The real threat wasn't the lesser creatures. It was the tower of darkness standing impassively a hundred meters away. The Abyssal Archon. Its black scales seemed to drink the twilight light, and around it, the very air grew murky, creating a sphere of perpetual night where only its eyes shone—two embers of conscious hatred.
And from the earth at its feet, like worms emerging from a cosmic wound, more and more minions kept sprouting: humanoids with disproportionate limbs and skin of molten rock, beasts dripping luminous red slime, all with that same vacant, hungry stare.
We'll never finish like this, Alex thought, a pang of cold despair in his gut. Emi is a lightning bolt, but even a lightning bolt can burn out. And that one... is just waiting.
"Emi!" he shouted, making his voice rise above the din. She turned her head for an instant, her golden eyes blazing with the adrenaline of combat. "The big one! It's regenerating the horde faster than we can kill it!"
"I see it!" she yelled back, firing a beam that vaporized three creatures at once. "But if I get close to it, these bastards will pin me down from the flanks!"
"Like I said!" Alex yelled, the idea taking shape in his mind with the clarity of imminent danger.
"What?!"
"I'll distract it! You wipe out ALL the small ones! At once!" The words sounded like madness even to his own ears. Him, with no offensive magic, facing a demon over three meters tall.
Emi's face filled with horror. "Are you insane?! It'll tear you to shreds!"
"Not if it can't catch me!" Alex shot back, and a spark lit in his eyes—not of bravery, but pure, desperate calculation. "Trust me, Emi! I need you to give me a ten-second head start and then… let loose EVERYTHING you've got! Don't leave a single one standing!"
Their gazes locked. In Emi's eyes, logic screamed it was suicide, fighting against the irrational faith she'd placed in him since the day they arrived in this world. Faith won.
"Ten seconds!" she agreed, her voice becoming a command. "If it kills you, I'll drag you back and kill you myself!"
It was all the permission he needed.
Alex took a deep breath and cut the flow of energy to Emi. For the first time in the battle, he left her alone. He turned all his concentration, all his residual magic, inward. Not to attack, but to optimize. To optimize his speed, his reflexes, his perception of danger. He felt the world around him slow down a little, the movements of the creatures become more predictable. It was a minuscule power compared to Emi's, but in this instant, it was his only weapon.
And then, he ran. Not backward, not to the side. He ran straight into the circle of perpetual night.
He crossed the invisible line where daylight died. A physical cold, that froze his bones, enveloped him. The air grew thick, hard to breathe. The sounds of battle were muffled, replaced by a hum of malevolent static. And before him, rising like a living mountain of despair, was the Archon.
The creature slowly turned its head. The embers of its eyes fixed upon the small being who dared invade its domain. It didn't roar; only a deep, resonant snarl of contempt issued from its maw.
"HEY, OLD WRECK!" Alex shouted, his voice, distorted by the darkness, sounding pathetically small. "Is your army just these dumb worms?! You're an embarrassment!"
The demon raised a claw—not with speed, but like a heavy glacier moving. Alex was already in motion. His hyper-optimized body flung itself to the left before the claw even began to descend. The impact shook the earth, sending up a shockwave of black dirt and stones that Alex rolled to avoid.
"SLOW!" he spat, getting up. "The one in the cave put up more of a fight!"
It was then that the Archon seemed to truly focus. Its dark aura stirred. A second arm rose, and this time, a tongue of pure shadow—like a whip made of anti-light—shot toward Alex.
There was nowhere to hide. Alex calculated the trajectory in a thousandth of a second. He couldn't dodge it. So, he charged at it. Just before impact, he jumped, using a piece of rubble as a springboard, and the shadow grazed his boots, dissolving part of the sole with a cold hiss. The pain was instant and sharp, like instant frostbite.
"HA! YOU MISS—" The cry was cut off when a massive tail, which he hadn't seen coming, emerged from the darkness and struck him from the side.
The world spun. He felt the crack of a rib. The air was knocked from his lungs as he slammed into the muddy ground ten meters away. His vision blurred. Too slow. I'm still too slow... and I think my hearing's fuzzy.
The Archon took a step forward. The earth rumbled. Its eyes gleamed with sadistic pleasure. It raised a foot, huge as a siege ram, to crush him.
Emi... Alex thought, watching the sole of black scales that blotted out the dark "sky" descend. Now... or never.
And then, from outside the circle of darkness, came a chant.
It was Emi's voice, but transformed, resonating with a power that made the air itself vibrate.
"LUX… ULTIMA!"
The Archon's foot halted in mid-air. It turned its head, distracted by the monumental peak of energy gathering at its back.
It was the tenth of a second Alex needed. He dragged himself with his last strength, scrambling out of the crushing radius.
And then, the world exploded in white.
It wasn't a beam. It was as if a second sun had been born on the battlefield. A sphere of pure, blinding, painfully bright light expanded from where Emi stood. There was no sound of an explosion; it was a roar of pure energy.
The lesser creatures, the worms of molten rock, the twisted humanoids, simply… disintegrated. They left no ash, no blood. They dissolved into the light like sugar in water, their silhouettes erased in an instant, their screams drowned in the luminous hymn. The field, crawling with horrors a second before, was swept clean, smoking with a golden radiance that clung to the ground.
The light lasted only a few seconds. When it dissipated, it revealed Emi on her knees, panting, the glow of her aura reduced to a weak tremor. She had spent everything in one blow.
And it revealed the Abyssal Archon.
The creature was intact. The light had crashed against its aura of darkness and dissolved, absorbed. But in its eyes, there was no longer contemptuous curiosity, not even anger.
There was concentrated fury. Pure and lethal.
It had lost its entire army. Its source of fodder, its living shield. And all because a magically insignificant insect had distracted it.
With a movement that was now fast, bestial, it turned completely, turning its back on Alex, who lay on the ground coughing blood. Its gaze fixed on the exhausted, golden figure of Emi.
The plan had worked.
They had swept away the minions.
And now, the enraged demon king, with no distractions, had the exhausted heroine in its sights.
Alex tried to get up, but his body wouldn't respond. He could only watch, with eyes clouded by pain, as the mass of darkness and scales began to advance, step by step, toward Emi.