The dust settled slowly. Kael stood at the very edge of the crater, his boots just inches from the drop.
The destruction was total. From where they stood, the ground fell away into a massive bowl of raw, brown dirt that stretched for hundreds of yards. Every house and fence in Oakhaven was gone. There was no grass left—just a wasteland of empty earth.
In the middle of the crater, a figure stood in the silence.
It was taller than a man. Its chest was covered in black scales and skin as white as bone. Purple light leaked through cracks in its body, pulsing like a heartbeat. Four thick, black tendrils grew from the sides of its head, moving slowly as they tasted the air.
It had no mouth or nose. Just one large purple eye in the center of its face.
"A fiend?" Kael whispered.
Beside him, Lyanna's golden magic flickered. The light around her fingers pulled back toward her body, as if the creature was sucking the energy out of the air. Her hand shook as she reached out to pull Kael back.
"No," she breathed. "It's no fiend... it's a demon."
The creature tilted its head. The four tendrils on its head pointed straight at them. Across the long distance of the crater, that single purple eye locked onto Kael. It didn't see a boy; it felt the presence of its own kind.
The demon raised a clawed finger and pointed directly at him.
"I finally… found you."
Kael collapsed the moment the demon's voice hit his mind.
"Mom..." he whispered. He was on his knees, his fingers digging into the dry dirt at the crater's edge. "The mark... it hurts. Why does it hurt so much?"
Lyanna froze. She looked from the monster in the pit to her son, her mind racing. "What...?" she muttered. She couldn't believe he could actually feel the seal reacting.
She didn't have time to think.
In the middle of the crater, the demon's large eye opened wide. The four tendrils on its head snapped forward, forming a diamond shape around its face. A loud, grinding noise filled the air as purple energy gathered into a glowing ball.
The demon didn't move. It fired.
A beam of purple light shot across the crater. It was so fast it blurred the air.
Lyanna's instincts kicked in. She stepped in front of Kael and threw her hands out. Three circles of golden light appeared one after the other. TripleAegis.
The shields locked into place just as the beam hit.
CRACK.
The first shield shattered like glass. The second one groaned and covered in cracks as it took the hit. The third one held, but the heat from the purple beam was so strong it lit up Lyanna's face and made her magic pulse.
The demon stopped its attack. The beam died out, leaving the smell of burnt earth in the air.
The creature tilted its head. The four tendrils moved in a strange rhythm. It stared at the golden shields, its eye pulsing as it remembered seeing that same light ten years ago.
The demon's voice crawled into their minds. "…You. I remember… that light."
Kael couldn't say anything. The black lines of the mark were spreading across his skin like ink. Every time they moved, he felt a sharp stab of pain. He curled up on the ground, his fingers digging into the dirt.
Lyanna looked at him, her face turning white. "What—"
She didn't have time to finish.
The demon moved. It didn't run; it just shifted and vanished. It was a blur of black and purple that crossed the huge crater in a split second.
Before Lyanna could move, the creature was right in front of her.
A cold, heavy hand slammed around her throat. The force of it lifted her off her feet.
"Kael!" she tried to scream, but the grip was too tight.
The edge of the crater broke apart under the demon's weight. Kael was too weak from the pain to stop himself from falling. He rolled over the edge and tumbled down the sandy slope, sliding all the way to the flat bottom of the pit. He lay there in the dust, groaning.
Lyanna's vision started to go dark. The demon wasn't just choking her; it was sucking the magic right out of her body. She could feel her strength draining away into the demon's hand. The purple cracks in its chest glowed brighter as it fed on her energy.
She was running out of time.
Lyanna grabbed the demon's wrist. She didn't try to pull it off. Instead, she gathered every bit of golden energy she had left and forced it all into her hands.
She let the energy explode.
The golden blast hit the demon right in the arm. The force snapped its grip and sent the creature flying backward. It soared through the air and crashed into the dirt halfway across the crater. It tumbled a few times before landing on all fours, its claws buried in the ground.
Lyanna fell to the dirt, coughing and gasping for air. Her throat was already turning purple with bruises. She looked down into the pit.
Her son was at the bottom, unable to move, and the demon was already starting to stand back up.
Lyanna didn't waste a second. She watched as the demon struggled on the slope, its right arm still smoking from her golden blast. The creature hissed, staring at its damaged limb with its single purple eye.
In a fit of rage, the demon slammed its glowing hand into the dirt. A burst of golden light exploded from the impact as the creature forced her magic out of its system. The ground cracked under its fist, and for a moment, it was blinded by its own temper.
Lyanna used that moment. She raised her hand high, her fingers shaking. Above the demon, the air began to twist. A massive, heavy golden circle appeared in the sky, humming with power.
The demon looked up, but it was too late.
"Down!" Lyanna barked, her hand snapping downward.
The shield didn't just fall; it slammed down like a hammer made of light. The weight of the construct hit the demon with a deafening thud, driving it deep into the sandy floor of the crater. The impact was so strong it sent a cloud of dust into the air, pinning the creature flat against the earth.
The demon roared, its four head-tendrils thrashing wildly under the pressure, but the shield held it down.
Lyanna didn't wait to see if it would break free. She turned and scrambled down the side of the crater, sliding toward the bottom where Kael lay. Her legs felt like lead, and her breath was a ragged mess, but she had to reach him.
She hit the flat bottom of the pit and ran toward her son. Kael was still curled on the ground, his body shivering as the dark lines of the mark continued to spread across his neck.
"Kael! Kael, look at me!" she gasped, reaching for him.
Lyanna reached Kael and pulled him against her, but she didn't have time to check his pulse. A low, vibrating hum started to shake the very ground beneath her boots.
Behind her, the golden shield construct—her "Hammer from Heaven"—began to groan.
She turned just in time to see the shield crack. It didn't just break; it shattered into thousands of golden shards that vanished into the air. From the dust and the crater floor, the demon rose.
It was different now. The creature was no longer just a physical thing of scales and skin. A thick, suffocating purple fog of energy rolled off its body, staining the air. The earth beneath its feet began to turn black and brittle.
The four tendrils on its head snapped forward, locking back into that deadly diamond shape. Its single purple eye wasn't scanning for a "fragment" anymore. It was fixed entirely on Lyanna.
The malice coming from it was so heavy it felt like a weight pressing down on her chest, making it hard to draw a single breath.
It was just done playing. It was pissed.