Erik’s vision blurred at the edges, the battlefield dissolving into a maelstrom of crimson and shadow. The laughter that once echoed alongside his own had vanished, replaced by a silence so deep it seemed to devour the world itself. His breath came slow, measured—but no longer his own.

  A cold presence slithered through his limbs, tightening his muscles under an unseen force. The weight of the demon surged through his veins like molten iron, twisting his movements, molding him into something both monstrous and divine. His fingers twitched, his grip tightening involuntarily around the sword’s hilt.

  “Finally.” The voice curled from within, thick with triumph. “I was beginning to think you’d never let me in.”

  Erik fought, clawing toward the surface of his own mind, but the abyss had already swallowed him whole. He was no longer a warrior standing against an eldritch horde—he was a vessel, a husk shaped for something far older and infinitely more powerful. His body moved without him, his posture straightening as the last fraying strands of mortal restraint unraveled.

  A smile stretched across his face, but it wasn’t his own. His lips curled back, jagged and inhuman, crimson eyes gleaming with unnatural hunger. The air pulsed thick with energy, suffocating, as the demon’s presence poured from every inch of his being.

  The creatures before him hesitated. They had charged without fear before, but now they wavered. Their grotesque forms twitched, recoiling from the abyssal power radiating from him—no, from it.

  “You fear me now?” The demon laughed, lifting Erik’s sword, tilting it slightly as if amused. “Good. You should.”

  A flick of the wrist. The blade carved through the nearest abomination—one effortless stroke. Flesh met steel, and the creature convulsed, imploding in a vortex of energy, its essence devoured in an instant. The earth trembled. A blackened fissure split the ground where it had stood.

  The others screeched in agony as tendrils of darkness lashed out, snaring them, dragging them into the abyss. Their forms twisted, shriveling as their existence unraveled. The battlefield was no longer a warzone. It was a feeding ground. And the demon was starving.

  “More.” It whispered, rolling Erik’s shoulders as if settling into a comfortable throne. “So much more to consume.”

  Erik fought, but it was like battling a tide that had already swallowed him whole. He screamed, but no sound left his lips. He pushed, but his limbs were no longer his own.

  “You were never meant to resist,” the demon murmured. “You were made for this, Erik. A vessel carved from flesh and bone, primed to carry something greater.”

  “No.” His voice was distant, swallowed by the abyss, but still he snarled. “I won’t let you have me.”

  The demon chuckled, amused. “Ah, but you already have. Do you think you can break free? Do you think your will is enough?”

  The battlefield faded into a void of endless crimson mist. In the distance, a lone figure stood—a reflection of himself, draped in shadows, molten gold eyes burning in the darkness.

  The demon stepped forward, extending a clawed hand. “You can struggle all you like, but you know the truth. This is who you are. This is who you were always meant to be.”

  Erik’s fists clenched. “You’re wrong.”

  A sigh. Disappointed. “Then fight me, Erik. Show me your strength. Prove to me you still matter.”

  With a roar, Erik lunged. His fists met nothing but air as the demon flickered like mist, reappearing behind him in a swirl of darkness. A cold grip coiled around his throat, yanking him back.

  “Pathetic.” The demon’s voice dripped with contempt. “You are but a flickering ember in the inferno of what I am.”

  Erik gasped, his lungs burning. His limbs trembled, but he refused to break. His entire life had been spent fighting, pushing against fate’s unrelenting tide—he would not stop now.

  A name surfaced, a whisper in the depths of his memory.

  Vesper.

  The moment it crossed his mind, a blinding light erupted within the void. The demon recoiled, hissing as the crimson mist shuddered and retreated. Something warm surged forth—something undeniably human.

  Erik gasped. His consciousness snapped back.

  He stood once more on the battlefield, his sword buried in the corpse of a writhing eldritch horror. His hands trembled. His breath came in ragged gulps. The demon’s presence wavered—just for a moment.

  The war raged on, but the tide had shifted.

  “Clever boy,” the demon growled, its grip faltering.

  Erik seized the moment. He tightened his grip on the sword, his fingers curling around the hilt with newfound resolve. The demon was wounded, if only slightly. He could feel its presence wavering, its hold on him slipping—but not gone.

  Not yet.

  “But not clever enough,” it spat, its voice twisting into something sharp, something laced with frustration. “You think you’ve won?”

  Erik’s muscles tensed as the demon surged, tendrils of dark energy lashing through his veins like fire. It tried to reassert control, to pull him back into the abyss. But he braced himself, forcing his will against the infernal presence clawing at his soul.

  Not this time.

  With a roar, he wrenched the demon’s power away from himself, pouring it back into the blade. The sword trembled violently, runes along its surface igniting with raw, searing energy. The darkness within him fought back, thrashing wildly, refusing to be contained.

  “You think you can cast me aside?” the demon snarled, its voice rising in fury. “I am not some mere spirit to be locked away! I am hunger! I am wrath! I am—”

  Erik drove the sword into the earth.

  The battlefield shattered. A shockwave erupted from the blade, splitting the ground as arcs of energy crackled through the air. The demon screamed, its voice a fractured, keening wail as it was ripped from his body, its form condensing into the steel. The runes along the sword flared, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.

  The force of the release sent Erik staggering. He fell to one knee, his breath coming in ragged gulps. The world around him blurred, the weight of the battle finally crashing down on his body.

  But the demon’s voice was gone.

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  He lifted his gaze, scanning the battlefield. The eldritch horde was broken—those that remained had begun to retreat, their grotesque forms dissolving into the shadows. The corruption that had once stained the earth seemed to recede, as if something greater had been sated.

  But the soldiers were not celebrating.

  They were staring at him.

  A few of them—battle-hardened warriors who had faced horrors beyond comprehension—took cautious steps back. Others gripped their weapons, as if expecting him to turn against them.

  They had seen him become something else.

  They had seen him wield power that no mortal should possess.

  Erik exhaled slowly, pushing himself to his feet. His body still felt wrong. The demon was contained, but its influence remained—a whisper beneath his skin, a lingering presence that refused to leave.

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  The hunger was still there.

  Distantly, footsteps approached. Erik turned just in time to see Varyn step forward. His expression was carefully neutral, but Erik could see the tension in his stance, the way his fingers flexed around his sword hilt.

  “Erik,” he said, voice measured.

  There was a question in that single word.

  “Are you still you?”

  Erik glanced down at his hands. They were steady, but he could feel the residual energy coiling within him, waiting. He had sealed the demon, but he had not escaped it.

  It had left something behind.

  “I’m fine,” Erik lied, his voice quieter than he intended.

  Varyn studied him for a long moment, but whatever he saw in Erik’s eyes made him nod. Not in agreement—but in understanding.

  Others were watching, waiting. If they sensed weakness, fear, they might turn on him. He had seen it happen before. Soldiers could only stomach so much horror before they eliminated what they didn’t understand.

  A hush fell over the battlefield, thick with the weight of what had just transpired. The eldritch forces hesitated, their grotesque bodies twitching, uncertain. They had expected a vessel.

  They had expected the demon.

  But Erik was still standing.

  His breath came steady now, no longer stolen by the abyss. The darkness that had once clawed at his soul had been pushed back—not banished, not destroyed, but sealed away. His body still hummed with residual power, but this time, the majority of it was his.

  For the first time in too long, he felt clear.

  The eldritch creatures, as if sensing the shift, recoiled.

  It wasn’t fear. Not yet.

  But it would be.

  Erik straightened, rolling his shoulders, letting out a slow breath as something dormant stirred within him—not a foreign force, not a parasite, but a power that had always been his that he had tasted beofre. The battlefield crackled around him, not with abyssal corruption, but with something else.

  Aetherian energy—pure, untainted, and genuine Atherian energy—began to rise.

  It started as a pulse at his core, a deep, thrumming beat that resonated through his bones, filling his limbs with something that was neither rage nor hunger. It was resolve. It was purpose.

  And then—as if unseen chains, long-forgotten yet ever-present, shattered in an instant, unleashing a flood that had been barely contained—his world ruptured.

  A shockwave of radiant energy exploded outward from him, slamming into the eldritch forces with the force of a celestial tide. The sky above trembled, the very air distorting as golden arcs of power crackled through the field.

  Not the demon.

  Not darkness.

  This was him.

  “This power… It was always here, wasn’t it? Buried. Dormant. Suppressed by fear, by doubt—by something I never understood until now. I’ve spent my life fighting, surviving, clawing my way through battles I was never meant to win. I thought I needed the demon’s strength. I thought I had to become something else to stand against the eldritch.”

  “But I was wrong.”

  He clenched his fists, his entire body trembling—not from weakness, but from the sheer, unrestrained power surging within him. The pressure built with each breath, heat flooding his veins like a forge stoked to an inferno.

  “This isn’t borrowed power. This isn’t something stolen or given. This is MINE.”

  The ground beneath him cracked, spiderweb fissures splitting outward as arcs of golden energy erupted from his body. The air around him vibrated, distorting under the raw force radiating from his core.

  “I am not a vessel. I am not a pawn. I am not a slave to fate.”

  His pulse thundered, his breath sharpened—until finally, he threw his head back and ROARED.

  A blinding surge of Aetherian energy exploded outward, igniting the battlefield in a storm of light. The force of it sent eldritch horrors hurtling back, their wretched forms convulsing as if the very presence of his power was tearing them apart. The sky itself shuddered, the atmosphere rippling under the weight of something long thought lost to time.

  His body burned with pure purpose. His aura expanded, taking shape, no longer just a formless surge of power but something monolithic, something legendary.

  And as he stood there, standing amidst the chaos, unshaken, unstoppable

  Erik’s body and mind calmed into tranquility, as Erik faced the remaining Eldritch and lifted his sword, the energy surging into the steel, igniting it with the brilliance of a forgotten age. The runes, once dark and dormant, now glowed with an intensity that one had to look away from.

  The battle was no longer a struggle for survival.

  It was a reckoning.

  The eldritch horrors, still twisting under the onslaught of Aetherian power, faltered. Some tried to retreat. Others screeched and charged, mindless in their aggression.

  It didn’t matter.

  Erik moved.

  His sword carved through the first horror with ease, not slicing, but burning—a searing cut of pure light that erased the corruption upon contact. The creature convulsed before disintegrating, its essence banished in an instant.

  The others hesitated.

  But Erik did not.

  He lunged, faster than he ever had before, his every motion precise, fueled by something more than just skill. His blade danced, each strike sending golden arcs of energy slicing through the enemy ranks. The eldritch fell before him, their forms crumbling beneath the power of a force they had long believed extinct.

  And Erik—he felt alive.

  This wasn’t the demon’s strength. This wasn’t the abyss controlling his body.

  This was him.

  Every movement was his. Every strike, every breath, every ounce of power surging through his limbs belonged to him alone.

  And the eldritch?

  They were losing.

  Far in the distance, Vesper and her squad had been running—retreating from what they thought was a lost battle. But then—they felt it.

  A pulse. A shift.

  Something different.

  Vesper’s steps slowed. She turned, her heart pounding as she looked back toward the battlefield. Her team followed suit, their eyes wide as they took in the scene before them.

  And what they saw—was not what they had feared.

  No abyssal corruption. No demonic presence.

  Just Erik.

  Standing tall. Fighting.

  Not as a vessel.

  Not as a cursed warrior clinging to survival.

  But as himself.

  Aetherian energy blazed around him, turning the battlefield into a storm of golden fire. The eldritch, once relentless, were breaking.

  And Erik—he was in control.

  Vesper’s breath caught in her throat.

  “By the gods…” one of her soldiers whispered.

  She clenched her fists, hope igniting like wildfire in her chest.

  “We’re going back!” she ordered, her voice sharp, unwavering.

  Her team hesitated.

  “But we just—”

  “We’re going back!” she snapped, drawing her weapon, her eyes burning with determination.

  Because Erik was still fighting.

  And if he wasn’t running—neither were they.

  The battlefield had changed.

  The war had begun again.