Hastan lay in the ruins of the house, his back slick with blood, the broken stone beneath him wet and dark with it.

Around him stood the Devourer Beasts, still breathing, still carrying that murderous hunger in their eyes, yet utterly motionless, as though whatever string had been pulling them had gone slack all at once.

He stared up at them and felt nothing. Not relief. Not the instinct to reach for the dagger and not even fear, which had been his constant companion since dawn, just a hollow, exhausted stillness clouding his mind.

The first thing that pulled his attention back to the world was the man standing up in the sky, facing Leviathan directly, the two of them meeting at eye level above the ruined city as though the battlefield beneath them was of little concern.

Hastan could not hear the words from where he lay, but the shape of the exchange was clear enough. Leviathan was taunting him, its familiar rhythm visible even from a distance, the demon’s posture carrying the particular ease of someone who believed they were already holding the winning hand.

And then, as though simply finished with the conversation, Leviathan turned his attention back to the city.

The screaming started again. The roars of battle surged back into the air like a tide that had never truly receded, only pulled back for a breath, but then, as suddenly as everything began, silence returned, a second time.

Hastan felt the anxiety tighten in his chest as he forced his eyes upward. Above the city, a vast blanket of darkness that had suddenly stretched from the unknown man’s shadow began to shift, and through it two figures dropped into view.

The first was a robed figure who looked around at the devastation below with an expression of someone arriving somewhere they had expected to find in exactly this condition.

The second was a giant, a colossal figure whose grin as it fixed its gaze on Leviathan carried no fear in it whatsoever, only the particular hunger of someone who had been waiting for this.

The small, fragile hope Hastan had felt flickering in his chest began to dim as Leviathan’s voice rolled outward, dismissive and amused, cutting the newcomers down to size with the practiced ease of something that had done this a thousand times before.

And then the figure in the lead simply stepped forward.

He offered no speech, no declaration. He stepped forward, and from him, like the yawning jaws of some ancient and lightless horror, darkness rushed outward from his very being, vast and absolute, swallowing Leviathan whole within its maw.

For a breathless moment it held, and then it dissolved, bleeding away into nothing.

The two of them were gone.

Hastan stared at the empty sky where they had been.

"They vanished," he heard himself say, his voice raw and bloodsoaked and completely unrecognizable to his own ears. The words carried panic and fear in equal measure, neither of them controlled, neither of them intended.

It took him another moment to realize that something else had changed. The will to fight had returned to his body without announcing itself, slipping back in quietly while his attention was elsewhere.

He became aware of it only when the jaws of a Devourer Beast closed around the air inches from his face, twin rows of sharp fangs framing his vision with horrible precision.

"Dammit." The curse left him on a labored breath as his arm came up on instinct.

The attack never came.

He blinked. The creature, a breath away from killing him, stood frozen in place, its beastly pupils contracting and dilating in rapid, furious cycles, its muscles visibly coiling with the desperate need to move, straining against something invisible and absolute.

It could not advance a single inch.

’Huh.’

"Defenders of Nova." The voice that cut through the city was calm, almost conversational, carrying none of the weight of ceremony that the Emperor’s addresses had carried, or their army general commands, and perhaps because of that, it landed more cleanly.

"Stand up and begin clearing your city. Within four minutes, a horde of a million Devourer Beasts will be upon you." A beat of silence, and then it continued without pause.

"That ocean scum connected multiple zones to the rift before he left. Where a few thousand Devourer Beasts were crossing every second before, tens of thousands will begin gushing through within minutes."

"Your Aegis has also been compromised. It will require a full shutdown and reconnection to function at its proper capacity, which is not possible with your Emperor gone. Left to recover on its own, you are looking at roughly half an hour."

No softening of the truth. No attempt to make it easier to hear.

"I need to place my full focus on closing the rift. If I do not, this entire region will be drowning in Devourer Beasts within fifteen minutes, which is also the time I will need to bring the Aegis back online."

A brief pause followed before he spoke again. "I will not be able to offer much direct assistance for the next eight to nine minutes. But none of you will die."

"That is a promise." The voice fell silent.

For a few seconds, confusion gripped the city, a stunned collective hesitation, the sound of people trying to decide whether to believe what they had just heard.

Then desperation did what speeches rarely could: it moved people. The defenders began to act, cutting down the frozen Devourer Beasts around them, blades rising and falling, blood running fresh through the streets as the city lurched back into motion.

Hastan pushed himself upright, or tried to. His body had very little left to give.

Then a gray mist settled over him, rising from nowhere, drifting across his wounds like smoke moving against the wind. The pain receded, and not gradually, not the slow easing of something being treated, but completely, washing away in a single quiet wave.

He looked down at his hands, at the wounds that had been there moments ago, and to his surprise, they were gone.

-------

"It wouldn’t be a fish if it didn’t flutter before being killed," Andrei said quietly, his eyes fixed on the horizon, lips curling at something only he could see.

There was no humor in his voice, only the low, settled satisfaction of a predator that had already decided how things would end.

"Well then," he said, louder now, almost cheerful, his rough voice carrying an edge of barely contained thrill. "I will be on my way. Quite a few parties to hunt down."

The space around him began to twist in response to his intent, animalistic jaws manifesting at the edges of the distortion, snapping at the air before dissolving back into nothing.

"What?" He turned and looked at Venedikt with an expression of genuine confusion.

Venedikt did not look at him. His silver eyes were already moving across the battlefield, calm and methodical, counting.

"Eleven Elemental Rulers," he said, as though reading from a ledger. "Six at peak Seventh Rank. Four at low to mid Eighth Rank. One at peak Eighth Rank." He paused just long enough for the numbers to settle.

"Even you will find it difficult to manage cleanly, even with the aid of your companions. Unless, of course, you plan to ignore Brother’s orders and go wild again."

Andrei opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then, with the defeated energy of a man who had lost this argument before it began, he raised both hands and dropped them at his sides.

A soft, feminine laugh drifted from the right. An irritated growl answered it from the left.

Two figures stepped forward from the fading edge of the darkness.

The one who moved to stand beside Venedikt was a woman of tall, unhurried grace. She was draped in a gown the color of ash and pale dust, its fabric shifting as she moved like something caught between solid and dissolving.

Her ashen white eyes carried playfulness on their surface and something considerably colder beneath it. Deep black hair cascaded down to the small of her back, framing a face of striking beauty that carried just enough maturity to make it dangerous.

The one who stepped in behind Andrei was something else entirely. She was tall, only a head shorter than him, which made her immense by any ordinary measure.

Her skin was a soft slate rose, and the tall feline ears rising from her pale rose colored hair made her inhuman nature immediately clear.

She wore a top and skirt fashioned from thick gray fur, decorated with fangs strung on silver thread, hanging at her waist like trophies from things that had not survived the encounter.

Her gold slit pupils were sharp and entirely uninterested in concealing her displeasure, her hair lifting slightly in the wind as she fixed the other woman with a look that carried the promise of a hiss, which followed a moment later, fangs bared.

"Avelor," the feline woman’s voice cracked the air, feminine but carrying authority like a blade carries an edge. "What exactly is so funny?"

"Nothing, Syrian," Avelor replied, her smile not moving an inch. "Only that Brother Andrei is as battle-hungry as ever, still not having learned his lesson from the last time he took things one step too far."

"Disrespectful as always." Syrian’s eyes narrowed, her body dropping into a low, predatory crouch, nails lengthening into curving claws. "But perhaps you have not realised. We are no longer in a Realm War, and those rules no longer apply."

"Please, calm down, both of you."

The voice was soft. Almost melodic. The kind of voice that did not raise itself and did not need to.

A third woman stepped forward to stand beside Andrei, whose smile widened the moment he saw her, quick and unguarded, the expression of someone who had been waiting for exactly this particular person to arrive.

She was slight, barely reaching five feet and seven inches, which placed her somewhere around Andrei’s waist, given the sheer scale of the man.

She wore a pure white dress of minimal design, a golden belt cinching it at the waist, her only adornments a golden ring on one finger, a delicate tiara upon her brow, and a small golden pendant with a fine fang hanging at her throat.

A sheer, translucent veil of oval shape covered her head, swept partially across her face, and flowed down her back like a bridal afterthought. Everything about her appearance was understated to the point of appearing almost fragile. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

However, her eyes said otherwise.

"Big Sister Avelor. Sister Syrian." Her tone was calm, carrying the particular authority of someone who had never needed volume to be heard. "This is not the time to fan old grudges."

Andrei exhaled visibly beside her, the tension in his enormous frame easing a fraction.

Venedikt, meanwhile, had already turned to face the last two individuals stepping clear of the dissolving darkness.

The first was a man of refined bearing, tall and sharp in every aspect. His long, pointed ears identified his nature before anything else did.

His posture was precise, his clear gray eyes cutting and steady, the long, curved blade strapped parallel behind his waist, completing a picture that was, in every line and detail, the portrait of something honed rather than born.

The second was of medium height, dressed in garments that belonged to another age entirely, a long, collared coat in deep blue, its lapels and cuffs lined with gold thread and stitched with markings of ancient script. Belts and buckles crossed the coat in structured layers.

His most immediate feature, however, was the mask. Cerulean blue, trimmed in gold, it covered the lower half of his face entirely, matching the deep blue of his clothing.

Above it, cold blue irises burned against a background of pitch-black sclera, their light steady and patient. At his right side hung a lantern, and within it drifted a ghostly blue flame that moved against no wind, as though it answered to something other than the physical world.

Venedikt looked across the assembled group, his silver eyes moving from face to face with the economy of someone accustomed to making decisions quickly and living with them.

"Listen carefully," he said. "The evacuees split north when they fled, most moving northeast and northwest toward the closest safe cities. The demon captains went after them, and they are closing fast."

His gaze settled on Andrei first. "You take the northeast road. It is the longer route, and their numbers are heaviest in that direction." No explanation needed. "Syrian, you go with him."

Syrian’s eyes flicked once toward Avelor with something sharp in them, then returned to Venedikt. She said nothing.

"Avelor." His tone softened if only by a breadth. "Northwest road, and take Calvanyr with you." His eyes moved briefly to the white-veiled woman beside Andrei.

Then he looked to the final two.

"Saahira and Ikern take on the southern reach. Make sure none of them meet what is coming from that direction."

He turned back toward the city. "No mistakes will be tolerated." He did not wait for acknowledgment. "The Dark King has made a promise, and I intend to make sure he keeps it."