Odessa quickly moved to his side, catching him before he hit the ground.

"Jaenor! Are you all right?"

He managed a weak smile. "I think so. Though I'm starting to understand why you were so surprised about the dual energies."

She helped him sit up, checking for serious injuries.

"That was... I've never seen anything like it. The way you fought, the techniques you used—it was like you were making it up as you went along."

"I was," he admitted.

"But somehow, it felt right. Like I was finally doing what I was supposed to do."

Around them, the town square lay in ruins, but the people who had fled were already beginning to emerge from their hiding places.

The immediate threat was over, or so they thought.

-

Meanwhile, in the narrow defile before Berdshire Fortress, something happened that startled everyone present in the narrow field.

The undead warriors that had been pressing their relentless assault against the defenders suddenly stumbled mid-stride, their bone weapons clattering to the ground as the unholy fire in their eye sockets flickered and died.

Zombies that had been shambling forward with inexorable hunger collapsed like marionettes with severed strings, their decomposing flesh finally accepting the death that should have claimed them long ago.

One by one, then in groups, then in vast waves, the entire undead army simply... fell.

The evil energies that had animated their corpses dissipated like morning mist, leaving behind only the peaceful silence of true death.

The human defenders, who had been locked in desperate combat mere moments before, stood in stunned bewilderment as their enemies crumbled around them. Weapons raised to strike found no targets, and the terrible din of battle faded into an eerie quiet broken only by the sound of bones settling and the distant crackle of flames.

"What in the nine hells just happened?" One of the men gasped, lowering his bloodied sword as he stared at the field of motionless corpses that stretched before the fortress walls.

General Kaider, his weathered face creased with confusion and cautious hope, studied the battlefield with the tactical mind that had kept him alive through four decades of warfare. "Someone killed the Lich King," he said quietly, his voice carrying the certainty of long experience.

"When a necromancer of that power dies, all their animated dead fall with them."

Baren, Taeryn, and Rena glanced at each other, wondering what just happened.

Morgana felt the disturbance in the spiritual currents like a physical blow, her blue eyes widening as she processed the implications of what had just occurred.

The ancient undead lord's presence had been a weight upon the whole fortress itself—a concentration of death energy so powerful that it had been visible to her enhanced senses even across miles of distance.

Now that presence was simply... gone.

Not diminished, not weakened, but utterly extinguished as if it had never existed at all.

She turned toward the distant town, where the Lich king flew away just a minute ago.

A big frown appeared on her face as she didn't understand what happened. Just who was capable of killing such a mighty foul energy carrier, the Lich King?

As she stared into the distance, she suddenly felt the chill, the change in the atmosphere, like something was coming, something far more dangerous than the Lich King.

-

Back in the town's central square, reality itself seemed to shudder and slow as if the very fabric of existence had suddenly become viscous.

Time didn't stop—that would have been too crude, too obvious—but it stretched and distorted like heated glass, each second extending into subjective minutes while the normal flow of causality bent around a presence of such magnitude that the space around the square itself struggled to accommodate it.

Odessa's reaction was instantaneous and telling.

The composed old witch who had guided Jaenor with patient wisdom for six months vanished, replaced by something far older and infinitely more dangerous.

She sprang to her feet with a quick motion, confusing Jaenor, placing herself protectively between Jaenor and... nothing that he could see.

But her Origin power blazed to life around her with an intensity that made her previous displays seem like candle flames by comparison. Streams of violet energy wreathed her form in complex patterns that hurt to look at directly, while the very air around her began to warp and twist under the pressure of barely contained forces.

"Odessa?" Jaenor asked, alarmed by the sudden transformation in his mature lover.

"What's happening? What—"

His words died in his throat as his gaze was suddenly drawn to the empty air before them. It was starting to swirl with invisible forces.

A figure began to materialize from the empty air itself, reality bending and folding to accommodate the newcomer's arrival. A distortion noise started to fill the square, and it continued with blaring sounds.

Then they could see something or someone coming out.

What emerged from the impossible space between moments was something that challenged the mind's ability to process it as anything remotely human.

The being that stepped into existence was tall—easily more than seven feet in height—with skin the color of dried blood and features that might have been carved from crimson marble by a sculptor with a taste for cruel beauty. Two horns curved back from his high forehead like the crown of some infernal king, while a perfectly groomed mustache framed lips that were currently stretched in a grin of such malevolent amusement that it made Jaenor's soul recoil in instinctive terror.

And there was a tail behind, moving and swinging sinuously as if it had a mind of its own.

But it was the eyes that truly marked this creature as something beyond mortal comprehension. They held depths that spoke of eons of existence, of pride so absolute that it had transcended mere emotion to become a fundamental force of nature.

This was not simply arrogance or vanity—this was Pride itself, given form and will and terrible purpose.

The moment the figure fully materialized, Jaenor felt a wave of nausea wash over him as his enhanced senses registered the sheer magnitude of corrupt power radiating from the newcomer. This wasn't like the Lich King's death energy or even the raw malevolence of the orc horde—this was something infinitely older, infinitely more refined, and infinitely more dangerous.

The creature's gaze locked onto Jaenor, washing over him with a studying intent.

"Such potent power," the creature said, his voice like silk wrapped around razor blades, each word carrying harmonics that seemed to resonate in frequencies that mortal ears weren't meant to perceive. His burning gaze fixed upon Jaenor with the intensity of a connoisseur examining a particularly fine vintage.

"How absolutely... delicious."

Then those terrible eyes shifted to Odessa, and his grin widened to reveal teeth that gleamed like polished ivory.

"And my, my..." he began, his voice dropping to a purr that somehow managed to sound more threatening than any roar.

Odessa's Origin power flared brighter, her dark eyes blazing with energies that made the surrounding air crackle with potential violence. Her expression had transformed into something Jaenor had never seen before—not just serious, but utterly implacable, like judgment itself given mortal form.

"Jaenor," she said without taking her eyes off the red-skinned figure, her voice carrying an undertone of command that brooked no argument, "we need to leave. Now."

But before Jaenor could respond, the creature's laughter filled the square—a sound like breaking crystal and funeral bells that seemed to echo from directions that didn't exist in normal space.

"Now where will you go?" the being asked with mock concern, his head tilting at an angle just wrong enough to be deeply unsettling.

"After all..." His grin became predatory, revealing far too many teeth.

"You're only mortal—and mortals bleed so beautifully when they run."

A low hum echoed in the air around him, like a dissonant chord vibrating beneath the surface of reality.

The temperature dropped.

Odessa didn't flinch. Her stance shifted, just enough to place herself entirely between Jaenor and the creature.

The being's smile never faltered. "I can see you. No matter where you hide—I can find you."

He took another step forward, voice growing colder.

"And I've been watching you. Like a little woman playing helper. Playing weak."

His eyes flicked to Jaenor, then back to her. "You've been manipulating him, haven't you? Whispering lies, hiding truths. Tell me—does he even know who you are when you touch him?"

Jaenor stiffened behind her.

"Keep that foul mouth shut, you spawn of filth!" she snapped, her voice sharp with fury, cutting through the heavy air like a blade.

Then she turned to Jaenor, her expression tight with concern, her voice dropping to something more urgent—but still controlled.

"Don't listen to him, Jaenor. He's a demon. Twisting truths, planting doubt—that's what he lives for. Don't let him get into your head."

Jaenor's brows furrowed, his jaw tense as his gaze shifted between Odessa and the grinning figure.

There was something too calm in the demon's eyes—like he already knew a secret Jaenor didn't and was just waiting for it to crack everything open.

Then, all of a sudden, that being started laughing, which sounded like a chilling melody of malevolence echoing through the square, sending shivers down Jaenor's spine. The sound seemed to seep into the very walls, filling the room with an ominous presence.

"You can stop acting like a damsel in distress, Lordess Magdalyna."

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