The crescendo of war roared through the gloom that had swallowed the human army only moments before.

Emperor Melvin’s blazing resolve, his fearless defiance in the very face of death, straightened every spine along those walls. Where soldiers had stood bent and hollow, they now stood tall.

The last shadows of doubt washed away as they finally, truly embraced the reality they had been circling since dawn.

Death was inevitable.

It always had been. And so, with that one great weakness stripped from their minds, they smiled. They looked out at the immense demon army spread across the plains, and they smiled, because there was nothing left to fear from what was already certain.

Roars tore through their ranks, raw and violent and human, inviting the treacherous and ugly demon horde to come at them with everything they had.

Promises of drowning that baleful force within its own blood rang upward through the clear skies above Nova, loud enough to shake the heavens.

Emperor Melvin’s chest swelled with pride so fierce it burned. The small, quiet sadness he had carried, the grief of watching his empire dragged to its knees, dissolved in that flame entirely.

He found, to his own surprise, that he would not have chosen any other end. To die a warrior’s death, defending what he had built, standing shoulder to shoulder with countless brave men and women, soldiers and common folk alike, all willing to fight an impossible battle to their very last breath, nothing could have been better than this.

The life of his empire had been glorious, greater than any that came before it. It had ushered in an era of peace and prosperity, and now its death would be equally glorious.

An example left standing for all those who survived, that death was inevitable and had always been, and so what truly mattered was never whether you escaped it, but how you faced it.

Perhaps their defiance would do something yet. Perhaps it would light a fire in the hearts of other continents, giving them the courage to rise against the plague of terror and ruin that is consuming them slowly.

Perhaps this last burning stand would change the bleak, horror-filled future now waiting at the world’s door.

Leviathan began to laugh, his features twisting unnaturally. No matter how perfectly sculpted his mask of humanity appeared, that laughter betrayed him entirely, peeling back the illusion to reveal the malice underneath, patient, cold, and utterly inhuman.

"HAHAHAHAHAA...

"

Leviathan’s laughter rolled across the battlefield like a storm surge, amusement layered atop something far older and deeper, like the grinding of titanic waves on the ocean surface.

It was a sound that felt fundamentally wrong to human ears, too vast, too hollow, carrying the echo of depths no living thing was meant to know.

When it finally faded, a smile curved across his lips.

Sharp, knowing, cruel.

"You caught me," he said lightly, as though confessing to a petty prank rather than the orchestrated doom of millions. He lifted one clawed hand, palm open toward the sky in a gesture of easy concession. "Yes, not all of the Sin Dukes have left our homeland."

A murmur traveled the length of the walls. Some soldiers exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. Others stiffened, jaws tightening, knowing better than to trust a single syllable that passed through those lips.

"But," Leviathan continued, his voice dropping into a velvet purr, "I did not lie when I said three more will descend upon your precious reality."

His eyes glowed, deep and drowning blue, the color of the ocean at its most merciless depth. "The strongest among us will be among them. And your saviors, already standing at the cliff’s edge, will be powerless to stop their march."

"Utterly powerless."

The smile widened, slow and predatory.

"Then again," he added softly, almost as an afterthought, "It matters very little. Since all of you will be dead long before that day arrives."

Gasps rippled down the walls. Some soldiers clenched their weapons so fiercely that their knuckles turned white. Others gritted their teeth, breath coming sharp and ragged, their bodies caught between the instinct to fight and the instinct to curse.

Leviathan gave them no time to recover.

In one smooth, unhurried motion, he swung his hand through the air and sliced through reality as though it were torn parchment.

The world split open with a jagged, piercing shriek, a sound less heard than felt, reverberating through bone and teeth and the hollow of the chest.

A rift tore into existence. Crooked, trembling, a raw wound cut into the fabric of the world itself. Its edges pulsed with an oily, writhing darkness that seemed to breathe.

The air turned frigid in an instant. The ground trembled beneath every boot.

Every soldier felt it at the same moment, that deep, wordless, animal terror that had nothing to do with courage or rank or years of service.

Inside, there was only shadow, and then, eyes. Hundreds of them. Crimson. Unblinking. Hungry.

The soldiers nearest the wall growled, breath locking in their throats as the abyss stared back at them with patient, ravenous attention, and then it moved.

A guttural, primal roar tore out of the rift, shaking the air like a physical blow, and in its wake came the flood.

The Devourer Beasts poured through like a tide of living nightmares, an endless, churning mass of twisted flesh and corrupted instinct.

Their hides ran in tones of midnight blue, charred black, and sickly violet. Some bore too many limbs, others too few. Some scuttled forward on elongated arms, knuckles dragging the earth, while others bounded on warped, powerful legs like demonic hounds loosed from a broken chain.

Wings jutted from backs where they had no right to be, tattered and leathery, feathered and wrong, membranous like the wings of things that lived in lightless caves.

Jaws split sideways to reveal spiraling rows of needle teeth. Spines bristled along hunched backs like serrated blades grown from the spine itself.

Mutations piled atop mutations, each creature more horrific than the last, as though whatever force had shaped them had done so with no intention but to horrify.

They shrieked. They roared. They chittered and hissed and screamed in voices that blended into a single, skull-scraping cacophony, a noise that burrowed behind the eyes and refused to leave.

Dozens became hundreds.

Hundreds became thousands.

A dark, heaving tide pouring endlessly into the world, maddened by the scent of warm human flesh drifting from behind the walls.

A handful turned on the demons behind them in blind, but just as quickly snapped their heads back toward the city as an invisible aura pressed down over them, cold and absolute, redirecting their frenzy like a hand yanking a hound by the scruff.

Hastan felt his heartbeat slam against his ribs. He forced his breath to steady. Forced his legs not to buckle. Forced himself to plant his feet and remain standing when every instinct screamed at him to run.

This was what he had chosen. This was what they had all chosen.

The nightmare tide was still pouring through the rift when Leviathan tilted his head and looked at them. Not with hunger. Not with rage. With something far quieter, and therefore far worse.

A soft, almost gentle smile crossed his lips. "As promised," he whispered, his voice carrying across the battlefield as clearly as if he stood beside each soldier personally.

"Your end begins."