“I really, really hate this,” Kayla repeated, for what felt like the millionth time.
The doors were, without a shadow of a doubt, still an issue. It didn’t matter what they did. It didn’t matter how much power they threw at it, heedless of their own reserves.
It didn’t budge.
It stood proud and defiant, and offered the exact same message every time someone touched it.
“Can’t just magic up a solution every time, I’m afraid,” Blake joked, trying to keep both his voice and expression light. It failed, and not just because of the fact that he kept sending the doors nervous glances.
“I’m still saying to just let me do it,” Rowan tossed out, feeling the anxiety anger practically coursing through his veins.
The mere idea that after all they’d done, they would be ground to a halt by mere doors was just about driving him insane.
As were the attempts to get the bloody thing — pun fully intended — open.
They’d pushed. They’d tried to pull. They cast spells on it. They punched it. Kayla begged. Olivia tested potions. Marcus sang at it, and Milena had drawn on the thing with chalk just to see if it would react.
Nothing.
The three heroes and their parties were left in the middle of enemy territory, in one spectacularly creepy fortress, with wounded and dead troops aplenty, and no way to progress forwards.
Except, of course, doing just what the doors asked.
‘Offer blood and enter’ wasn’t exactly rocket science, at least as far as Rowan was concerned.
“And let you probably almost kill yourself….” Olivia’s deadpan voice was tired, but Rowan got the sense that was mostly due to his frankly horrible luck. Just luck. Luck that was in no way shape or form indicative of the hero’s recklessness.
Rowan winced and looked before forcing himself to look his fiancée in the eye. “Listen, out of all of us, I’m the only one who has an abundance of blood to spare. If there’s anyone who can open these doors safely, it’s me.”
“Unless, of course, its demands aren’t based on volume. Unless it demands the life of the person providing the blood. Unless it’ll, at least, weaken the person trying to pass to the very limit. Unless every person who needs to pass has to offer up their blood.”
Rowan sighed, thoroughly frustrated by the fact that Kayla seemed keen on pointing out every possible way the door’s demands could go wrong for him, again and again.
“Yes, yes, unless all of that happens. Listen, do you have any better ideas? Well? I’m listening! Yes, everything you just said can happen. But, they could also equally not happen. Is sitting here doing nothing, trying things we know won’t work, really a better idea than taking a single risk? At this point, isn’t it our best bet to just give my blood the old college try?
“We’re not just sitting!” Kayla was getting snappier, and Rowan knew that meant she was getting closer and closer to caving. Well, that or snapping at him, or Blake, or any poor sod who happened to be unlucky enough to be close.
It was a fifty-fifty shot at best.
To be fair to the woman, she really was trying. Once Milena’s recklessness had proven that the doors didn’t particularly object to chalk, the mage hero had taken to covering every inch of it, and most of the hallway, in incredibly detailed runes, glyphs, and symbols Rowan didn’t even know the names of.
All of them pulsed with an odd inner light in a myriad of different, shifting patterns. Apparently, the configuration was supposed to help Kayla find weaknesses, analyze the function of the door, and even potentially force it open.
Unfortunately, over the span of slightly over six hours, none of those things had happened.
If anything, Kayla looked more confused than when they’d started, to the point her emotions were starting to crack even through the well-set façade that the heroine had learned to put up since their arrival in their new world.
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure that our troops disagree, considering they saw fit to send up sandwiches three hours ago,” Rowan countered.
That was the one good thing about the whole scenario. Their troops had the time to sit down and rest, even if the tension among them was palpable.
Things were also still awkward between the different factions that made up the army, especially between the hero-sworn fighters and the mercenaries Lucius was leading. It seemed that fighting alongside each other had done a ton to loosen those divides, even if they’d yet to crumple.
“Fine!” Kayla finally snapped, spinning away from the doors and stalking towards Rowan. The Stalwart Hero was quick to start backing away in the face of sparks that rose from the woman’s skin as her mana became agitated enough to gain physical expression. Kayla cornered him against the wall as she poked his chest, giving him a little zap. “If you’re so set on trying to kill yourself in new and inventive ways, just do it!” The heroine motioned at the doors but didn’t move an inch. “Go on, have at it!”
Rowan looked imploringly at Olivia, but she just smirked at his plight. With a grumble, he squeezed away from her and ignored disapproving stares from most of his friends and allies as he walked up to the door.
He briefly examined the door, eying the two spikes that replaced what would traditionally have been the door handles.
With one final look back and a shrug, the Stalwart Hero impaled his palms on the spikes.
Instantly, a presence in the doors reached out, grabbed hold of his blood, and yanked it closer. Rowan gasped, feeling a surge of dizziness as the speed of his blood loss almost took him off his feet.
Of course, as he knew it would, his brand new and legendary card kicked in immediately. Mana surged, energy seeped out of the world and through his body, and found purchase deep inside his bodes. New blood welled worth, coursing through his emptying veins.
The doors just pulled harder.
Rowan had just enough time to wonder if he was making the worst and potentially final mistake of his life before he spotted a change in the spikes.
They’d remained a stark bone-white, devouring blood instantly. Now, however, a crimson color was starting to well up from the base of the spikes. It climbed higher slowly, almost reluctantly, but it was climbing.
“It’s working,” Rowan managed to grit out to the rest of them, then redoubled his focus on his card, nudging it along.
Blood production kicked up a notch, and Rowan found just a hint of relief.
Then finally, after what felt like a minor eternity, the doors clicked open.
The connection to his blood fell away, the suction stopped, and Rowan pulled his palms away as quickly as he could. He watched the wounds there steadily seal over, until not a mark was left.
The spikes were now blood-red, and the Stalwart Hero really didn’t like looking at them.
“Well, that worked!” Rowan chirped, affecting a smile as he turned around.
Olivia groaned, looking like she wished it hadn’t, and Kayla nodded along.
“He’s going to be even more reckless, now,” the heroine concluded, shooting Olivia a commiserative look. “My condolences.”
Insultingly, everyone seemed to agree with the sentiment.
Rowan just huffed and rolled his eyes. “That’s the thanks I get for all my good work.”
—
In spite of the others trying to tease him and imply otherwise, Rowan was not, in fact, tempted to rush ahead to try and quickly finish things.
He knew the value of having an army, or at least an elite unit, as support now. The heroes definitely could not have made it all the way to the central part of the fortress without the support of their armies. And while the effect they had on the battle against the king and his henchmen was limited, the soldiers definitely deserved praise for how they handled themselves against the very first legendary Blake and Rowan triumphed over.
The battle against Sybelin, the legendary demon, was tough enough on its own. Without the soldiers eliminating the threat from the gallery of demons simultaneously? Rowan wasn’t so sure it would have gone so well.
As a result, he was perfectly content to watch as their troops assembled.
Compared to how many people in the army, the final count for those at the epic tier that would enter the door with them really wasn’t much.
A grand total of five people, not counting the Mercenary King and Tamara.
Senior scout Dale, with his dedication and constant effort to keep everyone safe, and on a freshly charted path.
The [Knight] trio, Fia, Greg, and Desmond, who seemed intent on chasing after their leaders — be it to glory or to inevitable death.
And then, finally, Clarke.
Rowan’s thoughts on the boy were complicated.
The final count and reports on the survivors who had managed to both survive the battle and claw their way up to epic was the first time Rowan had thought about the boy in a long time. It was a small, callous change that the Stalwart Hero was less than thrilled by.
The boy had put his trust in him. He had been the first to volunteer, when Rowan’s army was in need of new recruits and a thorough reformation. And, in spite of that, Rowan had slowly but surely drifted apart from him. Somehow, along the way, a lot of the people he knew and cared about within his ranks had faded from his mind, become just a background of marching troops.
Now, the boy stood before him, and there was little chance anyone would overlook him again.
The boy was taller, with a much bulkier build. Rowan’s eye could now spot signs of his training from the calluses and the way his muscles were built around the sword. There was a hardness and determination in the boy’s posture.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Plenty of that was commendable. Clarke was an epic tier now, after all.
However, it was the boy’s eyes that Rowan didn’t like. He could barely force himself to meet them. Eyes that were hard, full of anguish and an unhealthy amount of rage.
A little fact suddenly flitted through Rowan’s mind: if a party sticks together, really sticks together for long enough, then it was impossible for a single person to advance to epic and for the rest to be left behind. Not unless tragedy fell on the other members.
Tragically, Rowan knew that vitriol was not directed at him. No, it seemed squarely aimed at the demons, and what stood behind the final doors set between them and all of their goals.
Rowan didn’t know how he found himself in that position time and again, but when every piece of equipment was checked, when everything was in order and everyone was ready, all eyes fell on him.
“This is it. Whatever we face on the other side of that door, if we can kill it, we’re safe. Everyone we love and care about will be safe,” Rowan made the declaration calmly, like it didn’t hurt to get the words out, knowing that that particular list was now much shorter for some people. “Shall we?”
Without waiting for a response, Rowan turned and pulled the doors open fully, letting the light of the torches spill into the dark hallway.
The corridor ahead was long, and dark. Unlike the rest of the fortress, not a single torch graced the walls. This wasn’t much of an impediment, as Kayla simply waved her hand and conjured a cluster of lights to hover above them, but it did make the group pause as they took everything in.
A dazzling array of murals enveloped every inch of the passage, floor, walls and ceiling alike.
Rowan awed at the incredible detail. The murals captured the wanton slaughter between humans and demons, seas of faces set in snarls, twisted in pain, or lost to despair. Each and every figure was so lifelike, Rowan swore they couldn’t have been lifted from an artist’s imagination.
In fact, they probably weren’t.
At first, Rowan easily recognized the weapons, armor, and even some of the crests that the humans in the murals wore. The further from the doors they got, however, the more his recognition faltered.
It wasn’t that the weapons were unrecognizable. They were simply growing cruder, rougher, like something that a child might put together based on an idea of armor. There was a whole section of the murals that caught nothing but a tide of demons slaughtering people with barely any weapons.
Then, things changed. The level of technology jumped, far past what even the current kingdoms employed.
Weapons that glowed in mystical colors. Armor that seemed to shift and twist even when depicted in a static image. Feats of magic that would stun the mind.
The gradual decline followed, until everyone was wielding sticks and getting slaughtered once more.
Again and again the patterns repeated, and a sudden realization left Rowan with the sour taste of ash in his mouth.
The murals weren’t witness to the technology of humans degrading time after time. The direction of their walk was wrong. They bore witness to humanity rising up, fighting their way to the peak of their world, only to be completely wiped out.
Slowly, other races entered the murals. Beastfolk, then elves, then dwarves and more. With each addition, they grew more numerous, until Rowan saw a depiction that reminded him of why those same races were a relative rarity today.
They fought. Tooth and nail, literally and figuratively, and were reduced to pitiful numbers during every cycle.
And according to what Rowan knew, most of those races did not have the virility of humans.
They were literally driven to near extinction, not by human hand, or the hand of the divine, but by a cycle that ground ever onwards in this new world of his.
Olivia let out a shuddering breath, her eyes flitting between every depiction of elves, and Rowan realized she’d reached the same conclusion he did. Wordlessly, even heading into battle, Rowan reached out for her hand.
She gripped it, and they continued in silence.
—
The passage may have seemed endless, and it was certainly much longer than should have fit inside a fortress of this size. In spite of that, the end arrived eventually.
Rowan, with his stats, was the first to spot the opening ahead of them, but not by much. This hastened their steps, the parade of misery underfoot making them all eager to face anything, even combat.
Even though he was expecting it, Rowan almost froze at the sight of the demon waiting for them.
The creature was shaped like a knight, just like most of its main troops were. Except, where the lesser specimen were almost a parody of waterlogged armor, the demon here was clearly a step above them.
The knight’s armor was polished to such a sheen that it caught and reflected all light in dizzying reflections. Unlike the other armor, there were no apparent gaps in its defense.
The demon resembled a statue cast out of some strange, alien metal more than a living thing, especially the way it stood stock still, hands gripping the hilt of a sword placed tip first on the ground.
As they drew close, Rowan realized there was something off about it.
It reflected light, sure, but it also seemed to absorb part of it, and that part went to illuminating what was within the demon. The armor was slightly transparent, and what it offered was a glimpse into a dark, devouring depth of an ocean.
“Visitors!” a voice echoed out just before they stepped foot inside the hall, breaking their stride. “I have so longed for someone to come here. To reach this deep within these unholy walls.”
The demon finally moved as it spoke, its head twitching, then its fingers. It was almost like a titan casting off the weight of stone that had encased it during its slumber. Or if it was throwing off the weight of time it had accumulated.
And the sight was glorious.
As its awareness and mobility returned, the ocean that made up the creature’s body lit up. Fish, twisted yet still beautiful, gave off a low incandescence. Corrals jutted out of the depths, their crystalline structure making them miniature suns under the waves. Entire stretches of glowing plants, reaching for some unseen sky.
Rowan felt like some omniscient observer, witnessing the rebirth of a colossal ocean that thrive with live of every shape and size.
“I welcome you, with a heavy heart,” the demon proclaimed as it switched its sword up, and gripped the handle tighter.
Rowan had stood in front of people that had meant him harm before, and every time, their intent was a sharp, cruel thing. Or at the very least merciless and set on the clinical elimination of what got in their way. The demon didn’t feel that way. If anything, the aura that blanketed the space, trying to push back the heroes and their entourage, felt distinctly sad.
“Who are you? Why would you be happy about our arrival?” Blake ventured, confusion leaking through. Apparently, he felt it too.
Rowan thought the demon would strike, if it deigned to reply at all.
He was wrong.
“I am but a humble wretch, torn from my home, twisted, and forced to serve. Strike me down, heroes, so that I may finally rest. Strike me down, and deny my master his hold over my home,” the demon all but pleaded, body shaking even as it settled into an offensive stance.
Somehow, there was only a single question that came to Rowan’s mind. “What were you, before all this?”
The knight lacked all features, and yet Rowan felt like it was smiling. “A defender. A leader. A foolish dreamer. My people are gone. My master took me, and then I took them.”
A flicker in the darkness of the demon’s depth. A single glimpse of a massive castle under the seas, glorious in its alien construction, and surrounded by massive, interconnected dwellings. A glimpse of people, strange yet still beautiful, with the features of various underwater races interwoven in their appearance.
And then darkness, choking, grasping, reclaiming the split-second image of a happy past.
But not before the illusion was stripped bare. Not before the current state of the species, as decaying, rotting bodies trapped in shells of armor, was revealed.
“Free me, heroes, so I cannot be forced to bring my people back to suffer further.”
Blake didn’t need further encouragement as he surged forward, sword erupting into holy light.
The knight flinched, but then he blurred forward, and the only thing that kept Blake’s head attached to his body was an instinctive attempt to dodge backwards. A red line appeared on his neck, and then erupted into blood before swiftly clotting again.
Marcus shouted as he made his aura erupt, the protective effects intensifying and growing into a spectral armor that overlaid each of his allies. Jacques stepped forward as well, layering shields on themselves again and again as she sought to make the approach much more difficult for the demon.
Rowan ignored the chanting of Kayla and Milena, freely diving into the path of the saintess’ beams of light that passed over him harmlessly and even energizing them while making the demon screech in agony.
Patiently, building up his strike as far as he dared, he stalked around the fighting, aiming for the knight’s back.
The knight, now that he was moving, felt unstoppable. Each of the creature’s movements shook the room, but its unnatural construction let it withstand the quakes.
Blake quickly learned how useless trying to match its strength. His sword was almost blown out of his hands when it was parried, paling in front of the demon’s monstrous strength. He staggered backwards, spared by Marcus’s shield bash which managed to distract the demon from a follow-up strike, but failed to make it so much as budge.
The knight wound up for an overhead blow, and Rowan moved in.
He knew that the armor seemed flawless, but he still refused to do something as stupid as aim for the center of the knight’s chest. His blow instead fell on the knight’s armpit with a heavy force.
The ringing explosion staggered everyone, and the knight listed then collapsed onto its side, but the immediate retaliatory strike toward Rowan suggested that the demon wasn’t truly affected.
Rowan slid to the side and out of the way, seeking to try against the knight’s helmet, but he badly misjudged the dexterity of the demon’s blows. Whipping the sword back around with easy grace, the knight drove it straight through Rowan’s legs.
With a strangled cry, the hero collapsed to the floor, dying it with his blood. The knight immediately raised its foot, ready to bring it down and pulp the hero’s skull.
Then the demon spasmed, locking up for just a brief second. That allowed Rowan to tumble aside, bone, muscle and skin already erupting out of his stumps and forming new limbs.
A cry of rage erupted from deeper within the fortress, and the knight cried out as a red glow enveloped it.
“Hurry… heroes… I cannot – aaaaaaaaargh!” A screech of fury echoed like the ocean’s wrath erupted from the knight. It was on its feet fast, sword swinging faster than before.
One blow, two, three, all delivered in a blur against anything within reach. Marcus staggered again and again, barely resisting them, and Blake’s weapon was finally launched out of his hands with a sickening snap of his fingers and the eruption of blood where the skin between the cracked.
Then the knight was upon him, barriers of force barely redirecting its blows as it sought to end the scrambling hero.
Rowan swung his spear and connected with all his might into the back of the creature’s leg. The knight winced, but didn’t fall, still swinging for Blake. Then Clarke was there, driving his sword into its other leg with a wordless cry of terror and rage.
With this, the knight fell and the ground under it shone with a magic circle as gravity in that area intensified to insane levels. Gravity that the Mercenary King stumbled into, planting his shield on the small of the knight’s back and pressing down for all he was worth.
Rowan joined in immediately, biting back a scream when the increased gravity pulled on his flesh, on his muscles, on his organs, but he refused to relent. He pinned down the arm that held the knight’s sword and ignored the flailing that occasionally nicked him, his regeneration more than up to the task.
It grew increasingly easier when first Blake, then Marcus joined in.
Rowan risked a brief glance, spotting a pale-faced Tamara who was trembling with her arms held out in front of her. Olivia flitted between her and Kayla, force-feeding both women her potions. The magic circle seemed to be Tamara’s work, her face in full concentration and beads of sweat on her forehead, but Kayla looked much worse off.
The mage heroine was trembling, eyes closed and lips silently moving as two voices echoed out of her, hands bent over a flickering point of light that made Rowan nauseous just to look at it.
Then, like it pained her greatly, Kayla took a step forward, dragging herself closer to the battle. The point speck of whatever spell she was casting moved erratically between her hands, rubber banding back and forth like it hated the mere act of motion.
In spite of the strain, Kayla made it all the way up to the gravity field, then stepped into it. Instantly, the heroine folded, screaming as she struggled to keep the spell from coming in contact with the floor.
Blood burst out of her ears, eyes, nose and even mouth, yet she crawled closer, never once stopping her chant. The knight, seeing her approach, intensified its struggles. Blake was tossed off with such force the hero bounced off a wall and then the floor, but before the knight could do much with its freed hand, Clarke jumped in, pinning it down once more.
Finally, slowly, Kayla pushed her arms the final distance. The spark of light refused to follow, hanging for just a second longer in its previous location, then it surged forward and landed on the knight’s helmet.
A thrum rang out, and the world held its breath.
Then everyone staggered as the pieces of armor they were struggling with crumpled inwards.
The full weight of the world the knight was linked to, the entire force of the ocean he harbored, brought down crushingly on its own body.
The final echo of a breath was heard from the demon, before its armor went dark one final time, for good.
The scream of agony and such potent rage that Rowan felt it in the depth of his soul washed over them as red light erupted from further inside the fortress, but it could do nothing to stifle the grins that every single fighter sported.
Congratulations!
[Cyraenan, The Earl of Cloying Resentment], one of the Four Demonic Pillars, has been slain!
Calculating…
Conditions 6/8 fulfilled.
Error!
Unsealing requirements not met.