Chapter 90- The Devil’s Gate.
The full moon hung high over Ironhaven, its light spilling cold and silver across the rooftops.
Shadows moved beneath the trees, slipping between them without a sound — the same cultists who had knelt before the half-formed devil.
Mira moved with them, her cloak drawn tight, hood low over her face. Her quest panel flickered at the edge of her vision, the bar nearly full.
[Ding~]
[Devil’s Gate — Final Sacrifice]
Progress: 90%
Sacrifices Secured: 0/10
Location: Ironhaven Central Square
Completion Time: Moon’s Peak Reward: ???
[Ding!]
[Requirements]
- Capture 10 living female sacrifices
- Transport them to Ironhaven
- Complete the ritual beneath the peak of the full moon
- Awaken the buried dragon remains
- Open the Devil’s Gate.
"Transport them?" Mira said, not bothering to hide her opinion. "Better to just take them from inside Ironhaven."
The sacrifices meant nothing to her. NPCs were data and code, nothing more — and players simply respawned.
Why complicate things?
Cardinal Malrec Veyr, who led the ritual, considered her words for a moment, then nodded. "Agreed. We find our sacrifices within the town."
The cult’s roots in Ironhaven ran deeper than anyone knew.
The procession slipped down into the town under the devil’s order, each member entering separately, under false names, melting into the shadows of the night.
Every one of them had a single task: deliver a woman to the central plaza before moonrise. The dragon’s skeleton lay directly beneath it, waiting.
Then, in the hush before midnight, they began to move.
Some women vanished without a sound, taken before anyone even noticed they were gone.
Some tried more violent approach.
One fanatic forced a door open in the dead of night. The woman inside woke and screamed, and the whole house stirred around her — husband, parents, children, all of them awake in an instant.
He killed them one by one while she watched, frozen, unable to look away.
When her senses returned, she lunged at him with a kitchen knife. He caught her wrist and twisted until the knife fell from her fingers. A black sack came down over her head, tape sealed her mouth, and she was slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain and carried toward the square.
The same violence played out across the town that night. Guards who tried to intervene were cut down where they stood.
By the time the alarm bells finally rang, the streets were already slick with blood.
A hundred fanatics gathered in the plaza. At its center, someone had carved a blood rune into the stone, and within its lines lay ten women, bound and silent. The chanting began, low and steady, rising with the moon.
.....
Thirty minutes earlier.
Hugh’s Smithy,
Leo had come by that evening to check on the cubs. On his way in from the forge dimension, he’d run into Master Rook, who was making his way toward town grumbling about his sword’s durability.... apparently it couldn’t survive a single day of use anymore.
Once they reached the smithy, Rook decided, without warning, that it was time to teach Leo and Hugh about qi...
And within few seconds, the situation suddenly turned into a teacher scolding his students.....
The two of them sat on the smithy floor, spines straight, knees pressed to the floor in proper seiza form, while Master Rook paced back and forth in front of them, scowling.
"Again." Master rook shouted.
Qi surged up Leo’s arm. His shoulders locked. The flow hit his wrist and shattered.
"I almost... had it."
"You forced it," Hugh said.
"I directed it."
"Directed it?" Rook jabbed a finger into Leo’s chest.
"Ouch."
"You shoved it. Is qi training like riding a horse? Why are you kicking the damn thing?"
Leo heard him, and understood the theory, but.... his mind kept drifting back to Thane’s blade — those clean, effortless strikes that had ended their match before he could land a single hit on Thane.
"Again," Rook said.
Leo shook himself back to focus and drew the qi into his palm, trying to shape it. It kept breaking apart in his hands.
Hugh, meanwhile, had already gotten the hang of it, and wasn’t shy about showing it off.
He gave Leo a smug look and clicked his tongue. "Tsk. You’re fighting the qi, boy."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Listen to it" Hugh suggested.
Rook stayed quiet, watching the exchange.
"Tsk, Looks useless." Leo retorted.
"So does your face" Hugh clicked his tongue" But I have to keep looking at it anyway."
Master Rook could tell Leo’s mind wasn’t where it needed to be — his usual focus was nowhere in sight.... so he cut in before Leo could answer.
"You lost to Thane because your body isn’t used to fighting yet. You still waste time thinking before you move. Your body doesn’t process on its own...at least not yet. Stop replaying the match. Focus on the qi. Master it, and next time might go differently."
Leo let out a slow breath. He remembered Thane had also mentioned something similar.
He shook his head. He focused and let the qi rise with his breathe.
This time it held — steady enough that when he turned his wrist, it moved with him. A faint ring of light formed around his hand and lasted two full seconds before collapsing.
"Better," Leo said.
"Tsk. Barely," Rook muttered.
While they trained, the two cubs entertained themselves nearby.
Ash scratched at the coal bin.
Ember copied him a moment later, and between the two of them, sparks scattered across the floor.
Off to the side, Hugh had stacked timber soaked in petrol — fuel for a massive forge-fire he’d been planning for a project of his own. If even one spark reached it, the whole smithy would go up in flames.
A spark drifted toward the pile. Hugh caught it out of the corner of his eye and snapped his fingers. Black flame flared to life in the air and swallowed it whole before it could land.
"Safe," he said, exhaling. Then he pointed at the cubs, stern. "Inside. Both of you. Now."
That was when the alarm bells started.
They shattered the quiet night all at once.
Red light flooded the windows, and Leo..... still wearing his armor, felt the devil’s mark on his armor begin to stir.
[Ding~]
[Village Protection Quest: Ironhaven]
Objective: Rescue 10 civilians
Objective: Defeat hostile cultists
Objective: Stop the Devil’s Gate summoning
Failure Condition: The Devil’s Gate is summoned R
ewards: ???
Penalty: Face the summoned devil.
(Warning: The sacrifice must be stopped before the moon reaches its peak.)
Leo looked out the window and saw a red glow pulsing from the direction of the square.
"The square," he said, and he was already moving.
Rook grabbed his sword and followed. Hugh sealed the cubs safely inside, black flame already wreathing his arms as he shouted, "I’m coming!"
Outside, the church district had become a maze of red symbols — every protective ward in sight torn apart. Robed figures moved through the shadows between buildings.
As Leo and the others cut toward the square, cultists broke from cover and attacked Rook directly.
Rook’s sword flashed once, knocking the first blade aside, and by the time the second man swung, Rook was already inside his guard, driving a pommel strike into his throat. The third lunged and met the point of Rook’s sword instead, the strike going clean through the man’s heart in a single motion.
"Keep moving," Rook said, like it was nothing.
Hugh arrived just as the last man fell.
They reached the square together.
The guards had gotten there first, but none of them dared step forward..... bodies lay scattered near the central foundation, most of them belonging to guards who’d already tried and failed.
The survivors were pinned behind overturned carts, cultists holding every approach.
Ten women were bound to ritual posts arranged around a ring of ancient black stones. At the center stood Malrec, unbothered, bathed in moonlight.
Mira knelt at one of the outer symbols, pressing a banner pole into its socket the way Malrec had shown her. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Leo stepped into the square. "Release them."
Malrec’s smile was cold. "Release them? And why would I do that — because you asked?" He lifted the church relic over his head. "They are the final sacrifices."
One of the captives screamed as the stone beneath her feet shifted.
"The dragon bones beneath this town will provide the last of the energy," Malrec said. "When the moon reaches its peak, the remains will wake, and the Devil’s Gate will open."
Hugh’s eyes swept over the bound women, and his stomach dropped — he knew every one of them. His fists clenched at his sides.
"Not while I’m still breathing," he snarled.
"You’re already too late," Malrec said, still smiling.
Hugh thrust his palm forward. "Ashen Flame Control!"
Black fire tore across the square, sealing off the western approach in a solid wall. Cultists hammered at it with cursed blades, and the barrier shuddered but held.
"More are coming!" Hugh shouted.
"Hold them!" Leo called, and broke into a run.
"Brilliant plan," Rook muttered behind him. "I hate it."
...