Bishop Silas.

One of Infernus's regional commanders. A fanatic who believed pain was the only path to salvation. A mid-game boss who usually required a full raid party to take down.

He turned as we entered, a polite, serene smile on his face.

"Welcome, guests," he said, his voice smooth as silk, echoing strangely in the large hall. "You are just in time for the birth."

Behind him, the rift widened with a wet tearing sound.

A claw—black, scaled, and dripping with void sludge—hooked onto the edge of reality.

SCREEEEE—

A sound that wasn't of this world leaked out, causing the glass in the windows to crack.

The Calamity Beast was coming through.

I raised the shotgun, leveling it at Silas's chest.

"Sorry," I said, racking the bolt. Clack-clack.

"I'm here for the abortion."

Celestia's eyes widened at the vulgarity, but I didn't give anyone time to process it.

BOOM!

I pulled the trigger.

A Frag-12 Explosive Slug flew across the room.

Silas didn't dodge. He simply tapped his cane.

Ping.

A crimson barrier of solidified blood materialized instantly. The explosive slug slammed into it, detonating with a deafening roar. Smoke and fire washed over the shield, but when it cleared, Silas was still standing, his smile unchanged.

"Crude," Silas tsked. "Gunpowder? How primitive."

He pointed his cane at us.

"Kill them. Feed them to the newborn."

The five robed chanters turned, their eyes glowing purple. They began to chant an offensive spell.

"Alicia! Suppress the chanters!" I barked orders instantly. "Celestia! Forget the people—freeze that rift! Don't let that thing come out!"

"Understood!"

Celestia stepped forward, her royal aura flaring.

[Grand Magic: Glacial Tomb]

She slammed her palms together. A massive wave of ice erupted from the floor, bypassing the cultists and rushing straight for the black claw gripping the reality tear.

The ice slammed into the void limb, encasing it. The beast screeched in annoyance, its progress halted.

"Insolent child!" Silas's smile vanished.

He waved his cane, and blood from the floor rose up, forming into spears.

"Die."

He launched them at Celestia.

"Not on my watch!"

I stepped in front of the Princess, racking the shotgun again.

BOOM! BOOM!

I shot the blood spears out of the air with buckshot, shattering them into liquid droplets.

"Alicia! Now!"

"Flame Vortex!"

Alicia unleashed a swirling tornado of fire toward the robed chanters. Two of them screamed as they were engulfed, breaking their concentration on the ritual.

The barrier around the rift wavered.

"You little rats…" Silas's eyes began to glow a menacing red. The pristine white suit rippled, dark mana leaking from his pores. "I will flay the skin from your bones!"

I smirked, ejecting a spent shell and loading a Magnum Slug.

"Less talking, more dying, Bishop."

I looked at the two women flanking me.

"Push him! We break the circle, we win!"

****

BOOM!

The Frag-12 slug connected.

Bishop Silas's blood shield shattered under the explosive force. The blast threw him backward, slamming him against the altar. He slid down, clutching a gaping wound in his chest, coughing up dark, viscous blood.

Around him, the remaining robed chanters lay dead—scorched by Alicia's fire or frozen by Celestia's ice.

"We did it!" Alicia shouted, her wand glowing with triumphant heat. "The chanters are dead! The ritual is stopped!"

Celestia let out a breath of relief, lowering her hands. The ice encasing the rift seemed to be holding.

I lowered the shotgun, walking toward the fallen Bishop to deliver the execution shot.

"Checkmate, Silas," I said coldly.

Silas looked up. His white suit was ruined, soaked in red. He was dying.

But he wasn't screaming.

He was laughing.

"Kuh… hehe… hahahaha!"

His laughter started as a wet gurgle and rose to a manic cackle that echoed off the high ceilings.

"Checkmate?" Silas wheezed, grinning through bloodstained teeth. "Oh, you foolish child. You think death stops the ritual?"

I frowned. [Detection] screamed a warning.

I looked down.

The blood on the floor—the blood of the cultists we had just killed, the blood of the park staff, the blood leaking from Silas himself—wasn't pooling.

It was moving.

Like crimson snakes, streams of blood were slithering across the stone floor, defying gravity, rushing toward the center of the magic circle.

"The sacrifices…" I whispered, realization hitting me like a truck. "The cultists weren't protecting the ritual. They were the ritual."

"Correct!" Silas screamed, his eyes bulging with fanatic ecstasy. "The Beast does not care whose blood is spilled! Faithful or heathen, noble or commoner! It only craves life!"

He grabbed his cane, the red crystal pulsing violently.

"You have served us well, heroes! You have accelerated the process! And now…"

He raised the cane, pointing the sharp end not at us, but at his own throat.

"You are going to witness the New Era!"

"Stop him!" I shouted, raising the Benelli.

BOOM!

I was too late.

SHK.

Silas drove the cane through his own neck.

His eyes rolled back, fixed in a permanent expression of rapturous joy. His body slumped forward, and a massive torrent of blood erupted from the wound, rushing directly into the rift.

The final key.

CRACK.

Celestia's ice tomb shattered.

The rift didn't just widen. It tore open.

The purple light vanished, replaced by a deep, suffocating crimson. The air in the room instantly became heavy, smelling of sulfur and rotting meat.

We stepped back, weapons raised, waiting in dread for the Calamity Beast to emerge. I expected a giant claw. A mountain-sized demon. Something that would require every ounce of firepower I had.

But what came out was… small.

Skitter. Skitter.

A small, humanoid figure hopped out of the rift.

It was barely the size of a human child. It had leathery red skin, spindly limbs, a pointed tail that twitched nervously, and a pair of small, bat-like wings. Its yellow eyes darted around the room, blinking rapidly.

It looked… pathetic.

I blinked.

"IMPS?!" I exclaimed, my voice filled with genuine astonishment.

I lowered the shotgun slightly, staring at the creature.

"That's it? All that blood, all that drama, the suicides… for an Imp?"

Imps. The bottom of the food chain in the Demon Realm. They were the weakest of the weak—cowardly scavengers that even a novice adventurer could kick to death.

"It's… it's just a low-level monster," Alicia said, letting out a confused breath, her shoulders sagging. "We were worried for noth—"

"No," Celestia whispered.

Her voice was trembling.

I looked at her. The Princess, who had stood tall against Orcs and dark mages, was now staring at the small creature with sheer, unadulterated terror.

"Lucien… don't you understand?" she said, backing away slowly. "Imps are not summoned monsters."

My eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Summoned monsters are pulled here by mana. They are constructs or beasts forced to obey," Celestia spoke, her voice rising in panic. "But Imps are Demons. Actual Demons. Even if they are weaker than some monsters, the fact that they are walking through means the barrier between worlds is gone."

She pointed a shaking finger at the rift.

"That isn't a summoning circle anymore. That is a Gate."

Realization hit me cold.

"A Gate…" I finished. "A physical bridge."

A summoning circle has a limit. It costs mana to bring things through.

But a Gate? A Gate is a hole in the wall. Once it's open, gravity does the rest. Anything on the other side can just walk in.

KIEEEEK!

The lone Imp on the altar screeched, baring needle-like teeth.

And then, from the darkness of the rift behind it, a thousand yellow eyes opened.

Skitter. Skitter. Skitter. Skitter.

It sounded like rain. Or thousands of cockroaches moving at once inside the walls.

"Here they come!" I roared.

And sure enough, the red tide erupted.

More and more imps spilled out of the rift—ten, twenty, fifty—pouring over the altar like a swarm of army ants. They screeched and cackled, holding crude jagged daggers and stones.

"KIEEE! FLESH! FLESH!"

"KILL! EAT!"

They weren't strong individually, but a swarm of them could strip a cow to the bone in seconds.

"Defensive formation!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

I fired into the mass. The buckshot turned five imps into paste instantly, but ten more jumped over the corpses.

"Alicia! Firewall! Now!"

"Y-Yes!"

Alicia unleashed a wave of flame, incinerating the first row of imps. They burned easily, their screams high-pitched and grating.

But for every one she killed, five more hopped over the burning corpses.

They were weak. But there were too many.

"There's too many!" Alicia screamed, unleashing a wall of fire. The Imps burned, screeching, but the ones behind them just trampled over the burning bodies of their kin.

"We can't close this from here!" I shouted, firing into the mass. "We need to retreat! If we get swarmed, we'll be picked clean to the bone!"

"The exit!" Celestia cried, blasting a path with ice.

We turned to run, but the windows of the Grand Hall shattered.

CRASH!

Winged imps poured in from the outside, blocking the light.

We were surrounded.

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