The valley was no longer a battlefield.

  It was a wound.

  Smoke crawled low across the ground, thick enough to sting the eyes and coat the tongue. Scorched earth steamed where Aether had burned too hot, too fast. Broken demon bodies littered the slope—some dissolving into ash, others twitching as corrupted energy bled out of them in ugly, unstable pulses.

  The first wave was dead.

  The second was arriving.

  Draven stood at the ridge’s broken edge, chest rising slowly, deliberately. His armor was cracked along one shoulder, runes flickering as they struggled to stabilize. Blood—his own—ran down his forearm, dripping from clenched fingers into the dirt below.

  Behind him, the line held.

  Barely.

  “Incoming!” someone shouted.

  A fresh surge of demons crested the far ridge—fewer than before, but heavier. Taller. Smarter. Their movements weren’t frantic anymore. They advanced in clusters, coordinated, weapons raised with intent rather than hunger.

  “Adapted,” Nyra muttered beside Draven, fingers already weaving glyphs into the air. “They’re learning.”

  “Then we hit harder,” Draven said.

  He stepped forward.

  The ground cracked under his boots.

  Aether roared.

  Draven drove both fists into the earth, and the ridge answered.

  Stone surged upward in a violent arc—jagged spears erupting from below the advancing demons. Forty—no, more—were impaled in an instant, their bodies torn apart before they could even scream. The impact sent shockwaves through the valley, hurling ash and debris skyward.

  The Academy line erupted with renewed motion.

  Aelric moved like a storm given form.

  White-and-gold light flared along his blade as he vanished forward, reappearing inside the densest knot of demons. One clean sweep—too fast to track—split a dozen apart. Lumen flared, Terra followed, and the ground itself folded inward beneath his next strike, crushing bodies into blackened paste.

  “Do not overextend!” he barked without looking back.

  Kerrik heard him but ignored what he said.

  With a roar that was half laughter, half fury, Kerrik planted his shield and slammed it forward. A translucent wall of force exploded outward, flattening a cluster of demons mid-leap and sending their bodies tumbling like broken dolls down the slope.

  “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!” Kerrik shouted.

  “FLANK LEFT!” Mira yelled.

  She loosed three arrows in rapid succession—each one curving mid-flight, guided by focused Aether. The first pierced a demon’s skull. The second split into fragments on impact, shredding two more. The third embedded in the ground and detonated upward, taking another cluster with it.

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  Joren moved with them.

  Not ahead.

  Not behind.

  With.

  His blade flashed, precise, controlled. One demon fell. Then another. He didn’t chase. Didn’t flare. He fought like Bran had taught him—economy of motion, no wasted strikes.

  A demon lunged too low.

  Joren pivoted and cut it down.

  Ash scattered.

  And again—

  He saw it.

  A soul.

  Not human.

  Jagged. Burning. Twisting in on itself like a dying star.

  It rose from the remains, drifting upward—

  Then stopped.

  It turned.

  And it looked at him.

  The Shard pulsed.

  Cold.

  Inviting.

  Joren froze for half a heartbeat.

  He could feel it now—clearly. The space inside him. The room. The choice.

  Take it.

  Or let it go.

  He clenched his jaw.

  “No, I can’t” Joren whispered.

  The soul drifted away, unraveling into nothing.

  Rian saw it happen.

  He frowned—but said nothing.

  The ground shook.

  Harder this time.

  A sound rolled across the valley—not a roar, not a scream, but something deeper. Something that vibrated through bone.

  Nyra’s head snapped up.

  “…That’s not a demon,” she whispered.

  The sky darkened.

  From beyond the far ridge, something massive moved.

  Not rushing.

  Not charging.

  Advancing.

  A shape emerged—towering, asymmetrical, wrong. A body built from fused flesh, bone, and corrupted Aether. Multiple arms dragged along the ground as it walked, each step leaving fractures behind.

  An Abomination.

  It lifted its head.

  And screamed.

  The sound tore through the battlefield like a blade.

  Demons surged forward in its wake, emboldened, reckless, screaming as one.

  “FORM UP!” Draven roared.

  The line bent.

  Then broke.

  An explosion of corrupted energy detonated near the left flank.

  Rian didn’t scream.

  That was the part Joren would remember later.

  Joren felt the impact before he saw it.

  The world spun.

  “JOR—!”

  The rest was drowned out by ringing.

  The impact threw them apart—Aether and stone and heat erupting in a concussive wave that flattened the ground where they’d been standing. Joren hit the dirt hard, the breath torn from his lungs, ears ringing. His vision swam as he forced himself up on one knee.

  “Rian—!”

  He saw him then.

  Rian lay several yards away, armor split, chest caved inward like something had struck him head-on and kept going. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and spreading too fast.

  Joren scrambled to him, hands shaking as he pressed them against the wound.

  “No—no, stay with me. I can— I can—”

  There was nothing to do.

  Rian’s eyes found his.

  Clear. Focused.

  Not afraid.

  “…Guess,” Rian rasped, lips twitching faintly, “this is where the formation breaks.”

  “Don’t,” Joren whispered. “Please don’t—”

  Rian’s hand closed weakly around Joren’s wrist.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “You’re not the problem. Don’t let them tell you that.”

  His grip tightened once.

  Then loosened.

  The light went out.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

  Then Joren felt it.

  A presence lifting—

  not tearing away,

  not screaming—

  choosing.

  Rian’s soul rose.

  Clean.

  Bright.

  Human.

  It didn’t hesitate.

  It moved.

  Joren reached.

  The soul entered him willingly.

  The world snapped.

  Power settled—layered, deep, right.

  Joren screamed as he stood.

  The Shard flared—

  Then went silent.

  The battlefield rushed back into focus.

  And Joren felt them.

  Dozens of demon souls calling him.

  The demon souls of everything he had killed—hovering, circling, drawn to him like iron to a star.

  This time—

  He didn’t refuse.

  They poured into him.

  Fifty.

  maybe more.

  Jagged heat stripped clean as the Shard tightened, ordered, contained. Power flooded his veins without rot, without madness.

  Aelric saw it.

  Felt it.

  “…Gods above.” Aelric murmured.

  Joren stepped forward.

  The demons hesitated.

  Then died.

  He moved through them like inevitability—each strike final, each death feeding the surge building inside him.

  Then he stopped.

  The Abomination turned toward him.

  Joren didn’t rush.

  He inhaled.

  The world narrowed as he absorbed the dozens of souls he just slaughtered in seconds.

  He stepped forward and drove his blade into its core.

  Light.

  Dark.

  Silence.

  The Abomination collapsed.

  Its soul—vast, screaming—rose.

  Joren looked at the Abominations soul floating there while smiling and said, “It’s time.”

  He then took it.

  The valley went still.

  Joren stood amid the wreckage.

  Breathing.

  Stronger.

  Changed.

  Aelric looked at him.

  And said nothing.

  Because some truths were too dangerous to name.

  And this one would reshape the world.