Chapter 92- The Devil’s Avatar.
Within a church near the town of Ironhaven, an oracle who had been deep in meditation suddenly opened his eyes.
"Summon the Saintess," he ordered. The maids scattered to obey.
Moments later, a woman stepped forward and bowed her head. "Holy Lord Oracle. Did you call for me because of the evil aura spreading through the town?"
The oracle nodded once. "Take a squad. Cleanse it."
"It will be done." She bowed again and left without another word.
---
At the town square, the air had already begun to change.
A gate — massive, ancient, seemingly grown straight out of the earth — was opening. A bloody aura rolled off it in waves, and with it came killing intent so thick that ordinary civilians dropped where they stood. Even some of the guards fell unconscious.
The devil hadn’t even finished stepping through, and already the town was on its knees.
Then, silence reined for a while...
A single clawed foot, poking through the gap, retreated.
For a moment, everyone watching held their breath in confusion. Was it leaving?
Then two massive hands shot out instead, gripping the top and bottom of the gate frame. They pulled — hard — wrenching the opening wider, tearing a wound across the sky itself. Something on the other side was forcing its way through.
Leo felt the pressure crash down over his shoulders like a physical weight.
He activated Forge Sight.
[Ding~]
[Forge Sight activated]
He tried to read the structure of whatever was coming through — and got nothing. It was like staring at empty air. He pushed harder, forcing the pale light of his skill to scan the thing anyway.
[Analysis failed. Target exceeds current comprehension.]
The failure notification hit him like a spike through the skull. He staggered back, gasping.
The devil’s mark inside the Blood Chanter flared to life.
Across the square, Cardinal Malrec Veys threw his head back and laughed — the laugh of a man who’d finally gotten what he wanted. He raised both hands toward the gate.
"Great One!" he cried. "The sacrifices have been prepared. Accept this city as—"
The gate flared dark red...
.....
And then... he was simply gone.
No flash. No scream. One second he stood there mid-sentence, fanatic joy still on his face — the next, empty air where he’d been standing. Every cultist around him vanished the same instant, swallowed without a trace.
The hands gripping the gate steadied. A figure stepped through.
It was humanoid, technically — but wrong in every proportion. Its limbs were too long, its shoulders bent at angles no shoulder should bend. Black skin stretched tight over muscle the color of raw meat. Twin bone horns swept back from its temples, and where a heart should have been, there was only a hollow black cavity.
This was an avatar of the devil. A lesser one — but still a devil.
It walked forward slowly, breathing in. And as it inhaled, the blood pooling from the dead in the square lifted off the ground and wrapped around its body, sinking into its skin, filling it out, making it more solid — more human.
The guards, frozen with the unconscious women and their fallen brothers still in their arms, stared in open horror.
"Move!" Leo shouted at them.
That broke the spell. They scrambled up, shields raised, and started pulling the fallen toward safety. "Secure the civilians," the guard captain barked. "Get them west, out of town if you can. Clear the area."
The devil, having finished absorbing the blood, turned its head and watched the guards scatter — the way someone might watch ants.
Then it moved.
Leo caught only a blur. The next instant, the guard captain’s body simply burst apart — blood and bones scattering, gone in a heartbeat.
[Guard Captain HP: 410/820 → 0/820]
[Guard Captain: DEFEATED]
The guards standing nearest were painted red, spattered with what was left of him. Some dropped to their knees and retched. Others just fainted on the spot.
Nobody moved. Nobody could.
"Shields up! Fall back — slowly!" Master Rook’s voice cracked across the square like a whip, and it was enough to snap the guards out of it. They scrambled into a shield line just as the devil struck.
Black and red force slammed into the wall.
[Damage Dealt: 620]
[Shield Wall Integrity: 40%]
[Guard HP: 580/580 → 0/580]
[Guard HP: 620/620 → 124/620]
[Guard HP: 590/590 → 0/590]
Metal shields folded like paper.
Leo hauled the unconscious women toward the western road, away from the carnage. Rook was already there, stacking fallen guards in the corner, out of the line of fire.
"All ten alive?" Rook asked, glancing at the women Leo was dragging.
"All alive. Let’s keep it that way." Leo turned and sprinted back into the square.
The guards were still being pushed back, barely holding.
Then a wall of ash-grey flame tore across the plaza, cutting the devil off from the guard line. Hugh landed in front of them, both hands wreathed in fire that burned white, grey, and black all at once.
"Get behind me!" he bellowed.
[Ash Flame: Barrier Established]
[Barrier HP: 9,200/9,200]
The guards used the opening to drag the last of the wounded out of the square.
The devil eyed the flame, then reached out and touched it. Crimson-black corruption crept outward from the point of contact, spreading across the barrier like rot.
[Barrier HP: 9,200/9,200 → 8,400/9,200]
The number was dropping fast.
"Hurry it up!" Hugh shouted. "This won’t hold much longer!"
Leo arrived just as Hugh spotted the problem. "Leo — it’s trying to eat the fire!"
Leo didn’t wait. Qi surged down his arms and into the ashen blade in his hand.
"Qi Slash!"
He cut across the devil’s wrist.
[Qi Smash]
[Damage Dealt: 187]
The strike landed, but the recoil punched back through his arms hard enough to knock his hands half an inch off line.
The devil glanced down at its wrist, unimpressed, and backhanded him without even looking. Leo went flying through a row of market stalls.
[Damage Received: 312]
[Leo HP: 3,400/3,400 → 3,088/3,400]
Rook stepped in next, his blade skidding uselessly off the devil’s hide.
[Damage Dealt: 42]
He adjusted his angle and tried again, and this time the blade actually bit — slicing clean through the devil’s forearm.
[Soul Edge: Phase Strike]
[Damage Dealt: 203]
A thin line split open, leaking black blood.
The devil looked down at the cut with something like mild curiosity. This insect had actually managed to hurt it. Not angry — just amused — it turned its full attention on Rook and lashed out with its claws.
Rook dodged, barely, catching a shallow scratch across the arm for his trouble. But, He didn’t see the kick coming until it was already in his face, sending him skidding almost all the way back to Hugh’s barrier.
He spat blood and forced himself upright.
[Damage Dealt: 287]
[Rook HP: 2,800/2,800 → 2,513/2,800]
For a moment the devil’s attention drifted — toward the dragon bones still dissolving near the gate. When only the skull remained, it drove its claws straight into it.
[Gate Anchor: Activated]
[Dragon Skull Integrity: 100% → 61%]
[Devil Energy Surge Detected]
A pillar of darkness erupted from the skull, arcing toward the gate and spreading outward across the square. Leo felt his armor start to hum on its own, soaking in the devil’s energy without his permission.
[Devil Energy: 53 → 56]
[Corruption Pressure: High]
He gripped the ashen blade tighter. "Not happening."
The avatar turned to look at him directly — and for the first time, it spoke.
"Why do you carry that energy...? Hm. Blood Devil?"
Before it could say anything else, a blade cut clean through the storm — one precise stroke, aimed straight at the avatar’s neck.
Its head snapped sideways, a fresh wound opening across its throat.
[Damage Dealt: 289]
The devil’s gaze shifted to a rooftop overlooking the square.
Leo and Rook followed its line of sight and found a man standing there — plain dark coat over battered leather, no armor at all, a long, unremarkable sword in hand. Leo could tell at a glance the blade was nothing special, common rank at best. And yet it had just done more damage than anything they’d managed all fight.
The man dropped from the roof without hesitation and started walking calmly across the plaza.
By now the civilians were long gone, the guards pulled back with them. Only Leo, Rook, and Hugh remained — and Leo waved Hugh back too, since he and Rook could still respawn if things went wrong.
The devil watched the stranger approach.
He walked straight up to Leo. "You’re Leo Stone? The forger from the world announcement?"
Leo’s grip tightened on his sword, and he shifted into a defensive stance, half-convinced this was someone sent by the Ascendants Guild.
"Bad timing for questions," Leo muttered. "Why do you want to know?"
"So it is you."
The devil, apparently offended at being ignored after taking a wound, lunged. The stranger simply stepped in front of Leo to meet it. No blur, no burst of speed — he just slid his blade through the gap in the devil’s guard like it was nothing.
[Damage Dealt: 127, 98, 156]
The Devil’s avatar answered with an elbow strike.
[Avatar: Elbow Counter]
[Damage Dealt: 189]
The man barely reacted. "So — are you Leo Stone or not?" he asked again, like the fight happening around him was background noise.
"Yes. I’m Leo Stone. The forger from the announcement," Leo said.
"Good. I’m Caelum. I came looking for you. I need you to make me a sword."
...
Caelum? Why did that name sound familiar?
Leo was still trying to recall it when Rook smacked him on the back, hard enough to snap him out of it.
"Wait." Rook’s eyes had gone wide. "That Caelum? The one ranked at the top?"
...