Sir Adranous stood there, chuckling.
Not loud. Not mocking.
Just… amused.
It was wrong.
Everything about it felt wrong.
Azazel noticed.
The demon's wings twitched, claws flexing as his eyes narrowed. Confusion crept across his face—followed quickly by irritation. Then concern. Why wasn't this man afraid? Why wasn't he scrambling, calculating, retreating like the rest of us had been forced to?
I could feel it even from inside the barrier.
Azazel didn't like this.
And when demons don't like something, they don't test it.
They erase it.
Azazel released his jaki.
It wasn't an explosion.
It was a flood.
Darkness spilled outward like ink poured into water, rolling across the chamber in heavy, suffocating waves. The air thickened instantly. My lungs burned as if I'd inhaled ash. The pressure alone forced several of us to our knees—even inside the protective sphere Sir Adranous had conjured.
The smell changed.
Rot. Iron. Old blood.
This was the same presence I'd felt behind that ancient door—but now it wasn't restrained. It wasn't lingering. It was alive.
Sir Adranous's flames still burned.
Golden-red fire washed across the chamber, clashing violently with the encroaching dark. Where they met, the air warped, crackling like a battlefield caught between two suns. For a moment, it almost looked even.
Almost.
Then they moved.
I barely saw it.
One instant they were standing apart—the next, the space between them detonated.
Sparks screamed through the air. Shockwaves slammed into the barrier, rattling my bones. The sound of steel meeting claw echoed like a thunderclap underground. They clashed again and again, too fast to track, their movements blurring into streaks of fire and shadow.
This time—
Azazel had the upper hand.
I saw it in the small details first.
A shallow cut across Sir Adranous's cheek.
A scrape along his armor where something shouldn't have gotten through.
The faint, unmistakable scent of blood.
Red ran down his cheek, cutting through soot and sweat.
Then Azazel twisted mid-motion and delivered a brutal roundhouse kick.
The impact sent Sir Adranous flying backward—six feet at least—his body smashing into stone hard enough to crater it.
The chamber shook.
Silence followed.
Sir Adranous stood slowly.
And something about him had changed.
The smile was gone.
The easy confidence—the playful warmth—burned away like paper in flame. He lifted a hand, touched the blood on his cheek, and looked at it with mild surprise before smirking.
"I'm sorry," he said calmly, voice carrying even through the oppressive aura.
"I underestimated you. You are an ancient demon for a reason."
Azazel's expression twisted.
That wasn't the reaction he wanted.
That wasn't fear.
That was acknowledgment.
And it made him uneasy.
That's when I noticed it.
The shift.
The jaki was spreading further.
Not outward—inward.
It was consuming Sir Adranous's flames.
Slowly. Steadily.
Like water swallowing fire.
My chest tightened.
"No—" I coughed, pain flaring through my ribs as I forced myself upright. Blood splattered the inside of the barrier as I shouted, voice tearing from my throat.
"SIR ADRANOUS—HIS JAKI!"
Azazel laughed.
A sharp, delighted sound.
"Well spotted," he said, glancing at me. "To notice before a captain—how rare."
Sir Adranous looked around.
His aura still burned—but it was no longer dominant. The chamber was drowning in darkness now, his flames reduced to pockets of resistance instead of control.
His shoulders tensed.
He shifted his stance.
Prepared.
Azazel's grin widened.
The jaki fluctuated violently, pulsing once—twice—then condensing around his wings.
"Winged Rend."
The words alone made my blood run cold.
Azazel's damaged wings healed instantly—flesh knitting, bone reforging, membrane sealing as if time itself reversed. Sir Adranous raised his guard at once, aura flaring brighter as he muttered under his breath,
"…Not good."
Azazel's wings bent backward unnaturally.
Then—
Darkness.
The lights vanished.
Not dimmed.
Gone.
Total black.
A single, thunderous slam echoed through the chamber.
The kind of sound you feel in your teeth.
As the jaki receded, light slowly bled back into the world.
And we saw him.
Sir Adranous—embedded in the wall.
Stone cracked around his body. His armor was split, scorched, twisted. Blood ran freely now, staining the stone beneath him. His torso—gods—his torso looked wrong, caved slightly from the impact.
Azazel smiled.
"So much for a captain," he said lightly. "I expected a standard—and all I was met with was failure."
Sir Adranous coughed.
Blood splattered the floor.
Then—somehow—he laughed.
He pushed himself free from the wall, each movement deliberate, painful, earned. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and straightened.
Azazel watched, amused.
A final struggle, he thought.
Sir Adranous gripped his sword with both hands.
He raised it.
Blade pointing toward the ceiling.
And for the first time, Azazel saw the inscription clearly.
Child of the Second Sun.
Sir Adranous inhaled.
And spoke.
"By oath sworn and blood endured, I call.
Vortharos—
First Flame above the sky,
Witness of crowns and ashes alike.
I do not beg for mercy.
I do not ask for warmth.
I offer my breath, my blade, and the years carved into my name.
Let the sun that judges kings look upon this ground.
If I am worthy, stand behind my shadow.
If I am lacking, burn me where I kneel.
Vortharos—
By invocation and vow, Answer."
The Sun God answered.
Light exploded.
Not fire.
Not aura.
The sun.
It appeared above us—impossible, overwhelming, absolute. Radiance flooded the chamber, searing my eyes, my skin, my very soul. I screamed as burns flared across my body, even through the barrier.
Azazel screamed too.
For the first time.
Not rage.
Pain.
Real pain.
His flesh charred slowly, deliberately—like meat over open flame. The light didn't rush. It judged. The room glowed brighter than anything I had ever seen, brighter than the ocean storm, brighter than lightning.
Sir Adranous stood beneath it.
Smiling.
"This is where our paths end, ancient demon.
You walk no further—not by fate, not by will.
If history needs a line, I will be the one who draws it."
I couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.
All I knew—
Was that this was finally no longer our war.
This was judgment.
And the sun had come to collect.