Deviating from the original plot

Chapter ninety-four

The beast lunged, jaws of shadow gaping wide. -

Victoria tore her leg free and rolled aside just in time. The beast's jaws snapped shut where she'd been, the bite releasing a shockwave that blasted a crater into the stone floor.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up and drove the dagger straight into the creature's eye. The monster recoiled with a shrill, guttural snarl, thrashing backward. Seizing the moment, Victoria sprinted toward the others.

"Guys..." Her voice trembled as she knelt beside them. She tapped each one urgently, but the sight froze her chest-dark veins crept up their necks, their skin turning ghostly pale. Their breaths were shallow. Too shallow.

A deep, monstrous growl reverberated behind her.

Victoria whipped around just as the shadow beast clawed at its face. Dark tendrils wrapped around the dagger buried in its eye, yanked it free, and hurled it across the chamber with a loud clang. The wound-or whatever counted as one-throbbed violently, and then the beast began to glow, its form pulsing with a sinister red light.

A cold, triumphant laugh echoed through the chamber.

"It has begun!"

"No..." Victoria's heart lurched. All around them, dark tendrils burst from cracks in the floor, the walls, and even the air itself-streams of corrupted energy funnelling straight into the monster. Its form swelled, darkness thickening like tar.

"The ceremony has begun," the emperor's voice boomed through the creature, distorted and layered with the roar of shadows. "And there is nothing you can do to stop it."

A surge of power rippled through the beast and then erupted upward. A colossal beam of dark magic shot straight into the glass dome overhead. The structure shattered instantly-glass exploding outward as the beam speared into the night sky, reaching toward the rising blood moon, turning the entire sky red.

Outside, the entire realm trembled.

Victoria shielded her face from the raining shards, her pulse hammering.

This was it.

The ascension had truly started.

"I shall reign!" He said, and the chaos began to intensify. Victoria took Cassius's sword and dashed towards the monster, cutting at the tendrils supplying him his power.

He snarled and lashed out. The blow landed squarely against her ribs, hurling her across the chamber. She slammed into the wall with brutal force, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. A sharp, metallic taste filled her mouth as she coughed-scarlet flecking her lips.

"I'm... reacting to his power..." she whispered hoarsely, dread settling like ice along her spine. The ground trembled beneath her, distant screams and chaos echoing through the stone. Her fingers curled into a tight fist.

"I can't..."

"You don't get to say that."

Damien's voice cut through the haze as he suddenly appeared at her side.

Her head snapped toward him, eyes burning.

"You traitor," Victoria choked, tears blurring her vision. "This is exactly what you wanted."

"Yes. Ideally," he replied, maddeningly blunt.

"Of course," she muttered, sarcasm dripping despite her pain.

"But", he added, tone shifting ever so slightly, "I've had a change of heart."

Victoria blinked, disbelief cutting through the haze of pain. Damien didn't meet her eyes-his gaze was fixed on the towering shadow-beast, on the blood-red glow devouring the chamber.