Rowan wondered if this was where he was going to die. Or if his line in the history books would be, “Hero Rowan perished at Felton’s Mill, a nothing village in a tiny barony.”

His mana pool had been burned down to dregs, and was now just a minor spark in his chest. His body felt drained and wrung out, and even the power of the potion that had burned inside of him was fizzling out.

But he was going to fight to his last breath. Literally.

“Shouldn’t you be more upset than that?” Rowan shouted, trying to hide how tired he was with sheer volume. “We massacred your army and killed your mount.”

The demon scoffed, the sound came out like someone throwing a rock into a well. “You have simply passed my test, mortal. Nothing more, nothing less. I did not expect you to succeed. Yet, the result pleases me.”

Rowan knew that the demon was waiting for him to ask about the test. But every second he kept the thing talking was a bit more mana and for the others to recover a bit more energy. “So you sacrificed everything for a test? What a waste. Besides, why in the world would that please you?”

“Everything?” the demon laughed and water splashed out of the armor even faster. It was like he had an ocean hidden within the confines of the armor. “What makes you believe that was everything?”

A loud, keening wail tore through the air. Hundreds of wraiths appeared. Rowan lost count of how many there were, especially with the way they swayed and seemed to overlap with each other. That wasn’t all. Behind the wraiths were hulking figures. On paper, they seemed to be the same species as the humanoid soldiers that Rowan had just fought. In practice? Rowan was pretty sure he’d be dinner if they charged forward.

“How?” Rowan asked weakly, even as his hand tightened on his spear. “How did you just slip your entire army this far into the barony?”

“Humans think that all demons are the same kind of idiots that assaults the same defensive point,” the demon scoffed.

“The baron’s defense still holds then?” Olivia asked. She seemed to take courage from Rowan’s words and joined in the conversation.

The demon knight turned his helm in her direction. For a second, Rowan thought all was lost and he was about to lose patience. “You will be a particularly valuable addition to my troops. Such skill with potions. Yes, the baron holds fast still. He will fall, of course. All will, before our king’s might.”

“And the demon we fought before?” Rowan asked before Olivia could say anything. “The Rotflower? It also went around the baron’s army.”

“Demon? That thing was barely a cambion. A wretched halfling of a descendant,” the knight scoffed, sounding something between amused and affronted. “To think a fool I sent ahead to scout would try to steal an amusing find such as you lot from me. Losing to his appetites! You seem to have done well, however, inheriting his power.”

Rowan shuddered, fighting the urge to step back. He didn’t feel an Inspect hit him, or any other attempt to breach his privacy. Had the knight demon simply seen him fight, or did it have a way to tell?

“What test did we pass? What do you want from us?” Rowan asked.

“Want? I do not want or ask. I claim. You have survived. Proven yourself capable and useful. So you will be claimed and added to my troops. Making proper demons out of your companions will take time, but you’ll find yourself serving under my king soon.”

“I’m afraid I’m not open to coming under new management,” Rowan snarled, taking a fighting stance in spite of his weary limbs. Ever since the demon had shown up, the rain was pulling him down. It almost demanded he stay still and obey.

“Or I could just eat you,” the demon offered. “Would you prefer that?”

“I’d prefer it if you just died,” Rowan responded in his most sarcastic voice.

Rowan’s spear tip ignited with red flames, and every ounce of energy and strength he had left was dedicated to the strike he was making. Next to him, Olivia’s hand brought up another deadly potion. The twins, too, leapt into action. Milena’s miasma overtook Rowan, and he felt Rot Shield’s power intensify around his body. He charged.

It didn’t matter.

An explosion of pressure and mana swept out of the demon knight, and knocked everyone back. Rowan was almost forced to kneel on the spot when he was slammed back down to the ground.

“How amusing. It would be a waste to eat you here. Perhaps our king will demand your soul regardless, and if he does, I shall turn it over, yet to lose such ardor and potential would be the utmost waste indeed,” the demon said slowly. “Hero, will you watch your companions get eaten because of your stubbornness?”

Water exploded away from the demon as it suddenly appeared in front of Rowan, hand clasped around the hero’s neck.

“Brave yet also foolish. The classic hero. You would think me the same as a near unthinking beast, recently elevated to status of cambion?”

A tidal wave rose around Rowan and the demon. All around them was water and more water.

“No I think you’re worse, you —”

Rowan didn’t get to finish his insult. The demon’s fingers squeezed, cutting off any expletives or retorts Rowan might have had.

He tried to strike again regardless, his spear aiming for a chink in the knight’s armor even from his awkward position of having his head fixed in place by immovable fingers. The spear clanged against the knight’s armor, sputtered, and died. Rowan couldn’t summon a single more spark of mana, even when his life literally depended on it.

“Again, a dazzling show of will. I will see it turned to mine own goals.” And with that proclamation, a burst of black mana ignited on the demon’s hand, burst into a wriggling mass of black tendrils, and then engulfed the hero.

Rowan found himself in utter darkness. A tidal wave of sickly emotions aimed for his very core and tried to burrow in. He couldn’t help it, he screamed. Even without knowing what was happening, every instinct told him he couldn’t just surrender to what was happening.

Rowan roared at the sticky blackness, trying to swat it away with his hands or kick it with his feet. Neither worked. It just inched closer and closer to his heart. Just as Rowan thought he was fully lost, a light ignited within him. It was weak. Still, it made the relentless advance of shadows halt and twitch.

Rowan recognized the glow. It was the subtle glimmer and shine of the card he’d seen the very first day he arrived in his new world. Keen Spear.

Most of the light that came off the card was purple, and struggled against the pure black wave. A few rays of the light were different, however. They were golden, warm, and divine. Those rays actually drove back the darkness.

“Exceeding expectations. Hero,” the demon whispered. “Why did they send such a promising hero out to the frontier? Did you lose favor with the human king? The demon king cares about merit above all else. No more politics. Just power. Pure, raw, power.”

The waves of darkness redoubled. For the first time, Rowan felt pain and his heart wavered.

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Perhaps it’d be easier to just give up. The kingdom has done nothing but shun me after I arrived. They don’t even want me.

The glow protecting him weakened by the moment, and the darkness tendrils didn’t hesitate to tear new paths through Rowan’s body in pursuit of his card’s brilliance.

No, there’s Kayden who trusted me. There’s Bron who almost sacrificed himself for me. There’s Marcus and Milena who joined my party. And there’s Olivia.

Rowan steeled his heart. He felt the strength flow out of him as the darkness took more and more of him. But he circled his defenses around his heart card. He would not just fold and let the demon win.

“Really? You want to fight to the bitter end? Wouldn’t it be easier to give up, to be granted limitless power?” The demon’s voice slithered into Rowan’s ear. “Or do you want me to destroy you instead? I must tell you, it’s painful.”

Rowan didn’t even dignify that with a response. He bent the golden rays and weaved them around the purple glow.

Then the pain came. Rowan screamed as it felt as if his own heart was being consumed, one nibble at a time. But, oddly, the demon was screaming right alongside the hero.

“Is there some law where a hero only takes the stage only when all is lost?” A new voice joined their conversation. Rowan almost lost his defenses as he realized who it was.

“You think your attack hurt me?” the demon snarled.

Rowan’s awareness of reality was abruptly restored as he saw the knight tilting its head up against the sky.

“No, but this attack will.” A thick, purple bolt of lightning connected the heavens with the earth in an unceasing stream of electricity and it had chosen the demon as its chosen lightning rod. For several eternal, painful seconds, this meant that Rowan was the target too. Then, the demon’s fingers unclenched and Rowan was practically launched away from it by the surge of electricity.

Even before he impacted the water, Rowan found his balance and landed feet first. Around him, the lightning was snaking through the thigh-level lake and burning up the demonic creatures.

Even the demon was clearly caught in the effect of whatever was happening. Eventually, the knight screamed in sheer frustration instead of pain, and his mana shot into the sky, cleaving the lightning apart from within.

“You survived that? That’s odd. Everything I used that spell on before died.” Kayla’s voice rang out again. Hovering in the middle of the sky on a glowing platform was a whole group of figures, foremost among them Kayla and the tower master Rowan had seen once before.

“You’ll need more than that,” the demon said, his voice oddly calm. “So, another hero. This is turning out to be quite the fruitful trip.”

Kayla laughed. She began to chant and a second voice echoed her words. The heroine almost seemed to glitch. An ethereal version of Kayla twisted in the air around her.

A spark ignited far above the battlefield. It wavered and trembled, but with every passing moment it turned into something greater, something that made the surrounding air quiver and the surface of the water dance.

“Stop them!” the demonic knight screamed. For once, its noble visage cracked as its visor snapped open, revealing a skull of pure, snapping darkness wreathed in abyssal waters. The skull unhinged its jaws far too wide for something living to actually manage, and a zap of pure power erupted forth from its mouth.

It was aimed straight for the chanting heroine. The tower master waved her hand and a ghostly outline of some ancient and mighty fortress sprung up between the demon’s beam and Kayla. The attack slammed into the fortress with force, yet the ramparts didn’t even shake.

For several long, drawn-out seconds, the knight kept up its assault before it petered out.

Behind the demon, its army surged forward. Serpents rose into the air while the ground troops found their enemies in Rowan and the remaining defenders.

“To arms! Defend yourselves!” Rowan roared. He swung around to find Olivia and the twins already around him.

Frankly, every inch of Rowan’s body was in agony. He felt like someone had shoved barbed wire into his veins and then poured bleach on top of the wounds, just to be sure that Rowan suffered enough. Even attempting to draw a single point of mana caused unspeakable agony to surge through him, for a moment wrecking him so badly he nearly nosedived into the water.

No mana then. Rowan gnashed his teeth together to stay upright. I’ll die on my feet.

But no dying was happening today unless it was a demonic creature. The tower master waved her hand again. A giant tidal wave erupted in front of the defenders and barreled toward their enemies. Rowan thought that it was just a strength spell but when the wave touched the monsters, they simply disintegrated. It was like the water had been turned into acid.

The lead demonic soldiers barely had the time to scream as they met their ends. And those that tried to run found themselves outpaced by the wave. From Rowan’s perspective, the massive demon army was literally feeding itself into the grinder that was destroying it.

Meanwhile, the demon was being driven mad by its attempts to attack getting rendered useless. It finally drew its sword, a blade of pure obsidian. A strange screech reverberated in the air like the abused strings of a harp.

The spell was also done.

A giant orb hung in the air, sparking with plasma and shedding intense light. The demon seemed to grin as it jumped upwards and slashed.

It was like the sun had been summoned. Rowan heard a terrible sound before his ears decided that enough was enough and shut down. For the next few seconds, his world was awash in white light.

Rowan could make out the barest of shapes in his vision. The demon slashed again and again at the sun, but was battered back each time by invisible pulses of energy. Some parts of the sun’s flames rushed up into the sky and blew away the demon’s clouds. Water and fire fought in the air until one of them fell back to the ground.

The battlefield was silent as everyone waited to see who had won. Only Kayla disregarded the chance of her enemy surviving, directing her attention towards Rowan. Her mouth opened with a smirk, but before she could say anything, a screeching scream resounded.

From the water erupted the figure of the demon, and it had definitely seen better days.

Most of its armor was melted away, or bunched up in grotesque splotches of dripping metal. Even standing there, nearly beaten, the demon was still an impressive sight.

“How? I pulled mana from the others for that attack. And I used everything I had,” Kayla snapped, her angry eyes narrowed on the struggling demon. “This can’t be right.”

“Stupid apprentice, didn’t I tell you? Demons are different from the monsters we’ve had you hunt thus far. You need to finish the job with grace,” the tower master said as she made a grasping gesture at the demon. The former knight, now little more than a water wraith, gasped as it was snatched up the neck. It struggled to try and do or say something, but it was useless in front of the tower master’s might. “Now, I’m literally holding it still for you. Kill it so we can finally move on from this place. I hate the rain and the moisture.”

Kayla raised an arm and a ball of flame ignited atop her cupped palm. The flame was a cheery orange-red at the start before turning blue and then a blinding shade of white. The spell, whatever it was, shot forth and engulfed the demon. The knight’s managed a single cry before it was reduced to literal nothing.

For the first time in what felt like months but was realistically at most a week and a bit, light broke out over the village. For as far as the eye could see, not a single cloud marred the horizon.

Rowan felt numb. An enemy whose mount had tormented an entire village, whose army could have overrun the village, whose own strength seemed limitless, was gone. Reduced to nothing. In moments.

He couldn’t help but stare blankly at the spot where the demon was struggling so recently, just letting his thoughts randomly wonder. Was he really so useless compared to other heroes? Were his struggles so trivial that a couple of Kayla’s spells could defeat them?

Olivia grabbed Rowan’s arm, clinging to it almost protectively. He went to ask what was wrong, but got his answer a moment later.

“Long time no see, stranger,” Kayla said with a smirk, a brow rising inquisitively at the way the baron’s daughter was clinging to him but she didn’t comment on the situation.

“Hey, Kayla. How have you been?” Rowan watched as Kayla descend with pure glory.

“Good, good, though can’t say the same thing about you.” Kayla’s eyes flicked around and the horribly invasive feeling of an Inspect washed over Rowan, making him grimace. “Really, my guy, you need to do better. What are you doing at uncommon, still? You do realize you need to at least get to epic, right?”

Rowan struggled to keep his face straight. His friend had always been cocky. But, the newfound feeling of authority, of what seemed an unquenchable belief in her innate superiority? That was new. It felt like he wasn’t talking to his friend, not anymore.

“Little hard to do so when I’m trying to stay alive,” Rowan said back, an edge seeping into his voice.

“It’s not his fault,” Olivia spoke up. “We’ve been defending this town, keeping everyone here safe. He didn’t have the time to dive into some dungeon all day.” Olivia seemed convinced that was what Kayla was doing. True or not, the heroine didn’t seem to care to correct or even acknowledge her.

“I really missed you guys, you know? Well, you in particular. I can still go visit Blake, even if he’s stuck doing paladin stuff all the time nowadays. Why’d you have to go and join some frontier baron?” Kayla sighed, shaking her head.

“We do not have time for this, apprentice,” the tower master said from her platform. “You insisted we stand around in rain for days. Now we need to rush the final leg of our journey.”

“One second!” Kayla yelled back.

Rowan frowned. “Kayla? When did you get here?”

“Oh come on Rowan, you were handling it.” Kayla smiled. “And you obviously needed the experience. Where would you be if I stole it all? Really, I was doing you a favor! Have to go now though, bye bye! Make sure to visit in the future more often, okay?”

Without another look back, Kayla shot back toward her platform. She had been hovering just above the water the entire time, while Rowan was mired in thigh deep-swamp.

As Rowan watched her go, he got a sinking feeling in his gut. This wasn’t the Kayla he knew. The gratitude he had felt for her saving him and the rest of the village was countered by the dread that one of his few friends in this world wasn’t the same person anymore.

I hope Blake is still the same.