The battlefield was alive.

  Sam’s Starfire Bastion bathed them all in celestial energy, even as her Beacon of Hope lifted their spirits and Guardian’s Mantle lessened the demonic influence being hurled at them.

  Where Sam’s powers were protective, Nessa’s were seamlessly aggressive. Harald felt her Will of the Blade subtly guiding him, helping him find the optimum position to receive the charge even as her Harmonic Resonance inspired him and sharpened his senses.

  But it was his Abyssal Imperium and Well of Starless Dominion that were changing the very nature of the battlefield. With each passing moment the rate of demonic vitality flooding into him was increasing. As more slashes and wounds were opened up in their foes, more demonic essence flooded into him, which empowered his Imperium further, so that more motes clouded the air, which only served to cut the demons further.

  The Handmaidens sported numerous cuts across their faces, hands, and where the motes had seared through their leather and scored their metal armor. The larger the wound, the greater the drain, and Harald felt the rate of empowerment rising ever more quickly.

  If they could just hold.

  If they could just last long enough, he’d crush them through Imperium and the Well alone.

  But time was what they didn’t have.

  The demons charged. Whips flailing, blades drawn back, mouths opened in harrowing screams, they fell upon the trio. Disoriented by each of Harald’s pulses, weakened by the Bastion, ennervated by the Imperium, and cowed by Harald’s Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant, still they came, their prowess blunted but not stopped.

  Nessa hurled the Compressed World, and the ball of bronze unfurled right in the path of the main body of attackers to warp space and cause the very ground to curve up, the air to distort, light the sheer. Goldchops flew forth, three of them, the sight of his old faithfol hatchets filling Harald with something akin to nostalgic cheer.

  The demons surged around the Compressed World, though one or two floundered as they were trapped into its depths, only to run right into a coruscating beam of white power that flooded forth from Sam’s extended palm. A great corridor of holy energy flooded forward in a direct line, causing the demons to wilt back in sudden disarray.

  “Charge!” cried Nessa, blade flashing as she led the way.

  Pulled by her powers, Harald didn’t hesitate. He flung himself ahead of her, painfully aware of how delicate she was in the face of Level 11 demons, and entered the fray.

  Oh exultation. Oh dark lordly might.

  A fresh pulse radiated out from him, and this one caused all the demons—all of them—to momentarily falter.

  Well was empowering the darkbeat pulse at a categorically new level.

  Harald laughed as more and more demonic essence flooded into him and hewed off an arm. Ducked a slash, spun, and cut the tip of the Scourge through half a demon’s ankle, causing chunks of black rock to scatter out of the wound onto the grass.

  The sound of metallic stars ringing out against the void filled his mind.

  The Demon Seed Has Stirred

  Your Dexterity has risen from 21 to 22

  Hooks swarmed him, but his shadow-flesh resisted.

  Sam cried out in pain. Wheeling about, he saw a demon had stabbed her clear through the shoulder.

  “Shadowpaw!” he could sense the mastiff bounding around the outskirt of the combat, and the hound responded by surging forward, faster than Harald could cross the distance, and leaping up on the demon, who turned at the last to tear her blade free and stab it into the hound’s gut even as she went down.

  Another pulse, and the whole battlefield constricted and expanded as the demons again staggered.

  Lancing wrongness in his back. Harald swung about, but the demon ducked under his blade—and straight into his rising knee. Her nose crunched, and as she reeled up, he headbutt her right in the ruined mash of her face, doubling the damage, only to bring the Scourge all the way around and slam it into her side, cleaving straight through near to the spine.

  Nessa faltered, blade lowering as one of the demons finished hissing something at her.

  Harald summoned the new Shadow Handmaiden from his Cosmos as he focused his authority upon the Bladeweaver: “Nessa, fight it off!”

  The Crown caught her up in its fell authority, and her eyes widened just as the demon came in to stab her. She parried, deflected, gave ground, then surged forward to drive the demon back.

  The battlefield flared white, a blinding cataclysm of light that caused the demons to snarl and flinch—Sam’s Celestial Flare.

  But the Level 2 Active barely registered against such potent foes.

  Another Handmaiden slid in behind Sam, but Harald focused Imperium so that she was enveloped in swirling blades.

  No time to watch. He parried, backed away, swayed aside, parried again, then took a blow square on the shoulder.

  Thank the angels for Constitution 39. The edge thunked against him instead of whisper-parting flesh into a red mouth. Harald slammed the pommel of the Scourge into the demon’s face just as a black blade emerged from her chest.

  The Shadow Handmaiden grinned at him from over her sister’s shoulder.

  Harald didn’t hestitate. A cross-cut, and the Handmaiden’s head went flying.

  A second later she appeared on the battlefield as a second Shadow Handmaiden.

  Both being fed by the ravenous, all-devouring Well in his chest.

  “Now!” cried Nessa. “Trust me!”

  An instinct, an outside will reached for Harald. Sought to swing him up into a greater cadence, a coordinated pattern of perfect lethality. Harald felt Nessa behind the power, a vastly more potent version of Will of the Blade—but just as he and the Handmaiden’s began to swirl to the side, moving to flank a trio of Handmaiden’s that were pressing Sam, the guiding will, that sense of impossible knowledge and tactical mastery faded and broke.

  “Damn it!” cried Nessa.

  The vision that had been unfurling in Harald’s mind fell apart, and the battlefield returned to its incoherent chaos.

  Sam was stumbling back, one arm hanging by her side, desperately parrying an attack.

  The demon was playing with her.

  Fury seized Harald. He lunged, only to cry out in frustration as a whip coiled around his neck. He spun about, Scourge rising to slash the whip in twain, when a second Handmaiden stepped in and stabbed her blade down into his chest.

  Elixethera.

  She pressed in close, black lips parted in a wild, diabolical grin, each tooth outlined in black blood, eyes burning bright, and wrenched the blade aside, carving open a channel half a foot wide in his chest.

  His blood spurted forth in a great dull red spray that was shot through with streaks of black.

  “And so it ends,” snarled Elixethera, curling one hand behind his head. “As it was destined to do.”

  Golden light washed over Harald, radiating out from the Solace of Aurelum, and the demon’s wound healed over. Every cut, every scrape, the deep wrenching wrongness in his spine—all healed over in an instant, and even as Elixethera’s sword was shoved out of his chest by the golden light, he headbutt her face with all his strength, slamming his brow down on the bridge of her nose.

  She reeled back, shocked, and he kicked her foot out from under her—but she pirouetted, parried his follow-up slash, rocked back as he punched her clear in the face, fist sailing over the edge of the Scourge, and as she screamed in rage, hand rising to the ruined architecture of her skull, Harald drank deep from the Well, invested himself in all the demonic energy it had to spare, and thrust the Scourge straight into her chest in in turn.

  Metal screeched, distorted, fragmented before the blade’s dimenion cutting abilities, and the sword plunged in deep.

  “No.” Harald grunted and lifted her clear off the ground. Elixethera gasped and scrabbled at the green stone sword, but gravity pulled her down, inch by black-bloody inch, toward him. “I’m not done yet by a long mile.”

  Her entire body was mineralizing, crystalizing, and with a cry he swept the sword to the side, the blade parting her flesh from within, and she fell to the ground, black blood bubbling to her lips, lavender eyes wide and staring.

  The sound of metallic stars ringing out against the void filled his mind.

  The Demon Seed Has Stirred

  Your Strength has risen from 21 to 22

  Harald felta flare of brutal satisfaction, then waited for the precise moment and snatched her soul.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  A second later Elixethera appeared by his side, all in shadow, huge horns glistening, blade propped over one shoulder.

  “Your order, Master?” she purred.

  “Kill your sisters.”

  Elixethera laughed, the sound hollow. “With pleasure!”

  Nessa was fighting over Sam, who’d collapsed to the ground. Shadowpaw had been defeated and banished, and he’d lost one of his three Shadow Handmaidens.

  Six foes left. Two Shadow Handmaidens pressing their flank, Harald in the center, and Nessa barely keeping her assailants at bay. Damn, but Nessa could fight. Even wounded and out-Leveled, she was peerless, dancing and dodging, deflecting and parrying as if she knew each blow was coming a beat before it was swung, completely unlike anything Harald could imagine.

  Time to end this.

  Another pulse surged forth from his core, and this time the six remaining demons tottered, falling back. Black essence flowed from them into Harald, and the Well was roaring, consuming, a vortex of unstoppable avarice.

  One of the Handmaidens sank to her knee. She was fighting to regain her breath. Essence flooded out of her faster than she could replenish.

  That’s when Harald realized. The Well had just tipped past their rate to sustain combat.

  The battlefield was his.

  His to command. His to control.

  And the Handmaidens were his to consume.

  Their demonic essence responded to his will. Were part and parcel of the abyss. He focused on the Well and closed his eyes. Their wounds were bright gashes in this mind’s eye, black smoke streaming from them into his personal abyss.

  And the power that brought.

  Each moment had only empowered his ability, raised the rate of absorption, so that he could sense how rapidly they were weakening now, strength fleeing their limbs, movements growing ragged and jerky, their very vitality smothered.

  “Mine,” he said, and raised his hand. “All that you are is mine.”

  Another pulse washed out, and this time Nessa moaned and fell to one knee. Sam’s protection had truly faltered.

  But the Handmaidens turned to run.

  “Mine,” he intoned again, and with all the might of the Crown, he willed them to turn and face him.

  His will, empowered beyond all measure, reached out and snared them.

  The six—no, five, as his Shadow Elixethera cut one down—slowed, strained, then turned back to look at him over their shoulders.

  He could see their essence now with the naked eye. Flooding out of their bodies, draining them like wine sacks, causing their flesh to waste away, their eyes to bulge, their skin to turn sallow. Armor listed on bony frames, hair grew strawlike, and their breath became rapid and shallow.

  Void-motes drifted across them again and again, slashing them apart. Harald brought his focus to bear, and dark clouds appeared around first one then the next, void-blades slashing and hewing and tearing them apart.

  One fell in a geyser of flayed skin and jointed bones.

  Then another.

  More power flooded into his Well.

  He caught a third essence and bound her to his Cosmos.

  His twin Shadow Handmaidens drew back, eyes wide with glee as they watched their sisters waste away.

  The air had grown a deep purple, heavy and thick like near-frozen water, and Harald felt his will made manifest as he drank the last from the remaining three Handmaidens. Fire ran through his veins, majesty burned in his soul, and he felt his presence crush them.

  The Well grew only hungrier.

  Another pulse washed out, the most potent yet, and the three Handmaidens crumpled.

  Nessa fell over as well, but he ignored that. She would be fine. It was just nausea, and she was a big girl.

  Had he ever thought wine delicious? Had he ever thought anything sweet? This was beyond all experience. This was his sinking his teeth into the very fabric of power and feasting. Sonora Manor was a distant shadow. The grass had turned black. The moon was a bruised disc seen through the screen of his Imperium.

  Oh wonder.

  Oh joy.

  The Demon Seed was thrilling within him.

  Harald strolled up to the first Handmaiden. She was on her knees, aged to look like a centenarian. She raised her face, trembling, trying to whisper something, but clasping the Scourge with both hands, he cut her head clear off her shoulders.

  She toppled over, her essence flooding into him.

  Over to the next.

  Who was weeping tears of black blood, which ran into the seams of her once perfect cheeks.

  Another blow, and she toppled, too.

  The last had collapsed onto her side, laboring to breath, unable to do more than turn her head to stare at her approaching nemesis.

  The three Shadow Handmaidens watched impassive from one side.

  Harald considered interrogating the last demon, but that felt beneath him. So the reversed his grip on the great blade and drove it down with all his might. It punched clear through her head, shattering the skull, and sank into the turf.

  More essence.

  The abyss knows its own.

  By the decree of the Fallen Angel, you are granted the next echelon of your destiny:

  Abyssal Master 10

  Harald shuddered with delight. Such power. And now? It was such a shame to waste it. But what could he do? March over to the cathedral and challenge the remaining Handmaidens by himself…?

  No.

  Reluctantly he looked to where Nessa lay gasping by Sam’s side, spew on the grass where she’d just finished retching.

  No. He had to tend to his friends.

  Didn’t he?

  For a long, aching moment he just considered his fallen companions. But then Sam moaned, fought to rise, and managed to push herself up to one elbow. She met Harald’s gaze, and the spell was broken.

  Harald allowed his Thrones to fall quiet, banished the Shadow Handmaidens, and dismissed the Scourge.

  “What a pity,” came a dry, bored voice from above.

  Exero.

  He hovered in his child-form, six wings still and spread out about him, face stern as he stared down at Harald. Filthy, dressed in rags, his appearance was utterly incongruous with the cold, radiant disdain that was burning off him as he watched Harald.

  “Exero.” Harald passed his hand across his lips. “You’re…?”

  “Staying my hand, for now.” The angel’s voice was cold-burning iron. “But you came so close, Darrowdelve. So close to my extending my hand… alas.” His form began to collapse into a mote of light once more. “There will surely be a next time.”

  Harald felt a chill course through him as he realized how close he’d come to total destruction. Then, shaking off the fear, he rushed over to where his companions lay.

  “Sam. Where are you…” But it was obvious. A terrible gash in her shoulder. A bleeding hole in her side. “Here.” He tore his scale pouch free and poured Golden Dawn’s into her palm. “Absorb them.”

  Nessa slowly sat up, her color gradually returning. “Urgh. What… was that?”

  Harald poured the remainder of his scales into her cupped palms as well. They glimmered and disappeared, and she blinked, revived.

  “They’re dead?” Sam looked around the grounds. Dead demons lay strewn about them. “How did we…?”

  “I thought we were dead.” Nessa passed her hand over her blood-smeared brow.

  “I…” Harald sat down heavily on the grass. “We should have… been?” He felt the heady exultation fade away. Felt himself return to some semblance of… normality? What had even happened there at the end?

  Sam inhaled deeply as the scales did their work, and then looked past Harald to where the wizened Handmaidens lay executed. “Harald…?” There was a mixture of wonder and horror in her voice. “What did you… how did you do that?”

  Harald stared at the executed Handmaidens. He could remember cutting them down, but that felt like another person, someone lost to intoxication and glory, more like a fever-dream than a memory.

  “Wow.” Nessa’s tone was bleak. “We… did we actually defeat… how many is that? Ten? Eleven Handmaidens?”

  “Not us,” said Sam. “Looks like this was mostly just Harald.”

  He dry swallowed. “I couldn’t have done it without you both.”

  Nessa raised a brow in skepticism.

  “No, I’m serious. Starfire Bastion alone was a huge help. All that you both brought to the table.”

  “But…?” prompted Nessa.

  “But… yeah. My new powers. The consolidation I underwent. And… this wasn’t a normal fight.”

  “Fighting a dozen Handmaidens isn’t normal?” asked Sam, tone deceptively bland.

  “I mean, they felt particular susceptible to my attacks. My abyssal powers. They’re made from the abyss. And so my—I told you that I now have a permanent opening to the abyss in my soul, right?”

  Both women stared at him blankly.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds!” Harald hurried to reassure them. “It’s just a, you know, like a well or a hole I can open or close when I need, and it, well—it drains vitality and strength through people’s wounds. Empowers me with it, like my Abyssal Grasp used to. Remember my shadow tentacles?”

  “The ones the dwarves said fed the demons?” asked Nessa dryly.

  Harald winced. “Right. Those. So the Well, it opens and drains my foes through their wounds. And my Abyssal Imperium constantly wounds them, and sickens them, which feeds the Well even faster. Which then empowers me and my Servitors, and causes Imperium to be even more effective.”

  Nessa nodded slowly. “So it’s a self-reinforcing cycle. One feeds the other, around and around.”

  “Right. And—well.” Harald gazed out over the demons. “I think my powers were particularly effective against them. Demons. The combination of my Imperium and Crown blunted their effectivness. Add in your Starfire Bastion, and they found themselves at a huge disadvantage.”

  “If they felt even a tenth of what I felt from those… what was that sickening wave that washed over me?” asked Nessa.

  “The new form of my Tenebral Surge. That also grows more powerful the more the Well drinks.”

  “Nasty.” Nessa shuddered. “I felt hungover and off-balance and concussed all at the same time.”

  “What I’m trying to say,” protested Harald, hating the look in Sam’s face. “Is that my powers are really good at exactly this situation. Look, Brianna told me she’d probably win but at great cost against all twenty Handmaidens. But that’s because she’s designed to take down one major foe. Against twenty smaller ones, she’d be at a huge disadvantage. But me? I’m built for this.”

  Harald couldn’t help but look out over the corpses strewn around them once more. “The longer the fight lasts, the weaker my enemies become. The more I can empower myself, my powers, and my Servitors. Shadowpaw is like twice as dangerous as he first was. And with Grave Concordat folded into Well, I can harvest… well, essences, as I kill our enemies, and bring them back into the fray.”

  “So their every loss is your gain,” said Nessa.

  “Right.” Harald tried to run his fingers through his hair, but found it matted with blood. “On some level, each individual power is now less flashy, less potent than it was before, but they all work in tandem without my needing to direct them consciously. They’re…” He tried to find the right word. “They’re designed, it feels like, to work like this.”

  Nessa nodded slowly, expression bleak. “You’re not so much a fighter now as a walking battlefield condition. A walking disaster.”

  “For everyone else,” said Harald quickly.

  “That so?” Nessa eyed him. “Those pulses were hitting me hard.”

  “I need to work one fine tuning my control.” Harald grimaced. “I’m sorry. And once the power level reaches a certain register, it becomes… hard to think.”

  Sam was staring morosely at the decapitated corpses. “You don’t say.”

  “Which is why we need you to level up,” said Harald. “We need your influence on the battlefield. Beacon of Hope, Guardian’s Mantle, Starfire Bastion…”

  “I did level up,” said Sam, tone bleak. “Finally. I was really feeling helpless there during the fight. Won’t be the case next time.”

  “I didn’t,” said Nessa. “Though how you can take part in a fight like this and not level I don’t understand.”

  “You did?” Harald beamed at Sam. “That’s wonderful! So did I.”

  They both stared at him.

  “What?”

  “More power?” Sam inhaled sharply and forced herself to sit up straight. “So you’re Level 10 now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And your powers?” Nessa eyed him. “I almost don’t want to know.”

  Harald blew out his cheeks. “I haven’t had time to check them. Let’s see.”

  He summoned the messages.

  Active Ability Unlocked: Demoniac Body

  Consume your Well's accumulated demonic essence reserves to temporarily reshape your body into a sovereign war-form of the abyss, with vastly augmented Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. The transformation is shaped by the demonic essences you have assimilated. Duration and potency scale with the reserves consumed. When Incarnation ends, the Well is emptied and must be fed anew. To become the monster, you must first have feasted.

  +8 Strength

  +8 Dexterity

  +8 Constitution

  Passive Ability Unlocked: Demonic Assimilation

  When the Well of Starless Dominion consumes demonic essence, a portion is siphoned into a permanent reserve within your Cosmos — a wellspring of stolen power that does not dissipate with time. This reserve grows with each demonic entity drained and scales without limit. It serves as the fuel source for your Demoniac Body and may be tapped to empower other powers. The abyss hoards what it takes. So now do you.

  Sam and Nessa were watching him intently.

  “And?” prompted Nessa at last.

  Harald opened his mouth, closed it. Demoniac Body at last. He’d been waiting for it ever since he’d read his father’s body, but…

  He reread the powers. They thrilled him, yes, but the second time he read them, feeling the weight of his friends’ regard, he felt a disconcerting weight settle in his gut, a foreboding.

  Before he could answer, a mighty presence dawned on his awareness, like a sun rolling into view.

  Brianna Hammerfell leaped easily over the gate to land smoothly on the gravel, Wyrmfall burning white in her fist. She froze, eyes wide, and took in the butchery.

  “By the 100 Levels, what the hell happened here?”