His face was chalk-white, eyes sunken like pits, yet his lips gleamed a vicious crimson, lending every breath the tang of fresh blood. Four demon generals circled him, drawing on the same grisly power.
Foremost among them, Caiden now possessed nearly two-thirds of a physical body. Black armor sheathed his broad chest, and a massive obsidian spear, etched in runes, pulsed within his gauntleted grasp.
The remaining three generals solidified by the heartbeat, their auras swelling until the chamber quaked. In a shadowed corner stood Stebarin of Malevolent Path Hall. With every fading soul-light, his heart seemed to bleed anew.
Those spirits had cost years to harvest, materials meant for his own Demonic Cultivation ascension. Now they funneled elsewhere, ripped away without apology by Soul Devourer.
Fury simmered behind his eyes, yet terror sealed his lips. To challenge Soul Devourer was to sign one’s death warrant. So, Stebarin remained motionless, forced to watch his life’s work siphoned drop by precious drop.
“Hahaha!” Soul Devourer’s laughter crashed through the hall, exultant and raw. “Such potent souls! Soon my flesh shall be whole, my power at its pinnacle once more. When that hour comes, level six-and even level nine, will lie beneath my heel!”
The generals halted their absorption, reveling in the surge of strength that throbbed within their veins, self-satisfaction curling their lips.
“Your brilliance knows no equal, My Lord,” Caiden declared, spear lowered in reverence. “With your might restored, not a single force in level six can stand against us!”
Their raucous laughter collided with the weeping of imprisoned souls, filling the vast chamber with a sound that felt like the end of hope itself.
Right then, a sudden thunderous crack tore through the murk that had been choking the sky above Celestia. A single shaft of molten gold speared downward, ripping the gloom apart and flooding the ancient capital with light fierce as noon.
Demon generals and the Soul Devourer himself snapped their heads upward, eyes narrowing at the miracle blazing overhead.
Out of the shredded clouds glided a war-barge, the color of polished sunrise. Three hundred Golden Armor Guards stood upon its deck in perfect ranks, burnished armor glittering, long spears angled toward the earth, every one of them wreathed in a hush of holy aura.
At the prow, Onneas, teal robes fluttering like a swath of starlit sea, stood as effortless and untouchable as a goddess who had simply stepped from legend into daylight. Her gaze, cold and sharp as ground ice, never left the ravaged city below.
Beside waited Jared, Aurelius, Artemis, and Yuliana. None spoke, yet the grim weight in their eyes said enough. The enemy’s strength had fattened far faster than anyone dared predict.
What they saw chilled them. Soul Devourer’s once-shredded form had already regrown into a dense, near-solid shadow, and the bodies of his demon generals glimmered with fresh, stolen life.
“I can’t believe how obscenely fast that Soul Devourer heals,” Aurelius muttered, his voice tense yet low enough to keep the soldiers from hearing. “At this pace, he’ll be back at full strength before the hour hands meet again.”
“And the demon souls he’s siphoned,” Artemis added, brow furrowed, “Have supercharged every creature under him. This fight will be nothing like the skirmishes outside the valley.”
“Jared, promise me you won’t charge in blind,” Yuliana whispered, white-knuckling the hilt of sword despite the tremor skating through fingers.
Jared answered with a single nod. Gold-flecked energy whirled around him, the Dragonslayer Sword already humming in his palm, hungry for battle.
The war-barge settled onto the cracked plaza beyond the city gates. Onneas led companions down the gangway until they stood an arrow’s flight from the Soul Devourer and his dark host, holy light facing living night.
“Soul Devourer!” Onneas called, voice crystalline and carrying, “So you fattens yourself on lost souls now. I should have guessed you’d crawl to such depths.”
Soul Devourer laughed, a rasping grind of broken glass. “Spare me your scorn, Onneas. Bring a hundred or a thousand, it changes nothing. When my strength returns in full, not even the Celestial King could win against me!”
