Adam hit the floor hard, his body skidding across the rough stone for several meters before coming to a stop. Pain lanced through his back, his shoulders, his head. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, leaving a warm and metallic on his tongue.
He lay there, stunned, his mind reeling.
The demonic mana pulse had been unexpected, completely outside his forethought.
His lack of knowledge on runes, the confidence he had gained from his previous successes in integrating the defense rune and attack rune with the high-tier remnants of Gorael's work, his sheer lack of experience; all of it had conspired to blind him.
Before, his mistakes had been built on arrogance and lust.
He had been too confident, too greedy, too willing to take risks.
But this time, the situation was different, a complete blind spot. It was something he didn't even know was possible. A fault of having no experience in his past life, a gap in his understanding that no amount of inherited knowledge could fill.
The only positive in this sudden, violent event was that he was still alive.
The mana blast had been more flashy than dangerous, one that had not been designed to kill.
Had he made a mistake with the attack rune, had that been the source of the surge, he and everyone in the basin would likely have been vaporized…
The barrier held easily.
The turbulent demonic waves crashed against the solid, black wall, but it did not budge, did not crack, did not even flicker. The energy was contained, suppressed, hidden from the outside world.
The waves settled after five agonizing seconds.
Five seconds of chaos, of terror, of desperate, silent thoughts.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
The mercury-like veil of the portal settled into a steady, gentle shimmer.
Its surface calm, Adam's goal achieved...
The demonic mana that had flooded the basin began to dissipate, absorbed by the obelisk, by the ground, and by the very air.
Adam, still lying on his back, reached out with his will and turned down the barrier's energy, returning it to its normal, translucent standard.
The solid, black void faded, replaced once again by the familiar, shimmering wall.
Faint light and sound flooded back into the basin; the panicked cries of his demons mixed with the shouts of those demons outside the barrier.
The damage was already done.
Five seconds.
It was an eternity.
Long enough for every entity with even a modicum of sensitivity to demonic energy to have felt the surge.
Long enough for the odd barrier to have been seen and sensed.
Adam lay on his back, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, as he wiped the trickling blood from his mouth.
Although the blast had been more flash than substance, being point-blank to the portal's activation had still caused damage.
His body ached, his head throbbed, and his demonic core felt drained, wrung raw by the effort of maintaining his control through the chaos.
He lay there for several long seconds, staring up at the deep purple sky, listening to the restless sounds of his horde and the erratic, panicked movements of the demons beyond the barrier.
His mind raced, already calculating, already planning, already trying to assess the repercussions of his mistake.
The portal was complete: that was the victory.
But the cost was incalculable.
He had wanted to leave the first layer quietly, unnoticed, slipping away like a ghost. He even had greedy thoughts of obtaining more relics, resources, and women from Kaelgor.
Now, that was impossible.
Now, he had to run and hope that whatever ancient entities had sensed his defense barrier were too far away, too distracted, or too uncaring to come observe.
He closed his eyes, took a deep, and steadied his breath.
As Adam lay sprawled on the rough, scorched ground after the mana shockwave, a familiar figure rushed to his side.
Lyra's silver hair was a blur as she descended from the raised platform above the portal, her bare feet slapping against the stone steps, her heart pounding with lingering fear from the sudden shock.
Seeing Adam on the ground, she dropped to her knees beside him, her hands hovering over his chest, pulling back at the last second to avoid causing more pain or startling him.
"Adam!" Her voice was sharp, laced with a shock she did not try to conceal.
Her thoughts still lingered on the overpowering mana wave that had hit her, that had slammed into her and left her gasping, disoriented.
She had been very close to the portal too, waiting on the raised room above the platform, watching over Saphira, when the explosion had erupted.
The force had thrown her against the wall, had rattled her head and blurred her vision, but she had recovered quickly.
At that moment of sudden chaos, her mind subconsciously shifted from the potential danger that could be occurring, to the thoughts of fleeing, and moved to someone: to him.
It was only when she saw Adam breathing steadily, albeit with blood on his lips and his clothes in tatters, that her heart and mind finally eased.
Adam was her safety, indulgence, and pleasure.
She had fully committed herself in taking advantage of him, but by doing so, she had also grown reliant on him.
She didn't want to go back to those days as a rogue devil.
She didn't want to work tirelessly to grow stronger and avoid danger. To lose the safety he provided and he demons they commanded.
She didn't want to lose him.
Steam rose in droves from both their bodies as a visible manifestation of their accelerated healing.
Adam's wounds, the cuts, bruises, and the internal trauma from the blast, began to knit together as the flesh sealed and the blood clotted. The recovery of a high-tier lesser devil was a marvel indeed.
Lyra's own minor injuries, a gash on her arm and a bruise on her ribs, faded fast as well.
The surrounding air grew thick with the scent of burnt flesh and demonic energy; a byproduct of their rapid regeneration.
Finally, Adam's eyes refocused.
The glassy, stunned look vanished and was replaced by the sharp, calculating gleam that Lyra had come to recognize and adore.
He sat up, pushing himself up, his movements stiff but purposeful, his mind already racing ahead.
All the previous plans, all of his carefully laid strategies and timelines, were thrown out of the window.
The mana wave had changed everything.
The attention it had attracted, the potential consequences, made it so they could no longer afford caution or patience.
They had to move, and they had to move now!
His demonic fur cloak, the one he had worn since his earliest days in hell, was in tatters. It had been made from the hide of a peak-tier lesser demon. Sturdy, resilient, but nothing compared to the durability of a devil's flesh.
The entire upper right shoulder of the fur was burned to ashes, the edges still smoking faintly. The rest of the cloak looked like Swiss cheese, riddled with holes and burns, the fur singed and blackened.
Adam shrugged it off, letting the ruined garment fall to the ground. He would need a new one. But that was a concern for later.
"Blair! Agri! Here, now!" He raised his voice, his commanding, cutting through the chaos of the basin.
The two demonesses, who had been slumped against the base of the obelisk, recovering from their exhaustion, jerked at the sound of his voice.
They were tired, their bodies aching, and their mana reserves mostly depleted. The blast had hit them too, had sent them tumbling across the platform, and added new bruises to their already weary bodies.
But Adam's tone allowed no argument or delay.
Their lord had called for them.
They dragged their tired bodies to his side, their movements slow and pained, their eyes wide with a mixture of fear and devotion.
A small part within them worried that Adam would place the blame of the disaster on them.
Luckily he didn't say a thing to them just yet.
Adam's gaze shifted to Lyra, his mouth opening to issue a command, but before he could speak, his brow rose. His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing his handsome, sweat-streaked face.
Behind Lyra, wrapped in a random fur blanket that had been snatched from the bed upstairs, stood Saphira.
The crimson-skinned deviless was awake, her molten brass eyes fixed on Adam with an unreadable expression. But it was not her presence that surprised him, as he had expected her to wake eventually.
No, it was her appearance!
Saphira was… black.
Her face, neck, arms, every inch of exposed skin was covered in a thick, dark layer of soot and ash.
It was smeared unevenly, some places thick and clotted, others thin and streaky, as if applied carelessly.
Her beautiful, enchanting features were obscured, reduced to a comical, almost cartoonish mask.
Only her eyes, those beautiful molten brass irises, remained visible, staring out from the darkness with a mixture of indignation and heavy-hearted resignation.