And Seraphine…

Seraphine lay on the cracked stone, her corrupted wings shredded, her body trembling with exhaustion, tears streaming down her face. She'd thrown everything at him—three centuries of accumulated power, every technique she'd mastered, every trick she'd learned.

And it had been meaningless.

The Reaper stood over them, not even breathing hard. His coat was slightly dusty. His hair was mildly disheveled. That was the extent of the damage five demon lord-class commanders had managed to inflict.

He looked down at them with something that might have been pity.

"You guys tried," he said. "I mean that. You really, genuinely tried. That was probably the best coordinated assault I've seen in fifty years. Your teamwork was excellent. Your techniques were sophisticated. Your determination was admirable."

He paused. "But it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. I'm sorry."

Then The Reaper yawned.

It was a casual gesture, almost reflexive, but it cut deeper than any insult could have. He was yawning. They'd thrown everything they had at him—everything they'd trained for centuries to perfect—and he was bored enough to yawn.

"Well," he said, stretching. "I guess we should wrap this up. You can't fight anymore, and there's still a city to claim. Let's end this."

He raised his right hand, and power began gathering above his palm.

It started as a small orb of energy—maybe the size of a baseball. But it grew. And grew. And kept growing. Within seconds, it was the size of a house. Ten seconds later, it was large enough to cover multiple city blocks. Twenty seconds later, it blotted out the sun, casting the entire Fallen Spires in shadow.

And it was still growing.

The commanders could feel the energy radiating from that orb. It wasn't just destructive power—it was annihilation on a conceptual level. Whatever that sphere touched wouldn't just be destroyed. It would be erased. Removed from existence as thoroughly as if it had never been.

If The Reaper released that attack, the Fallen Spires wouldn't just fall. It would cease to have ever existed.

"No..." Seraphine whispered, her voice broken. "No, please..."

Lilith tried to stand, to raise her arms, to do something. But her body wouldn't respond. She'd burned through everything. There was nothing left. She collapsed back to the ground, cursing her weakness.

Veronica's fingers twitched, trying to form spell gestures. But her arcane reserves were completely drained. She couldn't even produce a spark of magic. Tears of frustration rolled down her face.

Morgana reached for other dimensions, trying to pull something, anything that could help. But The Reaper's adapted defenses blocked her dimensional sense. She was trapped in normal reality with no way to escape or fight.

Carmilla tried to transform into mist one more time, a desperate attempt to at least flee and warn the civilians. Her body flickered, started to dissolve, then snapped back to solid form. The Reaper's presence actively prevented her vampire abilities now.

They were helpless. Broken. Defeated so thoroughly that they couldn't even stand, let alone fight.

But they couldn't just give up. Not when their home was about to be erased.

Seraphine began crawling. Her wings were useless, her legs wouldn't support her weight, but she could still drag herself forward. Inch by agonizing inch, she crawled toward The Reaper, leaving a trail of blood where her damaged body scraped against broken stone.

The others saw her move and followed. Lilith crawled, her soul-fire completely extinguished but her spirit somehow still burning. Veronica dragged herself forward, every movement agony but refusing to quit. Morgana pulled herself along with trembling arms. Carmilla clawed at the ground, vampire strength reduced to mortal weakness but still trying.

Five warriors, each one powerful enough to level cities alone, reduced to crawling across broken ground toward an enemy they had no hope of defeating.

The Reaper watched them approach with that same expression of pity.

"I love your courage," he said, and his voice was gentle, almost kind. "I really do. That determination to keep fighting even when you know you've lost—that's admirable. That's what heroes are supposed to have."

He looked at the massive sphere of annihilation hovering above his hand. "But you guys are too weak. Not weak in general—you're all incredibly strong. But too weak for me. Too weak to stop this. I'm sorry."

His arm moved, preparing to throw the sphere toward the central spire, toward the heart of the Fallen Spires where fifty thousand civilians sheltered in desperate hope.

"I really am sorry," The Reaper repeated. "You deserved a better fight than this."

His arm came forward, the sphere launching toward the city—

And vanished.

Instantly. Completely. The massive sphere of annihilation that had taken twenty seconds to charge and contained enough power to erase a city—gone. Not destroyed, not deflected, not absorbed.

Simply gone, as if it had never existed.

The Reaper's eyes widened in genuine surprise for the first time since the battle began. "What—"

Reality twisted.

Space folded in on itself, dimensions layering and compressing. The Reaper found himself somewhere else—not far, maybe a hundred feet from where he'd been standing, but crucially, away from the fallen commanders.

And standing between him and them was Seraphine.

Not the broken, crawling Seraphine who'd been defeated moments ago. A different Seraphine. One who was uninjured which was shocking to theereaper, her mismatched eyes blazing with power that hadn't been there before, her entire body radiating fury that made the air itself burn.

Her aura had changed. Before, it had been corruption—transformation and binding. Now it was something else. Something primal. Something that came from three centuries of protecting what was hers, from watching her people suffer, from being pushed beyond every limit.

This was Seraphine when you threatened her home.

This was the fourth-seat demon lord's true power—the power she reserved for when everything else had failed, when diplomacy and strategy and careful planning were insufficient, when only pure, absolute, overwhelming force would suffice.

The Reaper looked at her, and for the first time in the entire battle, his bored expression was completely gone. In its place was something new.

Interest.

"Now that's more like it," he breathed.

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