The battle did not end when hope returned.
It only became harder.
What had once been a desperate struggle for survival had transformed into a brutal war of attrition, where both sides—wounded, exhausted, and bloodied—refused to yield. The arrival of Captain Vince had shifted the balance, but it had not erased the cost of the past hours.
The battlefield still burned.
The sky had darkened fully now, the last remnants of daylight swallowed by a deep, cold night. Flames flickered across shattered terrain, casting long shadows over bodies that no longer moved. The air was thick with heat, ash, and the metallic scent of blood.
And still, they fought.
The demons, stripped of leadership but not of instinct, had devolved into something far more chaotic. Their attacks came without rhythm now, without coordination, but with terrifying ferocity.
They no longer preserved strength or formation. They simply threw themselves forward, clawing, tearing, biting with everything they had left.
