The attack came sooner than expected.
Not with fanfare.
Not with an army.
Not with ritual banners of a Goetia house.
It came with silence.
Malerion felt it first
a faint tremor in the emotional field of the Lust Ring, like a discordant note struggling to hide behind normal noise.
He froze mid-step in the main hall of Sin Rouge.
Inside him, the Fourth Ring pulsed once
slow, deep, resonant.
"They're coming."
Alastor's voice buzzed in his mind like a radio tuning to a specific frequency.
"Three of them. Concealed. Magical suppression."
Malerion didn't turn.
"Quill."
The demon immediately looked up from the counter, where he was carving runes into a metal cylinder.
"Yes, boss?"
"They're here."
Quill didn't ask who. He already knew.
He snapped his fingers sharply.
The back door swung open, and five trained fighters stepped in members of Malerion's growing force. All loyal. All enhanced by resonance. All armed with Quill's latest invention.
Runic weapons.
Blades, batons, gauntlets, and short spears
each one etched with glowing sigils designed to hold and channel small fragments of Malerion's Echo Qi.
Quill raised a hand.
"Runic charge activate."
A soft hum filled the room as the rune arrays lit up with faint violet light.
The weapons vibrated.
Not with normal magic
but with Malerion's reversed, stabilized resonance.
One fighter grinned.
"Oh yeah. That's the good stuff."
Quill smirked.
"These are batch one. Not perfect. But they'll keep you alive."
Dreg positioned himself by the front door.
Liza took the rafters.
Skit and Bit hid behind crates ready to ambush or run depending on the situation.
Donnie calmly loaded her revolver with Quill's etched rounds.
The room grew still.
Then
BOOM.
The door didn't break.
It folded, bending inward with unnatural force.
A shadow slipped through the crack, followed by two more.
Three assassins.
Masked.
Silent.
Dressed in Lust Ring noble armor, dyed black to hide their heraldry.
The Lesser Goetia houses had sent their first attempt.
Malerion stepped forward slowly.
His voice was calm.
Even bored.
"You took longer than I expected."
One assassin lunged immediately
fast, precise, blade coated in alchemical venom meant to destabilize demonic bodies.
He never reached Malerion.
Quill's runic spear slammed into him sideways, the impact sending a crack of violet light across the room.
The assassin was hurled into a pillar, mask shattering on impact.
The second assassin launched runic chains
high-level binding spells stolen from Goetia vaults.
Liza appeared behind him mid-cast and stabbed him in the leg, then disappeared again before his scream finished leaving his throat.
Dreg roared and grabbed the third assassin with raw force, slamming him into the floor hard enough to crack tile.
But this was no ordinary strike.
Across the room, the runes on Dreg's gauntlets flared
charged with Malerion's resonance.
The impact echoed like thunder.
The assassin stopped moving.
The first assassin recovered quickly, faster than a sinner, faster than a normal hellborn.
He pointed a talisman toward Malerion.
A spike of raw noble-tier magic shot forward.
Alastor hissed inside him.
"Dodge"
Malerion didn't dodge.
He stepped into the attack.
Let the spell hit.
The talisman exploded
but instead of ripping through him, the force bent around his body, dispersing into thin violet lines.
The assassin froze.
"…what are you?"
Malerion raised his hand.
Resonance gathered around his palm
dense
controlled
perfectly stable.
"Something you should have feared sooner."
He flicked his fingers.
Echo Pulse.
A shockwave of silent vibration burst outward, concentrated like a bullet.
It struck the assassin full in the chest.
He flew backward
hit the wall
then hit the ground.
Unconscious.
Alive.
Barely.
The fight was over in less than twenty seconds.
Silence returned.
The runic weapons flickered softly as their charge faded.
Quill adjusted his goggles, chest heaving from adrenaline.
"Well," he said.
"That wasn't bad for a first attempt."
Donnie kicked the unconscious assassin.
Dreg cracked his knuckles.
"Cowards."
Liza crouched near one of the broken masks.
"They'll send more."
Skit whispered,
"Guys… uh… should we… be scared?"
Donnie crossed her arms.
"So what now?"
Malerion turned to Quill.
"We prepare the next batch of runic weapons."
Then to the others:
"And we let the lesser Goetia know something they failed to understand tonight."
He lifted his hand; resonance drifted like violet smoke across his fingers.
"I am not easy prey."