Saphira was gasping for air that left her lungs, for the very energy that had been stolen from her.
Her consciousness flickered like a candle, her world faded to a narrow tunnel, focused solely on the devil standing before her.
As the hellish day brightened from a deep, bloody twilight to a washed-out crimson, three pairs of eyes watched the unfolding drama from the deepest shadows at the basin's edge.
They were the rogue devils: Letras, Nyx, and Borog.
They were the 3 rouge devils Adam had encountered before; their desperation from escaping Kaelgor's forced subjugation transformed into insatiable greed once they saw the nexus point under the newborn's control.
It was only because of Adam's refusal, alongside his resistance to Nyx's seduction, that they left empty handed.
Even then, after Adam's refusal, the group was still unwilling to give up on obtaining his nexus and immediately started a different approach.
Their initial plan was simple; to scout the newborn's domain, observe his character, study his defenses, and better understand the nexus point.
Knowledge was power after all.
The basin's large area made it easy for the trio to find a more remote corner and hide, observing and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.
Thus, they secretly built their forces and set plans into motion.
Only, the longer their observation over the past days, the more sullen they had become.
Adam's army grew stronger, even to the point of acquiring a deviless under him. The attack rune on the nexus was horrifying; they had witnessed it turning an army of demons into mince meat. The only positive point in recon they had obtained was that this newborn was indeed one to indulge in carnal pleasures.
Sounds of sex were a constant in the nexus's peak; making Nyx slightly annoyed, since Adam had seemed completely uninterested and unaffected by her seduction magic.
Though, they still had hope as they brewed up a plan as their own small forces grew under the radar, on the basin's edge.
Hidden and discrete, even Adam had been unaware.
Yet, something unexpected had occurred.
Initially, it was the sudden, shocking appearance of not one, but three full armies: Kaelgor's berserkers alongside Vorlag's and Malgrim's armies too.
Their appearance effectively slammed any path for retreat right behind them.
They were trapped inside the basin as spectators, subjugated to a siege they had no part in, with their freedom now restrained by devils who outclassed them in strength and in numbers.
Trapped by a force that didn't even know that they were there.
Their initial reaction to the encirclement had been disbelief.
This was no longer a simple dispute between a newborn and Kaelgor; this was now a full-scale military siege.
The sheer, overwhelming show of force chilled even their veteran hearts. Never in their life had they witnessed such organized chaos: it was a glimpse to what they, as royals of hell, should be doing.
Yet they hid in crevices with a small horde of demons, not daring to breathe too loudly lest they give their position away…
They had hunkered down, hoping their concealment magics and the general chaos would be enough to hide them.
An army at the basins perimeter, within the basin the trio hid, and within the center, the gleaming barrier stood and protected the newborn's base.
It was this morning, after having become accustomed to hiding under their enemies shadow, that another change had occurred.
The barrier had rippled at one side.
They saw the red-skinned deviless, who had sneaked in close to the barrier at some point, converse with Adam; their distance was too far to hear what they were talking about.
Then, for a single instant, the barrier had opened.
They were momentarily startled, yet, instead of an army pouring out, the stunningly beautiful crimson-skinned deviless had been pulled inside into Adam's lustful embrace.
His actions of openly groping the beauty deceived the trio into thinking that Adam was about to have his way with her.
Then, before they could even process this, the scene had erupted into violence!
They saw Saphira's strike like lightning; her expression cold, and her attack the precise lethality of a high-tier devil's natural killing prowess.
Yet, after the surprise attack, they saw the impossible.
They saw the newborn, Adam retaliate with a ferocity that defied all reason.
Experienced and reborn with cunning eyes, and having become accustomed to demonic combat, they saw the unnatural flow of his movements.
His actions were seemingly unconscious, and the way his control over his elements moved with a fluidity that surpassed their's… it was uncanny and gave them a strong sense of threat.
It wasn't a brawl; it was a performance, as if he were a puppet being manipulated by the invisible strings of hell's hands themselves.
His body absorb a near-fatal blow and use the attack, the fear, and the rage to fuel a metamorphosis that should have taken months to build up to.
The air physically thickened with the chaotic aura of his ascension.
The violent, rapid growth of his power was a spectacle that left them deeply unsettled.
This was no ordinary newborn: he was an anomaly.
As the fight reached its peak and Adam's high-tier aura solidified with a visible gleam that vibrated through the air, a new danger appeared.
The massive armies encircling the basin, drawn by the intense commotion and the spike of energy from Adam's breakthrough, began to move long ago.
Patrols moved closer, tightening their perimeter in the process. Their commanding devils followed closely behind.
The rogue devils realized their hiding spot was becoming increasingly precarious.
With a series of silent glances, they began to withdraw, melting deeper into the jagged rock formations and the long, distorted shadows cast by the growing light.
They were rats in a cage, and the walls were closing in.
The last image burned into their minds before they vanished into the dark, was that of the newly ascended high-tier devil, Adam, standing victorious over the defeated, gasping form of Saphira.
His tall, powerful body was silhouetted against the bloody sky; a conqueror surveying his prize, while around them, the forces of three peak-tier devils stirred like a slumbering beast, and they were trapped in its den.
The game had changed entirely, they were no longer players, caught between a chaotic storm and an immovable wall.