Kaelar's blade burned with the mixed wrath of Torvaspure white fire intertwined with deep crimson flame,holy judgment braided with living fury.
The demon's elongated shadow-body recoiled from that light as if it were poison.
"Impossible…" it rasped. "No mortal carries that fire."
Kaelar's only answer was the tightening of his stance.
The chamber around them shuddered tables overturned, stone scarred by claw marks and flame. The lanterns flickered violently, casting wild shadows across the walls.
The demon lunged first.
A blur of sharp limbs and crackling shadow, its claws slicing arcs through the air. Each strike aimed to tear Kaelar apart rip flesh, crack bone, crush windpipe.
Kaelar blocked every blow.
Steel met shadow.Flame met darkness.
CLANG SHRIEK CLANG ROAR
The sound was like a storm trapped inside stone.
The demon leapt backward, shocked.
"You how does a mortal move like this?"
Kaelar advanced, steps steady, sword held with absolute mastery.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Explain!" the demon snarled, attacking again.
Kaelar's blade intercepted its claws, sparks of divine light scattering across the room like falling stars.
"I don't answer to demons," Kaelar said.
He shoved forward, pushing the demon back several steps.
The demon hissed as if burned.It looked down at its own arms, scorched where Kaelar had struck.
A tremor entered its voice.
"This is no ordinary blessing… this is… Torvas's mark."
The mention of the god's name seemed to intensify Kaelar's fire, the white and crimson flames swirling more violently around his blade.
"Yes," Kaelar said. "And he sees you."
The demon shrieked and threw itself at him, desperation twisting its form into a spiked, feral silhouette.
Kaelar met it head-on.
This time he didn't just block.
He overpowered it.
He forced it step by step across the chamber, each strike hammering into its body with explosive light, each parry slicing away strands of shadow that dissolved into smoke.
"Why can't I WIN?!" the demon howled.
Kaelar didn't answer.
He struck again.
And again.
And again.
The demon staggered, its limbs shaking, its body destabilizing.
It knew the truth.
It could not win.
A note of panic entered its voice.
"I I will not die here! Not to a mortal!"
It turned and sprinted toward the window, its shadow-form elongating into a dart of darkness.
Kaelar immediately sensed its intent.
Once outside, the demon would join its brothers.They would overrun the Sanctuary.Hundreds would die.The High Priest.The trainees.The knights.The boy.
Kaelar's jaw set.
White fire flared along the blade.Crimson flame roared beneath it.
He whispered a single prayer.
"Torvas. Guide my hand."
He swung.
The blade did not simply move it exploded forward, carrying righteous might behind it.
The demon leapt through the shattered window
and Kaelar's burning sword sliced through its neck cleanly, severing head from body.
For a heartbeat, everything fell silent.
Then the demon's head, still glowing with dying white cracks, tumbled through the night air
and landed in the courtyard.
The Battlefield Sees
I watched from everywhere and nowhere as the demon's head rolled across the stones, leaving a trail of steaming shadow behind it.
It came to rest at the feet of the defending knights.
They stared.
One trainee whispered, voice trembling:
"Did… did Kaelar do that?"
The head twitched once, eyes dimming.
"Yes," another knight breathed. "The Blade of Torvas fights with us."
A roar rose from the defenders not of fear, but of fire.
"For Kaelar!"
"For Torvas!"
"For the Sanctuary!"
Their shields locked.Their spears steadied.Courage burned hotter than blood.
But the other four demons?
They saw their brother's head land before them.
And something in them snapped.
The first let out a howl a sound that made mortal blood curdle.The second's claws lengthened.The third's body distorted with rage.The fourth's eyes glowed blood-red.
"BROTHER!"
They charged with renewed fury.
The demons struck faster.Harder.More savage.More monstrous.
A knight was thrown back, armor cracking.Another was hurled into a wall.A trainee's spear snapped in half.
The demons now wanted not victory but annihilation.
Yet the knights did not falter.
Kaelar had given them belief.
And belief was a weapon of its own.
The High Priest breath ragged, throat bruised finally reached the small chamber where Erias lay and Dream (Varos) stood pale and unsteady beside him.
"Varos" he gasped, clutching the doorway, "there is something you must know…"
Dream looked at him, eyes tired yet sharp.
"You made it out alive," Dream said quietly.
"Thanks to Kaelar," the High Priest replied. "But listen listen closely. You must understand something."
He placed a trembling hand on his chest.
"Priests… carry blessings too. Not like Kaelar. Not like the High Knights. But… Torvas does not abandon those who serve."
His robes began to glow a soft, radiant red-gold light blooming from the seams, from the thread itself, as if the cloth remembered ancient prayers whispered into its weave.
Dream raised a brow.
"I did not know you possessed such a gift."
"It is rare," the High Priest admitted. "And nearly forgotten. But it is enough for this."
He knelt beside Erias.
Erias looked broken bruised, scraped, breath shallow from the demon's blast.
The High Priest pressed one glowing hand against the boy's chest.
A ripple of divine warmth spread through Erias's body, pushing out the pain, mending the bruised ribs, soothing the battered nerves, washing away the lingering shadow-energy.
Erias inhaled sharply.
Then
His eyes snapped open.
"THE DEMON!" he shouted, sitting upright with panic.
Dream placed a calming hand on his shoulder.The High Priest caught his arm to steady him.
"We know," the High Priest said softly. "It has already been dealt with."
Erias blinked, confused, still shaking.
Dream looked at him with quiet reassurance.
"You survived, Erias," Dream said. "That is enough for now."
But the boy heard the battle outside.
The screams.The clash of steel.The roar of demons.
He grabbed his sword.
"I have to help!"
The High Priest stepped in front of him, eyes fierce with both compassion and command.
"No, child."
Erias froze.
"This battle is not yours," the High Priest said. "Not yet. You will throw away your life if you step out there. And right now, every life matters."
Erias clenched his teeth, trembling with helplessness.
"But Kaelar"
"Kaelar," the High Priest said, voice rising with emotion, "was trained his entire life to face demons. You were not. He stands with the strength of Torvas. You do not yet."
Dream's eyes softened.
"Your time will come," he murmured.
But not today.
"Watch," the High Priest said gently. "Learn from the courage of Kaelar and the knights. Their stand is for all of us. For you."
Erias looked at his sword.At his trembling hands.At the door leading to battle.
Then he looked at Dream.
"Will… will Kaelar win?"
Dream hesitated.
The High Priest did not.
"Yes," he said firmly. "Because we must believe he will. Without that belief… none of us endure."
Outside, the fight had changed.
The knights now fought like storm winds with purpose, with fury, with renewed heart.
The demons fought like cornered beasts with rage, with despair, with unhinged hatred.
A knight slammed his shield into a demon's jaw.A trainee drove a spear between a demon's ribs.Another knight used his last breath to pull a demon down with him.
This was war in its truest form not the clean battles told in legends,but messy, brutal, life-or-death defiance.
the demons charged.
And the knights surged forward to meet them.
And the Sanctuary of Torvas became a battlefield carved into destiny.
I watched it unfold.
Knowing this was only the beginning.