With each step that Thozronnath took, the sword of sin pulsed in his hands. A dull and deep feeling, though it gave no sound. The rhythm of the sword echoed through his entire body, each beat more powerful than the last. He did not look away from his enemy, he didn’t dare give the human the opening.

Almost as if synchronized, Sardan the paladin of law swung his mace with the backing of multiple skills. [Multiattack] to increase speed, [Holy Weapon] for damage, and [Miracle Worker] for effects that even Sardan didn’t always understand. The head of his weapon impacted Kaggant with enough force to send even the towering Troll flying, perfectly on beat with the pulse of the sword of sin.

The human was getting desperate. That was not good.

Closing what was left of the gap, Thoz found himself across from Zildoxoxi, with the paladin between them. Five feet separating him and his enemy, another six beyond that to his ally. They had the numbers, the mortal could not pay attention to them both at once.

Sardan chose to focus on the devil. This was unfortunate for Thozronnath in a number of ways. Primary among them was the system notification that popped up to distract him once Zild began moving into the human's blind spot.

Resonance complete.

Congratulations!

[Sword of Sin] has evolved into [Sinful Armory].

[Sinful Armory] is now level 4.

It’s not always about killing everything. Sometimes you have to make an effort just to keep your friends alive. - Vz

Another message from the mysterious Vz was already a distraction in and of itself, but what followed put Thozronnath in actual danger. The sword of sin melted in his hand, though the rhythmic pulsing continued up his arm. It beat against his head with the force of an earthquake.

The devil visibly winced, and Sardan moved in to capitalize on the opening.

When Thozronnath’s head cleared, he blinked just in time to see the paladin charging him. Though he was seeing the paladin charge from two different angles. Towards him, and away from him. His own eyes, and Zildoxoxi’s ooze sight. He had resonated with the sin of gluttony.

He felt the terror Zild felt, he felt the worry in his chest, and he finally understood. Zildoxoxi was dumb, statistically, proveably, but he wasn’t an idiot. The oozey fool knew that Thozronnath was not his father and Prisaela was not his mother. He knew this more than anyone else did, and Thoz could actually feel that it bothered Zild.

Zild wanted them to be though. They had raised him, taken care of him, and looked after him when the slime didn’t know to do it himself. Zildoxoxi had strode through hell at his master's side and came out the other end. Thozronnath had been assuming his minions were fighting with him out of fear of death, not wanting to be unsummoned should he himself perish. Zild proved that at least one of them wasn’t. To the slime, the only thing worse than dying at the hands of the mortals was having to watch his ‘father’ die and being unable to stop it.

It was a very human emotion. Thoz was not sure he liked that. He knew that devils were born from human emotion, but this seemed excessive. Everything he had learned in hell was screaming that empathy, kindness, or care would eventually make him weak. Thozronnath had spent enough time being weak, he never wanted to go back.

Thankfully, he was granted a reprieve from having to think too deeply about this when he and Zildoxoxi were simultaneously swept by a torrential wave of memories. Their own, yet foreign. Familiar in feeling yet not in content, though shared much the same as their current senses were.

Zild saw a tsunami of deep crimson ooze wash across a vast and ancient battlefield. Long burned and salted by a thousand lost conflicts. Discarded weapons and bodies were swept up with the tide and collected, most of them boiled away. When the current found the current fighters, their features were misty and indistinct yet they too were swept away by the wall of rushing slime.

Each soldier that fell was burned, boiled, consumed, and their bodies replicated in the wake of the living cataclysm that felled them. Life-sized replicas cut from the ooze dropped behind the wall of hunger and formed into shambling copies ready to fight and die once more.

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This is where Thozronnath saw a memory.

Standing at the head of this reconstructed army, flanked by a half-dozen other figures he couldn’t quite make out, was a devil he had only seen once. A devil that haunted his dreams.

Then, as if aware of him, his king locked eyes with Thozronnath and winked. A smirk that embodies the term “devilish” spread across his face as Thoz was thrown back into his own body. Finally aware of one truth.

Vz is Vazotz. Lord of all Hells. Infernal King.

A living god.

Thozronnath was the chosen one.

He was snapped back to attention by the force of the blow that caught him. Thoz was thrown further than Kaggant even, his own strength stat doing little to combat the momentum.

You have suffered a Critical Baneful Injury.

-95 HP.

Natural regeneration halted from divine bane.

More than a quarter of his total health was wiped out in a single blow. Thozronnath could not afford to prolong this fight much longer if that was his first injury.

Sardan didn’t dare risk giving the devil time to recover. The paladin began to chase after him, only to have his focus taken advantage of as the slime crashed into him from behind. Once more sizzling his armor and attempting to corrode his way inside.

Through [Compression] and [Liquid Form] Zild was managing to exploit the small openings in Sardan’s armor. The damage from [Corrosive] was outpacing the paladin's natural regeneration by leaps and bounds but had finally overtaken the frequent self-heals.

His clinging [Adhesive] skill thankfully allowed him to hang on, even if it only slowed the human by a touch. That touch was enough for Thozronnath to recover himself and charge back into the fray.

Each pounding step the devil took seemed to shake the ground beneath him, and with a bellow of rage, he closed the gap instantly.

Zildoxoxi could feel his master, no, his father’s plan of attack as he charged.

Thozronnath knew the slime would get out of the way in time.

Thoz activated [Pestilent Breath] as he exhaled, not for the damage, but to provide himself with cover as he charged headfirst into it. He was sustained by [Poison Immunity] and kept his charge full speed ahead, knowing the paladin had some way to track his movements.

He was willing to bet a frontal assault would get him nowhere, so in the hopes of obfuscating himself even slightly, Thoz activated [Natural Illusionist]. His illusions weren’t quite as powerful as Prisaela’s, but he could disturb the acrid fog ahead of his actual movements. Even just slightly.

That gust of wind was all it took.

The fog shifted in front of him as Sardan felt the devil approaching through [Sense Presence] but in the heat of battle the paladin was unable to perceive the minor discrepancy between his skill and what his eyes were seeing. The slime dropped off his shoulders suddenly, throwing him off balance.

A momentary stutter. A blink. A final breath.

Sardan raised his shield too early. Thoz sunk his blade beneath it. The barbs of the resummoned gluttony greatsword tore their way through the joint at the human's hip. The ability to sap life essence didn’t even trigger. Sardan was fully impaled. Parts of his intestines had been forced out the exit wound along with the tip of the sword.

He was dead, his body just hadn't noticed yet.

“You never should have followed me human. You might have lived longer.” were the only words Thozronnath could spare for his adversary. He then braced one foot on Sardan’s shoulder and pulled his blade back through, tearing more organs in the process.

Thoz watched as the mortal's resilience stat tried to regenerate his body second by second, a strange display of the system working in futility. Sardan’s hitpoints were dropping too fast for him to even heal himself through the massive wound.

The paladin would not leave the forest. Thozronnath would not grieve him.

The devil turned to leave as Sardan collapsed into the dust and dry leaves of the forest floor, gazing up at the dappled canopy of ironwood trees.

His life faded rapidly, a chill setting in that he could not shake. He would be with his god soon.

“My lord, Iuris” he began to speak aloud, his voice hoarse and rough. Each syllable was accompanied by a small river of blood from his damaged lungs.

“Please. Warn someone, anyone. A calamity walks these lands, He could-” and unceremoniously the paladin was taken by a fit of coughing. He could not finish his words as his lungs rebelled against him, fighting for another breath. A breath that would never come.

The devil hunter died before he could finish his prayer.