Orin was right.

He wasn't enough.

Not even close.

[Health: 58%]

[Essence: 7,847 EP]

[True Essence: 784 TE]

[Evolution Points Available: 60 EVP]

The numbers stared back at Liam like a judge's verdict. He had resources. He had power. But against the man standing across from him, it felt like showing up to a gunfight with a knife.

Orin wiped blood from the shallow cut on his knee, examined it with clinical interest, then looked at Liam with something between respect and pity.

"You made me bleed," the Grand Commander said. "That alone puts you above most demons I've killed. But bleeding me and killing me are separated by an ocean you can't cross."

He rolled his shoulders, the white armor gleaming despite the blood and ash coating the courtyard.

Around them, the fortress smoldered. Bodies lay where they'd fallen.

The survivors had pulled back to the western passage, watching with the hollow eyes of people who'd already accepted the outcome.

Koth pushed himself up from where Orin had thrown him, armor dented, breathing labored. "Lord Azra." His voice was rough. "We need to retreat. Now. This isn't a fight we can win."

"He's right," Zara called from her position on the rampart, her analytical mind having run every calculation. "Grand Commanders are trained to kill the strongest of us, we have no shot at victory."

Liam's grey eyes never left Orin. "He is not trained for me."

"How so?" Zara's voice was sharp. "You've used every advantage. Every trick. He's adapted to all of it."

She wasn't wrong. Orin had catalogued his combat style, learned his patterns, countered his skills.

The spatial displacement that had seemed so powerful at Krazax was now just another predictable tactic. The flames that had incinerated paladins barely made the Grand Commander adjust his stance.

And the worst part was that Orin still hadn't shown everything. The testing phase was over.

Now came the real fight.

"Last chance," Orin said. He hefted his greatsword, and golden light began to seep from the blade like liquid dawn. "Surrender. Kneel. I'll make it quick and clean. Your soldiers can live. The fortress can stand. Just you die, and this ends."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then everyone dies." Orin's voice held no malice. Just statement of fact. "I'll cut through you, then your commanders, then every demon in this fortress. I'll tear down these walls stone by stone. And when I'm done, I'll move to the next outpost and do it again."

He took a step forward.

"You think you're special because you won a few battles? Because you executed some prisoners and played at being ruthless?"

Another step.

"I've been killing demons since before you were born. I've fought things that would make your generals look like children. And I'm still here."

The golden light intensified. Orin's armor began to glow with divine radiance that made the air itself feel heavy.

"So choose. Die alone, or die with everyone."

Liam's mind raced. Every skill, every advantage, every variable that could be changed.

The System interface hovered at vision edge, evolution points waiting to be spent, skills waiting to be unlocked.

Sixty EVP. Not much. But maybe enough.

His eyes flicked to the unlockable skills.

Abyssal Plate for eight points would give him armor, protection against those devastating strikes. Swordsmanship for five points would improve his blade work, let him match Orin's technique.

But neither would be enough. Better armor just meant taking longer to die. Better swordplay just meant losing slower.

He needed something that changed the fundamental equation.

Oblivion's Gaze.

Fifteen EVP.

A beam of null-energy that disintegrated matter and unraveled magic.

Could it punch through divine armor? Could it hurt something blessed by the Radiant Empire's god?

Maybe. But probably not. Orin's golden light looked designed specifically to counter demonic power. And fifteen points would drain most of his evolution potential.

"You're calculating," Orin observed. He'd stopped advancing, watching Liam with that same clinical interest. "Running through options. Trying to find the trick that wins. That's good tactical thinking."

He smiled.

"But there is no trick. Sometimes the enemy is just better than you. Stronger. Faster. More experienced. And all the cleverness in the world can't bridge that gap."

Koth moved to stand beside Liam, his massive frame battered but unbowed.

"Whatever you're planning, do it fast. I'll buy you time."

"Koth, you can't."

"Watch me." The commander's molten eyes held fierce determination. "You gave me back my pride at Krazax. Gave Skel'var his will at Dra'kul. Gave Thrak's garrison hope before..." He gestured to the bodies. "Before this. So yeah, I can buy you time. Question is what you'll do with it."

Zara appeared on Liam's other side, her injured arm bound but her good hand holding a blade.

"I'll bet a 12 percent chance we survive the next two minutes. Eighteen percent if we coordinate perfectly." She looked at Liam.

"But I've watched you turn impossible odds before. So tell us the plan."

There was no plan. Not yet.

Just the recognition that Orin was right about one thing. Cleverness alone wouldn't win this.

But maybe cleverness combined with something else would.

Liam's eyes went to his status screen. Saw the skills he'd unlocked, the ones he'd upgraded, the ones still waiting in potential.

Saw something he'd overlooked.

Martial Combat. The foundation skill that gave him instinctive knowledge of all fighting techniques. It had served him well, let him hold his own against opponents who should have crushed him.

But it was just foundation. Basic competency in everything, mastery of nothing.

And right below it, waiting. Swordsmanship.

Five EVP to unlock.

Not just generic fighting ability. Specialized mastery of the weapon in his hand.

It wouldn't make him Orin's equal. Five evolution points couldn't bridge thirty years of training.

But combined with everything else? His spatial displacement, his flames, his authority, his regeneration?

Maybe it shifted the odds from impossible to merely suicidal.

"I need thirty seconds," Liam said quietly.

Koth nodded once. "You'll have them."

He charged.

Orin's expression didn't change as the massive demon barreled toward him.

The Grand Commander simply adjusted his stance, greatsword rising to meet the assault with the same measured efficiency he'd shown all night.

But Koth wasn't attacking. He was buying time.

The commander's blade came down in a overhead strike that telegraphed its path, loud and obvious. Orin blocked easily, the impact sending shockwaves through the courtyard.

Koth pressed forward, each strike deliberate, each movement designed to keep Orin's attention focused on the immediate threat rather than what Liam was doing.

Zara circled wide, her analytical mind reading the combat, waiting for any opening to exploit.

And Liam stood in the center of it all, grey eyes closed, focusing inward.

[Unlock: Swordsmanship - Cost: 5 EVP]

[Confirm: YES]

The knowledge hit like lightning through his nervous system.

Everything he knew about fighting condensed and sharpened.

The generic competency of Martial Combat focusing into specialized understanding.

How a blade moved through air, through flesh, through the space between intention and execution.

Weight distribution. Edge alignment.

The biomechanics of a cut versus a thrust.

How to read an opponent's shoulder to predict their next strike. Where armor weakened under stress. How to turn defense into offense in the span between heartbeats.

Thirty years of training compressed into a single moment of System-granted understanding.

It wasn't enough to make him Orin's equal. But it made him competent in ways he hadn't been seconds before.

[Swordsmanship (Unevolved) - Unlocked]

[EVP Remaining: 55]

His eyes opened.

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