The guards opened with a coordinated volley, firearms thundering in unison as muzzle flashes lit the smoke-choked air. In response, drakoraths surged forward, greatshields locking together to form a moving wall. Bullets slammed into demonic metal with sharp cracks, skidding and sparking, leaving only shallow scratches across the dark plates as the formation absorbed the impact and continued advancing.
From above, Prince Mark rained fire into their ranks. His twin-barreled gun roared, superheated, magically reinforced rounds punching clean through armor that moments ago had seemed impenetrable. Demons fell in chunks and sprays, their bodies torn apart with ruthless efficiency.
A sudden roar sounded behind him.
Prince Mark barely had time to turn before Slakerm was on him. The drakorath's jaws clamped down hard on Mark's right arm and the weapon mounted there, teeth screeching against reinforced plating. With a violent twist of his body, Slakerm slammed him sideways into a nearby building. Stone and wood exploded outward as they crashed through the wall, momentum carrying them into the interior of what looked like an office or bank—desks shattered, papers and debris thrown into the air as they skidded across the floor.
"Hands off me, you brute!" Prince Mark snapped, flat on his back as he drove a punch toward Slakerm's head. The drakorath released his bite just in time, recoiling as the blow narrowly missed. He backed off a step, blood-red wrist blades snapping fully into place with wet, mechanical clicks, each foot-long edge gleaming as he crouched low and growled.
"Skewer you."
Prince Mark rolled to his feet and glanced down at his right arm. The weapon was damaged beyond use. He clicked his tongue sharply. "Out of the backup ammo as well," he muttered, then raised his gaze to Slakerm, fists coming up as he squared his stance. "Come on then. Let me show you how strong a Noble is, even without our weapons."
Slakerm roared and charged.
Outside, Calvinel caught the burst of dust and debris erupting from the ruined building and spared it only a brief glance. *He'll be able to handle himself,* he thought, already turning his attention back to the fight. Two sharaykthuns closed in on him, their curved swords flashing. He met them head-on, greatsword ringing as he blocked their strikes. Frost spread across the stone beneath their feet in an instant. One demon slipped violently, losing its balance, while the other hissed and managed to scramble free.
Calvinel drove his blade straight through the chest of the fallen one. The second swung at his head, forcing him to abandon the embedded sword and leap backward. He thrust out a hand and unleashed a blast of cold. Ice crawled over the demon's body in a heartbeat, the coldblooded creature stiffening, limbs locking as it froze in place. Calvinel surged forward, tore his greatsword free, and cleaved the immobilized demon clean in half. Its body hit the ground in two lifeless pieces.
He exhaled in short, sharp breaths. "If only I could do it in a wide area and take all of those problematic ones out," he muttered, eyes flicking toward the guards now fighting at close range with halberds, struggling to hold their line against the press of demons. "But everyone besides me would suffer from it. Best to keep that as a last resort."
His thoughts were cut short by a violent clash of sound—grinding metal, screaming teeth, and bone-on-steel impacts hammering together in rapid succession. Loud mechanical shrieks and brutal, tearing vibrations echoed across the battlefield. Calvinel turned toward the source, eyes locking onto the duel unfolding at the center of the chaos—the Knight Commander and the Guard Commander locked in combat, chainsaw-sword and hellbeast-bone greatsword colliding again and again.
Kharveth wielded the greatsword in a way no one watching would have expected. Rather than using it as a cleaving weapon—wide arcs, heavy chops, brute force like Calvinel favored—he held it one-handed and fought as though it were a fencing blade. The massive length of bone moved with unnerving finesse, the tip darting forward in precise thrusts, short swishing cuts snapping out and retracting just as quickly. It was elegant in a way that felt wrong to witness, a towering colossus treating a man-sized weapon with the delicacy and control of a duelist's foil.
The Guard Commander gritted his teeth as he met each attack. His chainsaw-sword screamed to life with every interception, grinding violently as rotating teeth caught the flat or edge of the bone blade. He did not have the luxury of wide movements. Each block was tight, economical—angling the blade to deflect rather than absorb, twisting his wrists to redirect thrusts away from his centerline. Sparks, bone dust, and shredded teeth sprayed with every clash as he stepped, pivoted, retreated, always a fraction of a second from being skewered.
Kharveth pressed without haste. A thrust aimed for the throat. The Guard Commander snapped his weapon sideways, forcing it off-line. A flick of the wrist followed—barely more than a twitch—sending a shallow cut slicing toward the ribs. The Guard Commander turned his shoulders just enough for it to scrape past, the chainsaw-sword coming up again in time to catch the next probing strike. His boots dragged grooves into the stone as he was driven back, breath heavy, arms burning from the effort of keeping pace.
He could feel it.
Kharveth was holding back.
Not to toy with him, not to savor the duel, but because anything more would be catastrophic. If the Knight Commander fought at full power, the demons around them would be obliterated. The city might not survive. Perhaps even the world itself would fracture under the strain. That restraint made the duel even more terrifying—this was Kharveth measured, controlled, contained.
And yet… Kharveth was surprised.
He had respected the Guard Commander's words, the resolve he had shown his people, but he had not expected him to last this long. A being of the Second Generation facing someone of the Fifth should not have been stalled like this. Not without the Fifth being an Outlier. But the old man did not feel like one. There was no distortion, no wrongness to him—only grit, discipline, and something else Kharveth could not yet name.
With a smooth, fluid motion, Kharveth rolled his wrist and drew the greatsword back, the tip dipping for a heartbeat. Then he lunged.
The thrust was perfect—fast, straight, and deceptively gentle. The Guard Commander reacted a fraction too late, chainsaw-sword dragging across bone as he tried to parry. The point slipped past his guard.
But it did not pierce flesh.
Instead, Kharveth adjusted at the last instant, the blade sliding just deep enough to catch cloth. In the same motion, he pulled upward, the edge slicing cleanly through fabric as he withdrew. The Guard Commander stumbled back a step, upper garments severed and falling away, his torso laid bare.
Kharveth's eyes narrowed behind his helmet.
The Guard Commander's body was covered in ritualistic cuts, patterns carved deliberately into his skin—dense, layered, and unmistakably recent.