​Down in the basin of the pass, the horror was fully active. A small outpost settlement, meant to guard the trade routes, was currently crawling with shapes that defied natural geometry.

They were creatures made of pure, ravenous hunger—distorted silhouettes with too many limbs and jaws that split open down to their chests, driven entirely by the centuries of human resentment Norx had stitched into their skin.

A few surviving local guards and fleeing townspeople were backed against a crumbling stone barricade, their standard iron weapons chipping and melting the moment they tried to strike the beasts’ hides.

​Julian’s vibrant blue eyes narrowed into chips of ice. He could feel the familiar, heavy pulse of something trying to flare a warning in the back of his mind, but he didn’t know what it was. And he didn’t heed it either because now, with his divinity, the demons could not harm him.

​"The abyss where Norx is hiding isn’t going to be lying around in the open," Julian said, his voice smooth, and Alaric looked at him from the side. "He is a god of creation; he has woven his core into a hidden pocket of this territory. I will have to trace the structural layout of the earth’s meridians to locate the crooked, darkened point where reality is warped."

​He looked over at Alaric, who was silently gritting his teeth as he watched the monsters tear through the valley.

​"But before I can discover his location," Julian continued, a sharp, dangerous edge entering his tone, "we need to clear the board. We will purge the spreading demons first and secure the survivors."

​Alaric nodded, but he did not leave Julian’s side even once. He drew his sword, the silver-white glaze on the blade bursting into a vibrant radiance that completely cut through the violet gloom.

The god of light said, with purity of the heart came purity of the divine. Though Alaric was not a priest and he did not wield holy power, the feeling he had in his heart, be it a siege, was strong... was pure... and was everlasting.

And that pure feeling fueled the light in his sword.

​"Kaelen! Form the crescent wedge!" Alaric’s deep voice roared across the line, shattering the heavy silence of the ridge. "Protect the flanks! Do not let a single one of those bastards slip past the iron!"

​"Forward!" Kaelen bellowed in response, lifting his own shining sword high.

"We shall follow the lead of the Northern knights," Commander Nardic equally raised his sword and bellowed to his knights. "Men, go forth and purge the world of the evil that rots!"

​With a synchronized roar, the combined force of the northern vanguard and the Holy Knights spurred their horses down the steep incline, descending upon the valley like a falling avalanche of pure light.

​Julian rode right beside Alaric at the front of the charge, his blue robes billowing in the wind. As the distance closed, three massive, multi-limbed demons noticed the incoming surge and whipped their heads around, their void-born eyes flashing with a sickening purple light as they lunged toward the lead riders, their claws extended to shred the horses.

​Alaric didn’t even flinch. Moving with the terrifying, explosive speed of a seasoned predator, he leaned over his stallion’s neck and delivered a massive, sweeping horizontal cut.

If he had been using his sword as it had been, his iron would have turned to liquid slag upon impact. But this time, the insulated silver-white light on his blade flashed violently.

The moment the holy glaze bit into the first demon’s shoulder, the creature didn’t just bleed—the place of contact dissolved to ash. The holy power violently rejected the void, causing the monster’s entire upper torso to burst into clean white ash before it could even utter a shriek.

The residual arc of the swing caught the second beast, melting its limbs into nothingness in a single, effortless motion.

​"Surge forward!" Nadic roared from behind them, his shield vibrating with light as he slammed into a cluster of smaller fiends, watching them disintegrate against his baptized armor.

​Julian reined his horse in near the center of the crumbling stone barricade where the terrified survivors were cowering.

He extended his left hand toward the sky, his eyes glowing with an unblemished, brilliant blue with specks of gold and white as he summoned forth his Holy power.

​Cleanse, he thought simply.

​A massive, circular wave of pure baseline divinity exploded outward from his palm, expanding across the settlement like a dome of liquid silver. The light bypassed the cowering humans entirely, but the moment it washed over the surrounding demons, their stolen flesh began to blister and smoke.

They scrambled backward, screeching in agony as the holy frequency literally stripped the resentment and hatred out of their artificial bones, turning them to dust where they stood before they could even flee.

​The immediate area of the outpost fell into a sudden, breathless quiet; the heavy violet miasma pushed back a full half-mile by the sheer force of Julian’s presence.

​Julian lowered his hand, his breathing perfectly steady as he looked down at the wide-eyed, weeping townspeople who were staring up at him as if he had just dropped from the heavens.

But he didn’t stop to receive their praises. He immediately turned his focus toward the earth beneath his horse’s hooves, closing his eyes to listen to the deep, structural resonance of the land so he could find the crooked path leading directly to Norx.

Since the demons were surging around here, he was definitely somewhere close. He was waiting... Watching.

Julian caught on to something and narrowed his eyes, his gaze locking onto the dense line of blackened timber bleeding into the horizon. He likely had his first search position.

​He closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting his divine senses sink past the dirt and into the earth’s natural meridians. The golden veins of light that usually mapped out the life of the land suddenly tangled, warping and bending violently toward that specific patch of woods.

​"There," Julian murmured, his voice cutting through the frightened murmurs of the gathered villagers. "What is that place?"