The command to fight hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine. The Arena of the Eclipse, usually a cauldron of noise, had fallen into a breathless, terrified silence. The spectators, from the lowliest goblin to the highest vampire aristocrat, understood the stakes. This wasn't just a brawl. It was a dissection of a Demon Lord's soul.
Valdred stood alone on his side of the obsidian sands. He had shed his cape; it lay in a heap of crimson velvet behind him, discarded to reduce drag. He held Night-Eater in a low guard, the massive black blade humming with a frequency that made the teeth of everyone in the front row ache. But his eyes—those burning, crimson slits—were not fixed on his opponents. They flickered, constantly, agonizingly, back to the small figure standing on the sidelines.
Elara leaned against the barrier wall, her skin shimmering faintly with the metallic hue of the Iron Skin potion she had downed. She gave him a thumbs-up. Her hand was shaking, just a little, but her smile was fixed in place like a shield.
"Eyes front, Boss," she mouthed.
Valdred forced his gaze back to the center. Malacor the Lich King and Lady Vex the Succubus Queen were spreading out, flanking him. They moved with the predatory confidence of wolves who had cornered a bear that was afraid to swipe back.
"He is hesitant," Malacor rasped, his voice echoing from the floating green skulls that circled him. "Look at his stance. He is coiled tight. He is terrified of a scratch."
"It's romantic, in a tragic, vomit-inducing sort of way," Vex laughed, her wings snapping open like stained-glass switchblades. She dragged a jagged whip made of shadow-thorns through the sand. "Shall we test the connection?"
Vex moved first. She didn't charge; she flicked her wrist. The shadow whip extended, defying physics, snapping across the distance faster than an arrow. It wasn't aimed at Valdred's heart. It was aimed at his arm—a grazing shot. A test.
Valdred didn't parry. Parrying meant impact. Impact meant vibration. Vibration meant potential force transfer. He vanished.
The sound of displaced air cracked like thunder. Valdred reappeared ten feet to the left, the whip slashing through the space he had occupied a microsecond before.
"Too slow," Valdred growled.
He lunged. He closed the distance to Vex instantly, Night-Eater sweeping up in a brutal arc intended to bisect her.
Vex yelped and turned into a cloud of bats to dodge. The sword passed through the bats, scattering them, but connecting with nothing solid.
"Fire!" Malacor screamed.
The Lich raised his staff. He didn't fire a single beam; he unleashed a barrage. "Magic Missile: Necrotic Hail." Hundreds of green bolts of energy rained down on the arena. They weren't accurate, but they were numerous. They covered the entire zone where Valdred stood.
Valdred looked up. He couldn't dodge rain.
He made a split-second calculation. If he blocked with his sword, the kinetic energy would transfer. If he blocked with a mana shield, the magical feedback might trigger the link.
He stabbed his sword into the ground. "Gravity Well."
A sphere of intense, crushing gravity erupted around him. The green missiles hit the gravity field and were sucked into the earth, harmlessly sizzling into the sand before they could touch his armor.
"Impressive," Malacor sneered. "But you are burning mana to dodge cantrips. How long can you keep that up, Valdred? Ten minutes? Twenty?"
"Long enough to turn your bones into flour," Valdred retorted.
He ripped his sword from the ground and charged Malacor. The Lich floated backward, casting walls of bone to slow him down. Valdred smashed through them—CRASH, CRASH, CRASH—turning obstacles into dust without slowing his stride.
He was a juggernaut. He was untouchable. For five minutes, the arena watched a masterclass in evasion and aggression. Valdred was everywhere at once, a blur of black steel. He forced Vex to stay in mist form; he forced Malacor to burn his defensive scrolls.
And Elara stood on the sideline, untouched.
"He's doing it," the crowd whispered. "The West is untouchable."
But Vex was cunning. She reformed near Malacor, panting, her perfect hair disheveled.
"Direct attacks aren't working," she hissed. "He's too fast. We need something he can't dodge. Something that lingers."
Malacor's eye sockets flared. "The Mist."
"Do it," Vex commanded.
Malacor slammed his staff into the ground. "Spell: Decay Mist."
Green, heavy fog began to roll out from the Lich. It wasn't a projectile. It was an environment. It expanded rapidly, filling the arena floor. It was acidic, designed to eat through armor and skin over time.
Valdred stopped. He looked at the wall of gas approaching him. He could hold his breath. He could seal his armor. But the gas touched. It made contact.
"Wind!" Valdred shouted, spinning his sword like a propeller to generate a cyclone.
He blew the mist back, creating a clear circle around himself.
"Distract him!" Malacor yelled.
Vex reappeared behind Valdred, right at the edge of his wind circle. She screamed, a sonic attack that bypassed physical defenses.
"Siren's Wail."
The sound hammered into Valdred. He flinched. The wind circle faltered for a fraction of a second.
A wisp of the Decay Mist drifted in. It brushed against Valdred's left greave.
It was nothing. A minor corrosion. It barely scratched the paint on his armor.
But on the sidelines, Elara gasped.
She gripped her left leg. A patch of her trousers sizzled and dissolved, revealing skin that suddenly turned red and blistered, as if burned by acid.
"Ah!" Elara cried out, stumbling and falling to one knee.
Valdred heard her. It was a quiet sound in the chaos of battle, but to his ears, it was louder than the Siren's Wail. He spun around, ignoring Vex, ignoring the Lich.
He saw Elara on the ground, clutching her leg.
"ELARA!" Valdred roared. The sound was pure, unadulterated horror.
He dropped his guard.
"Now!" Vex shrieked.
She lashed out with her shadow whip. It wrapped around Valdred's torso. The thorns dug in. Not deep enough to kill him, but deep enough to pierce the armor. Deep enough to draw blood.
Valdred didn't feel the pain.
Elara screamed.
On the sideline, invisible thorns tore into her midsection. Her uniform coat shredded. Blood blossomed across her white shirt. The impact threw her backward into the stone wall of the arena.
She slumped there, sliding down the wall, gasping for air.
Valdred froze. He stood in the center of the arena, the whip wrapped around him, the mist curling around his boots. He looked at Elara's blood. He looked at her pale face.
His world narrowed down to a single point of failure. He had failed.
"Got him," Vex laughed, tightening the whip. "Look at him. He's broken. He can't fight back because he knows the next hit might kill her."
Malacor floated forward, gathering a massive ball of necrotic energy. "Checkmate, Tyrant."
Valdred didn't move. His arms hung at his sides. The crimson light in his eyes flickered and died out, leaving the helmet dark. He was paralyzed by the feedback loop of his own protective instinct. If he moved, the whip would tear. If the whip tore, Elara bled.
"Finish it," Vex ordered.
Malacor fired. The green energy bolt streaked toward Valdred.
"MOVE, YOU IDIOT!"
The voice cracked across the arena like a whip of its own.
Elara had pulled herself up. She was leaning against the wall, one hand pressing a glowing blue cloth (a mana bandage) to her stomach. Her glasses were askew. She was bleeding. But she was furious.
She pulled a megaphone from her inventory—where she got a megaphone in a fantasy world was a mystery for another time—and put it to her lips.
"VALDRED!" she screamed, her voice amplified to god-like proportions. "IF YOU DIE, I'M UNEMPLOYED! DO YOU WANT ME TO BE UNEMPLOYED? DO YOU WANT ME TO GO BACK TO DATA ENTRY?"
Valdred's helmet twitched. The light in his eyes sparked back to life.
"I drank a Potion of Iron Skin!" Elara yelled, coughing up a little blood but wiping it away fiercely. "And I have a Regeneration Buff running! I am a tank! I am the Head Mage of the West! Stop treating me like glass and start acting like the Demon Lord!"
She pointed her wand at herself. "Spell: Masochist's Resonance."
A golden aura flared around her.
"I just buffed my pain tolerance by 500%!" she shouted. "It hurts, but I can take it! Now... KILL THEM!"
Valdred looked at her. He saw the blood, yes. But he also saw the fire. He saw the absolute, unshakeable refusal to be a victim. She wasn't a damsel. She was his partner. And she was pissed off.
A low sound started in Valdred's chest. It grew into a rumble. Then a roar.
The shadow whip around his chest snapped. It didn't just break; it shattered into particles of darkness as Valdred expanded his aura violently.
Vex stumbled back, her weapon destroyed. "What?"
Valdred turned to look at them. The crimson eyes weren't just glowing; they were infernos. Smoke—actual physical smoke from his rage—poured out of the vents of his helmet.
"She gave me permission," Valdred said. His voice sounded like tectonic plates grinding together.
He caught Malacor's necrotic bolt in his bare hand. He crushed it.
"You hurt her," Valdred stepped forward. The ground cracked. "You made her bleed."
"It... it is the rules of the trial!" Malacor stammered, floating higher, suddenly realizing that poking the bear was a terrible mistake.
"I am the Demon Lord of the West," Valdred said, appearing directly in front of Malacor. "I do not follow rules. I dictate them."
He grabbed Malacor by the ankle.
"Gravity Magic," Valdred whispered. "Singularity."
He slammed the Lich into the ground. But he didn't stop there. He increased the gravity around Malacor's body a thousandfold. The Lich screamed as his bones, his staff, and his expensive robes were compressed into a dense, flat pancake in the sand.
"One," Valdred counted.
He turned to Vex.
Vex was already running. She had turned into mist and was fleeing toward the barrier.
"Elara!" Valdred shouted. "Lock her down!"
Elara, slumped against the wall, grinned through her pain. She raised her wand.
"You got it, Boss! Wind Magic: Vacuum Seal!"
She sucked the air out of the space around Vex. Mist cannot exist without a medium. Vex was forced to materialize back into her solid form, gasping for air, right in the center of the arena.
Valdred was there.
He didn't use his sword. He didn't use magic. He used a simple, brutal clothesline.
His armored arm caught Vex across the chest. She did a double backflip in the air from the force of the impact and crashed face-first into the dirt, skidding for thirty yards before coming to a stop at Grog's feet (who was watching from the loser's bench).
"Two," Valdred said.
He stood in the center of the devastation. He breathed heavily. He waited to see if they would get up.
Malacor groaned, trying to re-inflate his skeletal form. Vex twitched.
"WINNER: WEST," the Arbiter announced. The machine sounded shaky, as if it was terrified Valdred might come for it next. "TRIAL CONCLUDED."
The red barrier surrounding the arena dissolved.
Valdred didn't pose for the crowd. He didn't gloat. He sheathed Night-Eater and sprinted to the sideline.
He reached Elara just as her adrenaline wore off and her knees gave out. He caught her before she hit the ground.
"Elara," he gasped, cradling her. He ripped off his gauntlets, his bare gray hands trembling as he hovered them over her injuries. "The bleeding... the acid..."
"I'm okay," Elara wheezed. She looked terrible—pale, sweaty, blood-soaked—but she was smiling. "Potion of Greater Healing... in my left pocket. Get it."
Valdred fumbled in her pocket, retrieved the red vial, and uncorked it with his teeth. He gently tipped it into her mouth.
The magic took effect instantly. The angry red blisters on her leg faded to pink, then vanished. The slash across her stomach knit together, leaving only a jagged tear in her uniform.
Elara took a deep breath, the color returning to her cheeks. She looked up at Valdred. He was staring at her with an expression of such raw, unguarded devastation that it broke her heart a little.
"Hey," she whispered, reaching up to touch his face (he had lost his helmet somewhere in the rage). "I'm fine. Look. No holes."
"I failed," Valdred said, his voice thick. "I promised you would not be hurt."
"And I promised we'd win," Elara countered. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "It's a trade-off, Valdred. You took the aggro, I took the damage. That's how a party works. You can't solo everything."
Valdred bowed his head, resting his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes. "I hate this tournament," he muttered. "I hate this place. I am going to burn it down."
"Later," Elara promised. "First, we need the prize."
The crowd, which had been stunned into silence by the sheer violence of the finale, slowly began to cheer. It started with the Orcs, who respected strength above all else. Then the darker creatures joined in. The chant of "WEST! WEST! WEST!" began to echo off the ribcage arches.
Valdred stood up, lifting Elara effortlessly into his arms.
"Put me down!" Elara hissed, blushing furiously. "I can walk!"
"You lost a pint of blood," Valdred said flatly. "You are not walking. If you argue, I will carry you like a sack of potatoes. This is the dignified option."
He carried her to the center of the arena, where the Arbiter hovered. Malacor and Vex were being dragged away by their healers.
"THE WEST IS VICTORIOUS," the Arbiter boomed. "VALDRED, TYRANT OF THE CINDERS, RETAINS HIS TITLE AND CLAIMS DOMINION OVER THE NEUTRAL WASTES."
The Arbiter extended a brass hand. A small, glowing orb floated down.
"THE PRIZE," the Arbiter said. "THE ORB OF OMNISCIENCE. IT GRANTS ONE ANSWER TO ANY QUESTION."
Valdred looked at the orb. He looked at Elara.
"We don't need it," Valdred said.
"Take it!" Elara whispered. "We can ask it where the best pizza in the multiverse is! Or the winning lottery numbers!"
Valdred sighed and grabbed the orb. He tucked it into his belt pouch.
"We are leaving," Valdred announced. "Now."
But as they turned to leave, the ground shook. Not the rumble of a mechanism this time, but a deep, organic heave. The yellow sky turned a sickly shade of green.
The Arbiter froze. Its rotating head spun wildly, clicking and whirring.
"ERROR," the Arbiter screeched. "SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED. UNAUTHORIZED ENTITY ENTERING THE ARENA."
A portal ripped open in the sky. It wasn't the neat, circular portal of a wizard. It was a jagged tear in reality, dripping with chaotic purple sludge.
A figure fell out of the portal and face-planted into the sand.
It was Leo. The Hero.
He scrambled up, looking frantic. He was holding a weird, ancient-looking scroll that was currently on fire.
"Leo?" Elara blinked from Valdred's arms. "What are you doing here?"
Leo looked around at the thousands of demons, the Arbiter, and the very angry-looking Demon Lord holding his former party member.
"I... uh..." Leo stammered. He tried to blow out the fire on the scroll. "I was trying to cast a spell to... liberate you? But I think I mispronounced a syllable."
"Which syllable?" Valdred asked dangerously.
"The one that binds the... uh... Ancient Ones," Leo admitted.
The ground beneath the arena cracked open. A massive, rotting hand—the size of a house—burst through the obsidian sand. Then another.
The ribcage of the dead god that formed the arena began to vibrate.
"Oh no," Malacor whispered from the stretcher he was being carried on. "He woke the landlord."
"The landlord?" Elara asked.
"The Dead God!" Malacor screamed. "The arena is built inside the corpse of Typhon the Undying! And that idiot Hero just woke him up!"
The massive bones of the arena groaned. The arches above them began to shift. The ground rose up as a colossal, skull-like head began to emerge from the deep earth.
"WHO..." the voice was so deep it vibrated in their marrow. "WHO... SET... THE... ALARM... CLOCK?"
Leo pointed immediately at Valdred. "He did it!"
"I am going to kill the Hero," Valdred stated calmly. "Elara, hold my sword."
"Valdred, wait!" Elara wiggled out of his arms (wincing slightly). "We can't fight a God! We're exhausted! I have 4 HP left!"
"I have plenty of HP," Valdred growled.
"CITIZENS," the Arbiter announced, its voice glitching. "EVACUATE. REFUNDS WILL NOT BE ISSUED."
Panic erupted. The crowd stampeded. Orcs trampled Goblins. Wraiths flew into each other.
The Dead God, Typhon, finally pulled his torso free. He was a skeleton titan, easily three hundred feet tall. His eyes were empty voids of darkness. He looked down at the tiny figures on his chest.
"I AM GRUMPY," Typhon announced. "AND I REQUIRE A SNACK."
He reached for Leo.
"Save me!" Leo shrieked, hiding behind Elara.
"Get off me!" Elara kicked him in the shin.
Valdred stepped in front of both of them. He looked up at the titan. He looked at the chaos.
"Well," Valdred sighed, drawing Night-Eater again. "So much for the beach vacation."
"We need a plan," Elara said, her mind racing. "Valdred, he's Undead. Malacor is an expert on Undead. We need to team up."
"Team up with the Lich I just flattened?" Valdred raised an eyebrow.
"Yes! And Vex! And Grog!" Elara pointed. "We can't solo a Raid Boss! We need a full party! Tank, DPS, Support, and... whatever Leo does."
"I provide moral superiority!" Leo chimed in.
"Bait," Valdred corrected. "You provide bait."
Valdred turned to the fleeing Demon Lords. His voice boomed over the chaos.
"STOP RUNNING, COWARDS!"
Malacor, Vex, and Grog froze.
"IF YOU RUN, HE EATS YOUR KINGDOMS FIRST!" Valdred shouted. "STAND WITH ME, AND WE KILL A GOD TONIGHT!"
Grog stopped running. He looked at the giant skeleton. He hefted his axe. "BIG BONE MAN... MEAN LOTS OF SOUP."
Vex wiped blood from her lip. She looked at Typhon, then at Valdred. "I hate you, Valdred. But I hate being eaten more."
Malacor reassembled his bones. "I suppose... logically... cooperation is the only survival metric."
They gathered around Valdred. The Four Shadow Lords. And one Human. And one Hero.
Elara adjusted her glasses. She popped a mana potion. She pulled out her clipboard.
"Alright, people!" she shouted. "Raid formation! Grog, you're the main tank. Valdred, off-tank and heavy DPS. Vex, aerial harassment. Malacor, debuffs. Leo... try not to die. Let's send this guy back to sleep!"
Valdred looked at her, commanding the armies of darkness with a clipboard and a torn uniform. He smirked.
"Lead the way, Strategist," he said.