Alycia watched as Sylt collapsed after casting one final spell. He had been casting nonstop for the last twenty?four hours. He dropped to his knees, panting and utterly spent.
“Sylt, what can I do to help?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Is Antionette still throwing herself at the enemy?”
“I lost count of how many times she’s died,” Alycia said as she helped him to his feet. She supported him as they hobbled back to the small, muddy camp set up behind the army.
“What are general casualties looking like?” he panted, leaning heavily on her.
“A quarter of the Legion is dead,” she admitted. “Even with rotations, healing magic, resurrections, and life?saving enchantments. Morale is starting to take a heavy hit.”
“That is not good,” Sylt said with a wince.
“At least I have good news,” Rey said as she appeared. She had dark bags under her eyes and was half?caked in mud and blood. “Only three fey have fallen, and we’re still at half capacity for spellcasting.”
“Only three dead?” Alycia asked in disbelief. “Where have you been hiding?”
Rey chuckled. “We fey like to think of ourselves as creatures of art. Battle, fighting, weapon mastery—it’s all just another form of art. Every clash with the enemy sharpens us.”
“What she means,” Sylt translated, “is that fey are light on their feet and possess a sort of kinetic vision. We can more easily predict what’s about to happen. But even with the ability to move and process information twice as fast as others, we’re not perfect.”
“There are only about a hundred trolls left, last I saw,” Rey added. “They’re mostly being used as a single unit now—thrown at breaches and tough knots of enemies now that their numbers are smaller and easier to maneuver.”
Just then, a shriek rang out as Antionette was reborn once more and immediately hurled herself back into the enemy lines.
Alycia was about to say something when a horn sounded. Then another. Then another.
Rey vanished without a word.
“Another breach in the line,” Sylt groaned.
“I don’t think that’s what it meant,” Alycia said, staring toward the horizon.
As if to prove her right, the ground began to shake. Then it continued, settling into a heavy, rhythmic pattern. Sylt lifted his gaze, dread flooding his expression.
“She is coming,” was all he said.
The Demon Queen crested the horizon. Even from that distance, her bellow rolled across the battlefield as she marched forward.
Maximus Aurelius began barking orders and delivering speeches as he finally advanced to the front lines himself. Alycia was too exhausted to care. She had run out of mana long before Sylt had.
“If we live through this,” she said faintly, “do you think Matthias would mind if I hibernated with you in his safe, warm depths?”
“He’d build us a mansion and tell us to give him grandkids,” Sylt teased.
Alycia smirked, too tired to even blush.
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Her attention snapped back to Antionette as a sudden eruption of energy tore through the battlefield. Antionette was reciting something as she carved swaths through the demons.
“How is Antionette still killing them so easily?” Alycia asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Sylt confessed. “I never asked.”
Suddenly, Maximus Aurelius was beside Antionette. They fought back?to?back, easing the pressure on the front lines. The trolls locked in behind them, forming a wedge, and the Legion followed. The entire army began to push forward.
Two ancient dragons took flight, angling toward the Demon Queen. The rest hurled their massive bodies into the demonic horde.
It was not clean. Demons swarmed the dragons like ants, but damage accumulated nonetheless. The first dragon plunged deep into the horde before sheer numbers swallowed it whole. Then it detonated.
All of its remaining mana erupted outward in a wave of annihilation, blasting a massive hole through the demonic ranks. Through that breach charged the next ancient dragon.
And so it went.
One by one, the dragons waded into the tide as far as they could go. When they could fight no more—when they could push no deeper—they detonated their cores in one final act of defiance. The last dragon exploded at the Demon Queen’s feet.
The blast barely fazed her. It blackened the craggy red skin of her legs, but she paid it no mind as flying dragons harried her from above.
The mortal army, led by Antionette and Maximus, charged through the channel carved by the dragons’ sacrifice.
That was when a dragon dove to strafe the Demon Queen—and she moved faster than before. Her blade severed its head mid?dive. One of her free hands caught the corpse, and she spun, hurling the massive body toward the advancing army.
It happened too fast. There was no time to dodge. Demons hemmed them in on both sides.
Alycia watched in horror as the dragon’s corpse crushed most of the force that had followed Maximus. The casualties were catastrophic. Her stomach lurched, but there was nothing left in it.
The second dragon barely had time to react before the Demon Queen beheaded it as well, flinging its body into what remained of the charge.
Antionette surged forward to meet it. With a cry and the activation of an ability, she struck the corpse and sent it careening into the demonic horde—at the cost of her own life. The impact cleared the flank, leaving a narrow path for the survivors to reach the Demon Queen.
She sneered at the diminished force still charging her and advanced with a cruel grin.
That was when the manticores struck.
The remaining manticores landed on her back, tearing into her flesh. The Demon Queen screamed in shock as she reached back instinctively, struggling to dislodge them. They had landed in a spot she could barely reach, burrowing deeper with every second.
Then Maximus reached her ankle. With a shouted skill and a brutal swing, he severed one of her tendons. She began to topple.
Antionette returned, slamming into the side of the Demon Queen’s head and diverting the fall into the opposite flank, crushing more demons beneath her bulk.
The Demon Queen began to ignore them entirely, crawling forward instead. With her four arms, she dragged herself toward Ilvir’s dungeon. Madness burned in her eyes as she advanced.
Desperation took hold. Every last scrap of mana was gathered. Every spell that could be cast was unleashed.
Still, she crawled.
Even when the manticores burrowed so deeply they tore through her torso, cutting her nearly in half, she crawled. Even when the war trolls tore one of her arms free, she crawled.
Alycia watched in helpless horror as the Demon Queen reached Ilvir’s dungeon. She drove her blades deep into the earth and cackled as energy pulsed belowground.
She forced mana down through her weapons, triggering an explosion deep within Ilvir’s core.
Everyone felt it when Ilvir died.
The death of a dungeon core was not explosive. It was worse. It felt like a piece of the world going missing—mana flows collapsing as the force sustaining life simply vanished.
The Demon Queen laughed in triumph until her mirth turned into a choking gasp. Her eyes bulged and bled as her head jerked—and then her forehead exploded outward as Antionette finally smashed through her skull.
The Demon Queen’s corpse hit the ground.
There was no cheer.
Even as her summoned demons died alongside her, even as the survivors realized they had won, silence reigned.
Antionette stood swaying, exhausted. The manticores slumped where they lay, unconscious.
The war was over.
Now they had to face what came next.
---
Far away, Matthias faced a very different crisis.
Antionette had landed the killing blow on the Demon Queen, and the resulting torrent of mana flooded directly into his core. Every demon slain by his forces had already fed him, but this—this was overwhelming.
The mana was so immense it triggered ancient safeguards. Matthias was forced into another rarity ascension as his core threatened to shatter beneath a compressed ocean of power.
He lost consciousness before it finished.
Only afterward did the message arrive.
[Demon King Nergoz has finished gestating]
