Kharveth moved through the city streets at a steady, deliberate pace, obsidian armor parting the crowd of stone and shadow before him. Behind him marched several hundred demons arranged in rigid, disciplined files, their formation tight and orderly despite the ruined surroundings. Two named, horned demons walked within the formation, commanders in their own right. The host was already turning back toward King Domine, their task of gathering the remaining forces nearly complete.
During the march, Kharveth had felt it. The sudden extinguishing of one Demon Knight. Not long after, the collapse of another Demon Lord. He did not slow, did not turn his head, did not allow even the slightest outward sign of concern. Any visible reaction would fracture morale more effectively than the deaths themselves ever could. Inwardly, however, unease had begun to coil. Since the era of the Second Generation, Demon Knights and Demon Lords had not fallen in such numbers within a single world. Even accounting for the relative weakness of many under Domine's banner, the pattern was troubling.
His thoughts were cut short.
Kharveth raised one armored hand without a word. The army behind him halted instantly, ranks locking in place. At the same moment, the sky above the city tore open.
The late afternoon light of the sun was drowned beneath a spreading violet glow as the heavens split, revealing a rift like a false night sky. Star-like motes flickered within it, bathing rooftops, stone streets, and armored bodies in deep purple hues.
"What is going on?" Nilus asked, his voice tight. The veinblood cherub's red lines pulsing as he stared upward.
Kharveth already knew. The pressure in the air, the distorted gravity, the astral resonance threading through the city. Astral magic. Only one Demon Lord wielded it. Arkanis. If he had been forced to unveil that power, then whatever he was facing was no ordinary resistance.
There was no time to dwell on it.
A thunderous roar erupted from above as something massive launched itself from a rooftop. Scales flashed violet under the warped light, and blades jutted from its wrists as it hurtled downward. A drakorath. But wrong. Its movements were jerky, its presence hollow, its body marred by damage that should have rendered it dead. Spiritually broken. Undying. Undead.
"What the—" Nilus snapped, shock cutting through his discipline.
The creature was aimed straight at Kharveth.
It never reached him.
The Knight Commander's hand shot up with explosive precision, fingers closing around the drakorath's throat mid-air. The impact sent a shock through the street beneath his feet, stone cracking outward in a shallow ring. Suspended in his grip, the undead beast thrashed violently, blades scraping and striking against obsidian plate. Each blow rang hollow, bouncing off as uselessly as pebbles against a tank.
Kharveth turned the creature slightly, inspecting it in silence, gaze traveling over its ruined form as it snarled and clawed at him. Then the city answered with more sound. Snarls. Screams. The wet scrape of claws on stone.
All along the rooftops, shapes began to emerge. Hundreds of them. Undead demons, bodies twisted and broken, eyes burning with false life as they poured forward, silhouetted against the violet-lit sky and the silent blood rain.
Kharveth tightened his grip.
The drakorath's neck collapsed with a brutal crush. Its head tore free, separating cleanly from the body as dark ichor spilled soundlessly into the air. He let the corpse fall, the remains hitting the street in a lifeless heap.
Without raising his voice, the Knight Commander spoke.
"Get ready for battle."
The demons did not hesitate. At Kharveth's command, the formation broke with practiced precision. Those equipped with weapons and armor—roughly a hundred in total—spread outward to form a loose perimeter, sharaykthuns taking point with curved swords held low and angled, drakoraths anchoring gaps with brute mass, and armored imps moving between them as support. The unarmed demons fell back instinctively, clustering toward the center where they could be shielded. Discipline held, even as the violet light washed over them and the soundless blood rain continued to fall.
Nilus rose several feet into the air, his percaline-like form hovering unnaturally as his eyes locked onto the advancing undead. Invisible pressure gathered around him as his telekinesis coiled, loose stones, shattered wood, and fragments of street beginning to tremble. He carried far more power than the regular veinblood cherubs below. Beside him, the other named and horned demon, Slakerm, a drakorath, snarled and rolled his shoulders as feet-long blood-red blades slid from his wrists. He threw his head back and roared, openly goading the enemy.
The undead answered.
From rooftops and alleys, undead drakoraths and undead imps hurled themselves forward, shrieking and snarling as they leapt down toward the demon line. There were no undead sharaykthuns among them—only raw, broken bodies driven by instinct. Roughly two hundred undead slammed into four hundred living demons, the impact violent and immediate.
The undead fought with the most basic strategy imaginable—straight-line charges, swarming bodies, clawing and biting without regard for their own destruction. Undead drakoraths crashed bodily into shield walls, while undead imps flooded through any opening they could find. The living demons answered with structure. Sharaykthuns moved in disciplined pockets, curved swords flashing in coordinated arcs to cut attackers down before they could overwhelm the line. Drakoraths absorbed impacts and countercharged, while armored imps darted in to finish off crippled undead.
Steel and claws met flesh and bone. Curved blades opened undead torsos, limbs torn free as blackened blood sprayed and vanished before it could stain the stone. An undead imp was pinned mid-leap by a sharaykthun blade before another severed its head in a clean, practiced motion. Elsewhere, an undead drakorath tore into the line, only to be dragged down by two living drakoraths while a sharaykthun drove steel through its spine.
Whenever an undead managed to bite, the battle twisted sharply. A living imp screamed as an undead imp latched onto its neck. It tore the creature off and crushed its skull, then staggered back, retching violently as dark fluid poured from its mouth. Its body convulsed, collapsed—and moments later it rose again, snarling as an undead, turning immediately on the nearest demons. Any such transformations were dealt with instantly.
Above it all, veinblood cherubs floated, fragile and wingless, using telekinesis to hurl debris and bodies alike. Chunks of street, shattered masonry, even undead demons were smashed downward with crushing force. One cherub was caught mid-motion as an undead drakorath leapt higher than expected and bit into its torso. There was no transformation. The cherub simply shattered and fell lifeless to the street below.
At the heart of the chaos, Kharveth was a legend made manifest.
He moved with ruthless economy, never wasting motion. A single punch exploded the head of an undead drakorath, the shock tearing through its neck and dropping the body instantly. One precise kick sliced through several undead imps at the waist, their bodies separating cleanly as they skidded across the stone. Wherever he stepped, the pressure eased, space forcibly carved out of the swarm.
The gray half-cape at his shoulder glowed faintly as he extended his power to the two named and horned demons.
Slakerm felt it immediately. His already ferocious assault sharpened into something monstrous as he tore through undead drakoraths and undead imps in a berserker frenzy, red blades carving spirals of ruin through clustered bodies. Nilus's telekinesis intensified, invisible force crushing undead into the street until they burst into paste, far exceeding the output of the regular veinblood cherubs below.
More snarls echoed down the street.
Kharveth turned, gaze fixing on another wave of undead charging toward them. He looked back at the demons still fighting, still falling. Alone, he could have ended this easily. But unleashing that level of power would have put every demon around him at risk.
So he stayed among them.
He spread his power further, reinforcing every demon on the field, making them faster, stronger, more resilient in every single way. And as he sensed even more approaching, the conclusion settled in.
He would not be bringing this force back to King Domine anytime soon.