The combat was brutal and efficient. Liam watched as shadow-cloaked zealots moved through the enemy position like smoke given murderous intent.

A battle-priest raised his holy symbol, light flaring—only to have his throat opened by a curved blade that appeared from nowhere. Infantry formed a shield wall, and Fourth Order fighters simply appeared behind it, stabbing upward into gaps in armor with surgical precision.

But the enemy was fighting back hard. As Liam watched, a concentrated volley of blessed arrows caught three Fourth Order soldiers in the open. They went down screaming, holy fire eating through their dark armor like acid.

"Torven's battalion is two minutes out," Commander Koth said, having ridden up beside Liam with several other officers. "But Kael'thra's people are taking casualties faster than expected. That battle-priest on the left is coordinating their defense—he's good."

Liam's eyes found the priest Koth mentioned. Older man, graying hair, moving with the confidence of someone who'd fought demons before and survived.

His consecrated staff was directing the Radiant infantry with practiced efficiency, creating overlapping fields of fire that even the Fourth Order's stealth couldn't fully penetrate.

"He's the linchpin," Liam said quietly. "Take him out, and their defense collapses."

"Agreed," Koth rumbled. "But he's protected by three layers of guards and enough holy wards that getting close would—"

Liam was already moving.

He felt Lilith's sharp intake of breath, heard her start to say something, but he was already channeling Essence into Phase Shift.

The world blurred and twisted, and suddenly he was twenty feet closer to the ford. Another pulse of power, another chain-teleport, and the battle unfolded around him with crystalline clarity.

A Fourth Order soldier dying to his left, holy fire consuming her from within.

Two Radiant infantry turning, shields raised, as they registered his sudden appearance.

The battle-priest, fifty feet away, staff raised as he began channeling something that made Liam's stolen magic recoil.

No time for elegance. No time for fear.

Liam hit the two infantry with Sovereign's Dominion at full strength. The psychic weight of his false divinity crashed into them like a physical force, and he watched their eyes widen in religious terror as their minds tried to reconcile what they were seeing—a human face wearing demonic authority like a crown.

They stumbled, shields dropping, and Liam was past them before they could recover.

The battle-priest saw him coming. Old eyes widened in recognition—not of Liam specifically, but of what he represented. The Primordial Demon made flesh.

"For the Radiant Emperor!" the priest roared, and light exploded from his staff in a concentrated beam of holy power.

Liam twisted, Phase Shift carrying him three feet to the right, and felt the heat of consecrated energy sear past his shoulder.

His return strike was pure Infernal Conflagration—black flames that howled with hunger as they erupted from his outstretched hand.

The priest's wards flared, deflecting the worst of it, but even holy protection had limits. The flames caught the edges of his robes, and suddenly the old man was staggering back, trying to extinguish fires that refused to die.

Liam closed the distance in two steps and drove his hand—wreathed in shadow and Abyssal Plate—straight through the priest's chest.

[Essence Feast activated]

The old man's eyes met his for just a moment. There was no fear in them. Just determination, and maybe pity.

"The Chosen will end you," the priest whispered through blood. "They are coming. The prophecy—"

"The prophecy is what I say it is," Liam said quietly, and pulled his hand free.

The battle-priest collapsed.

And with him, the Radiant defense.

---

By the time Torven's battalion arrived, the ford was secure and the enemy was in full retreat. Kael'thra's Fourth Order had taken their casualties—eighteen dead, another twenty-three wounded—but they'd held the position long enough for reinforcements to break the enemy completely.

Liam stood in the shallows of the Silvervein Ford, watching Radiant bodies drift downstream while his army began the crossing. His hand was still covered in the battle-priest's blood, but he felt nothing looking at it. No guilt. No satisfaction.

Just the cold certainty that this was one obstacle removed from the path to Sanctum Lux.

"That was reckless," Lilith said, appearing beside him with her arms crossed. "You could have been killed."

"But I wasn't."

"Again, that's not the point—"

"That's exactly the point," Liam interrupted, turning to face her. "I needed that priest dead. I needed this ford secure. Waiting for reinforcements would have cost us an hour and twice as many casualties. So I removed the obstacle myself."

"And if their defenses had been stronger? If you'd been caught in a trap?"

"Then Kael'thra would have adapted, Torven would have broken through eventually, and you would have led them to Sanctum Lux regardless." Liam's voice was eerily calm. "The mission continues regardless. That's the only thing that matters."

Lilith stared at him with an expression he couldn't quite read. "I don't know why you've become so comfortable with your own death."

The question hung in the air between them, more profound than she probably realized.

When had he become comfortable with it?

Maybe when he realized that Liam Cross had been dying slowly in that studio apartment, drowning in pills and failure and the crushing weight of meaninglessness. Maybe when he understood that Lord Azra's death—if it came—would at least mean something. Would at least matter.

"I'm not comfortable with it," Liam said finally. "I'm just not afraid of it anymore. There's a difference."

Before Lilith could respond, Commander Koth approached with a tactical update. The ford was secure, the army was crossing in good order, and scouts reported clear roads for the next fifteen miles.

Day one was progressing according to plan.

Only seven more days to go.

Liam watched the sun track across the sky as his army flowed past him like a dark tide. Two hundred thousand demons, marching toward destiny or extinction, unified by faith in a false god who had long stopped being entirely false.

[Synchronization Index: + 1%]

Another percentage point. Another piece of Liam Cross integrated into Lord Azra's synthesis.

He wondered, distantly, what would happen when the index hit one hundred percent.

Would there be anything left of Liam who'd died in that bar?

Or would there just be the role, perfected and complete, wearing human memories like a discarded costume?

The question didn't frighten him as much as it should have.

And that, more than anything, told him exactly how far he'd already fallen.

Or risen.

The difference was getting harder to define.

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