Even at this distance the demon boss looked obscene. The plated flesh across its shoulders flexed in a slow, patient rhythm, as if it was breathing through armor. Its torso-maw rotated, teeth grinding against teeth in a constant churn that sprayed strings of viscous ichor onto the ground. Every time it exhaled, the air warped, and I felt pressure behind my eyes as if my skull wanted to split.

  A suffocating presence.

  Jessica’s arrow struck its shoulder plate and shattered on impact, splintering uselessly. No flinch. No reaction. The boss didn’t even acknowledge the hit, stepping over lesser demons like debris caught in a current.

  My Sixth Sense went taut.

  The ground trembled harder, but this time it wasn’t due to the marching. It was resonance—low, rhythmic, deliberate. The boss was tuning the battlefield to itself. I still didn’t know what it was capable of.

  “Anna,” I called without turning. “Slow the center!”

  “I’m trying,” she snapped back, and her frost thickened into a dense, howling haze. Demons in the center locked up mid-lunge, limbs stiffening, jaws snapping uselessly as ice crept over muscle and horn. For a moment, the boss vanished behind the blizzard as Anna poured far more MP into the spell than was safe—or sustainable.

  Maria reacted instantly. Her next arrow detonated inside the frozen mass, fire blooming outward across bodies packed too tightly to flee. The front line became a screaming garden of burning statues—demons thawing from the outside in, flesh sloughing as fire and ice fought over them.

  The smell was unbearable.

  Lucas slipped back into the gap between Alan and Marcus, sword slick with black gore. “They’re adapting,” he said quickly. “Back line’s feeding the front. They’re dying on purpose to build ramps.”

  “Of course they are,” Alan grunted, shield shaking under repeated impacts. “JUST KEEP KILLING!” He yelled.

  “Fair was never on the table,” Richard added, smashing his mace forward and collapsing a demon’s skull like wet clay.

  My minions surged forth.

  Spikey #2 climbed onto the pile without hesitation, cleaver rising and falling in brutal, mechanical arcs. It was beautiful madness. Anything that protruded far enough was severed. Demons fell, others slid into the gaps, and died simply because there was nowhere left to go but forward.

  Spikey #1 followed with discipline, his zweihander carving wide, controlled lanes through the wave. He wasn’t killing individuals, but every swing took many lives. He positioned near Nicole, being the pillar that kept her from falling.

  The aching in my arm still pulsed, so I fed them a command through the Grimoire’s logic—an impulse.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Feast.

  A faint green vapor rose from bone and shadow as they moved faster, less cautious. A borrowed power.

  When Spikey #2 tore something vital free from a demon’s throat, I felt the pull in my chest.

  My HP ticked up slowly.

  The shield wall groaned.

  Nicole’s arm shook violently. Marcus’s boots skidded back an inch. Alan dropped briefly to one knee—not falling, resetting before his shoulder gave out entirely.

  Richard’s holy aura flared, pale light crawling across shield and mace. He didn’t shout prayers like a paladin. He didn’t announce judgment. He simply screamed profanities like “Take this you piece of sh—” and “How dare you bleed on this armor you son-of-a-bi—” while smashing skulls.

  The demons that touched his shield smoked—flesh hissing, blackening, recoiling as if reality itself rejected them.

  But that was enough to know things were better than bad. When I stopped hearing their rambunctiousness, their energy, their fight… that would be when things were perilous.

  And then the boss reached the front.

  It didn’t shove through the bodies. It didn’t charge. It stepped forward, and demons parted instinctively—some crushed underfoot, others pulled aside by sheer inevitability.

  Its torso-maw widened.

  Corpses lifted from the ground.

  Dead demons slid toward it as if caught in a tide, dragged into the grinding maw where flesh dissolved, bone cracked, and something inside the creature processed them. Acidic vapor leaked from between its plates, burning the ground black where it pooled.

  The pressure spiked.

  Then the boss convulsed and expelled the remains.

  Half-digested bodies slammed forward in a corrosive surge, bursting across shields in showers of burning ichor. The impact wasn’t precise as much as it was overwhelming. Acid sizzled across metal, ate into demon flesh, splashed against armor.

  “Brace!” Richard shouted.

  The shield wall held—but barely. Light smoke fizzled off their shields and clothes. Rebekah stopped conserving MP and started tossing out heals without restraint.

  That vacuum like maw started again and my Sixth Sense screamed. The corpses were more than just fuel, and the pressure mounted with each it devoured.

  I acted on a whim, a thought of what might be possible.

  Vast Shadows surged outward, spilling across the ground beneath the wave. The sky was high above, shadows connected together like a web along the earth. My minions receded into the dark as if never existing.

  My power flowed through the shadows without resistance, and in that instant, clarity struck.

  Bone Manipulation wasn’t about shaping weapons. It was about authority. My minions were still mine, and Vast Shadows was not a spell I cast—it was part of me.

  Skeletal hands tore free from the darkness, clutching legs, spines, ribs. Corpses buckled and twisted as the ground claimed them, dragged down and locked in place, denying the boss its momentum.

  The dead stopped being something it could consume.

  I channeled Rot, palm outstretched. Not at the boss, but at the dead I could easily see.

  Ligaments dissolved. Structural integrity failed. Bodies collapsed into useless slurry before the suction could take hold.

  The boss’s maw stuttered and for the first time, its advance faltered.

  Pain lanced through my ribs as something deep drained—not mana, not stamina. I tasted copper. My HP dipped sharply. Skills cost MP, but whatever I had just done was not a skill— it was my own understanding, and that understanding cost me HP.

  Then my minions killed again. Again. Again.

  The pull returned, that hunger subsided ever so slightly. The constant leeching stabilized me just enough to stay upright.

  That momentary pause bought us valuable time and momentum. “PUSH!” Alan screamed. The shield wall surged forward a step, reclaiming ground soaked in acid and gore.

  The boss recoiled and then adjusted.

  This wave wasn’t meant to kill us quickly. It was meant to see how much pressure we could take before we couldn't take anymore.

  Somehow we were still standing.