The battlefield had no sky.
Just ash, wind, and a swirling abyss of blood-colored clouds tearing open above the Obsidian Spire
The last standing monument of the Demon Court.
Its shattered arches groaned under pressure as Damien Tempe's descended from the storm, molten footsteps melting the stone beneath him.
Across the field stood the Three Betrayer Lords once his brothers in conquest, now his executioners:
Zereth, the Pale Tyrant, controller of shadows that devour light.
Vaelion the Bone Singer, a necro warlord who commands the remains of fallen gods.
And Nyrixa, the Bladed Saint, a being of pure precision and pure hate.
Behind them, the Rebel Army of the Court, thousands strong, waited in perfect formation.
Damien didn't wait.
He roared, and the sky cracked.
His hands, wreathed in stormfire, summoned a maelstrom that devoured the first hundred soldiers before they could move.
Bones vaporized. Screams turned to silence.
But the Betrayer Lords didn't flinch.
Zereth struck first sending forth a wave of pure anti light, blanketing the world in devouring black.
For a moment, Damien was swallowed.
But then...
It awakened.
REVAMPED CRIMSON SYSTEM SYNC COMPLETE.INITIATING BLOODFRACTURE MODE.WARNING: SYSTEM UNSTABLE.["TO ASCEND, ONE MUST FIRST DESTROY."]
A voice boomed from within Damien not his own, but older, deeper, stitched from forgotten languages and forged in the womb of chaos.
His veins lit up, not with lightning, but with runes ancient crimson sigils carving into his skin like molten tattoos.
And then the crimson wings erupted from his back twin arcs of serrated energy that cut through Zereth's darkness like it was air.
Zereth died first.
Split in half.
No time for glory.
Vaelion screamed, raising the bones of fallen titans mountainous figures crashing down onto Damiun.
[ACTIVATING BLOODSPHERE.][COMPRESSION RATE: 93%. ENGAGE.]
The Crimson System compressed the atmosphere around Damiun into a singularity, bending gravity.
The titan corpses didn't fall — they crushed themselves mid air, pulled into an imploding sphere of blood and bone.
When it detonated, the entire left flank of the rebel army disintegrated.
Then came Nyrixa.
She was speed incarnate hundreds of strikes per breath, her sword humming with kinetic kill energy.
She dashed through the storm, carving through the air, across Damiun's back, side, throat
Blood spilled.
But Damiun didn't fall. He turned.
And grinned.
[REVAMPED CRIMSON SYSTEM UNLOCKING "SECOND SEVERANCE."][WARNING: USER LIMITS EXCEEDED.][PROCEEDING ANYWAY.]
The runes across his body cracked wide open, spilling liquid crimson fire.
His shadow disappeared, replaced by a towering godform a projection of every demon he had ever slain, screaming in sync with him.
The projection grabbed Nyrixa by the throat mid strike.
She was airborne. Screaming. Imploding from the inside out.
And then silence.
The battlefield was ash and ruin.
The army was broken. The sky was crying molten rain.
Damien stood in the center bleeding, but not beaten.
The last bell of war had rung.
The Obsidian Spire had crumbled into ash, and the once immortal city of the Demon Court was a crater lit by bloodfire and screams.
What was once strategy, formation, and pride had decayed into pure chaos.
The bodies of demons, knights, and beasts were piled like altars, rivers of molten blood washing over cracked runes.
And at the center Damiun Tempes, drenched in gore, breathing like a dragon on its last rampage.
[SYSTEM STATUS: 83% OVERRIDE. USER STABILITY: LOW.][NEW MODE: GODSCOURGE INITIATED.]
The Crimson Wings now looked torn and molten, dripping blood hotter than magma.
Runes surged across Damiun's body like living scars, each one screaming in a forgotten tongue.
His eyes pitch black voids glowing red locked on the final army wave:
The Thousand-Eyed Choir.Elite assassins and cursed archmages fused with symbiotic monsters a living wall of prophecy and blade.
They came fast, shifting, screaming. Blades hissed. Chains sang.
And Damiun laughing now tore through them like parchment.
He ripped the arms off a twin headed reaper and beat it down with its own spine.
He grabbed a burning warlock mid chant, crushed his jaw, and hurled his entire upper torso through a flying beast, impaling both on a shard of obsidian.
[ENGAGE: INTERNAL BLOOD IGNITION.][LIFE EXPECTANCY: IRRELEVANT.]
Damiun roared, and the ground erupted beneath his enemies. Blood pillars exploded upward not from the earth, but from within them.
The Crimson System had synced to their biology, turned their blood against them. Veins detonated.
Organs popped like overripe fruit.
Screams echoed like prayers to a god that hated them.
Still, they fought. One plunged a dagger through Damiun's side — another sliced across his wing another drove a halberd through his lower back.
He bled.
[SYSTEM FAILURE IN 00:39 SECONDS.][ACTIVATE: ABSOLUTE ANNIHILATION PROTOCOL?]
"Do it," Damiun rasped, fangs drenched in black ichor.
"Make it count."
[INITIATING: RED EXODUS.]
The world stopped.
Time shattered into fractals. The battlefield froze.
And then in a single pulse of crimson light every living thing within a mile was reduced to nothing but shadow-stained skeletons, their souls yanked into a scarlet vortex that howled like a star dying in reverse.
When it ended… only Damiun remained.
On one knee.
Breathing smoke.
His body fused with stone, now more weapon than flesh. The sky above him torn, open and from it, something watched.
A final voice echoed through the void, deeper than any system.
"You were never meant to ascend."
Damiun smiled through shattered teeth.
"Then let my ashes be a throne."
He stood one last time. The Crimson Wings cracked, then exploded behind him in a storm of light and ruin.
His body began to turn to obsidian freezing mid roar.
And finally… he fell.
The Storm King died standing.
A monument of blood, fury, and defiance.
SYSTEM SYNC DETECTED: VESSEL AWAKE.][TRANSMITTING SIGNAL TO NEW HOST.][CRIMSON PROTOCOL: REINCARNATION LOCK INITIATED.]
In the mortal realm... Brayden opened his eyes.
They were glowing red.
And far, far below the campus of Preston University...something buried moved.