"RIGHT FLANK BREAKTHROUGH CONFIRMED!" Lieutenant Zara's voice cut through the combat noise. She was coordinating from a command position behind the front lines, directing the assault with cold precision. "Enemy reserves deploying to reinforce—recommend third wave commitment immediately!"

"THIRD WAVE, ADVANCE!" Koth's command echoed across the battlefield.

The final twenty thousand demons of the assault force crashed into the already chaotic engagement. The sheer weight of numbers was overwhelming now—five thousand Radiant defenders couldn't hold against sixty thousand demon soldiers, not when their fortifications were burning and their battle-priests were dying.

The enemy line broke.

Not all at once, but in cascading failures as individual positions were overrun and survivors retreated toward their secondary defensive positions. The organized defense dissolved into a fighting retreat, Radiant soldiers withdrawing in good order but withdrawing nonetheless.

"PURSUE AND DESTROY!" Koth's voice was savage with victory. "DON'T LET THEM REFORM!"

The demon army surged through the broken fortifications like a flood through a shattered dam. Liam found himself at the center of the breakthrough, surrounded by his soldiers, covered in blood that was partly his own and mostly not.

The battle was won.

The cost was staggering.

[Final Casualties: Assault on Forward Defenses]

[Dead: 1,683]

[Wounded: 2,547]

[Total Casualties: 4,230]

Over four thousand demons—nearly seven percent of his assault force—had been killed or wounded in less than an hour of combat.

But the road to Sanctum Lux was open.

---

Lilith found him two hours later, standing among the ruins of the central fortification while medics worked to evacuate the wounded and burial details began the grim task of dealing with the dead.

"You're bleeding," she said quietly.

Liam looked down at himself. She was right—his left arm had a deep gash from where a Radiant blade had found a gap in his Abyssal Plate, and his ribs ached from what was probably a cracked bone courtesy of a war hammer he'd barely dodged.

"It's not that bad," he said.

"You nearly died. Three times that I counted." Lilith's voice was carefully controlled, but he could hear the anger beneath it. "That battle-priest in the left flank formation almost incinerated you before you could shift. The war hammer that hit you? Six inches higher and it would have caved in your skull. And when you—"

"But I didn't die," Liam interrupted. "I came back. Like I promised."

"You came back covered in blood, but I guess you did regardless."

Liam was quiet for a moment. Around them, the aftermath of battle played out in scenes that would repeat in his nightmares—wounded demons crying for medics that couldn't reach them fast enough, bodies being carried to mass graves, survivors staring at nothing with the thousand-yard stare of people who'd seen too much death.

"Sixteen hundred and eighty-three dead," he said quietly. "I can name about forty of them personally. Lieutenant Vorash from the Fourth Order who asked me to bless his blade before the assault. Commander Thrain who told jokes to keep his troops calm. Sergeant Kara who had three younglings waiting for her back in the capital."

He paused, feeling the weight of those names like stones in his chest.

"I remember them," he continued. "Every face I saw fall. Every scream I couldn't prevent. Every moment where I could have saved someone if I'd been faster or stronger or more efficient with my power."

[Current Essence: 74,670]

[Nameless Litany: 863 → 891 members]

Twenty-eight new faithful. Twenty-eight demons who had watched him fight and decided he was worth absolute devotion.

The numbers climbed while the bodies piled up.

"And yet you'd do it again," Lilith said. It wasn't a question.

"Without hesitation," Liam confirmed. "Because those sixteen hundred and eighty-three deaths bought us passage to Sanctum Lux. They bought us the chance—however small—to prevent the genocide of your entire species. That's not a comfortable truth, but it is truth."

Lilith studied him for a long moment, her golden eyes searching for something he wasn't sure he still possessed.

"You're becoming worse than what you pretend to be," she said finally.

"I know."

"That doesn't frighten you?"

"It terrifies me," Liam admitted. "But not enough to stop."

[Synchronization Index: 37%]

The number sat there, climbing slowly, inevitably, toward whatever awaited at one hundred percent.

"We need to move," Liam said, changing the subject before the weight of it could drag him under. "How long until the army is ready to march?"

"Four hours," Lilith said, accepting the deflection. "The wounded are being stabilized, supplies redistributed. Commander Koth is organizing the column."

"Make it three hours. We can't afford to lose momentum."

"Azra—"

"Three hours, Lilith." His voice carried just enough edge to remind her that this wasn't a request. "We're still behind schedule. Every hour we rest is another hour the Cathedral has to complete their ritual."

Lilith's jaw tightened, but she nodded. "Three hours. But you're getting that arm treated, and you're going to rest for at least two of those hours. Non-negotiable."

"Fine."

"I mean it, Azra. If you collapse from exhaustion before we reach the capital, I will have Kael'thra's Fourth Order carry you the rest of the way in a supply wagon."

Despite everything, Liam felt something that might have been a smile trying to form. "That would be bad for morale."

"Then don't make it necessary."

She turned to leave, then paused.

"You kept your promise," she said quietly. "You came back."

"I told you I would."

"Promise me again. For tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until we reach Sanctum Lux. Promise me you'll keep coming back."

Liam met her gaze and saw the fear there—not for herself, but for what his death would mean to an empire held together by faith in his existence.

Or maybe just fear for him.

The distinction was getting harder to define.

"I promise," he said. "I'll keep coming back."

"You'd better. We have that conversation about acceptable risk to finish."

Then she was gone, moving through the battlefield wreckage with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd spent decades managing the aftermath of violence.

Liam stood alone among the ruins, feeling the weight of sixteen hundred and eighty-three deaths pressing against his synthesis like a physical force.

The old him would have broken under that weight.

The new him just compressed it into fuel and kept moving forward.

[Achievement Unlocked: Blood Baptism]

[Led successful assault against fortified position]

[Reward: +35 Evolution Points]

[Current EVP: 35]

The System celebrated his brutality with rewards and progress.

First in a while.

Liam stared at the notification for a moment, then dismissed it.

Four evolution points. Sixteen hundred and eighty-three corpses. Twenty-eight new faithful. Two percentage points of Synchronization.

The mathematics of becoming a god were written in blood and ash and the screaming terror of his enemies.

He'd promised Lilith he would come back.

He'd promised himself he would break the prophecy.

Now he just had to survive long enough to keep both promises.

Five days to Sanctum Lux.

One day to breach the unbreachable.

And somewhere in a Cathedral he'd never seen, divine champions were being summoned to end everything he was fighting for.

The countdown continued.

The synthesis deepened.

And Lord Azra, the Originator of Sin, began planning his next necessary atrocity.

Because that's what monsters did.

They won.

Whatever the cost.

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