Dev decided.
No hesitation.No second thought.
The palace stood ahead silent, black, watching and Dev chose to walk toward it, not because he was fearless, but because turning back meant nothing remained for him except slow death.
From the depths of his throat, from the furnace of his soul core, wings tore themselves into existence black, sharp-edged, condensed from the remnants of the wolf's soul core he had absorbed. Four cores remained within him; the rest had been destroyed during the brutal chase against the bulls. A waste. A price already paid.
Midair, he checked the bag strapped to his waist.
Food.Water.Enough to last three days if he was careless.Two weapons worth keeping.The rest? Dead weight. Meaningless.
He cut through the air in an instant, landed before the palace gates, dismissed his wings, and walked forward on foot.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the world rejected him.
His body slammed into something invisible.
A barrier.
Dev stepped back, eyes narrowing, then raised his right hand and touched it again. The surface felt like thin paper smooth, harmless, fragile. A lie.
The instant his fingers pressed deeper, the barrier collapsed inward like a black hole.
It dragged him in.
The sky vanished.
Dev fell.
He tried to summon his wings.Nothing answered.
Gravity crushed him downward until the world inverted and then he was thrown violently onto solid ground.
Dust exploded upward.
Before he could react, before he could breathe
A spear pierced straight through his chest.
Blood flooded his mouth.
His eyes flew open as agony tore through every nerve, and only then did he see it.
An army.
Not dozens.Not hundreds.
An ocean.
Endless ranks of soldiers stretched beyond sight, armor black and perfect, spears raised, formation flawless, silence absolute. No breathing. No movement. No mercy.
The spear lifted him up.
His blood dripped down the iron shaft, striking the ground in slow, deliberate drops.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Dev's vision darkened.
And he died.
Pain dragged him back.
Dev forced his eyes open.
Stone.
A wall of ancient stone stood inches from his face, covered in carvings so old the hammer marks still screamed of violence. He pulled a lighter from his bag, ignited it, and the flame revealed the truth.
A throne.
A man seated upon it.
On both sides, countless chairs each occupied.Before the throne, an army kneeling.
Below the carving, words were etched deep into the wall:
"All who enter are granted three lives.
Survive, and the rewards are yours.
Fail thrice, and you are buried here among the army."
Dev laughed.
A broken, breathless sound.
Kill an army with this?
A short sword.A long sword.No proper supplies.No escape.
He rubbed the coin between his fingers, grounding himself.
"Don't panic," he muttered. "Everything has a way."
He emptied the bag onto the stone floor.
Ten blast fragments capable of controlled explosions.Food and water for three days now divided into seven days of survival rations.Four remaining soul cores.
Twelve days.
That was all he had.
No extra cores.No margin for mistakes.
He slid on the special shoes slick, enchanted sliders capable of gliding across any surface, built for evasion, speed, survival. His torn clothes reminded him of the spear.
Dev touched his chest.
The wound was gone.
Only a scar remained.
A warning.
He changed into clean clothes white shirt, black trousers tucked tightly, boots secured. Ten blast fragments disappeared into his pockets. Short sword gripped in his right hand. Three healing fragments only three one placed where he could reach it instantly.
Ready.
Waiting.
Nothing happened.
An hour passed.Then ten.Then twenty-four.
Without warning, the world collapsed again.
Dev was thrown forward.
Battlefield.
His back faced emptiness no retreat, no escape.
Ahead of him stood the army.
Iron soldiers. Fully armored. Spears leveled. Helmets sealed. Perfect unity.
Before entering the field, Dev crushed a soul core.
Power surged.
Muscles hardened.Bones screamed.Strength tripled.
He launched himself into the air and came down like execution.
His sword pierced straight through a soldier's skull.
The army froze.
The world twisted.
The scenery shattered.
Faces appeared.
Blood spilled.
The soldier beneath his blade now had eyes wide, human, terrified.
Bodies littered the ground.
The battlefield was no longer clean stone.
It was mud.Flesh.Death.
Dev's hand trembled.
Fear crept in not of dying, but of understanding where he truly was.
These were no longer constructs.
They were people.
And the army attacked.
Dev moved.
Left.Right.Forward.
He killed without pause, blades flashing, blood spraying, blast fragments detonating in controlled bursts that tore formations apart. The army closed in, surrounding him from every direction.
Dev summoned his wings.
white feathers tore into existence as he launched upward from the center of the formation
Too late.
Spears flew.
Hundreds.
The sky turned black with iron.
Each spear was death.
Dev saw it clearly among the countless spears tearing through the air, one carried certainty, a line of fate aimed straight at his existence, and the moment that realization struck, he dismissed his wings without hesitation.
His body dropped.
Gravity answered immediately, ruthless and absolute, dragging him down as the storm of spears screamed past the space where he had been a heartbeat earlier, the air splitting, the sky howling, while Dev fell straight toward the ground like a discarded weapon.
Below him, an army waited.
They were already positioned, shields parted, spears angled upward, their formation precise, patient, eager to impale him the instant his body descended into range, but Dev was no longer the man he had been before the soul core fused with him.
His body was lighter.Sharper.Faster.
The moment a spear rose to pierce him from below, Dev's wings erupted back into existence, tearing free with violent force as he twisted sideways, bursting through the gap at impossible speed, the spear grazing past where his ribs had been a fraction of a second earlier.
He found ground.He landed.
And the killing resumed.
This time they were not beasts.They were people.
They screamed.
Blood spilled thick and hot, painting the ground, soaking armor, spraying across Dev's skin, and every strike felt real too real the resistance of bone, the collapse of flesh, the moment life left a body forever.
Dev aimed only for certainty.
Heads.Necks.
No mercy.No second rise.
As he drove forward, a spear flashed toward him from the side; Dev saw it and twisted away, but not cleanly steel sliced through his bag, the strap severed, the weight vanishing from his back as the bag flew free.
His soul cores.
The very breath he depended on.
An enemy soldier caught it mid-air, laughed once, hurled it upward, and another spear followed, striking true and shattering the bag in the sky, the fragments scattering as the soul cores were destroyed.
Gone.
Dev kept killing, but something inside him broke.
"There's no way to breathe now," the thought cut through him, cold and sharp, yet he had no time to process it enemies kept coming, waves without end, bodies replacing bodies without pause.
Exhaustion crawled into his limbs.
"If I die… I revive once," he calculated through the haze, "twenty-four hours of deadline gives me two days of oxygen… one day wasted."
Confusion followed.
Then instinct.
He surged upward, wings burning, pulled out the blast fragment, and hurled it into the densest cluster below.
Boom.Boom.
Bodies flew.Armor shattered.The ground trembled.
Still not enough.
An army like ants crushing a few meant nothing.
Up.Down.Again.Again.
No rest.
Twelve hours passed.
Dev was soaked in blood, not all of it his own. One hand was ruined, flesh torn, grip failing, so he wrapped the short sword to his palm with cloth and continued, striking, cutting, killing, even as his senses dulled and thought dissolved.
He swung not with strategy now, but with will.
Spears kept coming.
Then silence.
The entire army stopped.
One by one, they stepped back, opening a path behind Dev, while he stood still, breathing heavy, blade raised, eyes cold despite the haze.
A single figure approached.
Black armor.Different.Refined.Heavy with authority.
He stepped forward and spoke calmly.
"What is your name?"
The words cut through Dev's fractured mind, forcing clarity back into his eyes.
"Dev Ravenclaw," he answered.
The man knelt.
"Dev Ravenclaw," he said, voice steady, absolute, "today is the day I follow you until death. Bestow me a name."
Dev's vision blurred.Recovery was triggering.Body and mind pulling themselves back together.
He did not think.
"Your name…""…is Kai."
And then Dev collapsed to the ground.