House Marrowind didn't look evil.
It looked... expensive.
Their estate sprawled over the southern ring of Aurevalis, all white marble facades, enchanted ivy, and enough magical wards to make a paranoid archmage weep with joy. The front gate was adorned with two lion statues that probably mauled people for fun.
"They've registered as lawful for years," Velis whispered as we crouched behind a spell-sculpted hedge. "Which means their public defenses won't stop us. The hidden ones, though..."
"They're the kind that rearrange your bones alphabetically," Silas added.
"I don't like this," Iria said, checking her gauntlets. "Justice is best served in daylight."
"We're not serving justice," I said. "We're breaking into a noble's house, uninvited, while they're definitely doing something demonic in the basement. We're preemptively... dishwashing."
Velis blinked at me. "That metaphor collapsed halfway through."
"Like I will, if we don't move soon."
We didn't go in through the front.
We had Silas.
He led us through a side path, scaled a servant's balcony, bypassed three detection wards with what looked like a set of enchanted lockpicks and a paperclip, and had us inside in under ten minutes.
The inside of the manor was painfully elegant.
Crystal chandeliers. Floating light globes. Paintings that blinked if you stared too long. I accidentally nodded back to one.
Silas paused by a bookshelf and tapped a panel. It shimmered.
"There. Secret passage. See? Evil rich people never disappoint."
The passage led down.
Past the guest quarters.
Past the wine cellar.
To a sealed door humming with glyphs and the smell of old blood.
Velis cracked the glyphs open in under thirty seconds.
The room beyond was not a wine cellar.
It was a ritual chamber.
A massive circle of runes burned into the floor, lines of power carved into stone, black candles levitating midair. The walls were lined with books in languages that should've stayed dead.
And at the center stood Lord Marrowind, cloaked in ceremonial robes, chanting over a pulsating construct of steel, bone, and fire—half artifact, half demon, and fully bad news.
"Okay," I whispered. "That's worse than I expected."
The construct turned. Six eyes opened.
"Intruders," it hissed in three voices.
Lord Marrowind didn't turn. "You're too late. The convergence has begun."
"I hate convergence," I muttered.
Iria drew Edelbrecht. "We end this now."
"Agreed," said another voice.
We turned.
Ren Arashi stood in the archway, posing with light behind him like a smug sunbeam.
"I sensed disruption and came with all haste!"
Behind him, Kuroblade Nightshade stepped from a shadow that hadn't existed five seconds ago.
"This place drips with cursed cadence," he said, eyes glowing. "It sings of forbidden alignment."
I sighed. "Of course you're both here."
The construct shrieked as the ritual lines surged to life.
It stood nearly ten feet tall, stitched together from obsidian plates, demonic sinew, and glowing sigils etched into what I can only describe as spell-infused bone. Six eyes. Four clawed limbs. One gaping jaw that shouldn't exist in three dimensions.
And then it breathed fire.
A roar of green flame exploded from its maw, sweeping across the room. Iria blocked the worst of it with a divine barrier—but the blast still knocked half the party off their feet.
"Chains!" Velis shouted.
Too late.
Black binding glyphs shot from the construct's chest and wrapped around her legs, anchoring her to a glowing seal beneath her feet.
The demon turned its head—no eyes moved, but it knew.
Iria charged, sword raised high, and slammed into the construct with a roar.
The impact cracked stone and knocked the construct off balance. Sparks of divine light exploded from the clash—but the creature regenerated faster than it should've. Runes flared along its chest.
"It's feeding from the circle!" Velis yelled. "We have to disrupt the ritual or this thing doesn't stay dead!"
Ren Arashi, meanwhile, leapt into the fray with a flash of silver steel.
"Let justice be swift and photogenic!" he shouted.
He spun into a sweeping slash, but misjudged Iria's position. She had to step back or take the full hit of his attack.
Her opening was gone.
The demon lashed out—caught Iria across the ribs and sent her crashing into a column.
"Watch your strikes!" she shouted, staggering upright.
"My apologies," Ren said. "I was following the flow of destiny!"
"Follow the flow of spacing," Velis snapped.
Kuroblade raised both arms.
"I summon the binding dusk from beyond the spiral!"
"What does that mean?" I asked.
No one knew.
The air turned black around him. Not dark—black. Like ink dripping into the edges of existence. A tear opened beside him, and a glyph-encrusted black flame burst forth, burning with unreal geometry.
It hit the construct full-force.
It also destabilized the enchantment field Velis was channeling to disrupt the ritual circle.
Her spell imploded.
The sigils on the floor pulsed harder.
"You just recharged it!" she hissed.
"The dark speaks in contradiction," Kuroblade said solemnly.
The construct roared again and slammed its claws into the ground.
The circle responded.
A flash of red.
Then imps—a dozen of them—crawled from the summoning runes, each about waist-high, twitchy, and annoyingly fast.
They scattered across the battlefield, clawing, biting, shrieking curses in ancient tongues.
I tried to blast one with a chair.
It dodged.
I tripped over it.
Ren spun dramatically and took out four with one arcing strike, shouting "Imperfect Beings, Be Cleansed!" before posing like he expected an audience.
Iria, bleeding but furious, skewered two more and shouted, "Velis! The circle!"
"Trying," Velis said, still pinned by the chain glyphs.
Then one imp lunged at her.
It never landed.
Because Silas dropped from the ceiling and buried a dagger in its eye.
"Thought you could use a hand," he said.
She glanced at him, nodded once. "Break the anchor behind the altar. The one humming. That's its main feed."
"On it."
Silas vanished again, weaving through shadows and chaos like he was born to it.
Iria returned to the frontline, blade glowing with divine flame. She and Ren, after a brief exchange of incredibly forced teamwork, finally managed to drive the demon back against the edge of the chamber.
Meanwhile, Velis got free of the chains—her spell snapped them mid-incantation—and began drawing a new set of anti-summoning runes in the air.
"Keep it in one place!" she shouted.
Ren nodded and summoned a binding field of light, which almost worked—until the construct spat fire again and broke the edge of the circle.
"Not helping," Velis growled.
Then Kuroblade stepped forward, muttering something about "breaking the veil of origin."
He plunged a dagger into his own palm, drew a circle of blood, and cast a shadow glyph that anchored the construct's movement for just a few seconds.
It was enough.
Silas reached the humming anchor behind the altar and sliced through it with a glowing black blade he refused to explain.
The sigils across the floor flickered.
Velis hurled her spell.
The ritual destabilized.
Iria surged forward, blade lit like a comet.
"EDELBRECHT!"
She and Ren hit at the same time—from opposite sides.
The demon screamed, body splitting, fire gushing from every joint.
Kuroblade whispered a final curse, and the remaining imps vaporized in black flame.
Then the construct exploded in a pillar of unnatural fire and disappeared.
That night, we stood on a high balcony overlooking the capital.
Iria was polishing Edelbrecht in silence.
Velis held up a torn ritual page, lips tight.
"This isn't just demon magic," she said. "Some of this... it's not even from our reality."
I raised an eyebrow. "Like, other continent weird or—"
"Dimensional."
"Cool," I said. "More eldritch cultists."
Silas appeared beside me, chewing something.
"Hey. The guards never filed the charges again. I'm technically on the party roster now."
"You picked that up while we were fighting a demonic construct?"
"I multitask."
He winked.
The stars above Aurevalis flickered strangely.
And somewhere, far beyond the kingdom's reach...
Something watched back.