Lilith hit the Grand Commanders' line like a meteor given purpose. She didn't bother with subtle tactics or complex maneuvers—just raw speed and overwhelming strength applied with surgical precision.

The Grand Commander on the right flank—a woman wielding twin blades that hummed with consecrated power—tried to intercept. Lilith simply grabbed both blades mid-swing and broke them with her bare hands. The woman stumbled back, shocked, and Lilith's follow-up strike sent her flying thirty feet to crash into the third wall's base.

Two Grand Commanders immediately shifted to engage Lilith—recognizing her as the primary threat. That left three focused on defending against the demon army's advance.

Perfect.

Liam Phase Shifted directly into the center of their formation.

Commander Arcturus reacted instantly, his shield coming up to block while his spear thrust toward Liam's chest. The movement was perfect—decades of experience made manifest in split-second timing.

Liam Phase Shifted again, using his enhanced cooldown to chain relocations faster than Arcturus could track. He appeared behind the Commander, Infernal Conflagration already manifesting, and struck.

Arcturus's armor held—barely—but the impact drove him forward. The other two Grand Commanders converged, trying to trap Liam in a pincer that would limit his Phase Shift options.

They'd clearly studied his fighting style.

Which meant it was time to change styles.

Instead of shifting away, Liam shifted toward one of them—a massive man wielding a war hammer that looked like it weighed as much as a person. The Grand Commander swung, expecting Liam to dodge. Instead, Liam met the blow with Abyssal Plate reinforced to maximum.

The impact was tremendous. Liam felt his enhanced armor crack, felt the shock travel through his bones. But the damage reflection activated, and the Grand Commander staggered as fifteen percent of the impact force rebounded into him.

[Health: -11%]

[Enemy Health: -8%]

Not a favorable trade on the surface, but it bought Liam the opening he needed. He drove Infernal Conflagration directly into the gap where the war hammer had forced the Commander's guard open. Black flames erupted against consecrated armor, and this time—this close, this concentrated—they found purchase.

The Grand Commander screamed and fell back, his armor burning.

"REGROUP!" Commander Arcturus ordered, his voice cutting through the chaos. "Don't engage him individually!"

But the damage was done. Their tight formation had fractured, responding to threats from multiple directions. Lilith was systematically dismantling the two Grand Commanders engaging her—they were skilled, coordinated, experienced, and none of it mattered against her overwhelming physical superiority.

The demon army pressed forward, sensing opportunity. Commander Torven led Legion One in a direct assault that pushed against the elite Radiant troops' defensive line. They weren't breaking through—not yet—but they were forcing the defenders to commit resources.

And from the north, horns blew—Koth's flanking maneuver hitting the lightly defended section.

Commander Arcturus heard the horns. Liam saw the calculation flash across the man's face—maintain position and risk breakthrough from the north, or redeploy and abandon the prepared defensive ground.

"GRAND COMMANDERS VEXIS AND THERON, REDEPLOY NORTH!" Arcturus commanded. "REMAINING FORCES, HOLD THIS LINE!"

Two of the five Grand Commanders disengaged, moving with professional speed toward the new threat. That left Arcturus, the war hammer wielder who was still dealing with burning armor, and the twin-blade wielder who Lilith had thrown into a wall.

Three Grand Commanders.

Against Liam, Lilith, and a hundred and thirty thousand demons.

The odds were shifting.

"NOW!" Liam roared. "ALL FORCES PUSH!"

The demon army surged forward with renewed fury. The Nameless Litany's chanting reached a fever pitch, their absolute faith in Lord Azra manifesting as concentrated Essence generation.

[Essence Generation: +4054/hour]

[Current Essence: 53,820]

Liam Phase Shifted directly at Commander Arcturus, no longer playing defensive or trying to be cautious. The enhanced cooldown meant he could chain shifts almost continuously, appearing from impossible angles faster than the Commander could adjust.

Arcturus was good—better than Valerius had been, his shield work perfect, his spear strikes precise. But he was also defending against a human who could teleport, conjure unholy flames, and exert psychic pressure that made even decades of experience feel inadequate.

"You're strong," Arcturus said, his voice strained as he blocked another Phase Shift assault. "Stronger than reports suggested. But you're still just one demon."

"I'm not a demon," Liam said, Phase Shifting behind him. "I'm a god."

He unleashed Sovereign's Dominion at point-blank range, and even Commander Arcturus—veteran of forty-plus years, hero of countless battles—staggered under the psychic weight of human face commanding demon authority.

That moment of weakness cost him his shield.

Lilith appeared from his right, moving with speed that made her previous combat look sluggish by comparison. Her hand simply closed around the shield's edge and ripped it from Arcturus's grip. The metal crumpled like paper.

"Two on one isn't honorable," Arcturus managed.

"We're not here for honor," Lilith said coldly. "We're here to break your capital."

She struck him with enough force to shatter ribs through consecrated armor. Arcturus went down, still alive but combat-ineffective, coughing blood inside his helmet.

The war hammer wielder charged them with desperate fury, his armor still smoking. "ARCTURUS!"

Liam and Lilith hit him simultaneously—Phase Shift and raw speed combining into coordinated devastation. The Grand Commander lasted approximately eight seconds before Liam's Infernal Conflagration and Lilith's physical strikes put him down permanently.

[Essence Feast activated]

[+980 Essence]

That left the twin-blade wielder, who had recovered from being thrown into the wall and was now facing the reality of two opponents who had just killed three of her colleagues.

"Yield," Lilith said, her voice carrying genuine offer rather than mockery. "You fought well. There's no shame in recognizing when you're outmatched."

The Grand Commander looked at her broken blades, at her fallen comrades, at the demon army that was now pushing through the defensive line.

"The Radiant Empire does not yield," she said.

Then she charged.

She died brave.

[Essence +890]

The third wall's eastern defense collapsed without the Grand Commanders to anchor it. Demon soldiers poured through gaps in the line, and the elite Radiant troops—professional as they were—recognized when their position was untenable.

They withdrew in good order, falling back to prepared positions deeper in the city, but they withdrew.

The third wall was breached.

"PRESS FORWARD!" Commander Torven's voice carried across the battlefield. "DON'T LET THEM REGROUP!"

The demon army surged into Sanctum Lux proper, flooding through streets that had never seen demon soldiers before. Buildings burned. Defenders fought desperate holding actions. And deep in the city's heart, the Radiant King's palace waited.

Liam stood among the ruins of the third wall's defense, breathing hard, his enhanced Abyssal Plate cracked in a dozen places, his ribs screaming protest with every breath.

[Health: 61%]

[Essence: 55,690]

Three Grand Commanders dead. Two more redeployed to the north, where Koth's forces were keeping them occupied. The path to the city's heart was open.

"Casualties?" he asked Lieutenant Zara, who appeared with her inevitable reports.

"Heavy," she said grimly. "Four thousand two hundred and seventeen dead in the third wall assault. Another six thousand eight hundred and forty-three wounded. We're down to approximately one hundred and sixty-two thousand combat-effective troops."

Twenty-four thousand total casualties to breach all three walls. Fifteen percent of the army gone.

And they still had to fight through the city, kill a king, and somehow extract themselves before the remaining Radiant forces could trap them.

"Keep them moving," Liam said, ignoring the exhaustion that made every word an effort. "No pausing to consolidate. We hit the palace before they can organize a proper defense."

"Lord Azra, the troops are exhausted—"

"So are the defenders," Liam interrupted. "Exhaustion is mutual. The difference is we have momentum. They have fear. We use both."

Zara studied him for a moment. "You're not going to make it out of this city alive, are you?"

The question was blunt, and Liam appreciated the honesty.

"Who knows?" he admitted. "But I'll make sure the army does. That's what matters."

"That's not what matters to the Nameless Litany," Zara said quietly. "Or to Queen Lilith. Or to the thousand-plus demons who believe you're genuinely divine."

Liam didn't have an answer for that.

Because she was right.

His death would shatter faith, destabilize the empire, and potentially undo everything they'd built.

But staying alive might mean compromising the mission, and that wasn't acceptable either.

"Then I'll find a third option," he said finally. "I'm good at those."

[Synchronization Index: +2%]

Two more percentage points. The synthesis deepening with every impossible demand met.

Somewhere ahead, a king waited to die.

Somewhere in the city, two more Grand Commanders were trying to stop the demon advance.

And somewhere beyond all of this, twenty-one heroes trained to become the instruments of demonkind's extinction.

The battle for Sanctum Lux had entered its final phase.

And Liam Cross—or whatever he was becoming—prepared to finish what he'd started.

[Current Status]

[Nameless Litany: 1,134 → 1,203 members]

[Total Casualties: 24,217 dead, 15,134 wounded]

[Remaining Forces: ~162,000 combat effective]

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