The demon’s voice echoed through the chamber, slow and deliberate, each number a hammer blow against the children’s fragile hope.

"Two."

The man on his knees trembled violently. His eyes were wide, wet, pleading. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead, mixing with tears and dirt. His lips moved in silent prayers no one could hear.

Luca’s hands were still folded. His eyes still closed. His lips still moving, whispering words learned in a chapel that felt a million miles away. He did not know if God was listening. He could not stop praying.

"One."

The salesman demon smiled.

His black eyes gleamed in the sickly green light, reflecting the fear, the hope, the desperation of the children watching. His hand tightened on the man’s head, claws pressing against the skin, drawing blood that ran down the man’s face like tears.

The man whimpered, a small, broken sound. His bladder let go.

Warm urine spread across his legs, pooling in the mud.

He did not care.

He was beyond shame, beyond dignity, beyond everything except the desperate need to live.

The demon raised his other hand.

The claws were long, yellow, stained with the blood of countless victims, gleaming like the blades of knives, like the teeth of wolves.

The children watched through their tears, through their fingers, through the spaces between their chained hands.

Some had covered their eyes, pressing palms against lids so hard they saw stars. Others stared, unable to look away, their young minds frozen, their bodies locked in a paralysis that would not let them move.

"Stop."

The voice rang through the chamber, clear and sharp, cutting through the sobs and the laughter and the drip of water from somewhere far above. It was not loud, but it carried. It was not angry, but it commanded.

The demon’s hand stopped.

The man’s blood dripped onto the stone floor, each drop a small, wet sound that seemed too loud in the sudden silence.

The children opened their eyes.

Luca opened his eyes.

Mina opened her eyes.

And they saw hope.

Not the fragile hope they had been clinging to, the desperate, dying hope that had been withering in the darkness. Something else. Something brighter. A figure standing at the edge of the light, silhouetted against the shadows, real and solid and there.

Hope flooded the chamber.

"God sent someone," Luca whispered. His voice cracked. His tears fell faster. But he was smiling. "God sent someone. He heard us. He heard our prayers."

Mina’s voice was barely audible, but the words were clear. "God is real. God is kind. He did not abandon us."

The other children murmured among themselves, their voices soft, trembling, but alive. "God is real. God is real. God sent someone to save us."

God had heard their prayers. Someone had come to save them. The nightmare might finally end.

The salesman demon’s smile did not falter. He turned his head slowly, deliberately, his black eyes shifting from the children to the figure emerging from the darkness. His expression did not change, but something flickered behind his gaze, amusement, anticipation, the joy of a trap finally sprung.

"Oh," he said, his voice dripping with mock wonder. "So God truly does exist."

He spread his arms wide, as if welcoming an old friend. "Or should I say, finally. The Shadow Raven has emerged from the darkness."

Raven stepped into the light.

Her crow mask gleamed in the green glow, the single silver feather on her forehead catching the light like a star fallen to earth. Her black uniform blended with the shadows behind her, making her look like she was carved from the darkness itself. Her hand rested on the blade at her hip, her fingers curled around the hilt, ready to draw.

Her voice was cold when she spoke. "So you knew. You knew we were tracking you."

The demon chuckled.

"Did you think we would not notice?" He gestured to the children, to the chains, to the chamber that had been designed as a trap. "You guys have been following me for weeks, Shadow Crow. Watching. Waiting. Hoping I would lead you to something important."

He chuckled. "Something like Demon Castle."

Raven’s eyes narrowed behind her mask. "I did not think you would use children to force us out."

The demon tilted his head, feigning confusion. "Force you out? Did I look like I was trying to force you out?"

"Don’t pretend to be a fool," Raven said, her voice sharp. "You knew we were tracking you. You knew you could not kill children without drawing us out. So you used this game, this so-called game, to traumatize them. To break them. To make us come to you."

"Traumatize?" The demon laughed. The sound was deep and terrible, echoing off the walls. "What an ugly word."

The other demons began to smile.

Their red eyes gleamed in the darkness, reflecting the green light like the eyes of wolves, like the eyes of things that hunted in the night.

The Shadow Crow unit moved through the shadows. Their black uniforms blended with the darkness, making them seem like ghosts, like phantoms, like things that were not quite there. Their weapons were raised, aimed at the demons, ready to fire.

They surrounded the warehouse, cut off every exit, sealed every escape route.

And yet the demons were laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" Raven demanded. Her voice rose, cracking at the edges. "Have you lost your minds?"

The salesman demon’s smile did not change.

His black eyes gleamed with something that looked like pity, like the sadness of a teacher watching a student fail a test they should have passed.

"Do you think," he said slowly, savoring each word, "that we used children to force you out?" He shook his head. "You are wrong."

Then he ripped the man’s head off.

The sound was wet, terrible, final. Flesh tearing like wet paper. Bones snapping like dry twigs. The spine separating from the skull with a sound that made some of the children scream and others fall silent. Blood sprayed across the stone floor in a wide arc, splattering against the walls, against the chains, against the children’s faces.

The man’s head came free in the demon’s hand. His eyes were still open, wide with terror, frozen in the moment of death. His mouth was still moving, still forming prayers that would never be answered, still begging for mercy that would never come.

His body remained kneeling for a moment, swaying slightly, as if it had not yet realized it was dead. Then it collapsed into the mud, the impact sending a spray of blood and filth across the floor.

One eyeball rolled across the floor.

It trailed a thin red thread behind it, like a comet with a tail of blood. It rolled past Luca’s feet, past Mina’s feet, past the feet of children who were too frozen to move. It came to a stop against the wall, still staring, still seeing, still reflecting the green light.

Brain matter splattered in front of Mina. Gray and wet, mixed with blood and bone, the texture of something that should never have been outside a skull.

The children screamed.

Their voices rose in a chorus of terror, raw and desperate, filling the chamber with the sound of breaking minds. Some clawed at their chains, trying to escape, trying to run, trying to wake up from a nightmare that would not end.

Their nails broke against the metal, leaving trails of blood on the rusted iron. Others curled into balls, pressing their faces against the mud, trying to hide from something that could not be hidden from.

Luca turned his head and vomited onto the stone floor. His body shook with dry heaves, his stomach empty but still trying to expel the horror it had witnessed.

Mina lost her mind.

She did not scream.

She did not cry.

She simply stared, her eyes wide, her mouth open, her mind unable to process what she had just seen. The image burned itself into her memory, the head coming free, the blood spraying, the body collapsing. It played again and again, a loop of horror that would never end.

Raven’s eyes widened behind her mask.

"You monster," she breathed.

Then she turned to her unit, her voice sharp, commanding. "Put the children to sleep. Now. Force sleep. Do not let them see any more of this."

The Shadow Crow unit moved without hesitation.

They raised their launchers and fired.

Purple smoke grenades arced through the air, landed beneath the children, and released thick clouds of sleeping gas. The smoke curled around the small bodies, gentle and terrible, carrying them away from the horror.

Within seconds, the children slumped against their chains, their eyes closed, their faces peaceful. The screaming stopped. The crying stopped. The chamber fell silent except for the drip of water and the wet sound of the demon cleaning his claws.

Raven turned to face the salesman demon, her blade in her hand, her rage barely contained.

"You demon bastard," she said, her voice low and trembling. "How dare you show this to children. How dare you."

The salesman demon laughed. "Why are you making such a fuss? Is this your first time seeing something like this?"

Raven froze. "What do you mean?"

The salesman demon’s smile twisted, becoming something darker, something more terrible.

"We do this to every child," he said. "Every single one. Before the sacrifice. Before the harvest. Before we send them to the Demon King." He gestured to the children, to the blood, to the body still kneeling in the mud. "We break them completely. So that when the time comes, they do not have the will to fight. They do not hope. They simply accept."

Raven’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened. No words came out.

"YOU FUCKING MONSTER..." she said.

She charged.

Her blade flashed in the green light, aimed at the salesman demon’s throat, aimed to end him, aimed to make him pay for every child he had broken, every prayer he had mocked, every drop of blood he had spilled.

The salesman demon’s aura rose to meet her.

"Now," he said, his voice filled with anticipation, with joy, with the hunger of a creature that had been waiting for this moment. "This is the game I wanted to play."

He moved first.

The demon crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat, not running, not charging, simply appearing before her as if the space had never existed. His claws came down in an arc aimed at her throat, and Raven barely raised her blade in time to deflect.

The impact sent shockwaves through her arms, through her shoulders, through her spine. Her boots skidded backward across the stone floor, leaving grooves in the mud.

She countered.

Her blade flashed upward, aiming for his ribs, but he twisted aside with a fluid grace that should not have been possible for a creature of his size.

His claws raked across her side, not deep, but enough to draw blood, enough to remind her that he was faster than her, stronger than her, better than her.

They clashed again and again, their weapons singing through the air.

Raven’s sword was a blur of silver, each strike precise, each movement practiced, each breath controlled. She had trained for decades. She had killed demons that would make lesser soldiers weep. But the salesman demon met her blow for blow, his claws sparking against her blade, his smile never wavering.

He was playing with her.

The realization settled into Raven’s chest like a stone. He was not fighting to win. He was fighting to enjoy himself. Every parry, every dodge, every counter was a performance, a dance, a game. And she was losing.

Her blade caught his claws in a locked struggle, their faces inches apart. His black eyes reflected her own, mask cracked, hair matted with sweat, blood trickling from a cut on her forehead.

"How?" she growled, pushing against him with all her strength. "How is a low-rank salesman demon this powerful?"

He chuckled, his breath hot against her face. "Oh my. Looks like Raven got a reality check." He shoved her back, and she stumbled, barely keeping her feet. "Getting your ass beat by a low demon? Surely, that must sting your pride."

His claws came down again.

She blocked.

He struck again.

She dodged.

He struck again, and this time, his claws found their mark.

The impact sent Raven flying across the chamber. She hit the wall with a sickening crack, the stone spiderwebbing around her body. She slid to the floor, her legs barely able to hold her weight, her vision swimming with stars. Blood dripped from her lips, her nose, the gash on her forehead.

Her mask was broken.

The crack ran from the crown to the chin, splitting the silver feather in two. She reached up and pulled the pieces away, letting them clatter to the stone floor. For the first time in years, her face was bare, pale, bloodied, human.

Behind her, her unit was dying.

The chamber had become a slaughterhouse. The Shadow Crow’s elite forces, seventy-six trained killers, veterans of a hundred missions, the best of the best, were being torn apart. The twenty-three demons that had seemed so insignificant, so low-rank, so easy to dismiss, moved through them like scythes through wheat.

One demon grabbed a soldier by the head, its claws sinking into his skull. The man screamed, a short, sharp sound that ended in a wet crunch. His body fell, his face unrecognizable, his blood pooling around the demon’s feet.

Another demon tackled a soldier to the ground, its jaws clamping around his throat. He gurgled, his hands clawing at the creature’s face, but it did not stop. It did not stop until his arms went limp, until his eyes went empty, until his blood had soaked into the mud.

A third demon stood in the center of the chaos, its arms spread wide, its mouth open in a silent scream. Soldiers fired at it, bullets, blades, magic, but nothing touched it. Nothing hurt it. It simply stood there, absorbing their attacks, waiting for them to tire, waiting for them to die.

Half the squad was already gone. Twenty-three demons had killed forty soldiers in minutes. The remaining thirty-six fought on, but panic was spreading. Their formation was breaking. Their discipline was crumbling.

They had come here expecting to hunt demons.

Instead, they were the prey.

Raven watched a soldier she had trained, a young woman with brown hair and steady hands, get dragged into the darkness by a demon’s claw. Her scream echoed through the chamber, then stopped. Then there was nothing.

"NO!" Raven screamed, pushing herself to her feet. Her legs trembled. Her arms shook. Her vision blurred with rage and grief.

The salesman demon laughed. He stood in the center of the carnage, his arms spread wide, his smile radiant, his black eyes gleaming with the joy of victory.

"What a pity," he said, his voice carrying over the screams, over the clashes, over the wet sounds of death. "If you had fought us before the Demon King promoted us, you might have ended us easily."

Raven’s blood ran cold. "Promoted? What do you mean?"

The demon’s smile twisted with pride.

"The Demon King knew you would follow me, Shadow Crow. He knew you would track me, watch me, wait for me to lead you to the demonic castle." He gestured to the demons behind him, to the carnage they had wrought. "So he gave us his own blood. His power. His blessing." His voice dropped to a whisper. "We are no longer low-rank demons, Captain Raven. We are higher than low. Stronger than you ever imagined."

Raven’s eyes widened. "Higher demons?" She couldn’t believe it, not even upper blood demon but higher demon.

"Not just me." The salesman demon spread his arms to encompass the slaughter. "All twenty-three of my demons. Every single one." His smile widened. "You walked into a trap, Captain. The Demon King set it, and you walked right in."

The demons behind him laughed.

Their voices rose in a chorus of mockery, echoing through the chamber, drowning out the screams of the dying. The sound was terrible, deep and cruel and filled with the joy of creatures who had been waiting for this moment.

Raven stood alone, her blade trembling in her hand, her unit dying around her, her mask broken at her feet.

She should have been terrified. She should have been hopeless.

Instead, she smiled.

"Truly," she said, her voice steady despite her trembling legs, "the Demon King has started to move."

The salesman demon’s eyes narrowed. "You find this amusing?"

"I find it enlightening." Raven straightened, ignoring the pain in her ribs, the blood on her lips, the weight of her dead soldiers pressing against her conscience.

"For so long, we believed the Demon King was preparing for world domination. That was what all the signs pointed to. The kidnappings. The harvests. The army building."

She paused.

"But that is not his plan, is it? World domination is just a cover. A distraction. While the world prepares for a war that will never come, he is doing something else. Something we cannot see."

The demon’s smile faltered, just for a moment, just enough for Raven to notice.

"What is he planning?" she demanded.

The demon said nothing.

Raven’s mind raced. If the Demon King was not planning world domination, then everything the Agency believed was wrong. Their strategies, their preparations, their alliances, all of it built on a lie.

She needed answers.

And the salesman demon had them.

"I have to capture him," she murmured.

Her hand drifted to her pocket. Her fingers brushed against something cold, something dark, something she had hoped never to use.

Chief Sara’s gift.

The demon noticed her hesitation and heard her words.

He laughed, and the demons behind him laughed with him, their voices rising in a chorus of mockery that echoed through the chamber.

"Oh my," he said. "Capture me? What a joke. I have not heard a good joke in so long." He leaned forward, his black eyes gleaming.

"How do you plan to capture me, Captain Raven? With your broken mask and your shattered squad and your trembling hands?"

Raven’s fingers tightened around the object hidden inside her pocket.

"I did not want to use this," she said, her voice low and steady.

"But you have left me no choice."

The moment she pulled it out, the demons stopped laughing.

Silence fell over the room.

In Raven’s hand rested an Aether Stone, the very same type of stone Fiona had once used to remove Yuuta’s unknown aura.

Dark energy swirled within its crystalline surface.

The surrounding air grew heavy.

The salesman demon’s smile vanished.

His pupils contracted.

For the first time since arriving, he felt something he had long forgotten.

Fear.

Not fear of pain.

Not fear of defeat.

Fear of death.

To Be Continued...