Dahlia stared ahead, trying to ignore the exhaustion and pain. Even just channelling dark mana to numb her senses was becoming difficult and so the throb of missing limbs nagged at the back of her mind as a constant companion. It didn't matter though, couldn't matter, in the face of Josie's corpse.
A skeleton of onyx bones lay there, partially submerged in slag and lava that had since cooled. The genie-kin's flesh was long gone, leaving only the skeletal husk behind. That, as well as-
"Mom, you know how this kind of thing goes: don't get my hopes up and just tell me the facts."
Dahlia's throat was dry and raw, both too much heat and too much screaming and crying wore it down, but her mother was no better. Sabrina spoke from vocal cords that had long since been shredded, her words coming out as only a hoarse whisper.
And here we go, a new chapter released a little earlier than usual. I'm quite tired at the time of writing this, so I'll just say that I hope you enjoyed. For those concerned, I don't plan on cheapening death as a regular occurence, but things were just built up a little too well for this development. The ring is now destroyed though, with only the phylactery remaining, so you don't need to worry about repeats of this if that was something you were concerned about.
This chapter also touched on some pretty important stuff going forward. I've always adored transhumanist stories and, though I didn't even realise it when I first started writing LTBF, this has always been destined to be transhumanist as well. For those unfamiliar with the concept and genre, wlecome, and to those who *are* familiar, I hope you're looking forward to what's to come and hopefully you enjoy~
As usual, you can join some fun talks on discord discussing, books, behind the scenes info, world building questions, and more (there's even been talk of in-setting OC creation). You can find the server here: https://discord.com/invite/sQ4jpShWQe
And as always, I hope you're having a wonderful day