"Fall back. He's already spent."
Valen's voice cut through the chaos. His golden armor caught what was left of my ward's light as it shattered against the demon's claws.
I staggered backward, legs barely holding me up. The death spell I'd taken for him burned through my veins. Black veins crawled up my arms where the curse tried to take root. My manna reserves weren't just empty, they were destroyed.
Ahead of us, the obsidian corridor stretched into darkness. Volcanic glass carved into walls that reflected our broken formation. Ancient runes pulsed pale green along the sides. The Demon Spire was collapsing from within. So was I.
"Caelum!" Vera called out. Silver hair whipped around her face as she spun toward me, bow shaking in her grip. Our eyes met across the crumbling battlefield for just a heartbeat.
She hesitated.
One second. Two.
Then Valen's gauntleted hand grabbed her shoulder. "The mission comes first."
Her face crumpled. She looked back at him once, then followed the Hero toward the blazing teleportation glyph Selena had carved into the floor. Blue-white magic glowed against the darkness, their way out.
Darius stood at the portal's edge, massive frame blocking half the light. The Blade-guard's knuckles went white around his sword hilt. His jaw worked like he wanted to say something. Instead, he clenched his fist and stepped through without a word.
Selena lingered the longest. Her lips moved—a prayer maybe, or an apology. The howling wind through the Spire's broken walls swallowed her words. She raised one hand toward me, then let it drop. It looked like surrender.
"Selena!" I reached out, voice barely a whisper. "Wait…"
Too late. The portal's hungry light swallowed her whole.
Valen never looked back.
The teleportation glyph flared once, twice, then died. Sudden silence hit me harder than any demon's claw. No spell-song. No battle cries. Just me and the ancient darkness that owned this place long before we arrived.
I tried stepping forward. My knees buckled.
This corridor told stories, every failed hero who'd tried claiming this tower. Skeletal remains covered the floor, picked clean by scavengers and time. Shattered weapons lay scattered among broken sigils that once held protective power.
Five years! Five years following them into hell and back. Five years watching Valen's back while arrows, spells, and demon claws tried finding their mark. Five years patching wounds, cleansing curses, buffing their strength while my body grew weaker with each battle.
I'd saved Vera from a mind-eating parasite in the Screaming Marsh. Pulled Darius back from berserker madness when his family sword got corrupted. Held Selena together when her light magic turned inward, threatening to burn her soul to ash.
And Valen... I'd taken more hits meant for him than I could count. This death spell was just the latest. The Hero of the Empire, the Chosen of Light, the man who could supposedly save us all and he watched me crumble and called retreat without missing a beat.
*He's already spent.*
Like I was a tool. Something consumable. Use it up, throw it away when it stops working.
My legs gave out. I hit the floor hard, palms scraping rough stone. Blood welled from a dozen small cuts. The metallic taste in my mouth got stronger.
Demons circled in the shadows beyond the corridor. I smelled their hunger—sulfur, rotting meat, something else. They weren't rushing. Why would they? I was already dying.
I tried pushing myself up. My arms shook as the death curse spread through my system, turning my life force against me. Each heartbeat pumped fresh poison through my veins.
The corridor stretched into darkness ahead. Somewhere beyond that darkness: the exit. Salvation. Life.
I started crawling.
Stone scraped my knees, elbows, chest. Every inch forward exhausted me. The air got thicker with each breath. Ancient magic pressed down from all sides, making my bones ache.
Behind me, something chattered. Claws clicked against stone.
I crawled faster.
The skeletal remains took on individual character now. A knight's helmet, dented and scorched. A mage's staff with its crystal focus cracked down the middle. An archer's quiver, empty arrows scattered like broken dreams.
How many heroes died here? How many chosen ones met their end in these cursed halls?
How many support mages got left behind when things got tough?
My vision blurred. The world's edges went soft and gray. My hands stopped responding right. I slumped against the wall, gasping.
This wall felt different. Smoother.
I blinked hard, trying to focus through the gathering darkness. Made out a statue's shape. Ancient beyond measure, carved from the same obsidian as the walls but somehow darker.
A god I didn't recognize. Maybe one whose name got forgotten. The figure was humanoid but wrong in subtle ways—too tall, too thin, arms hanging a little too long. The face...
Someone had shattered the face. Like taking a hammer to it centuries ago.
But the eyes...
Even broken, even cracked, those stone eyes seemed to watch me. Ancient script covered the statue's base—writing that predated the Empire, the kingdoms before it, everything I knew about history, magic, how the world worked.
Something about those eyes felt familiar. Like looking in a mirror and seeing all the ways you'd been broken.
My breathing got shallow. The death curse was eating me alive. I felt my heart struggling to pump corrupted blood through dying veins. The demons were getting closer. Their chattering turned to soft laughter.
They could wait. I wasn't going anywhere.
Funny how after everything—all the battles, victories, times I'd pulled my team back from the brink—this was how it ended. Alone in a forgotten corridor, bleeding out next to a broken god nobody remembered.
Five years of loyalty.
The thought drifted through my fading consciousness. Five years believing I mattered, that we were a team, that bonds forged in battle meant something more than convenience.
Every wound I'd taken for them.
The scar on my shoulder from the dire wolf in Blackwood Forest. The burn on my back from shielding Selena from a fireball. The twisted fingers on my left hand from a curse meant for Darius.
Every spell cast in their defense.
Thousands of wards. Hundreds of healing miracles. Buff spells that left me drained for days. Barrier magics that took pieces of my soul each time I cast them.
The cold truth: I was disposable.
Support mages always were. We didn't get glory. We didn't get songs. We got dirty work, grateful nods, and promises that we were essential to the team.
Right up until we weren't.
My vision tunneled as the world contracted to a single point of failing light. Demon laughter grew distant. I couldn't feel my hands anymore. Couldn't feel the stone beneath me.
But I could still see those broken eyes.
In my final moments, staring at that shattered divine face, I understood something that should've been obvious from the beginning. Heroes didn't keep support mages around because they cared. They kept us because we were useful.
When we stopped being useful...
Darkness crept in from all sides. My hearing faded next—demon shrieks growing muffled, then silent. The taste of blood and sulfur disappeared. The cold stone beneath me might as well have been clouds.
But somehow, impossibly, I could still see the statue.
As my consciousness slipped away completely, as my heart gave its last stuttering beat, I saw something impossible.
The broken eyes began to glow.
Ancient runes along the statue's base pulsed to life, burning with light that had nothing to do with the Lightcaller's pure magic or the Hero's golden radiance. This was older, hungrier, more honest about power's price.
Something stirred in the depths beneath the Spire. Something that had waited a very long time for exactly this moment. For exactly this kind of broken soul.
The voice that spoke wasn't quite human, wasn't quite divine either. It was something else entirely—something that understood what it meant to be discarded by those you'd served.
"So... another one seeks to be reborn?"