She moves to the side and invokes a miracle.

Without breaking pace Alva thrust her sword into the ground and started to the left. Clouds of dust and gravel flew as her sword passed, cutting a deep line into the earth. Barley wasn't a large town, with Alva's speed should could encircle it in less than a quarter of a minute.

Seconds into her run countless tendrils started to rain down. Each of them moved with surprising dexterity and precision, and Alva felt a chill go up her spine.

If he can control them so cleanly. . .

One of the tendrils lashed the ground, leaving a deep crevice and ruining her circle. Twenty tendrils approached her simultaneously and Alva cursed, skidding to a stop and brandishing her sword. She wove a net of slashes around herself, each stroke aiming to deflect or sever a tendril. She started forward, finding some phantom opening in the raining strikes.

But her progress slowed, and Alva began to sweat.

Again and again she rebuffed the storm, but the rain had no end.

Alva, daughter of the Saintess, was considered a peerless swordsman. She was said to have a talent that came once a generation. She was a prodigy, had been one of the youngest Excisers in history, and not one of her peers doubted she had a glorious future ahead of her.

But Alva, for all that, was still just a mortal.

A tendril snuck past her guard and scoured her armor. Alva stumbled back from the impact and only managed to divert four of the five tendrils that followed, falling to the ground as it destroyed her knee. She rolled, avoiding a grasping pair, and cut away a third. Even as her knee started to knit itself back together, two more tendrils struck her and sent Absolution flying through the air.

The tendrils grabbed her and restrained her, and started to pull her towards the shroud.

She lost her cloak and a spaulder, leather straps and underarmor torn from the abrasive earth, and struggled against the tendrils. Her skin was shredded by the earth but her magic boosted her physical abilities, she swiftly regenerated and by the time she was in the center of Barley she was covered in little else but dirt. A black miasma hung under the shroud, bringing heat and hunger to Alva despite her resistances.

The sight of Vhalnich unsettled Alva; there was nothing human left about him. He sat on a black throne in the form of a giant humanoid shadow; the trunk of the shroud was part of the throne.

No, it's all him. The throne, the shroud, the mist. It's not magic, it's all him.

Alva's legs rubbed together, pale white and slender. She bared her teeth at the giant, despite the effect of the miasma. Vhalnich looked down at her, his massive cock raising. Every inch of Alva was supple muscle, lithe and compact, and the most ethereal white. Her body was streamlined and womanly, almost modest in nature, and marred only by brands on her back.

Her nipples, delicate and pink, were already hard and her pussy wet from the corruptive air.

Tendrils sprouted from Vhalnich's cock and lashed out, taking hold of Alva and bringing her towards him. The tendrils wrapped around her, coiling about her tits and squeezing her legs. Alva's breath hitched and she started whispering prayer. Vhalich grabbed her, his hand large enough to wrap around her waist, and smiled. The teeth emerged from the featureless mass of his face and his tongue followed.

"Well, aren't you a tasty morsel." His voice hit Alva like a catapult, sending her writhing. Her stomach tightened and her cunt flooded. Her eyes screwed shut as psychic energies assaulted her core. She bit her lip, hard, and **** herself to lucidity. "A strong one, too. You'll make a good ****."

Alva screamed as the shadow tore into her, the blackness filling every inch of her. Tendrils coiled around her, adding to the unrelenting power that washed over the Exciser. To her mortification, it took only moments for Alva to start moving her hips; every passing second drew another moan from her, each one increasing in sound and candor.

She tried to focus, to summon forth a miracle, but every time his cock kissed her womb Alva was left reeling.

Alva let out a piercing wail as Vhalnich filled her, her stomach distending from the volume.

But still, Alva tried to summon her strength.

Vhalnich opened his mouth wide and his tongue split into a dozen tiny tendrils. They burrowed into Alva's nose, her ears, and wrapped around her brain. The tendrils reached in and touched her mind, devouring parts and reinforcing others. Her eyes rolled back and her tongue lolled out; her body twitched, her hands convulsing, and she pissed herself.

Vhalnich withdrew, leaving a black mass in her mind, and smiled down at his newest Chosen.

"Well, then. How about round two, Alva?"