Winter had been fighting since the very beginning of the invasion.
Demons. A demon knight. A Demon Lord.
All at once.
Weeping Phantom had spent the early part of it cheering loudly for his death from the sidelines. She had stopped doing that a long time ago.
Two hours had passed.
Winter was not tired in the slightest.
The demons were.
Two full hours of relentless combat had ground them down physically and mentally. Their movements were slower, their formations sloppy, their strikes desperate. Winter's were not. Every thrust of his spear was clean, economical, final. Demons charged him in waves and were cut apart just as quickly, bodies bursting and falling in pieces. Watching them rush him was like watching lemmings throw themselves into a grinder.
Blood—demonic blood—covered the field. It had pooled so deeply that it reached Winter's shins, a dark, churning mire of viscera and ichor that rippled every time another body hit the ground.
"For Michael's sake!" shouted a thin, tall demi-human man with tiger ears and a tail, his voice cracking with strain. "No wonder Ercale couldn't win! How the hell are you still going?!"
Winter did not respond. He simply stepped forward and skewered another demon through the chest, wrenching the spear free in one smooth motion as two more rushed him and died seconds later.
"Lord Rimus."
The demi-human man snapped his head to the side, long orange hair tied in a ponytail whipping in the wind as his blue eyes locked onto the demon knight beside him. "What is it?"
"We are running out of troops," the demon knight said bluntly.
Rimus scoffed without humor. "I can see that. And how exactly do you propose we fix it?" His gaze flicked back to Winter, calculating, grim. "We can't disengage. And I know for a fact we can't win—even if the three of us attacked him at once."
Weeping Phantom snapped her head toward him. "The three of us?" she asked, raising a brow.
"Yes. The three of us," Rimus replied flatly, turning to face her. "Did you honestly think I was going to let you stand there and do nothing?"
Her expression twisted. "And what exactly am I supposed to do? You're both stronger than me. I already lost to him once—and I was captured because of it!"
"And the fact that I didn't kill you for leading him straight to our portals is already more mercy than you deserve," Rimus snapped. He stepped closer and jabbed a finger into her chest. "Do not test me further. You're fighting him as well."
Weeping Phantom opened her mouth to argue—
Rimus cut her off by pulling a folded piece of paper from his coat, a sigil etched into its surface. It glowed briefly, the light folding inward as the paper reshaped itself, hardening and lengthening until it became a sword—its design unmistakably similar to her own.
He thrust it into her hands.
"Enough talking," he said coldly. "It's time."
With that, Rimus turned back toward the battlefield. The demon knight followed suit. Weeping Phantom hesitated only a second longer, muttering a curse under her breath before letting out a resigned sigh.
Then all three of them faced the Chosen One.
Winter let out a short huff as he finished cleaving several demons in half with a single, clean sweep of his spear. "This is going to take a while to wash off," he muttered. He dragged a blood-slicked hand back through his equally bloodied hair to clear it from his eyes, then turned his attention to the three figures facing him.
"Traitor," he said calmly, looking directly at Weeping Phantom. "After all the time we spent together, you go back to their side?"
"Shut up!" she snapped, annoyance sharp in her voice as she raised her sword. "I know we're a joke to you. You don't have to remind us."
"He is attempting to provoke you," the demon knight said evenly, halberd raised in a guarded stance. "Do not fall for it."
"On my command," Rimus said, already pulling out two paper talismans etched with sigils. "One. Two."
Winter flicked his wrist, snapping the blood from his spear in a tight arc before settling into a low stance, both hands firm on the shaft, the tip leveled at them.
Before Rimus could say three, the world shifted.
It hit all of them at once. The simultaneous deaths of five Demon Lords rippled through the air like a pressure wave, heavy and unmistakable.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Rimus muttered through clenched teeth.
"Did I… did I just feel what I think I felt?" Weeping Phantom asked, her hands trembling.
"It would seem so," the demon knight confirmed.
Winter laughed. It was genuine, sharp, and incredulous. "Well, would you look at that," he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "Doesn't even matter if I stop you now. You're getting your asses kicked all across Aetheria." He shook his head, still amused. "I almost feel bad for you. Ercale would never have let this happen."
Before either of them could respond, the demon knight abruptly dropped to one knee. His halberd drove into the ground as he bowed, posture rigid and reverent.
"Huh?" Winter blinked, genuinely confused. "What is he doing?"
Rimus smirked as Weeping Phantom's shaking finally stopped. "He's here," the Demon Lord said.
He produced five separate talismans in quick succession and slapped them onto the kneeling demon knight's armor. The sigils flared briefly, then sank into the metal.
"Now let's see how you handle this, Chosen One," Rimus added with a low chuckle.
The Demon Knight rose.
His halberd was in one hand and then he simply vanished from Winter's sight. There was no sound, no distortion. Even the blood pooled at their feet did not ripple.
He was suddenly there.
Right in front of Winter.
The halberd mid-swing. Winter reacted on instinct, snapping his spear up to block. The impact was catastrophic.
*Heavy!*
The force lifted him clean off the ground, hurling him skyward as though he weighed nothing at all. He tore upward through the air, past the clouds, before twisting and, for the first time in five hundred years, calling on his fire magic. Flames burst from his feet, arresting his ascent and bringing him to a halt.
Hovering above the clouds, Winter shook his head once, centering himself, then looked forward.
The Demon Knight floated there as well.
White plate armor pristine and unblemished, almost angelic—made even more so by the pair of pure white wings that had suddenly formed on his back, their slow, deliberate flaps keeping him aloft.
The Demon Knight pointed his halberd at Winter.
A silent challenge to duel.