[Victory! Demon Duke destroyed!]

[Additional Victory! Marnac the Defiler eliminated!]

[Level up! You are now level 15]

[Warning: Severe structural damage detected]

The fortress shudders, stone cracking as its master's death weakens ancient wards. Through smoke and falling debris, I spot it, the Duke's skull bobbing in cooling lava, blackened bone calling to borrowed bone.

His remains pulse with lingering power, offering dark evolution. These fragments sense the opportunity. Demon bone could strengthen this frame, make it larger, more terrible.

The temptation pulls at borrowed purpose. But not all bones deserve choosing.

My damaged hand reaches out, not to absorb but to grasp. Skeletal fingers close around the Duke's horned skull, lifting it from molten rock.

The bone steams, corruption trying to spread through my arm. No matter. These chosen bones are stronger than empty promises of corruption.

With deliberate force, I slam the skull against broken stone. Cracks spread across its surface. Again I strike and then again.

Each impact weakens the whole. The Duke's skull finally shatters. Fragments scatter.

The largest section, nearly half the cranial dome with one curved horn still attached, catches attention in lava's glow. I lift this piece, testing its weight and curve.

The bone resists my touch at first, trying to reject as I compel it to serve. Ancient runes flicker across this damaged form, spreading to the demon skull fragment. Resistance fades.

With precise movements, I tear strips from my tattered cloak, wrapping them around the skull piece's jagged edges to form a grip. The fabric smolders but holds, demon bone accepting its new purpose.

I slide my arm through the makeshift straps, positioning the curved fragment as a shield. Heat radiates from the bone, but these blackened bones have known deeper heat.

The shield pulses once, demon magic clashing with the power animating my form before settling into grudging servitude. I flex my shield arm, testing the weight.

The bone proves lighter than steel yet just as strong. Even in death, the Duke's remains will serve a purpose he never intended.

I hold Demon Shield before my hollow sockets. These bones remember Haven's walls. Remember children playing in brief sunlight.

Remember duty that transcends mere power. My fingers trace patterns with blackened bone carving deep into surface of Demon Shield. The mark of Haven takes shape.

The fortress groans. Support pillars crack. The ceiling begins to cave. I have lingered too long.

The floor buckles as I run, each step finding less purchase than the last. Demon Shield decorated with Haven's mark clutched tight in one hand.

My frame moves, leaping gaps where stone falls away. A support beam crashes down. I roll beneath, losing pieces of damaged bones in the process.

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No time to recover them. The whole structure comes apart around me. Another leap carries me over a spreading chasm.

My legs barely leave the edge before it crumbles. Ahead, the corridor fills with falling rock.

I charge forward, shouldering through debris. Plates crack. Bones splinter. Purpose drives these fragments onward.

The outer gate appears through smoke and dust. Almost. The ceiling collapses.

Tons of stone and corrupted metal slam into my titan frame. Bones crack under impossible weight. Armor shatters.

My skull stares upward as more debris piles on, burying these borrowed fragments in the fortress's death throes. Darkness claims everything.

Time passes in the crushing dark. These bones lie scattered, broken beneath the fortress's corpse.

The Duke's marked skull fragment rests nearby, Haven's symbol barely visible through layers of dust. But purpose endures.

Darkness calls these scattered pieces. Under crushing stone and corrupted metal, consciousness fragments like the bones that hold it. Individual memories surface as the whole forgets itself.

A femur remembers charging through demon lines, its owner refusing to fall until reinforcements arrived. The bone still holds echoes of that final stand, steel meeting claw that met flesh, war cries turning to death rattles, duty holding firm even as blood filled the soil.

Ribs recall different deaths. One protected a heart that beat its last under Demon King's sword. Another cracked saving a fellow soldier.

Each fragment remembers vague memories of lives once lived. Finger bones remember gripping weapons, writing final letters, farewell embraces with families not remembered.

A thumb that pulled bowstring until flesh blistered and broke. Knuckles that bloodied themselves on monster scales when blade shattered.

None of these bones remember running, remember retreat, Only sacrifice and grim defeat.

Vertebrae share older memories. Dragon bone recalls soaring through storm-wracked skies, breathing magic breaths that cracked mountain sides.

Pride and power before the coming of the Demon King. Death brought clarity.

The skull, this skull's newest fragment, remembers being a captain who held a position while others pulled back to next battle line. Pride in that choice still echoes through yellowed bone.

No regret, only satisfaction that first of the Demon Duke's have fallen. Each bone carries final moments, last stands, desperate choices.

They remember being other things, serving other causes. Yet something feels wrong about these scattered recollections.

Personal heroism matters less than shared purpose. Haven's walls come forth in fractured memory.

Children playing in brief sunlight after corruption's heart was destroyed. A commander planning defenses through endless siege.

A girl who kept faith when others doubted. The stone thrower who guided his people to Haven and then died somewhere outside its walls.

The fragments remember. Individual stories mean nothing without greater calling. Borrowed bones answer purpose beyond glory.

Magic stirs weakly. My finger bones twitch first, scrabbling against confining stone. Then ribs shift, seeking proper alignment.

Each fragment remembers its place in the greater whole. Bones twitch in the dark seeking familiar joints and place in spine.

My form reassembles itself slowly, piece by broken piece. The magic works slower now, taxed by recent battles.

No matter. These chosen bones know patience. Death is not the end, merely a pause between duties.

Not all fragments can be salvaged. Too many shattered under falling stone. But enough remain to serve.

There will be transformation. Hours stretch. The titan form cannot be fully restored, but purpose needs no specific shape.

My hand pushes through packed rubble. Then arm. Shoulder. Skull.

Each piece remembering its place in the greater form, driven by the same force that first roused these bones from blood soaked soil.

I emerge under open sky, frame smaller but purpose unchanged. Let the fragments keep their individual tales. The whole remembers what matters, duty that transcends death itself.

Haven waits. These bones know their path. The fortress's fall marks only the beginning.

Greater monsters remain to hunt. Aeternus responds as I retrieve it from scattered stone.

The blade shares purpose deeper than memory, followed by a pull as Demon Shield emerges from the rubble to settle on blackened arm, its corruption bound to service.

Together we stride north, leaving demon ruins behind. Let others speak of the fortress's destruction. Let them wonder what manner of monster brought doom to its masters.

[Status: Stabilizing]

[Form: Reconstructed]

[Warning: Total mass reduced by 47%]

[Class Evolution: Titan Frame → Grave Knight]

[New Equipment: Demon Shield (Corrupted Artifact)]