Page 102 of The Road to Hell

I barely had time to react before the air imploded, before power—raw, undiluted, suffocating—ripped toward us like a living storm.

My hellfire roared to life, my fingers curling into fists as I met his attack with my own, my magic slamming into his with enough force to shake the very ground beneath us.

The battlefield trembled.

Lucifer’s lips parted in something that might have been a grin.

And then, with a voice as calm as the storm before a massacre, he said, “Bring me their heads.”

The battlefield exploded into chaos.

Lucifer’s command sent his army surging forward, the hellspawn sprinting across the field toward my forces. But it was the fallen who held my attention. The eight of them took to the skies, zipping toward us, their wings blotting out the light. One by one, they descended upon us. I barely had time to think before the first attack came.

Flames exploded to my left, dividing my army and separating me from Calder and Varz. I reached for the flames in an attempt to take control when another blast erupted to my right, cutting me off from Rathiel, Korrak, and Levi. In mere seconds, Ezrion had isolated me from my allies.

Inferno’s Kiss in hand, I summoned my own fire, about to unleash a torrent of flame on the fallen, when Korrak came charging through the surrounding blaze, immune to the heat. Another brimlord lunged for him, but Korrak punched the brimlord down, then crushed its head beneath his clawed foot, its skull snapping like brittle twigs.

Gremory dropped from the sky, his blade a streak of silver aimed at my head. Rathiel intercepted midair, his blade clipping one of Gremory’s wings without hesitation. The two fell to the ground in a chaotic battle for control. Their movements were a blur, fast and brutal, two masters of war locked in a deadly dance.

A wall of bodies crashed together as my forces met Lucifer’s in a storm of steel, fire, and blood. The ground trembled beneath the weight of countless combatants colliding, the air thick with the clash of blades and screams of battle.

A hellspawn lunged for me, fangs bared, its hulking form covered in spined armor. I leapt into the air and pivoted, Inferno’s Kiss flashing in my grip as I slashed through its throat. Black blood gushed from the wound as it staggered, its dying snarl lost in the surrounding cacophony. Another charged from behind. I twisted, ducking beneath its outstretched claws and raking my blade across its gut, splitting it open in one clean stroke. It fell with a shriek, but before its body even hit the ground, another took its place.

I met it with fire.

Flames roared from my free hand, engulfing the oncoming hellspawn in searing blue heat. It howled as my fire reduced it to cinders, but the moment it fell, another enemy surged forward. They were endless, waves of them pouring into my ranks, but my forces held.

For a solid minute.

Until a pulse rippled through the battlefield, something unseen but undeniable. A weight in the air, a twisting, unnatural disturbance that crawled beneath the skin and sent a whisper of unease through the mind.

I knew that feeling—had experienced it myself many times throughout the course of my life.

Gavrel had entered the fight.

He didn’t charge in with brute force like the others. He didn’t meet me head-on. No—he moved through my ranks, his presence unraveling the very foundation of my forces.

I felt it before I saw it—a creeping sensation, a disturbance in the flow of battle itself. The fluidity of my soldiers faltered, movements turning sluggish, uncertain. Brimlords shouted their orders, but they went unheard as confusion spread through the ranks like a sickness.

And then the real damage began.

I turned just in time to see two of my own soldiers turn on each other.

One slashed their blade across their comrade’s throat, their face twisted in unrecognizable rage. Another grabbed a fellow soldier and drove a dagger into their ribs, horror widening their eyes even as they committed the act.

Chaos.

Pure, undiluted, mind-breaking chaos.

Gavrel moved among them, his mere presence a poison in the mind of my forces. He didn’t need to lift his blade—his power was disruption, and he wielded it like a master.

I had to get to him, had to put him down before he turned all my forces.

Already, his influence was spreading—more of my soldiers hesitating, second-guessing their movements, their formations breaking apart. He hadn’t even drawn his blade yet, and still, he was undoing everything I had built.

I reached for my hellfire, ready to set him ablaze if only to put a stop to his influence.

But then Tavira stepped into my path.

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