The corridor widened, opening into a vast antechamber—a high, domed ceiling arched above them, thick with support beams and engraved stone. Below, a sprawling parade ground stretched across multiple levels. Balconies and walkways framed the space, some leading deeper into the fortress, others overlooking the main floor.

  Dozens of demons moved in and out of formation, their guttural voices blending into the eerie, ambient noise of the stronghold. Groups crisscrossed a space alive with activity.

  Debryn crouched low at the entrance, Aaron and Cassandra beside her, both concealed in the shadows.

  “Over there.” Debryn guestured with a nod. “Down the stairs, past the archway, maybe a hundred yards.”

  Aaron followed her gaze. The passage was partially obscured by a raised platform, but he could see where it led, a heavily reinforced door flanked by two stone golems.

  “Is there another way?” Aaron’s mask hid his frown.

  “I don’t suppose you could carve us a trap door?”

  Aaron considered the option. The upper levels seemed quieter, meaning they could bypass the main force below, but cutting through solid stone with a blade, even one imbued with sword intent, would take effort. And he had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side.

  He exhaled. “Unlikely. What if we create a distraction?” Aaron asked, already missing Magda’s mind and problem-solving ability. Thinking about what Magda might have done in this situation, Aaron turned to the supplies he’d brought from Earth: firearms, Claymore anti-personnel mines, C4 charges, smoke, incendiary, and fragmentation grenades. Thanks to Lauriel’s Ring of Holding, he had managed to pack a limited arsenal, modern weapons acquired through the wealth and connections he’d built during his second life. Difficult to obtain as a civilian, even with foresight, these weapons were invaluable now.

  “A distraction? What is that?” Cassandra asked as items magically appeared in Aaron's hand.

  “Holy relics from Earth,” Aaron’s smile was wry. "How good’s your throwing arm, Debryn?" Aaron held out the grenades, letting the metal casings catch the dim torchlight. Debryn’s ears twitched, golden eyes narrowing in wary curiosity.

  "Decent," she replied. "What are they?"

  "These are HGX-96 'Stormfang' Fragmentation Grenades, alchemic explosives from my world." Aaron chuckled as all three saintesses instinctively took a half-step back.

  Cassandra frowned. "Grenades?"

  "Yes. They’re safe until primed." Aaron demonstrated, holding one up. "You pull this pin, and you have five seconds before it detonates. When it does, anything within fifteen yards is in for a world of pain. The fragmentation radius extends even further, so unless you want to be hurt, you throw hard and get to cover."

  Debryn inspected the grenade hesitantly, her eyes searching over the green painted, metallic bulb "Right. So… I pull this pin, toss it, and hide?"

  Aaron exhaled. "More or less. The countdown starts as soon as you throw. It does not explode on impact."

  Cassandra frowned. "Won’t they be able to trace where it came from?"

  "Hopefully, with the distraction this will cause, it won’t matter. Any witnesses will be… preoccupied."

  With a dubious expression, Debryn accepted one of the frag grenades as Aaron continued his brief tuition on its use.

  “Ready?” Aaron asked the nervous kitsune.

  He held a grenade in his gauntleted grasp. As Debryn nodded, he removed the pin. She followed suit, mirroring his movements with only a slight hesitation. Together, they stepped out of cover, sighting their targets: a group of demon grunts clustered below the balcony, opposite the side of the antechamber they needed to reach.

  With overhanded throws, two fragmentation grenades clattered onto the stone floor below. Aaron’s landed with a little too much force, bouncing wider than intended, while Debryn’s skittered to a stop just before the foot of the nearest guard, a perfect placement from over sixty yards away.

  Neither waited to see the results. They slipped back into cover, Cassandra watching them with barely concealed anxiety as Aaron unsheathed his swords, preparing to move.

  Two near-simultaneous pops ripped through the air, the shockwaves rattling the walls and dislodging silt from the ceiling.

  Then came the screaming.

  Aaron glanced at his companions. Cassandra’s eyes were wild, her breathing quick and shallow, shocked by the building shaking around them. Meanwhile, Debryn’s toothy grin stretched wide, sharp canines flashing as her golden eyes gleamed with wonder and mischief.

  “Do you have any more?” She asked.

  Within seconds, the facility erupted into chaos. Shouts rang out, heavy footfalls echoing as demons scrambled toward the disturbance.

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  Aaron and his group moved swiftly, slipping down the now-empty stairwell as they traded stealth for speed. At the bottom, massive armoured doors loomed before them, flanked by two motionless stone golems, their featureless faces turned downward, inert for now.

  Magda exhaled slowly. “Well, that’s convenient.”

  Aaron wasn’t so sure. His instincts screamed at him to act.

  He sheathed his short swords, then with a single motion, reached over his shoulder to draw the heavier, thicker four-foot-long great sword from his back.

  “What is it?” Debryn asked, already sensing the shift in his posture. Two towering stone golems flanked the great doors. They stood fifteen feet tall, hewn from solid yellow sandstone, their surfaces weathered and scored by ancient battles. Battles that had not dulled their imposing stature, if anything, they had made them more formidable, their edges craggy and vicious, evidence that mortal warriors were naught but ants before them.

  Each construct bore the exaggerated bulk of a giant, its form roughly human-like in proportion. Their broad, rectangular torsos were reinforced with overlapping slabs of stone, mimicking the tires around the belly of the Michelin Man. Their arms, carved into massive gauntleted fists, were thick enough to crush a man in a single blow, while their legs, segmented like carved blocks of stone, suggested that while deceptively sluggish, no terrain or impediment would remain so for long. Their cores, buried deep within their chests, pulsed with dormant mana, fueling enchantments, binding their form, and granting them movement and a limited degree of sentience. A sentience Aaron had learned to fear in battles long since past.

  To fight it as he was would mean death.

  Aaron communed with his Sword Soul, his mind reaching towards this new, dormant part of himself in search of guidance and a path forward.

  And with a shiver, the Sword Soul answered.

  “Let me lead,” Aaron stepped forward. His stance dropped lower, his body coiling with readiness. He held the sword high in a roof stance, the blade held slanted as if it was a baseball bat held ready to swing. His breathing slowed, deepening, muscles relaxing as he approached the door.

  A Higher-Order Concept was the universe’s reward for mastery, a recognition of skill so profound that reality bent itself in acknowledgement.

  Aaron's Sword Intent was the first step upon this path. Not magic, for it required no mana. Not divinity, for no god could bestow what must be earned. It was understanding made manifest, both physical and conceptual. The sword as mechanical advantage, converting force and momentum into precision, pressure, and destruction. But beyond that lay the soul of the blade, the will to act, the decisiveness to sever what must be pared away.

  It took Aaron fifty-seven years to learn the second part of this lesson. To wield the sword with intent, Aaron could no longer remain passive, no longer remain indifferent to what needed to be changed, including himself. And so, he began by stripping away hesitation, severing the limits that once defined him. The cold calculation of the Time Saint had to be pruned for the Sword Saint to take root.

  With Sword Intent, will and comprehension could fuse in a harmony so absolute, it redrew the laws of the world. When mind, body, and blade moved as one, Aaron could advance with a cut to separate, to divide, to decide.

  To kill. To end.

  To change. To save.

  As demons poured back into the antechamber and the golems began to stir, Aaron swung his Montante in a wide, horizontal slash.

  Gone was the focused mind, the restraint and control. Guided by the inspiration delivered to him by his Sword Soul and driven by his own will, Aaron moved to shatter the limits placed upon him. To test the theory that he was no longer mortal.

  His partially awakened Sword Soul sang in communion, his blade resonating with the hymn of battle. He moved behind the arc of sword-light, his lunge so swift it seemed as though he was chasing the afterimage of his slash, a second ray of destruction flowing behind the first.

  Consciousness snapped back to him. He stood with one foot planted on the golem’s sternum, the tip of his greatsword buried deep in its chest. The construct’s aborted rise faltered, its movements stalling as its mana core was annihilated under the force of his thrust.

  He turned just in time to see the second golem. Its stone body had been bisected in a perfect horizontal line through the middle, the exposed cross-section flashing with the blue sparks of leaking mana. For a brief instant, its top half hung there, then slid apart.

  A deafening crash filled the antechamber as metric tons of stone met the ground, ending the sudden stillness.

  Knowing he would need to meditate on these insights later to fully comprehend this new ability, Aaron ignored the weakness in his limbs, the strained muscles, and the roaring migraine threatening to steal his consciousness. He was a Saint, and perhaps with that feat, he had proved he was no longer mortal. Now, it was time to live up to that standard.

  The demons in the corridor hesitated, momentarily stunned by the destruction of two constructs that might have otherwise dominated a battlefield. Aaron dropped from the kneeling golem, landing with a fluid grace that belied his exhaustion. His black armour, his faceless mask, and the casual, almost arrogant ease of his stance belied his fear, his fatigue, his fury, his focus.

  “Cassandra, get between me and Debryn. Debryn, cover us,” he commanded, stepping forward to place himself between the Saintesses and the door.

  He kicked it open and saw their goal for the first time.

  The heavy doors buckled under Aaron’s boot, slamming open with a dull crash. Dust swirled in the chamber, lit only by flickering runes carved into the stone floor, pulsing, shifting with dark energy. His eyes locked onto the centre of the room.

  Suspended mid-air, caught in a ritual, was the Saintess of Space.

  She flickered, her form semi-transparent, as if out of sync with reality. The halo above her head swirled as a searing disk of light, a bright beacon in the gloom. Wide, pleading dark blue eyes met his as between her hands, a profoundly unsettling object twisted space around, within, and beyond it. Aaron’s eyes watered at the sight.

  Then, he noticed something subtle, an almost insignificant detail that was oddly out of place.

  She wore a black and white leather biker jacket.

  His grip tightened on his greatsword. That was Earth-made.

  The warlocks surrounding her remained locked in their chanting, gaunt figures draped in tattered robes, lips moving in whispered incantations that made the air hum with pressure. The skeletal demons guarding them, however, had already turned, their black, pupil-less eyes locking onto him.

  Beyond the threshold, Aaron could hear the distant roars and the pounding of boots; the demons outside were rallying. The moment of hesitation at the destruction of the golems had passed.

  The Saintess of Space opened her mouth, but no sound came. Her eyes screamed what her voice could not.

  Aaron had only moments to act. His gaze flicked over the ritual, but there were no visible chains, no obvious bindings, only the shifting weave of spatial distortion keeping her trapped mid-air. He didn’t know how the ritual worked or how it bound her.

  But he knew he could cut it.

  His greatsword rose. The warlocks turned, their hollow eyes like knives aimed towards him. The demons behind moved to intercept.

  Aaron stepped forward and swung.