From a tactical standpoint, storming the Tower of Binding Flame was suicide.
From a strategic standpoint, it was glorious.
From my standpoint?
It was an excellent opportunity to get cooked alive by a glowing obelisk of death while trying not to fall down a spiral staircase made of teeth.
"Let the record show," I said as we approached the base of the tower, "that I voted for the plan where we don't climb the demonic death monolith."
Silas patted my shoulder. "You did. And we ignored it."
I glared at Velis.
She was adjusting a belt of magical fuses.
"I was promised we'd be 'severing leyline convergence threads.' This looks more like we're attacking a haunted lighthouse designed by a heavy metal album cover."
"It's both," she said brightly.
I sighed.
Lyra tightened my shield strap. "Just don't drop the holy sparkle plate. Again."
"I was on fire!"
"You were almost on fire. There's a difference."
It rose out of the heart of the hive like an obsidian fang. Black stone, twisted glyphwork, streams of red-hot mana pouring like lava down its flanks.
Inside? A stairwell. No railings. Walls covered in shifting runes that whispered secrets to anyone dumb enough to listen.
I listened.
Then fell up three steps because one of the glyphs told me gravity was a lie.
"I hate this building," I muttered, getting dragged back to my feet by Iria.
"Buildings should not hiss at their occupants," she said stoically.
"Buildings shouldn't have occupants that float and chant either!"
We were twenty feet up.
Only seven hundred more to go.
The rebellion launched their assault right on time.
Imp squads hurled improvised explosives made from stolen ooze grenades. Rogue demons blocked reinforcements at the southern bridge. Somewhere, someone was playing a war-horn solo on a bone flute badly enough to count as a distraction.
We could see it all from the side slits of the tower—flashes of fire, screams of "DOWN WITH RITUAL MIDDLE MANAGEMENT," and a massive banner unfurling from a siege tower that read:
> "MEOW-BEARER COMMANDS IT."
I put my head in my hands.
"I didn't authorize that."
Velis: "They printed five thousand."
Silas: "You're a movement now. Just lean in."
Halfway up the tower, we hit resistance.
Literal resistance.
A wall of magical force triggered by a trip rune that Silas definitely saw and stepped on anyway.
"I thought it was decorative!" he yelled as we got blasted back down six steps.
Velis gritted her teeth. "It's channeling ambient leyline fire. We need a counter-frequency."
"How do we find that?"
She looked at me.
"I don't know," I said.
Then I held up the shield.
The nyan cat crest pulsed.
A ripple moved through the glyph wall.
And the barrier shut off.
Everyone stared at me.
"…Was that me?"
Velis blinked. "You just overrode demonic firewall logic with a cat-themed resonance plate."
Lyra sighed. "Of course he did."
Iria offered a nod. "The blade bows to true legend."
Silas: "That's going on the next banner."
The heart of the tower was a dome of floating glyphs and burning leyline crystal, all orbiting a molten core the size of a wagon. It pulsed with energy that fed the entire hive's defense grid.
There was one guardian.
A flame-bound demon, wrapped in molten iron, with six arms and no face.
It screamed the moment it saw us.
Then exploded into action.
Iria charged. Her sword clanged against molten armor. Sparks flew. One of the arms struck her side and sent her sliding.
Silas darted through fire pillars, flanking from behind. One dagger landed a hit—then melted.
Velis launched a barrage of destabilization glyphs, which fizzled the moment they got near the core.
Lyra kept us upright. Her healing magic glowed like defiant starlight—except when she smacked me for getting hit again.
"I said dodge, not catch it with your chest!"
"I panicked!"
I raised the shield.
It pulsed.
The guardian hesitated.
For just one beat.
That's all Velis needed.
She threw a disruption spike straight into the leyline column.
Everything turned white.
The tower began to shake.
The core groaned, cracked—and let out a sound like a dying god with heartburn.
Velis screamed: "IT'S COLLAPSING! OUT—NOW!"
We ran.
The tower buckled behind us, glyphs bursting, stone melting. We hit the stairs at a full sprint, ducking falling debris and screaming past twitching barriers that fizzled out like dying bugs.
At the base, the doorway shattered outward.
We jumped.
The tower exploded behind us in a flash of crimson and gold.
A shockwave rippled through the hive.
And everything went quiet.
We stood amid rubble.
The rebellion roared.
The flame had gone out.
And the Demon Lord's hive... was dying.
Silas dropped into the dirt and laughed. "We actually did it."
Velis adjusted her goggles, hair smoking. "The grid's dead. The leyline has collapsed into dormancy."
Lyra handed me a salve. "You earned this."
Iria placed Edelbrecht in the ground. "Let it be known: we struck down the fire that fed the tyrant's breath."
I just collapsed onto a rock.
Smoke drifted around us.
In the distance, the sky flickered.
And something dark moved.