How Did It Come to This

The sky was on fire again.

Not metaphorically—literally.

Crimson streaks of mana carved jagged paths across the clouds as a tide of demons spilled from the shattered gates of the Demon King’s fortress. Fire rained like shards of blood-stained glass, casting flickering shadows across the jagged battlefield.

And me?

I stood at the edge of a ruined cliff, twin daggers humming with corrupted light in my hands. The wind tore at my cloak, my hair, the last fragments of peace I might’ve had. Somewhere between the tower’s roar and the screams of fiends, I realized this wasn’t how I imagined my second life would turn out.

To my left, Nyssari bounced lightly on her heels. Her grin stretched wide, eyes glowing gold with that dangerous excitement she always got before a fight. Her cat ears twitched; her tail flicked like it was already counting kills.

“First one to ten gets the last dried meat,” she said, flipping a dagger and catching it by the tip like a coin toss.

“To eat or to stab with?” I muttered.

She just winked. “Why not both?”

To my right, Vaelynn adjusted the gauntlet on her sword arm with calm precision. She was always like this—composed, regal, terrifying in motion. The tip of her sword gleamed with a recent sharpening, and her shield was already radiating mana. She didn’t speak, but her stance said enough: ready when you are.

Behind me, Zaelith whispered something under her breath, and the air warped. Fire curled around one hand like a living thing, while in the other, a shroud of darkness writhed and pulsed. Dual casting. No chant, no hesitation.

“I assume you’re going to rush in without thinking again,” she said flatly.

“I like to call it improvising.”

She snorted. “You’d be dead three times over without me.”

Above us, Seralyn hovered with feathered wings stretched wide, her staff glowing faintly with silver light. She hadn’t spoken all morning. That wasn’t unusual. When she did speak, it was always with purpose—and often just before saving one of our asses.

Still, her silence was oddly reassuring. She had our backs, whether or not she said it.

I tightened my grip on the daggers, feeling their weight settle in my arms like second nature. One of them still bore the faint, flickering sigil from the last cursed relic we’d encountered. The other—lighter, curved, razor-sharp—had been a gift from a blacksmith who probably thought I wouldn’t survive to use it.

And yet, here I was.

Aeren. Assassin, reincarnated. Eyes split violet and red. Reborn into a world that needed saving.

Or so they said.

I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t volunteer to lead anyone. And I sure as hell didn’t sign up to babysit four overpowered, dangerously unstable, S-tier disasters. But fate doesn’t care what you want.

The first wave of monsters hit the ridge like a tsunami of claws and bone.

And I moved.

The world snapped into rhythm as my foot left the ground. One beat. Two. My body surged forward, instincts flooding into motion. I weaved through the chaos, blades flashing.

My left dagger carved through a demon’s throat with a hiss of corrupted energy. My right twisted up and buried into the underside of its jaw, cleaving straight through.

“Show-off,” Zaelith muttered, hurling a wave of black fire over my shoulder. A pair of beasts exploded mid-pounce.

“You’re welcome,” she added before I could respond.

“Didn’t ask,” I said, parrying a claw swipe and dropping low to drive both daggers into a lumbering creature’s knees.

“I swear,” Nyssari called out from somewhere to my left, “if you two flirt mid-fight again, I’m jumping off the cliff.”

She zipped past me in a blur, dual daggers flashing like streaks of silver. Her laughter was wild and reckless as she vaulted off Vaelynn’s shield, flipping into the air and bringing both weapons down onto a demon’s skull.

“That’s four!” she shouted. “And yes, I’m counting!”

I didn’t have time to reply. Another demon lunged. I sidestepped, spun, and slashed—fast, clean, efficient.

Vaelynn held the center line like a fortress in human form. Her shield collided with a charging brute, sending it tumbling with a burst of kinetic force. She moved with grace that shouldn’t be possible in full plate armor—deflecting, countering, leading.

Seralyn drifted above us, her staff pulsing with waves of restorative light. The sting of shallow wounds faded as her magic passed over me. I didn’t even need to ask.

She never missed a beat.

I exhaled through my teeth as I ducked behind a stone spire. The next wave was already charging over the ridge—larger, faster, armed.

A roar thundered across the battlefield. Something massive stirred within the fortress.

My gaze lifted.

A silhouette emerged behind the haze. Massive, horned, cloaked in armor that pulsed with demonic aura. Eyes like twin furnaces. The Demon King.

“Big guy’s awake,” Nyssari muttered, sliding beside me, hair tousled, grinning like a lunatic.

Zaelith narrowed her eyes. “Then let’s end this fast.”

Vaelynn stepped forward, shield raised. “Formation?”

They all looked at me.

Me. The guy who just wanted a quiet second life.

I adjusted my grip. My daggers burned with residual energy. The wind howled. Mana crackled in the air like static. This was the end of the beginning—or the beginning of the end.

Either way… it was mine to finish.

Slaying the Demon King sounded cool… until I had to do it with four S-tier nightmares and no therapy.

But I’ll get it done.

Because if fate chose me—

Then fate’s just going to have to live with the consequences.

The Demon King raised his arm.

And the world held its breath.

Black lightning swirled in his hand, slow and deliberate, as if the spell didn’t require urgency—because what did he have to fear? Before him stood five people. That was it. Five figures against an army of monsters, and a fortress built on the bones of kingdoms.

And yet… he hesitated.

Because we weren’t normal.

Not anymore.

The others looked to me.

That part always caught me off guard—how four people who could destroy a city on their own still waited for me to lead. As if I had all the answers. As if I were anything more than a guy who learned how to survive long enough to fake it.

Nyssari crouched low, her golden eyes flicking between targets, her tail coiled like a whip. Her smile hadn’t faded, but I knew that expression. That was her serious face. The moment her ears stopped twitching? Someone was going to die.

Zaelith’s fingers glowed like dying embers—one hand already wrapped in flame, the other pulsing with a muted black aura that shimmered like oil on water. Her eyes didn’t blink. Not even once. She was calculating the Demon King’s casting time down to the millisecond. She always did.

Seralyn glided in behind me, soft wings barely rustling in the wind, staff held in both hands as light curled around its tip. Her magic always hummed like distant singing. You couldn’t hear it, not really—but you felt it in your chest. Calm. Steady. Like the world would be okay, so long as she was still flying.

And Vaelynn… Vaelynn was already walking forward.

“Hold formation,” I said automatically.

She didn’t answer—just adjusted her grip on her shield and kept walking.

“Vaelynn.”

Still no answer.

“She’s already locked in,” Zaelith muttered. “If you’re going to stop her, you’ve got about six seconds before she does something impressive and stupid.”

I sighed through my nose. This was our rhythm. I didn’t control them. I just… nudged them in the right direction and hoped we didn’t all die.

Nyssari grinned wider. “Ohhh, the big guy’s charging up something nasty.”

“I can feel it too,” Seralyn murmured.

“Yeah,” I said, lifting my daggers. “Which is why we’re not going to stand here waiting for it.”

My left dagger glowed faintly, its edge humming with latent heat. The right burned colder—colder than steel had any right to feel. Two blades forged from opposite cores, gifted and reforged more times than I could count. They weren’t pretty anymore. But they were mine.

And they’d gotten me through worse.

…I think.

Because the truth is—I don’t remember how we got from where we started to here. Not all of it.

The battles blur together. The quests, the monsters, the betrayals. The people we saved. The cities that burned anyway. The friends we lost.

All I remember—vividly—is them.

Nyssari’s laugh as she charged into danger.

Zaelith’s quiet disdain for anything beneath her IQ.

Seralyn’s hands glowing over a dying comrade.

Vaelynn standing between me and death more times than I can count.

And now they were waiting. Not for orders. But for the first step.

For me.

The Demon King lifted his hand higher. The sky cracked open above him—lightless, soundless. The storm was coming.

I inhaled, slow and deep, the scent of ash and ozone thick in my lungs.

This wasn’t where our journey began. But it might be where it ends.

“Nyssari,” I said, voice calm, “left side. Distract.”

“You got it.”

“Zaelith. Ground that spell before it lands.”

“I was already going to.”

“Seralyn. Keep us up.”

A soft nod.

“Vaelynn—”

“Already moving,” she said, her tone like iron meeting iron.

Of course she was.

I stepped forward, daggers low, and felt the ground shift as mana pooled beneath the world.

We weren’t ready.

We weren’t coordinated.

We were reckless, mismatched, and completely insane.

But somehow, we worked.

And if this was the final battle…

Then we’d meet it on our terms.

My eyes burned—one violet, one red.

And for the first time in what felt like a long time…

I smiled.

“Let’s go ruin his day.”