A few hours had passed since the battle with Kaelion. The sky had settled, the villagers had returned to their quiet routines, and Dark now sat on the edge of his bed, leaning forward slightly. His arms hung loosely over his knees, his chest rising and falling with controlled breath. Deep cuts traced his body, veins pulsing with dull pain beneath bruised skin. Every inch of him hurt, but he didn't complain.
There was no sound, no vibration, no ripple in space. Just a voice. It didn't pass through the air—it pierced straight through.
Astaroth: Two hours. Outside the main gate of my kingdom. Do not delay.
And then his voice disappeared.
Dark's brow twitched. He stayed seated for a moment, staring ahead. His shoulders rose with a long breath. Then he leaned back slightly and muttered under his breath.
Dark: Two hours...
He looked down at his hands. The skin along his knuckles was cracked. His left shoulder was still dislocated. Blood had dried around his neck, and the damage Kaelion left had barely started to recover.
Dark: Raz. Come.
From the veil behind the bedpost, Raz emerged in silence. He stepped into the room and dropped to one knee instantly, one fist to the ground, his head lowered.
Raz: My Emperor. What do you require?
Dark kept his eyes forward.
Dark: I'm not wasting mana on recovery. Heal me.
Raz: Understood.
He lifted both hands, aiming his palms toward Dark. A steady stream of green energy formed at his fingertips, slow and consistent. The healing magic wrapped itself around Dark's frame, pulling into the wounds and setting bones back into place. Torn muscle stitched back together. Bruised flesh flushed with color. The pain remained, but it dulled with every passing second.
Dark's fists clenched once. His shoulders rolled. The tension hadn't left, but the damage was nearly gone.
He exhaled and stood, eyes still locked forward.
The chamber was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that didn't rest in the walls but bled from the soul. His shadow flickered against the far corner of the room, warped by the dim light of the mana torch burning near the edge of the bed. The smell of ash and salt still lingered faintly from Kaelion's presence earlier, and the cracks in the marble flooring hadn't yet sealed.
Dark's arms hung at his sides. Loose. Calm.
A quiet knock tapped once at the door before it opened on its own. Gilmuar stepped in, shoulders tense, eyes sharp.
Gilmuar: You're really going?
Dark: I gave him my word.
Gilmuar: And if you die?
Dark: Then don't follow.
Dark turned slowly, his steps quiet but unnaturally heavy—as if the air didn't want to let him leave. His boots slid over the ground like stone against bone.
Outside the hallway, Leona leaned against the pillar, arms folded, staring off into the courtyard. Tier was nearby, adjusting one of the shielding devices above the gate. Cron was nowhere to be seen—likely watching from the roof again, silent as ever.
Dark paused at the edge of the hall.
Dark: You all heard?
Leona didn't move.
Leona: Don't come back looking like a corpse.
Dark: (softly) I won't.
She didn't answer, but her eyes followed him as he descended the staircase alone.
The gate was open.
Raz was already there, Raz stepped forward and handed Dark a dark-gray mantle embroidered with two vertical red slashes down the back—his battle coat.
Raz: The fabric is reinforced. Layered with shadowsteel and null-thread. It won't protect you from him... but at least you'll look like a king when you bleed.
Dark gave a slight smirk and took it.
Dark: Thanks, Raz.
He threw the mantle over his shoulders, the hem fluttering in the cold wind. The sky above had begun to shift, colors melting together into a dull gray-blue. The moon was still out, yet the sun had begun to stain the horizon.
Day and night, clashing like the battle ahead.
Dark stepped out from the gates, into the chilled dirt of the outer fields. Each step further from the Empire made the silence inside him louder.
Dark walked until the Empire disappeared behind him.
The sky above had fractured into a duality of colors—midnight and morning colliding at the edge of dawn. The silence wasn't peaceful. It was vast. Suffocating. His boots met dry soil that cracked beneath each step, a final echo from the mortal plane before what came next. Every inch of distance from the gates felt like peeling a layer of himself away—leaving only what was necessary.
No shadows followed him. No birds sang. Even the wind, that constant whisperer of nature's presence, had gone mute.
He stopped near the base of an old cliff. No path led downward. There was no gate, no spell, no summoning rite.
Just a breath.
Dark drew his right foot upward, pausing in the air.
A single inhale.
Then slammed it down.
The world beneath him shattered. Not cracked—shattered. The ground didn't open; it gave up. It collapsed with a silence so profound it stole the sound from his breath. Earth tore apart as Dark dropped like a spear into the underworld.
The fall felt endless. Not because of time, but because of weight. The gravity of purpose. The pressure of what's to come.
The light above faded until there was only heat, only depth.
Only Hell.
The landscape greeted him in fire.
Jagged cliffs rose like black fangs. Rivers of molten iron slithered between obsidian ruins, and the air itself twisted in slow, angry spirals. Every breath was sharp, coated with sulfur and ancient screams. The underworld didn't announce itself with demons or guards.
It welcomed him with silence. As if even Hell knew who had arrived.
Dark landed hard.
A thunderous quake erupted from beneath, creating a crater that ruptured the land for miles. Not mere land—but infernal stone older than sin. The impact created fault lines that split ridges, tossing magma upward in spirals like bloody fountains.
Dust, ash, and steam clouded everything—until a single shape walked forward.
His mantle fluttered in the rising updrafts. Dark's face was mostly obscured by shadow, his eyes unreadable, his movements cold.
He didn't adjust his stance. Didn't look around. He simply walked—forward. The ashes curled around his ankles like threads from a ruined tapestry. Bone-like spires jutted from the black ground, some carved with old symbols, others bearing twisted, half-melted faces. The heat grew worse. Not just physical heat, but pressure—spiritual weight pressing down, trying to suffocate clarity. It was the signature of a domain governed by one will alone.
And Dark had just stepped into it.
Far in the distance, nestled between mountainous ridges of crimson stone, a structure emerged from the fog—a citadel sculpted from obsidian, etched with veins of gold that pulsed like a slow heartbeat. Towers shaped like charred ribs wrapped around the palace core. Fires burned in braziers hung hundreds of feet in the air, their flames blue, sickly, and ancient.
At the highest point of the palace, beneath a vault of blackened stone, sat the throne of Astaroth.
He was already waiting.
Astaroth's hall stretched wide and long, a cathedral of wrath and elegance. The stone underfoot shimmered with a faint glow, reflecting distorted silhouettes that didn't match the real world. The ceiling was high, but not open. There were no stars in Hell. Only echoes.
He sat upon a throne of carved basalt and steel, its back crowned with a wreath of swords, their blades curving inward like a cage. His armor was deeper than black, layered like the hide of something not meant to walk this world. His face was angled low, fingers laced together beneath his chin. The flames beside the throne bent subtly toward him, as if in reverence—or fear.
Astaroth: (quietly) He enters... with silence. No fanfare. No grand overture.
Astaroth: (raising his head) Good.
He stood, slowly. Not rising from a chair, but unfolding—like something ancient rising from still waters.
Astaroth: Let him approach.
Dark passed through the shattered gates—what remained of them. They hadn't been destroyed. They'd been disintegrated by proximity. Melted, crushed, and thrown back by the raw pressure ahead. The hallway beyond was split and caved inward, but he kept walking. Flames hissed along the walls, retreating as he passed. Shadows retreated from him—not from fear, but instinct. The air itself didn't want to touch him.
Then he stepped into the throne hall.
His boots struck obsidian with the weight of judgment.
Astaroth stood midway down the throne's long rise of steps. His presence was a cold, towering stillness. He didn't move. He didn't speak. His eyes glowed dimly—gold swallowed in red, like a dying sun.
The two stared at each other for a long, quiet moment.
Then Astaroth stepped down, one slow step at a time.
Astaroth: So you have come. Shadow Monarch.
Astaroth: In wrath. In silence. In ruin.
Astaroth: Are you prepared to die within my walls?
Dark didn't answer immediately. He removed the mantle from his shoulders and let it fall behind him. His hands moved slowly as he reached to his side—fingers curling into a shadow that widened like a scar across the air. From it, the blade emerged.
Kyuketsu.
Its edge gleamed red and black, morphing faintly with each breath, as if it drank from the atmosphere itself. The weight of the weapon didn't bend his arm. It anchored him—calm and final.
Dark: I didn't come here to die.
Dark: I came to end you.
Astaroth smiled. Not with amusement—but recognition.
Astaroth: Then steel shall speak what words cannot.
He vanished.
The air split.
Dark's blade met a downward cleave from Astaroth's enormous greatsword—twice the size of Kyuketsu, forged of twisted obsidian veins and glowing script. Their weapons clashed, not with sound, but with shock.
Stone exploded beneath their feet. Dust rose like a curtain. The shockwave burst outward, shattering columns and blowing fire from the walls.
Dark twisted and sidestepped, blade angling to deflect the next strike—he read the motion, but barely. Astaroth rotated through his shoulders, bringing his sword around in a one-handed backspin. A martial flourish born not of style, but pressure. It would have split the ground in two had Dark not ducked and answered with a short elbow aimed at Astaroth's ribs.
Astaroth moved—just enough.
Their feet scraped the ground as they circled. Neither breaking pace. Neither flinching.
Astaroth: Your form has evolved.
Astaroth: You have tasted war.
Dark: You talk too much.
He dashed forward—no flash, no teleport—just raw, explosive force.
Kyuketsu clashed with Astaroth's shoulder guard. The rebound from the metal-on-metal contact bent the air. Dark followed with a knee to the gut, spun low, swept the leg, then launched a razor-edged shadow line across the floor—Yami-Geki—a technique that sliced through physical and spiritual space.
Astaroth countered with a shoulder slam, rotated through his left leg, and launched Eclipsing Crosscut, a twin-slash that folded the shadows in half and cracked the ceiling open.
Dark slid backward, his feet carving twin trails through molten stone. Sparks burst at his heels. The twin slash had grazed the upper fabric of his shoulder, carving through the null-thread with ease—it hadn't drawn blood, but the message was clear.
He couldn't block carelessly. Not with that blade.
He vanished.
Not a blink—not teleportation—but void-slip—a movement only possible in dimensional fracture. The air he'd once occupied remained still, a ghost image trailing as he reappeared above Astaroth, spinning midair with Kyuketsu reversed.
His heel came down first.
Astaroth raised his arm to block, and the impact shattered the reinforced vambrace around his wrist. Shards of cursed metal splintered off, clanging across the floor.
Dark didn't slow.
He landed, spun through a low crouch, and stepped into Ryukaku no Tanshō—a hybrid technique combining demon-core flow with grounded human martial arts. Elbow to the liver. Knee to the thigh. Open-palm strike to the diaphragm. Then—
Dark: Break.
He drove the tip of Kyuketsu into the center of Astaroth's breastplate—not to kill, but to inject.
A black glyph erupted from the contact point, veins of raw null-aether crawling across the armor like spiderwebs. A technique known only to high-level voidwalkers:
Kuzureru-no-Hyōji.
(The Mark of Collapse.)
Astaroth took three steps back. Not in pain. In strategy. His body absorbed the backlash, and in one controlled motion, he reached up—gripped the cursed breastplate—and ripped it off.
Armor hit the ground like a mountain crashing into earth.
Underneath, Astaroth's bare chest was marked in ancient burns and celestial inscriptions. Dozens of battle scars from millennia of war. One wound, right above his heart, glowed faintly—an ancient curse that never closed.
He exhaled—slowly.
Astaroth: (quietly) You remind me... of him.
Dark's brow twitched. Just once.
Astaroth lunged.
No more footwork. No grand strikes.
A single jab.
Fast.
Too fast.
The punch caught Dark in the upper chest and cracked something deep. He stumbled—more from the pressure than the blow—and caught his balance just in time to lean out of the follow-up swing that carved a 20-meter trench through the throne hall floor.
Dark inhaled sharply and retaliated. He flipped backward, planted his feet against the wall behind him mid-air, and launched forward, sword first. He spun—twice—then drove Kyuketsu downward at an angle with a Falling Crescent Arc, a technique layered with five different pressure breaks.
The swords met again.
But this time—it echoed.
The pressure wave buckled the entire palace. Pillars collapsed. The throne split in half. Braziers flew from their chains. For a split second, everything turned white.
Then—
The entire hall imploded.
Outside the palace walls, the hellish sky cracked. Chunks of burning debris fell from the heavens. The air stank of scorched mana, black steel, and sulfur.
And then, amidst the rubble...
They emerged again.
Standing.
Dark was covered in ash, blood on his lip, one eye shut. But standing. Breathing.
Astaroth stood across from him, no longer smiling. His hair had fallen loose behind his shoulders, and his greatsword was buried halfway into the ground beside him, glowing red with absorbed heat.
For a moment—silence.
Then...
Dark: Enough warm-up.
He raised his left hand—not in a gesture of summoning, but command.
The ground behind him pulsed once.
Dark: Okiru.
A silence deeper than Hell itself swept across the battlefield. Then the tremors began.
Cracks spread. The earth split open behind Dark like it had been holding its breath.
And they rose.
First, Igor.
No flash. No smoke. Just force. He emerged slowly, spine straight, blade in hand. The moment his foot touched the surface, the land bent to acknowledge him.
Then Biru.
His head lowered, calm. Eyes closed. As he stepped beside Igor, an unseen pressure filled the air.
Next, One.
He rose without sound. Armor shifting once. He didn't look at anyone. Just faced forward.
Vel. Clum. Raz. Malik. Syv. Brak. Cal.
One after another, they rose. Steady. Wordless. Like prewritten fate. They didn't need orders.
They were the order.
Ten shadows. Ten absolutes. Forming the front.
And then came the rest.
Shadows.
Thousands. Dragged themselves from the cracks in perfect formation, their full armor stained black by the Underworld's breath.
Hollows.
Twisted, imperfect, yet obedient. They crawled out second, dragging blades, eyes empty—waiting for commands only one voice could give.
Thirty thousand stood behind Dark.
Astaroth's gaze didn't shift. He didn't flinch.
And still—he moved first.
Without a word, he appeared before Dark, and his leg swept sideways with a bone-shattering crack.
The kick landed.
Dark's body whipped back—vanishing in a blink.
He was gone.
Too far.
Sent flying across Hell's burning expanse. Slammed through molten stone, jagged peaks, and a canyon of bones.
He landed hard—distant. Separated. Buried under dust and ruin.
Dust hissed around him in slow spirals, dragged upward by the residual pressure of Astaroth's kick. The rock beneath his back was cracked, sunken into a molten depression of shattered bones and bleeding heat. Dark didn't move—not because of injury, but calculation.
He needed seconds. Just seconds.
Not to recover.
To process.
His eyes stayed closed, but every neuron in his body was alight. Pressure sensitivity mapping. Terrain analysis. Internal mana circulation. Dimensional response rates. Soul-veil integrity.
He wasn't panicking.
He was learning.
Then a voice slithered into the silence like glass dragging against flesh.
???: Your command... was heard, Shadow Monarch.
The air rippled to his right. Space flexed. Not torn—bent.
A figure stepped through, not from distance, but from concept. He hadn't traveled. He had arrived.
Solas.
The Corridor of Hell.
He didn't walk—he drifted, as if gravity chose to ignore him out of discomfort. His mask was a permanent smile, carved in ceramic white, and cracked along one cheek. His robe twisted like it was stitched from smoke and regret, long strands of hair dragging behind him like threads of unraveling time.
Solas: You would summon your court in my Master's name, without asking the gatekeeper?
Dark opened one eye.
Dark: You're in the way.
Solas chuckled, though it echoed like bones being dropped into a canyon.
Solas: Heh-heh... Bold. Predictable. Deadly.
Dark stood. Not quickly. Just decisively.
Solas flicked his hand.
A line of symbols lit up across the canyon walls—thousands—glowing red like stitched wounds. A seal web formed beneath them, ancient and unbreakable. The moment Dark's boots fully met the floor, chains of flaming glyphs shot out from the walls, crossing the air like blades.
They crashed toward him.
Dark didn't move.
He blinked once—and reappeared behind Solas.
His fingers wrapped around Solas's neck. Firm. Unforgiving.
Dark: I have twelve seconds before the army dies. I only need five to kill you.
He squeezed.
Solas choked, but his body flickered—not vanishing, but splitting. Three other versions stepped outward from him like phantoms splitting from a soul.
Each with a new sigil.
Solas: Twelve seconds, then. Let us see your truth.
They attacked at once.
One slashed a curved sickle of helllight aimed for Dark's spine. Another conjured spears of inverted light—blades that cut through time moments before they existed. The third whispered a curse, and the terrain itself tried to crush Dark with layered gravity folds.
Dark ducked, rotated once through a spin, and raised one hand mid-air.
Dark: Reversal Matrix.
A barrier formed—but not of force.
It was made of intention.
The spear stopped. The time blades reversed mid-flight and stabbed their caster. The gravity collapsed inward on the wrong coordinates.
One Solas clone exploded on impact, dissolving into ribbons of black dust.
The second lunged, this time wielding something resembling a chain made from melted teeth. It snapped toward Dark's neck.
Dark pivoted, caught the chain mid-air, and pulled.
Then he stepped inside the distance—and shattered the clone's mask with a brutal palm strike.
The ceramic cracked, split apart, and the figure collapsed with it.
Only one remained.
Solas: (real voice) Curious... you analyzed us mid-assault.
Dark's eyes narrowed.
Dark: Analyzed you before I landed. You're slow.
He vanished—again—not teleportation, but phased collapse. The space Solas stood in unraveled for a moment, and from that crack, Dark emerged upward in a rising uppercut.
Kyuketsu appeared in his left hand, reversed.
Dark spun once—Mugen Ryuhazan—a forbidden technique that chained a dimensional slash within a physical motion.
He carved upward, the strike forming three echo cuts mid-air that pierced space.
Solas screamed.
Half his torso vanished. The rest spiraled backward, crashing into a molten pillar. Chains of light shattered in every direction.
Dark didn't follow.
He turned.
Dark: I'm done here.
Solas coughed, blood dripping from the edge of his mask. Yet... he laughed.
Solas: You'll lose.
Dark didn't respond. He walked into the flames—step by step—until his figure faded between Hell's pulsing ridgelines.
—
Back at the palace—the war had escalated.
Shadows lay in pieces. Hollows fought in mad formations, claws scraping against infernal constructs. The ten Champions stood spread out, holding the line.
Igor held back three burning weapons conjured by Astaroth at once—his longsword rotating behind him like a star in orbit.
Biru was wounded, his coat torn open, but his eyes had grown wilder, adapting mid-battle with new claws extending past his fingertips.
Syv leapt across two walls to land a spinning aerial kick that shattered one of Astaroth's flaming knight-forms, only to be caught mid-air by a spectral chain and thrown across the room.
And then—
The pressure changed.
Dark returned.
He walked calmly from the far gate. His armor burned, one cut across his cheek, but nothing slowed him. The Shadows bowed from across the battlefield, one by one. Even Igor tilted his head.
Dark stopped mid-field. He looked up at Astaroth.
Astaroth stood unmoved, sword resting on one shoulder.
Astaroth: You left. And still returned.
Dark: Of course I did.
He stepped forward once. The ground cracked.
Dark: I'm not done yet.
Astaroth smirked.
Astaroth: Then I shall break your army first—one piece at a time.
Dark didn't blink.
Dark: Try.
Astaroth tilted his head slowly—almost imperceptibly—as if measuring those words not as defiance, but as prophecy. His hand flexed once. The air buckled.
Then they moved.
Not just Astaroth. All of Hell.
The sky itself rippled, like a veil tearing open to expose what even gods feared. Towers groaned and fell sideways. Rifts split the ground like veins in the skin of a dying world. The heat surged.
But it was Igor who stepped forward.
No battle cry. No motion wasted.
He vanished and reappeared in front of Astaroth mid-step, his greatblade already descending—a weapon that had never once been stopped in a clean clash.
God Killer.
The air screamed as the blade came down, heavier than consequence, colder than death. Its edge bore the history of slain divinity. And Astaroth—
Caught it.
With one hand.
The impact cracked the land beneath them in a perfect circle. A wave of energy burst outward and turned ash into dust, flame into silence. Yet Astaroth stood firm, hand gripping the monstrous blade by its flat, stopping God Killer in its path.
Astaroth: (low, solemn) The blade that parted heaven... meets my palm.
Igor's eyes narrowed.
He twisted. Side-step. Inverted spin. The greatsword danced like a serpent in a storm. Every motion was a masterclass in killing. A symphony of precision, pressure, and memory.
Dark: (watching from the crag above) His grip isn't breaking... but Igor's not aiming to kill. Not yet.
Biru entered next—his body wrapped in null-silk flame, fists glowing with black energy.
He struck low. A devastating hook aimed at Astaroth's blindside.
Astaroth didn't look.
He leaned.
Only slightly.
And Biru's fist carved the air, missing by a hair—but that motion had been expected.
One moved with no signal. No sound.
A thrust spear attack from behind. Then a second. Then a third—each aimed with surgical exactness, each designed to impale where Astaroth's aura dipped for less than a breath.
But Astaroth rotated his body, drawing his greatsword back with an arch of his arm so wide it looked as though time slowed.
Steel clashed.
God Killer returned to Igor's hands.
Astaroth: (calm, grim) So these are your champions.
Vel crashed down from above, slamming the ground with his axe that split the surrounding terrain like a sundering quake. Clum followed, launching energy bursts that reversed mid-flight and attacked from behind. Raz, Malik, Syv, Brak, and Cal unleashed chaos—blade, whip, chain, flame, mist, every weapon imaginable folded through space and dance.
And still, Astaroth remained in place.
Fighting.
Alone.
Dark: (thinking) They're not enough. Not as they are.
He stepped forward from the shattered edge of the gorge he'd landed in. Blood was dried at his brow. His ribs cracked. One arm slightly limp. But his breath was steady. His eyes locked.
Dark: (softly, cold) They're not meant to defeat you. They're meant to test your arrogance.
Dark raised one hand.
All shadows in the area bent toward him.
A new presence began to emerge—slow, but rising.
But before it could fully manifest—
A shadow fell across his path.
A figure blocked his ascent.
Tall. Lean. Cloaked in smoke. A white mask painted with a smile.
Solas.
Solas: (tilting his head) I believe I told you... only one is permitted to reach the Throne of Embers.
Dark didn't stop walking.
Solas: (voice echoing oddly, distorting space) Halt, Monarch. Turn your face from this path and I will not restrain you.
Dark: I don't have time for your riddles.
Solas: Then bleed.
He raised a single finger and the entire world around them inverted—the sky turned downward, the ground twisted into a funnel of white void, and Dark found himself mid-air with gravity pulling in seven directions at once.
Dark adjusted his posture instantly—spinning into a corkscrew dive to maintain orientation. He cut through the chaos like a needle through silk and struck down.
Solas raised a palm.
Dark appeared behind him.
Crack.
A punch landed in Solas's kidney zone before he could fully turn. The shock of it snapped the dimension's core—sending a ripple that erased the floating landscape around them.
Solas stumbled forward but caught his footing, twirling with his staff that extended like a segmented spine.
Dark ducked under the first strike, flipped off the second, and drew Kyuketsu mid-spin.
Solas parried the strike with the back of his palm, but his hand cracked on contact.
Solas: (breathing heavier) You... learned to fight outside time itself.
Dark: You're wasting mine.
Solas vanished.
So did Dark.
The camera would've lost them.
Each reappeared with full-force strikes clashing mid-frame. Every collision ruptured a new space. Each time Solas tried to bend physics, Dark's footwork corrected it. He used his own shadow's edge to balance. He cut through illusions before they could become real.
They weren't just fighting.
They were adapting each other's rules.
Finally, Solas landed a hit—one knee to Dark's side, followed by a burst of spatial detonation. Dark flew back.
Solas: You were not supposed to be able to—
Dark: (interrupting) Shut up.
He lunged forward through his own wound. He dropped low, slid under the rebounding tendrils of Solas's cloak, then stabbed upward into the ribs.
Kyuketsu hissed.
Dark: I told you—
Crack.
—he headbutted Solas mid-stab—
Dark: —I'd come back for you later.
He twisted the blade. Then threw Solas away with a pulse of force magic too compressed to track.
Dark turned.
The battlefield returned to view.
Astaroth had leveled half of Hell's forward citadel with a single swing.
Only Igor remained standing.
Barely.
Dark: (quietly) Enough.
And then—he walked.
Toward Astaroth.
As every summoning circle burned again—new forms rising, more reinforcements coming.
Astaroth: (voice lower, darker, regal) Ah... there you are.
Dark: (cold) Let's finish this.
Astaroth's greatsword hung loosely at his side, its edge still humming with infernal heat. His gaze narrowed—not on Dark, but on the shape standing between them.
Igor stepped forward. Slow. Measured. The molten cracks around his feet dimmed as if the world feared to interrupt.
He raised God Killer over his shoulder and rested the flat of the blade along his spine, his cloak torn, one eye bloodied shut, his armor fractured—but his posture? Flawless. Upright. Centered in resolve.
Igor: My Emperor...
His voice was low. Calm. But not deferent.
Igor: Allow me to do this.
Dark paused. The flickering heat of Hell washed over both of them, a veil of wavering red casting long, brutal shadows across the cracked battlefield.
Astaroth tilted his head, not amused, not curious—interested.
Astaroth: Hm. A knight asks his monarch for the honor of dying alone. How quaint.
Igor didn't look at him. His eyes were locked only on Dark.
Igor: I know I will not win. But I will fight. Not because I think I'm worthy. But because I am your sword. And a sword must break before the king lifts his own hand.
Dark's eyes didn't shift. His mouth stayed still.
But inside, something considered.
A full second passed.
Then another.
And then—
Dark: ...Alright.
A beat.
Dark: (colder) Don't die. That's not a request.
Igor gave a sharp nod.
He turned.
And launched.
There was no battle cry. No aura flare. No shift in lighting.
Just movement.
God Killer swung down in a single, precise arc—not with speed, but with timing so perfect it fractured the visual rhythm of reality itself. Astaroth blocked with his forearm, but the pressure snapped the plated bone-guard lining his wrist. Still—he smiled.
Astaroth: Finally.
Igor flowed with it. He pivoted, reversed grip, and slid his foot under Hell's cracked surface, kicking a slab of stone upward as a platform—then rebounded off it, spinning his blade like a windmill of death.
Astaroth bent backward, leaned just enough, and allowed God Killer to graze the tip of his horns before countering with a brutal straight punch that compressed the air into a shock bullet.
Igor redirected mid-spin and landed to the left.
Astaroth was already in front of him.
The next exchange was unrelenting.
Sword met fist. Elbow met jaw. Roundhouse, hook, sweep, thrust, parry—martial forms from at least three continents and seven realms clashed in rapid succession. Igor's body bled, twisted, broke—yet it never bent in submission.
Every move was taught. Trained. Forged through countless failures, learned under Dark's shadow, honed by the weight of purpose.
And Astaroth?
He started smiling wider.
Astaroth: This is better.
He slammed Igor into the ground once, then twice. The stone cracked, then burst.
Igor backflipped—mid-air—using the impact rebound to coil momentum into his next strike.
Igor: Ryōten Kyūkai.
He whispered it once—and God Killer extended, its blade burning black along the edges, splitting into mirrored halves with an infernal hum. One was the edge of gods. The other was his.
He spun, not like a swordsman—but like a reaper.
Blades came down, crossed, and slammed against Astaroth's chest.
The first cut drew blood.
Just a drop.
Astaroth's smile dropped.
Igor landed.
Panting.
Silent.
Astaroth: ...Interesting.
And then Astaroth stepped forward.
Everything blurred.
The true fight was just beginning.
Dark watched—unmoving. Ready.
But for now...
He had given Igor the battlefield.
And in this moment, the Black Sun of Pandemonium would shine.
Igor's gauntlets curled tighter around the hilt of his greatsword—God Killer. The earth beneath him didn't shake. It recoiled. Shadow peeled away from his feet as if frightened, and even the flames in the distance bent back as the pressure began to shift.
Not a transformation. Not a release.
A remembering.
Molten cracks spread from his stance, forming a perfect ring of black light beneath him. For a moment, the sky itself—if the scorched heavens of Hell could even be called that—dimmed, as if the sun above had blinked, confused at the rising force below.
Astaroth took a single step back.
His eyes narrowed.
Astaroth: ...That stance...
There was something in his voice now. Not fear. Not confusion.
Memory.
Faint. Fragmented. But real.
Igor raised his blade and angled it diagonally across his chest—one hand below, the other gripping just above the crossguard. It was the stance of someone who had once stood at the edge of godhood and refused to kneel.
Astaroth: ...You were there.
Astaroth: On the fourth battlefield...
Astaroth: You...
His words trailed. The memory was buried deep, nearly erased after eons of death and rebirth. But the pressure told the truth.
He remembered pain.
He remembered bleeding.
He remembered this knight.
Igor said nothing.
And then he moved.
No flash, no warning. He blurred forward—not with speed, but with collapse. The space he stood in ceased to exist and reformed directly in front of Astaroth. God Killer came down like a guillotine forged from absolute will. The impact didn't make sound.
It made weight.
The ground split. Entire ridges behind Astaroth detonated from the rebound. Astaroth blocked with the flat of his blade—but was forced three meters back, his boots grinding trenches into the obsidian.
Igor didn't give him time.
He followed with a right elbow into Astaroth's jaw, then pivoted, low-spun, and slammed the pommel of God Killer into Astaroth's ribs. Dust shot out from the side of the palace.
Astaroth snarled, grabbing Igor's wrist mid-strike—and slammed him headfirst into the ground.
But Igor twisted mid-impact, using the momentum to rotate and drive a heel into Astaroth's kneecap. The joint cracked. The Lord of Embers flinched for the first time.
Astaroth: It was you... The training knight... The...
His words dissolved again. The memory still incomplete.
Igor rose and dashed to the left, then vanished. His afterimage split in two, then four, each striking from a different vector. Astaroth deflected three—the fourth pierced his shoulder.
Black blood.
It sizzled against the air.
Astaroth's eyes widened for half a second.
Igor had wounded him. Truly.
Astaroth: ...Impossible. You... shouldn't exist anymore.
Igor twirled God Killer once in a precise, elegant circle—before pointing it forward like a war banner.
Igor: I am not your memory.
Igor: I am your reckoning.
He moved again.
Their blades collided in a storm of ancient technique and raw, brutal strength. This was not modern war. This was old combat—foundational, primal, poetic in its violence.
Igor's moves combined forgotten martial arts with perfect knight form. Wide, angular cleaves meant to destabilize even beings immune to pain. Shoulder drops, chain attacks, and limb locks meant to break creatures larger than dragons.
Astaroth countered with rage-born power—pure force laced with dominion. His sword split air in half, tore heat from the stone, bent gravity around its edge.
And still—
Igor matched him.
Not for long. Not forever. But he matched him.
For these seconds, the two were equals.
The Black Sun of Pandemonium, once a blade of training for Emperors, now shone brighter than it had in epochs.
And Dark, standing far behind, narrowed his eyes.
He didn't know the truth yet.
He didn't know Igor's origin.
He didn't know who forged him.
But Astaroth did.
And in that realization—he struck.
The ground detonated beneath his feet as Astaroth vanished forward, carving a sonic trench through the air. Igor raised God Killer in a defensive arc, parrying the initial blow—but the second came before the deflection ended. Astaroth twisted, shoulder-first, and drove a full-bodied hammer punch into Igor's side.
Armor dented. Ribs cracked.
Igor skidded backward, boots carving molten lines into the obsidian floor.
He recovered mid-slide, rebalanced, and returned with a counterstroke—vertical cleave, reversed halfway through, then spun low to aim for Astaroth's ankles. The Demon Emperor stepped through the blade with an inhuman lean, reached down, and caught Igor by the helm.
Then slammed him into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—until the floor cratered into layers of splintered stone.
Igor spun from the grip, elbowed Astaroth in the jaw with enough force to flash-white the entire horizon, and vaulted back to his feet. His blade re-formed with shadows, rebalanced.
He rushed again.
The two met in the center—one strike, then ten, then fifty. Sword against sword. Fist against steel. Sparks lit the battlefield like a second sun. Shockwaves ruptured the hellish terrain as their clash dragged upward into the sky.
Igor ducked beneath a spinning backslash, kicked off a floating chunk of debris, then launched downward with a descending arc called Vortex Sever. The air screamed apart as his blade carved a spiral straight toward Astaroth's collar.
Astaroth didn't dodge.
He caught the blade—flat-palmed. His fingers dug into the divine metal, bleeding as it burned into his palm.
Astaroth: (snarling) You're weaker than before.
With his other hand, Astaroth reached up and punched Igor in the gut.
Not a normal punch.
A rupture. An annihilation.
Igor's body bent over the fist, eyes widening as blood shot from his mouth. The impact didn't just throw him—it sent him into the sky, ragdolling across a thousand meters of open air before he slammed into a cliffside and cracked it down the center.
Stone broke. Bones did too.
But Igor didn't stop.
Even with internal bleeding. Even with his spine fractured.
He pulled himself from the cliffside, dropped back into the battlefield with one hand still gripping God Killer—and rushed again.
Astaroth was waiting.
This time, the Demon Lord didn't block. He moved with Igor's momentum, shoulder-checked him mid-swing, spun around his flank, and launched a sidekick into Igor's ribs that cratered the land behind them.
Igor flew. Hit the floor. Rolled once—twice—
Then flipped up again, dragging the flat of God Killer along the ground in a defensive sweep to block Astaroth's follow-up stomp. Sparks flew as sword met shin. Igor twisted, drove the hilt upward into Astaroth's chin, then stepped forward for a savage reverse grip stab toward the heart.
But Astaroth caught the blade with his teeth.
Astaroth: Still predictable.
He bit down—and snapped off the top edge of God Killer.
Igor didn't flinch. With fluid, instinctive movement, he let go of the weapon mid-break, flipped behind Astaroth, caught the broken half mid-air—and stabbed it into Astaroth's back.
The Demon Emperor hissed in pain. But then...
He exploded.
Not physically—but in power. Infernal heat pulsed outward from his frame in a spiraling wave. A blood-red aura ignited like a storm of fire circling his body.
Igor was blown backward again—flung through stone, crashing through an old ruined tower.
Astaroth turned slowly.
Astaroth: If this is your full strength...
Astaroth: ...then you're nothing but ash waiting to fall.
Igor didn't speak.
The silence wasn't pride—it was focus.
He adjusted his stance with one foot sliding slightly back, right arm slack, blade held low in a reverse grip. Blood dripped from his mouth, his side, and down the knuckles of his gauntlet. Smoke curled off his back where the infernal aura had burned straight through the mantle of shadows.
But still—
He charged.
Astaroth stepped in to meet him, swinging wide with his colossal blade. Igor ducked under it by a breath, flipped forward, and raked the jagged edge of God Killer's broken half across Astaroth's knee. Sparks flew. The cut was shallow, but enough.
Astaroth dropped slightly—and Igor struck.
Ten cuts in one breath.
A technique not born of speed, but mastery. Each slash was a line through space, aimed not to wound but to disable. Astaroth's left elbow. His hip. The inner thigh. His dominant shoulder. The tendons behind the knee.
He took the hits—but didn't fall.
Instead, Astaroth lunged with a brutal spinning knee that slammed into Igor's chest like a freight train. The knight's armor buckled inward, ribs snapping. He was lifted into the air—but before gravity could claim him, Astaroth followed, grabbed him mid-air by the throat, and threw him back into the earth.
Igor hit the floor like a comet, coughing blood, vision flashing white.
But again—he rose.
Not fast. Not proud. Not arrogant.
He rose because he had to.
God Killer, still cracked, still broken, returned to his grip like a limb regrown. The fragments scattered around the battlefield twitched—shadows pulling them together in jagged orbit around him.
Then they ignited.
Igor: (low) Initiating Form 3... Judgment Eclipse.
The fragments spun faster, forming a ring of sword-pieces around his body. As he stepped forward, each piece lit up with ancient runes—some glowing red, others a deep violet that pulsed with forgotten authority.
He swung once—and the air bent.
Astaroth's eyes narrowed.
Astaroth: I remember that...
Igor moved.
Fast.
This was no longer just a swordsman—it was a system of death. Each strike came not from a single blade, but from dozens—the orbiting fragments dancing in predictive patterns, forming spears, hooks, and slashing arcs mid-motion. They followed Igor's intent, extending his reach, distorting his form.
He vanished mid-step and reappeared behind Astaroth.
Slash.
Appeared above him.
Thrust.
Behind again.
Crosscut.
Astaroth blocked two, tanked one, dodged another—but the fifth caught his cheek.
Blood sprayed across the black stone.
He growled—and retaliated.
With a sudden stomp, the ground beneath them inverted. A pentagram of molten symbols erupted outward, and from it, flame-born chains surged into the sky, dragging the battlefield into a sphere of collapsing heat.
Astaroth surged forward with a technique called Hellreign Spiral—his sword spinning with crushing velocity, dragging ash and inferno into a cyclone of red destruction.
Igor didn't retreat.
He jumped into it.
The blades met.
Not once.
Not twice.
But over seventy times in less than a second.
The explosion that followed erased the terrain for kilometers. It burned the clouds, shattered the walls of Hell's palace, and deafened the air itself. Ash covered the sky. Fire carved through stone.
And in the middle—
Two figures stood.
Astaroth breathing heavier now, a small gash over his eyebrow leaking red.
Igor, kneeling on one knee, blood pouring from both shoulders, cracks running up his neck like spiderwebs.
Igor, kneeling on one knee, blood pouring from both shoulders, cracks running up his neck like spiderwebs.
The ground beneath him trembled—not from Astaroth's presence, but from the strain within his own body. Every fiber of his frame screamed for collapse. But collapse was not allowed. Not for a knight forged in Pandemonium.
He planted God Killer into the earth beside him and used it to push himself upright. The motion was slow, deliberate, his breath grinding out like smoke from a furnace.
Astaroth stepped forward.
No words. No mockery. Just presence.
The air around him flickered with distortions—his heat now visible, warping space with each breath. One more attack like the last, and Igor would be turned to black dust. And yet—
Igor: (through his teeth) ...you'll have to try harder than that.
His voice was hoarse, almost broken. But it carried.
He raised his hand, fingers curling tightly, and the orbiting fragments of God Killer flared once more. But now—only half responded.
The others shattered mid-air, unable to sustain formation. He'd reached the breaking point. His technique was decaying. His body was decaying.
And still—he advanced.
One step.
Then another.
Each footfall marked with trembling earth and the soft clink of bloodied metal brushing against bone.
Astaroth tilted his head.
Astaroth: (low) That body is done, old knight. Even your shadow is faltering.
Igor didn't respond.
Instead, he rushed.
No tactics. No elegance.
Just raw, suicidal force.
Astaroth raised his sword to meet him—and in that instant, Igor dropped low, sliding under the swing with sparks exploding beneath his knees. He slammed his shoulder into Astaroth's hip and threw his entire body weight upward, flipping the emperor back half a step.
Enough.
He surged with one last rotation, raising God Killer overhead with both hands, roaring not from anger but survival—and brought it down in a wide, broken arc aimed at Astaroth's neck.
Astaroth caught the blade mid-fall with one hand.
It stopped.
Cold.
And then, slowly—he pushed it back.
Astaroth: (quiet) This is where you end.
With a twist of his wrist, he snapped the hilt in half and plunged his knee forward, driving it into Igor's sternum. The knight's body folded in half mid-air from the impact, ribs crushed inward, blood bursting from his mouth.
He hit the ground, bounced once, then rolled through ash and shattered stone.
But his eyes...
Still open.
Still staring at Astaroth.
Even while motionless.
Even while broken.
Astaroth slowly lowered his arm and exhaled.
Astaroth: ...you would've won, back then.
A pause.
Astaroth: But not today.
And in the silence that followed, nothing moved.
Until a flicker.
Far off. Behind the smoke.
A dark shape.
Walking forward.
A familiar pressure.
Calculating.
Sharp.
Cold.
Dark had returned.
To Be Continued....
End Of Arc 6 Chapter 12.