The Saintess of Space was secure, the Saintess of Life alive; his most vital objectives for the first hours of the Bellum Existentiae were met. But all meant nothing without Magda at his side. Regardless of how many demons he killed or whom else he saved, if she died here, everything would be in vain.

  Smoke drifted through shattered arches, thick with blood and ash. Rubble crunched underfoot. The bodies of demons and mangled body parts still twitched around him. Ahead lay the path to escape, blocked by nearly a hundred demons, with even more pouring into the hall outside the ritual chamber. Their snarls echoed through the vaulted space, weapons raised menacingly, their eyes alight with malice.

  The sight before him was all too familiar as if drawn from memory. Aaron had lived through scenes like this countless times in his previous life. He had watched worlds collapse, day after day, battle after battle. He had witnessed failure in every form: missed opportunities, fatal hesitation, and the steady, crushing defeat of Saints who were outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, and overwhelmed.

  Thanks to Mens Indelebilis, those memories had never faded. They remained with diamond clarity from the moment he returned to Earth, even as a baby. They haunted him, denying him the comforts of childhood, an honest and much-desired reunion with his parents, or even a single moment of peace.

  Instead, as soon as he could walk, he prepared.

  He started with Olympic fencing: épée, sabre, foil, refining his footwork, tempo, speed, and precision. Competitive bouts sharpened his aggression and honed his will to win. But fencing taught him how to score points, not how to survive.

  From there, he turned to Historical European Martial Arts, immersing himself in the old manuals. He studied the longsword, the greatsword, sword and buckler, close-quarters grapples, binds, and disarms. It was brutal, methodical, and efficient. Through this, he reinforced the lessons of his first life. He understood Europe’s culture of the sword, its history, structure and practical lethality.

  Then came the Eastern systems: Kenjutsu, Kali, and Taiji Jian. He studied the contrast between Chinese and Japanese traditions, the sharp discipline and fusion between body, soul and blade in one, and the flowing adaptability and internal belief of the other. He learnt motion without pause, the synchronisation of the blade, mind, and body. From these arts, he found fluidity and intuition, the ability to act without thought, to move without waste.

  Years of relentless training forged a style that was uniquely his. Reinforced a determination to win. If he were to commit to the sword, to become its living embodiment, he would do so completely. A sword in each hand. A threat with every movement. European structure merged with Eastern flow. Precision layered over aggression.

  Now, surrounded by monsters, Aaron no longer saw the sword as a weapon. It was an answer. An answer to his weakness, a solution to the failures of the Saints. An unapologetically lethal declaration, to advance with every step, to cut and thrust with the lessons learned over two lifetimes:

  To decide. To end. To change. To Save.

  His boots crossed the threshold and his body moved with him. The flow of combat took over, muscle memory guiding each movement while his will drove him forward.

  His main-hand blade drove straight into the first demon’s chest, a perfect thrust angled through the ribs, piercing the heart. The instant the blade met bone, his off-hand sword turned to catch an incoming cleaver, the edge of his blade glancing against steel before sliding it off-line. His footwork carried him forward, his main-hand blade sliding out of one body before slicing the neck of another, a single smooth motion despite the uneven stone and gore beneath.

  Demons pressed in from all sides, aggression warring with caution after witnessing his speed and lethality. A pair of demon orcs lunged in from either side. His shoulders turned in sequence. The main hand blade stabbed low, just under the sternum. The left swept upward across a neck. Blood sprayed in twin arcs. Both bodies fell as his steps carried him forward.

  Iron Gate. Long Guard. Ochs. Hanging Parry.

  His movements became smaller, more efficient. He didn’t waste a single step. Even retreat became a reposition, using corpse piles as obstacles, cutting his angles, limiting how many could engage him at once.

  A mace clipped his thigh. He turned the leg, rolling with the blow, reducing its bite.

  An elbow smashed into a demon’s jaw, pure Wing Chun, linear, fast, brutal. The stunned creature recoiled. Aaron’s sword slid into its temple.

  Allowing his padded armour to catch a grazing blow to his shoulder, Aaron lunged low, piercing an exposed thigh, before twisting to slice hamstrings from two separate demons at once. Slickness built underfoot, entrails caused Aaron to slip, his forward momentum converted to a sideways roll, a Warhammer dodged, his brief moment of vulnerability like a clarion call to the demons around him. They pressed in even more aggressively, seeking his blood. A boot to the chest, a glancing mace to the knee disrupting his rise. The copper stink of blood clung to his breath. The inside of his mask stifled him. Steam blurred the wire mesh, sweat soaked his scalp, and every breath tasted of rust and cloth.

  Still, they came.

  Another demon crashed forward, bellowing, hammer raised high. The hammer fell before Aaron could move, and then something strange happened.

  The world dimmed, his surroundings turning ghostly, as if he was half-submerged in another realm. He turned and saw the Saintesses; the Saint of Space was focused on her artefact, her face a mask of struggle and concentration.

  The falling hammer passed through him, it was as if he could feel the very atoms of the object slide through his body, the very bonds between molecules made irrelevant by this strange magic applied to him. He no longer hesitated. Using the moment of confusion generated by the Saintesses' spell, Aaron twisted, roared, then leapt from the ground, his determination to win fused with his body. His desperate forward lunge ended with his form returning to coporeality, the weight of the demon's second lethal strike passing overhead. His right sword punctured the gut, then sliced as the blade twisted. The demon doubled over. His off-hand blade rammed upward through its jaw, skewering the brain. The hammer slipped from its fingers before the body dropped.

  To decide.

  Crescendo Temporis stirred beneath his skin. His blood pulsed harder, louder. Each thrust and slash slowed the world a little more.

  To his right, Aaron punched out with his blades as three more demons tried to flank him. He pivoted low, slicing a hamstring, then reversed the movement with a rising thrust into a jaw. He moved forward. The demon ahead caught a downward slice through the collarbone, the edge sliding into the lung. He was already moving before the rest could think. A tight half-step and both swords flashed forward: one stabbed into the ribs, the other into another demon’s neck. His mask rang, and he saw stars. Another glancing blow from a cross-bolt struck his chest armour. His movement tore both blades free as he spun toward the offending demons in vengeance.

  The floor became increasingly treacherous with every kill. Blood spread in thick, sticky layers. Viscera floated across puddles, and, despite his experience, his skill, the floor became as deadly as the press of demons around him. A moment’s inattention was as sure to kill him as any blade. Sleipnir’s Heart didn’t heal the bruises, didn’t ease the tightness in his shoulder or the deep ache in his knee. But it kept him standing, kept him fighting, where he may have slowed, faltered or fallen, he endured.

  A blade cut across his upper arm. The demon leapt away, expecting him to recoil. Instead, he lunged, main hand thrusting forward, even as the off-hand parried. A diagonal slice to the creature’s head. The top half of the skull slid away, blood misting the air in droplets.

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  His ears caught the next attack before his eyes. Behind. Left. A rush of footsteps. Metal dragging across the stone. The flick of sliced wind. He turned without looking. His left sword rising in an upward arc to deflect a descending axe. His right drove a short thrust into the demon’s gut, slid up, and stopped only when it hit spine.

  Every strike, every parry, every cut became easier. Crescendo Temporis continued his acceleration. His perception caught up with his muscle memory. Movements were no longer anticipated as the world fell away. He could see every twitch of muscle before a strike landed. Every breath. Every blink. A demon raised a mace. Aaron watched the weapon rise, followed its arc, and stepped aside a fraction before it fell. His off-hand sword punctured the armpit, drove into chest, and ended the creature before it finished its attack.

  Blood splashed up his boots. Droplets hung in the air longer now, as though suspended in molasses. A severed arm hit the ground near his foot and bounced, slow, weightless like it had been dropped underwater. A bolt flashed behind him, spinning in lazy circles.

  His body was a cauldron of boiling blood pumped by a galloping heart. His blades blurred: one rising to meet a jagged axe in a spiralling upward guard, the other stabbing beneath it, past armour, between ribs, into heart. The demon’s roar became a sluggish gurgle. It fell with an unnatural delay as if gravity had forgotten its claim on the corpse.

  Behind it, another stepped forward. Too slow. Too wide. Aaron pivoted low, both swords lashing outward in consecutive arcs. One amputated a leg at the knee. The other caught the inside of a thigh, meaty tendon snapping. The demon toppled with a soundless groan.

  The world twisted further.

  Five more demons surged from the flank. Aaron moved to meet them. He stepped into the first strike, catching it mid-arc, guiding the blade wide, and countering with a thrust that drove up through the solar plexus. The second demon swung down. Aaron parried with his left, stepped sideways, and slashed across its thigh. He stabbed the creature through the heart before it could fall.

  He caught the precise moment the aggression from his adversaries turned into fear. The nearest three tried to break away. He didn’t let them. His blades flicked left and right. A stab through the eye. A cut across the jaw. A final downward thrust through a back as the next demon tried to crawl away.

  He passed through them, blades flashing in rhythmic tempo. Parry, cut, thrust, slide, step, repeat. His breathing evened. His pace quickened. The more he fought, the faster he became.

  To end.

  More demons fell. Most died on the point. A quick thrust under the ribs, through the lungs, into the base of the skull. Others had their throats opened, their spines shattered, their skulls sliced apart to reveal the grey matter within.

  The bursts of screams became long, droaning echoes. Puddles of blood rippled with each footstep, each wave slower than the last. The arcs of blood from severed arteries stretched longer, formed red ribbons that lingered in the air. Debris from shattered weapons spun weightlessly. Sparks from parried weapons shimmered like fireflies. Aaron stepped through the warping time.

  His swords sought flesh or steel with every flash. Each strike opened space for the one that followed. The dead built up around him: layers of twitching limbs, slack faces, torn flesh, voided bowels. The light of his halo shone bright enough for him to notice.

  To change.

  His focus narrowed. He didn’t think of the demons. Didn’t count them. He thought of her. Magda, somewhere in the opposite wing. She’d smiled before she left, deflecting worry with her usual sarcasm. But he’d seen the truth in her eyes. The weight she carried. The danger she walked into.

  He had to finish this. Get through the hall. Get to her. And then find a way out.

  More demons poured in from side passages, even as the ones around him hung as if suspended in honey, while those just out of reach turned away in terror. Aaron’s movements carried him forward, now five steps for every one of theirs. Two blades, no pause. His movement shifted from predominantly defensive to stepping into each attack under each swing. Every cut easier and more lethal than the last. To him, their attacks were glacial. Heavy, predictable, wide. He moved through them like a steel ghost.

  Every strike pushed Crescendo Temporis further. Every breath layered more awareness on top of instinct. The world bled colour, sound, and weight.

  He lost count after fifty. Then seventy. They kept coming. He kept killing. He fought for breath. For movement. For forward momentum. The mask clung to his face. Sweat and blood poured into his eyes. His calves burned, his biceps cramped, but his blades never stopped.

  The world had gone grey, the torchlight around no longer flickered but flowed like liquid. It dimmed, rose-yellow light turning red even as the crimson blood around him faded into a dull, metallic black. The air thickened. Screams, growls, the clash of metal muffled as though wrapped in cotton. In their place, the sound of Aaron’s breath and heartbeats drummed loud in his ears. Each inhale a roar. Each exhale a pulse of static.

  Crescendo Temporis reached its apex.

  The power throbbed behind his eyes. Each step came a fraction before it was needed. Each swing of his blades seemed to preempt the motion of his enemies.

  Regardless of how many demons existed, how many blades swung, how many crossbow bolts flashed past, he was beyond them now.

  A demon raised its weapon. His blades punched out, twin thrusts landing before the creature’s elbow even began to bend. The weapons sank in. He stepped past it before the body folded, eyes already on the next.

  Every swing found its mark. Every movement flowed from one attack to the next. The corpses couldn’t keep pace with their own deaths. Heads drifted in the air like forgotten balloons. Blood misted like gory perfume. Seperated limbs hung suspended, caught mid-flight.

  There were perhaps ten demons left, maybe twelve. They stood arrayed at the far end of the hall. Bodies too slow to retreat, their minds too slow to realise it was already too late.

  Aaron could feel the fatigue behind his eyes. It gnawed at him, pressed down on the edges of his vision. His arms ached. His calves screamed. His breathing came shallow. But Sleipnir’s Heart continued its mad rhythm.

  One of the demons roared, rushing steps like a bull caught in treacle. It was a brute, two meters tall, wielding a hooked polearm. Heedless of its aggression, he stepped into it, parried high, and both swords found flesh. The first blade angled down, carving from ear to collarbone. The second sheared the polearm-wielding wrist from the arm.

  Another came from the right. Short, fast, with twin daggers. It moved faster than most. He half-turned, catching one dagger on the flat of his sword, letting the impact glance off. The off-hand was already moving, cutting low, taking the creature’s leg off at the knee. It fell, still fighting. Aaron ended it with a downward stab that punctured its forehead.

  He didn’t wait for the body to fall.

  To save.

  Two more demons lay before him, his legs now carrying him forward ten steps for every one of theirs. He cut one down with a thrust that drove clean through its chest, into the one behind. Both staggered. Both fell. Their blood hung in the air, swirling like ink in water.

  Every second stretched. A falling blade twitched in the air, stuck mid-descent. A severed head floated past him, its expression still caught in the moment of death, mouth open, eyes wide.

  Another demon lunged. Aaron side-stepped, raised both blades and bisected it. The top half slid away from the bottom, slowly, as though the world itself had to consider whether to allow gravity to do its work.

  The last demon reached for a horn as if to signal for reinforcements. A clean thrust from behind. The blade exited through the chest. The creature blinked, confused, before Aaron push-kicked it off his blade. Its forward motion ceaseless under Crescendo Temporis.

  And then, stillness.

  He stood in the centre of the hall, surrounded by bodies and blood. The results of his butchery backlit by a halo shining brilliantly above. Blood pooled around his boots. The torchlight had become pale grey. And yet... the air was still full of motion. Heads were still falling. Their limbs still twitching. Weapons still spinning across the floor. One helmet skittered across the stones, hitting a ribcage with a soft, echoing clink.

  Aaron stood there, breathing hard, blades dripping. The temperature inside his mask was unbearable. His face was soaked and caked with salt. A combination of his own blood and various demons mixed into a bitter slurry. His knee burned, his shoulder arched, His ribs throbbed. His ears rang. He couldn’t tell how many bruises he’d taken, how many cuts still leaked red inside his armour.

  He waited for the world would catch up, for time would return to its proper pace and the weight of his exhaustions to crash down upon him. The slow peace of twisted time stretched and then, gravity remembered its place.

  One helmeted head landed with a clang, then another. A torso collapsed with a wet smack. Blood resumed its fall, slapping the floor with red grease. A breeze moved the smoke. The torchlight flickered again.

  “Holy shit,” a voice panted after the silence became total. Aaron staggered, his reserves of strength fleeing even as the world returned to him. He looked to see the Saintesses watching from beyond the doorway of the ritual room.

  The knot in his stomach tightened.

  Knowing that if he paused to rest, getting up again anytime soon would be impossible, Aaron turned toward the northern corridor, the path Magda had taken. His blades still in hand. His breath still shallow. The floor beneath him slick, stained, broken.