Adam no longer felt the weight of his armor.
It was still there—scratched, bent, soaked in blood—but it might as well have been part of his skin. The battlefield moved around him in broken pieces: screams tearing through smoke, steel clashing without rhythm, bodies collapsing into mud that no longer looked like earth.
Andrew's body lay behind him.
Adam did not look back again.
If he did, something inside him would tear open—and there was no room for that now.
He raised his sword and stepped forward.
The demons came fast, empowered by the second leaf, their movements sharp and merciless. Where human soldiers should have broken, many did not. They fought on with gritted teeth, standing over fallen friends, refusing to give ground that had already been paid for with blood.
Adam met the charge head-on.
His blade struck with a force that felt wrong—too clean, too heavy. A demon's arm tore free at the shoulder. Another fell with its skull split open. Adam moved without conscious thought, his body answering something older than training.
Then the world stilled again.
Not silence—
anticipation.
Adam felt it ripple through the ground, up his legs, into his chest.
He looked up.
The third leaf fell.
This one burned white.
It did not drift. It plunged.
When it struck the earth, the shockwave threw men and demons alike to the ground. Adam stayed standing. He felt the power tear through him—not gentle, not kind—but controlled, as if the world itself had reached out and said not yet.
Human soldiers rose.
Changed.
Their wounds closed faster than before. Their eyes burned with clarity. Fear vanished entirely, replaced by something harder—resolve sharpened by loss.
Adam roared.
The sound tore through the battlefield like a command the world could not ignore.
They pushed.
Not in formation.
Not with strategy.
With will.
Demons fell in waves. Bodies piled high enough to slow those behind them. The demon ranks fractured, then collapsed entirely as human soldiers carved a path straight toward the heart of the army.
Adam saw him.
The Demon Lord stood apart, tall and terrible, armor blackened with ancient symbols, eyes glowing with measured patience. He did not flee. He waited.
Adam cut his way toward him, the world narrowing to a single purpose.
Their blades met with a sound like thunder.
The Demon Lord was strong—stronger than anything Adam had faced—but not unstoppable. Each strike drove him back. Each parry cost him ground. The battlefield fell away as if it knew better than to intrude.
Adam disarmed him with a brutal twist.
The Demon Lord fell to one knee.
Adam placed his sword against the creature's throat.
Around them, the fighting slowed. Demons hesitated. Humans held their breath.
"It's over," Adam said, voice low, steady.
The Demon Lord smiled.
"Nothing that begins with faith," he replied softly, "ends the way you expect."
Adam did not answer.
He raised his blade.
He believed the war was finished.
And that belief would cost the world everything.