Chapter 29

  A new energy surged through me—raw, unbridled, wild. It didn’t feel like mana. No, it was older than that. Untamed. Primordial. It flowed like molten iron through my veins, searing away my fear and hesitation. A dark veil spread across my body and mind, cloaking my thoughts, drowning out the weakness. My breathing deepened. My vision sharpened. My heartbeat no longer raced—it thundered.

  This wasn’t just power. It was rage given form. It was me—amplified.

  My anger boiled to the surface, no longer restrained by reason or doubt. Every injustice, every betrayal, every ounce of bitterness I had ever buried roared to life. And with it came strength. Terrible, intoxicating strength.

  But then... came the memories.

  Unbidden. Unwanted. They poured in like a flood bursting through a shattered dam.

  Faces. Voices. Screams.

  A burning village. A broken promise. A woman crying my name.

  Blood. My hands. His face. The silence after.

  I tried to shut it out—clawed at my mind to stop the onslaught—but the memories were relentless. They didn’t just surface. They stabbed. Each recollection flayed me open from within. I screamed, not from rage this time, but agony. Desperately, I fought to push them back into the abyss where they belonged.

  And just when I was about to shatter under the weight of it all... they vanished.

  The pain—gone. The memories—silenced.

  But something else remained.

  It began with a sound.

  A sickening, visceral crack—like bones snapping under pressure.

  My arms twitched involuntarily, then spasmed. I dropped to one knee as a sharp, inhuman pressure pushed outward from beneath my skin. Something inside me—no, some thing—was forcing its way out.

  I felt it clearly. The skin on my forearms bulged and rippled unnaturally, before suddenly rupturing outward. Not with blood—but with growth. Something bone-like, jagged and black, pushed through, splitting armor and flesh alike. It didn’t hurt—not anymore. Instead, it felt... right.

  I gasped as my fingers stretched, cracked, and lengthened. The joints snapped into new positions. My nails darkened, hardened, thickened—more claw than fingernail now. My hands trembled, no longer fully human. Stronger. Wilder.

  My breath came in ragged growls. The ice beneath me groaned, as if it were fighting not to break.

  And the Crytomancer—he had stopped walking.

  He was watching.

  He could feel it, too.

  -

  Gunnar had seen much in his long, battle-hardened life. He had wandered the silver gardens of Illys, where the air shimmered with celestial pollen. He had trained in the sacred halls of the Virtudo Sanctum, where his muscles had been infused with the blessings of ancient spell-rituals. He had spoken with gods—real gods, not the frauds that claimed divinity in forgotten temples. He had torn through armies like a living avalanche, his mastery over strength and ice carving out legends in the annals of two continents. He had even witnessed dragons die screaming, their burning kingdoms collapsing into ash and ruin.

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  But he had never seen anything like this.

  Before him stood the paladin—or whatever the hell that creature truly was—no longer the man Gunnar had first engaged in battle. He was changing. Becoming.

  The transformation was not magical. It was something... else. Something older.

  Gunnar felt it before he saw it. A vibration in the air, like the world itself was holding its breath. His own skin bristled, not from cold, but from some deep, instinctive fear. Not fear of defeat. Not fear of death. But fear of the unknown.

  The man—Luken, was that his name?—was mutating, shifting. His form grew darker, more monstrous by the second. Muscles pulsed and twisted beneath cracking armor. Bone erupted where there should be none. Claws pushed through fingers. His eyes burned not with magic, but with something primeval. Something Gunnar could not place. Not divine. Not arcane.

  Something worse.

  There was no trace of mana. No shimmering aether, no warping of reality. Neither pure nor corrupted mana flowed around him. It was as if the man drew from a different well entirely—one that predated the creation of magic itself. A force raw and untethered by mortal rules.

  Dark. Ancient. Boundless.

  It reminded Gunnar of deep ocean trenches he had once glimpsed in a vision—places where light had never existed, where things lived that the gods themselves had long forgotten. That was what this power felt like.

  The paladin’s rage was not ordinary, either. It built around him, like a storm forming around a black sun. With every breath he took, the air grew heavier, tighter. Gunnar's limbs didn’t tremble, but his heart did. Not out of weakness—Gunnar knew his strength—but because something in the fabric of the world knew this thing was not meant to walk in it.

  And in that moment, for the first time in many, many years…

  Gunnar wasn’t sure if he could win.

  He wasn’t even sure if anyone could.

  -

  Everything in Luken screamed—not just in agony, but in protest. It was wrong. Gods-damned wrong. Every fiber of his being knew it. What was happening to him should never happen to anyone. He wasn’t transforming into a warrior, or a monster. He was becoming something far more cursed. Something all paladin orders, inquisitions, and thinking beings across Tirros despised: A demon.

  No, came a voice in his head. Louder, deeper than ever. Wider in grin. Smugger in tone.

  “‘Demon’ is the wrong word, Luken,” Gravor cooed. “It’s more. Far more.” And then came the giddy cackling. “It’s me.”

  “WE HAD A DEAL!” Luken’s scream echoed through the confines of his own mind, even as his body convulsed on the ice, wracked with unbearable pain.

  “Yes,” Gravor admitted lightly, as if discussing weather. “And you asked for my help. You resisted, sure. But you also confessed—” another burst of cruel laughter “—that you had no choice. That,” he added gleefully, “was your indirect consent.”

  “To break our agreement,” Luken spat through clenched teeth, his breath ragged.

  “Exactly,” Gravor said with mock pride, as if he'd just won a game of strategy he'd been playing all along.

  Luken fought to speak, every word dragged through fire and steel. “Are you taking full control?”

  “No,” Gravor replied instantly, with almost hurt innocence. “I’m just helping. Trust me, I want you in the driver’s seat.” There was a pause, then, almost casually, “Oh, and don’t worry. The pain stops... now.”

  And just like that—it did.

  The agony vanished in a wave of dark relief. Luken lay still for a moment, chest heaving, heart pounding like a war drum. But he could breathe again. He could think again. His blood wasn’t on fire. His muscles no longer tore and reformed.

  He was whole.

  And then Gravor’s voice returned, dripping mischief.

  “One last thing,” the entity whispered like a friend sharing a secret. “Don’t look at your reflection in the ice. Just… don’t. Now go—break him.”

  Luken didn’t answer. He severed the link. Gravor vanished from his mind like a shadow slinking into the cracks of a prison wall.

  He stood.

  And smiled.

  Not a kind smile. Not a brave smile. A dangerous smile. One that curved too sharp. One that wasn’t entirely his.

  Across the ice, the Crytomancer had taken a few uncertain steps back. His smugness was gone, buried beneath a growing fear. The way he looked at Luken now… he knew. He saw it. This wasn’t the same man he’d faced before.

  Luken rolled his neck with a satisfying crack. His voice—when it came—was calm, but it rumbled like a brewing storm.

  “Round two,” he said. “Let’s make it your last.”