Chapter 50: The Demon of Enmity

Miri looked up at Xander, her eyes swimming with heavy, unfallen tears.

"Look, it’s never too late to change," Xander said, his voice dropping into a desperate, grounding register as he reached a hand out toward the post. "We just have to start somewhere. Change can happen no matter what. But what is this Astral Plain you’re talking about?"

A faint, bitter smile touched the corners of Miri’s mouth. "You know... my father would have loved to meet you. He always praised you when he talked to the neighbors, even though you’re the enemy.

Even when you went away for months on end to fight in the north, whenever the northern armies abandoned a village, your unit always made sure food and shelter were left behind for the civilians.

That’s why I trusted you when your men pulled me from that cellar. But I’m not strong enough to just let it all go. My world ended the day my village burned to the ground. I can’t forgive you all. I can’t let it go."

She tilted her head, looking past Xander at the ring of soldiers surrounding the yard. Every single man stared back at her with unmasked hatred, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords, eager to watch her die simply because she wore the face of their enemy.

"See?" Miri whispered, her smile widening faintly. "You weren’t affected by my malice. But they were."

She lifted her face toward the morning sky, where the sun was cutting through the grey mountain mist. "I don’t know if you know what the Astral Plain truly is.

It’s a place filled with beings of unholy terror and cosmic nightmares—a world I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies. But I made a deal with an entity from that realm.

You have to understand, Xander... the Astral Plain isn’t just another physical realm. It’s an entirely different plane of existence. And a being from that plane has finally found a way to bridge the gap into this world."

Xander took a step closer, his brows knitting in confusion and rising dread. "Miri... why would you invite something like that here? What are you trying to do?"

"I want this world to burn," she breathed, her voice turning hard and cold. "I want them to feel the pain and betrayal I felt."

All around the yard, the gathered soldiers shifted restlessly, their eyes locked on the girl. Xander turned his head, spotting Vane pushing his way through the front ranks of the infantry, his expression unusually tense as he listened.

Miri looked straight into Xander’s eyes one last time. "When I look at you... I see it. Me, you, my family. It’s just a cycle of endless regret."

She closed her eyes and repeated the exact phrase she had spoken in the dark of her cell:

"Let the void remember."

The moment the words left her mouth, Miri’s back arched violently against the wooden stake. A thick, pitch-black stream of blood erupted from her lips, followed instantly by dark fluid pouring from her eyes, her nose, and her ears. It was a horrific, unnatural sight, as if her entire internal system was liquefying from the inside out.

Before Xander could even reach out to grab her, her head slumped forward. Her body went completely limp, the life leaving her frame in a single, silent second.

Xander stood frozen, staring at her lifeless form.

No. He hadn’t wanted to execute her. He had been trying to find a way out, a way to save her from the gallows. What was happening?

A sharp scuff of boots sounded directly behind him.

Xander didn’t think; his instincts, honed by centuries of frontline warfare, reacted instantly. But before he could spin around, a searing white-hot pain slammed into his lower back.

He gasped, his eyes flying wide as he looked down. A steel dagger was buried deep up to its hilt in his side. Behind him, holding the bloodied handle with both hands, was Vane.

Vane’s face was completely slack, his eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. "Die," Vane hissed, pulling the blade out to drive it straight down into Xander’s skull.

Xander twisted violently to the side, his shoulder slamming into Vane’s chest and sending the second-in-command stumbling backward. Blood soaked rapidly through Xander’s dark tunic, warm and slick against his ribs.

"Vane! What the hell are you doing?!" Xander roared, clutching his side. He whipped around to face the surrounding troops. "Men, disarm him! What is wrong with you all?!"

Not a single soldier moved to help.

Xander scanned the faces of the men he had led through fire and ice for years. Their skin had turned a pale, corpse-like white, and their jaws began to unhinge with sickening, wet popping sounds. Their mouths stretched impossibly wide—wider than any human should allow—until three thick, black, segmented tongues whipped out from their throats like living centipedes, dripping with dark, tar-like blood.

At the center of the ring, Vane let out a low, echoing chuckle that didn’t sound like his own voice at all. As Vane lifted his head, his human features melted away, replaced by the writhing, shifting mass of a higher-dimensional entity.

Surrounded on all sides by his own transformed men, Xander pressed a hand to his bleeding side, his breath hitching. "Who... what are you?"

Vane’s distorted mouth split into a wide, malicious grin. "I am the Demon of Enmity, mortal. And I just wanted to experience something special today, Xander."

"What do you want?!" Xander snarled, drawing his broadsword from its scabbard, the cold steel ringing in the freezing air. "Let go of my men!"

"Oh, no, no, no. That isn’t how this works," Vane laughed, his voice echoing from multiple directions at once.

Just then, the sky above the military camp blinked out.

The bright morning sun vanished as if swallowed by a sudden, total eclipse. Absolute, crushing darkness descended upon the world, illuminated only by the sickly purple glow of dimensional tears ripping open across the horizon.

"I want to see your hate," Vane whispered, his voice right next to Xander’s ear despite standing ten paces away. "Your rage. Your raw, unfiltered hunger. Let’s do this now, shall we?"

Without another word, the wall of transformed soldiers lunged forward simultaneously. Every single one of them possessed the terrifying power of Foundation Realm experts, moving with terrifying, inhuman speed.

Xander swung his broadsword in a desperate arc, deflecting incoming spear points and blades. He tried to parry without delivering a lethal blow, desperately trying to spare the men he had known for years. But the demon was toying with him, turning the fight into a grotesque, agonizing dance.

A heavy saber flashed toward Xander’s neck. Injured and bleeding heavily, Xander raised his broadsword to block. The heavy blow bounced off his crossguard with a deafening clang—but at that exact millisecond, another figure lunged blindly from the side, tripping forward directly into the path of Xander’s swinging blade.

Xander’s eyes widened in horror. There was nothing he could do to stop his momentum.

The tip of his own sword sliced straight through the throat of the soldier who had stumbled into his guard.

Blood sprayed across the frozen mud. The man dropped his weapon and collapsed into the dirt, clutching at his torn neck with choking gasps.

Xander froze, staring down at the fallen soldier in absolute disbelief.

It was Silver. A young boy he had watched grow up in the camps.

Silver’s grandfather had served under Xander decades ago, retiring after the southern campaigns and begging his family never to touch a sword again. But after the old man died, the boy’s father had insisted on returning to the front lines, eventually bringing young Silver along despite Xander’s fierce objections. Xander had taken the boy under his wing, teaching him every breathing technique and footwork pattern he knew, promising to bring him home in one piece.

Now, the kid was bleeding out right in front of him, slain by his own captain’s blade.

"No... no, no!" Xander choked out, his vision swimming.

"Come on, Xander! Fight!" Vane’s voice echoed mockingly from the swirling darkness. "I want to see that rage! Show me the monster they call the God of War!"

Xander wasn’t a cold, emotionless machine. He had lived for centuries, losing friends, comrades, and surrogate family members across countless battlefields. That profound, intimate knowledge of his men—knowing their names, their families, their histories—was the very thing that had made him a legendary commander. And now, every single bond he had ever forged was being weaponized to butcher him alive.

Another blade bit deep into his shoulder. Then another.

"You cowards! Fight me like men, stop hiding behind my boys!" Xander screamed into the dark, his voice cracking with agony.

He swept his massive broadsword in a furious, devastating gale of spiritual Qi, shoving the charging soldiers backward. Locating the source of the mocking laughter, he lunged forward, grabbed Vane by the throat, and slammed him with brutal force against the remaining timber wall of the command post.

The blade of Xander’s sword hovered barely an inch from Vane’s throat.

For a brief, flickering second, the dark, writhing mass over Vane’s face receded. His human eyes snapped back into focus, looking up in sheer terror.

"Captain...?" Vane gasped, coughing up dark blood, his body trembling violently. "What... what is happening? Why am I holding this dagger?"

Xander let out a ragged, hopeful breath, loosening his grip slightly. "Vane... thank the heavens. Something is wrong with the camp, a demon has—"

Before Xander could finish the sentence, Vane’s eyes rolled back again. With unnatural speed, Vane’s own hand seized Xander’s sword and drove it repeatedly into his own chest, his body convulsing as the demonic entity flooded back into his flesh.

"Come on, Xander! I need that hatred!" Vane shrieked, his voice splitting into a chorus of unholy screams.

All around them, the remaining soldiers rushed forward like a tidal wave of flesh and steel. Blades pierced Xander’s arms, his thighs, and his chest. Yet, after taking so many fatal wounds from the people he loved, the pain suddenly vanished. His nervous system overloaded, leaving him entirely numb.

A single, hot tear finally broke free from Xander’s eye, cutting a clean path through the blood and dirt on his cheek as he swung his blade one last time.

There is nothing left but red.

The sounds of the camp faded into absolute silence.

Xander stood entirely alone in the center of a vast, desolate wasteland of ash, blood, and broken armor. His hands were dripping crimson, trembling as he stared down at his palms.

A towering, grotesque entity formed from an ancient mass of flesh, bones, and blood materialized out of the smoke before him, towering over the landscape like a nightmare made manifest.

"All of this... simply because you tried to save someone," the demon whispered directly into Xander’s shattered mind, its voice dripping with sadistic amusement.

With a sudden, violent jolt, the nightmare shattered like glass.

Xander—now Orson—bolted upright, his eyes flying open as he gasped for air in the real world, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs as the strange smell surrounded him in a white room.