Back in the village
Gorthok and Maverick stood before the newly dug well. Mud still clung to its edges, but clear water now rose steadily from the depths, shimmering as it filled the hollow.
Maverick let out a slow breath.
"Hey… Gorthok. It's been two days now. The Tribe Leader is still in that cave he found."
Gorthok's single eye remained fixed on the water.
"I think the Leader is training that power of his," he said quietly.
Maverick hesitated. "Do you really believe what he said? About us having power like him… and something about our souls?"
Gorthok finally turned toward him.
"Honestly," Maverick continued, lowering his head, "I don't know about the power. But the thing he said about our souls… I'm scared not to believe it. Sometimes I say things I don't understand. Words that don't feel like mine."
Gorthok stiffened.
"So it's happening to you too," he said. "It's been happening to everyone in the village. Even me."
His eye narrowed.
"I've started asking Akira for things I don't even know how I know."
Maverick swallowed.
Sensing the fear, Gorthok stepped forward and slapped Maverick hard on the back.
"Get a grip," he grunted. "If the Leader believes it, then so do we."
Before Maverick could answer—
BOOOM.
BOOOM.
The earth trembled.
Maverick spun toward the cave.
"Is he trying to fucking kill me?!"
Gorthok tilted his head, listening.
"It's not—"
His words died in his throat.
The sky above the cave split open in blinding light. Stone shattered outward as lightning erupted skyward, and a figure rose from the ruined rock—ascending into the air, his body wrapped in living arcs of blue, gold, and something darker beneath.
Gorthok and Maverick stared, frozen.
Demos tore across the sky at full speed.
The world below blurred into streaks of shadow and flame as lightning carried him like a living comet. Blue lightning roared around his body, but veins of golden-yellow bled through it—too much, too fast. His flesh burned where it surfaced, thin molten scars carving across his skin.
He felt it.
He didn't care.
The moment the Blood Vine Forest came into view, his heart dropped.
Three hundred goblins swarmed the clearing, shrieking as they slaughtered anything that moved. Elderly elves were dragged through the mud. Women were cornered, screaming, blood soaking into twisted roots. Four giants towered above it all, each step crushing earth and bone.
Only fifty Elven warriors stood—forming a desperate line.
Ryker was among them.
Bleeding. Exhausted. Still fighting.
Steel rang. Bodies fell.
Too late—
No.
Back to the present.
The sky split open.
Lightning erupted downward like divine judgment as Demos' rage detonated, the storm answering his will.
"Enough."
The word was not shouted.
It was commanded.
Lightning ripped into the earth, tearing through soil and stone, freezing the battlefield in place. Goblins locked mid-strike. Giants halted mid-step. Even the wind recoiled.
Demos hovered for a breath—then his gaze moved.
And he saw her.
Even now—mud clinging to her skin, blood streaking her hair, ash smeared across her face—she was beautiful. Unbroken. Standing despite the terror clawing at her soul.
The Elven Queen.
Demos descended.
The ground cracked as his feet touched the earth, lightning surging outward in a violent ring. Before fear could claim her fully, he raised his hand.
A bolt of blue lightning leapt from his palm.
It wrapped gently around the queen's body.
She gasped, trembling as the energy coiled around her limbs—but the pain never came. Warmth flooded her veins. The shaking slowed. Her breathing steadied.
The lightning healed.
Cuts sealed. Bruises faded. Poison burned away, purified down to the soul.
She lifted her eyes to his face.
The anger she saw there was terrifying—but it was not directed at her.
Nor at her people.
Demos released her.
Then he stepped forward.
Blue lightning surged through his feet—and the earth answered.
In a single instant, the lightning expanded outward, vaporizing all three hundred goblins, erasing them where they stood.
They died without a scream.
"RYKER."
"FALL BACK AND BRING MY PEOPLE HOME."
Demos' voice tore across the sky, each word imbued with lightning itself.
Every elf froze.
My people?
Brows lifted. Breath caught.
But Ryker did not hesitate.
"Everyone—move!" he shouted. "March forward! Don't get in his way!"
Pride burned in his chest, pushing him to the edge of madness.
Ryker and the Elven Queen led the elves—eight hundred meters away from Demos. As they moved, the earth began to rumble again.
Trees snapped. The forest screamed.
They looked back.
Hundreds more goblins poured from the trees—
Then blue lightning exploded outward.
The forest vanished.
A four-hundred-meter radius was reduced to ash, earth fused into glass. The goblins at the edge of the devastation stopped dead, terror freezing them in place.
Not a single one stepped forward.
The four giants that once stood there—
Were already dust.
All the elves looked on in horror.
Children cried openly, clutching at anything they could reach. The elderly dropped to their knees, pulling the children into trembling embraces, shielding their eyes even as their own bodies shook.
They had just witnessed destruction beyond reason—power so absolute it erased armies in a breath.
And yet…
That same power had protected them.
They did not know his name.
They did not know what he was.
Only that the strange barbarian standing amid the ruin had saved them.
Fear and awe tangled in their chests, impossible to separate.
Across the shattered battlefield, the remaining goblins were frozen in terror. None screamed. None fled. Their yellow eyes stared wide as residual lightning still crackled through the air.
But the forest had not gone silent.
Trees continued to collapse—slow at first, then faster. The earth groaned under something heavy.
Something massive.
Then they emerged.
Not goblins.
Giants.
Fifty of them stepped through the broken tree line, each larger than the last, bodies scarred and armored in bone and iron, eyes burning with crude malice. Each step crushed roots and stone alike.
And behind them—
Something else moved.
The forest parted as a shape rose higher than the canopy, higher than shattered trunks, higher than reason itself.
It stood so tall it should not have been called a giant.
It was a walking calamity.
Its shadow swallowed the battlefield, blotting out the sky. Even the giants before it looked small—insignificant—like insects before a god of ruin.
A silence fell.
Even the goblins trembled.
The elves felt it in their bones.
Whatever this was—
Its power was immeasurable.
Demos did not care about the fifty giants before him. They were obstacles. Nothing more.
The one standing at the back, however…
That presence pressed against the world itself.
To Demos, it was not fear.
It was a challenge.
Lightning surged as he wrapped his entire body in crackling arcs, blue and gold tearing across his skin. The ground fractured beneath his feet as he stepped forward, eyes blazing.
"I AM DEMOS S. SPARTA!"
The roar shook trees, stone, and sky alike.
Not like any of you can understand me, he thought.
Then a voice answered.
A giant stepped forward, its massive face twisting in disbelief, voice rumbling like grinding mountains.
"You worm… how do you speak the language of giants?"
Demos laughed.
Not amusement.
Not humor.
A harsh, echoing sound that cracked through the ruined forest like thunder over broken stone.
"Ahahahahahahahah…"
He tilted his head slightly, lightning snapping along his shoulders.
"I'm no worm," Demos said, voice cold and absolute.
"I'm a Spartan."
One of the giants grinned cruelly, raw flesh visible between moss-coated teeth.
"We do not care what you are," it rumbled. "You and the long-ears will be slaves… or food."
The words settled over the battlefield like poison.
Demos' smile vanished.
Lightning tightened around him—not erupting, not raging—compressing. Focused. Deadly.
"So," he said slowly, each word bending the air,
"the reason you hunt my people…"
The ground cracked outward beneath his feet.
"…is to turn them into cattle."
His gaze lifted—past the giants—
And locked onto the colossal presence looming behind them.
"And slaves."
Ryker and the elves heard every word, though none understood the language.
They didn't need to.
A chill ran down their spines as the giants bared their teeth—rows of uneven fangs packed with raw flesh, blood and moss clinging to rot that had festered for years.
These were not warriors.
They were devourers.
Demos' gaze hardened.
The storm answered.
Blue lightning exploded outward, roaring across the battlefield as the air screamed under its charge. Dust and ash were ripped into the sky, blinding and suffocating.
With a sharp motion, Demos reached into his inventory.
An axe materialized in his grip—heavy, brutal, forged for slaughter.
Lightning wrapped around its blade instantly, crawling along the metal in savage arcs. The weapon hummed as if it recognized its master, the blue glow sharpening, purifying, eager.
Demos lowered the axe slightly.
The lightning didn't flare.
It tightened.
The blue and gold crawled closer to the blade, sinking into the metal until the axe looked wet—like it had been dipped in something alive. The air around it vibrated, buzzing against teeth and bone.
The goblins were the first to break.
They screamed—not war cries, but panic—and rushed him in a filthy wave. Rusted blades, jagged spears, clubs wrapped in rotting leather. Hundreds of them poured forward, tripping over glassed earth and the charred remains of their own dead.
Demos didn't move.
The first goblin reached him, leaping with a shriek—
Demos stepped forward and swung.
The axe didn't just cut.
It erased.
The goblin came apart from shoulder to hip, organs spilling free as the body flew backward in two pieces, spraying blood across the fused ground. The lightning burned through the gore midair, turning chunks of flesh into blackened scraps before they landed.
Another goblin lunged from the side.
Demos drove his elbow backward.
There was a crunch.
The goblin's skull collapsed inward, teeth and brain matter bursting out the back of its head as it dropped twitching at his feet.
They swarmed him.
Blades scraped his skin. One spear pierced his side—stuck—and Demos grabbed the shaft, yanked the goblin forward, and headbutted it.
The goblin's face caved in.
Demos ripped the spear free and rammed it through another goblin's throat, lifting it off the ground. Blood poured down the shaft, soaking his hand as he hurled the corpse into the charging mass, knocking three more goblins flat.
Screams overlapped. Bones snapped. Blood coated the ground so thick it steamed where lightning touched it.
Behind the goblins—
The giants charged.
Their steps crushed bodies without slowing. One giant swung a massive club downward—
Demos rolled beneath it.
The club flattened five goblins instead, pulping them into red paste that splashed up the giant's legs.
Demos came up inside the giant's reach and buried the axe into its ankle.
Not a clean cut.
The blade stuck.
The lightning surged inside the leg.
The giant roared as muscle spasmed and bone shattered from within, the lower leg exploding outward in a spray of blood, marrow, and iron fragments. The giant collapsed, howling, reaching for Demos—
Demos ripped the axe free and drove it straight down into the giant's open mouth.
Up.
Through the skull.
The roar became a wet gurgle before the head split apart, blood and molten bone spraying outward.
More goblins piled onto him.
They climbed his back. Clawed at his face. One sank teeth into his shoulder—
Demos grabbed it by the jaw and ripped.
The goblin's head tore free with a wet snap, spine dangling as blood poured down Demos' arm. He smashed the severed head into another goblin's face hard enough to cave it in.
A giant's fist slammed into Demos' side.
Ribs cracked.
He flew—skidding through blood and ash, carving a trench through goblin bodies.
He stopped.
Coughed.
Blood hit the ground.
Then he stood.
Slowly.
The goblins hesitated.
The giants did not.
Three of them rushed him at once.
Demos ran toward them.
He leapt, planting a foot on the first giant's knee, using it as a step. The axe came around in a brutal arc, taking the second giant's arm off at the shoulder. The severed limb crashed into the goblin ranks, crushing bodies beneath it.
Demos landed on the third giant's chest.
He punched downward.
Once.
Twice.
Each blow collapsed ribs inward, caving the chest until blood burst from the giant's mouth and eyes. On the third strike, the lightning surged inward—
The giant's torso ruptured.
Demos dropped through the collapsing body, landing in a kneel as chunks of flesh and bone rained around him.
The goblins broke.
Some turned to flee.
Others fell to their knees, shrieking.
The remaining giants slowed.
Behind them—
The colossal presence stepped forward.
Each step cracked the earth deeper than the last.
Its body radiated pressure that made bones ache and lungs burn. Blood ran from goblin noses and ears just from being near it.
Demos straightened.
His body was covered in blood—none of it slowing him.
He lifted his head.
Locked eyes with it.
And grinned.
Not wide.
Not wild.
A tight, murderous curl of the lips.