Suddenly, I slammed into something cold and unmoving.
A cloud.
My body hit the surface hard, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs as pain rippled through my chest. When my vision steadied, I realized where I was, near the Lake of Aqualis. For a brief moment, I could not tell whether I had fallen from the sky or whether the sky itself had rejected me.
I pushed myself upright and stared at what lay beneath my boots.
A cloud.
Solid and unyielding.
Cold seeped through the soles of my boots, the surface shifting slightly under my weight yet resisting like packed stone wrapped in mist.
"How can a cloud be solid," I muttered.
"Brace yourself," Noctur said, his voice low and urgent. "We are facing another demon."
I scanned the horizon. The sky began to collapse inward, darkening and thickening, folding upon itself. Rain poured violently, heavy and relentless. Thunder tore through the heavens like clashing blades.
This was not weather. It was pressure, as if the heavens themselves were being crushed into a single point above me.
"What kind of demon does this," I asked.
"A spiritual one," Noctur replied. "Its power is not meant to wound the body, but to drain the spirit. It pulls you from certainty into doubt, from strength into weakness."
Something tightened in my chest, not fear, but recognition. This was not an enemy I could outrun.
"Oh. Is that,"
"Watch out," Noctur shouted.
The sky exploded.
Sound vanished. Light devoured everything. For a single instant, there was only white and the certainty that hesitation meant death.
A thousand lightning bolts tore downward, blinding and instantaneous. I reacted on instinct, ripping myself into the Shadow Realm just as the air where I stood shattered apart.
"That was close," Noctur said.
I steadied my breathing. "Then how do we defeat it."
Noctur's tone sharpened with certainty. "Demons want fear. They want you to believe their power is absolute and that yours is nothing. They strike where your awareness slips, where your focus weakens."
I clenched my fists. "Then how do you know what this one is capable of. How can you be so sure."
Noctur's voice hardened. "Because this storm is not trying to kill you. It is trying to make you kneel."
I teleported atop the tallest tree in Forester.
The bark groaned beneath my boots as the tree bent violently, its roots screaming against the soil below. Wind howled around me as I raised my hand and summoned veils of shadow. They tore into the solid clouds above.
The sky answered.
The clouds twisted and compacted, descending into form. An eight foot figure emerged, horned, winged, its body carved from stormlight and wrath.
"So this is its true form," Noctur murmured.
The demon's voice boomed across the sky, each word pressing against my thoughts, daring them to bow. "You slew my younger brother. He was the weakest of us. Even my elders pale compared to me."
It lunged.
"No matter how many of you there are," I said calmly, "I will send you back where you belong."
I tore open the Shadow Realm and dragged it inside with me.
Darkness swallowed us whole.
"Where have you taken me," the demon roared.
A shadowed reflection of myself stepped forward. "My realm," it said. "Here, you fight without feeding."
I bound it in veils of shadow and summoned clones to strike, but it only laughed.
"You are not my level."
The sky ignited.
Lightning tore through me, followed by molten force. My body shattered, then reformed. Again. And again.
Pain existed only long enough to be acknowledged before it was stripped away, leaving exhaustion instead of fear.
I did not attack.
I endured.
Time lost meaning. Hours passed, measured not in strikes, but in refusal. The demon screamed and raged, unleashing everything it had, unaware that with every blow, it weakened.
There were no spirits here. No fear to consume. No souls to drain.
Only me.
When it finally fell to its knees, its lightning flickered like a dying flame.
"How," it whispered.
Noctur emerged from the shadows. "You mistook power for authority."
I stepped forward, blade at its throat. "And you got arrogant."
The shadows closed around it, and with one motion, I ended it. The demon was dragged screaming into the abyss, back to where it belonged.
When silence returned, my knees buckled. I collapsed against the cold ground, breath ragged.
"That was exhausting," I muttered.
"Congratulations," Noctur said. "You endured. But the work is not finished. Get up."
I forced myself to my feet. "I know. The people still need me."
Noctur's presence grew heavier. "This is why I chose you. Even when your spirit is drowned, even when nothing remains to draw from, you continue."
His voice lowered. "That is why God chose you, Kael. Not because you would never fall, but because you would rise without needing to be seen."
I straightened.
"When every spirit is drained," he continued, "your will still stands."
"Arise. One more demon remains."
I nodded once. "Right. One more."
In a breath, I vanished.
I reappeared above Forester, cloak billowing, hovering among storm torn clouds. Rain slowed, thunder echoed distantly. I pulled my hood low and let the quiet settle, if only briefly.
Then I saw it.
Below, the lake churned violently. A massive whirlpool formed at its center. Thousands of souls erupted outward, some ascending toward heaven, others burning away into nothing.
"Souls imprisoned beneath the lake," Noctur said. "Likely the demon's power reserve."
The water surged violently, and a dragon emerged.
Its body was not flesh, but living water, shaped by a will older than the island itself.
"How do we fight something we cannot touch," I asked.
"Speak first," Noctur replied. "If it meant to kill you, it already would have."
I approached, cloaked in shadow.
The dragon remained still. Watching.
"Are you the one who freed me," it asked.
"Yes."
"Thank you," it said. "I am Aqualis, guardian of humans on this island, imprisoned long ago."
"I still hunt one more demon," I said.
Aqualis stilled. "Mnemos. He corrupts memory and desire. He will not attack your body, but your identity."
"I will end him."
Water shifted. Light bent. The dragon's form dissolved, reshaping into a woman standing barefoot upon the lake, hair flowing like liquid silver.
She studied me carefully.
"You freed me without asking for reward," she said softly. "You fought because it was right."
She stepped closer, unafraid of the shadows surrounding me.
"Be careful, Kael Umbra. Not all battles are won by strength."
She stepped back, her form fading into water.
"If you return, the lake will welcome you as more than a warrior."
The water closed without a ripple.
As I turned away, something settled between us, not longing, but inevitability.