Jacob tried to sleep as the castle swirled with the hulking beasts and people carrying weapons. The demon lady, who still hadn't bothered to tell him her name, was simply dissipating vast swathes of them with some strange incantation while Adora slept prettily in her crib. Chortling in her infant bed in a voice just like the princess's. Laughing like an aged-down, baby Ember. However, as soon as a pale string of sunrays appeared to haunt the dark sky, a horrible shuffling could be heard. At first, it appeared to be another army of people, smaller than the last. This cold, misty world was clearly running out of living inhabitants. He got out of bed and prepared to return to the slaying. As all the fierce yet somehow still harried and sad-eyed, people entered, he realized the strange shuffling noise was coming from further away meaning that the thing was slower and also somehow vastly heavier than the humans.

  As he set everyone who entered the castle ablaze and swung at demon head after demon head, he realized the demon lady was simply sitting there. Gazing at her slightly long, shadowy nails rapturously. Humming and whistling as smoldering red hair danced across her breasts that were strongly busting out of a tight dress. That flowed fetchingly about her form. A body that moved and darted constantly with grace when she fought. Like winded, white snow and the rising blacks of shadow, like a fixture of night under a beacon of light.

  "Are you going to help?"

  "You're doing fine. You could use the workout, Dont want to let your muscles go soft or your reflexes get slowed or slack. Goddess Ember would not be pleased. Besides it is grunt work, too easy. Don't worry a few more kills and your power will grow ever further like a darkly-rising tide. Making you outrank me. Which will frankly make you far more appealing." She winked at him. Fluttering skeletal black wings.

  He blushed a hint but soon was distracted as the lumbering got closer and a giant being made half of what looked like moss and grass and half of what appeared to be a mix of metal and stone appeared. It was as tall as any large house and towered halfway up the height of the castle.

  The demon lady stood up with the greatest interest. "The half-deity is here." She could scarcely contain her excitement.

  "Now I will be helping you."

  The being walked in and appeared to be surprisingly graceful and limber for something so lumbering. It had no eyes and yet it did have something else where a pretty pair of eyes should be. Jacob couldn't quite describe it. Almost like two stars in a pumpkin patch. Burnt orange and blazing gold. The eyes a plant might have? If one could imagine such a thing. The demon lady suddenly bounded over on graceful legs like half-lit smoke and touched Jacob's sword and the blade flared richly blue.

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  Jacob without thinking sliced through a plant limb. it fell to the floor greenly and some flowers fell with it. Petals soaked in blood. Yet it grew back with immediacy. Great. Everything in this virtual hellscape regenerated. Including Jacob himself at least. Thank Euradities for small mercies. It slashed back at him scraping all the flesh from his arm which should have been excruciating but due to his godly power now felt merely like a mild burn.

  "Ouch," Jacob said. Annoyed. As the flesh grew back.

  Suddenly, the demon lady glanced over at him. She spoke seemingly randomly. "Do you play many fantasy games? How good is your mythology and general knowledge of fictional and fantastical lands?" she asked.

  Jacob was profoundly irritated at her and simply went back to stabbing at the beast, this time at its metallic side, glowing silver and faintly bluish and which he had assumed to be the sturdier of the two sides but he knew he needed to try anything at this point. The demon lady meanwhile, had gone back to ignoring him and not offering assistance. She had sliced off one of the creature's mossy feet and then even left the room where he could hear her with Adora. Cooing tenderly.

  The twisted, mossy foot was regrowing but slower than the arm. This was annoying for it meant she was right, about still being slightly more powerful than him.

  Suddenly as if she knew what he was thinking( maybe she did) she called out. "Defeat him and you can surpass me."

  Just as Jacob planned to swing yet again, he realized perhaps there was indeed a clue in what she said about mythology. Many witches and beasts and warriors had but one weakness; fire, water, a holy sword, a mirror. Even their hair or ankles. So he sliced at one of the half-deity's ankles. It roared in some pain but this did not appear to be it. He tried fire but recalling that was what had killed the first head demon he fought, he was aware the world would probably make it trickier than always being flame. He nonetheless relit his sword. The deity's flesh darkened and singed but did not ultimately irrevocably burn or falter. Then Jacob recalled something, An upcoming Monovalent realm virtual story that he had seen being advertised. It had a half-deity with one side of metal and another of plant and a sentient doll character who looked rather like Ember.

  A witch in the promo mentioned a "fabled being of impervious silver and green and Its great spirit is in its eyes.. A vulnerable starring to its eyes."

  Maybe its weakness was reversed, Jacob wondered. Many of the beings from mythos and legend were impervious to most weapons and assailers but could conversely be killed by quite ordinary things like water and mirrors. Maybe with this deity, slaying the body was impossible but you could instead wound the spirit? Without warning he used the table as leverage and lept up stabbing it directly in the left eye. It howled and stilled. Jacob knew he had calculated right and stabbed the other one. The being fell to the floor as it perished and the irises of a spirited, pumpkin patch lost their bloom as two paired stars seemingly fled from its eyes.

  The demon lady waltzed in right at the moment of Jacob's triumph and looked pityingly down at the giant thing.

  "He only wanted to spare humanity," she said. Sadly.

  Jacob felt a little gut-wrenched but reminded himself none of this was real.