CHAPTER 115: CHAPTER 114. MIXED BLOOD & FORBIDDEN ART II

Roxanne didn’t relent, the fight continued. She didn’t think that a fight with Dietrich would use everything in her power, the effect of the forbidden art of magic using demon magic is truly rotten.

Her fist crashed into Dietrich’s jaw with a force that rattled the throne room down to its foundations. Cracks spiderwebbed through stone, dust drifting down like settling ash. Dietrich roared, the sound splitting into two, three, and five discordant voices, each howling in a slightly different pitch—like a chorus of beasts sharing one monstrous throat.

Blood, thick and black with corrupted mana, sprayed from his mouth as he staggered. He tried to push forward, but Roxanne was already moving, faster than before, impossibly fast.

Her legs are steady despite the bruises mottling her skin, despite the way her ribs protested every breath. Undine’s healing wrapped around her like shimmering water, knitting flesh and stabilizing bone, but the damage still hurt. She felt every strike she had taken and delivered.

But nothing—nothing—hurt as much as thinking of Vivianne behind her. When she told her about her past life, about how Dietrich treated her, sold her, used her, and broke her. All of that because she was too focused on herself.

So Roxanne pushed harder.

She ducked under Dietrich’s sweeping claw, the wind of it slicing the air sharply enough to feel like a blade at her cheek. She pivoted, magic flaring hot in her palm, then slammed a blast directly into his exposed side.

This time, her aim is perfect. The demon magic struck him like a spear of incandescent force, searing through fur and muscle, down to whatever abomination lay beneath.

Dietrich howled. And for the first time, after fighting him for a while, Roxanne saw it—fear.

A patch of his monstrous skin, once overgrown with unnatural fur and bulk, sizzled and peeled away. Beneath it wasn’t flesh, but a grotesque mesh of malformed organs, pulsing veins, and runic scars etched into living tissue. His regeneration stuttered, then halted entirely across that patch.

Roxanne narrowed her eyes. "Good." She muttered she wasn’t going to let him get back up again.

Dietrich slammed a foot into the ground, pushing himself upward in a burst of raw, corrupted strength. His talons shredded grooves across the marble as he lunged. Roxanne vanished, moving even faster than any of them could see.

Her fist connected with his face before he even realized she had moved, snapping his head to the side. Her knee drove into his abdomen. Then her elbow crashed into the back of his skull.

Every strike landed right on the spot, harder each time, fueled by fury, and the sheer strength flowing through both her bloodlines, demon and werewolf, finally harmonized for the first time in her life.

Dietrich crashed into the marble with a sickening crack, stone fracturing around the crater his body carved into the wall. He slumped, breath ragged, blood flooding down his jaw in thick, dark threads. The remnants of the forbidden magic flickered over his skin—glitching, stuttering, failing—like a dying flame trying and failing to grasp air.

Roxanne stalked toward him with slow, deliberate steps. Her demon-wolf hybrid aura poured off her like molten heat, but her eyes were cold, focused, and anchored only by Vivianne’s voice still echoing faintly in her mind.

Dietrich tried to push himself up. His claws scraped, slipped, and scraped again. Nothing healed. The side effect of the forbidden art is that it needs a lot of mana to hold. And werewolves were naturally born without it, only a few are born with mana, just like Morwenna and Vivianne.

Not anymore.

Roxanne tilted her head, lips curling into a cruel, victorious smile. "Didn’t read the fine print, that it comes with consequences, huh?" she mocked, her voice a low, deadly purr.

Dietrich snarled, more spit than sound, and barely lifted his head before Roxanne’s foot slammed into his ribs. The impact detonated like thunder. His body lifted from the ground, thrown across the hall like a rag doll. He hit another wall, stone cracking outward like a spiderweb.

The corrupted skin sagged, melting like wax under a torch. His monstrous shape flickered, shifting unevenly as whatever forbidden magic he had forced into himself began to unravel.

His claws are still sharp and lethal but slower. His stance weakened. His breaths turned ragged, bubbling with some viscous mixture of mana and blood.

"You—" he gasped, swinging wildly. "You shouldn’t... have... this power—!"

Roxanne dodged, grabbed his wrist, and slammed her forehead into his snout. Bone cracked. She followed with a punch straight to his throat, crushing the unnatural cartilage. He staggered, choking, stumbling backward.

"You think," she growled, "that you’re the only one who can transcend limits?" She broke his knee with a single kick. Dietrich roared, collapsing onto one leg. The impact sent a tremor across the palace.

"You think," she continued, grabbing him by the back of the neck and hauling him upward, "your stolen power makes you a king?" She drove him into a wall hard enough that pieces of marble erupted outward.

"You think Vivianne," she snarled, slamming him again, "was ever destined to be tied to filth like you?" He tried to swipe at her, but she caught his talon with one hand and crushed it. The bone gave way under her grip like brittle stone.

Dietrich shrieked, pulling back, cradling the broken limb. The air around him thickened with corrupted magic as he attempted to shift fully again, to reassert the monstrous hybrid form he had crafted from dark rituals and stolen souls.

But his body isn’t obeying. His regeneration fizzled. Mana leaked from him like water from a cracked vessel. The forbidden runes carved into his flesh flickered, warped, and then split open like overfilled seams.

Roxanne watched it all with cold, merciless clarity. "Your power is unraveling," she said, stepping toward him. "Because it was never yours to begin with."

Dietrich snarled, but the sound cracked halfway through, becoming a wet rasp. His chest heaved. His limbs trembled. Sweat, blood, and corrupted mana dripped down his face.

"You—can’t—beat me—" he gasped.

Roxanne didn’t bother responding, she simply moved.

Her fist drove into his stomach, doubling him over. Before he could fall, she gripped his collar and dragged him forward, then slammed him onto the floor with a shattering impact. Dust flared around them as the marble cratered beneath his body.

Dietrich coughed violently. Blood pooled beneath him. His mismatched eyes, one wolf and one human, both clouded with pain, glared at her with hatred and disbelief.

Roxanne stepped onto his chest. He wheezed, spine arching under her heel. "You lost the moment you touched her," she said.

Dietrich grabbed her ankle in a desperate lunge, and she kicked him across the jaw, sending him rolling like a discarded doll. He tumbled, collided with a broken pillar, and lay still for a heartbeat.

With a furious snarl, he forced himself upright. His body convulsed, trying to regenerate again, failing again. Each pulse of mana only caused more of the monstrous form to melt and slough off. His left arm reverted to human, his ribs flickering between wolf and man, his spine twisting like a rope being pulled taut from both ends.

Roxanne didn’t slow. She darted forward, delivering a brutal uppercut that snapped his head back. Another blast of demon magic slammed into his torso, tearing away the last remnants of the corrupted wolf skin. Dietrich screamed as the illusion of strength was stripped away, leaving raw flesh and half-formed limbs beneath.

He crashed onto his knees, still healing nowhere, still losing everything, still trying to stand. With a sharp yank, Roxanne grabbed him by the hair and forced his head up—and for the first time, Dietrich de Erengard looked fragile.

And terrified.

"You will answer," she said, her voice calm, cold, and absolute, "for every omega you consumed. For every life you destroyed. For every nightmare you carved into my wife’s soul."

Dietrich’s lips trembled, twisted into a snarl. "I—I did it... for the empire..."

"You did it," Roxanne said, tightening her grip, "for yourself." She threw him.

He hit the ground face-first and lay unmoving.

Slowly—agonizingly—his form shrank, the monstrous limbs retracting, bones reshaping, and skin dissolving into steam, leaving behind nothing but his true body. His human shape is battered, bleeding, and grotesquely thin where muscle had been stolen to fuel forbidden magic. Half his face is burned raw. His arms twitched weakly, barely able to lift.

Finally, with one last shuddering breath, he stopped shifting entirely. Dietrich de Erengard, Emperor of the Empire, lay naked and broken on the shattered tiles.

Roxanne approached slowly, her steps steady despite the damage coating her body. Blood dripped down her arms. Bruises colored her ribs. But her gaze is unbroken, cold, controlled, victorious.

She stopped in front of him. Dietrich forced his eye open, staring up at her with hate, fear, and the sickening realization that his power, his empire, his future, and even his supposed omega are all gone.

Roxanne lifted her chin. "This is the end, Dietrich."

He sputtered, coughing blood. "You... think you’ve won...?"

Roxanne looked down at him, her voice calm as steel. "Yes, of course."

And Dietrich went silent.