Crackling energy coursed through my arms and fingers blasting through the throne and the wall beyond.

“I felt a presence behind me. “Die,” said Beelzebub swinging at my head with his claws.

How did he get behind me?!

“Not today,” I grunted. The floor between us separated at lightning speeds putting us putting a large gap between us.

Was the move he did just now the same one he used on GIlgamesh? How did he get behind me? It hadn’t been an Illusion of him on the throne I could sense that that really had been him. It made no sense.

“How did you do that!” demanded Beelzebub. “How did you command my castle!”

I chuckled triumphantly. I wasn’t sure this would work, but I had instinctively done it. I guess when your life is on the line you can do the unimaginable.

“Mana runs through the machinery within these walls, I stopped the castle movement by cutting of the power source that being mana. Now what would happen if I reversed that sequence? If I supplied mana back to the system motion would occur.” I raised a finger.

“The question then occurs of how am able to control the movements wouldn’t simply returning the mana back restore its original movement but not give me control over the rotations,”

“Get to the point,” spat Beelzebub.

“By applying mana to key parts I am able to not only stimulate movement but direct the trajectory and rotations of parts,”

I smiled deviously.

“Don’t you get it Beetle, your castle now belongs to me,” I really had to sell the look. I had to get him mad. I took a deep breath doing stuff like this was uncomfortable for me. I took back my head and laughed maniacally.

Beelzebub disappeared in a flash of light. I felt him behind me.

He did it again! What was that flash of light he used?

I created distance between us again. The light must have something to do with it, but what? The answer came to me. I readied myself. It shoud have been clear from the start.

He roared disappearing in a flash of light again. I turned my sword hilt over and stabbed through my armpit. The blade pierced Beelzebub’s chest. He gasped. Blood welled from the wound.

“You …!” growled Beelzebub. I twisted the sword hilt causing him to writhe in pain.

He was traveling through shadows. At first, I thought the flashing light had been a distraction to hurt my eyes but it was more. The light created a shadow behind me allowing him to appear behind me instantaneously. His mistake was using such predictable movements, losing control of the castle drove him into such a rage that he couldn’t think calmly and rationally.

“Hey Beelzebub, give the orders for your army to retreat,”

“Just kill me,” said Beelzebub.

“Call them back,” I said.

“They were commanded by the demon lord not just me, my word alone isn’t enough,”

I sighed. I materialized two shining blue pins of mana. I stabbed one of them in his navel.

“I know demons have three hearts. Don’t think that I am stupid, demon!” I shouted.

“Alright, alright! I’ll call them back,” said Beelzebub raising his arms in defense.

“I Beelzebub call back all my troops and will honor that agreement for as long as I live,” he said quickly.

Burning orange letters glowed in the air.

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“See I wrote it in ancient — its bound to my soul,”

He smiled slyly.

“But you can’t kill me now, I stated that would happen as long as I lived,” He laughed.

“You stupid humans, you’re nothing more than hairless monkeys!” he said laughing.

I scanned his body. There slightly above his eyebrows. A concentrated sphere of mana was oozing mana. A monster core.

“What are you doing?” said Beelzebub, a hint of fear detectable in his voice.

I concentrated mana into my fingers. I dug my fingers into his head. Beelzebub writhed in pain clutching his head. I felt the smooth object and pulled it out. Beelzebub’s body went limp.

“This won’t kill you but you’re as good as dead like this,” I said to the orb.

I stared at the translucent purple orb. You monster, how dare you! said the orb within my head.

“That’s ironic,” I said.

“Sayonara beetle,” I said opening a pocket.

Wait! You can’t, the name’s Beelz - I stuffed him into my pocket and clasped it tightly shut.

Now since that was done… I focused and rearranged the castle one last time into its original configuration. I clutched a stabbing pain in my side. The adrenaline seems to have been stopping me from feeling a lot of the pain that I accumulated during the fight. I hope this doesn’t happen again.

I located Garn, Jasper and Casper.

Garn was vigilantly watching in every direction when he spotted me. His sword was halfway impaled in the ground. Rope tied Gilgamesh, Jasper and Casper together and finally to Garn. It must have been to keep them together and in place, their room must have shifted and rotated as well.

“Did you win?”

“We won,” I said.

Garn nodded as if what he had heard was as normal as someone saying it was going to rain.

“We need to get to the rest of the army, if we hurry we might be able to catch up to them,”

I hoisted Gilgamesh, Casper and Jasper onto my shoulders.

“I’ll take Gilgamesh,” offered Garn.

“It’s fine, you’re too injured,” I said. I had initially planned to keep my powers a secret but considering everything that had happened that went completely out the window.

“Why were the rooms moving?” asked Garn.

“It was one of his abilities,”

“The demon general’s?”

“Yes,” I said.

The castle shook. Not like it had before when rooms were being moved around. I could my ear canals shifting.

“I don’t think the castle will stay up for long, we should get moving,”

Garn nodded.

We made it to the massive front doors of the castle. The once menacing doors that struck fear into us were now a welcome sight. Two monsters - goat monsters in armour to be exact were at the side of the gate.

“They won’t hurt us,” I said to Garn who was drawing a blade.

I eyed them down as we passed them.

The doors creaked open. The eyepatched soldier’s corpse was on the edge.

“Wait here,” I said going over to it. I picked his body up as well.

“I’ll give you the proper burial you deserve,” I said. I blinked back tears.

I looked out at the landscape. The battlefield was littered with the corpses of soldiers. Monster remains littered it as well but I didn’t quite feel so sympathetic toward them. A good monster is a dead monster. From the edge, I could clearly see that the castle was descending, quite fast in fact.

I jogged to Garn.

“Let’s go hope onto my back,”

“Onto your back!” exclaimed Garn.

“Just do it, its our safest way down,” I said hurrying him.

With mumbles of complaint, Garn climbed on top to pile.

“Hold on tight,” I said jumping off. We hurtled through the air. The castle had descended a significant amount we were quite a bit closer to the ground than before. I felt a slight sinking sensation in my stomach. The distance was still more than enough to give me some vertigo. I shot mana threads up at the castle base. Luckily it wasn’t in freefall yet and was able to significantly slow us down. I sent a blast of air at the ground to cushion our fall. We landed on the ground with a thud. My knees hurt from the impact but other than that I was largely fine. I made it back up the ravine's steep corners. We didn’t have to walk long to get to the carts. They were clearly visible. They must not have retreated far or just been slow to retreat. One of the soldiers pointed in our direction. A cart approached us.

“Why did you fall behind,” they said.

They quieted when they saw Gilgamesh and the others on my back.

“Oh the gods Its Gilgamesh!”

I collapsed into the cart with them their bodies spilled into the cart.

“They need medical attention as soon as possible,” I was able to get out. My tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt the familiar signs of losing consciousness. I can’t believe this has happened to me so much I know what it feels like. My back hit the edge of the cart as the world came undone.

I woke up late the next day in one of the recovery tents. I heard from Lula that Gelric performed mass healing to speed up our injuries. She remarked how Gelric had muttered how “we hadn’t seen a tragedy this bad since the early days of the resistance”.

Gilgamesh, Jasper, Casper, and Garn made a full recovery with the help of Gelric of course. It wasn’t long before things went back to normal or as normal as they could have been.

Lula entered my tent one day.

“Sebastian everyone that was involved in the disaster of Ariadne is being summoned to the hall,” she said.

“Thanks for telling me,” I said going on my way. There was nothing good that could come of this. That word was doing me no favours as well. Summon. Wasn’t that how all of my troubles started?

I entered the tent. A large gathering of people were already inside. Garn and his gang were already there.

“Quiet,” boomed a voice. The chatter died down.

“You’re probably wondering why you were summoned here, as some of you have heard this is only for the survivors of the disaster of Ariadne. But I will not be informing you about that, that will be taken on by …” said the person gesturing to the side of the stage. Gilgamesh appeared from the curtains. The tent erupted in cheers. He waved at the crowd.

“Thank you, thank you!” he said. “It’s my first public appearance since the tragedy but I am glad to see that morale has not died down,” the crowd continued cheering.

“I commend you all on surviving, while many retreated, it is something that no man can shame another for. As for why you are all gathered here today, it has been decided to reorganize our battle strategies. We have decided to specially train the few that survived in an accelerated program. We will condense all our resources into condensing and pooling our time and knowledge into you all.” Gilgamesh clapped abruptly. The roof sparkled drawing everyone's attention to it. I recognized the magic as Gelric’s key mana signature. He must be in the shadows somewhere. To everyone’s amazement, books floated down gently into the hands of every person. The books were dark black, made from some animal skin, and had golden runes and inscriptions along its cover and spine.

“In here you will find the advanced magic spells and theory as well as everything ranging from hand-to-hand combat to military tactics. Take care of these books as if they were your own child and they will help nurture your abilities.”