With immense difficulty, Alexander became aware that his body was drifting through the air. In truth, he felt nothing. He was utterly numb, as though life itself were withdrawing from him centimeter by centimeter. The only thing he managed to do as he descended was close his eyes.
Forgive me… Valentina… Christopher… Selestia…
Deep within his heart, the faces of those he loved most passed before him. Not only his wife, his children, and Selestia—but Hermán as well, his companions, every friend with whom he had shared laughter, meals, or blood on the battlefield.
And then, further back—tucked away in a corner he had thought forgotten—he glimpsed three silhouettes watching him from afar. They were little more than shadows, yet even so they smiled at him with a tenderness that pierced his soul.
Mom… Dad… Conet… in the end, I’m nothing but a weak man, incapable of protecting what he loves…
With those images carved into his heart, Alexander continued descending toward the merciless earth awaiting him. And the punishment came.
His body struck the ground on his back with savage force. The impact was so violent that he bounced, only to fall again—like a broken doll no longer held by anyone.
He opened his eyes for a fleeting instant, but all he saw was the darkness of unconsciousness spreading across his vision, claiming him.
Another blow was coming… but this time he felt nothing. No pain. No impact. No punishment at all.
Instead, he felt arms wrapping around him from behind.
The motion ceased.
His feet touched the ground, unable to bear his weight. And those hands—warm… impossibly warm—held him with trembling care, easing him down onto soil that no longer felt so merciless.
His body had stopped registering suffering altogether.
But he did feel the touch of a shaking hand brushing against his face. Fingers that carefully avoided the open wounds, the torn cheeks, the places from which the mephitic Daimonic miasma seeped.
And then, in the hollow where his left eye had once been, the burning returned. Not from the wind. Not from movement.
But from tears.
Tears that fell one after another, striking against the shattered flesh.
She was crying without restraint—without dignity, without reserve. Fear and desperation had stripped her of every trace of composure. Tears burned against her skin, distorting her beautiful face into an expression of anguish she made no attempt to conceal.
She did not dare close her eyes.
Something inside her—an instinct stronger than reason—whispered that if she did, Alexander would slip away forever.
And that… she could not allow.
Seeing her husband—one of the men she loved most in Kosmos—in that wretched state, bleeding out, covered in open wounds while the miasma steadily extinguished his light, shattered her from within.
She could not believe what she was seeing.
She could not accept how much Alexander had endured in so little time.
How much he had suffered.
“Oh my gods… my Alexander… the miasma…”
Those words were the rope that dragged him back from unconsciousness.
With almost inhuman effort, Alexander managed to open his remaining eye. His vision was blurred, fractured, as though the world itself had shattered along with him.
“W-w-who is…?” His voice was barely more than a torn whisper.
“Honey… it’s me. I came to… I came to help you…” Valentina bit down on her lip; guilt gnawed at her from within. “But… I arrived too late… I’m so sorry… because of me… because I wasn’t here… now you’re like this… so hurt…”
“Va… Va… Valentina…”
“Please… don’t strain yourself trying to speak. You don’t need to say anything. Just lie back… rest…” Valentina’s tears fell without pause, soaking her husband’s bloodied face. “Close your eyes for a moment… I’ll stay right here… don’t worry about anything.”
Anguish tightened around her throat with unbearable force. A knot formed so dense she could barely breathe. Seeing the love of her life reduced to such ruin tore at her soul and allowed fear to consume her without mercy.
“Forgive me, Alexander… forgive me for not being by your side to fight that monster… Oh my gods, I’m the worst wife alive! I don’t deserve someone like you!”
She lowered her gaze.
Where his left eye had once shone, only ruined flesh remained. Fragments still clung to the torn socket.
She embraced him.
She held him against her chest without caring about the Daimonic miasma seeping from his wounds, without fearing that the corruption might invade her own flesh.
She frowned as she imagined, again and again, the monster striking him, piercing him, destroying him.
“This time it’s my turn to protect you… Alexander. You don’t have to worry about anything… just like you always do… this time your wife will fix everything. I’ll eradicate that filth… and I’ll end the miasma that’s consuming you.”
She drew in a deep breath, trying to steady the trembling in her hands.
“But for now… at least… I’ll clean your eye… I’ll remove what’s left…”
Pure water formed in her palms. With infinite care, she guided it toward Alexander’s face, joining the streams above the bridge of his nose and allowing a gentle current to wash away the blood and fragments clouding his vision.
“This won’t hurt…”
Alexander struggled to breathe. Yet more than air, he seemed desperate to speak.
“Va… Valentina… Valentina…”
“Honey, just rest… listen to me… please.”
“Valentina… l-listen to me…”
His pupil strained to focus. His consciousness was returning—fragile, but resolute.
“Va… Valentina… The Dai… Daimonas evolved… into a Lord… a Lord Daimonas… he’s too strong…”
“Honey, please… just close your eyes and—”
“Valentina… p-please… be quiet… and listen to what I have to tell you… otherwise… everyone will die… this is too important.”
? ? ?
Valentina’s eyes remained wide, filled with disbelief. Not only because of everything Alexander had suffered at the Lord Daimonas’s hands… but because of what that abomination was capable of.
“Alexander… is that… is all of that true? That thing… can it really do all of that?”
“Yes…” he answered with difficulty, each word torn free with effort. “The… the Lord Daimonas can learn everything his eyes see… anything… martial arts, your movements, the way you fight… even your magical attacks and your strategies… he can assimilate it all… as long as he observes you… I realized it too late…”
“But… that’s something that…”
“Valentina… you have to warn everyone… immediately. You cannot let them engage him without knowing this.”
Her eyes widened further, and a cold tremor ran down her spine.
Alexander forced himself to remain lucid.
“If everyone attacks him with what they know… they’ll only expand his arsenal. Right now he’s mastered my way of fighting… and several of the spells I used against him…” His fingers twitched, trembling. “But I know you’ll find a way…”
He clenched his fists with what little strength he had left.
“Valentina… you have to kill him as soon as possible… if you don’t… that monster will destroy Gignit… and our children.”
Valentina nodded, but when she saw the Daimonic miasma still seeping from his wounds, she fought the urge to scream.
“But if I leave… if I don’t do something right now… the miasma will kill you!”
“Valentina, listen…” Alexander replied in a fractured voice. “Gignit is more important… it’s our home… we have to defend it… there’s no time left to try to treat me… it’s too late… and it will be worse if you don’t warn them about what I told you…”
Valentina swallowed hard, fixing him with a gaze torn between rage and despair.
“I’m not leaving you… I won’t.”
“Valentina… you have to go kill that monster. Now.”
“Don’t ask me to abandon you… I will never do that… you’re too important…”
“Valentina… please… I’m begging you… go. Quickly. Gignit… our home… everyone will die if you don’t… there’s no way to treat the miasma right now… and we can’t stop it…”
Alexander’s single eye finally focused on her. On his wife’s face there were only tears, fear… and an internal war tearing her apart.
And then he spoke again.
“In fact… there is a way… we can halt the advance of the miasma… at least until they manage to defeat the Lord Daimonas…”
“Tell me. I’ll do it!” Valentina’s tears flowed even harder, yet a desperate smile broke through. “What do I have to do?”
Alexander drew in a deep breath, as though the answer he was about to give was the last thing he had left to offer.
“Tell me… are you capable of freezing me without killing me?”
“F-freeze you…? But that’s—”
“Valentina, I’m desperate… answer me. Can you do it—yes or no?”
? ? ?
“Αγαλλιασθε, τεκνα του φωτο?· ο Κακο? απαιτει τα? ζωα? σα?, επιθυμει να γευθη τη σαρκα σα?, και εγω, ο σκοτεινο? δουλο? του, θα του δωσω ο,τι επιτασσει… παντε? υμει? θα πεθανετε.”
“ENDURE IT! That horrible sensation will pass soon!” Hermán shouted, tightening his grip on the hilt of his katana. “Don’t let this damned monster’s voice make you hesitate!”
In the eyes of Gignit’s leader burned a courage that seemed without bottom.
The Lord Daimonas observed them one by one, confirming that none yielded to his blasphemous proclamation. Its eyes, in constant motion, dissected every stance, every breath, every grip upon a weapon. It learned. It absorbed.
“Ετοιμασθε να προσφερετε τα? ζωα? σα?.”
Hermán felt a vile sting erupt in his ears and travel through his body like a current of ice.
The Lord Daimonas stepped forward. It tightened its grip on the hilt of the vertebral blade. The gesture was deliberate—almost ceremonial—and it revolted Hermán. Then, from that grotesquely vertical mouth, another bone sword forced its way out, dragging against teeth and torn flesh before being seized by its free hand.
And at that exact moment, it assumed a stance.
Both swords raised. Body slightly angled. Feet grounded.
Hermán’s eyes widened in genuine shock.
“That stance…” he whispered. “That’s Alexander’s stance.”
It was an exact replica. So precise that, for a heartbeat, his mind refused to accept what it was seeing. His friend was not there. The Lord of Gignit was not there. Only that abomination.
“You damned monster…”
The others—especially those known as The Ten Strongest—stood sweating in silence. They had recognized the stance as well.
“How the hell are you using Alexander’s stance?!” rage tore from Hermán’s throat. “How did you learn it?!”
He knew there would be no answer.
So he fell silent.
He mirrored the posture.
Both hands around the hilt of his katana. Body leaning forward. Knees bent. Stable. And then something happened that none of them expected.
The Lord Daimonas froze.
All eight eyes locked onto Hermán alone.
It released one of the vertebral blades. With both hands, it gripped the remaining sword.
It ignored everyone else completely.
And it moved again.
It adopted a new stance.
“Hermán…” UNO murmured. “That… that’s your battle stance…”
No one understood. No one dared look away. The Lord Daimonas breathed in ragged, guttural pulls, never taking its gaze off Hermán.
“Hermán…” UNO pressed. “If that thing can copy your stance… it can execute your techniques. And if it manages to reproduce your magical technique as well…”
The implication hung in the air.
But Hermán’s instincts grasped it instantly.
And before the thought had fully formed, he had already surged forward.
He did not hesitate. He did not think. He charged, utterly resolved to meet it head-on.
“CHAAAAARGE!”
Tobías surged forward after Hermán, who was already clashing his katana against the Lord Daimonas’s vertebral blades.
The sound of steel striking corrupted bone was grating—almost unbearable.
Hermán poured everything into every strike. Each movement pursued a single objective: sever that macabre enemy’s head.
They fell into a relentless exchange of slashes—a lethal rhythm in which a single misstep meant death.
The Lord Daimonas attempted to decapitate him. The motion was so fluid, so precise, that a chill ran down Hermán’s spine. The monster’s eyes tracked every gesture, every tightening of muscle, every minute shift.
But that focus became its mistake.
Hermán pivoted sharply and carved a cut across its torso. Daimonic miasma seeped from the wound… and it sealed shut instantly.
The injury didn’t last even a heartbeat.
Steel collided with vertebral blade once more.
His regeneration is instantaneous. At this rate, we’ll never bring him down.
Hermán raised his guard, slipped past another slash that would have split his shoulder, and countered—opening fresh cuts in that putrid flesh.
It’s strange… even though he’s using my stance, he’s still fighting in Alexander’s style. But… little by little, he’s beginning to move like I do.
He ducked as another strike tore toward his skull. Rolling across the ground, he sprang up—only to find the enemy no longer before him.
“Now we will be your opponents.”
The Lord Daimonas’s eyes shifted toward the voice. But before it could react, a blade drove through its back.
Two cuts.
Both sealed at once.
“We won’t let you regenerate!”
The elven brothers closed in, unleashing a perfectly synchronized barrage. Their coordination was flawless: they knew when to press, when to withdraw, when one should attack while the other evaded. The Lord Daimonas was forced into constant defense.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
It appeared as though it was sustaining severe wounds.
But the truth was far colder.
It barely registered them.
Its attention remained fixed. It observed their movements. Measured the rhythm of their strikes. Analyzed. Learned.
Just as it prepared to retaliate, a violent impact struck its legs.
From both flanks, Mansot and Tobías attacked simultaneously. Powerful kicks destabilized it; Mansot followed by driving a hunting knife into its side while Tobías carved lethal arcs with his scimitars.
UNO and DOS pressed from the front.
The others joined in.
Jhon unleashed a rapid series of cuts with his sharpened saber.
Still, the Daimonas did not fall.
“He can’t handle all of us at once!” Tobías shouted, baring a fierce grin.
“If we keep this up, we’ll bring him down!” Tadeo added, slashing with his remaining functional arm.
“Don’t get overconfident!” Hermán warned. “We don’t know what he’s capable of.”
And that was the uneasy truth.
The Lord Daimonas remained stronger than all of them.
But there was a gap in his arsenal: he did not yet know how to fight against multiple opponents at once.
Yet.
He could not respond properly at first—but little by little, he was learning.
At the beginning, he could not dodge a single strike. Then he managed to stop one. Moments later, he was blocking several.
Even so, he remained incomplete. Too many enemies pressed him at once, and his field of vision was still insufficient.
The Lord Daimonas leapt backward just as they all lunged to behead him in unison.
“Damn it… we had him,” Hermán muttered. “What is he planning now?”
The Lord Daimonas looked down at one of its hands. It opened it. It closed it.
And that vertical mouth… curved into something resembling a smile.
Suddenly, within those dark sockets—voids capable of swallowing even light—an iris appeared. Then a pupil. No sclera.
One eye.
That eye split into two.
Then four.
Then more.
Until there were ten.
Ten eyes within each socket.
Eighty in total.
And every one of them fixed itself on multiple opponents at once.
The Lord Daimonas had evolved again.
The way those eighty eyes scanned the battlefield was grotesque. They writhed across his face, erratic and viscous—like maggots crawling from a carcass.
“It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen…” UNO muttered, swallowing bile. “Those eyes… they’re so… I don’t even have the words. They’re revolting.”
“They look like worms devouring a corpse,” Mansot added, fighting the urge to vomit. “And I think the worms look better.”
“There are many eyes… and we are many…” Hermán’s thoughts snapped into place. “It’s because of us. He’s adapting to fight all of us at once.”
“Can he really evolve like that?” a demi-human asked, fear edging his voice.
“I don’t like this at all…” a beastman murmured, feeling that gaze pierce through him.
“The best option is to overwhelm him with numbers,” DOS said firmly. “Even if he has that many eyes… it won’t be enough.”
But his words died the instant they saw it.
Along the Lord Daimonas’s sides, bulges swelled outward—three on each flank, where a human’s ribs would have been.
The masses began to bleed.
A sharp point pierced through each one from within, pushing outward with a wet, nauseating sound.
Vertebral blades.
New hands tore free from the ruptured flesh and seized those bone weapons.
The Lord Daimonas’s blood—more toxic than any venom—dripped onto the earth, corrupting it instantly, leaving the ground blackened and lifeless.
But that was the least of their concerns.
“This… is horrifying…”
No one could tear their eyes away.
The Lord Daimonas now possessed eight arms.
Each more aberrant than the last.
And seven of them gripped vertebral swords.
“What the hell is that thing…?” Jhon whispered, unable to look away.
Jhon stood frozen, barely able to speak. The fear tightening around his chest only deepened when the Lord Daimonas opened its vertical mouth and thrust the one remaining free hand inside, wrenching it out of place with a sickening crack.
The sound was vile—wet and unnatural. Without pause, that hand groped within the darkness of its own body, and by forcing the maw wider—nearly splitting its jaw apart—it emerged again, dragging forth an eighth vertebral blade.
No one spoke.
They could only watch as the Lord Daimonas took one step. Then another.
“Η αγαλλιαση μου γινεται σκοτο?, γνωριζοντα? οτι η νεα μου ανεξελικτη μορφη θα ειναι το οργανο του αφανισμου σα?.”
It hurled itself at them—
And they failed to react.
The Lord Daimonas was no longer merely a monster. It was a living nightmare, an entity so grotesque that its very presence seemed to paralyze the soul. And now it was charging.
Trick. Truck. Crunch. Crack.
Bones splintered. Steel tore through flesh. Agonized screams fractured the air. Bodies collapsed. Limbs were severed. Blood spread across the earth like a dark river, staining everything it touched.
With a single sweeping motion, the Lord Daimonas claimed several lives.
And it did not slow.
More figures were cut down. One arm skewered a human effortlessly, lifting him into the air before letting the corpse slide free. Another strike tore a beastman from the line. Everything unfolded too quickly for comprehension.
Without breaking rhythm, the monster drew one of its blades toward its mouth and opened it again in that obscene, vertical split—swallowing whatever still clung to the edge.
Terror consumed those still standing. Some froze entirely, unable to take a single step.
More died.
And all of them were forced to confront a truth long whispered and now undeniable:
The Daimonas are the most evil beings in existence.
The slaughter escalated.
More bodies fell—some mutilated, others cleaved apart, others reduced to unrecognizable masses beneath the violence. And worst of all were those seized and dragged toward that aberrant maw, vanishing into its depths.
This creature—more monstrous than any other—was the culmination of corruption.
It did not laugh.
It did not revel.
There was no pleasure in its movements.
No.
The Lord Daimonas felt nothing.
And perhaps that emptiness was the most terrifying truth of all.
Yet when it lifted its gaze toward the sky, its twisted mouth curving into an “S”-shaped smile, the reason was darker still.
It did not delight in death.
It did not savor suffering.
It delighted in one thing alone.
Defiance of the heavens.
“Εχθροι του Κακου, ιδετε πω? η κακια καταπινει παν ο,τι ποτε επλασατε, και το μετατρεπει ει? σταχτην και ληθην… Καταβητω η μελαγχολια ω? νεφο? βαρυ επανω υμων, ω αποβαλοντε? ο,τι δεν υπεταγη ει? την μικροτητα σα?.”
The Lord Daimonas spun as its many arms continued carving through those in its path. At no point did it lower its gaze from the sky—as though each death were an offering to something watching above.
Hermán turned just in time to see it split a guard in two, decapitate another, and ensnare a third with tendrils that emerged from within its mouth.
It swallowed him.
“FALL BACK!” Hermán shouted, panic ripping through him. “GET AS FAR AWAY FROM THE LORD DAIMONAS AS YOU CAN!”
Most snapped out of their paralysis at the desperate command. Some fled. Others stumbled. Others could barely move—but they understood that staying meant certain death.
BOOOOOOM.
A violent explosion thundered, sending dust and fragments of earth into the air.
“What just happened…?” Hermán muttered hoarsely as the smoke began to thin.
When the dust finally cleared—
He saw him.
UNO.
The elf writhed as the Lord Daimonas used its second row of arms to seize both of his upper limbs, immobilizing him with inhuman strength.
“U-UNO…” DOS whispered, watching his brother kick desperately, struggling to break free.
“He saved us…” one of the survivors murmured, voice shattered. “That attack… it was to buy us time…”
“This can’t be happening!” UNO cried, fighting with the last of his strength. “Let me go, you damned monster!”
No one moved. Their legs refused to obey. Only DOS forced himself forward, driven by terror and desperation.
“Το σκοτο? μου διακρινει το φω? το ισχυρον εν σοι… Καρδια βαθεια και αγαθη κατοικει εν τω στηθει σου… Και ο Κακο? ηδεται οταν το φω? διασπαται και καταπινειται… Συ εση η πρωτη σφαγη, η πρωτη προσφορα επι του βωμου του… Το φω? σου θα σβησει δια των ιδιων του κραυγων… Πεθανε.”
What followed was something none of them would ever erase from memory.
The Lord Daimonas’s vertical mouth opened fully.
Then it kept opening.
It dislocated. It tore. It stretched far beyond what any living anatomy should allow.
It was no longer a mouth.
It was a rupture.
DOS’s eyes nearly burst from their sockets when, from within that abyssal cavity, two hands began to emerge. They were red—raw—slick with decomposing flesh, pulsing, as though born from something that had never been meant to exist.
That grotesque mass continued rising, forming a torso—humanoid in shape, crowned with a head, eyes, and a mouth that jerked open and shut in spasms of hunger. The hands extended toward the elf, trembling, eager.
Its eyes—crimson, set against black sclera—locked onto UNO’s. Its mouth worked without rhythm, desperate to consume the light before it.
The hands, covered in small, gnashing mouths, latched onto him. Tiny bites tore strips from his pale skin.
UNO, paralyzed by terror, stared at the aberration. He no longer tried to understand. He simply wept in silence. He knew what awaited him. There would be no afterward.
His tomorrow ended there.
“I WON’T ALLOW IT!” DOS screamed, stumbling forward, his voice breaking.
“Please… don’t come…”
It was barely a whisper—but DOS heard it as clearly as thunder.
Their eyes met. Both were crying for the same reason: this was goodbye.
“My beloved little brother… I, your older brother… give you one last order. I forbid you from dying here.”
DOS’s legs gave way. Those words were not a command. They were a farewell.
The creature’s maw widened like that of a serpent preparing to swallow its prey. Slowly, it descended over the elf’s head until darkness consumed his sight.
“Goodbye… my brother…”
The jaws snapped shut.
A dry crunch.
The head separated from the body in a single bite.
Then it began to chew.
UNO’s body convulsed—final reflexes of a system already extinguished.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” DOS’s scream tore across the battlefield. He thrashed, kicked, tried to hurl himself forward, but Tadeo restrained him with all his strength.
“RUN! EVERYONE RUN!” Hermán roared, gripping his katana until his knuckles blanched. “I’LL DISTRACT HIM!”
And he charged.
Stepping over bodies. Over severed limbs. Over blood. Tears mingling with fury. His mind buckling beneath the crushing weight of helplessness.
The creature born from within the Lord Daimonas turned its face toward him. Two of its eight arms shifted to intercept, without releasing the headless corpse still being devoured.
Katana met vertebral blades.
The sound was shrill. Grating. Unbearable.
“DON’T STOP!” Hermán twisted aside from a slash that nearly cleaved him in two and raised his guard against a thrust that skimmed his ribs. “REGROUP WITH VALENTINA! TAKE ALEXANDER AND ORGANIZE YOURSELVES! TOGETHER YOU HAVE TO—!”
One of the vertebral swords hovered microseconds from shattering his defense.
But it didn’t.
For the briefest fraction of a second, the Lord Daimonas ceased pressing forward. The entity that had emerged from within it turned its grotesque face toward something off to the side.
BOOOOOOOOM.
A detonation of pure light erupted across the battlefield, blinding Hermán for an instant.
For the Lord Daimonas, however, the effect was far worse. That blackened, rotting visage took the blast head-on. The impact was so violent that its entire body staggered sideways, freeing Hermán from the clash.
“But what—?”
He never finished the question.
A familiar figure streaked past him, slicing through the air like a living beam.
“That monster can learn and copy everything we do. Everyone fall back. This ends now.”
Valentina.
Without hesitation, she closed in on the Lord Daimonas, who was still struggling to steady himself. The area struck by the explosion smoldered; charred flesh crackled as though rejecting the energy that had scorched it.
“You’re a damned piece of filth,” Valentina hissed, releasing a barrage of radiant arrows. “How dare you kill my comrades? My friends!”
This time the Lord Daimonas retreated—not tactically, but convulsively. It writhed. Wherever the light touched, its flesh began to erode, as though the energy gnawed directly at its essence.
Light magic was hurting it.
And it was hurting it more than anything it had faced until now.
“You are the vilest stain to ever crawl across Kosmos,” Valentina drove a kick into its torso and leapt backward, landing several meters away. “There is no forgiveness for you. The mere fact that you exist is a crime.”
She moved through the air using the same technique Alexander had employed before the monster’s evolution. But unlike him, every strike from Valentina seemed to bypass the creature’s defenses and strike something deeper—something fundamental.
“You hurt my husband… MY HUSBAND! You slaughtered our comrades and friends! You committed the worst atrocity against Gignit!”
She gathered an even greater concentration of magic within her palm.
“YOU WILL PAY FOR ALL OF IT!”
“Light Magic: Light Grenade.”
The compressed sphere of light crossed the distance in the blink of an eye.
BOOOOOOOOOM.
The detonation was blinding. The Lord Daimonas was hurled backward, slamming into the ground with such violence that the earth fractured in jagged lines. Black blood spilled from him, corrupting everything it touched.
“I know how to kill you, scum… go on. Attack me,” Valentina challenged, fury blazing in her eyes. “Come on! I know you can learn everything your… ‘however many eyes’ see. Look at me. Learn.”
She hurled another Light Grenade.
And another.
Each explosion drove him back—forcing him to fall, to rise more slowly each time.
“DO IT, MIGHTY LORD DAIMONAS! COPY MY LIGHT MAGIC!”
The Lord Daimonas stood. He opened his mouth—not in that twisted smile, but like a predator about to rip prey apart.
“COPY IT!”
“Εισαι αφρων και ανικανο? να κατανοησει? το πεπρωμενον οπερ εταχθη υπο του Κακου. Συ και παντε? υμει? δεν εννοειτε οτι η αντιστασι? εστιν ματαια… Ηδη παντε? κατεκριθητε, και συ μονον παρατεινει? τον πονον σου.”
The words sliced through the air like invisible blades.
Valentina shut her eyes.
Blood began to stream from her nose. From her ears. From her eyes. Even from the corners of her mouth.
Her body reacted to the Lord Daimonas’s language as though attempting to purge something that should never have been heard.
And the Lord Daimonas—fully aware that his speech assaulted the soul—seized that instant of vulnerability. Without advancing, he unleashed a burning mass of miasma: a corrupted form of fire, seething with a dark, diseased glow.
But even impaled by agony, Valentina did not falter.
“Light Magic: Light Field.”
A vast sphere of radiance enveloped her instantly. The brilliance was overwhelming—the battlefield flared as though dawn had shattered the night in an instant. It was as if a miniature sun had descended upon Kosmos.
The miasmic flame struck the barrier and disintegrated the moment it touched the light.
“It’s exactly as Alexander said…” Her cheeks tightened and she retched, expelling what little remained in her stomach. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, never breaking eye contact with the monster. “When he speaks… you’ll feel things you’ve never felt before.”
She drew a ragged breath.
“And then you endure it… but I never imagined hearing him would be such a hell…”
She lifted her gaze. Countless attacks from the Lord Daimonas battered the luminous sphere—but none penetrated. They unraveled instantly upon contact.
“I knew it…” she murmured, steadier now. “My theory was right.”
Her eyes hardened with resolve.
“You are incapable of copying or learning light magic… and likely any magic that stands as the antithesis of your existence.”
She smiled.
Now she would return the suffering.
“Prepare to die.”
“RROOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.”
For the first time since assuming that grotesque form, the Lord Daimonas roared.
Valentina wasted no time. She spread her arms wide, palms open to either side.
“Light Magic: Luminescent Rain”
From the heavens, countless drops of light began to fall. At first glance they seemed almost beautiful—harmless, even serene. But each one burned through the Lord Daimonas’s dark flesh like sacred acid.
“RROAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.”
For the first time, the monster experienced pain unlike anything before. Its body burned. Shards of blackened flesh sloughed away beneath the relentless downpour.
“This is my chance…” Valentina whispered. “You will pay.”
“Light Magic: Light Armor.”
Her body was enveloped in armor forged from pure radiance. The brilliance was overwhelming—the battlefield awash in a near-sacred glow. The Lady of Gignit rose like an avenging deity.
She surged forward at full speed.
Her fist crashed into the Lord Daimonas’s face. The blow did more than stagger it—the flesh at the point of impact unraveled into luminous particles.
“You will answer for every life you’ve destroyed.”
A left hook.
A right hook.
Two swift kicks in succession.
The Lord Daimonas released its swords. The light sapped its strength, eroding whatever sustained its aberrant form.
Each strike Valentina delivered carried the weight of the fallen.
The luminescent rain never ceased. The agony tearing through the Lord Daimonas surpassed anything it had endured since its creation. It could not mount a defense. It could barely remain upright.
Valentina said nothing more. Words were no longer necessary. She was not speaking—she was passing judgment.
Another blow.
Another roar that thundered across the four cardinal directions of Kosmos.
Valentina leapt back, raised both hands toward the sky, and drew in even greater radiance.
“Light Magic: Light Trident.”
A trident of pure energy formed in her grasp, and without hesitation she drove it into the Lord Daimonas’s flank. The creature screamed, but she did not relent. With merciless strength, she hoisted its body overhead and hurled it into the earth with crushing force.
The impact made the ground convulse.
“RROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR.”
The Lord Daimonas howled in agony once more. But the punishment had only begun.
Valentina clenched her teeth, remembering every fallen face, every mutilated body, the sight of Alexander shattered. That fury fed her strength. She planted her feet, spread her stance, and let her aura erupt without restraint.
“Light Magic: Light Great Hammer.”
A colossal hammer of light manifested above her—towering, radiant, absolute. Valentina seized the haft with both hands and brought it down without mercy upon the Lord Daimonas.
PUM. PUM. PUM. PUM.
Each impact shook the earth. The creature, visibly ravaged now, sank deeper into the fractured ground.
She did not stop. Rage coursed through every fiber of her being. The memory of her fallen comrades, the massacre, Alexander broken—each thought fueled her arm.
“THIS IS ONLY A FRACTION OF WHAT YOU DESERVE!”
Another devastating strike.
“A MERE FRACTION OF THE PAIN YOUR HANDS HAVE CAUSED!”
The earth beneath the Lord Daimonas cracked outward like a monstrous spiderweb. The ground gave way, collapsing under the relentless assault.
At last, she allowed the hammer to dissolve—but she offered him no reprieve.
“Light Elemental Magic: Light Sword.”
A blade of pure radiance formed in her hand, brighter than any spell she had summoned before.
The Lady of Gignit stood before the Lord Daimonas.
He—reduced to a charred mass embedded in the earth.
She—upright, resolute, her gaze heavy with inexorable judgment.
“And this is for what you did to Alexander…”
She drove the blade into him.
The blade pierced his torso without resistance. The Lord Daimonas roared—this time unable to conceal the agony.
Valentina twisted the sword inside him, ripping, widening the cavity in that putrid flesh. She tore it free.
And drove it in again.
And again.
Each thrust was judgment. Each turn of the blade, a sentence carried out.
The Lord Daimonas seemed to teeter on the brink of collapse.
“It looks like Lady Valentina has finished that monster…” Jhon murmured, his voice trembling. “Maybe… maybe this is finally the end.”
“DOS, wait…” Tobías held him back with force. “Let Lady Valentina handle it. Don’t interfere.”
“I want revenge!” DOS shouted, his voice shattered. “That monster killed my brother! I have nothing left!”
“All that remains is for her to finish him once and for all…”
And then—
Something shifted.
Hermán’s eyes widened.
So did Valentina’s.
Her heart skipped violently. The fear buried beneath her fury surged back with brutal clarity. The world seemed to drain of color.
She stepped back.
Then another.
And another.
Her gaze never left the halo above the Lord Daimonas.
Until that moment, it had remained dormant.
Now it burned.
It spun faster and faster, expanding, widening—until it engulfed the monster’s entire body.
Valentina’s instincts screamed at her: end him now.
Do not hesitate.
Do not waste even a heartbeat.
“Light Magic: Light Grenade.”
She condensed a devastating concentration of energy into the projectile and hurled it with the intent to obliterate him once and for all.
But—
It failed.
The halo ceased to be a mere floating ring and transformed into a barrier. The Light Grenade struck it, yet it did not detonate against the Lord Daimonas. It was swallowed. The radiance vanished as though devoured by something unseen. Darkness consumed light.
“You damned monster…” Valentina whispered, her voice frayed and thin. “You’ve evolved to the point of defending yourself from light magic… you are… the worst calamity ever to befall Gignit…”
The halo ascended once more, and from it erupted a violent surge of miasma that shot skyward—dispersing the Luminescent Rain instantly. The light that moments earlier had scorched him without mercy was erased as though it had never existed.
Valentina’s mind struggled to comprehend it.
“This… this isn’t simple evolution… our concept of evolution doesn’t apply to you… you’re not evolving… this is something else… something is granting you power…”
And even in a ruinous state—with most of his eyes destroyed and one arm hanging grotesquely at his side—the Lord Daimonas rose again.
He lifted that broken arm forward, fingers twisted at impossible angles.
“Quickly! Take a light sword and prepare yourselves!” Valentina commanded.
“Light Elemental Magic: Light Sword.”
Dozens of radiant blades materialized and shot toward the survivors. Hermán seized one at once. DOS tore free from Tobías’s grasp and grabbed his own, vengeance burning in his eyes. The others armed themselves, tense and alert, fully aware that the nightmare was far from over.
But the Lord Daimonas had one final declaration.
“Τεκνα του Κακου, επικαλουμαι υμα? ει? ταυτην την γην, πληρη προσφορων προ? τον σκοτεινον κυριον. Εγερθητε και μολυνετε ταυτην την υπαρξιν.”
From the halo above him, dark, fetid blood began to pour. It did not fall like liquid—it spread, crawling across the earth like a living shadow. It thickened. It writhed. From that profane mire rose arms, heads, partial torsos, grotesque protrusions fusing together without order or mercy.
Valentina had never felt such despair.
That was not a defensive maneuver.
It was a ritual.
One by one, five new Daimonas clawed their way from the malignant pool—each more aberrant than the last, less human, more amalgam, as though limbs and organs had been assembled without logic, without restraint.
“Ο,τι βλεπετε εμπροσθεν σα? ειναι η προσφορα μα? προ? τον Κακο… Φονευσατε αυτου? παντα?.”
“RROOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAR.”
The five roared in unison. The sound was so vile that several nearly staggered backward—but their legs would not obey. Fear nailed them in place.
The Lord Daimonas pointed toward them.
“Πεθανετε…”
And then—
It happened.
PUUUUUNCH.
All of the Lord Daimonas’s remaining eyes burst at once. His face twisted further, his mouth splitting in an impossible distortion as his body was hurled into the darkness at blinding speed. He struck the ground violently, bouncing and carving a path of destruction behind him.
It was not light that cast him away.
It was something else.
And before them all—
A figure stood upright.
A leader.
Valentina was the first to react. Surprise lit her face, followed by a flicker of joy that was instantly replaced by disbelief.
“Then you managed to heal him! If that’s the case… he can help us…”
Hermán spoke with hope, but Valentina’s expression darkened.
“No. I didn’t heal him… I froze him so the Daimonic miasma wouldn’t kill him…”
“Then… what just happened?”
“I don’t know…”
The elf finished, her gaze fixed on the body of that man—
Alexander Hope.
He stood enveloped in a powerful, mystical aura of white light, radiating an infinite purity unlike anything they had ever witnessed.
And it was true—every wound remained visible. The cuts. The burns. The missing eye.
But at the same time… they did not seem to affect him in the slightest.
The Daimonas summoned by the Lord Daimonas recoiled at once, instinctively retreating from the Lord of Gignit as if sensing an immeasurable danger coiling around that human presence.
“Alexander?” Valentina called out. “You were supposed to be frozen… what happened? How were you able to come out?”
Alexander did not look at her immediately. His gaze remained fixed ahead. Calm. Unshaken.
“Valentina…” His voice was steady. “Let’s finish this once and for all.”
Kosmos.
