I tightened my grip on the Ice Blade. I needed to strike the Swarm immediately.

  “Forward!” I commanded.

  We surged into the Mountain’s cracks. Demons poured to meet us. The fighting was chaotic and vicious. We cut; they tore. But the deeper we went, the stronger my suspicion became. This was not a supply center, as I had expected. It was a trap.

  In a single instant, thousands—hundreds of thousands—of demons burst from the Mountain’s walls. We were surrounded. My detachment was destroyed in minutes. Elves, dwarves, humans—their courage was immense, but their mortality was a sentence. Only a handful of fighters remained in a last, desperate stand. And me.

  At that moment, when my allies fell, a Creature emerged from the Mountain’s depths. Enormous, fiery, ominous.

  TGAR.

  I thought: Oh no. No, no, no. We had already killed one like this in the old wars, and the losses had been horrific. We barely destroyed it.

  Our battle dragged on for hours that felt like days. We fought as we plunged deeper into the Mountain. The deeper we fell, the less light remained—except for the glow that came from Tgar.

  Its terrible fiery breath again and again broke through my magical barrier and burned my skin. Every hit brought unbearable pain that my regeneration erased only for it to return with renewed force. The monster showed no sign of fatigue. It roared and attacked, and every thrust of mine, every wave of magic, felt useless.

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  And then Tgar spoke. Not with a roar, but with a voice filled with ancient power and absolute malice.

  “TREMBLE! The CREATOR of Tgar speaks to you! The DEMON KING!”

  Its laughter was horrifying—deep and booming.

  In that same second I felt his power. It was not Ignis’s power. It was a blend. I understood: how? How could such might exist? The power of Archangels—and not just one.

  “HA-HA-HA! I am the Demon King the Light never saw! Every creature that meets my army will die! You are pathetic beings!”

  His gaze fixed on me.

  “And you? Who are you? Could it be… the one from the oldest legends? A Fallen Angel? A creature that lives for eternity?”

  He laughed again.

  “HA-HA-HA-HA! I know what to do with you!”

  “You can’t kill me!” I shouted back, gathering the last of my mana for a final strike.

  “AH-HA-HA-HA! Why would I kill you, when I can watch you suffer forever?”

  His words struck me harder than fire. He knew about Father’s curse. He knew about my eternal life.

  I didn’t understand how he meant to do it. And then he said, with delighted madness:

  “I’ll just bury you! Very deep! And if you somehow crawl out again, Tgar will shove you right back into the ground! OOOH! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA! I’m a genius!”

  Fear pierced me. Not fear of death, but fear of oblivion and helplessness—of being alive forever, yet entombed beneath a mountain.

  A sudden blow followed. Of impossible force. Tgar struck the ground, but it wasn’t just a удар—it was magical will. The stone beneath my feet shattered. A vast, bottomless fissure opened.

  I tried to rise, using the last scraps of mana—but Tgar’s breath, empowered by the Demon King, caught me. A fiery vortex hurled me into the abyss. I fell. Deep. Long.

  And then the Light went out. The walls, obeying the Demon King’s will, drew together, sealing the裂.

  I was buried.