Blood Lust walked through the ruins of Majisto, leaving the dread-filled battlefield behind.
Majisto was built into a northern hillside, arranged in three descending rings, each carved like a step into the slope. From the top down, the settlement unfolded in layers, each reflecting the hierarchy of life that had existed before tonight's massacre.
At the highest point, crowning the slope, stood the inner ring—where the real fight had taken place. This was where Blood Lust had just come from. The Bastion garrison dominated the summit: a fortified stone structure with thick walls and iron-banded doors. Four watchtowers stood at its corners, tall enough to see for miles in every direction. This ring had been Majisto's final line of defense, guarding the settlement from threats emerging out of the Ashura Jungles to the north.
It hadn't been enough.
Below the Bastion lay the middle ring, forming the heart of Majisto's daily life. At its center was the market square—a wide cobblestone plaza where merchants once gathered. Common houses surrounded it, packed tightly together, two and three stories tall, their walls touching and their roofs nearly overlapping. Narrow streets twisted between them like veins. This was where people lived, traded, and built their community. Now, most of it was reduced to ash.
Farthest down the slope was the outer ring, where Blood Lust walked now. This level had once been farmland. Terraced fields stretched outward, dotted with windmills whose wooden blades now hung broken, some still creaking in the evening breeze. Small plots where families once grew wheat and vegetables lay trampled and scorched. Stone walls still divided the land, and dirt paths still connected the farmhouses—but everything was abandoned, burned, or crushed underfoot.
At the northern edge of the outer ring, where the farmland ended and the slope flattened, the Ashura Jungles began. Ancient trees with trunks as wide as houses formed a solid wall of darkness. Their canopy was so dense that even daylight struggled to pass through. Rumors clung to the jungle—some said it was alive, others claimed the trees moved and breathed, and that things older than Majisto itself dwelled within.
To the south, about fifteen minutes down the outer ring slope on foot, Hollowvale sat nestled between gentle hills. It was bustling with energy—people working themselves to exhaustion to repair what was lost and reclaim their motherland. The recent archdemon attack had left Hollowvale devastated, with massive losses to both life and property. Yet Majisto had not abandoned its ally. It had extended the hand of a friend, providing every possible aid it could—building materials, food supplies, medical assistance, and manpower to clear debris and restore defenses.
The two settlements were neighbors, close enough to trade and support one another, but different in every way that mattered—Majisto defined by its fortified stone walls, disciplined governance, and military readiness, and Hollowvale shaped by open land, agrarian life, and reliance on communal bonds rather than force.
Blood Lust stopped at the northern edge of the outer ring, where the last windmill stood.
Beyond it, the tree line waited.
But the town wasn't empty. Not really.
During the battle—when Kael was still fighting, still landing blows—people had been watching. Blood Lust had heard them. Windows had been thrown open along the middle ring, faces pressed against glass, voices rising in desperate cheers each time the knight's cleavers struck true.
"Get him, Kael!"
"You can do it!"
"We are with you, defeat that bustard!"
Their hope had been thick in the air, almost as sweet as their fear would be later.
That was then.
Now, as Blood Lust walked through their streets, those same windows were shut tight. He could see the shutters hastily pulled closed, hear the scrape of furniture being pushed against doors to increasing the stopping force needed to open them. Lamps that had been burning were snuffed out one by one, plunging homes into darkness as if that would hide them.
The cheering had stopped the moment Kael fell. The moment they realized their champion was gone. Now an eerie silence shrouded Majisto like a held breath.
No one moved. No one spoke. The only sounds were Blood Lust's footsteps (A wet squelch with every step) and the distant crackling of dying fires.
They were all hiding. Praying he would leave. Praying he wouldn't notice them cowering in their homes.
Blood Lust's face widened with a sinister grin. For him, fear was never something to waste.
"You don't end its source too quickly—you let it grow, let it ferment into something richer."
He'd come back for them later, after he'd finished what his Mistress commanded. By then, their terror would be ripe for harvesting.
But first, something else demanded his attention.
A scent on the wind. Sweet and heavy and ancient, drifting down from the Ashura Jungles. It made his breath quicken, made something deep in his chest tighten with a hunger he hadn't felt during the entire battle.
He took a step toward the tree line. The voice hit him like a physical blow.
Not from outside. From inside his head, sudden and overwhelming. His bones started to vibrate with it. The ground seemed to tilt beneath his feet.
Blood Lust's knees buckled. He caught himself with one hand, claws scraping against stone.
In his mind, a shape formed.
Cloudy. Indistinct. Like smoke that held a vaguely human form but refused to solidify. White particles drifted around the figure, floating in slow circles like dust in lamplight. Where a face should be—where features and expressions should exist—there was only shadow. Deep, impenetrable and menacing form of a shadow.
Except for the eyes.
Two points of blue light burned in that darkness. Not warm blue. Cold. The kind of blue you saw in ice or in the heart of a flame just before it went out.
The Seventh Hex Demon. The Demon of Lust herself.
His Mistress.
"What are you doing, pest?"
Her voice filled every hollow space in his skull. It wasn't loud—it didn't need to be loud. It simply existed everywhere in each and every cell of Blood Lust at once, pressing against the inside of his ribs, wrapping around his spine.
Blood Lust tried to answer, but his throat had been closed which was a clear indication of the power of suppression the Demon of Lust possessed.
"Don't you remember what I assigned you with?"
The last words came differently. Louder. Heavier. Each syllable struck him like a hammer blow, and with them came pain.
Real pain.
Cuts opened all over his body—his arms, his chest, his face, his legs. Blood poured from wounds that hadn't been there a second ago, as if her voice alone had slashed him open. It ran down his skin in dark rivers, soaking through his clothes, dripping onto the cobblestones.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Blood Lust felt the agony of pain. True pain, the kind that made his vision blur and his breath catch.
His knees hit the ground hard.
"Destroy that thing before it's too late for you."
The command hung in the air, absolute and final.
Blood Lust bowed his head. Like a faithful cat presenting itself to its master, he lowered himself until his forehead nearly touched the blood-slicked stones.
When he found a feeling of relief in his neck.
"Forgive me, Mistress," he rasped. His voice came out smaller than it should, stripped of all the confidence he'd carried during the battle. "I will execute your task immediately. I swear it."
Those blue eyes stared at him for a moment longer.
Then she was gone.
The pressure vanished. The shape in his mind dissolved like smoke. Blood Lust was left kneeling on Majisto's street, gasping, blood still leaking from dozens of cuts.
Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet. The wounds were already closing—they always did—but the memory of pain lingered like an aftertaste.
He looked back at the town one more time.
The lifeless corpses of Ethereal Knights lay where they'd fallen. Embers still glowed in the ruins of houses, tiny sparks of life clinging to charred wood. The people hiding behind their shutters—he could almost feel their fear radiating from every darkened window.
But he didn't finish them. Didn't tear through the remaining buildings to root out the survivors.
As mentioned earlier, Fear wasn't something you wasted. Not like this. You let it sit. Let it grow stronger. Let it age like wine until it became something truly exquisite.
He'd come back for them. After he dealt with the crystal. After he pleased his Mistress.
But before he left, Blood Lust did something else.
He dragged one clawed hand across his chest, opening a fresh wound, and let his blood flow freely. Then he began walking again—not away from Majisto, but through it. Down streets and alleys, past doorways and through the market square, leaving a trail of flowing crimson behind him.
He pressed his bleeding palm against walls. Let droplets fall into cracks between cobblestones. Smeared it across thresholds and windowsills.
The blood didn't burn. Didn't melt wood or stone or anything it touched. It just... settled there. Dark and wet and waiting.
"Now here's something interesting (and I'm telling you this as the author, dear reader, because you need to understand what's coming): that blood wasn't doing what you might think. It wasn't corroding anything. Wasn't poisoning the earth or cursing the ground.
It was doing something else entirely.
Something that wouldn't reveal itself until later. Until the temporary silence that now shrouded Majisto finally broke. Until things became lively again.
But when that moment will come—when the purpose of all that deposited blood will start to finally show itself—well...
Let's just say the people hiding in their homes should have run while they had the chance."
Blood Lust finished his work and turned north. The scent from the Ashura Jungles was stronger now, pulling at him with insistent hunger.
The Khaos Crystal. That's what his Mistress wanted under her possession.
He stepped into the tree line, and the darkness of the ancient forest swallowed him whole.
(Fifteen minutes south, in Hollowvale, Rex had no idea any of this was happening....)
He sat in a cottage on the southern edge of town, in a chair that was slightly too small, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. The fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, evening was settling in, peaceful and quiet.
Across from him, Elira sat with her hands folded in her lap. Her mother was in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner but clearly listening to their conversation.
"Where were you two years ago?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but there was something steady underneath it. Something that said she actually wanted to know. "When the demon era started? When everything fell apart?"
Rex shifted in his chair. He'd been expecting this question eventually. Had been preparing answers since his arrival for it—vague ones that didn't give too much away but sounded convincing enough.
He opened his mouth to deliver one of those carefully crafted responses.
A sudden sensation of pain hits him instead.
Sharp and sudden, right in the center of his chest. Like someone had driven a spike between his ribs and was slowly twisting it deeper.
Rex gasped. His hand went to his chest automatically, fingers pressing against the spot where it hurt most.
Under his skin, something began to glow.
The divine armor. It was activating on its own, without his permission, filaments of light spreading out from his core like cracks spreading through ice.
At first it was faint—just a shimmer beneath his shirt. Then brighter. Then bright enough that both Elira and her mother could see it clearly, golden light seeping through the fabric.
"Rex?" Elira's voice, worried now. "Rex, what's—"
He tried to speak. Tried to tell her it was fine, he just needed a moment, this happened sometimes. But his throat had closed up. The light kept spreading—across his chest, down his arms, up his neck—until it looked like he was glowing from the inside out.
His body locked up. Every muscle going rigid at once.
Rex fell backward onto the couch with a heavy thump, his arms rigid at his sides, eyes wide and unseeing.
"Rex!" Elira was on her feet instantly, her chair scraping loudly across the floor. She dropped to her knees beside the couch, hands hovering over him, unsure where to touch. "Rex, what's happening? Mom!"
Her mother rushed in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She took one look at Rex—at the light pulsing beneath his skin—and her face went pale.
"He's burning up," she said, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. Then to his neck. "Elira, we need to get a healer. We need to—"
"No!" Elira's voice came out sharper than she intended. She grabbed her mother's wrist. "No doctors. No guards. No one."
"But he's—"
"If anyone sees him like this..." Elira looked down at Rex, at the divine light still pulsing under his skin in steady rhythms. "If word gets out about what he is... Mom, you know what will happen.
Her mother's jaw tightened, but she nodded. They'd been hiding Rex's nature since he'd arrived in Hollowvale. If the truth came out now...
So they didn't call for help. They just stayed with him, Elira holding one of his rigid hands, her mother dampening a cloth to put on his forehead.
And they waited.
Rex could hear them talking—their voices sounded distant, muffled, like he was underwater. He wanted to respond, to tell them he was okay, but his body wouldn't obey. His eyes had closed on their own at some point, and behind his eyelids there was only darkness.
Deep, vast darkness that seemed to stretch on forever.
And then he felt himself thrown in an assembly, that is familiar to him and then he heard voices.
Twelve of them.
They didn't come from any particular direction. They just existed all around him sitting in their massive thrones, their voices layered over each other like a choir singing different parts of the same song.
Old voices. Ancient and deep and patient in a way that made Rex feel very young and very small.
"Chosen bearer."
Rex wanted to groan. He recognized these voices—the twelve gods who'd given him the armor, who'd chosen him for reasons he still didn't completely understand. They usually showed up right before something terrible was about to happen.
"You guys again," he muttered, though he wasn't sure if he was actually speaking or just thinking the words. "Seriously? Can't you just, I don't know, send a message or something? This whole 'appearing in my mind' thing is getting old."
The voices didn't respond to that. They never responded to his attempts at humor.
Instead, images started flooding his mind.
He saw a jungle.
And moving through that jungle, cutting through it with brutal efficiency, was a figure.
"Blood Lust," The entities spoke echoing the assembly hall with the terrifying frequency of its name.
Rex watched as the demon slashed through trees with his claws, leaving deep gouges in ancient bark. The jungle tried to fight back—roots writhed up from the earth to wrap around his legs, branches swung down to block his path, vines reached out to bind his arms. Dreadful hands reaching for him out of the withered grounds.
Blood Lust just kept moving. Breaking through everything. Snapping roots like they were twigs. Tearing through vines like they were paper. Crushing the hands with his pace. Nothing could slow him down. Nothing can hunt him down either.
And he was heading somewhere specific. Following something.
"The Khaos Crystal," the twelve voices said in unison, and suddenly Rex was seeing something else.
A crystal. Black as a moonless night, roughly the size of a human head, sitting on a stone pedestal in a small clearing. It pulsed with a steady rhythm—thump, thump, thump—like a heartbeat made of darkness itself. With each pulse, shadows rippled outward, spreading across the ground, climbing up nearby trees.
Just looking at it—even in this vision—made Rex's stomach twist. Made something deep in his chest recoil with instinctive revulsion.
"What is that thing?" he asked quietly.
"Chaos made manifest," the voices answered. "Fear given form. A fragment of the primordial darkness that existed before light."
More images. Rex saw Blood Lust finding the crystal, reaching for it. Saw Blood Lust taking it away and handing it over to the dark mistress of his. It was a warning and a glimpse of the worst possible outcomes if nothing was done in order to intervene this.
"If the Archdemon claims the Khaos Crystal," the voices continued, "he will bring it to his Mistress. The Seventh Hex Demon—the Demon of Lust herself."
Rex saw her then. A shadowy figure with no real form, just smoke and darkness with two burning blue eyes. It was clear to him that not even the gods could perceive her real form against her will (Such tremendous being of power). And then he saw what she would do with the crystal's abilities.
Darkness spreading across the world like spilled ink as it engulfs the hidden Sun completely. Cities going black. People screaming as the night itself became a weapon, crushing, suffocating, destroying. The Demon of Lust weaving shadows into her will, bending the darkness that already covered so much of the world until it became an extension of herself.
"She will control the night," the voices said simply. "She will make it hers. And with that power, she will forge destruction into the last fragments of humanity that remain. Life itself will perish and the demons will be successful in fulfilling their main objective."
The images faded and so did the assembly itself, leaving Rex in a celestial space of light with only the voices.
"You must stop him," they said. "Before the Archdemon reaches the crystal. Before he brings it to his Mistress. Before this catastrophe unfolds its doom."
Rex was quiet for a moment, processing all of this.
Then, because he was Rex and dealing with cosmic terror by being casual was kind of his thing, he said: "Okay. I understand. Chill, I can handle it. Don't worry."
The silence that followed was heavy.
When the gods spoke again, their tone hadn't changed—still ancient, still serious, still carrying the weight of eons—but there was something almost... gentle about it. Like teachers about to deliver bad news to a student who'd studied hard but still wasn't ready.
"Rex, chosen bearer of our divine strength and power," they began, "since the day we bestowed our power upon you, you have grown. Trained. Pushed yourself beyond mortal limits. The divine armor has changed you, made you stronger, faster, more resilient than any ordinary human."
"Right," Rex said, feeling like there was a 'but' coming.
"But."
There it was.
"The power you have gained—everything you have learned, all the abilities you now possess—when measured against the Archdemon called Blood Lust..." The voices paused. "Your strength is insignificant."
The word hung in the darkness like a death sentence.
"Worthless," another voice added, not cruelly, just factually. "Compared to what you are about to face, you might as well be unfamiliar and unarmed."
Rex felt cold despite the warmth of Elira's cottage, despite his body lying on a couch in front of a crackling fire.
"Blood Lust is an Archdemon," the voices continued. "He has walked this world for centuries. He has fed on the blood and fear of thousands. He has grown stronger with every battle, every massacre, every drop of terror he's consumed. He is ancient and powerful and utterly without mercy."
"So you're saying I can't win," Rex said quietly.
"We are saying the odds of your victory are..." A pause. "Negligible."
"Practically nonexistent," another voice clarified.
"So small as to be almost meaningless," a third added.
"Okay, okay, I get it!" Rex cut them off. "I'm going to lose. Message received loud and clear."
"And yet," the voices said in unison, "you must go anyway and fend for yourselves as well as the entire humanity."
Rex laughed. It came out bitter. "That's a terrible pep talk, you know that?"
"We are not here to inspire false confidence," the voices replied. "We are here to tell you the truth. And the truth is this: if you do not try, the world ends in the hands of darkness. If you try and fail, the world will still end in darkness. But at least if you go and try—if you face Blood Lust despite all the odds and knowing you will likely die—humanity can still hope for a chance."
"A tiny chance," Rex muttered.
"A chance nonetheless. Which is infinitely better than none."
The reality around him began to shift, to tremble, like everything was collapsing.
"Go," the twelve voices commanded, speaking as one final time. "Stop the Archdemon. Save the world."
A pause.
"Or die like a coward."
Rex felt himself falling, tumbling through the dimensional shifts, the voices growing more distant with each passing second until they were just echoes, then whispers, then gone entirely.
The last thing he heard before consciousness returned was one final sentence, quieter than the rest:
"We believe in you, chosen bearer. The fate of the world now rests upon your shoulders."
To be continued....