The Telgradian flashed a sideways glance at the newly arrived Leoric Blackwell as the great beast thundering towards them stopped dead in its tracks. The demon’s eyes fixated only on the blackened arm of the adventurer and, with a violent snort, the minotaur retreated.

Why did it stop? Shinsou wondered, his own eyes scanning his periphery before locking onto the adventurer’s strangely darkened forearm. What’s that arm about? He didn’t have that before – did he get hurt?

Without warning, the large demon had retreated beyond his revenant honour guard, and the undead warriors began to move in his stead. They danced like puppets on the greater demon’s strings, synchronising their movements perfectly despite the tight quarters. Each of them was equipped with a thick heater shield intricately inscribed with blasphemous glyphs; two were armed with straight swords, the third an axe more suited to cutting down castle towers than trees, and the last a grim scythe-like weapon attached to a weighted ball that was probably made for busting through fortress walls and barred gates.

Only when he was close enough to see the very specks of rust on their wickedly notched blades did Shinsou force his body into reacting, pure adrenaline and arcane power fuelling him. He instinctively ducked the first cross-sweep from the left, evaded the downwards swing from the right by leaping backwards half a step, and pre-empted the third stroke by lashing out with Enpera in his right hand, the lai sword clanging harmlessly from the axe-wielding revenant’s shield. The manoeuvre bought the Telgradian the precious two seconds needed to lift his left hand to waist height and scatter a fistful of dark matter.

“Eat shit.”

Ten, then twenty, then a hundred small balls of pulsating dark matter burst into life between the two men and their undead opponents. Wreathed in amethyst arcs that were dazzlingly bright and beautiful, they lingered for only a moment before arcing towards their targets. Orbs burst against raised shields and dark armour, but enough of the projectiles rained in from enough different trajectories that still the helms of the revenants were buried in explosive splendour.

“You an interesting specimen of mortality, boy.“ The injured demon leaned back on its haunches, languidly crossing its forearms as wisps of black magic whisked past its face. “But him? I couldn’t feast on him if I tried. So, it’ll have to be you. I’m looking forward to consuming that energy. I can already sense your transformation starting to wane.”

As Shinsou had previously learned the hard way, even a single revenant was notoriously difficult to destroy, requiring first the separation of its necromantic essence from its corporeal body, and then the complete obliteration of said essence. And that was saying nothing of the powerful demon that now lurked behind them. The battles of an arcane warrior were always a measure of how well he could conserve the limited resources available to him, but entering the relatively freshly mastered 5th grade of Shin no Kotei would deplete his reserves of stamina to almost non-existent, and his act of defiance a moment earlier had used up a lot of energy as well. Thus, even before the dark magic and the fire had died down, even before it had started, he had made up his mind to end the fight quickly. Retrieving his Enpera with a flick of his wrist along its silken cord, his body held low and muscles tensing with the effort, he broke off from the regenerating corpses of the revenants to attack the greater demon himself.

There was no way that his foe would let him attack that easily. A lash of pure, glowing flame came hurtling his way, wrapping around his armoured ankles and taking his feet out from beneath him. Shinsou reacted instantly, lashing out with his magic and slicing through the white hot coil with a blade of finely honed dark matter before it could burn through his plating. Enpera whipped up, parrying the minotaur’s balled-fist as it soared towards his face.

It was then that the snarling beast felt something bitterly frigid pierce his shoulder, shattering his arcane wards like so much fragile glass. Searing pain shot through his numbed body, even as Shinsou lept from the ground and pinned him to the sharp stones in Casa Antiga’s square with three further white matter lances, making light of the demon’s attempt to kick free. Malevolent crimson seeped soullessly from the stricken beast’s gnarled face as a terrible howl echoed across the burning townscape.

Dimly, the minotaur saw the Telgradian prepare a final white matter lance for the deathblow, edging the point to the beast’s throat.

“What did you mean when you said you couldn’t feast on him?” Shinsou, a foot planted on the beast’s blood-mottled fur chest, indicated to the nearby Leoric. “Why did you retreat?”

“Do you not know?” The beast continued, heedless of the desperate situation unfolding before him. “I feed on your struggles. Every burst of power you unleash to try to defeat me, every well-laid plan and hopeless effort, I consume and grow stronger. But he is something different entirely. Look at his arm – the mark of the demonic. I cannot feast on my own, as it would end me.”

Leoric approached the ground next to Shinsou, physically shoving another revenant away from his partner with a flurry of strength. Through blurring vision and rapidly receding stamina, Shinsou saw the adventurer’s arm properly this time. It was as if it had been charred, or cast in dark iron. Leoric was a young adventurer with great strength, but his powers seemed unstable and untried beyond what Shinsou knew of him. This demonic mark, however…

“Tell me how to get to the Temple of Elrohir Fararil.” The Telgradian moved the humming lance point to within millimetres of the beast’s throat.

“I see now,” The bipedal monstrosity heaved a pained breath from his lungs, “Cazri, you traitor.”

The hand holding back the white lance of imminent death faltered at the mention of the dark elf’s name.

“What did you say? How do you know Cazri?!” Shinsou demanded to know.

“The dark elf, and the two others by her side. She promised us the Sword of Elrohir Fararil in exchange for the demons serving her "holy" interests in Alerar.” The greater demon struggled to breathe, blood seeping into the back of its animalistic throat, “Our kind are blind to everything but the glow of the Sword of the Elrorir Fararil. But I see now. She’s sending him to close the portal. Only a demon can do it, and none of our number would willingly close it until the sword was in our possession, as promised.”

Son of a bitch, Cazri’s playing us all off against each other. Shinsou thought. Before he could put together the pieces of the puzzle in his mind, he heard the clinking of metal onto stone only moments after the greater demon dropped something onto the floor.

“This seal,” huffed the minotaur, “When activated by the one with the black arm, will take you to straight to the Temple. I have no right to ask this, but destroy the portal and stop this. Our kind will keep serving her as long as she is promising us the Sword. She has already disposed of her political enemies in the west and it is clear she intends to lead us into a war against her remaining opponents, and you to your deaths. There is no honour, or glorious purpose, in any of this.”

The last thing the demon saw as he slipped into blissful unconsciousness were the drifting white-embers that beckoned him to the sky, and the reflection of two sets of emotionless stares tracking his death.

“What is your name?”

Shinsou’s final question to the greater demon N’Gal was only heard by Leoric Blackwell, and the flames that surrounded them both in the town of Casa Antiga.