Paula continued.

Her voice rose again, louder now, and the gathered cultists repeated after her with that same eerie uniformity.

Their tones matched perfectly – too perfectly. Like everything else, it felt artificial and forced.

Ronan noticed Maren beside him.

She was not chanting.

She stood frozen, eyes locked on Emma’s bound form, her face cycling through guilt, anger, confusion, and fear in rapid succession.

Her lips parted slightly, like she wanted to speak, but no sound came.

Then she moved.

Or tried to.

Maren’s foot lifted slightly, her body tensing toward the table, but stopped mid-step as if she had hit an invisible wall.

Aura leaned close to Ronan, her whisper barely audible.

"Don’t worry about her. She won’t be able to do anything. The ritual has already started."

She didn’t care for what Maren was feeling, her gaze focused solely on the ritual.

Ronan watched Maren struggle, trying her best to move, but despite her best efforts, it didn’t look like she could.

On the table, Emma thrashed harder now.

Her muffled screams grew louder despite the gag, and her eyes – wide, terrified – locked on Maren again.

This time, there was no confusion.

Only betrayal.

Pure, raw betrayal and hatred.

Emma glared at Maren with an expression that could kill. Her body twisted violently against the restraints, and tears streamed down her freckled cheeks.

Maren tried to speak.

Her mouth opened. Her throat moved. But no words came out.

Only silence.

Tears began falling from Maren’s eyes as well, sliding down her face while she stood trapped, unable to move, unable to explain, unable to do anything except watch.

The chanting continued.

Paula raised her hands, and the crowd’s voices swelled in response.

Then she reached behind her and brought out a massive serrated knife.

The blade was long, jagged, and stained with old blood.

Dark patches of blood clung to the metal, showing prior usage.

Paula held it up for the room to see.

Emma’s thrashing became frantic now, her entire body convulsing against the ropes as she tried desperately to escape.

Paula resumed chanting, her voice like a conductor guiding an orchestra.

The circle of practitioners repeated after her, louder and louder, their voices rising into a single overwhelming roar.

Emma looked more and more scared with each passing second.

Her eyes darted between Paula, the knife, the cultists, and Maren. She pulled against the restraints so hard that the ropes cut into her wrists, drawing thin lines of blood.

Ronan leaned slightly toward Aura.

"Is this okay? Are we in any trouble?"

Aura did not look at him. Her gaze remained fixed on the ritual circle, expression completely blank.

"As long as we didn’t chant anything, we should be fine."

That was not particularly reassuring, but it was out of Ronan’s expertise.

Though, he was a little interesting in how this would go down.

What was the purpose of this ritual?

He nodded once and fell silent, deciding he would get proper answers out of Aura later, if he didn’t get them out of the ritual itself.

Paula’s voice cut through the noise again.

"We will sacrifice the first part of this traitor’s body."

She stepped closer to Emma, knife gleaming in the candlelight.

"The limbs."

Emma’s eyes went impossibly wider.

Paula placed the serrated blade against Emma’s left wrist.

And began cutting.

Slowly.

The blade sawed into flesh with a wet, grinding sound. Blood welled immediately, spilling over the table’s edge.

Tears ran down Emma’s face in streams now, and a muffled scream finally slipped past the gag.

She thrashed violently, but the scarred man from earlier stepped forward and pressed his full weight down on her shoulders, pinning her in place.

Paula continued cutting.

She seemed to relish the pain, dragging the serrated edge through muscle with agonizing slowless.

The knife reached bone.

A sharper, louder muffled scream tore from Emma’s throat.

But then the cutting stopped.

Not because Paula stopped.

In a flash, Paula’s arm was no longer attached to her body.

It fell to the floor with a wet thud, knife still gripped in the severed hand.

Aura?

That was Ronan’s first thought, thinking Aura had had enough of the cruel scene and put an end to it.

But Aura was still to his right, unmoved.

But when he glanced left, however, Maren was gone.

Her voice rang out across the chamber – raw, furious, and desperate.

"Get your fucking hands off her!"

Paula stood frozen, staring at the space where her arm had been.

Blood poured from the clean stump in thick spurts, but her expression did not show pain from her arm being seared.

Paula’s expression showed fear.

She turned her head slowly toward Maren, who now stood beside the table, breathing hard, eyes wild.

Paula’s voice came out shaky.

"Do you even know what you’ve done?"

Something dark filled the room.

It was not mana. Not pressure. It wasn’t even perceivable.

But Ronan felt it – a wrongness that made his skin crawl and his heartbeat beat faster.

Beside him, Aura spoke urgently.

"We need to leave. Now."

Her expression was concerned and a little fearful as well.

But it was also confused.

She stared at Maren like she could not understand how the girl had moved at all.

Ronan prepared to activate [Stealth], but before he or Aura could take a single step toward the exit–

Emma’s body changed.

Her flesh bubbled.

It started at her wrist – the place Paula had begun cutting – and spread upward like boiling water beneath her skin.

Her arm swelled grotesquely, the skin stretching and splitting as if something beneath wanted to desperately escape.

Around the room, the same thing began happening to the practitioners in the circle.

Their skin bubbled. Their bodies bloated.

Ronan’s eyes stayed fixed on Emma.

Her body expanded rapidly, growing taller, wider, weirder.

Arms burst from her sides – too many arms, sprouting from places that should not exist – her ribs, her stomach, her back.

Feet jutted out at random angles as, toes curling and uncurling like they were going through a spasm.

Then her skin split open in dozens of places, and slimy, bulging eyeballs emerged from the wounds, blinking independently in all directions, darting everywhere.

She was eleven feet tall now.

Grotesque. Monstrous. Completely and utterly unrecognizable.

Around them, the remaining practitioners transformed as well, their bodies mutilating into similar horrors – limbs multiplying, eyes appearing in wrong places, flesh twisting into shapes that defied basic human anatomy.

Maren looked like she’d been hit in the head.

Paula screamed again.

"Do you know what you’ve done?!"

Her voice cracked with panic now, no longer calm or motherly.

But her words were cut off.

The grotesque creature that had once been Emma opened a massive, dripping maw lined with jagged teeth–

And swallowed Paula whole.