He followed the direction of the scream, his boots pounding on the hard-packed earth. He arrived at the western perimeter to find a scene of chilling, supernatural horror that seemed ripped from the pages of a madman’s nightmare. One of the ducal guards, a young, terrified soldier, was scrambling backward on the ground, his sword forgotten, his face a mask of pure, gibbering terror. And stalking toward him, moving with a slow, unnatural, and jerky gait, was a thing of shadow and bone. It was a skeletal figure, no more than 2.5 feet tall, the size of a human child. It was clad in a mockery of armor, plates of blackened, corroded metal that seemed fused to its very bones. Its head was a bare, grinning skull, its empty eye sockets burning with a faint, malevolent red light. In one skeletal hand, it clutched a rusty, jagged dagger that dripped a dark, viscous fluid. A faint, swirling aura of shadow and cold despair wreathed its diminutive form. It was a Curse Knight. But it was a pathetic, infantile version of the one he had fought at the Royal Academy. This was not a warrior; this was a hatchling, a newborn monster taking its first steps into the world. The sight sent a jolt of ice-cold confirmation through Lloyd’s soul. His grim theory was no longer a theory. It was a walking, stalking, and horrifying reality. The plague wasn’t just killing the villagers; it was harvesting them. The other soldiers were frozen, paralyzed by the sheer, superstitious horror of the apparition. But Lloyd did not hesitate. There was no time for shock, no room for fear. This was an enemy asset, and it had to be neutralized. He didn't draw on his own power. He didn't activate his Black Ring Eyes or manifest his chains. That would be too slow, too subtle. He needed a statement. He needed overwhelming, absolute, and terrifying force. He reached into the unified core of his being, into the raging, volcanic heart of his second spirit. “Iffrit,” he whispered, the name a silent command in his soul. The air in front of him did not shimmer or tear. It simply… ignited. In a silent, instantaneous eruption of pure, incandescent crimson energy, the nine-foot-tall demon king of annihilation materialized. One moment, there was nothing. The next, a god of fire stood between Lloyd and the skeletal horror. The newborn Curse Knight froze, the faint red light in its eye sockets flickering as its rudimentary intelligence tried to process the impossible, overwhelming presence before it. Iffrit, the embodiment of absolute, cosmic-level destruction, looked down at the pathetic, 2.5-foot-tall creature of bone and shadow. A low, rumbling sound, like the grinding of tectonic plates, echoed from deep within the fire demon’s core. It was a sound of pure, divine, and utter contempt. Then, with a movement that was almost lazy, a gesture of casual, cosmic annoyance, Iffrit swung his colossal, twelve-foot-long, flame-wreathed zanbatō. He didn't even use the edge of the blade. He simply swatted the creature with a contemptuous backhand. The impact was not a clash of steel on bone. It was an act of erasure. The flaming greatsword connected with the Curse Knight, and in a silent, brilliant flash of crimson light, the creature was simply… gone. Vaporized. Unmade. Not a single shard of bone, not a wisp of shadow, remained. The entire, terrifying encounter, from the scream to the final, silent annihilation, had taken less than five seconds. A profound, shocked silence fell over the perimeter. The soldiers, who had been scrambling in terror, now stood as still as statues, their eyes wide, their mouths agape, staring at the nine-foot-tall god of fire that had just appeared from nowhere and erased a nightmare with the casual air of a man swatting a fly. Into this shocked silence, a new figure stepped from the shadows. Captain Graph. His face was a mask of profound, and in Lloyd’s opinion, slightly-too-perfect shock. He stared at the spot where the Curse Knight had been, then at the magnificent, terrifying form of Iffrit, and then, finally, his gaze settled on Lloyd. “My Lord,” Graph said, his voice a low, grave rumble. “It seems… it seems the village is haunted.” Lloyd said nothing. He simply met the captain’s gaze over the shimmering, heat-hazy form of his demonic spirit. Haunted, Lloyd thought, a cold, bitter amusement touching his mind. No, Captain. Not haunted. Harvested. This was no ghost. This was the first horrifying symptom of the true, unholy nature of the plague. The dead were rising. And the harvest had begun. Lloyd allowed the magnificent, terrifying spectacle to hang in the air for a few heartbeats longer. Iffrit stood as a silent, nine-foot-tall testament to a power that defied all mortal comprehension, his magma-plate armor pulsing with a deep, internal fire, his flaming zanbatō resting on his shoulder. The ducal soldiers, brave men who had faced down charging cavalry and enemy mages, were utterly broken by the sight. They were staring at a god, and their faces were a mixture of awe and pure, existential terror. This was a necessary lesson. Fear was a more effective tool for maintaining discipline than any command. He gave a silent, mental command, and Iffrit dissolved as instantly and as silently as he had appeared, folding back into the void of Lloyd’s soul. The sudden absence of the immense, oppressive heat and the crimson light was as jarring as his arrival. The night air felt impossibly cold in its wake. Lloyd turned to the still-frozen soldiers, his voice cutting through their shock like a whip. “Report,” he snapped at the young guard who had been the target of the attack. The soldier, shaking, scrambled to his feet and stammered out his account. He had been on patrol, had heard a sound from the darkness beyond the firelight, a sound like scraping bone. He had challenged it, and the “little skeleton demon” had emerged from the trees, moving with an unnatural speed. It hadn’t made a sound, just came at him with the dagger. Lloyd’s mind processed the information. Small. Fast. Silent. A perfect stealth-and-terror weapon. It wasn’t designed to fight an army; it was designed to pick off sentries, to sow panic and break morale. Another piece of brilliant, asymmetrical design from his unknown enemy. He dismissed the terrified soldier and turned his attention to Captain Graph. The man was still staring at the spot where Iffrit had been, his face a perfect mask of bewildered shock. But his eyes, Lloyd noted, were sharp, analytical. He was not a terrified soldier; he was an intelligence officer gathering data on a new, unexpected weapon system. “A ‘haunting’ is one theory, Captain,” Lloyd said, his voice cool and dismissive. “My own assessment is that we are dealing with a form of dark magic, a lingering effect of the plague that is… animating the dead. A grotesque but ultimately manageable side effect.” He was deliberately downplaying the significance of the event, framing it as a bizarre anomaly rather than the horrifying new phase of the crisis it truly was. He needed to control the narrative. Graph nodded slowly, his gaze finally meeting Lloyd’s. “A formidable side effect, my lord. That was… a formidable spirit. I have never seen its like.” The compliment was delivered with the flat, professional tone of a man assessing a piece of equipment. “It is a family secret,” Lloyd replied, the lie easy and practiced. “Reserved for… special pest control.” He then gave Graph his orders. “Double the perimeter guards. I want them in pairs, back-to-back. No one patrols alone. Issue blessed silver amulets from the supply wagon to all your men. They may be useless, but they will be good for morale. Any further… apparitions… are to be reported immediately. Do not engage. Contain and report. Is that clear?” “Perfectly, my lord,” Graph said, giving another of his short, correct bows before striding off into the darkness to carry out his orders, his form swallowed by the night. Lloyd watched him go, a cold certainty solidifying in his gut. Graph’s performance had been flawless. The shock, the awe, the fawning respect—it was all perfectly calibrated. Too perfect. A real soldier, even a veteran like Graph, would have had a more visceral reaction to the sudden appearance of a Transcended-level fire demon. There would have been a flicker of genuine fear, a moment of instinctual retreat. Graph had shown none. He had been a spectator at a play, and a very interested one at that. Amina appeared at his side, a silent shadow. She had witnessed the entire event from the edge of the firelight. Her face was pale, but her eyes were blazing with a thousand questions. “That was Iffrit,” she stated, her voice a low, stunned whisper. “Your second Transcended spirit. The one from the Jahl Challenge.” “It was,” Lloyd confirmed, his gaze still fixed on the dark perimeter where Graph had vanished. Content orıginally comes from 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✶𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✶𝓷𝓮𝓽 “And you have another three spirit with same power. You have been holding back, Lloyd,” she said, not as an accusation, but as a dawning, horrified realization. “The sheer, absolute scale of your power… you have been deliberately sandbagging, even with me.”