The Greater Demon moved.
In the same instant, the beast charged.
Kael’s eyes widened.
Again.
Black-violet energy gathered around the demon’s remaining hand, condensing into a razor-thin blade.
Across from it, the beast lowered its ruined head and drove forward, its massive body becoming a living battering ram aimed straight through the space he occupied.
Neither was aiming solely at the other anymore.
Both were coming for him.
His gaze flicked between them — their angle, their closing speed, the broken pillars, the channels glowing faint beneath the shattered floor — and understanding struck all at once.
They’re going to collide.
He shifted his weight.
The Greater Demon vanished into a blur.
The beast accelerated.
Kael threw himself backward.
A fist tore through the space where his skull had been while the beast’s remaining horn swept through the same air from the opposite direction, the two attacks missing each other by a hand’s width.
He hit the ground and rolled, ruined shoulder screaming as stone scraped raw against it.
BOOM!
The Greater Demon’s fist slammed into the beast’s flank, sending it skidding sideways in a spray of black blood.
But the beast didn’t stop — its ruined skull snapped around on pure instinct, remaining horn carving a blind arc through the air.
Straight toward Kael.
Shit.
He jumped.
The horn passed beneath his feet close enough to graze his boots.
He landed badly, knee buckling, and for half a second nearly went down for good.
Move.
He forced himself upright.
The Greater Demon recovered first, black eyes locking onto him with terrible, unhurried certainty.
A moment later the beast’s ruined head turned the same direction, drawn by the sound of his own ragged breathing.
His stomach tightened.
They’re still prioritizing me.
He ran.
The Greater Demon attacked.
Kael ducked beneath a blade of condensed energy that screamed over his head and carved a molten line through the wall behind him.
He didn’t look back.
He sprinted deeper into the fortress.
His body was nearly finished — shoulder useless, neck burning with every breath, demonic energy reduced to dying embers at the bottom of his core.
Behind him came two monsters that should have already killed him.
Think.
His eyes swept the ruin as he moved — channels, markings, broken pathways, leaning pillars.
Then— The channels.
His steps faltered half a heartbeat.
He remembered entering this place, feeling the energy move not randomly but through a network, a web, every thread feeding something buried deeper.
The convergence point.
He could feel it now, faint but unmistakable — pressure beneath the floor, a pulse, the whole fortress feeding power toward one location.
The core.
The Greater Demon landed in front of him and Kael stopped dead.
It was barely recognizable as the creature from minutes earlier.
A horn clean through its spine.
Black blood still sheeting from a torn-open chest.
And yet it stood.
Its remaining hand rose.
Kael looked past it — the beast closing from behind, blind and bleeding and still hunting — then toward the dark passage leading deeper into the fortress.
Then back at the demon.
An idea formed.
Reckless.
Probably suicidal.
Which meant it might work.
I don’t need to reach the center.
His eyes sharpened.
I need to be thrown there.
The Greater Demon attacked.
Kael didn’t dodge.
Not yet.
He waited, watching the blade form, closing, closing, every instinct screaming NOW — He hardened his body.
Not completely.
Not perfectly.
Just enough.
The blade struck.
SHRAAAK!
He twisted at the last fraction of a second, and the attack tore across his ribs instead of through his center.
BOOM!
He was launched backward — exactly where he’d needed to go.
Past a broken pillar.
Past a split wall.
Past glowing channels.
He hit the ground, rolled three times, and crashed against something solid.
His vision blurred.
He pushed himself upright.
And froze.
The chamber opened around him, vast, hundreds of channels converging from every direction toward a massive circular formation carved into the floor.
It pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Like a heart beneath the mountain.
There.
The convergence point.
Not just transporting energy — collecting it.
Veins feeding a heart.
The whole fortress wasn’t merely protected by this power.
It depended on it.
Footsteps followed him in.
The Greater Demon entered the chamber.
A moment later, the beast.
Kael almost laughed.
Of course they’d followed.
He looked at the formation.
Then his own core — nearly empty.
He needed energy, but he couldn’t simply drink the fortress’s reserves and walk away stronger.
His body would tear apart under that much power.
Then don’t keep it.
He reached toward the nearest channel and pulled.
The energy resisted hard, fighting the reversal.
Come on.
He pulled harder.
A thin stream tore free and surged into him.
Pain exploded through his frame.
His muscles seized, his core screamed, the energy too dense, too violent — not strengthening him, tearing through him.
Draw.
He forced it inward, teeth clenched against the agony.
Circulate.
He guided it around his straining core.
Return — but instead of sending it back into his own flesh, he stopped.
Not yet.
He shoved it into the channel instead.
The current reversed for one violent instant.
The fortress shuddered.
Kael released it immediately, hands trembling, breath ragged.
I can interfere with the flow.
Not control it.
Not yet.
But interfere.
And that was enough.
The Greater Demon attacked.
Kael moved.
BOOM!
The strike shattered the floor where he’d stood a heartbeat earlier.
The beast charged in the same instant.
Kael sprinted around the formation’s edge, and the beast followed, blind and relentless.
He wasn’t fighting them anymore.
He was positioning them.
The Greater Demon attacked again.
He ducked.
The beast lunged — he changed direction at the last possible moment, and its horn swept past him to smash directly into the Greater Demon’s side instead.
CRASH!
Both monsters collided.
The formation pulsed, hard.
That’s it.
Not because they were strong enough to break it outright—but because the formation was never designed to withstand impacts like these indefinitely.
I don’t have to overpower them, Kael realized, staring at the two ruined giants.
I just have to keep them fighting over the right place.
The Greater Demon shoved off from the beast, black eyes finding Kael again.
The beast’s ruined skull turned toward him a beat later.
His grin vanished.
They’re going to come for me again.
Good.
He ran for the center.
Both followed — the Greater Demon on sight, the beast on sound.
Three steps.
Two.
One.
He jumped.
The Greater Demon lunged.
The beast charged.
BOOOOOOM!
They collided directly above the formation.
The chamber shook.
The formation cracked, and a deep sound rolled through the fortress — not an explosion, a groan, the sound of something enormous beginning to fail.
Cracks spread across the floor.
The channels flared.
Energy surged through the walls in chaotic waves.
Kael landed hard, eyes fixed on the fracturing formation.
Not fast enough.
The fortress was still stabilizing itself.
One more push.
He looked at his core — almost nothing left.
He knew what pulling more would cost him.
Looked at the channels.
The formation.
The escape route behind him.
Calculated distance, damage, the time he’d have to run.
If I do this, I might die.
His mouth curled upward anyway.
Then I’d better run faster.
He pressed both palms flat against the nearest channel and pulled.
The fortress answered violently.
A wave of demonic energy flooded into him, his whole body convulsing, vision going white, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth as his core strained past every limit it had.
The energy wasn’t becoming his.
It was only passing through.
That was all he needed.
Draw — his core nearly cracked.
Circulate — his body screamed.
Return — and he reversed it, forcing the current backward into the channel instead of back through his own flesh.
The fortress shuddered violently.
Kael screamed through clenched teeth as the channel beneath his hands split—then the fracture raced outward, jumping from one channel to the next.
The formation pulsed once more.
Twice.
CRACK.
It split down the middle.
Now.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Raw demonic energy exploded outward.
The Greater Demon was thrown across the chamber.
The beast slammed into the far wall.
Kael was launched toward the passage as the ceiling above him cracked open and stone began raining down.
He hit the ground, rolled, didn’t stop.
Forced himself upright.
Run.
The fortress collapsed behind him section by section.
BOOM!
A chamber vanished.
He sprinted anyway, legs shaking, shoulder useless, neck burning, core scraped hollow.
BOOM!
Closer now.
He pushed harder.
Behind him, a roar — and he risked one glance back.
The Greater Demon had recovered.
Even now.
Even with a wound through its spine, even with the fortress folding in on itself around it — still standing.
Black eyes locked onto his.
For one suspended moment, neither of them moved.
Kael almost smiled.
You really don’t know when to quit.
The ceiling between them cracked.
Move.
KRAAAAAASH!
Stone buried the passage between them entirely.
Kael turned and ran.
The outer corridor shook apart around him — walls splitting, channels bursting, energy pouring through every crack.
The fortress wasn’t collapsing chamber by chamber anymore.
It was folding in on itself completely.
The ground beneath his feet dropped away as he reached the entrance.
He jumped, threw himself forward, rolled across black ground outside just as— KRAAAAAAAAAASH!
The fortress disappeared beneath itself.
A massive cloud of black dust erupted into the night sky.
The mountain shuddered once, twice.
Then silence.
Kael lay still.
His chest rose.
Fell.
Rose again.
Alive.
Somehow.
A weak laugh escaped him.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the dark sky, every inch of him aching, his demonic energy scraped down to nothing.
He had nearly killed himself using the fortress’s own power against it, and he had no idea whether either monster had survived what came after.
He sat up slowly and looked toward the ruin — a mountain of black stone where a fortress had stood.
Maybe they’re dead.
A pause.
Maybe they’re not.
Strangely, the second thought was the one that brought his grin back.
He had entered the fortress thinking strength meant overpowering whatever stood in front of him.
He left knowing better.
Sometimes the strongest weapon wasn’t a fist.
It was the battlefield.
Kael looked back at the ruin.
One day, I’ll be strong enough to fight monsters like that head-on.
His grin widened.
Until then… I’ll make sure the battlefield fights for me.
Kael pushed himself upright, legs trembling, catching himself against a broken slab until his body steadied.
Then he turned his gaze toward the endless dark of the Abyss.
He was still weak.
The Greater Demon had proven that.
The beast had proven that.
The fortress had proven that.
But now he knew what stood above him.
Knew how far the gap really was.
And for the first time, the gap didn’t frighten him.
It excited him.
One day, he thought, looking back once more at the ruin, I’ll stand where they stood.
He turned toward the Abyss and started walking.
Body broken.
Energy nearly gone.
Eyes still burning.
Until then — I’ll keep climbing.