Slacovich staggered, his feet skidding across the ground as the silver embedded in his side sizzled through muscle and bone. He dropped to one knee, coughing blood. Around him, the others fought on, their movements slowing, dulled by the inevitable toll of silver corruption.
But then, his eyes locked on the Reapers.
Not just strong. Not just mutated. Dying.
Their bodies were trembling now. Fangs bared, but breath shallow. Their skin, once shielded, now cracked with pulsing black veins, the silver embedded into their very forms eating away at them from the inside out.
And then he remembered.
The fight in India. The blood-soaked ground. Ara's final stand.
He could still hear it, Stacy's maniacal laughter as she spun in the air, silver wings glinting in the harsh night, unleashing a cyclone of death. And Ara, without a second thought, flinging herself into that storm. Wrapping her arms around Stacy, locking her in place.
The sound of silver piercing flesh, over and over, was seared into his soul.
Ara didn't scream.
She held on until Stacy's spinning stopped. Until the silver in Stacy's own veins drained the last of her life force. Until the monster turned to ash in her arms.
Ara fell moments later.
And Slacovich had caught her in his arms before she turned into ashes herself.
Back in the present, Slacovich rose, eyes glowing with resolve.
"They'll burn out," he growled low enough for the others to hear. "The silver will eat them from the inside. It's only a matter of time. Don't give them a chance to self-destruct. If they spin like Stacy..."
Li's gaze snapped to him, blood dripping from her cheek. "...they'll take us all down with them."
Tyler cracked his neck, lips curled into a snarl. "Then we hold them back. Stop the spin. End it before it begins."
Sofie, bloodied, bruised, but unbroken, nodded once. "We've come too far to fall here."
Their strategy shifted instantly.
They fought to contain.
To endure.
To wait for the end.
Because victory now didn't mean killing the Reapers.
It meant outlasting them.
And stopping them from taking another Ara with them into the ash.
The clash of flesh, metal, and desperation thundered through the estate. Blood sizzled where it met silver. The once-pristine battlefield was now a war-torn grave waiting to be filled. Every breath the Demonfires took grew heavier. Sofie's boots skidded across scorched tiles, her limbs sore from silver's burn, her mind steady despite it all.
But her eyes, sharp and resolute, locked on the Reapers.
They were nearing their end, and that was exactly what made them most dangerous.
They wouldn't simply fall. They'd take someone with them.
Sofie stepped forward, dragging in a sharp breath, then raised her hand, not out of weakness, but command.
From the shadow cast beneath her, a ripple surged outward like ink bleeding into stone. The air itself seemed to pull back, the estate trembling as darkness spilled from the ground, cool and absolute.
A voice echoed through the silence, not in words, but in reverence:
"Our Queen calls. We obey."
The ground cracked in a perfect circle, and from it, they rose, the Six Shadow Guards, ancient and faceless, cloaked in pure darkness, eyes glowing faintly beneath their hoods. They did not breathe. They did not speak. They simply moved, formed from shadow and oath, not as weapons... but as protectors.
Li lowered her weapons. Diego stared in quiet awe. Even Slacovich, bloodied and towering, gave them a moment of still silence.
"Sofie," he muttered, "you called them?"
"They follow me," she said firmly, standing tall. "They always have. They always will."
The Reapers, twitching violently as the silver within poisoned them, were seconds from unleashing their final, suicidal attack, until the Shadows struck.
Chains of pitch-black snaked out like serpents, piercing through the ground and sky, locking around the Reapers' throats, torsos, and limbs. The air pulsed with unnatural force as the guards bound them still, choking their final surge of chaos.
The Reapers screamed, not in pain, for they could feel none, but in rage. The kind only monsters knew when stripped of the only thing they had left, destruction.
"Contain them," Sofie ordered, her voice laced with the blood of royalty. "Do not let them move."
And the Shadows obeyed.
Now bound in a prison of darkness, the Reapers were trapped, helpless as the silver they had embedded into themselves slowly consumed what remained of their life force.
"We wait," Slacovich declared. His eyes glowed faintly, fangs still bloodstained. "Let them rot in their own arrogance."
The wind whispered around them, rustling broken leaves across the estate's cracked stones.
The battle was not over.
But the tide had shifted.
And from the edge of death, they had risen.
The Reapers, what remained of them, shuddered violently within the grasp of the Shadow Guards.
Their bodies twitched and spasmed, bones snapping beneath silver-slick skin, the mutation inside them rebelling against the dying flame of their life force. Their mouths opened in silent screams, jaws too warped to form proper words, throats bubbling with blackened venom.
Then they moved.
Twisting. Jerking. Desperate.
The silver embedded deep into their flesh began to pulse, glowing faintly like a living curse. One of them flailed its arms, and from its ribs, sharp silver protrusions started forming, feathers. Spikes. Wings. Just like Stacy once did.
The other arched its back, letting out a guttural roar that cracked through the air. It lifted its chest, ready to detonate the silver within in a wild, all-consuming burst.
But they couldn't.
Chains pulled tighter.
The Shadow Guards, six silent giants cloaked in eternal dusk, held their ground. Their hands were not just weapons, but judgments. One crushed the Reaper's spine with a tightening coil of darkness. Another bound its mutated wings, folding them in until they cracked and shattered. The rest focused on stillness, paralyzing them not just in body, but in soul.
The Reapers shrieked. Not from pain, they felt none, but from failure. From knowing they were moments from unleashing devastation… and yet powerless to move. Their silver-coated limbs flailed one last time before locking mid-air, trembling violently.
And then-
Stillness.
Their bodies started to fracture. Hairline cracks spread like veins across their skin, glowing faintly with a sickly silver light. The poison they'd proudly fused into their bodies turned against them.
And in one final, fragile second---
They crumbled.
Ash.
First their fingers. Then their arms. Then their twisted, mutated faces, turning to dust, drifting into the wind like a whisper never heard. Nothing remained but silver fragments and the lingering echo of fury.
The Shadow Guards stood tall, untouched.
Li exhaled, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth.
Diego knelt, checking the wounds on his shoulder, still steaming from earlier burns.
Tyler fell to one knee, chest rising and falling in heavy gasps.
Sofie remained standing at the center of it all, queen of shadow, her gaze still locked where the Reapers once stood.
Slacovich… remained silent. Watching the ash fall. Remembering Ara.
And with that, the battle had ended.
The estate, scarred and stained, bore witness to yet another war in the shadows. But this time, no one from Demonfire had fallen. Not today.
But they all knew…
Volton was still watching.
And this was only the beginning.
The silence after the reapers' demise was heavy, not with relief, but with the weight of realization.
Their breaths were shallow. Bodies bloodied. The scent of burning silver still clung to the air. And amid the flicker of dying embers, the Demonfire clan stood, wounded but far from broken.
Slacovich's gaze remained fixed on the heap of ash the Reapers had become. It wasn't victory he felt. It wasn't triumph.
It was confirmation.
"He's forcing our hand," Slacovich muttered, almost to himself. "Pushing us until we have nothing left but fire to answer him with."
His fist clenched, still slick with blood, his own or the enemy's, it didn't matter anymore.
"We've endured every provocation Volton sent our way. Stayed back. Watched. Waited, because we hoped this could end without becoming a war."
He turned to the others, his voice harder now.
"But there's no point in hoping for peace when he's already declared war."
Sofie lowered her hand slowly, her shadow guards melting back into the earth like loyal phantoms. She said nothing, but the look in her eyes mirrored his.
Li stood still, expression unreadable. But her silence was not uncertainty, it was readiness.
Diego's blade was chipped, blood running down his cheek. He gave a single nod. Tyler didn't speak either. He didn't need to. The flame in his eyes burned with the same promise.
"From now on," Slacovich said, stepping toward them, "we stop waiting."
"Every blow Volton's dealt us, we'll return with tenfold the pain."
"Every name he tried to erase, we'll make the world remember."
He looked back at the ashes one last time.
"Ara didn't die for us to cower in the dark."
His voice softened only slightly.
"Ania's future won't be built on silence."
A wind passed through them, strong and cold, but it couldn't extinguish the fire that now roared within each of them.
They would no longer run from the dark.
They'd become the nightmare it fears.
And from this moment on, every step they took would bring them closer to the man who set it all ablaze.
Volton Hellgazer.
The war he started was no longer in the shadows.
It had found its fire.
And the Demonfires were done holding back.