The deaths of the two Peak Archdukes went through the demon fleet like a crack through ice.
Their command structure didn't bend. It vanished. The two beings who had held this horde together, who had conquered worlds and kept a thousand ships in formation by fear alone, had been taken apart in under a minute, and every demon in the black had felt them go.
The Dukes broke.
An hour ago they had been a force that could have flattened a continent. Now they were a crowd of individual Radiant-rank horrors, demons and vampires and things that had once been beasts, each with one thought: away. Away from the eight points of light that had just unmade their masters. Some tried to tear unstable portals back to wherever they had come from. Some simply ran. The two High Radiant Archdukes still standing roared at them to hold, and were mostly ignored.
Cecilia had planned for exactly this. Phase one was the commanders. Phase two was the rout.
