The corridors filled with demons.
Not powerful ones. Not Stage One cultivators or trained warriors.
These were castle guards. Foot soldiers. Cannon fodder. The kind of demons that filled an army's ranks—expendable, replaceable, weak.
They charged in chaotic waves, all claws and teeth and rusted weapons, more enthusiasm than skill.
Thorne's blades spun, each movement ending a life with surgical precision. His mirrored edges created afterimages that cut half a heartbeat after the real strike, turning each slash into two kills.
A half-demon lunged at him, claws extended. Thorne's blade took its head off in one clean motion. The body was still falling when he spun, second blade taking another through the heart.
Ashwood's staff blazed. Roots erupted from stone that shouldn't have been able to support plant life, impaling three demons at once, lifting them off the ground where they thrashed and died.
And Don—
Don's right hand formed a knife. Black blade. Simple. Perfect.
His left hand formed a short sword. Same design. Flawless balance.
His body moved on instinct, on muscle memory burned in through the colosseum's crucible and the torture chamber's lessons.
A half-demon charged him, all rage and no technique.
Don sidestepped—the movement felt natural now, effortless—and drove his knife into its temple. The blade punched through bone, into brain, out the other side.
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[XP: 20/100]
He pulled the blade free, spun, and found another demon already on him.
This one was faster. Smarter. A full demon, not a half-breed.
It slashed with claws that could tear through steel. Don ducked under the first swipe, blocked the second with his sword—the impact jarring his arm—and stabbed upward with his knife.
The blade caught the demon in the throat. Not deep enough to kill. Just enough to make it stagger.
Thorne's blade took its head off a second later.
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[XP: 40/100]
More came. Always more.
A half-demon lunged from Don's left. He slashed with his sword, opening its belly. It collapsed, clutching its spilling intestines.
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[XP: 50/100]
A full demon came from his right, wielding a rusted sword. Don parried once, twice, found an opening, and drove his knife into its eye socket.
The demon thrashed, not dead yet. Ashwood's root spike finished it.
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[XP: 70/100]
They fought their way through the corridors. Don wasn't the strongest—far from it. Wasn't the fastest. Wasn't the most skilled.
But he was there. In every fight. Landing cuts that bled demons, weakening them, setting them up for killing blows from the warriors around him.
A half-demon with bat wings dove at Rowan. Don's thrown knife caught it in the wing membrane. It crashed. Rowan's shield crushed its skull.
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[XP: 80/100]
A full demon grappled with Sylva, trying to bite her throat. Don's sword took it through the kidney. It released her, howling. Her spear finished it.
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 2 → LEVEL 3]
[XP: 0/500]
[HP: 10/-]
[MANA: 300/850]
[STAMINA: 16/24]
[+2 TO ALL PHYSICAL STATS]
[+3 TO ALL MENTAL STATS]
[+5 FREE POINTS AVAILABLE]
Don didn't stop to allocate points. Didn't slow down. Just kept moving, kept fighting, kept surviving.
His yellow eye burned brighter with each kill.
In the corner of his vision, Madness stood among the corpses, both yellow eyes gleaming with something like pride.
["Good,"] Madness whispered. ["Very good, little seed. You're learning."]
They burst from the castle into blood-red daylight that stung the eyes.
The sky churned with crimson clouds. The ocean stretched endlessly, waves of blood crashing against distant shores.
And between them and freedom—
An army.
Hundreds of demons. Thousands maybe. Orcs with axes the size of shields. Succubi with whips that crackled with dark energy. Twisted things with too many limbs, too many mouths, bodies that defied geometry.
They stood in loose formation, blocking every path out of the castle grounds.
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me," Ivy muttered, arrow already nocked.
Diana stood at the front of their group, one arm hanging useless, breathing labored, green sap leaking from a dozen wounds that would have killed anyone else.
But her eyes were clear.
Hard as emeralds. Unbreaking.
"Rowan—vanguard. Thorne, Sylva—flanks. Ivy—overwatch. Ashwood—support fire."
She raised her sword—broken, jagged, but still sharp enough to kill.
"We're breaking through. Don't stop for anything. Anyone falls, we keep moving. Understood?"
"Understood," they replied as one.
Martha stepped forward, a stolen demon sword in her hands. "We fight too."
Diana glanced back at the freed prisoners. "Can you?"
"We didn't survive this long to die with freedom in sight," Martha said, her scarred face set with grim determination.
Aldric, the old mage, raised shaking hands that began to glow faintly. "I have… a little left in me."
Gorath cracked massive knuckles. Said nothing. Didn't need to.
Diana nodded once. "Then fight. And live."
They hit the demon army like a meteor striking the earth.
Rowan led the charge, shield reformed despite its cracks, his massive frame a battering ram of muscle and will. He smashed through the front line, demons flying, bones breaking, bodies crushed under immovable force.
Thorne and Sylva moved like dancers on either side, blades and spear carving paths of death through flesh that parted like water. Every movement precise. Every strike lethal.
Ivy's bow sang from the rear, arrows finding throats, eyes, hearts with mechanical certainty. She didn't miss. Couldn't miss. Her will wouldn't allow it.
Ashwood's magic turned the blood-soaked ground into a forest of thorns, roots erupting to impale dozens at once, vines strangling, crushing, tearing.
And Don moved through the chaos.
His knife and sword flashing. Not leading charges. Not taking on the strongest enemies.
But always there. Always moving. Always finding the openings.
A half-demon lunged at Martha's exposed flank. Don's knife took it in the spine before it reached her.
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[XP: 10/500]
A full demon with a war axe charged Tam. Don stepped in, parried the axe with his sword—nearly lost his grip from the impact—and stabbed his knife into the demon's armpit where armor didn't protect. It dropped the axe. Tam picked it up and finished the job.
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[XP: 30/500]
An orc berserker, massive and frothing, swung at Aldric. The old mage was too slow to dodge. Don's sword caught the orc's wrist mid-swing, not cutting through but deflecting just enough. The blow missed. Rowan's shield crushed the orc's skull a second later.
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[XP: 50/500]
They carved through the army not because they were stronger than every demon there—they weren't.
But because they were better.
Training versus raw violence. Discipline versus chaos. Experience versus desperation.
The demons fell in waves, and Diana's team pressed forward, step by bloody step.
Don's body moved on autopilot now. Knife. Sword. Stab. Slash. Block. Kill. Move.
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[XP: 110/500]
His yellow eye blazed. Madness walked beside him now, visible in the corner of his vision, smiling that terrible smile.
["You're a natural at this,"] Madness whispered. ["Killing. Surviving. Taking what you need from the dying."]
Don ignored him. Focused on the next enemy. The next opening. The next breath.
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[ENEMY SLAIN: HALF-DEMON]
[+10 XP]
[ENEMY SLAIN: DEMON]
[+20 XP]
[XP: 150/500]
And then they reached it.
The river.
Red. Wide. Fast-flowing. The boundary between the castle district and the outer city.
"ACROSS!" Diana shouted, her voice hoarse but commanding. "NOW!"
Ashwood's staff blazed brighter than it had all day, drawing on reserves he shouldn't have had left. A bridge of roots erupted from the riverbank, spanning the water in seconds—thick, sturdy, alive.
They ran across it, boots pounding on wood that pulsed with Diana's fading power.
The demons followed, roaring, howling, promising death.
Diana turned at the far shore, raised her broken sword with her one good hand, and screamed.
Not words. Just raw will. Raw defiance.
Her remaining power surged—the last dregs of the artifact's boost burning through her like fire.
The bridge exploded.
Roots thrashed like dying serpents, grabbing demons, pulling them into the crimson water, crushing, drowning, tearing apart. Bodies fell by the dozens, by the hundreds.
The demons' advance stopped at the river's edge.
Diana collapsed to one knee, sword falling from her grip, breathing in ragged gasps.
"Princess!" Thorne was at her side instantly.
"I'm fine," she lied, voice barely above a whisper. "Keep… moving. They'll find a way across eventually."
They moved into the outer city—abandoned streets, buildings with doors hanging open, the entire capital a ghost town since the invasion.
Behind them, across the river, the demons howled in frustrated rage.
And far above, in the castle's highest tower, Torkh stood at a shattered window, hand pressed against the cracked gemstone on his chest.
The eye inside it watched.
Waiting.
"Doctor," Torkh said quietly, his voice carrying despite the distance.
From the shadows of the throne room below, the white-robed demon stepped forward.
"Yes, my King?"
"How long until the gate is complete?"
The Doctor consulted notes on floating parchment, pen scratching calculations. "Three days, my King. With all the blood sacrifices, the ritual arrays, the accumulated death—we've accelerated the process significantly beyond initial projections."
"Not fast enough." Torkh's yellow eyes burned cold. "I want it done in one day."
"My King, that would require an exponential increase in death energy, the complete saturation of the continent's ley lines, and—"
"I don't care what it requires," Torkh said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Tell those two fools—Zoleena and Zurkakh—they can move now. Full mobilization.
Begin the invasion of the entire Magenda continent. Every city. Every village. Every farmhouse. I want this land drowned in so much blood the oceans rise."
The Doctor's eternal smile widened. "As you command, my King."
Torkh stared at the cracked gemstone on his chest, at the eye watching from within, at the fractures that leaked red light.
"One day," he whispered to the presence beyond. "One day, my lord, and your gift will be delivered. This planet.This Realm.Everything Will Be Yours."
The eye blinked once.
Approving.