Orion paused, his mind racing even as the battlefield roared around him. He had stolen a Gray Crystal belonging to an Arch Lord. Valuable? Yes. But enough for an Abyssal Ruler to personally intervene? Unlikely. That was like a king descending from his throne to chase a pickpocket.

If the Abyssal Ruler actually wanted Orion dead, he wouldn't have sent a messenger. He wouldn't have sent a squad. He would have sent a calamity.

If this was the will of the Ruler, Orion thought, his grip tightening on his scythe, the executioner wouldn't be someone weaker than a Demigod.

He looked at Eudan, really looked at him. The demon was posturing.

He's bluffing.

Orion knew the hierarchy. The gap between him and an Abyssal Ruler was the difference between a candle flame and a supernova. If he had truly offended the Ruler to the point of personal animosity, he would already be dead.

"You really think you can speak for the Abyssal Ruler?" Orion's voice dropped an octave, the temperature around him plummeting.

He raised his weapon. The intent to kill flooded the air, thick and suffocating.

Eudan didn't back down. He smirked, puffing out his chest. "My ancestor is the great Julius! I am Eudan of House Julius! You think I don't carry the authority of my own bloodline?"

The arrogance was palpable. To Eudan, the glory of the Abyssal Ruler was his own property, something he could wear like a cloak.

"Die."

Shhhk.

Eudan's smile didn't have time to fade; it just froze.

A scythe blade erupted from his chest, gleaming with dark ichor. Orion was no longer standing in front of him; he was behind him, whispering directly into the demon's ear like a lover sharing a secret.

"I know how the Chaos Demon clans work," Orion said softly. "You are obsessed with purity. True-Demons. If you were truly favored, truly part of the inner circle, your name would reflect the lineage. You'd be a 'Julidean' or a 'Julivus.'"

Orion twisted the blade.

"But 'Eudan'? You're a cousin of a cousin of a bastard line. At best."

Orion wasn't a rookie. He had spent over a decade in the Abyss. He wasn't some "fresh off the boat" wanderer stumbling through the dark. His Conquest Legion was filled with high-ranking demons; he knew their politics as well as he knew their anatomy.

"You bastard... how dare you..."

Eudan's voice dissolved into a gurgle as the [Doomsday Fire] ignited. His body turned to ash in seconds, drifting away on the wind.

But when the smoke cleared, Orion wasn't looking at a corpse. He was looking at a severed demon horn floating in the air. It cracked, releasing a pulse of Demigod energy, and Eudan's form began to knit itself together yet again.

So many extra lives, Orion muttered, annoyed. It's like fighting a trust fund kid.

It reminded him of fighting the Survivors—enemies with endless resources and backing, peeling back layer after layer of expensive fail-safes. The great demon houses of the Abyss were apparently no different.

"You lowborn filth!" Eudan shrieked as he reformed, his composure utterly shattered. "You ignore me? You ignore House Julius?"

He was hysterical now. To be disrespected in his own ancestor's domain was a humiliation he couldn't survive.

"You think being an Over-tier makes you invincible? I will make you regret being born!"

Eudan reached into his robes and crushed a crystallized demon eye.

BOOM.

The atmosphere didn't just change; it broke. A heavy, ancient pressure descended on the Donough Blood-Crow Nest. High above, the Arch Lords stopped their duels, their instincts screaming at them to freeze.

A phantom materialized in front of Eudan.

It was a Demigod phantom. A massive Chaos Demon with burning wings and a greataxe that looked heavy enough to split a mountain. Its eyes were two pits of hellfire.

"Ancestor!" Eudan cried out, pointing a trembling finger at Orion. "That is the thief! The one who stole the Lord's trophy! He mocks us! He mocks House Julius! He has killed me three times!"

Eudan's confidence roared back. An Over-tier fighter was strong, but they had limits. They had stamina bars. They couldn't fight a Demigod, even a phantom, in a war of attrition.

"Hahaha! You're finished, trash! You're—"

"A Death-Soul?"

The phantom's voice was like grinding stones. It cut through Eudan's maniacal laughter instantly.

The massive, burning figure ignored his descendant completely, locking its gaze on Orion. Or rather, on the body Orion was inhabiting.

"It's just an avatar," Orion said, shrugging his shoulders. He didn't flinch.

The Demigod phantom fell silent. It didn't attack.

The Death-Soul race. In the high-dimensional worlds of the Abyss, that name carried weight—more weight, arguably, than even the Chaos Demons. House Julius had only recently claimed the Sixth Layer. The Death-Soul race had held their own Abyssal world since the beginning of recorded history, unconquered and unbroken.

They were a vengeful, insular people. You didn't just "take" a Death-Soul body. If an outsider forcibly possessed one, the entire race would hunt them to the ends of the cosmos.

If Orion was standing here, alive, inside that body, it implied permission. It implied an alliance.

The phantom hesitated. Attacking a rogue thief was one thing; sparking a blood feud with the Death-Soul race was another.

The phantom was overthinking it, of course.

Orion had zero diplomatic ties to the Death-Soul race. This avatar was loot—pure and simple. It was a prize from the Crucible of the Gods, won during a campaign led by Commander Thresh of the Champions Alliance. In the Crucible, to the victor go the spoils. If the Death-Soul champions had won, they would be wearing Orion's gear right now.

"How did you acquire a Death-Soul avatar?" the phantom rumbled, suspicion clouding its voice.

Orion just laughed.

Orion had to hand it to Commander Thresh. The man's influence was terrifying.

To arrange a duel with the Death-Soul race? That required a level of clout and raw power that Orion was only just beginning to comprehend.

"This is my territory," Orion stated, his voice booming across the fractured landscape. "Out of respect for Lord Julius, I will allow you to leave. But only you."

He pointed his scythe at the legions below. "The armies that invaded my land? They don't leave. They die here."

It was a cold, calculated ultimatum. If these two weren't tied to the House Julius bloodline, Orion wouldn't have wasted breath on words—he would have just added their corpses to the pile.

The response was a peal of manic laughter.

"Damn you! Who do you think you are?" Eudan shrieked, his face twisting. "You think wearing a Death-Soul avatar makes you royalty? Even the Death-Soul race bows their heads in the Sixth Layer! This is House Julius domain!"

The demigod phantom roared in agreement, its form erupting into a comet of scorching heat.

"Die!"

The phantom charged. It was a mass of Demon Fire—the eternal flame that burned in the deepest pits of the Abyss, unquenchable and ravenous.

"Suicide," Orion muttered.

He wasn't being arrogant. He had possessed the power to clash with demigod phantoms for a long time now. After years of honing the Deathly Soul-Reaper avatar and unlocking the secrets of his war scythe relic, a mere projection was no longer a threat.

The only things Orion feared were a demigod in their true form or an Abyssal Ruler. This? This was target practice.

Orion didn't retreat. He stepped forward, entering a deep lunge. The war scythe hummed, laws of the Void and Doomsday Fire dancing along the blade.

CRACK!

It was a sound Eudan would take to his grave—which, as it turned out, was only seconds away.

The demigod ancestor, the pride of his house, didn't just lose. He was obliterated. Orion's strike shattered the phantom's will instantly, scattering the Demon Fire like spilled soup.

The flames splashed onto the ground, burning aimlessly without a will to guide them. Orion stood amidst the inferno, untouched, walking slowly toward Eudan.

"I bet you didn't see that coming," Orion said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Even your ancestor couldn't save you."

Eudan scrambled backward, his heels skidding on the stone.

"No... No! Stay back! Stay the hell away from me!"

It was the scream of a creature that had never known true consequence, now facing absolute finality.

It didn't slow Orion down.

In a blur of motion, Orion vanished and reappeared. Eudan's eyes went wide, reflecting his own demise.

A Chaos Demon head spun into the air. A fountain of black blood sprayed against the gray sky.

Eudan was just an Arch Lord. He had burned through his artifacts. He was out of lives.

Orion wasn't taking chances. He channeled the Doomsday Fire through the scythe, engulfing the headless corpse and the tumbling skull. The flames roared, consuming flesh, bone, and—crucially—the soul.

Orion watched until there was nothing left but drifting smoke. He scanned the area with his spiritual sense, hunting for any hidden phylacteries or escape arts.

Nothing. Eudan was gone. Erased.

"Now," Orion exhaled, the adrenaline fading into a cold knot of anxiety. "We wait to see how the Abyssal Ruler reacts."

He knew he had crossed a line. But he also knew that to hesitate was to die. If the Abyssal Ruler came for him, he'd fight. But right now, he had a job to finish.

He looked up at the sky.

The invading Demon armies belonged to Iron-Forged Ridge, minions of the demigod Lord Reklos. Their presence was an act of war.

Orion needed to send a message. He wasn't just going to defeat them; he was going to construct a monument of bone and terror. A warning to the rest of the Abyss.

Kill them all.

The aerial battle was already a slaughter. The Scourge Wardens—Eparus, Holrivus, and Thronlis—were a meat grinder, their coordination flawless. With the abyssal dragon Xalathar harrying the flanks, the six enemy Arch Lords were breaking.

"End it," Orion whispered.

He vanished.

When he reappeared in the high atmosphere, his scythe became a blur. Two Arch Lords were cut down before they could even register his presence. Doomsday Fire turned them to ash mid-fall. They didn't even have time to activate their defensive avatars.

Orion moved again. The relic weapon sheared through magical defenses like wet paper.

Splash.

It began to rain. Not water, but a thick, crimson drizzle of demon blood.

The remaining two Arch Lords broke rank, screaming orders to retreat. They turned to flee, their wings beating frantically against the air.

But the sky around them darkened.

Eparus, Holrivus, and Thronlis slammed their weapons together, triggering a spatial lockdown unique to the Scourge Wardens. A cage of Calamity energy snapped shut around the battlefield.

There was no escape.

Orion descended on the trapped demons. His scythe cleaved vertically, splitting one of the fleeing lords from crown to crotch.

The screams that followed echoed through the silent void. It was the music of total defeat.

"That is enough!" a booming voice interrupted. "The blood price has been paid! We will withdraw from the Donough Blood-Crow Nest. You will not be troubled by us again."

A thin, shimmering projection rose from the body of the final surviving Arch Lord. It was Reklos, the demigod lord of Iron-Forged Ridge.

Orion stopped, hovering in the air, bathed in the blood of Reklos's generals. He looked the phantom in the eye.

"Not enough," Orion said flatly.

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