The fortress was breaking.
Stone groaned as the last barricades cracked under the weight of claws and fire. The devils pressed from every direction, their horns a deafening rhythm of slaughter. The arena floor, once meant for games and duels, had become a charnel pit — a place where the living clung to life by inches, and the wounded wept in silence, too weak to raise a cry.
The devils surged again. A tide of black bodies vaulted the broken stone, wings blotting out the moon. Their screeches filled the air, and fire rained down in sheets.
Then—
The air split.
A column of blinding light erupted in the center of the arena floor, cutting through the darkness like the wrath of the heavens. Sand and stone lifted in the blast of mana, whipping through the air. The devils shrieked, covering their faces as the brilliance burned against their flesh.
Through the blaze, figures emerged.
