The "Sun" shouldn't have been able to exist down here.
Not under a castle. Not under layers of ancient stone, drowned murals, and blood-slick stairs. Not in a chamber that still stank of jaki so thick it made my tongue feel numb.
And yet—
It did.
The air changed first.
Heat didn't roll in like a fire. It arrived like law. A pressure that pressed down on my bones and made every breath feel like I was inhaling light itself. The orb around us—Sir Adranous' protection—shimmered harder, the surface of it turning into a faint, golden sheen, like glass held to the sunrise.
My eyes watered instantly. Not from emotion. From pain. The pain of how bright it was.
Even through the barrier, it felt like my skin was being tested for weakness.
Azazel's laugh died out.
Not because he was afraid of the "Fire."
Because the thing above Sir Adranous wasn't fire.
It was judgment wearing heat.
The chamber lit up so bright the blood on the floor looked black.
Azazel took one step back.
A demon.
Taking a step back.
His wings—those twisted, healed things—twitched as if they wanted to open, but the moment they moved, the light reacted. It wasn't a flare. It wasn't a blast.
It was… attention.
The brightness sharpened, like the sun had eyes.
Azazel hissed, and for the first time since we saw him, the sound wasn't mockery.
It was irritation.
Sir Adranous stood with both hands on his blade, the words on it still visible even through the glare.
Child of the Second Sun.
The red cape at his back didn't flutter.
It hung like a banner that had already decided the outcome.
He didn't look at us. Didn't check if we were watching. Didn't waste a single second making sure we understood.
He looked at Azazel like a man looking at a wound that needed to be cauterized.
Azazel's jaki surged in response—thick, dark, crawling across the ground like spilled oil. It pushed toward the light, trying to swallow it the way it swallowed everything else.
The two forces met.
And the collision didn't make sound.
It made silence.
A silence so heavy my ears rang.
Then—cracks.
Not in stone.
In the air.
Thin, bright fractures spread outward from Sir Adranous' blade, spider-webbing across the chamber like the world itself couldn't decide which side it belonged to.
My aura—what I'd spread earlier through dust and desperation—didn't just evaporate this time.
It recoiled.
Like my ocean didn't want to touch what was happening.
Kazen, clutching his broken arm against his chest, leaned forward, eyes wide.
Even he wasn't joking now.
Liam had his teeth clenched hard enough that blood ran from his lip. Kai's stare was dead serious. Theon—barely conscious—still tried to push up with trembling hands, only to collapse again.
And Sir Aldred… Sir Aldred wasn't sweating anymore.
He was still.
The kind of stillness you see in people who've stopped pretending they can control the situation.
Azazel lifted his chin, wings slowly spreading.
The sunlight caught the veins under his stone-like skin, and for a brief second the demon looked… older than the room. Like a war that never ended.
"You call it judgment," Azazel said, voice low now, no longer playful.
His eyes narrowed.
"I call it arrogance."
He raised one clawed hand, and the jaki around his fingers condensed—tight, disciplined. Not wild. Not sloppy. The same "regulated" feeling I'd sensed from the undead earlier, but twisted into something worse.
This wasn't hunger.
This was practice.
Azazel flicked his wrist.
The darkness sharpened into thin, curved blades—like crescent wings made of pure malice—shooting forward.
Sir Adranous didn't dodge.
He didn't even move his feet.
He tilted his sword by a fraction.
The blades hit an invisible line in the air and—
Stopped.
Not blocked.
Stopped, like they'd run into a wall that didn't permit them to exist.
Then they burned.
Not with flame.
With exposure.
They peeled apart, unraveling into smoke, and that smoke didn't rise.
It sank.
Like it was ashamed.
Azazel's smile twitched.
"Cute," he said.
Then his voice hardened.
"Let me show you what war looks like when the gods stop watching."
He slammed his foot down.
The entire chamber shook violently.
The old seals carved into the walls—those half-erased insignias and ruined murals—flared with sick light, as if awakened by impact. The ground cracked. The air pulsed.
And from the broken corners of side passages—
I heard it.
A scraping.
Bones.
Something waking up again.
Sir Aldred's jaw tightened.
"Don't you dare—" he muttered, like the words could threaten Azazel.
Azazel spread both wings fully.
And the light dimmed.
Not because the sun weakened.
Because Azazel forced the room to remember darkness.
The brightness above Sir Adranous didn't vanish—but it became concentrated, narrowing like a blade being forged. The shadows thickened, pressing inward, trying to suffocate the chamber from the edges.
It wasn't an eclipse.
It was a siege.
Sir Adranous' expression didn't change.
But the air around him did.
I felt it like a shift in gravity.
He took one slow breath through his nose.
Then he stepped forward.
Just one step.
The stone beneath his boot didn't crack.
It softened.
Like heat had turned it obedient.
And for the first time, I understood something that hit harder than any claw.
He wasn't "fighting" Azazel.
He was sentencing him.
Sir Adranous raised his sword.
The sunlight above responded instantly, a pillar of gold-red radiance dropping down like a verdict.
Azazel's grin returned, but it looked strained now.
He braced, jaki swirling into a shield—thick, layered, pulsing. The blackness screamed against the light.
The pillar hit.
The whole chamber erupted in violent wind.
Even inside the barrier, I was thrown back into Arion's flowers. Pain flared in my side where he'd been holding the wound shut, and I bit down hard enough to taste blood.
The flag bearers—still holding that red Lionhearth banner—didn't move.
They couldn't.
They were locked in place by something heavier than strength.
Duty.
The flag's red shimmered brighter for a moment, resonating with the radiance, like it recognized what kind of fight this was.
When my vision cleared, the center of the room was a furnace.
Azazel stood inside it, one knee slightly bent.
His wings smoked at the edges.
The stone armor along his shoulder was cracked.
And beneath the crack—
something pulsed.
Not flesh.
Not bone.
A core of purple-black light, faintly visible like a wound that refused to close.
A weak point.
Not the shoulder.
The corruption itself.
Sir Adranous exhaled slowly, voice calm.
"You're still standing."
Azazel's laugh came out rough.
"And you're still smiling inside, Captain."
Sir Adranous didn't smile.
He didn't waste expressions.
He shifted his grip.
The sword's inscription glowed brighter.
The air trembled again.
And I realized this wasn't the end.
That pillar—what I thought was the "big move"—had been a test.
To see if Azazel could be pinned.
To see if judgement could touch him.
Azazel straightened, rolling his neck like he did before slaughtering us.
"You brought the sun into a hole," he said.
His voice lowered into something almost respectful—almost.
"Let's see how long you can keep it alive."
He spread his arms.
Jaki surged outward like a tide, slamming into the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The symbols carved into stone—new and old—lit up one by one, not all at once, but in sequence.
Like a ritual that had been waiting for a cue.
The chamber's exits… groaned.
And began sealing tighter.
Not just the door we came through.
The side tunnels too.
Stone grinding. Locks turning. Ancient mechanisms engaging.
Azazel wasn't trying to escape.
He was making sure no one else got in.
Kazen, pale, sweat running down his face, whispered, "He's… locking the battlefield."
Varein tried to rise and immediately hissed, cracked ribs making him fold.
"Of course he is," he rasped. "Demons love trapping people."
Sir Aldred's eyes narrowed, his voice low and harsh.
"He's not trapping us."
Sir Adranous stepped forward again, closer now, heat wrapping around his armor like a second skin.
Sir Aldred finished the thought.
"He's trapping the saintess."
My stomach turned.
I hadn't seen Lumiel since the night before.
I hadn't seen her since the throne room doors shut.
And down here—beneath the castle—there had been blood everywhere.
Too much blood.
Azazel noticed my face change.
He tilted his head, amused.
"You're thinking about her," he said softly, like he was enjoying the taste of the thought.
I forced myself to breathe.
My vision blurred for a second.
Not from weakness.
From rage that I couldn't afford.
Sir Adranous spoke, voice cutting through it.
"Azazel."
The demon's eyes flicked toward him.
Sir Adranous lifted his sword again.
The sunlight overhead tightened further, becoming sharper, denser, like a star compressing into a weapon.
"This is your judgement."
Azazel's wings flared.
"And this," he said, voice dropping into something ancient and cruel, "is your war."
They moved.
I didn't see them move.
I saw the aftermath.
A shockwave tore through the chamber, shattering loose stone into a storm of dust and debris. The barrier sphere around us flared violently, holding. Barely.
Sir Adranous appeared at Azazel's flank, blade slicing down.
Azazel twisted mid-air, claws meeting steel.
Sparks—no, sunlight—exploded outward.
Azazel's knee drove into Sir Adranous' ribs.
Sir Adranous slid back three steps, boots carving lines into molten stone.
He didn't fall.
He didn't even stagger.
He rolled his shoulder once, like adjusting a cloak.
Then he attacked again.
Fast. Clean. No wasted motion.
Azazel met him with brutality.
Not sloppy brutality.
Disciplined brutality.
Like a monster who'd learned exactly how much violence it took to break knights.
Their clash lit the chamber in pulses.
Gold-Red. Black-Purple. Golden-Red. Black.
Each impact made my bones vibrate.
And every time the light surged, I felt it in my skin—like a reminder that what I'd called "aura" was still just a candle compared to this.
I watched Sir Adranous fight, and for a moment, my mind did something dangerous.
It compared.
It measured.
It imagined.
Then it stopped.
Because if I let myself dream while we were still bleeding on the floor, I'd get everyone killed again.
Sir Adranous' aura flared once more, pushing Azazel back.
Azazel skidded across the stone, leaving gouges.
He looked up, eyes burning.
And for the first time since he revealed himself—
the demon looked irritated in a way that wasn't performative.
Sir Adranous was hurting him.
Not enough.
But real.
Azazel wiped blood from his chest where Rain's earlier slash had cut deep. The wound was still there, refusing to close cleanly under the sun's pressure.
He stared at his own blood like it offended him.
Then he smiled slowly.
"Oh," he said, voice almost pleased.
"So that's what it takes."
He raised his hand.
Jaki condensed again—tight, controlled.
And the symbols on the walls pulsed in response, like they were answering a command.
The undead scraping in the side chambers grew louder.
Closer.
Sir Aldred's face went colder than I'd ever seen it.
"Captain," Sir Aldred said sharply, to Sir Adranous. "He's about to—"
Sir Adranous didn't look away from Azazel.
"I know."
Azazel's voice echoed across the chamber, calm now.
"Let's see how bright your judgement is," he murmured, "when the dead start marching again."
The seals cracked.
And something behind the walls—something that had been sleeping for a long time—shifted like it had heard its name.
I tightened my grip on my sword even though my arms were shaking.
Not because I thought I could join that fight.
Because I understood the truth now.
Sir Adranous didn't come here to save us and end it clean.
He came here to hold the line long enough for the next step.
And if that next step didn't arrive—
then the sun we were borrowing would set in a hole under a foreign castle, and none of us would leave.
The chamber trembled again.
The undead scraping turned into footsteps.
And Azazel's grin widened.
"Judgement," he repeated, tasting the word.
"Show me."