fishing and the sea. Now, our families are slaves of the RA. Our sisters and mothers are raped and abused... and we are stuck here, assassins of our own blood..."

"You had no choice..." Killer murmured, squeezing the royal marine in his huge arms and rocking her gently in his hold as she sobbed into his muscular abdomen, the huge male smiling down reassuringly as the cub looked up at the giant with a bit of a frown, probably wondering why the gigantic stranger was embracing his mom in that way... And the female looked up at him again, forcing another trembling smile on her lips as she sobbed and two more tears streaked down her cheeks, and she finally nodded a bit as he looked gently down into her eyes. He couldn't avoid noticing how beautiful the white tigress was, clad in an open Royal Marine jacket worn over a tattered green t-shirt that tightly wrapped around huge, firm breasts, her body lithe and seductive with the shapely curves of her body, and strong and toned with fair, well-built musculature. Her eyes, even full of tears, were of a beautiful silver, and her features, even in the weep, retained clear image of uncommon resolution and willpower.

"Thanks..." She shakily said, smiling widely as she wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. "I'm... I'm sorry..." She apologized between her sobs, trying hard to repress her tears, looking shaky and exhausted, and yet smiling widely and sincerely up at the giant male, her eyes burning with a vitality and happiness almost frightening as she looked at him like he was the savior, a god come from the sky to save them all. "... I really... really shouldn't be like this, majesty..."

"Shush..." Killer gently whispered, holding her close, and she smiled up at him with a nod, calming down rapidly as she abandoned herself in his arms.

"This kingdom... we all... we desperately needed our queen back..." The female finally softly said, looking towards Alexis with a grateful smile, before she turned to Killer once more. "... and we desperately needed a strong king, too. We never dared to hope to have such powerful one, through..."

Killer smiled embarrassedly down at her, then gently kissed her forehead as he let her slowly go, and she backstepped and flushed, despite the wide smile on her features, as Killer followed Alexis and the soldiers down the long corridor, trying to ignore the way everyone stared at him, looking up at him as their savior, as at every door that they walked past, groups of soldiers and civilians alike bowed deeply to the queen and to him, everyone filled with new hopes of salvation and victory, everyone giggling and chatting cheerfully of the new powerful sovereigns that had stood alone against the army of the demons and annihilated it completely, and that now were heading forwards to slaughter the strongest of all demons, Regina, the Invincible One, the demoness that populated the nightmares of the Glacians and that had torn irresistibly her way across any resistance...

"Poor Rika..." Alexis sighed after a bit. "She had to kill her father, I see..."

"Twice." Nigel bitterly specified, nodding with a sad grimace as Killer looked at them with in horror, before turning back to look at the tall female, that still stood on the threshold and looked after them, tenderly staring at Killer as she saw him turned.

"The fishing boat of her father was one of the largest in Zangwill, so the RA kept it to be used as shield for its warships... They sent the boat ahead, together with many more, and when we surrendered to the evidence that we had to accept the consequences and open fire, Rika was in service in one of our now long-lost Exocet missile batteries." Nigel explained, before pausing with a deep, bitter sigh. "You know how the Exocet works... After launch, they turn on their radar and target the first sizeable echo they get... And much as we tried to avoid it, a missile sunk the fishing boat and set it on fire. No survivors, obviously... the RA gunned down all the people that jumped down from the burning hull, and anyway, in our sea, you can't expect to live more than just a few minutes before freezing to death."

"One month later, when already the bombardments had destroyed our positions on the surface of the island and we had been forced to retreat underground, the demons started their own attack... And for an unfortunate case of destiny, Rika was attacked by the zombie that the demons made of her father. A corpse burned and horribly devastated by the flames, but still recognizable enough to hurt like hell... Rika took him down a second time, and continued to fight all day long, despite the shock. When we finally discovered what had happened, we ordered her to take some time for herself... not that she stayed away from the fight for much, anyway. But at least, I never let her know that I had to kill again her little bro and her fiancée as well. Both had been turned into Undead soldiers as well... we burned the remains down, so that at least they now hopefully are to rest." Another of the black-armored tigers explained, and Killer nodded sadly, understanding the full extent of horror that the young tigress had faced... and his admiration from her grew even more. She continues to fight... that's more than admirable... and she has a son to live for, too...

"I shouldn't have reminded her of what happened..." Nigel muttered. "I was a stupid not seeing she was around. Me and my fucking tongue..."

The walk to the shutters that lead to the sector 5 was mostly uneventful afterwards... Killer and Alexis tried to ignore as much as possible the awed looks of the people they walked by, and the huge male only took some notes to himself: for example, he was relieved to learn from Nigel that the base was supplied with energy by a Pressurized Water nuclear reactor that had once fueled a submarine and that now was used as generator to produce electricity, but also to make work several machines also coming from a submarine, that produced oxygen and drinking water from the ocean's water.

That meant unlimited supplies of water, and no dangerous airing ducts that could be exploited by the enemy to harm the rebels even into their quarters. The barracks themselves were quite comfortable, he noticed, and that was definitely good: sure, they were crowded up a lot more than they had been thought for, and people were a bit cramped. But everyone had a little cubbyhole to sleep, a small berth that, much as it may look crap to outsiders, was a safe little haven for the owner. The base was still luminous, and even if completely cut off from the outside world, still a paradise for the rebels that retreated there after endless hours of fighting and bloodshed to have a rest, to forget the horror of Hell, to try and forget that they had had to kill their own families... often more than once.

Killer even heard some music here and there, coming from a few stereos that had been saved and that were religiously conserved and maintained, and the huge male immediately understood the resolution with which every rebel was fighting, battling for every inch of that underground facility against the overwhelming numbers and powers of Hell's forces: there wasn't any other place where to go. That was an important additional motivation: they could not retreat anymore, if they wanted to save their vital space. They were not only fighting for their land, for their families and friends and for their own lives... they were fighting to defend their little haven, their last refuge from the death, the horrors, the apocalypse.

Finally, they pulled up into another hallway, facing another one of the gigantic shutters that protected and isolated the various blocks of the underground base. Soldiers crowded the room, sitting on the floor and along the walls, weapons cradled in their arms and laps, many of the warriors cleaning up weapons, a few more sharpening the blades of their swords... Blades that already looked horribly sharp.

A large flatscreen mounted above the door showed the images of the corridor past the shutter, the enemy territory, that currently was calm and desert, and Nigel looked up at this for a moment before nodding to Alexis.

"Here we are. It's a single, straight-forwards corridor of three hundred feet to start with, so we have no cover whatsoever as we advance." He said bitterly, but Alexis rose a hand and stopped him.

"You follow me, stay on my sides and a step behind me. Take care only to take the enemies down as we met them, and I'll be your eyes and your cover." Alexis firmly stated, looking around over the soldiers to control their eyes, and make sure there were no doubts, no hesitations. Everyone silently nodded, then stood on attention, slamming their fists on their chest before bringing the hand to the forehead... And when Alexis and Killer nodded, every soldier pushed down the anti-gas mask on his face, secured it and checked the radio, ensuring to be in contact with the visors of the two sovereigns as well.

"After the corridor, we'll have to descend down the stairs... the lift, admitting it still works, truly isn't a safe choice." Nigel explained, pointing a hand off to the shutter. "But since I expect the stairs to be mined as well, we'll rope down." He added with a tone that made it easy to imagine the grin on his face as one of the bulkiest Special Forces' soldiers came back out of a side room carrying thick, solid black ropes

"Fine." Alexis nodded, grinning a bit as she crackled her knuckles and rolled her head a bit on her shoulders. "Time to go. Open up the doors."

One of the soldiers that crowded the hallway quickly entered a small side-room, and immediately after, the colossal shutter begun to slide upwards, as the SF units and Killer quickly lined-up, spreading on the two sides of Alexis and staying slightly behind the femme fatale as they all brought their rifles to the shoulders, ready to fire.

The other soldiers in the hallway stood respectfully on attention, paying their silent tribute of gratitude and admiration, and all wishing good luck to the assault team as the two giant ligers guided the squad into the decontamination camera, and then past even the second shutter, out in enemy-held territory, the SF soldiers aiming nervously their rifles from side to side, suspicious and ready to face any threat that might arise.

"Ok, the area seems clear..." Alexis stated after giving a look around, frowning a bit as her powers scanned the area far beyond the reach of the other's eyes, ears, and even sophisticated electronic sensors. "Around the stairs, anyway, it's a complete mess... Nets of Plasmids everywhere, and a crapload of the disgusting creatures crawling all around."

"That's where I step in, Majesty!" One of the tough females in the team exclaimed, grinning as she reached up to draw out a bulky, huge weapon from over her back, Killer looking at this with interest and with mild surprise. The female should was strong, for carrying a third weapon of that size beside the cleaver and the huge standard assault rifle. "With this, we can open up a path through everything we want."

She patted the weapon almost affectively, and Killer looked at the massive rifle with amusement: it was a war-shotgun, but fully automatic and drum-loaded with clips of 30 12-gauge rounds. It sure was a perfect weapon to clean up rapidly one crowded room...

"Excellent, Kari." Alexis grinned. "Here, then, in first line."

The team walked quickly down the corridor of concrete, without meeting obstacles... but as Alexis had announced, past the successive, torn open shutters, everything was covered by hordes of plasmids. The disgusting demonic creatures had covered even the roof, crawling around in the darkness in such huge numbers that the whole hallway resounded with their creepy hisses and the noise of their bug-like legs moving. Nets of green goo and other disgusting materials that no one really wanted to recognize stained every corner... and when the assault team walked into the hallway, the demonic creatures showed to be absolutely pissed at the unwanted intrusion.

The whole horde turned towards the newcomers and charged furiously, hissing angrily and swinging the terrible curved talons and the sharp, scythe-like legs, attacking like angry ants... Only being city-car sized and capable to tear a person literally apart with their talons.

"Like fishing in an aquarium!" Alexis exclaimed with vicious amusement, raising her hands up and blasting out a wave of tremendous force that burned to dust the hundreds of plasmids charging at them on the floor, even as more came out from the nests, the SF soldiers firing their assault rifles at the creatures crawling on the walls and roof as Killer aimed at the nests with Cobra, the massive 20 mm anti-tank rounds smashing everything into disgusting splatters of green, sticky goo.

Kari stood by Alexis's side, gritting her fangs in a grinning snarl as she fired the massive auto-shotgun, the empty cases tingling on the floor as the blasts of pellets tore large holes in the horde, sending Plasmids crashing backwards in broken heaps, even as more and more and more came, walking over the remains of their comrades in their ferocious charge.

"Reloading!" Kari shouted in warning as she clicked the small button in front of the trigger, the empty magazine falling away as she quickly reached for her ammunition-pouch to get another filled drum, and a couple of the other soldiers of advanced to her sides to give cover as the Plasmids charged with renewed vigor without the massive blasts of pellets that killed dozens of them at once.

Killer snorted and looked down the hall as he stomped down hard over the back of a demon, crushing the creature into the floor like a bug as the liger aimed his rifle upwards and fired a grenade in a low parabola, grinning a bit when the round smashed into the crowded demonic-bugs and exploded, splattering incendiary gel all around, the thick sticky liquid immediately bursting into flames at the contact with the air and covering dozens of Plasmids on the floor and walls and even roof with searing fire, burning them down to ashes as the creatures hissed and shrieked in agony.

"Back on line!" Kari announced, and her voice was immediately followed by the loud, echoing blast of the auto-shotgun, pellets tearing straight through several leaping Plasmids and sending them crashing backwards in tatters against their comrades.

The horde, anyway, was just too numerous to be kept at a safe distance: Plasmids surged at them all over the floor, and many more leaped at them from the walls as Nigel and a few other men of the Special Force turned to cover the sides and batter away the demonic creatures with their enormous cleavers, splatters of green goo covering the concrete with every creature that was sliced by the heavy blades.

Anyway, the team continued to advance as Alexis bad temperedly walked onwards, moving quickly with the long, graceful steps that her endless legs took, and she held up her concentration, hands up in front of herself as she kept a spherical barrier of energy around them all even as they moved. It was a complex and tiring feat, especially because she had to cover so much people at once, letting their bullets and swords hit outwards, but keeping out anything that came from outside.

The Plasmids that leapt at them smashed into the barrier of energy like against a wall, hissing in pain before shrieking in agony as the sheer amount of her force burned them away to ashes at the simple contact.

Killer fired a short burst of huge anti-tank rounds from the Cobra into a couple of disgusting nets that were vomiting up Plasmids, and the creatures and their houses exploded in pieces and gore before Kari added a blast of shotgun pellets that tore a large hole in the ranks of the creatures, before the male's eyes were drawn upwards and behind their backs out of instinct.

His eyes widened in alarm as horrific, gigantic creatures similar to armoured-spiders silently descended from the roof, hanging from thick ropes of spider's web, their long legs covered in sharp, steel-hard barbs and horrendous pincers stretching from their six-eyed heads.

The creatures touched the barrier of energy, and Killer saw their silvery exoskeleton-armor melt away immediately, but the demonic creatures only writhed without a sound, hiding even their agony as they pierced inside even the tremendous field of force.

Killer immediately reached up his hand for Wyvern's handle, and he swung the sword out in a lash, cutting the first demonic spider in half before it could wrap its spiked forelegs around the head of Kari from behind, and he battered two more aside with the flat of Wyvern, crushing them against the barrier of energy another time... and this time they melted entirely away with a deafening, horrible squeak of agony.

Nigel, at his side, had turned as well and swung his cleaver out in a double slash, upwards and then sideways to the left, battering out of the air the other demonic bugs before the two huge males traded a nod... and Killer couldn't help but grin slightly at the way Nigel's eyes dwelled a bit over the liger's mighty flexing arm.

They finally reached the T-shaped hallway before the torn-open door that lead to the stairs, and Alexis frowned a bit before grinning coldly, calmly announcing on the radio that a Gigataur was incoming from the right corridor.

Nigel made a silent gesture of command and sharply aimed his hand to the corner, and the men of the SF aimed their heavy assault rifles to the edge of the wall as they kept advancing with rhythmic, silent and rapid pace. Alexis rose a hand into the air, then signaled with a sharp pointing gesture, and the soldiers in black armor fired without hesitation.

In that very same instant, the Gigataur, a behemoth of muscles almost 28 feet tall, came bellowing its challenge, a massive warhammer ready to strike... and the expression on its face turned to stupid surprise as bullets tore into his chest immediately when he passed the corner.

Killer looked with interest to Nigel as the bulky soldier fired a first time, then another as he realized that even the anti-tank rounds of depleted uranium weren't quite enough, and the huge liger listened with something like amusement to the short, muffled noise of several shots, looking up to see huge bleeding holes destroy the tauren's chest...

And when the creature fell backwards, crashing into the wall like a train as he gave a last howl of agony, Killer realized that the weapons of the Glacians were semi-automatic only.

Nigel caught his curious look as the soldier was checking the number of rounds left in the transparent magazine, and the bulky tiger smiled a bit, looking proud and amused. "Tradition. Our unit never uses automatic weapons... you'll never see one of us enter a room and water with bullets a whole corridor to take down one solitary contact. Every single soldier of the Special Force, or Berserkers if you want to use our fancy shiny name, may come from the Navy, the Signals and Communications regiments, the Engineers units, from the Armoured Cavalry or from the grunts of the infantry or from the elite of the Air Force, so that everyone has unique capabilities from his precedent career to add to the competences of the team... But it does not matter from when you come. When you enter the Berserkers, you are trained as a sniper. Every single man of the SF has been trained to become a perfect marksman, and we base all of our effectiveness in battle on the accuracy of our shots."

A whole regiment of snipers... That's not something your standard grunt would ever be eager to face...

"Stop babbling, Nigel." Alexis commanded, but a smile was cresting her muzzle, and Killer could see the shadow of pride hidden behind the beautiful, icy sapphire curtain of her soul-piercing eyes. "Your time of reaction with that fucker was sloppy, considering the fact I had warned it was coming."

"That's because you have your frigging supernatural standards." Nigel grumbled, rolling his eyes a bit, and Killer snickered amusedly, half-nodding in agreement. Alexis only snorted-laughter, grinning widely as she walked ahead of them all, rising a hand idly and blasting out a tremendous amount of her burning, crushing force, melting a man-sized hole in the security door that had been shut close in front of them. "Enemies ahead. Riflemen and demons." She stated, and Nigel immediately gestured to another bulky black-armored soldier, sharply pointing two fingers towards the door.

The two sprinted forwards and took position on the two sides of the broken shutter, traded a nod and the soldier threw inside a cylinder-shaped Flash-Bang grenade as Nigel prepared his rifle.

They all waited for the grenade to explode, blazing light illuminating the dark room ahead and the loud bang echoing in the confined space, followed by hisses and bellows of scared agony as demons and soldiers were made blind and deaf...

"15 seconds." Nigel stated clearly, and Alexis walked inside the room like she was entering in the supermarket, followed by Killer and Nigel at her sides, the massive assault rifles ready at the shoulder, the liger having blocked Cobra on single-shot mode to show that Kesteven's elite had nothing less than Glacial's one when it came to aim.

A minotaur staggered near them, blind and deaf, slamming angry, enormous fists into the air and against the wall of concrete as he bellowed in powerless rage, before Nigel sent him down with a single shot in the eye, Killer pretty much executing another one that was pressing his enormous hands on his whistle-oppressed ears as Alexis snarled and blasted another shockwave of her psychic force, sending a Gigataur flying into the air with a bellow of agony, until he crashed heavily against the wall on the other side of the room, squishing three more demons with his hulking mass.

The other blinded soldiers and demons were rapidly dispatched as the other Berserkers followed inside as well, and they walked across the hallway towards the stairs.

"SAS super-soldiers incoming!" Alexis warned, and the whole team readied its weapons as the femme fatale concentrated her barrier around them even more, and a second later a dozen of grenades were thrown inside the room from the door that leaded to the stairs.

The explosions destroyed everything had been in the room, and the shockwave was powerful enough to send the corpse of even the enormous Gigataur rolling on the floor, but the deadly slivers of the grenades crashed uselessly against the barrier of energy around them as Alexis grinned coldly.

Immediately after the blasts, the exoskeleton-reinforced super soldiers charged into the room: the first two that entered had two enormous miniguns mounted on their right shoulder, feed with deadly, huge rounds from a massive backpack on the back of the exoskeleton, and they aimed the tremendous weapons towards the group with their right arm, the left one moving up to grab the missile-launcher mounted on the left shoulder to pull it in fire-position as well.

Two hurricanes of bullets clashed with infernal ruckus against the barrier, as the two miniguns vomited more than 4000 bullets for minute each, enough to slaughter a whole army in a few seconds... and soon an anti-tank missile followed, too, just before Killer blasted a grenade from Cobra straight between the two super-soldiers.

The explosion was powerless against the thick armoured exoskeletons, but it sent the two SAS soldiers staggering backwards because of the shockwave, and Cobra barked three times in rapid succession, three 20 mm anti-tank rounds smashing one into the other as they crashed into the helmet of the exoskeleton on the right, sending a splatter of blood and gore on the wall behind, and Nigel took down the one to the left.

More of the tanks-on-legs swarmed inside from the door, throwing other grenades into the tight, confined space and vomiting a hurricane of fire towards the assault team with the miniguns, Alexis growling as she gritted her fangs in a snarling grin and kept up the barrier around them, keeping them safe even as a furious rain of grenades, missiles and bullets torn to shreds everything had been into the room.

Alexis's eyes narrowed in rage as a barrage of missiles smashed in front of her, sapphire energy flickering in front of her and stopping bullets and slivers and even the shockwave of the explosion out, at a safe distance from her wonderful body, before she grinned a merciless smirk and threw her arms forwards, her muscles flexing and Killer feeling a tremendous wave of energy leaving her even before she snarled: "Your bullets are useless!"

A blast of psychic force of terrible power surged forwards from her, sending the crushed, bent bullets back towards the SAS soldiers who had fired them in the first place, and her energy slammed into the thick, super-armoured exoskeletons with such violence to tear deep gashes into metal, machinery and flesh, sending oil mixed to blood splattering on the floor as the SAS units were sent flying into the air and crashing across the thick wall of concrete, shrieks of agony resounding into the bunker as she knocked a dozen of them out, forever.

Killer charged forwards immediately exploiting the moment, and a hard slash of Wyvern decapitated two more charging SAS units, the crimson blade gleaming and cutting through even the reinforced armour with ease as the liger's muscles bulged...

And Killer grinned as Nigel pulled up at his side immediately after, pushing forwards his enormous, black-bladed cleaver with both hands, roaring in fury as he slammed the weapon deep into an armoured exoskeleton by pushing with all of his body.

The blade pierced into the armour, and Nigel snarled in effort as he sunk the sword through the layers of steel, ballistic ceramics and Kevlar to pierce into the body of the soldier inside, the SAS unit staggering backwards and quickly moving to draw out a cruel, curved knife, lashing towards the tiger...

But before it could strike, Killer lashed out Wyvern and decapitated the soldier, the crimson blade whizzing in the air just above Nigel's head...

But the special force soldier only snorted, grumbling that he could have set things by himself as he pointed a foot on the chest of the fallen exoskeleton and tore his cleaver back out with a grunt of effort.

Finally, after fighting their way inch after inch down the infested corridor, they stepped past a security door that had been left open and stepped into the top ladder of the staircase that descended many floors underground, the many ramps of stairs turning around a wide square stairwell... There was also a wide, powerful elevator that once had been able to move even the little service vehicles used in the underground fortress, the doors of which were torn open and scattered in wrecks of steel on the floor... But use the lift would have represented a serious show of confidence towards the demons and the RA. In other words, it was a stupid way to die, because it was surely a trap. Probably, both the lift and the stairs were mined, in fact, and ready to be blown up at the right moment.

"Cover!" Nigel commanded, and the Berserkers immediately moved to lay their backs against the walls, crouching in the corners of the room and on top the stairs to keep the whole area under the aim of the rifles.

It left Nigel, Kari and a couple more Berserkers free to rapidly walk up to the parapet of the stairs, where they quickly worked to secure to the wall the rope-ascenders they had brought. Electrically powered, the devices ensured the possibility to rapidly climb back up if things went FUBAR after ropeing down. It had been designed for the Boarding Teams of the navy: floating hundreds of feet below an oil platform or alongside a super tanker, the soldiers needed a simple way for teams to board a structure without arriving topside out of breath after using manual ascenders or climbing ladders, but it was useful for many, many applications.

"Ascenders in position!" Kari announced, and Nigel grasped a Flash-Bang grenade from the bandolier on his chest armor, signaled a three with his fingers and then mimicked launching a grenade. Kari and two more of the soldiers nodded silently, hands going to the belts for taking one of the small but deadly spherical HE-Frag bombs.

Nigel threw the Flash-Bang past the parapet, and three seconds later three HE grenades followed, the four small objects falling to the floor far down, many floors below as everyone listened with nervous attention, waiting behind the cover of the thick parapet to hear the explosions... And they did not come late.

"Fifteen seconds, move on gentlemen!" Nigel exclaimed when they heard the loud bang of the stunning device, and then the three explosions of the grenades: hopefully, who was down the stair ready to ambush them all was either dead or temporarily blind and deaf.

For up to 15 seconds, depending on the level of exposition to the Flash-Bang...

Killer immediately stepped up over the parapet and grasped the thick rope, giving it a rough pull to ensure it was well fixed to the wall even as he sneaked a glance downwards from over his shoulder. They are waiting for us... there may be anything down there...

But the floor was so far down that he couldn't even see it... and the darkness lurking in the stairwell was so thick and impenetrable anyway that there was little doubt that some of the skeleton mages were creating it with their magic. Along with who knows what else far nastier...

Alexis moved at his side, seizing another rope in her gloved hands and quickly stepping backwards and into the air, legs opened wide, elegantly stretched out to the sides as she slid quickly downwards, and Killer followed close, letting himself fall and making a face at the painful sliding of his bare hands along the thick rope, before he snorted in irritation as he slid into the magic darkness, Alexis and Nigel and the others ropeing down at his sides at merely a meter of distance invisible, hidden by the impenetrable black curtain.

He couldn't tell how many floors he slid down, but it was several seconds before his booted feet touched the ground, so much that just before he landed, a new Flash-Bang thrown from above had exploded in the magic fog behind his back.

He and the others were protected by the visors and headphones, so it wasn't a problem... he just hoped the enemy wasn't similarly equipped as he turned on the spot and quickly grasped Cobra to move the rifle up in firing position, check leaning against the camouflaged-rubber wrapping of the stock as he walked forwards and focused his senses at his very best. I hate this... I hate not seeing where the hell I'm walking...

He called the map on the visor, but the system was still disturbed by whatever signal Vera had been sending into the nets, and the small handy icons that had to tell him where the others exactly were continued to flicker spitefully in and out of existence as he snorted and rolled his eyes upwards, walking carefully forwards, closing his eyes and opening all of his other senses to the extreme.

Alexis was pretty close, and resolutely walking forwards, Blue Vixen in her hand, a weakly-struggling, suffocating RA soldier in her other as she lifted him easily up in the air... Nigel was closer, just a meter away to the left, and he was pinned to the floor, wrestling a Minotaur that was trying to strangle him.

Killer immediately turned towards this to help, but he stopped at the successive sound that reached his ears.

Tud. Tud.

Nigel stood up with a snort, shaking his head and massaging his abused throat with a hand as the other held almost casually the massive assault rifle that had just fired two decisive silenced shots, the tiger kicking bad temperedly into the side of the dead demon sprawled on the floor, and Killer sighed.

"Can't we really make anything for these fucking black clouds...?" Nigel asked flatly, but no one answered, this time, and he grumbled a bit before following blindly the general direction of the corridor, the other Berserkers following carefully, walking with the slow, uncertain pace of who walks in a zero-visibility condition.

Luckily, a bit deeper down the corridor, they stepped out of the cloud and back into normal, harmless darkness that their feline eyes had no problems dealing with as they walked down the corridor 52. In happier times, the personnel of the base had proudly added on the wall the writing: "The deepest pit of hell", because this was the deepest of all tunnels of the massive underground complex. At that time, no one could have ever imagined that one day the writing would have been SO realistic, with that area of the base becoming the dungeon of one of the most powerful and wicked demons of Hell.

"The fucking shitty irony of life." Alexis muttered, glaring at the writing as she grimaced and tilted her head to get a bang of golden hair out of her eyes, the Berserkers nodding silently, their glances low in sad respect of so many that hadn't lived up to that day.

But the worst of all came in the last part of the corridor. Somehow, with magic, evidently, even the shape of the corridor had been changed: there was not even sign anymore of the smooth walls of reinforced concrete that should've been there. Now, the corridor looked like a tunnel dug into the stone, even with sharp stalagmites and stalactites littering the path, which was only slightly illuminated by weird, crimson-gleaming crystals and a few torches.

The blood and gore splattered on the rock, through, wasn't fake, wasn't illusory, but all too real.

Alexis stopped her advance and stared upwards in horror at the sheer number of rotting, half-eaten corpses hang up to the roof.

Everyone had a moment of hesitation in front of this, even Killer grimacing at seeing the horrendous, useless macabre display, of people left as food for Plasmids, of tens of empty, glassed eyes staring into nothingness... and to almost even more empty eye-sockets, where something had already eaten away the eyes.

The Berserkers looked up in horrified silence for a long, long moment, and it was clear that they recognized many, if not all, of the devastated bodies: all friends lost in the endless fight they had faced together.

"She's killed... so many of us." Nigel murmured softly, looking down at the rifle that his hands were almost crumbling as he tensed every muscle of his body in furious, powerless rage and desperation as he swallowed thickly. "All our friends, pals we knew from well before the training course... we had been children in the same streets... We saw her drag them off after she plowed through our ranks like a cannon ball... We could do nothing to stop her, nothing seemed to touch her. Not the bullets, not the swords."

"We were... forced to let her take them with her." Kari murmured, looking away with trembling cheeks as she fought hard not to vomit at the sight of the horribly destroyed corpse hanging in front of her, the guts of which touched the ground, were they had been clearly savored by the Plasmids.

"As soon as we get this over with, I want someone to come here and take down our friends, to give them the dignified rest they deserve." Alexis commanded, her voice a lot colder than she wanted to sound, as her fury contaminated even her feelings of sadness, of regret, of horror. She only wanted Regina to suffer, and Killer could only try to imagine the full extent of her pain and her rage as he opened his mouth to speak...

But he had no chance to.

"Join us, queen Alexis!" One of the corpse shouted suddenly, and the hang, rotten body moved, leaping forwards with supernatural energy as a long, barbed tentacle ripped out the rests of the dead's jaws, shooting towards Alexis, huge, warped and wicked talons erupting from the hands of the zombie as a glowing rope came down from the roof to wrap around Alexis's neck.

The femme fatale snarled in a mix of surprise and horror, staring up to the corpse with the shadow of the guilt in her eyes. They'll never forgive me... They died because of me...

Her reaction was far slower and far less decided than usual, but Alexis was still rapid enough to dodge the stabbing tentacle as she reached her hands up for the rope tightening around her neck, tearing it away with a snarl as her muscles flexed.

The corpse leaped at her with the absurd, deadly and curved talons that jutted from the rotting arms, by now the size of sabers, and Killer growled in rage, stepping up to her side and firing a single grenade straight into the incoming creature, sending it exploding in a splatter of dark blood and gore, before he turned to Alexis with a supportive, concerned look.

"Don't let this sneak up on you, Alexis." He exclaimed, even as the Berserkers stared in horror to the crowd of hanging corpses all moving towards them and undergoing horrible mutations that transformed rotten masses of flesh into weapons as hisses and snarls of menace filled the corridor, echoing like explosions and tearing their ways to the hearts of the soldiers. "They are not the people you used to know! Not anymore!" Killer exclaimed, trying to sound as convincing as possible, but knowing all too well how bad he felt himself, and imagining how hard it had to be for Alexis and the Berserkers. To kill your own old pals... Again.

Nigel snarled as two of the hanging corpses leaped at him, and he only backstepped quickly on first instinct, dodging as the second one slashed the new-born saber-talons to slice him, and rolling to the side as the other corpse shot its tentacle out, the thick appendage sinking deep into even the floor â€" Of rock of or concrete, I can't really say anymore â€" as the Berserkers looked after this in shock.

"Fight them back!" Killer commanded sharply, and he slashed Wyvern furiously upwards as corpses dug over him from all sides, the tentacles shooting at him and ripping gashes in his arms as he made a snarling grimace, the blade of Wyvern cutting three corpses in pieces and breaking several of the thick ropes and nooses that seemed to surge from everywhere to try and restrain and hang up the liger and all the others.

The flat of Wyvern squished one of the corpses like a bug against the wall of rock of the tunnel, and Killer immediately tore the sword back to parry a barrage of tentacles that tried to stab at his chest, and immediately tens of ropes appeared from the walls on both sides and wrapped around his arms.

Killer snarled, ears filling with screams of agony from behind him, but he couldn't help as the ropes pulled at his limbs with supernatural force, and much as his muscles bulged with all of his tremendous might, he was restrained and slowed down terribly.

A demonic-corpse leapt straight over him, and he couldn't move Wyvern rapidly enough to batter it away before it fell over his head, clawing furiously at his back and tearing gashes in his black armor like it was made of paper.

Killer grunted and hissed in agony as he felt the incandescent talons of the creature ripping now into his muscular back, and he twisted on the spot hard, trying to unsaddle the demon as several of the ropes, even if magic, snapped powerlessly against his terrible strength... But the demon was still there. It felt like glued over his body, and his nose filled with the stink of rotting flesh and Plasmid's goo, his eyes closing as ripped guts filled with disgusting maggots rubbed against his face, and he made a grimace of horror before taking the only decision left.

If you are wrong, father, I'm gonna die of some disgusting disease...

He bit, hard, into whatever was rubbing into his muzzle, letting his frightening fangs rip and tear and destroy, breaking the corpse in two as Killer stepped forwards into a charge and pulled with all of his strength, the ropes snapping and part of the rock on the walls and roof falling down as he smashed blind fists into the crowd of demons surrounding him and finally slashed Wyvern in a spin, drawing a wide empty space around him.

He exploited the moment to spit out what he had bitten, howling in disgust and then spitting again and one more time, not even daring to look what came out, only snarling in horrified rage.

"How... frigging... sucks...!" He grumbled, wiping a hand against his mouth even as he turned around to look over his comrades, knowing that someone was gone, because of the screams of earlier...

And another demon charged at him before he could look around himself.

This time, it was even worse. The corpse of a female, that once had been undoubtedly beautiful and now missed several parts, eaten away by the plasmids, which had in exchange left into her exposed ribcage one of their nests, was impaled over a long, deadly-sharpened pointed tree-trunk that, coming out her mouth, had destroyed most of her face, leaving only an eye in place.

One glassy eye frozen in the last moment of horrific agony she had lived.

Now, the impaled corpse was running on rotten legs, moving at insane, impossible speed towards him, head low so that the pole was aimed at him, like an oversized spear.

He rose Wyvern to strike, but he knew already that it was too late to stop her charge, and there was no way to dodge the blow with the speed it come at, but he grimaced and tried to slash out with his blade, Wyvern gleaming as the sword grew longer in an attempt to hit the menaces in a larger range.

The Impaled dodged the blow with a surge of absurd speed, and for a moment, all what Wyvern saw was a flash of light, his eyes darting from side to side as he backstepped...

And then she was in front of him, the pole merely inches away from his chest.

Three rumbles from behind. A triple echo that resounded like thunder into the tunnels of the base. And the pole shattered into slivers, falling at his feet as the corpse was knocked backwards and crashed into the floor, skidding many feet away as gore and green Plasmid's goo exploded out of her.

"Don't... fuck... with... me." Alexis snarled, her fury something of terrifying as she advanced down the tunnel, her eyes two blazing sapphire lights, an incredible amount of energy roaring in blue flames that danced around her, electricity crackling loudly in the air as she passed by, as the air, the very reality around her seemed to tremble.

Killer looked over to her, her hand still gripping almost with violence the handle of her massive Desert Storm gun, the walls of rocks around her trembling and flickering out of existence, trembling and fading like the images seen through the heat rising from the asphalt in the hottest days.

The demons all around her, down the whole corridor, melted and burned to ashes with howls of agony that, horribly, where carried in the voices of the mortal beings that they had once been, but Alexis showed no pity at all this time. No hesitation. Not even as three more impaled corpses charged at her, not even as the first one rose again to her feet and charged once more... she just vaporized them all with a blast of her force that made even Killer tremble as he stared at her rage with something like reverence.

A moment later, the corridor was back in its correct fashion, neat walls of concrete surrounding them... But Killer saw that some of the Berserkers were gone, and that Nigel had been wounded pretty badly, with two deep gashes that crossed his abdominals, his armor crumbled, and his cleaver touching the floor as the tiger panted and stared with empty eyes to the blood that dripped from the blade.

"My... friends..." He murmured, his voice sounding from infinite distances away, empty and almost disbelieving as he stood fully and then sheathed the sword.

One of the female soldiers in the group was on her knees, crying desperately, and Nigel walked towards her first, falling to her side more than kneeling, murmuring words of support before Killer turned back his attention to Alexis, who was standing silently over the point where the impaled female had last been.

"She was my friend." Alexis murmured when Killer walked to her side. "A sister, for me. We've been together from... from the first memories I have of my childhood. We've been in the rugby team together, in the army together, in the Berserkers together. And now... now Sora is gone..."

"Sora is long gone, Alexis. You did not kill her... you put to rest her soul by destroying the body that Regina was puppetting. She wasn't the Sora you knew, Alexis. She was just a corpse that was Regina abusing of." Killer gently countered, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close, before tightly hugging her, rocking her softly in his hold as she quietly breathed into his chest.

Her arms needingly pulled him closer, and he leaned his head over hers, filling his senses of her perfume, of the soft and yet strong presence of her body, feeling her power and yet her feminine need for him, that mix of feelings that only Alexis could give him. "I'm sure Sora is grateful to you, my love. You freed her of her prison of death on this world."

"Maybe you are right..." Alexis sighed after a moment, and she squeezed him tightly into her hug for a long instant of warm pleasure before she kissed his lips softly and drew slowly back with a slight smile. She filled her eyes with his own affective smile, and then she turned over to the Berserkers, walking towards the crying one on the floor and helping Nigel in getting the horrified soldiers back under control.

Killer looked over this with silent, reverent respect, and even with admiration for the way Nigel and Alexis managed to stay cool and professional even in such circumstance, and admiring especially the way they managed to talk with the other soldiers and calm them down...

And then the huge male glanced down with a grimace to his poor, glorious armor, once more badly damaged and broken down in several points. You work perfectly fine with bullets and slivers and swords, my friend... but against demonic-enhanced weapons, there's little to do, huh...? I'd need magic or whatever demons and angels use for their own protective vests...

Killer sighed slightly and then reached up for the quick straps on the shoulders that kept the armor wrapping around his muscular form, pulling them both open and removing the vest with a slight smile of affection. We have just seen so much war together... before they shatter you entirely, I'm leaving you here. I'll come back later.

Killer carefully left the thick black armor on the floor against the wall and he straightened, rolling his huge muscular shoulders a bit as he made a bit of a face... and then his eyes caught sight of movements in the corridors in front of them as Alexis launched the alarm and shouted the first orders to the Berserkers, who quickly lined up for the fight, the shock and sadness for what had happened put aside now in the imminence of the action...

And as Killer brought Wyvern up in a ready stance and his eyes darted over the crowd of Gigataurs and other demons charging at them, he angrily considered that Regina was sacrificing all of her forces with the only goal of slowing him down, and making him spend his precious energies and grow tired.

You fail, Regina... I've cut through two armies of demons so far, and a shitload of plasmids and other sick stuff, and I'll take down whatever you throw at me, and when I'll reach you, I'll still have the strength to crush you. It's a promise.

"He's here... He is coming." The sigh coming from the soft darkness of the circular room was a low, musky, passionate and happy sigh, and ivory, deadly fangs smiled, almost glowing in the dark as a seductive female voice murred deeply, almost in a purr to herself.

A hand slowly massaged under the swell of one gigantic, firm scaled breast. Seductive thighs flexed hungrily as the long legs were spread even wider, fingers slowly, expertly touching at the dripping sex in the middle as a hot pant filled the air.

"He's here..." Regina breathed again, arching her back and shoving her fingers roughly down her passage, feeling it squeeze hungrily into her digits, her channel unbearably tight.

"Can you feel his power in the air, bitch... can you, useless shit...?" Regina asked, her voice suddenly aggressive as she brought her hands up and grabbed the sides of the face of a giant, hulking Gigataur kneeling over her.

The tauren colossus was naked, and his eyes were only white luminous pits, bare of any expression as he literally drooled over the demoness, his gigantic member painfully erected and throbbing with obscene need. The colossal 60 inches member dripped blood: the giant creature had been allowed to fuck one of the prisoners, and had ravaged the ass of the unfortunate until tearing him inside-out as Regina hungrily watched.

"Yes, Mistress... I feel it burning in the air." The bull said, his voice deep and powerful, and yet humble and submissive as he talked to his owner, drool falling from his jaws as he all but shivered in desire at the simple contact with the demoness's hands, his breath quickening immediately to reach levels barely reliable.

"Yeah, bitch... drink of it." Regina lustfully commanded, and she let him go suddenly, pushing him playfully up... and almost throwing the thirty-foot behemoth off the tall pile of cushions they were laying upon, with just that idle move. She greedily inhaled a big breath, like she could taste Killer in the air, and her hands went back to touching her own body, lust burning in her flesh as her fingers traced down an enormous breast to pinch a thick, swollen and hardened nipple as her other hand slid slowly down the wet gates of her sex. "His power is even greater than they say... the amount of energy he irradiates, gods... I felt him from here when he first stepped in battle in Glacial, such is his power. Nothing to share with you bitches..."

All around her, drooling Gigataurs nodded, the behemoths completely puppeted and dominated by her simple presence, and all waiting for her orders. Whatever they may be. She could order them all to kill each other for her amusement, and it would not be the first time she'd do such a thing with her slaves for personal amusement... She could order them to set themselves on fire, and they would obey without a single word.

Regina smiled a bit and half-snorted. She was not going to do so this time... Gigataurs were always precious assets: the most powerful of the demonic creatures of lower level, when it came to raw, brutal strength, capable to smash their way through any resistance, far more powerful than the war machines that Mortals called "tanks".

Sure, Gigataurs lacked particular abilities like tentacles and other fancy weapons that beasts like the Samanhi had... But when it came to strength, the Gigataurs were formidable.

But it wasn't that strength what truly made those Gigataurs precious to her... They were the most valuable slaves left in her personal harem on the island essentially because they were suited for sex as they were suited for war. Regina's lust was untamable, and her greatest lust was for strong, enormous males... All the better, of course, if they were enormous where it counted the most. And the Gigataurs were quite unmatched in terms of raw power and sizes.

"Fuck me, bitch. Make it very hard for your Mistress." Regina commanded, locking her burning eyes into the empty ones of the Gigataur of earlier, and the gigantic bull shivered under her glance, drool flowing from his mouth as he hungrily charged forwards over the demoness, pushing his enormous, bloodstained member against the tight lips of her sex and forcing forwards with nothing less than pure violence.

Regina did not even twitch under the assault of the thirty-foot behemoth, only grinning to herself as the gigantic member of the male pushed at her so-tight sex, even the strength of the giant somehow far too small to even just force into her...

Instead, even as the bull furiously pounded forwards at her gates, at her sealed, moist lips, the blood that covered his member glowed a bright crimson, becoming energy that Regina's body greedily absorbed, the demoness releasing a low hiss of pleasure, her body glowing of that very same crimson light as she closed her eyes and slowly licked her lips, feeling her power increasing.

It's just the blood of an insignificant mortal... so little energy to be less of a drop compared to the oceans of energy that rage inside Wyvern... The power he has... if I absorb it, I'll become so powerful that all Hell will kneel in front of me... The Mortal Plane is just a bug that waits to be crushed... and Heaven will be nothing more than my new harem of slaves to toy with...

She couldn't wait for him to come at her, every second that passed she could feel him getting closer, and the feeling of his burning power was growing crushing in the air around her... And there's also his bitch, Alexis... She has almost as much power as him... Nothing will stop me when I get their energy, nothing will ever be on my same level...

She trembled, hissing out in delight as she found herself on orgasm threshold just for the thought of him, just for the feeling of his incandescent aura, while the 30-foot behemoth bull that was desperately pounding at her sealed gates with all of his strength merely made her wet. Gods, the thought of Wyvern alone made her loins burn, made her want to finger herself madly, to viciously pull on the strings of her lusts to have orgasm after delicious orgasm.

Regina bucked her hips hungrily against the bull, and she gritted her fangs with an angry snarl as she impaled herself over the enormous length of the Gigataur's cock with one single, greedy and powerful move, the bull writhing as he bellowed out in a mix of delight and inconceivable agony.

"Not even strong enough to pierce inside me, bitch! Useless, worthless whore of a bull!" Regina snarled, her lust violent and ferocious as she grinned widely and bucked hard back against the bull's movements, her clawed fingers ripping to shreds the cushions of red velvet she was laying upon as she rode the bull with rapid, powerful thrusts that impaled her body over his huge length.

She tried really hard to contain herself, to restrain her hungers and lusts, but it was after very short moments of her pounding over the male that the trembling goliath writhed with a breathless pant and started to rapidly shrink down in size as a bright violet light glowed around Regina's beautiful form.

The huge bull spasmed once, drool falling from his muzzle with a last, gagged grunt of delight, and then the demoness couldn't restrain herself anymore, and she grinned with vicious lust as his colossal, muscular arms lost tone in a second, slackening horribly and getting scrawny as his eyes rolled over in his head and then become black, empty pits as his flesh turned to a dead, dull grey, taking on the consistence of leather as his muscles weakened and vanished until the skin wrapped tight over the skeleton as his body deteriorated rapidly...

Regina grinned and let out a hungry, lustful breath as she felt the last of the jerky, erratic thrusts of the gigantic male, and then even his cock lost sizes and consistence as the Gigataur turned to dust, falling to nothingness as the violet light glowed around the body of the demoness and she flexed with a hungry, unsatisfied grunt, even as the huge strength and energy of the once-Gigataur flooded into her, her form growing stronger, her curves even more breath-catching, her breasts even huger, her muscles gaining a bit more size and tone.

So much energy... and yet so little compared to yours, Wyvern... Come fast...

Regina's hand slowly rubbed down the slope of one enormous, just-grown-larger breast, fingers teasing her own body as she breathed out in insatiable lust.

That was the other reason why these Gigataurs crowding around her were so precious... they were all what was left by now of the huge harem she had brought with her on the island. She had had many Incubus and Succubus, Dius and Daius demons of lust in her harem, but she had already sucked up all of their energies, of their power and strength in the last hours, along with the energies of several of the strongest prisoners. Mortal's energy isn't much... but it still adds to the great total...

She was an Ancient demon... Despite her beautiful, twenty-year appearances, she was Eons-old, and in all the millions of years she had lived, she had ruled over a large section of Hell, and feed her already incredible powers on billions of souls. Mortals and further demons alike, angels, even, and a few fallen gods as well... their energies now where hers, and were part of an enormous power. Regina was a very, very powerful and dangerous kind of demon: she was an Incarnation; that in simple words is a demonic creature that's grown so filled up of the power most representative of a particular sin, to become the Sin itself.

Incarnations are so dangerous that Hell itself has to seal them away until they grew to control their immense power. Incarnations were nearly unstoppable creatures, with tremendous powers... And in the interminable history of Hell, even in so many trillions of years, the number of Incarnations could be almost counted on the fingers of the hands.

More precisely, there had been a few tens of Incarnations from the various Circles of Hell... but only a few had ever been able to control their powers completely: most of the others had had to be banished into the Abyss, the ultimate prison of Hell, or sealed or, in several cases, destroyed. And to destroy an Incarnation, it always took an enormous, collaborative effort of true armies of demons.

Many more of the Incarnations were not just driven insane by their own power and sin, but literally destroyed by their own unique Sin and the related, unique goal of their life.

Regina was one of the few successful incarnations. Her sister was another, and they were a truly unique case... And what was more impressive, was that Regina was a Hybrid Incarnations, an even more dangerous and far more rare being that born from a fusion of more than one Sin.

And Regina was, definitely, a creature of Lust, of Wrath, and perhaps even of Greed, it was hard to tell... apart from the circle of Sloth, after all, Regina fit pretty well in all the other pits, and so her dangerous mix of powers was complex, massive and difficult to even just analyze.

Regina grinned to herself, repressing a small shiver of lust as she thought of the fearsome, legendary Wyvern, of all the stories she had heard about him, and of the fact that he was tearing his way across the defenses of the dungeon in a way she had admittedly thought impossible... He was tearing his way through her armies of demons like running into tall grass, breaking the lines of defense and the colossal security shutters down like toys.

The demoness closed her eyes for an instant, arching her back a bit and drinking of the lustful shiver that went down it, releasing a soft, hot breath as she turned to look to another gigantic Gigataurs towering over her from the side, her look teasing and falsely affective as she brushed the chest of the bull and brought both hands up to gently grasp the sides of his muzzle, pulling it down so she was looking into his eyes with her own irises burning with flames of lust.

A bare glance from her was enough to send the goliath male over the edge, and his painfully erect huge member throbbed hard before firing a thick blast of seed that splattered over her chest as she grinned wider, her hand slowly moving to stroke down the huge length of the bull's member and milk out of him every drop of seed he was worth of as she lustfully bathed in his semen, letting the strong, warm cum soak her enormous breasts as she slowly straightened enough to bring her lips over the shooting head of his cock, grinning up at him before slowly opening her mouth.

The Gigataur's body rattled violently as she lowered her muzzle over his member, and unbearable ecstasy rolled through him once before he felt the world vanishing from around him, his head filling with crushing lightness and his body filled with a delightful but mortal weakness... and then it all turned to simple, frightening emptiness as he groaned and felt his head falling backwards, his body giving a few short, crazy jerks as he felt so weak that he couldn't even try to straighten his head, and his huge muscles rapidly deflated like a punctured balloon as his body lost color and definition and strength, only his cock becoming harder, thicker, bulging in her mouth with greater sizes and strength as his testicles grew bloated like they had never before been as he shoot a huge rope of seed down her throat, which she effortlessly, greedily swallowed...

And then, even his cock withered away in an instant as she easily bobbed her head up and down the hard flesh, her eyes grinning maliciously as she turned into dust, and then fell away in a dusty puff. The seed splattered on her chest and face glowed strangely for a moment, and then all but vanished, absorbed as new energy to feed her own power as she straightened calmly and wiped her mouth idly with the back of one hand, grinning a bit as her body pulsed again and she let out a small breath while hungrily licking at her fingers. Then she licked her muzzle slowly, readjusting her huge breasts against her leathery bikini top as they swelled a bit further, leisurely flexing her seductive and powerful body as her muscles grew slightly, the amazing tone of her musculature improving even more.

Regina groaned softly at the impatient, greedy and deadly hot desire in her loins, licking her muzzle hungrily as she turned to look over two more Gigataurs standing on her other side and grinned slightly. She had full control over them... Even seeing their comrades being dissolved into dust as all of their energy went to feed Regina's lust, the other demons gathered around her only drooled with invincible desire for her. She could literally suck the consciousness out of her prey: her demonic power of seduction was so great that she could all but enslave for eternity whoever she wanted, sucking their consciousness out of them with just a glance if she wanted to, and have them all, males or females wasn't important, only begging to serve her. It was the strong power of Lust that Hell called Dominate, and that her slaves had all been exposed to. There was no way for them to escape her seduction, even if it meant their death, their ultimate destruction.

Regina turned to lay on her side over the cushions, facing towards three of her remaining bull-slaves as she grinned slightly and looked over them all, loving the sight of huge, muscular males, their enormous cocks painfully erect and throbbing with power as she licked her lips slowly and leaned her chin into a hand, her eyes glowing with lust.

She didn't even need to talk... Immediately, the first slave in line walked closer and offered his huge member to her hungry mouth, her eyes glowing as she looked to the side towards the other two... And all three the males were soon writhing away to dust and nothingness, even as their thick seed bathed the demoness in warm layers of male juice.

Regina absorbed all of their energy as well, and she sighed slightly as she licked at her muzzle hungrily, feeling their seed become energy that flooded in the ocean of her ever growing power and loving the taste of a strong male on her lips...

But that was where she always got unsatisfied and hastily hungry. She had never found a single male strong enough to resist her touch. Most ones were sucked away with barely a glance, and even now, even as she used the strongest Gigataurs, even as she restrained her own powers and tried to prevent their energies from leaving their bodies too soon, they still lasted only a few seconds. She had never found one male powerful enough to withstand her when she really went to work, and much as she had tasted their seed, they had never lasted enough to reach a true orgasm. It was her own power that brought them to release all they were worth of in a strong volley, and it came only when she forced herself to be very careful not to suck out their vital energy too soon.

In Eons, in trillions of years, she had never had a true orgasm, if not self-induced... But fingering herself to orgasm felt cheap and incomplete, not half as satisfying as she knew that a strong male pounding her passage to release would be.

And that awareness made her shiver with a murr of delight as she sunk her whole hand into her tight, squeezing sex, up to her wrist, half-biting her lower lip as she felt high on lust and pleasure at the ever-stronger feeling of Wyvern's power as the liger fought his way closer to her.

She had heard all sorts of stories about him... the Mortals feared him and his strength like death itself, and she had heard of his exploits with true hunger... Even in Hell, after all, Wyvern was a famed name, and it was very rare that a Mortal had any kind of popularity into the Circles.

In the Hell of Lust, instead, the legendary Wyvern was surprisingly infamous... and now Regina was learning why.

First-hand experience is always decisive... and she was amazed beyond any expectations she had had at the feeling of his presence. She had never felt so close to a true orgasm release as now, now that she drank of the feeling of him in the air... and she couldn't wait to see him in front of her, to touch him, to feel him against her body.

Oh, yes... maybe it wasn't the easiest desire to understand, especially in a demoness... but Hell, yeah, she craved for a proper fuck, one that would finally made her release, one that would made her moan... All Hell, scream! She wanted to experience the feeling of a true, powerful male, one that would ride her hard and good, one that would last for more than a couple of minutes, one that she didn't have to be soft and nice to, like those bastards of demons that she brought in her bed to seek pleasure...

No matter how strong, how powerful, how famed they were. She had even had a few male Incarnations of Lust in her bed, monsters of power and sex that she had hoped would finally fulfill her needs... But the results had always been extremely disappointing for her.

Instead of enjoying the ride of powerful, virile dominators, she had had to restrain herself as she let them do, taking on the role of the slave not because they were able to get on top, but because she wanted to be at the bottom for once, hoping to feel the true power of a male above her. She let them dominate her every now and then, she worked very hard not to destroy them as she let them fuck her as hard as they could, and she sucked them off until they released in happiness, she let their seed cram her mouth, splatter all over her face, bathe her whole body in semen... But it still felt empty, cheap, and disgusting for how weak it felt, for how weak they were, for how easily she could kill them all in an instant if she just wanted to. At the end, she had done it... the energy of an Incarnation was between the greatest sources of power ever to be exploited, and she had greedily feasted on that power, since it was their only real usefulness: the sex with them had only been useless and boring, worthless attempts to find a fun she had never had the luck to caress.

Oh, how she craved the feeling of a true male, of true virile power... how she wished for someone capable to resist her seduction, to resist her rape attempts... Hell, she didn't want to admit it openly, but she craved a male that would be able to force himself over her and dominate her.

She had never, never thought that a Mortal one day would have risen to be her best chance to find that incredible power capable to bend her... But now that the legendary Wyvern was so close, she had to admit he felt incredibly powerful. His might was something unseen in history, and she could feel it burn into the air, seeming to shake and creak reality itself as he charged forwards and ripped his way through demons like he was cutting up hay... But moreover, he felt full of unmatched levels of lust and sexual power. It was incredible... she had never felt such feeling of manliness coming from a demon, and less than never from a mortal... And it made her loins ache with lust as she thought, deep into her head, that he may really be the one.

I'll feast over his mortal energy... it'll make me the Ultimate Being, the everything-ruling Goddess... And I'll find him again in Hell... He'll become an incarnation himself, no less, with how much power he has... And Hybrid, probably... And Lust... oh, gods, he has so much Lust inside... I bet he'd become the king of the circle of Lust in no time... I'll rule all of Hell, and he'll rule Lust... and he'll make me know how a true male feels like... Oh, Wyvern, you'll do... you'll show me what a powerful male is capable of...

She had heard just so much about Wyvern... The Legend, as they called him... And now her body burned with a delight that even the Incarnation she had fucked couldn't give her, and he wasn't even around yet! And that pleasure grew even greater as she thought and fantasized about Wyvern, about just how awesome he would be in bed... and even more, trying to imagine how glorious he was going to become in Hell, in the afterlife, as the strongest incarnation to ever exist. After me, of course...

She laughed quietly to herself, grinning as she slowly rolled her hands over her breasts, squeezing the huge, gravity-defeating firm swells lightly and feeling the desire in her give a flare as she imagined a giant, raging liger-demon with the biggest and strongest malehood to ever exist...

The tales of him, after all, always dwelled a lot on sex... Wyvern had all but raped entire towns in the past, and the book of his Sins of lust was endless. Oh, she had read it, yes... how many rapes in it... how many females, and even males, raped to death, destroyed like toys! How many more fucked with consent, instead, and with supreme happiness of the ones he had mounted...

How many men-eater bitches tamed!

Alexis, his bitch... her hunger was legendary even in Hell, her lusts were said to be such that she was seen as a future Incarnation of Lust as well. Alexis, the Amazon that had made all the best males of Glacial her slaves, all of the best females of the kingdom her bitches... and yet, he had tamed her without even touching her!

Yeah... Alexis had been tamed well before the two tigers actually met, well before of the faithful night that had seen them fuck for furious hours and hours in the house of their rival, Riaku... Alexis had fallen to his charms years before, reading of him, hearing of him...

If he had tamed such a dominatrix Amazon in such a way, if his lonely presence could arouse her so much and bring her so close to a torturous orgasm that she dreamed from Eons, Regina had to admit he may really be the one capable to bend even her.

She had been chosen specifically because of her incredible powers, as the Ultimate Weapon capable to finally get rid of the terrifying Wyvern, the only real obstacle on the path of the plans of the Gods.

She had been tasked to help the RA, and from ten mortal years, she was living on the mortal plane... A feat that, alone, would have weakened terribly most demons, but that had no effect at all over her. She had brought Hell in Glacial, quite literally... the ever-lasting tempest of fire and lightning over Argolis and the Glacial Sea was opera of her tremendous powers. The corpses becoming zombies were mere consequences of her simple presence on the island, effect of her tremendous demonic aura. And the fall of Argolis was mostly her merit... Much as the immense fleet of warships and planes put together by the RA had bombed the island and fought hard to disable the defenses of Argolis, the rebels had been able to repeal all the attempts of landing an assault force, thanks to the immense power of the fortifications that covered the whole island.

Batteries of anti-ship missiles operated from deep into the bunkers and huge pieces of artillery mounted into turrets deployed on strategic spots of the tall cliffs of Argolis had been targeting the RA ships from the very first moment of the battle, and with them the rebels had managed to cause serious damaged to the fleet.

Any attempt to destroy the artillery and the missiles had mostly been a costly failure, with several destroyers being sunk as they tried to target the defenses of Argolis with their own weapons... and even the large-scale full out attacks with the hundreds of planes coming from the RA aircraft carriers had brought to little result, since well-concealed Vertical Launch Missile Silos underground had been targeting the jets with missile after missile, while the RA's bombs and cruise missiles had been almost always wiped out the sky thanks to the many Close-In Weapon Systems deployed all along the coast with the only task to take down any incoming threat to the bunkerized base of Argolis.

The island had been judged impossible to assail after the hundredth attempt badly failed... But then Regina had stepped in, and against her terrifying powers, nothing had been of use.

Regina grinned, murring a bit as she reached slowly down to stroke two fingers over her hungry sex as she pumped her other hand in and out of her tight passage, her lips wrapping hungrily around her own wrist and squeezing it so powerfully to almost greedily pull her arm inside as she panted a bit at the memory of it, at the memory of how her immense power had crushed the resistance of the rebels like they were bugs... She had stepped in battle, her eyes maliciously flashing with glowing green light, and the dozen of jet fighters that the rebels were still courageously flying against the many hundreds of RA planes had all but suddenly stopped in midair, like caught in an invisible net, so violently braking that probably the pilots had died only because of the obscene, sudden g-force of the lost of speed.

It did not matter, anyhow, because the jets had then been torn apart like an invisible, divine sword had slashed them, and then they had imploded, crumpling inwards like they toys of thin can that were being squeezed by immense giant's hands.

Oh, yes... her telekinetic powers were even only with her ability to control minds and subdue people to her whims and lusts. Her power was immense... and yet, that had only been a sample. All of her powers grew would grow tenfold with her taking on her true, demonic form... but that may be needed only against Wyvern's power... to crush the rebels, there was no need to exaggerate...

After taking down all of the planes, she had personally assaulted Argolis... and a simple gaze had been enough to enslave all the soldiers that had been outside the bunkers: they had all fallen away to dust, their vital energy feeding her powers to grow them even stronger. There had been probably two, three thousands of them on the surface of Argolis... and in a second, they'd been all turned into a little snack of energy for Regina.

Every person's life force she drank made her stronger, fortified her body, made her curves even more impressive, feed her powers... it had always been that way. People were her favorite snacks; sex the way she favored to suck away the life from her victims, but her power was so incredible that she did not need physical contact to become the owner of a new life. She could enslave, torture or absorb a person with just her tremendous mental powers, and it was no effort for her to do it on a whole army or over a metropolis at one time... it only gave her greater pleasure, and it only made her even stronger.

After absorbing them all into her, Regina had effortlessly torn apart the batteries of missiles, the artillery and the CIWSs of the rebels, crushing them all into warped wrecks of metal with barely a glare... And Argolis had suddenly become powerless against the hordes of landing crafts coming from the fleet at sea, every kind of boat and craft going back and forth from the ships to the island without the rebels retreated into the bunkers having a chance to do anything to stop thousands of RA soldiers to be vomited on Argolis by the armoured hovercrafts and boats. The few bunkers that looked over the coast and from where machine gun fire could be unleashed over the landing enemies were rapidly destroyed, either by Regina or by the warships at sea, now owners of the whole area...

And Regina had idly smashed her way through the wall and into the bunkers with her fist, before tearing open the enormous security shutters of steel and titanium with merely a glare, throwing the immense, three-foot thick blocks of titanium out of her way with just a bored flick of her muzzle as bullets and missiles fired at her bounced off a shield of her force.

It had been a slaughter... And if there were still rebels alive in Argolis, it was just because Regina, found a place in the bunkers that she liked, had made of it her dungeon, her glimpse of Hell on the mortal plane, and had settled in there, with her harem, with the army of demons she summoned from the circles of Hell, and with the many prisoners she took to toy with.

Her mission, after all, wasn't about the rebels, or about helping the RA... that was for her merely a side effect. The RA may be the allied, but it was still made up of mortals, and demons collaborated with the inferior mortals only because of their own interests.

Regina had to summon Wyvern and Alexis to Argolis, and destroy them both... the RA problem with the rebels didn't interest her. May they continue the fight themselves, with some help by bored demons of the Hell's army, in order to clean up the tunnels and destroy the last resistance. She had started waiting for Wyvern... and oh, she had had fun while waiting... Torturing her prisoners, fucking the strongest ones until she sucked their energies, and using her harem to keep her lusts at least a bit in check. She had had all but the strongest, most vicious rapists brought to her dungeon in groups of over a dozen, hoping that she could find at least a hint of powerful dominance in them... but no, they all had fallen miserably to her charms... And so, at the end, she had showed them a true mistress in action, and in a few seconds they had all been turned to dust. No satisfaction at all from them, though... strong as they were, they still felt so weak compared to her... and the best they could ever do was give her a momentary sparkle of pleasure, a fleeting, crappy shiver of content that always faded away to leave her disgusted and even hungrier for a real male capable to take the lead and make her cry out in ecstasy. Wyvern...

She was there only for Wyvern, Alexis, and her own interests...

Oh, yes... Wyvern is what brought me here... he and his delicious, immense power...

She was, after all, tricking even her own leaders. Those same leaders that dominated her because their powers dwarfed even hers, those Gods that inspired terror in her, that inspired fear, and that feed her addictions to power and domination, to cruelty and darkness... but that never dared to show interest in her seduction, that never even dared to give in to the promises of delight of her wonderful body, that fought hard not to look at her, not to cross the strings of her invincible seduction, because they knew that, if they did, not even them were going to come out alive of her bed. Those same gods, in short, that she loved and hated, that feed her lusts for power but miserably failed to fuel her sexual needs, that could have never gained the top over her and made her cry in that powerless ecstasy she craved.

She had had to battle for long time with the Leaders to get appointed with the mission of facing Wyvern... they feared the possibility of her managing to suck up into her body all the power of the liger â€" They know that they don't stand a chance if I do, fuckers... - and had kept her at safe distance from him.

But Wyvern smashed to bits every other rival they created from him, and shattered all of their plans so far... They must be getting desperate for giving in and calling me, knowing the risk...

Her order was clear: to kill Killer "Wyvern" Huxley and Alexis Archer and ensure that their precious souls were captured by Hell, and not by Heaven.

Silly boys...

She wasn't going to just kill Wyvern and Alexis, no... She was going to drink of all of their immense energies. And when I'll do, I'll have no leaders. Not anymore... I'll be so powerful that the Monarchs of Hell and the gods themselves will only be bugs to me. Bugs to crush...

As soon as Alexis and Killer were killed, a team of Soul-Gatherers was ready to ensure that the souls of both the ligers were brought down in Hell... Those two souls, after all, were way too important and powerful to run the risk of losing them. Hell and Heaven both were engaged in a Cold War over the best warrior's souls, from always: Killer and Alexis, in the afterlife, would have been turned either into demons or angels... but in either way, their power was going to be so unbelievable, that the side adding them to its lines would have gathered the ultimate advantage on the other.

Hell craved Killer and Alexis as the super-weapons needed to enslave forever Heaven and the Mortal Plane both.

Regina had no problems with this particular part of the project. She was going to personally ensure the passage of Killer and Alexis to Hell... but I'll not need them anymore as weapons... with their energies, I'll become invincible anyway, and Hell and Regina will be the same thing... But just think of how powerful those two will be once they become Incarnations! He'll crush the Gods under his foot like bugs... I'll never need a Harem anymore... Wyvern and Alexis will be all I need to satiate any and every lust... my most precious asset... the most powerful lover. The most powerful male ever. And he'll be mine!

Regina sighed happily at the thought, and she closed her eyes with a grin as she focused her mind, even as one of her hands slowly rubbed at the underswell of one of her huge breasts and the other pushed her fingers lazily in and out of her tight, wet lips. She was too excited, she couldn't wait for him to reach the dungeon... she had to take a peak of him now, immediately.

Images formed rapidly in her mind, and here he was, the enormous crimson sword that had given him his famed nickname in a hand and the other bloodstained hand squeezing hard into the skull of a howling Gigataur, his huge muscles bulging like tires as he snarled and his claws dug into the bone and into the brain of the demon, until the head of the bull exploded in a splatter of blood and gore.

"Yes!" Regina grinned, mercilessly amused as she buried her long fingers deep inside her tight, squeezing passage. No matter how much violent, furious sex she had had in the billions of years of her life... her passage was tighter than a virgin's one, despite the enormous, gigantic males she had all but raped. The strength with which her tight love tunnel squeezed on even just her fingers was absolutely amazing. "Show me how strong you are, Wyvern, show me!"

She grinned widely, almost laughing at the sight of her own demonic soldiers being slaughtered, at the sight of her ranks being thinned and torn apart as the huge male tore his way down the corridors cutting demons to pieces like they were corn. She all but arched her back with a moan when Wyvern stood in the middle of a tight corridor, squared himself and seized a charging Gigataur by the horns, effortlessly lifting the huge bull into the air and all but ripping the creature in two with a pull and a flex of his enormous muscles.

No matter how many came at him... his crimson sword seemed to be everywhere as he slashed Wyvern in wide, graceful cuts, moving so rapidly that the sword looked just a blur of crimson as it cut through the thickest armors and through flesh like a heated knife across butter. When an Astarhi appeared from nothingness at his side and leapt at him, he almost absent-mindedly lashed out a huge fist that shattered the demon and smashed the thick wall of concrete behind to bits.

They say he's a Mortal... but I'm not really sure of it... There's never been a mortal this powerful. It shouldn't even be possible for a mortal to be so powerful... He's...

...Godlike...

"Fuck your Mistress, Bitches." Regina commanded, without bothering to even look to the five Gigataurs remaining gathered around her. "Put all you've got into it... Try making this worthwhile..."

The enormous males had been dreaming openly to be commanded so... and they all assaulted Regina together... But even as two of the enormous males tried together to pound their gigantic members into her vagina, even as she sucked greedily over another, let the fourth push at her rosebud and pumping her hand down the length of the last behemoth, the only real pleasure came from her closed eyes, as she filled her mind with the glorious sight of Wyvern.

And shortly after it all begun, anyway, all five the bulls had withered away to dust, and her body was once more shifting lightly upwards, her breasts filling up even more, her muscles increasing a bit in size and definition, her vagina gleaming slightly with drops of excitement, her hardened, enormous nipples tenting the thick leather of her slutty, far-too-tight bra and almost poking a hole into the fabric as she grinned and squeezed her giant bosom with her hands, adjusting a bit her sumptuous boobs into the tight confines of the straining cloth.

The demoness looked around herself lazily... no more slaves to toy with. She had finally absorbed all of her immense harem, feasted on all of their energy. Wyvern, anyway, soon would have been hers... and he was worth, alone, a hundred harems, from the tales she had heard of him and from the energy she sensed in the air. Vera had been sincere last time... the bitch may be a mortal, but she still damn knows when a male has the balls for the job...

The Suicide-Maker had been very firm in giving her warning... She had said that Wyvern would have not just bent her, but made of her a bitch, a toy. And Regina had not believed it. Her power was too great to lose control over a male... Dominate would have chained Wyvern as a slave of her power. Regina was going to control him, to keep him as her precious weapon and her even more precious toy. Oh, yes... he was going to be the dominant, aggressive lover that she dreamed for so long, the one capable to force himself on her and ride her to exhaustion, to treat her like a bitch, only when she wished for him to. The rest of the time, her mental powers would have kept him on a very tight leash.

But what if she couldn't put a leash on him...? What if he was too powerful for even her...?

She didn't dare to face these questions... she did not dare to entertain the thoughts it summoned in the most remote depths of her mind. She did not dare to face that deep fear that... that perhaps more than a fear was her deepest, truest desire.

What if he would truly overpower her...? What if he made of her his bitch, his whore...?

He would have never admitted it... but the prospect excited her even more. To be so completely controlled, so completely dominated... the idea caused shivers of lust to crackle like electricity down her spine... Oh, now they may be enemies... but she was far too beautiful, far too pleasant, and far too seductive for him to get rid of her, right...? Even if he was to win, to stand victorious over her... he would have kept her, right...? Yes... he would have put her on a nice, strong leash and he would have paraded her around like his most precious bitch. Never before, and never in the future, another mortal would have held such forceful domination over an Incarnation, over one of the strongest beings ever to exist.

Either he was going to become her slave, or she was going to become his. Either way... it's a win-win situation, huh...? I get the powerful male I crave. He gets to dominate me and fuck my guts out of my mouth whenever he wants...

Oh, she couldn't way, truly...

"M... Mistress... Regina...?" A trembling voice stammered from the darkness at her side.

"Talk, bitch." The demoness countered with calm, cold voice. She hated being distracted from the wonderful images in her mind, from the sight of Wyvern as he crushed his enemies under his foot.

"Wyvern and Alexis... they... Our lines of defense are being shattered... Line 1, 2 and 3 are all gone. Line 4 is gonna be obliterated in a matter of seconds. They... they are... here...!"

"HE is here!" Regina countered with a grin, making the reporting Centaur almost jump backwards in surprise and fear.

"We... we are leading out the last troops for a last assault, Mistress." The demon said, pointing with his spear to a huge group of assorted demons that were crowding up near the doors of the dungeon, armed with a mix of spears, axes, swords and mortal, technologic weaponry, everyone wearing thick armors.

"You seem so scared... poor boy..." Regina murred, grinning seductively even as her eyes gleamed predatorily up to the centaur... and the eyes of the male lost their expression, turning into pits of white light as drool formed in his mouth already, as his huge horsecock immediately grew towards full erection.

The group of demons at the doors turned back towards the Mistress as well... and everyone was already under the effect of Dominate, under the charms of her seductions and of her insatiable lust. "Come in, sweet boys..." Regina purred, grinning widely and turning to lay towards them on her sides, showing the incredible beauty of her body. "You don't stand a chance against Wyvern... I know what you are more useful for. I know how to make you all feel better..."

Regina grinned tantalizingly, and she gave one last look past the tens of horny, drooling males coming at her, her glance wandering lazily over the tens of altars of stone that littered the dungeon, everyone of them covered by horribly wounded, abused prisoners that she had been torturing. Many more of them were hanging from the walls of the magically-enlarged, now cave-looking bunker that had once been one of the ammo depots of the fortress of Argolis.

I'll have to get rid of the prisoners as well, before He comes... I don't want him to save any of them... and I don't want him and Alexis mad on what I've done, either... It'll be a fast work, once I've taken care of these needy boys.

And then, He'll be here.