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A Horror was nothing more than a Horror.

That’s all they were, that’s all they would ever be. Capricious miscreants sitting upon their twisted thrones, disdaining mortality while stagnating in the eternity of their domains. Some were more intelligible than others, some were more reasonable than the others, but ultimately, all of them were merely [i]pretending[/i]. Their nature was incorrigible, their sin unabsolvable. Monster girls stemmed from a human core. Dark magical girls still shared a common blood. But Horrors by definition were cosmic terrors, harbingers of whatever death they represented.

So Amaryllis, regardless of Soth’s soothsaying, did not allow herself the respite of relief.

This was a monster that would devour its devout for nothing more than a moment of amusement, one that spoke so eloquently, so majestically, but one that had no [i]core[/i] within. Intelligence, but with no principles to guide it. The way it warped the cultists out of existence was grotesque. The way it manifested itself from the inky blackness was disturbing. The way it exuded an aura of power was revolting. But that was all. Nothing but a B-grade monster from a schlocky horror movie.

All the Knight of Rose felt was a wall of nails pressed against her back, her Sword urging her forward, to never retreat. One backstep would mean more, and even against the half-hearted partial manifestation of a Horror, Amaryllis could not allow her conviction to flag.

She chuckled instead, bravado surfacing with the flashing of her canines. [color=778899]“A dozen lives was the price to pay for your advent, Soth? Laughable. I’ve seen Puchuus prostitute themselves out for more than that.”[/color]

Her Sword chimed through the dead air of the crypt, carving a line into the stone.

[color=778899]“No wonder you’d want to crawl into the body of a little girl. In this day and age, no one’s interested in an overgrown octopus.”[/color]

Rusted roses bloomed and wilted, the deathly cycle captured in the unliving.

[color=778899]“Maiden, I shall trust you with the disruption of your former master’s ritual, for your mystic arts far outstrip my own. There is no need to split, no need to engage. On my sword and on my soul, I shall defend you to the last.”[/color]

In this moment, after all, Amaryllis was still a knight.
[@Crusader Lord]