The fog still clung to the ground when we were woken.
Everyone packed in silence—no one spoke of fear, but it was in every movement.
Reinforcements arrived from the south—exhausted, scorched, pieced together from survivors.
From the north—soldiers who had run all night, trying to make it in time.
They came in groups.
Some swayed from exhaustion.
Some collapsed onto the ground and never got back up.
The night had taken another thousand—simply ran away.
Couldn’t endure it.
Now there were thirty thousand of us.
Against two hundred twenty—one hundred fifty thousand demons.
We stood at the edge of the steppe.
A straight line.
A wall of the living.
Before the wall—emptiness.
And beyond the emptiness—death.
Norris, Haras, and Seteya stood nearby, talking about old days, joking…
But their laughter was hollow, hoarse.
Finn sat with his head in his hands.
Astra whispered prayers.
Siren sharpened his blade.
Tara stood motionless.
Kairen trembled.
Miella stared at the ground.
I… thought.
Could I cover them all with a dome?
If I gave everything—would they survive?
And why… would I even do that?
The first outlines of the enemy army appeared on the horizon.
Darkness. Vast.
A sea of beings.
Orcs.
Trolls.
Ogres.
Goblins, like filth.
Creatures the world had never seen before.
Demons, black as night.
Dark mages hanging in the air like stains of fog.
This was the Army of the End.
When they advanced—the earth trembled.
The screams rose higher than the wind.
Hundreds of fireballs soared.
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Explosions erupted in hundreds of places.
Human mages held their shields, but there were too few of them.
Again and again I formed a dome, deflected the fire, extinguished the blows.
The amulet on my neck glowed.
At first faintly.
Then brighter.
Then—almost like the sun.
The demons advanced in a wall.
The first line of humans collapsed.
The second wavered.
The third held.
We stood.
I struck.
Struck.
Struck.
Every demon I killed gave me a strange sensation… of strength.
As if I were becoming more alive.
The world around me began to fill with colors.
Again.
Red and black fought before my eyes.
I saw everything too clearly.
Too brightly.
And then…
Elinia screamed.
I managed to turn—an fireball pierced her leg.
She fell to the ground.
Something inside me snapped.
The amulet flared—
and cracked.
Once.
Twice.
And… shattered.
The world exploded.
My eyes turned red.
So bright that even the demons glanced back.
Mana tore outward.
Fear vanished, like an unnecessary shadow.
Where anxiety had lived—there was now emptiness.
And layered over that emptiness—hunger.
Animal.
Pulling.
Kill. More. More. MORE.
A lightning strike tore across the ground in a hundred-meter radius.
Demons howled.
And in that moment
for the first time in a long while,
I felt pleasure.
Pure.
Alive.
People lay on the ground, but I restrained the current—barely—so as not to kill my own.
For now.
Stone titans began to rise around me.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Icy golems burst from the earth, jagged like crystals of death.
Snow poured down from above—thick, cutting.
The battlefield, which a second ago had been a steppe, became a winter nightmare.
A vortex rose around me.
At first light.
Then stronger.
Then a storm.
Sparks of fire, shards of ice, wind, lightning—all mixed into a hurricane.
I moved forward.
Not running—walking.
Calmly.
I cut down demons.
I broke them.
I hurled the hurricane like a spear.
I crushed them with power, as if by a giant hand.
Just satisfaction—
as if I were doing exactly what I was meant to do.
Bones cracked.
And I smiled.
And realized that this feeling…
I liked it.
Very much.
The demon formations wavered.
They panicked.
This was not a battle—
it was a slaughter.
And I…
I enjoyed it.
Even found it funny.
I laughed. Loudly.
Too loudly.
— HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
The demon mages saw me—and all at once raised their hands, hurling hundreds of spells.
Dark orbs.
Fire lightning.
Ice blades.
Binding chains.
All—at me.
I raised my hand—
and struck with everything I had.
Demons fell by the dozens.
By the hundreds.
And I began to notice…
people.
People who came too close.
People who wanted to help.
People who tried to finish off demons.
But in my eyes…
Demon.
Human.
One color.
One target.
And I struck…
the first.
He fell.
And I felt… pleasure.
I felt the soft resistance of a human body,
how it tore a little easier than a demon’s,
how bones broke differently—
and that…
that was interesting.
So fragile… I thought.
And it wasn’t reproach.
It was admiration.
As if I were studying a new material.
The sounds around me became a pulse.
A warm stream of blood along my hand—
and it felt good.
The soft crunch of a spine—
and I felt comfort.
The heat of an explosion—
and I smirked, like from a friend’s slap.
The scream of a demon being torn apart—
and something inside purred contentedly.
I began to understand:
I wasn’t just killing.
I was tasting their deaths.
The more I killed—
the brighter my own thoughts became.
The clearer it was that I had wanted this for a long time.
I walked, and inside there was only one thing:
Good.
Warm.
Sweet.
More.
Demon—human—demon—human.
There was no point in separating them.
All were equally delicious.
All broke the same.
Every time someone fell,
I felt—
another important puzzle piece in my mind snap into place.
This is me.
This is my power.
This is my essence.
And the worst part?
I felt no shame.
I felt no horror.
I felt… good.
As if I had finally stopped living someone else’s life
and become what I was meant to be.
— Zen?! — someone was shouting.
— Zen, stop!! — they tried to reach me.
But I no longer heard them.
The world turned red.
The world became simple.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
I moved the storm—and the storm swept everything away.
I advanced—and the titans crushed all.
The wind followed me—like a predator’s tail.
And I laughed.
Madly.
Loudly.
Terrifyingly.
I stopped hearing my friends.
I stopped seeing enemies.
I saw only… movement.
Those who moved—died.
The ground around me turned white with snow.
Red with blood.
Black with ash.
I was…
not human.
Not demon.
Not god.
Demons retreated.
Humans—too.
They were afraid of me.
They were right to be.
I was a storm that had decided to erase all life.
I felt like the center of the world.
The only solid point.
The one around whom death revolves…
and life obeys.
And I continued.
Until…