The blow I had struck against the demon had disarmed me and drained me of my strength.
Yet to let go of even a single eyelash flutter meant death. Devoured. Swallowed. Forgotten.
My gaze snagged on the torn-open bag. Provisions, gear… and those two glass vials filled with a supernatural blue glow. Without thinking, I grabbed them. One for Rayzo, still unconscious. The other for Karla, whose mana had been put out of commission by the demon's energy.
In a swift motion, I threw the first vial toward Hiyro, who was near Rayzo, then pivoted toward Karla.
Too late.
The beast was already back on its feet.
More massive. Blacker. More furious.
It snapped its tongue with obscene speed, spread its tattered wings, and with a single beat, unleashed a storm that made me stagger. The vial in my hand almost slipped. I caught it just in time against my chest as the demon opened wide its maw bristling with fangs.
Then it lunged.
A mass of muscle, fangs, and pure hatred hurtling toward me.
No more time to dodge. No more time to breathe.
And suddenly… a rampart.
A massive, familiar silhouette, almost sacred in its tenacity, interposed itself. Shield raised, hammer ready. Rayzo.
The impact was titanic. Metal screamed. The demon, unleashed, tore into the shield with its demented jaws. Fangs scraped, bit, shredded. The thickness of steel melted before our eyes. Soon, spikes were hitting Rayzo's already cracked helmet.
"Nico! MOVE!"
Hiyro's voice cracked like a whip.
In the same breath, he hurled one of his twin blades, which sank up to the hilt in the demon's right eye. Without slowing, he leaped, clung to the weapon as if to a deadly hold, and drove the second blade into the ravaged eye socket.
The monster screamed.
A scream that made bones vibrate, eardrums burst, willpower bend.
Hiyro, face ravaged by pain, ears bleeding, held on.
He let go of nothing.
"Es!!! GO!!!"
Estris shot out like a vengeful shadow.
A perfect slide beneath the creature's belly. Sword pointed upward.
A long, hideous, merciless gash from the sternum to the groin.
A torrent of black blood gushed forth, splattering his armor, his dark skin, his impassive face.
Estris fell back to his knees, arms trembling, breath short.
The demon's skin was an armor in itself.
Yet he shouted, hoarsely:
"Rayzo!!"
The old warrior raised his head.
His helmet was now just a heap of twisted scrap metal.
Under wrinkles deep as ancient axe blows, his steel-grey eyes still burned.
An old scar crossed his forehead, his broken nose kept its twisted arrogance, his square jaw seemed carved from the stone of vanished battlefields.
He was not smiling.
He hadn't smiled for a long time.
But that day… he almost smiled.
The demon staggered, jaw hanging, throat drowned in its own ichor.
It tried one last roar.
Too late.
Rayzo bent his legs.
His whole body became a bow, then a spring, then a living catapult.
The hammer described a perfect arc from the depths of the earth.
And it smashed.
The lower jaw exploded in a spray of bone and black flesh.
The monster toppled backward in a crash of stone and blood.
Then, emerging from nowhere, Estris and Hiyro were upon it.
Two blades plunged together into the gaping maw, seeking, digging, aiming for the brain.
The demon writhed, clawed, lacerated the air.
The two warriors endured blow after blow, deep gashes, violent shocks, flowing blood.
And yet they pushed, still and again and again.
Until a heavy, wounded, but inexorable step was heard.
Rayzo advanced, limping, breath ragged, hammer raised with both hands.
A last look toward the dying beast.
Then the hammer fell.
A monstrous crack.
The demon's head burst like an overripe fruit.
Brain, black blood, bone fragments flew in a foul rain, splattering armor, faces, walls… and me, just as I finally poured the blue potion between Karla's trembling lips.
An unreal silence fell.
The demon no longer moved.
Hiyro, covered in blood, hair matted with sweat and ichor, let out an exhausted whisper:
"… They did it."
And for the first time since the fight began, I felt my legs give way beneath me.
Silence descended like a blanket too heavy.
No more roars. No more screaming metal. No more spurting blood.
Just the ragged breathing of five living bodies, and the distant drip-drip of black blood finishing its flow onto the stone.
I collapsed first.
Not gracefully. Not like a hero.
Simply.my knees gave out, my butt hit the cold floor, and I stayed there, back against the wall, the empty vial still clutched in my trembling hand.
I no longer had the strength to let it go.
A few steps away, Karla had slid down against a broken column.
The blue potion was already taking effect: her cheeks regained a human hue, and she breathed normally.
She placed a hesitant hand on her chest, felt her heart beating, and a broken little laugh, almost a sob, escaped her.
Hiyro was still standing… barely.
He wavered in place, the two blades still planted in his clenched fists, dripping.
Blood his, the demon's matted his hair to his forehead.
He blinked several times, very slowly, as if relearning how to see.
Then he dropped his weapons.
The clang of metal on stone resonated strangely softly.
He sat down abruptly, legs apart, head low, and murmured just:
"Fuck… we're alive."
Estris, for his part, said nothing.
He had collapsed to his knees near the gutted corpse, forearms resting on his thighs, palms open upward.
His shoulders rose and fell, heavy, very slow.
With each exhale, a little cloud of vapor left his mouth.
He stared at the ground between his hands, where his own blood mingled with the black ichor, and he moved no more.
Just breathing.
Just existing.
And then there was Rayzo.
The old warrior hadn't moved an inch since the last blow.
Hammer still in both hands, embedded in the exploded pulp of what had been the demon's head.
He stood there, immense, immobile, like a cracked statue refusing to fall.
His breath whistled between his teeth.
His shoulders trembled slightly not from fear, not from cold: from pure exhaustion.
Suddenly, he exhaled longly, a deep rattle that sounded like a stillborn laugh.
He raised his head, looked at each of us in turn Karla, Hiyro, Estris, me and his steel grey eyes, veiled by years and fatigue, shone with a strange light.
Not triumph.
Not glory.
Relief.
Raw.
Animal.
The kind of relief that hurts because it is so immense.
He finally released the hammer's handle.
The weapon remained stuck where it was, like a flag planted on conquered ground.
Then, very slowly, he sat down on the still-warm corpse.
He placed his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his large, calloused hands, and stayed like that.
No one spoke again.
We didn't need to anymore.
We were there.
Exhausted to the bone.
Wounded.
Covered in shit and blood.
But alive.
And for now, that was all that mattered.
But just as we were rejoicing at finally ending this nightmare, a familiar, piercing voice rang out throughout the hall and in our ears.
"Get away from the corpse! It's still alive! I can feel it!"