The mission was simple.
Find the rogue demons. Kill them. Leave nothing breathing behind.
There were no treaties for these ones. No court diplomacy or highborn hesitation. These weren't the carefully groomed demons who waltzed through embassies with velvet robes and wine-stained smirks.
These were deserters. Raiders. Beasts in the skin of soldiers, stripped of honor and full of hunger.
Imeena didn't waste time packing.
Her armor was half-worn before the sun touched the mountain ridge, the gold thread of her sigils pulsing faintly along her skin.
She tightened the gauntlet over her left wrist until it bit into her pulse. The pain kept her focused. The chain glyphs beneath the leather thrummed like the breath of a sleeping beast.
"Three confirmed," the scout had told her the day before. "Camped near the old stone ruins by Dead Hollow. Moving at dusk. No insignia. They've slaughtered every outpost they passed."
Imeena hadn't asked for names. Names were irrelevant.
She'd said only one thing: "I'll handle it."
The forest was thick with rot.
Roots coiled like the bodies of buried gods, and moss slithered up the stones like it was hunting sunlight. Even the air was hostile, damp, sour, and heavy with the scent of things that shouldn't grow.
Imeena moved like a ghost. Her steps were silent. Calculated.
By midday, she found the first corpse.
It had been nailed to a tree with a spear. Celestian soldier still in uniform. His eyes were open, glazed in death, mouth split in a final scream. His tongue had been cut out and pinned to his chest.
She did not look away. She simply memorized it.
No survivors.
The ruins appeared just past a crumbled ridge, where ancient stone arches clawed upward like broken ribs. There, among the bones of forgotten temples, sat the rogue camp.
Three demons.
Two lounged near a fire pit, sharpening curved blades on stones. One was asleep against a mossy wall, his snore like grinding gravel. Their armor was mismatched. Their horns crooked and yellowed. One had blood smeared across his neck as if it were perfume.
She watched for two minutes.
Then she moved.
No battle cry. No warning.
Her chains struck the first before he could blink piercing through the gap in his armor like liquid gold, then twisting violently, snapping bone from bone. He didn't scream. He simply dropped, eyes bulging, mouth slack.
The second turned.
Too slow.
Imeena's boot slammed into his chest before he could draw breath. The wind left him in a wet wheeze as she followed it up with a chain to the throat tight, glowing, hissing with celestial runes.
He tried to claw at it, his blackened fingers scraping against her golden links, but they only coiled tighter.
She yanked once. The snap of vertebrae echoed into the trees.
The third demon stirred as the chain hissed back into her palm.
He leapt up, eyes blazing, axe in hand.
"Celestian whore!"
Imeena didn't flinch.
The axe swung wide. She ducked under it, rolling forward and calling a dual chain into her hands twin threads of fire-lit gold.
They wrapped his wrists mid-swing and flung him sideways into a pillar. He crashed hard, howling as stone cracked under his weight.
She approached.
He tried to crawl. Pathetic.
"No—please—" he gasped.
"Beg louder," she said coldly.
The chain at her side snapped forward, piercing through his back and pinning him to the dirt.
His groans faded quickly.
She stood there for a moment, breath steady, the silence creeping back into the ruins.
But something was wrong.
The air shifted.
The birds had stopped singing.
She turned a heartbeat before the impact.
A blade met her shoulder, glancing off her pauldron with a shower of sparks. The force threw her off balance, her boots skidding across moss-slick stone.
A tall figure stepped from the shadows.
Demon General.
Imeena knew it instantly—the posture, the armor, the commanding silence. He wore crimson-black plating, sculpted and lacquered with bloodglass runes.
His horns were long, perfectly curved, polished. A jagged scar ran from his lower jaw to the tip of one eye. He looked like war personified.
"You're not one of ours," he said, voice like cracked granite.
"I'm not yours at all," she snapped, reeling back and summoning three chains at once.
He didn't flinch.
The chains launched, spiraling midair, targeting his joints, neck, and weapon grip.
He moved like a blur.
The blade swept through the middle chain, severing it clean. His other hand deflected the second. The third chain grazed his leg but failed to bind.
Imeena's lips twisted. No fear. Just focus.
He lunged.
She ducked, slid beneath his strike, summoned a wall of golden light to block his next blow. The shield cracked. Her arms jolted.
He was stronger than he looked.
She retaliated, launching the chains again—this time lashing around his waist, legs, and shoulder. They struck true.
He growled and strained.
Celestial glyphs lit up along the links, burning into his armor. But he laughed.
Laughed.
"You think this will hold a general?"
He flexed his arms—veins bulging, aura flaring—and the chains shattered like glass. The explosion sent Imeena flying backwards into a crumbling arch.
She hit hard, breath knocked from her lungs.
Stars spun.
She rolled, dazed, spitting blood. Her left arm screamed in pain.
The general stalked forward, dragging his massive blade along the ground. The stone sizzled beneath it.
Imeena stood. Slowly. She wiped the blood from her lips, eyes hard.
"You'll regret that."
"I doubt it."
They clashed.
Chains met blade. Sparks flew. Earth cracked. Every blow shook the ruins. Imeena darted in and out of range, wrapping his legs, slicing at his arms, aiming for pressure points—but he countered her rhythm with brutal precision. He wasn't fast. He was predictive.
She struck high he deflected.
She spun low he stepped aside.
He struck her side with a heavy elbow, sending her stumbling.
She coughed, golden light flickering around her ribs. Her magic was draining.
Still, she pushed forward.
Another volley of chains. Six this time—forked, splitting midair.
He faltered.
Two wrapped around his wrist, yanking his sword aside. Another lashed around his throat.
She leapt, landing hard on his chest, pressing a glowing palm to his helmet.
The rune she whispered was ancient. Forbidden.
"Sanctum Ruptura."
The glyph exploded.
He roared, stumbled backward, smoke pouring from his armor.
Imeena hit the ground hard, gasping, chest heaving.
He dropped to one knee.
Burned. Bleeding.
But grinning.
"You've got teeth," he rasped. "I like that."
She summoned one last chain, aiming to pierce his heart.
But then—
The trees parted.
Ten more figures emerged.
Silent. Armored. Horned.
General-class, all of them.
They surrounded the ruins in a slow, perfect formation, their auras oppressive, suffocating. Like gods descending to judge.
Imeena froze, breathing ragged.
The demon general stood again, eyes glinting.
"I called for backup," he said. "You're not the only one who scouts ahead."
Imeena didn't respond.
Her chains shimmered weakly at her sides, barely holding form. Her fingers trembled. Her left shoulder throbbed dislocated. Her ribs burned.
Still, she stood.
The first general stepped forward. A woman with gold-slashed horns and claws the size of daggers.
Imeena raised a hand, half-limp, and called her last reserves.
The chains came.
Weaker. Slower.
They fought her anyway.
She ducked a strike, caught another. Parried with a snarl.
The second general attacked. Then the third.
Four-on-one.
She dropped the first to her knees. Blood sprayed across the stone.
The others pressed in.
Chains tangled. Blades clashed. Her vision blurred.
Five-on-one. Six.
Her body screamed for rest.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
She struck one in the throat and took a slash to her thigh.
She kneed another in the jaw and was thrown into a wall.
A claw raked across her back.
She kept standing.
Kept fighting.
Until the world blurred.
The last thing she saw was the moon, pale and sharp above the trees.
Then darkness.
Her legs gave out.
Her chains vanished.
And Imeena collapsed to the ground, unconscious.