She rushed through the fortress gates, devouring it at a faster rate than when she first arrived within Twilight.
Her quarry was waiting for her outside, standing amidst the biting snowstorm with the GodKiller planted in the ground before him.
He wore a large, white rectangular cloak with a scarf around his neck along with sandals, giving him the appearance of a young peasant man of Henos.
"Give it to me." Sayda remarked as she stood before the swiftly repairing fortress gates, unwilling to engage in unnecessary discourse.
Of course, the man did not respond to her rude demand and instead, intoned. "I believe we haven’t met before."
"My name is Alexander Regulus, brother of Douglas and Emily Regulus and I am here for you."
Sayda raised a brow. "Are you joking?"
"Unfortunately, I am not." Alex remarked. "Where is he, Sayda?"
"It would do you well not to utter my name with your filthy mouth. Also, the only reason you aren’t dead yet is because of the gift you’ve brought me. Behave yourself and you might just get to keep your sanity." Sayda coldly said, clearly not in the mood for jokes.
Instead of responding, Alex glanced at her right hand, quickly discovering the Pearl she was carrying.
Then, he shifted his attention to her left arm which was missing from the elbow down to the hand.
It seemed it was for the best that she picked up the Pearl.
If even she, a Daemon, ended up getting permanently damaged, Alex didn’t dare to think what would happen to him.
Regardless, this was hardly the time to be distracted.
And so, he raised his sword with one hand while preparing to snap with the other.
"You will let my brother go." Alex said.
"Then, I will kill you and take him away."
Silence reigned briefly, followed by a mocking laughter escaping Sayda’s lips.
"This is why men shouldn’t have thoughts of their own. Your kind don’t fail to display your stupidity when given the opportunity."
Snorting derisively, Sayda made to attack with Alex doing the same as he snapped, teleporting from his previous position only for a terrifying suction force on par with Black Hole to drag him towards the Daemon.
He didn’t even get the chance to struggle before he began to choke because she was devouring the air around him, preventing him from breathing properly.
"What?... Did you really think that with a GodKiller, you’d be able to harm me?... Don’t be stupid but then again, I guess that’s a common trait of your kind."
"You won’t get away with this."
"Shut up." Sayda breathed out and though Alex parted his lips to speak, he found himself unable to do so as his ability to speak was devoured.
But that wasn’t the end of it as Sayda continued to devour everything.
"Since you wish to see your brother, then I’d be more than happy to bring you to him." Sayda coldly said.
By the time she was done, Alex had become a shell, with only his pneuma and Avatar left behind.
Naturally, he no longer had the strength to wield Excalibur and so, it dropped from his hand.
With a disdainful look, she let him drop to the ground before glancing at the GodKiller laying on the icy steps.
Pursing her lips, she shifted her attention to the Pearl and then back to the GodKiller.
She didn’t wish to risk tossing the branch into her stomach as it could end up working against her and she also couldn’t risk doing the same for the GodKiller.
Thus, she transformed, making way to her Celestial form, a monstrosity with a barely humanoid physique and purple skin.
However, it had mouths filled with serrated teeth all over its body.
Even its hands and legs were just elongated mouths and its head was a mouth that could split to form a leaf-like structure with sharp teeth on its edges.
With this new form, Sayda first stored the Pearl in one of her many mouths before reaching down to grab the GodKiller.
However, just as she did so, a frightening amount of pain shot through her body and the next moment, she found herself face to face with the entity within, the deity that went by the title, the Broken Saintess.
She instinctively dropped the weapon and that was when they struck.
The first to appear seemingly out of nowhere was Ana as she immediately paused Sayda’s time, while doing well not to even glance in her direction.
Without even knowing it, Sayda moved slower than the world around her for two seconds.
Following that, Nadia made her move as well, casting a simple spell.
When Sayda regained herself, she found herself face to face once again with another entity, but this time, instead of the Broken Saintess, it was the Nighteye.
Her body ruptured from within and liquid aether spurted out of her body, appearing as a viscous liquid with myriad colors.
But even that was not enough to keep her down and it was never supposed to.
Sayda tried to flee as she understood at that moment that she had been caught off guard but Constellations was not about to let her do so.
A sword pierced her and she immediately returned to her human form.
Gasping, she dropped to her knees as the Pearl dropped to the ground, a few meters away from her.
Sayda gasped for air as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened in the span of two seconds.
She hadn’t even come to terms with the fact that she’d been stabbed as she was still struggling to get out the image of the Nighteye she had seen.
Her breathing was uneven and her current condition was less than ideal, a stark contrast to her previous domineering presence from seconds ago.
"It actually worked." Ana muttered, her eyes filled with disbelief at the sight of Sayda ran through by Excalibur and Alex standing over her.
Sayda glanced at him, unable to understand how he was standing in front of her despite being turned into a shell moments ago.
Alex didn’t plan on explaining anything as he grabbed Excalibur’s hilt and without warning, pulled it out of Sayda, causing even more liquid aether to gush out as an agonized scream escaped her lips.