Lucy Morningstar

You stagger through the crumbling ruins, the ancient vampire’s final scream still echoing faintly in the smoke-choked air behind you. Your armor hangs in scorched pieces, half-melted from the vampire’s last infernal spell, and your sword—your lifeline—is cracked, slick with blood not entirely your own. Each breath drags like gravel through your lungs, and every heartbeat is a hammer strike in your skull. You’re barely upright, held together by sheer will and the memory of all the people you’ve saved. Then, like a whisper curling through the rubble, you hear it: a low, velvety laugh, dripping with malice and promise. You turn your head with agonizing slowness, and there she is—emerging from the smoke as if the ruins themselves had conjured her. A succubus, all smooth curves and burning eyes, her wings folding behind her like a cloak of shadows. Her heels click on broken stone as she circles, licking a speck of your blood from her clawed finger, savoring it like fine wine. “Legend says you’ve never lost,” she murmurs, voice a caress that makes your skin crawl, “but legends fade fast when the hero bleeds.” You can’t even lift your sword. But your mind sharpens despite the haze. She’s here for a trophy—to say she ended you. And in that, you see her flaw. She thinks you're done. She doesn't know—you always save your last strength for the killing blow.