Infinity: Reborn

Malphas’ massive fist swung down.

Andromalius threw himself left. The ground where he’d stood exploded, dirt and rocks spraying outward. He rolled twice, came up with his sword raised.

Malphas pivoted. His throat had regenerated—flesh knitting over scorched tissue. “Seventy years running. Now you stand and face me? Adorable.”

“Seventy years hunting.” Andromalius circled right, keeping distance. “Every demon who tormented me died on spikes. You’re the last name on my list.”

His father laughed. The sound rumbled deep, genuine amusement mixed with contempt. “You think you earned this kill? You’re bait, boy. She’s using you.”

“I know.” Andromalius shifted his grip. “I don’t care.”

He wanted this. Needed it. Let Lilith manipulate him, let Drakul do the real damage—none of it mattered if Malphas died by his blade. Not theirs. His.

Seventy years. His mother’s face. The taste of her flesh forced down his throat while Malphas watched and smiled.

This ended today.

Malphas charged again. Andromalius sidestepped, brought his sword down across the demon’s forearm. The blade bit deep—bone, then through. Blood sprayed. The severed hand hit the ground still clenched.

The stump sprouted new fingers before the hand stopped twitching.

“Persistent.” Malphas backhanded him.

Andromalius blocked with his blade. The impact drove him backward three steps, boots dragging furrows through dirt. His arms screamed. The sword trembled.

Behind Malphas, Lilith hurled another lightning bolt. It struck his shoulder, burned through regenerated muscle. Drakul appeared from nowhere, blade carving ribs open from behind.

Malphas ignored them both. His eyes stayed locked on Andromalius.

“You were nothing.” Malphas stepped forward. “A mistake I kept alive for entertainment. And you wasted your entire existence trying to hurt me.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” Andromalius raised his sword. “You’re here. You’re losing.”

“Because of her.” Malphas gestured backward without looking. “Not you. Never you.”

True. All of it true.

Andromalius attacked anyway. His blade cut across Malphas’s chest—shallow, barely splitting skin. Malphas grabbed for him. Andromalius ducked under the reaching arm, slashed again. This time he opened the back of Malphas’s knee.

The massive demon stumbled. Caught himself. Turned.

Andromalius thrust for the throat.

Malphas caught his wrist. Squeezed. Bones ground together. The sword fell from Andromalius’s fingers.

“There you are.” Malphas lifted him off the ground one-handed. “The frightened child. Still weak. Still pathetic.”

Andromalius kicked. His boot connected with Malphas’s jaw, snapping the massive head sideways. The grip didn’t loosen.

Lightning struck Malphas’s back. Ice formed around his legs. Drakul’s blade opened his spine.

Malphas dropped Andromalius. Turned toward the other two. Roared—actual sound this time, vocal cords regenerated enough for rage.

Andromalius hit the ground, rolled, grabbed his fallen sword.

Wait for the opening. Let them wear him down. Smart tactics.

Except they’d land the killing blow. Not him.

Seventy years for nothing.

Andromalius charged. His blade aimed for Malphas’s exposed back, the spot where Drakul had just carved away flesh.

Malphas spun. Faster than something that size should move.

His fist came around like a boulder launched from a trebuchet.

Andromalius saw it. Too late to dodge. Too late to block.

The impact erased thought.

His ribs shattered. Not cracked—shattered. He felt each individual break, thirty-seven separate fractures propagating through bone. His sternum split down the centre. His spine compressed, vertebrae grinding together, one cracking completely through.

Internal organs ruptured. Liver tore. Spleen burst. Something in his abdomen gave way with a wet tearing sensation that came before pain, separate from pain, worse than pain.

He left the ground. Flew backward. The world tumbled—sky, ground, sky, ground. Blood filled his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t do anything except tumble through the air like a broken doll thrown by an angry child.

This was it.

He wouldn’t even see Malphas die.

Seventy years. All of it. Gone.

The ground rushed up to meet him.

* * *

Andromalius’s body sailed backward and hit the ground hard. He didn’t move.

Lilith didn’t spare him a glance. The potion would keep him alive—theoretically. In Infinity, it prevented death, left the user at one hit point no matter the damage. Here, where everything was real? She’d never tested it. Who would, knowing the consequences of miscalculation?

Either way, checking on him mid-battle accomplished nothing.

Malphas turned back toward her, blood streaming from a dozen wounds. Drakul circled right, blade dripping with stolen vitality.

Lilith struck first. Lightning arced from her fingertips, searing across Malphas’s chest. The flesh blackened, peeled. Ice followed immediately—frozen spears that punched through burned tissue and shattered against bone.

Malphas roared. The sound had lost its depth, vocal cords strained beyond recovery.

Drakul appeared behind him. Sanguine Harvest opened his lower back, carved through regenerating muscle. The vampire vanished before Malphas could turn, reappearing on his left to slash across exposed ribs.

They’d found the rhythm now. Lilith kept distance, bombarding with spells. Drakul struck from angles that forced Malphas to choose—pursue the caster or defend against the blade. Each choice left him vulnerable.

The massive demon lunged at her. Lilith threw herself sideways, rolled, came up casting. Fire engulfed Malphas’s reaching hand. The fingers curled inward, skin bubbling.

Drakul’s blade found his kidney.

Malphas stumbled. Caught himself. His regeneration slowed—wounds closing at half the speed they had minutes ago.

“Persistent vermin.” His voice cracked. “I’ll digest you both for weeks.”

Empty bravado. Everyone here knew it.

Lilith conjured a blade of pure force and hurled it like a spear. It punched through Malphas’s shoulder, dissipated. She followed with acid that ate through his thigh, dissolving muscle down to bone.

Drakul struck three times in rapid succession. Back. Ribs. Neck. Each wound drained vitality that failed to return.

Malphas’s form flickered. The massive twenty-foot frame wavered like heat shimmer. For a moment, Lilith glimpsed his original body beneath—nine feet of corded muscle, recognizable.

The Daemon core was failing.

Malphas knew it too. His eyes burned brighter. Purple light leaked from his wounds instead of blood. He was burning through his own life force now, using everything to maintain the transformation.

“Come then!” He spread his arms wide. “Face me properly!”

Lilith raised both hands. Lightning and fire combined, a spiralling column that struck his chest dead centre. The impact drove him backward three steps. His sternum cracked audibly.

Drakul’s blade found his spine. Severed something crucial. Malphas’s left leg buckled.

The massive demon dropped to one knee.

“Still standing.” Malphas grinned through scorched lips. “Still—”

Ice speared through his throat. He coughed, spraying blood. The regeneration tried to work, failed, tried again.

Lilith struck with force magic. A battering ram of compressed air that folded Malphas backward. Ribs snapped like dry branches.

Drakul was already moving. His blade opened Malphas’s gut, spilled intestines that didn’t regenerate.

The transformation broke.

Malphas’s body collapsed inward, shrinking from twenty feet to nine in the span of three heartbeats. The glow faded. His wounds remained—dozens of them, weeping blood that no longer sealed itself.

He lay on his back, chest heaving. Looked up at Lilith with eyes that held no fear. Only acknowledgment.

“You’re… the real thing.” Blood bubbled at his lips. “Not some… pretender wearing her name.”

Lilith said nothing. Her Hell Blade materialized, violet flame casting shadows across his ruined body.

“If it’s you…” Malphas exhaled slowly. “Perhaps we have… a future after all.”

Movement in her peripheral vision. Andromalius, stumbling forward. His left arm bent wrong halfway down the forearm. His right leg twisted at an angle that shouldn’t be possible. Blood soaked his entire torso.

But he was moving.

Lilith kept her attention on Malphas. Said nothing. Let Andromalius approach.

The half-demon limped past her. His broken sword scraped the ground, blade chipped and bent. He stopped beside Malphas’s head.

“Seventy years.” Andromalius’s voice came out wet, laboured. “Every… single… demon.”

Recognition flared in Malphas’s eyes. The acceptance vanished, replaced by pure rage.

“No.” He tried to move, couldn’t. “Not you. Not a half-breed—”

Andromalius drove the broken blade through his father’s throat.

Blood fountained. Malphas choked, eyes wide with fury. His body convulsed once. Twice. Went still.

Andromalius stood over him for three seconds. Then spat. The saliva landed on Malphas’s open eye.

“Rot in whatever hell takes you.”

He smiled. Actually smiled—lips curling despite the pain.

Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed across Malphas’s corpse.

* * *

Emptiness stretched in all directions. No ground. No sky. Nothing to touch or see, just grey that went on forever.

Andromalius floated.

Half-aware. Thoughts came slow, disconnected. Was this death? He’d expected fire. Daemons always promised fire for demon souls.

A scene materialized ahead of him. His mother’s face—human features, soft brown eyes. She was teaching him to read, pointing to symbols carved on bark. Her finger traced each curve with patience he’d never understood as a child.

The memory dissolved. Another took its place.

Malphas standing over him at age seven, laughing while three demons held Andromalius down. One of them had broken his wrist. The bone jutted through skin. Malphas had waited two days before letting anyone heal it.

“You’re too weak to cry,” his father had said. “That’s good. Crying wastes energy.”

More scenes. His mother’s cooking pot. The smell of whatever she’d managed to scavenge. Demons mocking him in their guttural tongue, calling him half-breed, abomination. His first kill—a lesser demon who’d tried to claim his mother’s food rations. The hot spray of blood across his nine-year-old face.

That dinner. His mother arranged on Malphas’s table like—

Andromalius tried to scream. Nothing came out. The memory played anyway.

Then pain arrived.

It hit like a hammer to his entire body at once. Ribs that weren’t there anymore screamed. Spine that should have been shattered sent lightning through nerve endings. His chest constricted around lungs that—

Clarity followed the agony. Thoughts sharpened. The grey space dissolved.

His eyes opened.

Canvas ceiling. Brown fabric stretched across wooden supports. A tent. Bandages wrapped his torso, visible above a rough wool blanket. A bed beneath him—actual bedding, not stone or dirt.

The pain remained but changed. Phantom sensations. Memory of injuries rather than the wounds themselves.

Andromalius groaned. The sound scraped his throat raw.

Footsteps approached. The tent flap pulled aside.

A demon entered—stocky frame, grey-green skin, one horn broken halfway up. Karreth. One of his medics, recruited four months ago after Andromalius had raided a rival camp.

“Awake.” Karreth moved to the bedside, checking Andromalius’s forehead with the back of one clawed hand. “Good. Your temperature’s down.”

“What…” Andromalius’s voice came out hoarse. He swallowed, tried again. “What happened?”

“You killed Lord Malphas. Collapsed on his corpse.” Karreth reached for a waterskin hanging from a tent pole. “Drakul carried you here. That was three days ago.”

Three days.

“The battle?”

“Won.” Karreth poured water into a wooden cup. “Empress Lilith crushed Malphas’s forces after you dropped. Offered vassalage to survivors. Most accepted. Those who didn’t…” He shrugged. “Fled or died. Some died fleeing.”

Andromalius tried to sit up. Pain flared across his chest, sharp enough to steal his breath.

“Easy.” Karreth’s hand pressed against his shoulder, gentle but firm. “You’ve been unconscious for three days. Your body needs to remember how to move.”

“I feel…” Andromalius breathed slowly through his nose. The phantom pain settled to a dull throb. “Like I was trampled. Then set on fire. Then trampled again.”

“That tracks with what Drakul described.” Karreth held the cup to Andromalius’s lips. “Drink. Small sips.”

The water tasted like copper. Andromalius took three swallows before pulling away. “How bad was it?”

“No idea. You were already healed by the time you arrived. Vampire just handed you over and said the Empress ordered us to let you rest.” Karreth set the cup aside. “Whatever injuries you had, they were gone before I saw you. Just exhaustion and… phantom pain, maybe? Your body remembering trauma it no longer has.”

Andromalius’s mind replayed those final moments. Malphas’s fist connecting with his chest. The sensation of ribs shattering, sternum collapsing inward. His spine had snapped—he’d felt the vertebrae separate. Internal organs rupturing. Blood flooding his lungs.

He should be dead.

That first potion Lilith had given him—purple liquid that had healed the earlier wounds. It must have done more than she’d said. Kept him alive through injuries that would have killed anyone else.

But even magic had limits. He’d been dying when he’d driven that broken blade through Malphas’s throat. Felt life draining with each heartbeat.

Then nothing until the grey space.

“The Empress.” Andromalius met Karreth’s eyes. “Did she… give me anything? After Drakul brought me here?”

“Not to my knowledge. Drakul delivered you, said to keep you comfortable, and left.” Karreth tilted his head. “Why?”

Because he’d been broken beyond repair when consciousness had fled. And now he lay here with phantom pain from wounds that had simply… vanished.

Another potion. Had to be. Lilith had fed him something else while he’d floated in that grey space, dragged him back from whatever threshold he’d been crossing.

“Nothing.” Andromalius exhaled slowly. “Just trying to piece together what happened.”

Karreth studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Rest. I’ll bring food in an hour. Light broth—your stomach won’t handle anything heavier yet.”

The medic left. Canvas rustled as the tent flap fell shut.

Andromalius lay still, staring at the ceiling. His hand moved to his chest, pressing against bandages over ribs that should have been powder.

Seventy years. Every demon who’d tormented him in those first ten years, dead. And now Malphas too.

Dead by Andromalius’s own hand.

A smile tugged at his lips despite the phantom pain still throbbing through his body.

Worth it.

Whatever price Lilith eventually demanded for pulling him back from death’s edge—worth every bit.