“More!” the Demonkin shrieked, his laughter a ragged tear in the fabric of the Demonic Realm. “Entertain me more!”

In response, the Grand Duke unleashed his Aura.

A sharp crackle shattered the air as the Grand Duke’s power flash-froze the swirling demonic energy around him.

Still not enough, he thought, his breath misting in the sudden chill. He’d meant to take the Demonkin’s head in a single, clean blow. Instead, his blade had only managed to score a shallow line across the creature’s collar.

A Grand Master? The Empire’s Strongest? What a joke I am.

The enemy was just one of the Twelve Nobles, a title he’d dismissed as demonic pageantry when the Divine Archer first spoke it.

If this was their standard, were there truly eleven more creatures of this caliber?

Awe was a pale word for the feeling.

They were an absurdity of existence, beings so far beyond mortal ken they felt like a different category of life altogether. They were born to this strength, entities for whom the sum of a human’s lifelong effort was a momentary distraction.

That was the truth of facing one of them. Even his most potent attack had failed to draw blood.

My spirit is breaking…

Perhaps if Dame Enoxia stood in his place, the outcome would be different. She was, after all, the strongest fighter of the continent itself.

Useless thoughts… I must be getting old.

The shriek of metal on metal rang out as the Grand Duke twisted, catching Jin’s claws on his scabbard.

“You blocked that?” Jin’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a cruel smile.

He looked less like a warrior in a duel and more like a man toying with a new pet. The casual disdain was its own kind of weapon.

"What is your rank among these so-called Nobles?" the Grand Duke demanded, his voice tight.

Jin blinked, then a low chuckle escaped him. It swelled in his chest, erupting into a peal of laughter that shook the very air.

“My rank?” he boomed.

After a moment, the laughter subsided into a predatory grin. “Hmm. By title, I suppose I’m the eighth.”

The casual revelation was shocking.

The Grand Duke bit the inside of his cheek. He had assumed this monster, Jin, was one of their strongest.

But eighth? That wasn’t even the midpoint. The power he wielded was obscene for such a rank.

A cold certainty settled in his gut: in a war against this realm, humanity would be annihilated.

“Why the long face?” Jin asked, his voice a playful purr as he flapped his leathery wings. “Has your will finally snapped?”

Those wings were the crux of the problem. With every beat, his demonic power seemed to swell, a tide of corruption that pressed in from all sides.

The Saintess his son-in-law had brought was holding it at bay with her divine light, but even from here, the Grand Duke could feel her power waning.

Time was a luxury they did not have.

There is no other way. I have to use it.

His gaze flickered to Lea. His daughter, the light of his life.

His wife had died to bring her into the world, leaving Lea to grow up without a mother’s love. She had been a fragile thing, plagued by a disfiguring illness until recently. He knew the scars on her heart ran deeper than any on her skin.

He still marveled at the story his son-in-law had told him. The little girl who had once spoken only of noble self-sacrifice now embraced the brutal necessities of their world.

As a father, it tore him apart. As the Lord of the North, it was a profound relief.

His innocent daughter had returned a true heir.

The family will be safe in her hands.

She might soon surpass him in strength. He could entrust the North, the House, his legacy, to her.

He’d always known he would one day become a relic, a portrait on a dusty wall. He just never imagined the day would come so soon.

The Grand Duke exhaled a long, final breath. Holding his sword in one hand and his scabbard in the other, he began to draw upon his Aura with a final, ferocious abandon.

The cold around him began to converge, to concentrate, frost blooming on his armor and his eyelashes.

“Oh?” Jin’s face lit up with manic glee. “You still have more to give?”

The Grand Duke didn’t answer. He held his breath, focused his will, and raised his sword.

The ground began to tremble. Above his head, the air shimmered and condensed, taking the form of a colossal giant forged from pure, blue-white ice.

The giant hefted a massive axe, mirroring his own stance.

“Die,” the Grand Duke whispered as he brought his sword swinging down. He poured every last ember of his power, of his life force, into the blow.

The titan of ice brought its axe crashing down.

An earth-shattering impact sent a shockwave blasting through the wasteland.

A grunt of effort escaped Jin’s lips as he caught the descending axehead with both hands. Claws screeched against the magical ice, a sound that set one’s teeth on edge.

“Is that… all?” he ground out.

“Not even close.”

The second blow.

Another titanic crack of impact. A warhammer of solid ice materialized above the axe and slammed down upon it, striking it like a maul on a wedge.

The already immense pressure doubled, then tripled.

“Graaaah!” Jin roared, blood leaking from the corners of his eyes, but the ecstatic smile never left his face.

The Grand Duke’s voice was a low rasp. “If you have to ask again… the answer is always no.”

The third and final blow.

A lattice of crystalline frost exploded outward from the point of impact.

It sheeted over the ground, locking Jin’s feet in place. It saturated the air, a cold so absolute that icicles formed in the lungs with every breath.

“…Now, die,” the Grand Duke murmured, spitting a gout of blood that had forced its way up his throat.

This was everything he was. An attack that would consume his Aura and burn out his life.

But I have no regrets.

Trading his future for this monster’s life was a bargain.

For the Empire!

He clenched his grip on his sword, pushing with the last of his will.

The great ice axe groaned as it continued its descent, inching closer, promising to split Jin’s skull.

But even then, with annihilation bearing down on him, the Demonkin’s smile remained.

“Yes! This is what I live for!” Jin roared, his voice triumphant. “All you pathetic whelps who ignored me! All you mortal fools! Witness the might of Jin, the Count of Wrath!”

Cracks spiderwebbed across the ice axe.

The wings on Jin’s back beat with impossible speed as his body twisted into something archetypal—a figure of pure malevolence, as if torn from forgotten scripture, like Satan himself.

With a final, triumphant howl, he shattered the axe.

A wave of demonic energy washed over the landscape, extinguishing the distant divine light like a candle flame.

A piteous scream echoed from the distance. It was the Saintess.

“Damn it all,” the Grand Duke snarled, wiping a smear of blood from his lips. More was rising in his throat, but there was no time for weakness. “I really am getting old. To think even that wasn’t enough.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jin sneered, advancing through the dissipating frost. “You were magnificent. Your only mistake was your choice of opponent.”

“Get away from him!” Lea charged, a streak of silver and fury, but she was hopelessly outmatched.

“Child’s play,” Jin muttered.

With a lazy flick of his fingers, he sent a wave of force crashing into her.

Lea was thrown back like a doll, her body slamming against a rock wall before crumpling to the ground.

She choked, blood staining her lips.

“Lea!” the Grand Duke roared, forcing his protesting body to move.

He had to get to her. He had to shield her. He would give anything—

“Right here,” a voice whispered in his ear.

A wet, percussive sound followed.

He looked down.

The Demonkin’s hand was buried to the wrist in his stomach.

“Who told you to look away?” Jin hissed.

A strangled gasp was his only reply.

As blood filled his mouth, the Grand Duke’s hands shot out, seizing the arm that impaled him.

“Hmm?”

Jin stared in disbelief as ice crept up his hand, freezing the blood that coated it. “You… are you even human?”

“…Die,” the Grand Duke choked out.

Squelch. Jin ripped his arm free and kicked the Grand Duke to the ground. “Impressive, mortal. What is your name?”

“You… don’t deserve… to know…”

“Still so defiant.”

A wet crunch. Jin stomped on the Grand Duke’s wound.

A scream tore from his throat as his hands clawed uselessly at the Demonkin’s leg.

Jin scoffed. “I won’t fall for the same—”

“It won’t be the same,” a new voice cut through the air.

Jin spun.

A man stood in the distance, nocking an arrow that glowed with a power that was not divine.

It was something else entirely. Pure, absolute, and exorcic in nature—the same presence he'd sensed from the old one, far away.

The archer’s gaze was locked on him.

Jin’s eyes widened in alarm as he threw up his hands to defend himself.

But it was already too late.

The world went white.

In the next instant, the very sky of the Demonic Realm tore in two.

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