They ran until their lungs burned.
Through abandoned streets where buildings stood like hollow skulls, doors gaping, windows shattered. Through market squares where stalls had been overturned, goods scattered and trampled into the blood-soaked earth. Through residential districts where families had lived, laughed, died.
The outer city was a graveyard.
Diana led, one arm hanging useless, the other gripping her broken sword. Her breathing was labored, each step slower than the last, but she didn't stop.
Behind her, Thorne and Sylva flanked the group, weapons ready, eyes scanning every shadow. Rowan brought up the rear, his cracked shield held high despite the pain radiating from his ribs. Ivy moved between the prisoners, bow at the ready, arrows running low. Ashwood limped, leaning on his staff, face pale.
And Don—
Don walked in the middle of the group, knife and sword still manifested in his hands, yellow eye burning brighter with every passing minute.
Madness walked beside him, visible only to Don, both yellow eyes gleaming.
["Tired yet, little seed?"] Madness whispered.
Don ignored him.
They reached the city's edge as the blood-red sun began to sink toward the horizon, casting long shadows that seemed to reach for them with grasping fingers.
"There," Martha said, pointing with her stolen sword. "Emberveil Forest."
Ahead, beyond a stretch of barren fields, stood a wall of trees. Massive. Ancient. Their trunks were black as charcoal, their leaves a deep gray that rustled with sounds like distant thunder.
"Emberveil?" Ivy said, her tone laced with sarcasm. "Never heard of it. Shocking."
Martha ignored the jab, her scarred face unchanging. "You wouldn't have," she continued, voice flat. "It's not on any trade routes. Hunters avoid it. Merchants go around it. The locals say it's cursed."
"Is it?" Rowan asked, adjusting his grip on his cracked shield.
Martha's expression darkened. "Yes. But not by demons."
They moved toward it, crossing the barren fields as fast as exhausted bodies would allow. The blood-red sun cast their shadows long across the dead earth. Three hours passed. Then four. The sun sank lower, painting the sky in shades of crimson and black that made Don's stomach turn.
His legs burned. His stamina was barely holding. His mana had climbed slowly to 350, recovering drop by drop, but it wasn't enough. Nothing felt like enough.
And still, Madness walked beside him, smiling that terrible smile.
["You're going to collapse soon,"] Madness said, his voice almost conversational. ["Your body can't take much more. All that regeneration, all that torture—there's a price, little seed. There's always a price."]
Don's jaw clenched. Keep moving. Just keep moving.
They reached the forest's edge as darkness fell completely, the blood-red sky giving way to a black void dotted with stars that looked too distant to offer any comfort.
The trees loomed above them, their blackened trunks twisted and gnarled like the limbs of giants frozen in agony. Their gray leaves whispered secrets in a language Don didn't understand, rustling despite the absence of wind.
The air here felt different—colder, heavier, ancient. Like stepping into a tomb that had been sealed for centuries.
"Inside," Diana ordered, her voice barely above a whisper but carrying the weight of command. "Deep enough that they can't track us easily."
They pushed into the forest.
The undergrowth was thick, roots jutting from the earth like skeletal fingers trying to claw their way to the surface. The canopy overhead blocked what little starlight remained, plunging them into near-total darkness that pressed against Don's eyes like a physical weight.
Ashwood raised his staff, and pale green light flickered to life, casting eerie shadows on the blackened trees that seemed to shift and move in the corner of Don's vision.
They walked for another hour, deeper and deeper, the forest closing in around them like a living thing. The only sounds were their footsteps, their labored breathing, and the constant whisper of gray leaves overhead.
Finally, Martha raised a hand.
"Here," she said. "This is far enough."
They stood in a small clearing, surrounded by ancient trees that seemed to lean inward, watching with invisible eyes.
Diana lowered herself to the ground with a barely suppressed groan, leaning against one of the massive blackened trunks. Her green hair was matted with blood—her own sap and demon ichor mixed together in a sticky mess. Her broken wrist was swelling, turning an ugly purple-green. Her ribs were cracked, her body pushed far beyond its limits.
But she was alive.
They all were.
"We rest here tonight," she said, her voice carrying exhaustion but also iron determination. "At first light, we move. Nearest human settlement?"
"Where are we, exactly?" Sylva asked, setting down her spear with a wince. Blood seeped through a gash on her side that she'd been ignoring for hours.
Martha looked around at the forest, her expression unreadable in the dim light of Ashwood's staff. "Emberveil Forest. It stretches for leagues in every direction—easily a week's journey to cross at a normal pace. No roads. No established paths. The terrain is rough, the undergrowth thick. Even if the demons try to follow, they'll struggle. This place doesn't welcome… anyone."
"Why is it called Emberveil?" Thorne asked, methodically cleaning blood from his twin blades despite his obvious exhaustion.
"Because it burned," Aldric said quietly, his old voice rough with memory. "Three hundred years ago. Before the invasion. Before the demons. Before any of this madness. There was a war here—humans fighting humans over land, over resources, over old grudges that should have died generations earlier."
He gestured with a shaking hand at the blackened trunks surrounding them.
"A mage lost control of his fire magic during the final battle. Some say it was intentional—a scorched earth tactic to deny the enemy victory. Others say it was an accident, desperation and exhaustion causing his power to slip his grasp. Either way, the entire forest burned for three weeks. They say you could see the smoke from a hundred leagues away. The flames were so hot they turned the sky orange even at midnight. Thousands died in the fire—soldiers, civilians, the innocent and the guilty alike."
His rheumy eyes reflected the staff's green light.
"These trees are what grew back. Fed by ash and bone. Watered by the blood of those who died screaming. The embers smoldered for months after the flames died, hidden beneath the ash like sleeping serpents. When the first shoots finally emerged, they were black as coal and gray as smoke. The locals say the forest remembers the fire. That it carries the rage of those who burned. That it doesn't welcome the living because it knows only death."
"Cheerful," Ivy muttered, sitting down heavily and checking her remaining arrows with practiced efficiency. Six left. She'd have to make them count.
"Nearest settlement?" Diana repeated, bringing them back to practical matters.
Martha nodded. "Riverhold. A fortified town two days west of here—less if we push hard and don't encounter resistance. It's built along the Silverstream River, outside the capital's immediate sphere of influence. Far enough that the demons might not have reached it yet."
"Might not?" Rowan asked, easing himself down with a groan that sounded like grinding stone. His massive frame seemed diminished by exhaustion.
Martha's scarred face hardened. "The invasion happened fast. Faster than should have been possible. But it didn't start from outside the walls."
Thorne looked up sharply, jade eyes narrowing. "Explain."
"I mean the demons were already inside before the attack began," Martha said, her voice carrying bitter certainty. "In the castle. In the Royal Guard. In the servants' quarters, the stables, the kitchens. They'd been infiltrating for months at minimum. Replacing people. Assuming identities. Building their network while we remained blind."
A heavy silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the whisper of gray leaves overhead.
"How long?" Diana asked, her emerald eyes sharp despite her exhaustion. "How long were they inside before they struck?"
Martha met her gaze. "I don't know exactly. But I was Royal Guard—assigned to the inner palace, close to the king himself. I watched His Majesty's behavior change six months ago. Small things at first. Orders that didn't quite make sense. Decisions that put civilians at unnecessary risk. Appointments of people we'd never vetted properly. We thought he was falling ill. Or going mad from the weight of the crown."
She laughed bitterly.
"We were fools."