Valencia’s strength had been crushing. An overwhelming presence. Gravity and reality forced to her will. Fundamental physics bent to her needs. The demon’s was none of that. It howled with wild abandon, thrashing about like a half-blind babe. Darkness spewed from it in all directions, lashes of cruelty that tore through the rubble.

The dreadknight had crushed this thing and its spirit. Ground it up and kept it contained. Now, it was freshly emerged from its cage, reformed one piece at a time. Blind to anything but it’s instinctual hatred. The flesh upon its skin writhed and reshaped itself. Wings sprouted from its back, hands morphed into claws. A curved blade that was darkness it clenched in either hand, and fangs emerged as the human’s features turned demonic.

This thing exuded wrongness. It should not exist on this world. A stain on everything that surrounded it. A creature of the Hells Below, meant to never intrude on this plane. It hated us. This I knew. No words were needed to communicate its utter desire to smash everything in its path. To desecrate all it possibly could.

I clutched a brutish war-blade in hand as it flew at me, the heavy and poorly weighted weapon my protector. Tiredness forced me to flinch as the blow crashed down, unable to dodge. I had faced Valencia before, and knew the power that was about to strike down on me. My mind prepared to be thrown backwards, to have the fiend chase me down.

Both blades slammed into my upraised sword and were stopped in their tracks. Little to no impact made it through to me.

Shocked and surprised, I raised a hoof and kicked the demon in the side of its chest. Tiredness may have dulled the blow, but even a glancing strike sent it stumbling away.

Roars of rage sounded as it spun around, back at me, and redoubled the attack.

Blades slashed through the air, striking into my meager defenses. Scant few made it through. A massive swing from my own heavy blade was barely blocked and staggered the demon backward. Huge, messy swings struck it further back as it tried to block every blow.

My sheer strength overpowered the fiend as it tried again and again to prove its strength.

I realized then.

This thing inhabited Valencia’s body. But it had not her strength. It lacked her powers. Even in death she was defiant. The shell that it had twisted and malformed might have been the woman I knew, but not what lay beneath.

It was strong, yes. Able to overwhelm any human or even minotaur it came across. But I had prepared to fight Valencia, and she was leagues above this twisted impersonation.

Black, fetid breath was spewed forth from the demon’s maw. It swept across the ruins, engulfing all around it. Rocks began to chip and crumble, the flesh upon the corpses decaying before me. Tired as I was, I still had more than enough strength to whip up gusts of wind with my blade.

This too was blown back and I stormed towards the demon’s form.

The wings upon its back flapped as the monstrous being took flight, soaring towards the sky above. Or at least, it tried. My hand grabbed its ankle and dragged it back down to the dirt, then slammed it face-first into the stone.

It felt good to not be on the back foot against some overwhelming foe. My strength toyed with this abomination. Punished it for taking Valencia’s form. Freshly birthed, it was weak. Fragmented pieces of a greater whole. Given time, it could fully emerge as some great power.

It would not receive this.

Cragsmasher’s Hammer connected right in its gut and rocketed it away. The dark form impacted into what remained of the great fortress’s wall, rubble raining down on it from above. I paced forward, eyes bloodshot and temples pounding.

Once more, adrenaline kept me upright. Though I knew not for how long.

My strength was fading, I knew. Exhaustion could only be staved off for so long, and I had already ran that course on this day. My reserves were spent, the pool of my resources now a drought.

But on I marched, determined to see this to its end.

The demon emerged, its blackened form swelling in size as it regained more and more of its being. The powder that Valencia had crushed its consciousness and will into was reforming, more substance added to the whole. With every moment, its form morphed further and further away from what I had known Valencia’s body to be.

Now, it barely resembled anything human. Bestial and clawed, with rigid leathery skin, lengthened arms and sharp talons where once had been fingers.

Only her eyes remained, stained as they were with dark veins.

My gaze widened as the demon stabbed those talons in its chest and yanked something free. Horror entered unbidden into my mind as I recognized what it held.

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A small, fragile wisp of light was pinched in its grasp. Greyed and worn, almost frayed loose from a lifetime of stress and wear. This thing now held Valencia’s soul in its claws, and before my eyes, it began to squeeze.

Worn and weary though it was, the wisp fought and sparked against the demon’s grasp. It struggled and flared, filled with the dreadknight’s essence and stubbornness. Yet no matter how hard it struggled, this would not be enough.

I would.

As the spark began to stutter and fade, I was upon the demon. One hand yanked its arm aside, and the other rammed the great blade I held right through its chest.

But it was a creature of death and darkness, and this blow would not kill it.

It did not need to. I pushed it backward, sword driven through it right to the crossguard. The blade slammed into the rubble behind it and into a massive slab of rock that lay untouched. Pinned to the stone, it thrashed beneath my blows, its struggles growing weaker with every strike.

Vicious strikes meant to kill cracked open its carapace, broke its limbs and tore away the shadowy armor that clung to it. At the edge of fervor, I rained down heavy-hand punches, my fists themselves infused with what remained of Cragsmasher’s Hammer.

This thing would die. No other outcome would I accept, so take me death.

I ripped away the stain, the blight on this world and hoped to find Valencia beneath. But the world was not kind, and I did not. I tore through the fiend's body, ripping all the way to its core. The thing embedded within to make this monstrosity whole. The sliver wedged into Valencia’s soul that let this disease grow and spread and take hold.

I did not possess the ability or magic to interact with the soul. To me, it was a foreign, vague concept. Yet this demon did, and it had. Valencia’s spark had flitted back to its chest once its grip had been released, and here it hovered now. The last fading light that remained of her.

Now it was I that took hold, cupped it softly and pulled it from the abomination’s body. Standing above the demon’s shattered body, I slowly pulled the spark free and held it with gentle care. There were slivers and spikes in its rounded surface, pieces that anchored the demon to her. Things that should she ever touch, her life would be snuffed out.

But she was dead, and now this fiend intended to devour what remained of her.

It stirred beneath me, only to be stomped back into the stone. The soul squirmed as I reached close, my massive fingers struggling to be delicate. Slowly, gently, I grasped a single thorn and pulled it free. It came with great resistance, psychic shrieks ringing through my ears as the demon howled and thrashed under my weight.

I grasped another and slid it free, taking care not to rip it out. The slivers burst into corrosive, stinging mist once they were freed, coating my hand and forcing it to spasm.

I continued on.

I focused, ignoring the pain and exhaustion and the voice that told me to fall back and die from tiredness. Hunched over, I blotted out all other sensations and focused on the dim light before me. The fragile, tired piece of the dreadknight that remained.

With every shard pulled free, the demon thrashed harder, more frantically. But its strength faded alongside mine. Claws raked my legs, shredding through my armor and dripping venom and corrosion all across me.

I continued my task.

The soul shivered, parts of it left empty as the thorns it had carried for long were withdrawn. Pieces of it that had never been able to function buzzed, finally free. The final thorn I carefully withdrew, and the monster beneath me fell limp.

I sank down to my knees beside the body once more, soul in my hand. The demon’s form twisted and stretched, writhing as it was expelled from this world. It was gruesome to watch, but I fixed my gaze upon it and witnessed it all.

And finally, in its place was left Valencia. Her body whole but cold. And finally, the dreadknight looked at peace in death.

I had done all that I could, I realized. Now there was naught to do but let her go.

Where?

There were no gods that would take her. None to renew her soul and chose her to be reborn elsewhere. Only the Gods Above lay dominion to that, and they rejected her.

I owed her so much.

Debts that I had not yet begun to repay.

But most of all, I had hoped that she would one day find redemption. That through my efforts, she could come to find peace. Not like this, her tale cut short. But death was cruel. Final. Nothing could change that. Nothing could stop its cold grasp.

Nothing save for one, singular thing I possessed.

I knelt there then and stared blankly. Watched as this bright, beautiful soul that remained of Valencia drifted around its former home. The bonds that bound it were growing detached, and soon it would leave this vessel of flesh behind and vanish to wherever it was that souls went. Never to be seen again.

I hesitated when I realized what would be asked of me to do this task.

What I would have to give up. And I did not know, for the first time, if I could make that sacrifice.

I was a good, selfless man. That I knew with absolute certainty. And here I had the smallest sliver of a chance to rewrite fate. But it required so much. The greatest power I possessed, I would have to offer up, to make myself vulnerable once more. In a world as cruel as this, I had no doubt this could be my eventual undoing.

But I was not a man who lived paralyzed by fear of consequences.

Do this now, or live to forever regret it.

True conviction blossomed within me now. I grasped the soul with both hands and leaned forward to slide it back into Valencia’s chest. Barely tethered as it was, it still hovered about, faint greyed light spilling from it.

I braced myself, and invoked a skill I had just, hours earlier, scoffed and told myself I would never do. The Gift of Harvest opened itself within me, and its voice asked of me what I would give another. It was with pain in my mind but hope in my heart that I offered up my greatest strength.

It Will Not Die.