The spirits lunged like rabid hounds, senseless, tireless, uncaring whether their shredded forms survived a heartbeat longer, so long as they could tear living flesh.
“Kill!” Jared roared, the single word ripping from his chest like a war-drum. Dragonslayer flashed in a golden arc. Every swing scythed through clustered demonic souls, the blade’s radiance sweeping them away like autumn wind stripping dry leaves, until dozens dissolved into drifting ash. Yet, the torrent thickened. For every demonic soul slain, ten more surged forward, a sea without shore.
Beside him, Aurelius unleashed a tide of luminous force. His own gold sword spun in widening circles, each rotation carving out a crater of silence amid the shrieks.
Still, they came, two hundred thousand howling demonic souls, rolling in waves that swallowed steel and light alike.
Onneas‘ brow furrowed tighter with each passing second. She had not imagined Soul Devourer would stoop to such a shameless tactic. These demonic souls were weak, but their endless numbers were buying the fiend every heartbeat needed.
“This stalemate will bury us. We break through now!” Onneas’ voice cut like frost. She stopped mid-stride, pivoted, and called, “Form up behind me, I’ll carve the path!”
Power exploded from core. Mist-blue energy surged outward, knitting itself into a towering shield of light that roared down the corridor.
Where the wall of brilliance passed, demonic souls disintegrated in shrieking curls of soot. Even the stronger demon generals crumpled before the onrush.
With Onneas at the spear-point, the party streaked through the breach, that azure curtain shearing a tunnel straight toward the palace’s pulsing void.
Behind them, the demonic souls regrouped and flung themselves forward once more, a black tide determined to drown the fragment of sky still clutched in Onneas’ wake.
The ground became a charnel slope of fading ectoplasm. Oily, black-red ichor pooled between tumbled stones, weaving rivulets that steamed under corrupt energy.
The air itself curdled, reek of blood, tang of demon-rot, thick enough to choke the lungs of lesser men.
At last, they stormed into the palace’s inner sanctum, only to find no trace of Soul Devourer waiting. Instead, a whirlpool of midnight vapor churned at the chamber’s center, big enough to swallow a siege tower.
Each breath drawn nearthat vortex tasted of copper and decay, turning the stomach and warning the heart of a darkness still gathering its full shape.
The walls themselves seemed to bleed. Once-brilliant murals lay half-dissolved beneath waves of crawling demonic aura, their pigments run together into night-black fissures. Those cracks bent into leering masks, each warped mouth silently following the trespassers with murderous intent.
Somewhere deeper inside, an animalistic bellow tore through the corridors-a sound so raw it rattled dust from the ceiling and made every torch gutter.
Roar!
From the echo of that scream burst a storm of black threads. The strands were ink-black and needle-thin, yet each carried winter’s chill and a pull as hungry as a void, groping for any spirit it could tear free. They came from every archway, every crumbled window, weaving a net that tried to strip flesh from soul.
“Careful!” Onneas shouted, voice sharp enough to cut through the whistling threads. A surge of turquoise spiritual light flared around slender figure. The radiance thickened into a flawless barrier, doming outward and forcing the nearest threads to recoil with a hiss.
Jared answered with a roar of golden dragon’s power that coiled around his shoulders like living scales.
Aurelius flooded the air with silvery Power of Immortals, while violet lightning cracked from Artemis’ palms. The three colors clashed brilliantly against the encroaching black, turning the ruined hall into a battlefield of light and shadow.
“Hahaha! Onneas, do you children truly think a few sparks can stop me?!” Soul Devourer’s voice rolled out of the darkness-rich with mockery, loud enough to quake the flagstones. “Once this body is whole again, once my strength returns to its peak, every last one of you will die screaming!”
Onneas’ heart clenched. The fiend’s words no longer sounded distant or muffled. Each syllable now throbbed with new vitality. The monster‘s body was knitting itself together, and it was doing so quickly.
“Move! Faster!” ordered, cold resolve tightening tone. Raw power poured from her, the turquoise shield blazing so bright it hurt to look at. One after another, the black threads shriveled, curling into ash before they ever reached the group.
