The sight below was overwhelming.
Ragnar moved first, floating forward until he hovered above the army stationed on the platform. The rest of us followed silently, stopping behind the demon forces. The three demon captains stepped forward as well and took their positions behind Ragnar, forming a clear line of command.
Below us, the army stood in disciplined ranks. A million demons, packed tightly across the vast platform, their weapons ready, their auras contained but restless. The void itself seemed to hold still, as if waiting.
Ragnar turned slowly, his massive presence dominating the space.
"Are you ready to roar?" his voice boomed across the launch pad.
Over the past few days, Ragnar had become a favorite among the demons. His nature resonated deeply with them, far more than he realized. There was something raw and familiar in the way he fought, spoke, and carried himself. Little by little, he was awakening instincts they had long suppressed.
He was pulling them out of despair and loss, dragging them away from exhaustion and grief, and reminding them of something far more dangerous.
The thrill of war.
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then the soldiers stirred.
Auras flared one after another, spreading like wildfire. The combined pressure rolled outward, shaking the void, bending Essence, and sending ripples through space itself.
"YES!" The roar came as one, raw and thunderous, carrying fury, exhaustion, and hunger for blood from a million demons.
Ragnar threw his head back and laughed, a deep, savage sound that echoed across the core layer.
"Then let’s wash our bodies with their filthy blood."
His aura exploded outward.
Right before everyone’s eyes, for the first time his body began to transform. Muscles swelled, runes flared along his skin, and the laws he commanded surged violently. The void around him strained and fractured, lines of distortion spreading outward like cracks in glass.
His roar followed, louder than before, shaking the entire core layer.
Standing before everyone was Ragnar’s transformed form.
He had taken on his humanoid hybrid shape, towering nearly fifteen feet tall. Silver-colored fur covered his chest and arms, dense and coarse, while crimson mist surged endlessly around his body like a living aura. Long black hair flowed down to his shoulders, wild and untamed, and behind him swayed a tail as thick as my arm, heavy with power. His massive club had grown with him, reforged by force and law to match his size.
The demons watched with wide eyes.
Their blood boiled.
They could feel it. The dominance in his presence. The pressure of a being who did not retreat, who did not wait, who did not fear the enemy ahead.
Ragnar lifted his club and pointed it straight toward the Eternal army, which had gone unnaturally still, countless abominations and phantoms staring back at him in silence.
For a brief moment, nothing moved.
The void between the two armies stretched wide and silent, filled with drifting debris from earlier clashes. Broken weapons floated past. Cracked armor plates spun slowly, still stained with blood that had never fully dispersed in the vacuum.
I felt it then, the familiar weight that always came before the Eternal advance.
The demons felt it too.
Many of them had stood on this same launch pad dozens of times before. They knew this pause. They knew what usually followed. The sudden surge. The overwhelming push. The moment when they braced themselves and reacted instead of choosing.
I saw clenched fists. Tightened jaws. Old scars faintly glowing where laws had once burned into flesh. Soldiers who had already lost brothers, sisters, entire squads, staring forward as if expecting the same fate to repeat itself.
This was the moment where everything either stayed the same or broke.
Ragnar moved.
"CHARGE!" his voice thundered as he burst forward.
For the first time in many, many years, the demons did not wait for the Eternal forces to move and simply react.
They charged first.
A unified roar exploded from the demon ranks as those under Ragnar surged after him, their auras flaring, their formations breaking into a violent forward tide.
On the other launch platforms, the rest of the demon army froze in disbelief. Captains leading other units turned instinctively toward Saleos, searching for his reaction. Among them were the traitors as well, their surprise genuine, their instincts thrown off by what they were witnessing.
Even they had not expected this.
Then a grin slowly formed on Saleos’s face.
He whispered a single word.
"Charge."
The word started soft, barely audible, but it carried weight. It spread through the void, slipping into every demon’s ears, resonating with their souls.
And in that moment, hesitation shattered.
The entire core layer answered.
Millions of auras ignited at once.
The void trembled as if struck by a single, massive heartbeat. Essence surged upward from the launch platforms, colliding and overlapping until the space itself seemed unable to contain it. War cries erupted, raw and unrestrained, tearing free from chests that had held them down for far too long.
Demons leapt from the platforms in waves.
They hurled themselves forward.
Formations that had once existed to absorb impact reshaped into an arrowhead, Ragnar at its tip. His aura burned brighter with every second, his massive form cutting through the void like a living weapon. The crimson mist around him thickened, his laws pulling at space, dragging the army behind him as if gravity itself had chosen a side.
I felt it wash over me.
The shift.
For years, this battlefield had been defined by reaction. Hold the line. Endure. Survive until the next wave pulled back. But now, the demons weren’t waiting to be crushed.
They were hunting.
Behind Ragnar, captains roared orders that were almost unnecessary. Soldiers followed on instinct alone, blood boiling, despair transmuted into motion. Even wounded units pushed forward, ignoring pain as if it no longer mattered.
The Eternal forces reacted a heartbeat too late.
Phantoms flared with cold light, attempting to reassert control. Abominations surged, their massive forms rolling forward like a living wall. But the rhythm was wrong. The timing was broken.
The demons hit them head-on.
The collision was catastrophic.
Force met mass. Law slammed into law. Entire sections of the void fractured as Ragnar smashed into the front ranks, his club descending like judgment itself. The shockwave rippled outward, flinging bodies aside, tearing formations apart before they could stabilize.
And the army followed him in.
A spear driven straight into the heart of the enemy.
I watched it all from within the surge, my cloak fluttering in the storm of Essence. My heartbeat rising with each roar of the demons.
’Go.’ I ordered.
=========================
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Ashen Ascension: The Divided Flame
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