Leo stood frozen, the air around him thickening with a pressure that made his lungs burn. He didn't care about the base, the war, or the fate of the world—his eyes were locked on Jane's battered form.
*Nova, how strong is the 10th Commander?* Leo's mental voice was sharp with desperation.
*For you humans, the power she is channeling is astronomical,* Nova replied, her tone uncharacteristically somber. *If your Commander can endure the strain and fight with everything she has, there is a sliver of a chance. But the cost... the cost will be high.*
*How do we kill them?* Leo demanded.
*Demons are vulnerable to pure spiritual energy,* Nova explained. *But when using dark energy—the very power Lyra is wielding—you must overwhelm them. You must use such an excess of force that their regeneration cannot keep pace with the destruction.*
Leo looked back at the battlefield, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Lyla stood her ground, her blood-red hair whipping in the wind. "Are you the Harbinger?" she asked, her voice steady despite the tremors in the earth.
The demon's smile was thin and razor-sharp. "Yes. I am a Harbinger."
"A Harbinger?" Lyla repeated, the word tasting like ash.
"It is a rank," the demon explained, his voice smooth and melodic. "The third strongest tier in our hierarchy. Above us are only the Origins, and above them... the King himself."
Lyla felt a jolt of shock, but her expression remained a mask of cold iron. "You're here to cull us. I won't allow that. You'll have to go through me."
"A noble sentiment," the demon said. Suddenly, his voice dropped an octave, turning into a guttural, ancient growl. "But know this: I have no mercy for my opponents. I will not stop until my last breath is spent." Then, as quickly as it had changed, his voice became friendly again. "By the way, my name is Draven."
Draven stretched out his hand. In a blur of dark light, a jagged, obsidian katana materialized in his palm. He glanced at Jane, who lay exhausted and broken nearby, her blue aura completely extinguished. "Take her away," Draven said, his eyes gleaming with a strange respect. "Or I will be forced to kill her where she lies."
Lyla didn't hesitate. She moved with such explosive speed that she appeared as a red blur, whisking Jane back to the safety of the armored vehicles and returning to her position in less than five seconds.
The moment she landed, Draven was already upon her. He swung his blade in a horizontal arc aimed at her chest. Lyla drew her sword in a flash of steel, blocking the strike with a shower of sparks. But as the blades clashed, she realized Draven was no longer in front of her. He was behind her.
*Blood-Moon Waltz!* Lyla whispered.
She felt a sudden, chilling sensation. Draven's weapon began to liquefy, turning into a swirling mass of dark, metallic fluid. Lyla knew instinctively that if even a drop touched her, it would slice through her armor like a hot wire through wax. Before the liquid could reach her, she executed a high-speed blitz, the force of her movement shattering the ground. Luckily, the underground base was reinforced with a massive titanium-alloy roof, designed for exactly this kind of catastrophic impact.
"Impressive," Draven remarked, his voice echoing through the dust. "Even my Harbinger's Gaze couldn't pin your movements."
Lyla appeared behind him, her blade already mid-swing. But Draven's entire body dissolved into liquid, exploding outward in a violent spray. Lyla blitzed away just in time, sensing his presence high above. She leaped, the pressure of her jump so intense that the ground gave way, and a cloud of debris followed her into the sky.
She saw a single drop of the thick, blood-like liquid hovering in the air. "Annihilation," she whispered.
Lyla began to circle the drop at such incredible speed that the debris and clouds began to form a massive, dark tornado. The liquid coalesced back into Draven's form. He was smiling. "It's been an eternity since I felt this alive!"
Lyla plummeted toward him, her sword leading the way. The dark tornado followed her descent, amplifying her momentum. Draven raised his blade to block, but the impact was cataclysmic. The force drove him straight through the reinforced metal roof of the base. He crashed into the lower levels, leaving a gaping hole in the surface.
Lyla landed at the edge of the crater, her breath ragged. She knew she had pushed too far, but the kill was within reach. "Get out here and face me!" she screamed.
Draven surged back to the surface, his armor cracked but his spirit unbroken. "That was an incredible surge of energy," he admitted, his eyes glowing with a feral light.
He began to run, circling Lyla so fast he became a ring of shadow. "Echo of the Void!"
Multiple after-images of Draven materialized, each one exploding in a burst of dark energy. Lyla dodged and parried, her movements becoming increasingly frantic. Then, the real attack came—a massive, swirling sphere of dark energy, like a miniature black hole, hurtled toward her.
Lyla didn't have time to dodge. She slammed her gloved hand forward, dispensing all five remaining pills at once. She focused every ounce of the resulting demonic surge into a desperate defense.
*BOOM.*
The explosion leveled the surrounding structures. As the dust cleared, Lyla stood trembling, her eyes wide and vacant.
"Lyla! What did you do?" Annie's voice screamed through the earpiece.
Lyla's skin was turning a bruised, sickly purple. Her teeth were sharpening into points. She remembered Annie's warning: *"If you use all five at once, you might turn into a real demon. I don't know if you'll ever come back. Please, don't do it."*
Lyla smiled, a twisted, pained expression. Her body felt heavy, her muscles tearing under the strain of the 11th Commander's power. She could barely move.
"You truly are entertaining," Draven said, walking toward her with measured steps.
*Ignore the pain,* Lyla thought, her consciousness slipping. *Pass the limit. Be stronger.* "Calamity Pulse!" she roared.
Her heartbeat slowed to a rhythmic, heavy thrum. She moved in a blur of violence, striking Draven over and over—a hundred cuts in a single second. But as she landed the final blow, her sword shattered.
The fifteen-minute timer hit zero.
Lyla collapsed, her body hitting the dirt with a dull thud. She lay motionless, her heart pumping so weakly it was barely a flutter. Blood pooled in her mouth as she coughed, her vision fading to black.
Suddenly, a massive surge of spiritual energy sliced through the air. Draven's body was carved into pieces before he could react. It was Jane. She had forced herself back up, consuming her final stabilizer pill in a desperate bid for victory.
"You... you crazy spiritual-energy users!" Draven screamed, his severed parts beginning to knit back together with a furious speed.
Jane slashed and hacked, her blue aura flaring with a dying light. But the exhaustion was too much. Draven caught her mid-air, his hand closing around her throat. He began to squeeze, his eyes filled with a murderous rage. Jane tried to channel her energy, but her body was a hollow shell.
Then—
A voice echoed across the wasteland, cold, deep, and vibrating with a power that made the very atoms of the air stand still.
"Draven."
The demon froze.
"You're hurting my host's friend."
An invisible, crushing pressure slammed into the battlefield. Draven was forced to his knees, the earth cracking beneath him. Every soldier in the vicinity collapsed, not dead, but fainted from the sheer weight of the spiritual release.
The figure walked toward Draven, each step sounding like a funeral bell. Draven looked up, his eyes wide with a terror he hadn't felt in centuries.
"Nova..." he whispered.
To be continued...