The demonic army did not charge.
It flooded.
Three thousand bodies poured across the blackened plains—ogres the size of siege towers, trolls plated in crude iron growths, fiends skittering low with blade-limbs clicking against stone, and heavier demonic beasts dragging corrupted cores through the dirt like anchors.
Then—
Zenn descended.
The Dragon of Death struck the earth with annihilating force. The impact erased the front ranks outright—ogres crushed into paste, fiends atomized by pressure alone. The ground buckled outward in concentric fractures as Zenn roared, a sound that did not inspire fear so much as erase resistance.
And then the fire came.
Not flame.
Not heat.
Zenn exhaled black-gold deathfire—a strange, silent inferno that clung to matter itself. It wrapped around demons, armor, stone, even mana constructs, and did not go out.
Ogres screamed as their bodies burned inward, flesh, bone, and soul reduced layer by layer until only glowing demonic cores dropped to the ground, clattering uselessly.
Nothing extinguished it.Nothing resisted it.Only completion ended it.
Aarenn moved through the chaos like a line drawn by fate.
The long black-crimson spear spun once in his hands, its edge humming as death-aspect mana condensed along its length. Every thrust was a severing—not of flesh, but of continuity. Demons struck by the spear collapsed instantly, their existence ending cleanly, without spectacle.
He impaled a charging troll through the skull and used its falling body to pivot, tearing the spear free and hurling it forward.
The weapon punched through six fiends in a straight line before returning to his grasp as if pulled by inevitability itself.
Aarenn did not shout.
He did not slow.
Death had a pace, and he matched it perfectly.
Eeseren took position on a shattered ridge.
She drew the Blaze Bang.
The bow thrummed, heaven-defying mechanisms unfolding as mana channels ignited along its limbs. No string was visible—only compressed energy vibrating between anchors.
She loosed.
The arrow was pure force—a condensed spear of blazing energy that detonated mid-flight, shredding a cluster of fiends into incandescent vapor. She fired again. And again.
Each shot recalculated mid-air, correcting trajectory, piercing troll skulls, punching through ogre chests, exploding cores before they could stabilize.
Her breathing was steady.Her stance immovable.
She was not suppressing the enemy.
She was deleting vectors of advance.
Together, they dismantled the army.
Zenn crushed mass and morale.Aarenn erased command and cohesion.Eeseren controlled space itself.
Three against three thousand.
And still—
It was not enough.
Time lurched.
Sound dragged.Motion smeared.Zenn's deathfire slowed into crawling ribbons, its impossible burn resisting—yet still affected.
A presence stepped forward between moments.
Vrizz.
The pseudo demon monarch emerged as if peeling himself out of fractured reality. His armor pulsed with temporal distortion, four eyes blinking out of sequence, each tracking a different future.
"Well done," Vrizz said—his voice arriving before his lips moved. "You reduced inefficiency beautifully."
Zenn lunged.
The dragon's claws tore through an afterimage.
Vrizz shifted sideways—not faster, just earlier.
He struck Zenn's jaw with a compressed-time blow.
The impact landed with accumulated seconds behind it.
Zenn was hurled backward, carving a trench through the battlefield, deathfire spilling uncontrolled from his maw as his head smashed into stone.
Aarenn attacked instantly.
His spear thrust was perfect.
Vrizz caught it.
Two fingers closed around the black-crimson shaft.
Time thickened.
Aarenn felt resistance spike catastrophically as Vrizz twisted, temporal shear rippling down the weapon. The spear cracked—not snapped, but fractured across instants—and Aarenn was thrown violently backward, armor splitting as delayed force detonated through his body.
Eeseren screamed and fired.
Three Blaze Bang arrows struck simultaneously—
Vrizz slowed them.
Not stopped.
Slowed.
He stepped aside as the explosions bloomed too late, the shockwaves tearing the battlefield apart but missing him by heartbeats stretched into eternity.
Then he crossed the distance to Eeseren in a single broken moment.
She drew again—
Too slow.
Vrizz punched her.
The blow connected after it landed.
Eeseren was launched through the air, armor caving inward, blood spraying as she crashed through corpses and skidded across shattered ground.
She did not scream.
She rose.
Zenn forced himself upright, smoke and deathfire bleeding from cracked scales.
Aarenn dragged himself to his feet, gripping the broken remains of his spear like a promise.
Eeseren stood between them, Blaze Bang humming weakly as internal channels struggled to stabilize.
They formed a triangle without speaking.
Vrizz hovered before them, battlefield silent except for burning matter refusing to die.
"Impressive," he said softly. "But you are still bound by sequence."
Time warped again—subtle, constant.
"You cannot kill me," Vrizz continued. "You can only delay."
Zenn's deathfire flared brighter, clinging to the ground around them like a vow.
Aarenn planted his broken spear.
Eeseren drew once more, despite trembling arms.
They did not retreat.
They did not plead.
And for the first time—
Vrizz's smile sharpened.
Good.