Away from Kate's escapades and his subsequent escape, the commander and his loyal retinue of believers were fighting against the rampaging devil that had broken their ranks.
His only allies left now were the four other awakened he had brought along with him. The mundane zealots were no match for the angelic statue.
In life, they provided distractions and protective shields against the devil's attacks, and in death, their mutilated corpses provided shade from the sun's rays.
The awakened were the only ones to be able to resist the weightlessness and levitation aura that the devil had, yet they never dared to get too close to have their feet leave the ground.
Losing their footing along with the ability to move in a fight like this was costly, and a little later, one of his younger awakened started levitating; light blue surrounded him.
With his fate sealed, the young man looked to the awakened devil coming to rend him apart with her sharp swallow.
He looked at death and smiled, his rabid eyes turning a brighter orange as his body erupted in flames.
"GLORY!" he screamed.
And before the swallow could cut him in two, he violently exploded into fire and ash, the devil's blade parting the shockwave as it met smoke.
The fire lashed across her graceful stone body, the lingering flame eating away at her.
The angelic statue gazed at the ash pile before switching her gaze. Sizing up her next target
"How do we kill that abomination now?!" Yelled one of the commander's guards, covered in shallow wounds and gritting teeth. The awakened who had met his end was the only one able to deal decent damage to it from afar.
Yet despite their efforts, the angelic statue was able to power through their attempts to halt her advance. She was too fast and too sturdy.
The pure weight of the devil combined with the slowly accelerating speed turned it into an unstoppable force, and without their major ranged attacker, the devil was free to perform its slaughter .
The commander grits his teeth, quickly observing the area for anything that could potentially aid him in killing the beast, his perceptive eyes picking up a young soldier running cleanly away from the remaining hordes of beasts. The heretic whose aspect refused to touch.
A subtle smile came across his face as the plan came together.
"Hold back the devil while I head to the shrine; there's a heretic heading there who could be sacrificed enough to call some blessings from our god of war."
His right-hand man surprised him and answered.
"Is there? Could you overpower the cursed, sacrilegious scent of the shrine to pray for war?"
The commander's gaze stayed on the boy, running right where he needed him.
"Yes, I'm certain."
The shade of floating flesh came back over the commander and his ally, a premonition for the soon-coming devil, who had come back to collect more corpses for its veil of the dead.
"...Ok, wish you luck."
Gathering into a dash, the commander brushed past the devil, its pitch-white eye locked onto him, its heels twisting as it began to pursue him, although the commander was awakened, his supernatural speed would be no match for the devil once it accelerated.
Feeling the light blue aura starting to take the burden of his weight, he grimaced.
But a polearm from behind the angelic statue crashed into the back of its skull, its head slightly reeling, the polearm hollowing itself out on impact, splitting off into various strips of metal. Thrown by the commander's most trusted ally.
"DEVIL, DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON US," he screamed, the anger painted across him as he prepared another polearm to pelt. The angelic statue stared back at him and seemingly glided in a half circle, picking up speed alarmingly fast towards its attacker.
The commander watched the scene as he ran, relief washing over him as he bolted unopposed to the shrine, the wind caressing his warm skin, the beads of sweat gently being taken by the breeze, his attention focused on Kade as he entered the shrine.
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Kade didn't slow as the shrine came into view — a crooked monolith of dark stone, its doors yawning open, inviting him in. The air shifted the moment he crossed the threshold; the chaotic noise behind him vanished into dead silence, as though the shrine's very aura rejected the outside world.
He turned back into the outside world, the distant figures of the remaining abominations still chasing his trail left on the stone. Closing the door of the shrine, he began moving various crusty furniture and statues to barricade the door.
Now free from that threat from now, he began to explore.
The ground beneath his feet turned cold on contact, the stone floor unnaturally smooth — as if carved straight from the mountain and polished down into a flawless surface.
As he moved deeper, a presence pressed against him — a subdued, corrosive power resting over his shoulders like a damp cloak. Yet it didn't stir at his intrusion. It slumbered, patient and unmoved.
His breath caught — not from fear, but anticipation. The adrenaline that had driven his defiance still buzzed in his veins. His eyes darted across the artwork etched into the walls and the sacred relics scattered across the floor like forgotten offerings.
The shrine felt abandoned, steeped in decay. Perhaps the mood alone had scared off any would-be looters — or perhaps they'd been met not with gold but with a blade for daring to steal from this place.
"I mean, I wouldn't want to steal from this place — it's a great way to get cursed," he muttered, recalling something similar from an old comic he'd scrounged off the street years ago. Something about a pyramid, ancient traps, and a thousand-year-old mummy guarding its tomb.
Some of the pieces stashed in the dust hurt to look at — a clawing, searing sensation on his irises whenever he tried. It was uncomfortable in a way that felt wrong, so Kade learnt quickly to avert his gaze from the eyesores as he explored further.
Here, in the shrine's strange silence, his instincts and whatever ragged common sense he had left screamed that this had to be the end point of the trial. He'd been given the vessel of a zealot for a reason. Sure, it might've been to help slay the beasts and that devil… But the spell was never that straightforward.
Nothing about it had ever been simple.
Considering the beasts and the devil seemed to have originated from this place, it made sense the shrine was the key. But standing here now, Kade had no clue what he was supposed to do.
Until he found it.
Deeper within, a large circular platform waited — riddled with intricate runes that wove through each other like tangled threads. The dark stone pulsed with an unsettling depth, as though one could sink into it and fall forever into a sea of undisturbed ink.
It was the altar.
Kade stared at it, unmoving. His intuition screamed that this — this — was the instrument to end the nightmare. The way back to the waking world and all the hell it promised. But he'd return alive… and awakened.
Memories of the journey surged through him — the fear, the desperation, the defiance. Every step. Every fight. And now, the realisation hit him like a crashing wave:
He might actually survive this.
"Maybe... but I doubt the Spell's bullshit is done with me yet."
The climb up here hadn't been kind — and definitely not fair. The only reason Kade was still breathing was the experience he'd earned as a street slugger back home. If it had been anyone else, they would've died long before reaching this place.
The Spell always wanted more.
One last thing, one final trial, before it let him crawl out of this nightmare.
And staring at the pitch-black altar, he could already guess what it wanted.
"A sacrifice."
As the word left his lips, a sharp crack of wood split the silence.
Kade whirled around, guard raised on instinct, eyes sweeping for the source.
There.
The commander stood crouched in the shadows like a beast mid-pounce, his tattered military uniform hanging from his frame, a twisted dagger clenched in his grasp. His eyes locked on Kade's, steady and filled with unyielding vigilance.
"Heretic," he whispered, the word echoing eerily in the shrine's still air. The commander rose slowly, face sharpening with a soldier's resolve.
"I was looking for you."
Kade didn't lower his guard, his voice dry with sarcasm.
"What's the plan, then? Slayed the devil and come to retrieve your mightiest soldier? Or just running away with your tail between your legs?"
The commander unamused squinted further, his eyes sharpening like blades.
"The devil lives. And you're needed."
Kade turned back to the altar, then back to the commander. The pieces clicked into place.
"I can guess what it is," he said, lips curling into a smirk.
The commander scoffed, hatred bleeding into his features. "It's obvious, fool."
Then the shrine exploded into motion.
The commander lunged, a red aura bursting to life around him, heat and rage pulsing off his form. The dagger gleamed in his hand, aimed straight for Kade's heart.
Kade, caught off guard by the pure speed, reacted to his ability, his fist ready as he stared at the shining metal aiming for his life, and mused.
'Guess I'm the sacrifice.'