All or Nothing
Lua fixed her gaze on the figure emerging from the shadows. The demon looked at her nervously, and behind him glowed a dark halo that left no doubt: he was a demigod. Not an ordinary one, but one nearly at Lua's level. Just a single rank below—but in that realm, every difference was an abyss.
Even if Draven, the demigod of light, were added to the equation, it wouldn't be enough. He carried only a fragment of divinity; even if he absorbed the second one he possessed, he would never reach such magnitude.
"And if I say I arrived here by accident… would you let me leave?" the demon asked with a calm voice, though his eyes darted, searching for an escape route. "After all, we don't have a true rivalry, like the one you have with humans. Well, yes, we did help exterminate their race and destroy their ancient empire, forcing them to hide here… but in the end… you know what? I'm not helping myself. What if I just go home and prepare a stronger defense?"
He tried to turn around to leave, but then he felt it. A concentration of power behind him, overwhelming, like a volcano on the verge of erupting. As he spun, he saw Lua holding a sphere of blood-red fire in her hand. Without hesitation, she hurled it.
"Tsk. I should have killed that bastard and taken his fragments instead of waiting for him to gather more," the demon growled, moving with supernatural speed to dodge. His silhouette blurred, and yet drops of sweat slid down his face as the explosions devoured the forest, ripping trees from the earth and sending up columns of smoke that blackened the sky.
A thunderclap tore through the air.
"Who the hell was that?!" roared a voice amid the storm of energy.
A golden flash streaked across the heavens. Draven appeared, his face still bruised from Lua's blow and his clothes covered in dirt. But the light radiating from his body disintegrated the dust instantly. His eyes, burning with fury, locked onto Lua.
With a roar of rage, he unsheathed his sword and unleashed a slash of pure light at her.
Lua, without even turning, extended a hand. She caught the glowing blade in the air and deflected it as if it were a toy, throwing it skyward, where it exploded like a miniature sun. Without a second's pause, she moved at impossible speed and drew her sword. With a horizontal cut aimed at Draven, she unleashed a wave that seemed to split the very air.
Draven, shocked by her speed—equal to or even greater than his own—barely managed to block. The impact flung him like a projectile into the ground, tearing up the meadow and raising a smoking crater. Only then did he understand the difference in their power. He hadn't even looked at the halo shining behind Lua.
The demon, seizing the distraction, clapped his hands together with a thunderous crack. A tide of black aura burst from him like the epicenter of a storm.
The ground began to tremble.
First came skeletal hands clawing their way out of the dirt, then entire bodies. Skeletons, not in hundreds or thousands… but in millions. The entire meadow and even the forest vomited corpses, all infused with a demonic, shadowy energy. Creatures that had died in that region over hundreds of thousands of years now rose shrouded in hatred. From human soldiers to colossal demonic beasts, all answered the call.
Their levels ranged from the lowest to as high as 60 or 70—an army without end.
The players, frozen after the initial clash, turned toward the walls. Fear came first, but the sight of the town's protective barrier, the active buffs, and above all, Lua fighting two demigods at once… shifted the atmosphere.
All they saw was opportunity.
"EXP…" muttered one.
Silvia arrived at that moment, her expression serious as she looked at the two enemies. She recognized them. One had been there when the Spiritual Empire fell. The other had finished off the last of the spirits alongside their leader.
"Everyone, focus on the corpses. Take advantage of the buffs inside the town. Use all your power. Form a single party. Prioritize destruction of the enemy over defense. I'll keep the barrier active. Send me all the beast cores you have!" she commanded firmly.
Sig, the closest, nodded at once and relayed the orders.
The unthinkable happened: the players grew excited. Smiling, they joined the first massive party ever formed in the game, over a thousand members at once. They climbed the walls, and those who found no space hurled spells from the gates. The barrier kept the tide of skeletons out, and every kill was a rain of experience.
The demon raised an eyebrow. These fools laughed and shouted as if at a festival. Some even leapt down from the walls to slaughter corpses directly, only to die instantly. And still, the rest didn't flinch; they kept reveling in the bloodbath.
"It's different from the past," he muttered, rubbing his temple. "The spirits protected one another, gave their lives for each other, avoided conflict… And now… now they're damned battle maniacs."
While the demon was distracted, Lua let her sword hover at her side. She raised both hands, and the very air around her began to warp. The horns on her forehead glowed with blinding intensity, and then an immense red flame, larger than her own body, materialized.
In the blink of an eye, she unleashed it at the demon.
"Shit…" he spat, summoning a dome of bones and black aura from his shadow.
The fire slammed into it, shattering the barrier with a deafening roar. The demon didn't linger; he used the shield only to buy enough time to leap aside at full speed.
Behind him, Lua's fire obliterated everything in its path. The forest split open in a blazing scar that stretched for kilometers, visible even from the distant mountains.
Draven appeared behind Lua in a blinding flash, his sword descending like a lightning strike. But she barely turned her head, raised one hand, and caught the blade midair. The sacred steel snapped in two with a metallic crack.
With her other hand, she launched a punch straight at his face. Draven barely managed to turn his body into pure light to escape, retreating to another point on the battlefield. But when he reappeared, his right shoulder had vanished as if torn away by a god. Blood gushed forth, soaking his white tunic in crimson.
"I have to run…" he muttered desperately. The gap between him and Lua was far too great. Only the Emperor could face her, and even then, that man would relish seeing him die. "I have to run."
He turned and sprinted toward the forest, taking advantage of Lua pressing the demon once more. But the instant his feet touched the carpet of leaves, he felt it: colossal, violent, ravenous auras. Demigods. Demonic beasts. They had sensed him the first time he fell into the forest after Lua's strike, and now again. They were close. Too close.
The sky ignited: a phoenix of fire descended in blazing flames. On the ground, entire trees flew into the air like twigs, hurled aside by something charging forward with cataclysmic force. In the distance, explosions tore open clearings in the woods. And on the horizon, a winged lion advanced in radiant flashes of light, each stride shaking the earth.
Draven paled. He rushed back toward the meadow, and only then realized the worst news: the device that concealed his aura was no longer on his chest. He was exposed.
Lua and the demon felt it too. Both halted their duel for an instant, lifting their gazes toward the forest. The beasts, having lost Draven's signal, began scattering in multiple directions, but the demon noticed something that made him smile with malice: two of those creatures were of the light attribute and the other of fire. That meant they were faster—and they had locked onto Draven.
"Interesting…" he muttered before stretching out an arm and unleashing a rain of bone arrows at Lua.
She moved just a finger. Above her head, a blazing circle appeared, from which surged black flames that incinerated every projectile into ashes. Then she shot forward like a comet.
The demon tried to dodge, but couldn't escape the devastating kick that sent him flying hundreds of meters, crashing deep into the forest. The impact shook the ground like an earthquake, ripping up mounds of earth and snapping trees like kindling. It was the first direct hit the demigod of Death had taken.
Lua, serious, lifted her gaze toward the horizon. She felt the auras drawing nearer, one after another, far too quickly. If those creatures emerged from the forest, devastation would reach the town. And she could lose everything. The players could revive. Her mother could not.
But the demon had other plans.
A roar split the heavens. From the trees emerged a colossal skeletal dragon, shrouded in necrotic aura. Its wings, formed of bones bound by shadow, battered the air as it flew straight for the demon. He reappeared from the forest just in time to lure it with a barrage of explosions cast in his direction, guiding the beast as though it were a puppet.
Lua understood instantly.
She drew her sword and hurled herself at the demon. She came down with a vertical slash, one capable of dividing mountains, and though he leapt aside at the last instant, the cutting wave ravaged everything in its path: trees, rocks, and the very ground, opening an abyss several meters deep.
The demon responded by manifesting a bone spear, stabbing with fury. Lua tilted her head slightly to dodge and countered with a vertical slash. The blade passed so close it carved a deep wound across the demon's face, marking him forever.
"AAAAH!" he roared, releasing a blast of aura that hurled her backward.
But Lua didn't stop. She opened her mouth and, like an ancient dragon, spewed a torrent of red fire that engulfed the demon. Trapped between Lua's flames and steel, his only option was to resist.
Meanwhile, Draven kept running, desperately searching for the lost device. Every second, his wound bled more, and his light faltered. He was a demigod, yes… but at that moment, nothing more than a coward. Even a lone skeleton crossing his path made him stagger.
The skeletal dragon drew closer to the duel between Lua and the demon. She met it with a sphere of fire that exploded midair, blasting the creature backward in a storm of burning bones.
To her surprise, Draven also appeared, striking at the dragon, a new sword forged from his light shining feverishly.
Lua frowned. Her instincts screamed to strike them both.
But there was no time. The demon, with a guttural roar, drove a devastating blow against the town's barrier. It shattered into a thousand luminous fragments, and a tide of corpses surged inside before the next layer could reform.
Lua spun her sword in her hand and decided coldly: the demon was the priority.
Though slightly weaker than her, defeating him wouldn't be easy. She knew he was holding something back. Something dangerous.
In the distance, the phoenix, the winged lion, and other presences drew ever nearer. The forest burned. The sky vibrated with the roars of ancient beasts.
And in the midst of it all, Draven—wounded and desperate—fought with all his strength against the skeletal dragon that, he now understood all too well, bore a divine fragment of Death. And perhaps a salvation for him—or at least an instruction for all. Perhaps, at the very least, a vengeance that would leave its mark.
All or nothing.