Alma clenched her fist and smiled. Her mind returned to all those times when she and Surdi were sleeping next to each other, sharing the warmth of a tiny campfire even on the coldest of nights. She recalled her brother's nightmares and how sometimes they both couldn't close their eyes for more than a few minutes without the memories of their past ruining their sleep. She recalled how begging and stealing were almost the only options to get anything, from food to clothing. Each scar on her brother's body was then a memory of a failed attempt at theft. More than once did she have to help nurse him back to health after he tried to protect her from danger or steal something to fill their stomachs. All those memories suddenly turned to strength. The source of all the terrible things they had to endure was right there in front of her. Butterflies filled her stomach from the anticipation of finally breaking the demon, one bone at a time.

Ruun knew he didn't stand a chance. His body was not in any shape to fight. However, he also didn't want to. What would he gain from defeating her in combat? There was no way to control her and force her to do what he wanted. Therefore, Ruun chose the only solution he had left.

The demon dropped to his knees and lowered his forehead all the way to the ground. "Please!" He yelled out, his voice being carried through the mines by an echo. "I'm begging you. Reconsider."

"Reconsider?" Alma approached the kneeling demon. "Did you try to reconsider taking away my soul?!" she shouted and kicked the demon in his side. The crack of his outer carapace sounded immensely satisfying to her. "Did you ever try reconsidering all the killing?!" she kept yelling as he rolled to the side. "Or did you simply ignore everything you've done?! Do you have any idea what we've been through?! All those nightmares Surdi had to endure?! All the times we cried because suddenly, everything we had was gone?!?!" Tears slowly started gathering in her eyes, but one quick sweep pushed them away.

"Nightmares? You think you had it bad because of nightmares?" Ruun slowly stood up, leaning against a rock behind him. "I killed all sorts of people. Through them and their souls, I saw precisely what I took away. I pulled apart lovers, destroyed families, and took children away from their parents. I know exactly what atrocities I committed. Acuse me of all you want, but never of ignorance. That is the one crime I am not guilty of." He slowly reached into his cloak and pulled out a rather thick book, which he had previously carried fastened to the inner side of his clothing. "Take a look." He extended the hand with the book towards Alma.

"What is that?"

"Everyone. I wrote down everyone."

Reluctantly, she took the book from him and opened it to a random page. Her eyes darted across the tiny letters describing the name as well as the life and dreams of some random person. Each paragraph then seemed to be the same, describing one of Ruun's victims in some basic, yet surprising details. Quickly, Alma flipped the pages further and further, discovering records of tens, or potentially even hundreds of victims.

"Is this all of them?"

"Yes. Everyone who died by my hand. I wrote down everyone. You... maybe you should try page 236."

Alma glanced up from the books, giving the demon a gaze full of mistrust, which, however, was hardly noticeable, given her pitch-black eyes.

"236?" She muttered as she flipped the pages again, while also keeping one eye on the demon just to make sure he wouldn't try to simply distract her. "You sick son of a bitch..." she mumbled as she read names she knew far too well. There were her neighbours, the kids she used to play with, and eventually, even her own family.

"Why the fuck are you showing me this?!" she yelled at the demon.

"I never forgot, you know? About anyone."

Alma flipped a page further and found her own name written down, not too far away from Surdi's.

"Back then, I thought you were dead, so I wrote you down too. It's not just you and your family. I remember all of them. Try me. Ask me a page and I will tell you who's there. Ask me a name and I will tell you who they were."

"Why should I? Heck, why should I give a fuck about any of this?!"

"Because there is one name missing there. Did you notice?"

"No, I didn't notice! There's like a million names there!"

"Mine isn't."

"So?"

"So that means I don't want to be remembered. Not by anyone." He let out a loud groan as he tried to straighten his back. The pain in his side was throbbing, making him believe that Alma must've cracked even a rib or two with her attack. "I was never doing this for myself. In hell, the demons have nothing to eat to sustain themselves, so they devour one another. Children especially are easy prey. Do you have any idea how many of them die every day just because the bigger demons want to survive? Or heck, even the smaller ones! They just eat each other because there's no other choice! I know you hate me, and I know I've done some truly terrible things. If you want to punish me, that is completely fine by me. You can just tear me to pieces, crush me to powder, or torture me to death in any way that would bring you satisfaction. But those demons in there are not guilty of my crimes. They haven't done anything wrong. I'm sure they would do anything to have even a fate as terrible as yours, as long as it would mean they'd get to live. I'm not asking you to spare me. I'm asking you to save them." His arms fell limp to the sides of his body. "That's it, really. I don't have any more cards left to play or pieces to place. If you open the way to Hell, the demons will be free. Valimar will take care of the rest. It will be difficult. They will be ostracized, discriminated against, and most likely victims of countless hate crimes, but they will have a future. And maybe, in years and years to come, some might see them as equals. So I beg you, don't take this away from them. Don't make the lives of all those who died for this be in vain."

Alma took a deep breath. The previous marble-white colour returned to her eyes. "You do realize I will kill you first, right? You will never know if I listened. You will never see your dream come true."

"I do know. I can see it in your face. You hate me, not them. I just know you will do the right thing. I don't need to be alive to see it. I have already lived for much longer than I should've. So please, feel free to do whatever you wish. At this point, there's nothing else I can do." He leaned against the rock behind him and slid down along it until he sat on the ground. He did his best to hide his smile. His belief was stronger than ever. It seemed that now, the future of the demonkind was finally brightening up.

Glavas and Surdi stood there, in the middle of the street, watching as Swen waved his arms around, leaving behind small, glowing, purple dots.

"Will it take much longer? I thought we were in a hurry," Glavas tried to nudge him.

"Excuse me, would you like to do it instead?"

"And what are you even doing again?"

"They are far below us. I need to make us a direct passage. Preferably without destabilizing the mountain around us. Since I have no idea how to actually do this, I am writing an entirely new spell on the go, so please, have some patience!"

Surdi walked a bit closer and looked at one of the tiny purple orbs.

"It's got writing inside?" Glavas translated Surdi's sign language since Swen seemed too busy focusing on the floor ahead.

"Indeed. Do you know how wizards write complicated spells into spell books? Well, you don't actually need a spell book to do it. I mean, you kind of do, because you want to keep the spell recorded somewhere so you can just use it again and again, but if you're desperately out of paper, the symbols can just be written by magic. Any magic, really. I use the glow of distant stars since this way it's easier to maintain their shape."

Surdi looked down at his own hand. Was this something everyone could do? With his chipped claw, he began drawing a symbol in the air. Tiny bits of his signature green smoke started flying out.

"Condense it, so it's more visible. Maintain the shape. Come on... just... focus!" he thought while his unblinking eyes concentrated on the symbol ahead of him until it finally took the desired shape - the letter for "Neho". "Okay, and now, just think fire. Think–" The symbol suddenly burst into a small wave of flame that travelled a solid few metres ahead before it dissipated into thin air.

"HA! I did it!" he yelled out. The sudden loud voice that came from the dragon's previously silent mouth felt like a static jolt going straight into Swen's hands. God or not, his concentration dropped for a split second, causing one of the purple orbs to fall to the ground with a soft, glass-like clink.

"Oh shit..." Swen muttered shortly before the entire cave began shaking around them. "Nevermind, integrity damaged! We'll just go!" he yelled at the two behind him and abandoned his plans for a more sophisticated spell.

"Charap an tordazor!" he yelled out and clapped, with the tips of his fingers pointing slightly downwards. In the very next moment, a tunnel began forming in front of them. It was a wide, perfect cylindrical corridor that seemed to travel downwards, potentially all the way to where Alma was. "Inside!" Swen yelled and the others didn't wait for one second to listen to his order. If the cave was actually losing its stability, every place was safer than the streets of the city. Especially if that said place contained the human god. The trio ran inside the steep tunnel while rocks and rubble came crashing down behind them.

"Cem oc sac itarbo!" Swen yelled out and another blade, as if made of two entwined rods of glass and gold, appeared in his hand. With it, he quickly drew a circle behind them, and the tunnel's entrance suddenly disappeared, leaving them in total darkness until the god conjured up some floating lights.

"Phew, that was close. I don't like close calls like these." Swen sighed. "Ijuked it tarkacom, Eigam, am anavolim. Uzakoden yvols tridajiv juvs kedov."

Glavas and Surdi looked around. [So what did that spell do?]

"That was not a spell."

[Oh, so you just talk in the language of magic for fun?]

"No, not for fun. But has it ever occurred to you that perhaps if you'd thank Eigam after performing a spell, she might be willing to lend you more of her power and see you as more than just a parasite demanding something?"

[I...] Surdi couldn't find the right words.

"Exactly. Gratitude opens many doors. Especially with gods. Now let's hurry. We don't have much time." Swen rushed through the tunnel with Glavas and Surdi in tow. The time of the hell gate opening was approaching, and he couldn't help but wonder if he would still make it in time.

Alma stood above Ruun, delivering another punch into his many-eyed face. The demon's blood splashed across the floor and soon after, he coughed up some more.

"Come on! Say something?!" she yelled at him, her eyes looking as if splashes of ink were mixing with their perfect white, yet refusing to combine.

"I have nothing more to say. I know what will happen now. All this pain is just part of the process. Now it's my turn to suffer. Been a long time coming."

Alma growled and kicked him in the shoulder, cracking yet another bone. "Stop looking so happy! You shouldn't be enjoying this, you freak!"

"Sorry, I can't help it. When you get what you deserve, the guilt eases. It's a relief."

Alma clenched her fist and was ready to deliver yet another blow when suddenly, the entire mountain began shaking. It was unlike anything that happened before. There were a few tremors here and there even as they travelled down into the depths, but never ones that would be this strong.

"An earthquake? Now?!" Ruun's slight smile of relief was soon replaced by concern. If the ceiling would start coming down, he wasn't sure that Alma would know how to withstand it.

Without any warning, the sound stopped just as a massive, perfectly cylindrical hole opened up in the ceiling. At first, Alma's heart skipped a beat. Was this a natural disaster? The answer presented itself soon enough when Glavas and Surdi emerged from the tunnel, along with a strangely-dressed young man.

"Ah, perfect, a family reunion," Ruun spoke. As soon as his words reached Glavas' ears, the elf reached for his holster, ready to finish this once and for all. Were it not for Swen's gentle, yet incredibly strong grip, the demon would die at that very moment.

"Calm, hunter."

"Shut up! He took so much from me! I wanna see his brain paint these walls!"

"That is not going to happen."

"What happened to you being on our side, huh?"

Swen looked to the side at the two children, who immediately upon seeing each other pulled one another closer into a tight and tear-filled embrace.

"Gods should not pick a side. I didn't come here to help Ruun nor to aid you in killing him. I'm just a messenger. So now, we should let the contractor speak. Eigam, sezum nev."

Two hands appeared on Swen's shoulders. They looked humanoid, with their five long, slender fingers, but the claws that gently dug into Swen's tunic were comparable to talons. As the rest of the body began taking shape, Glavas couldn't help but recall some of the experiments in Sizzy's lab. It was as if the being was stripped of all its skin, leaving only the exposed muscles and flesh.

The rest of the body looked oddly humanoid too, and yet disturbing and different. Where one would expect ribs there was nothing more than oval-shaped muscles, which seemed to hold the entire torso together. The area of the waist then got progressively thinner and thinner, until it became clear that legs would not follow, instead being replaced by a long, slender tail.

The head was the final thing to form, however, instead of simply appearing, like the rest of the body, it seemed to form out of loose muscle fibres, which grew out of the top part of the torso, weaving themselves into a vague shape of a human head, without any signs of a neck.

An orifice opened on the eyeless face. The darkness inside its mouth seemed to lead to nowhere, except for a single large eyeball, which looked as if it was sitting embedded deep in its throat.

the creature spoke and everyone but the human god scrunched up their faces upon hearing the horrific sound. It was as if an entire crowd was speaking at the same time, but each individual voice was in a different language. The meaning then appeared in their minds. Not as a sound but as simple information, raw and unprocessed, yet seared into their memory like a brand.

Swen smiled and gently pat the creature on the head before it finally let go of its shoulders and hovered over to the kneeling demon. Ruun sat there, completely stunned.

"H-H-Who... are... you?" he said, each word coming out unarticulated and stressed, as if it required all his willpower just to push them out.

the creature "spoke".

"You... are really... E-Eigam?"

Ruun smiled and clenched his teeth as he stood up from the ground. "Ha... Haha... HAHAHA!" he yelled out, his throat wheezing as if he was gasping for air. "Then I can... make it happen... flawlessly. You can actually do... anything, right?" he spoke, his voice slowly clearing up with the shock finally subsiding. "You can just set... the demons free!"

"Why not? We can just talk about this. I've got... this whole plan I–"

Eigam floated closer, the eye in her throat staring Ruun down.