Reyes was winning.
She could feel it in the way Malagar's strikes grew slower, his blocks more desperate, his movements less precise. The ichor that poured from his wounds was thicker now, darker, his regeneration unable to keep pace with the damage she was inflicting.
But it was taking too long.
Every second she spent locked in combat with Malagar was a second the Demon King had to prepare, to consolidate his power, to make the final confrontation even more difficult. The allied forces were holding the perimeter, but they were taking losses. Soldiers were dying while she danced with the executioner.
She needed to end this. Now.
Her blade found his shoulder, carving through the remaining armor. Malagar staggered, his great axe swinging wildly. She ducked under the blow, her sword finding the gap beneath his arm. Ichor sprayed across the ground.
"You're slowing down," she observed.
Malagar's laugh was hollow, ragged. "So are you."
He wasn't wrong. Her arms were trembling, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The mana around her flickered, dimmed, surged back to life. She was burning through her reserves at an alarming rate.
She needed more power.
And then—
Her comm crackled to life.
"Commander Reyes." The voice was strained, barely audible over the chaos of battle. "The Aegis is primed and ready. We've recharged the core."
Reyes's eyes widened.
She had forgotten. In the heat of battle, in the desperation of the fight, she had forgotten about the weapon that had carved a path through the fortress's defenses.
"Switch to secondary mode," she said, her voice urgent. "Now."
A pause. Then: "Commander, the secondary mode has severe side effects. It channels all absorbed mana into a single person—the strain on the body is immense. It could kill you."
"I don't care."
"Commander—"
"I said do it!"
Silence.
Then: "Understood. Activating secondary mode."
The change was immediate.
Reyes felt it before she saw it—a pressure building in the air around her, a weight that pressed against her skin, her bones, her soul. The mana from the Aegis surged toward her like a tidal wave, crashing into her body with the force of a collapsing star.
She gasped.
The power was overwhelming—ancient, terrible, beyond anything she had ever felt. It filled her veins, her lungs, her very being. Her eyes blazed with pale blue light. Her skin seemed to glow from within.
The world around her slowed.
She could see everything—the expressions on the soldiers' faces, the droplets of ichor suspended in the air, the way Malagar's body tensed as he prepared to strike.
She could feel everything—the pulse of the earth beneath her feet, the rhythm of the battlefield, the heartbeat of every living thing within a mile.
She was beyond human.
Malagar felt it too.
For the first time in centuries, he felt something that was not cold indifference.
Fear.
The force that radiated from Reyes was overwhelming—a pressure that squeezed his soul like a vice, that pressed against his consciousness with the weight of a collapsing world. It dwarfed anything he had ever felt. It even dwarfed the Demon King.
His body locked up. His great axe trembled in his grip.
"What..." His voice was barely a whisper. "What are you?"
Reyes opened her eyes.
They were no longer human. They were pools of pale blue light, burning with the power of the Aegis. She raised her blade—and the weapon transformed, its edge shimmering with contained energy, its surface covered in runes that blazed with light.
"I'm the end," she said.
She swung.
The world exploded into motion.
A million slashes erupted from her blade—not one, not a hundred, but a million. They filled the air like a storm of light, each one a crescent of concentrated energy that carved through the space between them. The slashes moved faster than sound, faster than thought, faster than Malagar could comprehend.
He raised his great axe.
The first wave struck him.
His armor shattered. The obsidian plates that had protected him for centuries exploded into fragments, scattering across the battlefield like black rain. His flesh was exposed—ancient, scarred, pulsing with dark ichor.
The second wave struck.
His great axe cracked. The massive blade that had carved through countless enemies splintered, the obsidian fracturing under the assault. He tried to block, to deflect, to survive.
But there were too many.
He managed to stop half of them.
The other half tore through him.
Ichor sprayed across the battlefield. His body was carved open—his arms, his chest, his legs. He was no longer the executioner. He was a ruin, a broken shell of what he had once been.
Reyes moved.
She crossed the distance between them in the space between heartbeats. Her blade was raised, its edge gleaming with pale blue light. Time seemed to stop—the world frozen in the moment before impact.
She swung.
The blade passed through Malagar's chest like he wasn't there.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
His body exploded.
It was not a simple death. It was annihilation. His form disintegrated from the inside out, ichor and flesh and bone scattering across the battlefield like ash in the wind. His helmet, the last remnant of his existence, clattered to the ground and rolled to a stop at Reyes's feet.
The battle was over.
Reyes stared at the helmet.
It was still, silent, empty. The executioner was dead. The ichor that had poured from his body was already dissolving into the earth, leaving nothing but the cracked obsidian of his armor and the hollow shell of his helmet.
She should have felt relief.
Instead, she felt the power burning inside her.
It was overwhelming—a furnace that threatened to consume her from within. The Aegis's energy surged through her veins, her muscles, her very soul. She could feel it pressing against her skin, trying to escape, trying to tear her apart from the inside out.
She needed to get rid of it.
Now.
She looked at the fortress. At the demon forces still pouring from its gates, their claws gleaming, their eyes burning. At the soldiers fighting and dying on the perimeter. At the chaos that had not yet ended.
She made her decision.
She would give the power a target.
Reyes moved.
She exploded forward, her body a blur of pale blue light. The ground beneath her feet shattered with each step, craters forming where she had been standing. The air around her screamed as she tore through it, the sound of her passage like thunder.
She reached the demon lines in less than a second.
She didn't stop.
Her blade was already moving, carving arcs of pure energy that sliced through the demon ranks like they were made of paper. Demons fell—dozens of them, their bodies cleaved in half, their ichor spraying across the ground. She moved through them like a scythe through wheat.
But she didn't go straight.
She went snake-like, weaving through the demon forces, her path a serpentine trail of destruction. She killed as she moved—a slash to the left, a slice to the right, each blow carrying the weight of the Aegis's power. Demons died in droves, their bodies piling up behind her.
She launched slices to her sides.
Waves of concentrated energy erupted from her blade, carving through the demon ranks on either side of her. They didn't have time to react—they were dead before they could scream. The collateral damage was immense, the ground scorched and cratered, the air thick with the smell of burning ichor.
She cleared out half of them.
It took less than a minute.
The demons that remained scattered, their courage broken, their will shattered. They had seen their comrades die by the hundreds, their bodies torn apart by a force they couldn't comprehend. They ran—not with purpose, but with blind, animal terror.
Reyes didn't chase them.
She had a new target.
The fortress doors loomed ahead—massive, dark, covered in the same pulsing symbols that lined every surface of the fortress. They had been closed since the assault began, a final barrier between the allied forces and the Demon King.
She raised her blade.
The Aegis's power surged through her, coiling around her arm, her blade, her very being. She swung—not a slice, not a cut. A wave of pure energy that erupted from her weapon and slammed into the doors like the fist of a god.
The doors exploded.
Stone and metal and ancient magic shattered under the force of the blow, fragments scattering across the entrance hall. The path to the Demon King was open.
Reyes stepped forward—
And the ancient demon struck.
It came from her side, moving with a speed that belied its age. It had been waiting, watching, biding its time. It used her own momentum against her, its claws aimed at her exposed flank.
She saw it coming.
Reyes's blade met the ancient demon's claws.
The impact sent a shockwave through her arms, her shoulders, her entire body. She was driven back, her boots carving trenches in the stone floor. The Aegis's power surged through her, trying to respond, trying to fight back—
But it was fading.
She could feel it slipping away, the energy draining from her veins like water through a cracked vessel. The pale blue light that had blazed around her was dimming, flickering, dying. Her arms trembled. Her vision swam.
She wasn't enough.
The ancient demon pressed its advantage, its claws raking across her armor. The metal screamed, tearing open, revealing the flesh beneath. Blood welled up, hot and slick.
Reyes stumbled back.
She tried to summon the power again—to call on the Aegis, to force it to respond. But there was nothing left. The secondary mode had given her everything it had. Now it was empty.
She was empty.
The ancient demon laughed—a cold, hollow sound that echoed off the shattered walls.
"Your power is gone," it said. "The weapon that saved you has abandoned you. You're just a woman with a blade and a dying hope."
Reyes raised her sword anyway. Her hands were shaking.
"I've been fighting for years," she said. "I don't need a weapon to kill you."
The ancient demon's eyes blazed.
"Then let me show you how wrong you are."
It attacked.
Reyes blocked—barely. The impact sent her skidding across the floor, her boots scraping against the stone. She was losing. She knew she was losing. The energy was draining out of her, her body already beginning to break down from the strain of the Aegis's power.
She had spent everything she had.
And it still wasn't enough.
The ancient demon struck again, its claws aimed at her throat. Reyes threw herself sideways, the blow passing inches from her face. She rolled, came up with her blade raised—
And froze.
Her arms wouldn't respond. Her legs wouldn't move. The power was gone, and her body was shutting down, the cost of the Aegis's secondary mode finally catching up with her.
The ancient demon stepped closer.
"Desperate," it observed. "Fading. Broken."
Reyes's breath came in ragged gasps. Her heart pounded in her chest, a frantic, panicked rhythm. She had pushed herself too far. She had burned through everything she had. And now—
Now she was going to die.
The ancient demon raised its claws.
Reyes stared at them.
No, she thought. No, no, no—
She tried to move. Her body wouldn't obey.