Chapter 967 - 966: The Greatest Calamity

A strange expression crossed Mara’s face.

She understood the Saintess’s confusion. In her position, Mara would have asked the same questions.

An invasion of this scale should not have ended so quickly. Even if the demons had retreated, the rift should have remained long after the fighting stopped.

Yet it was gone too.

Explaining it would sound almost as absurd as witnessing it had felt.

"Before the invasion, I received a prophecy from the Blind Sister of Retezat Monastery," she began. "She warned us about three calamities."

Celeste listened.

"We came to believe they were three demons within the same assault core. A blind demoness, a Martial Demon, and their leader."

Mara glanced across the basin.

"One of them brought this battle to an end. The greatest calamity of the three."

Celeste’s brows drew together.

"A demon with six wings and four horns?"

Mara looked back sharply.

"You know about him?"

Celeste gestured toward Rowan, seated behind Luke.

"He told us. That demon killed his parents."

Mara’s gaze settled briefly on the boy. His hand rested against the broken sword secured beside him.

She did not ask for details.

"Yes. That is the demon I mean."

Her lips tightened.

"But that wasn’t what he looked like when he arrived."

"What do you mean?"

Mara released a deep sigh.

"I still don’t entirely understand it myself."

She raised one hand toward a distant summit.

"His name is Blackmoon. He and his companions attacked Ironcrest Watchtower first."

Celeste followed her gesture.

Broken dark walls stood above a road torn apart by craters. Beyond them, the remains of an enormous cannon lay among twisted supports.

"They broke through its divine shell. Blackmoon destroyed Sunshear, our strongest weapon there, and killed Commander Varga and his command staff. His companions cleared out the remaining defenders."

Luke examined the distant ruins.

"Ironcrest was the first watchtower to fall," Mara continued. "Then they moved northwest to Frostveil."

Her hand shifted toward another damaged position above a split ridge, where defensive terraces climbed the slope.

"Another demon core was struggling there. Blackmoon’s group went to assist them."

"And you sent someone to stop them?"

"We sent two."

Mara looked toward the other commanders. None interrupted.

"Blackmoon was a Supreme Archfiend. His companions were Archfiends too. We knew they were unusually strong, but we believed the twins could handle them."

"The twins?"

"Elara and Darius. I assume you’ve heard of them, Saintess."

At Darius’s name, Tomas tightened his grip around his spear.

Luke noticed. His eyes moved briefly toward the man’s hands before returning to Mara.

Celeste nodded.

"They’re among the rising talents of my generation. Both are powerful."

She looked toward Frostveil.

"They should have been able to defeat a group of Archfiends."

"That was what we thought too."

Mara paused.

"We were wrong."

Behind Luke, Rowan leaned forward slightly.

"Elara fought Blackmoon’s companions alone. Blackmoon chose to face Darius himself, despite Darius being the stronger twin."

"What happened?"

"Blackmoon cut his head off."

Celeste went still.

Tomas’s knuckles whitened around the spear.

"But Darius was the God of War’s chosen," Mara continued. "The god descended into his body and brought him back."

Luke’s eyes widened. Beside him, Celeste drew a sharp breath.

"Darius was his chosen?"

"Yes."

"I hadn’t heard that."

She had known of the twins’ Elemental Spirits. A fire phoenix and an ice phoenix, powerful Blessings that had already made their names travel beyond the Carpathian Front.

But Darius possessed two Blessings?

Her surprise lasted only a moment. She had never been close to him or particularly interested in the details of his life.

What Mara had just said mattered far more.

Luke spoke before she could.

"Then Blackmoon should have died."

His voice was low.

"You’re telling us an Archfiend survived the descent of a god? Even through a mortal vessel, that difference should have been impossible to overcome."

"I thought so too."

Mara remembered the first exchanges. The ease with which the god had taken control of the battle.

"At first, Blackmoon could barely survive. The God of War overwhelmed him. We expected him to die with almost every attack."

"But he didn’t," Celeste said.

"No. He managed to escape through the rift into the Demon Realm."

Mara lowered her hand.

"The god followed him. That was when everything changed."

"Explain," Luke asked with a solemn voice.

"I expected him to return shortly with Blackmoon’s corpse. Instead, when he finally came back, he was injured."

Luke frowned.

"Injured?"

Mara nodded.

"And Blackmoon?"

"He wasn’t with him."

Rowan listened without looking away.

The red-haired man he had seen beneath that black sword...

A god had been inside him.

"Then Blackmoon emerged from the rift," Mara said. "The God of War attacked him before he could even settle back onto the battlefield."

Celeste’s fingers tightened around her reins.

"An ambush?"

"Yes, and he survived it."

Mara’s metallic eye shifted toward the ruined ground where the rift had stood.

"And he was no longer the demon who had left."

For a moment, she could almost see the two appearances beside each other.

"When he first arrived, he had one horn on the right side of his forehead. When he returned, he had four. Six wings floated behind him."

She faced them again.

"His appearance, his aura, his strength. All of it had changed. He was no longer an Archfiend."

"What rank?" Luke asked.

"A Greater Demon."

Celeste stared at her.

"During this invasion?"

"Yes."

Neither visitor spoke.

Rowan watched their expressions. Until now, he had known only that the demon was strong. Hearing these people struggle to believe what he had done gave that strength a weight he could not yet measure.

"But his advancement wasn’t the greatest shock," Mara said.

Luke’s eyes narrowed.

"They fought again. Their attacks tore through the basin. Soldiers stopped advancing because remaining alive had become more urgent than holding a position."

Mara looked toward a trench that ended inside a vast crater.

"Approaching them would have killed us. We could do nothing but move people out of the way."

"And the god?" Celeste asked.

Mara’s answer came quietly.

"Blackmoon was overwhelming him."

The Saintess’s lips parted.

Luke straightened in his saddle.

"Overwhelming the God of War?"

"Yes."

"Not merely surviving his attacks?"

Mara shook her head.

"The god retreated. Blackmoon pursued him."

Celeste looked toward the distant mountains.

The villagers had told them about a human fleeing a six-winged demon. She had imagined a desperate warrior trying to survive.

Not this.

Definitely not the God of War.

"You’re certain?" she asked.

"I watched it happen, Saintess. So did everyone standing here."

Pavel nodded. Ilona’s face had a worried expression, and Dorian had lowered his eyes.

No one contradicted her.

"We believed it was deliberate," Mara admitted. "That the god was drawing him away to finish the fight elsewhere."

She swallowed.

"But after some time, Blackmoon returned with his companions. He appeared completely unharmed."

"And the God of War?"

"He hasn’t returned."

Silence settled between them.

Mara did not claim to know what had happened beyond the mountains. She had already spent too much of the battle mistaking what she hoped would happen for what would.

"Blackmoon looked at us," she continued. "Then he and his companions went back through the rift."

Celeste glanced toward the empty space where the rift should have been.

"A few minutes later, it began closing. The remaining demons abandoned their positions and ran for it. Those who reached it escaped. The others are the ones still fighting here."

"Who closed it?" Luke asked.

"I don’t know."

Mara hesitated.

"But I suspect it was Blackmoon."

Celeste’s gaze returned to her.

"You think he could do that too?"

"After everything else, I can no longer dismiss something simply because he shouldn’t be capable of it."

Mara let out a slow breath.

"That is what happened, Saintess. That is why you found the battlefield like this."

Her gaze passed over the ruined defences.

"The invasion ended. But its greatest calamity was never defeated."