The first creature closed the distance faster than its hollow, shambling posture suggested it should have been capable of, claws extended toward Diablo's throat in a lunge that carried real weight behind it despite the emaciated frame. Diablo sidestepped and answered with a clean strike across its midsection, careful to keep the blow measured rather than lethal, uncertain yet whether these turned villagers retained any trace of the people they'd once been beneath Malachar's control.The creature staggered but didn't fall, hollow eyes fixing on him again with the same mindless hunger, and two more closed in from either flank before he could press the advantage. Diablo pivoted, catching one across the shoulder hard enough to send it sprawling, while narrowly avoiding the second's grasping claws by dropping low and sweeping its legs out in the same motion."You fight to spare them," Malachar observed from the raised dais, voice carrying easily over the chaos unfolding below. "A curious m

Diablo moved carefully among the unconscious creatures scattered across the chamber floor, searching for the one he'd first encountered at Thornfield's tree line, the farmhand whose tattered clothing had marked him even beneath the hollow transformation. He found Tomas slumped near one of the cracked support pillars, still unconscious from the fight, and knelt beside him to examine what Malachar's words might actually mean.The transformation was visible immediately, pale skin and the faint beginnings of elongated features, but something about it felt incomplete compared to the other creatures scattered around the chamber, less pronounced, the hollow quality in his slack expression not quite as absolute. Diablo pressed two fingers against the boy's throat, searching for a pulse he half expected not to find.It was there, faint and slow, but present.*Still alive, then. Barely.*He considered his options carefully. Malachar's dying words had suggested salvation was possible, but offere

The quiet days Diablo had hoped for lasted almost a full week, long enough to settle properly into the manor's rhythm, mornings spent training in the private yard, afternoons catching up with Natsu's group over meals in the modest dining hall, evenings reviewing correspondence from the guild about smaller, more manageable quests that didn't demand the kind of attention Thornfield had required. Halbert, the groundskeeper Corvin had recommended, proved reliable and quiet, tending to the property with a practiced efficiency that required little oversight.It was on the seventh evening, as the sun dipped low enough to cast long shadows across the training yard, that Diablo felt a presence settle at the edge of the property's perimeter wall, unannounced and entirely uninvited.He didn't need to look to know who it was."You could have used the front gate," Diablo said, not turning from the practice form he'd been running through, sword catching the last of the evening light."Front gates t

Diablo found the guild hall unusually quiet by the time he arrived, the late afternoon crowd thinner than usual, and Isyrae waved him straight up the stairs without her typical exchange of small talk, her expression carrying a tightness that mirrored the urgency in Vasryn's letter.He found the guild master standing near the window of his office rather than seated behind his desk, arms crossed, watching the street below with a distracted intensity that only broke when Diablo closed the door behind him."You came alone," Vasryn said, turning from the window. "Good.""Your letter was fairly direct about that.""For good reason." Vasryn gestured toward the chair across from his desk, though he remained standing himself, pacing slightly as he gathered his thoughts. "I received a visitor this morning. Someone claiming affiliation with an organization I'd only ever heard rumors about before today, a loose network of hunters who track and eliminate demonic threats across several kingdoms."D

Five days passed after the encounter with Reyner Ashworth, quiet enough that Diablo had almost allowed himself to settle back into the manor's familiar rhythm, mornings in the training yard, guild quests that kept him visible without drawing undue attention, evenings spent in easy company with Natsu's group. The warnings from both hunters lingered at the edge of his awareness, but without further contact from either man, the immediate tension had gradually eased into a manageable, background wariness rather than active concern.That changed on the sixth night.He'd been walking the perimeter of the manor grounds after dark, a habit he'd maintained since Vherrow's first unannounced visit, when he felt it, three distinct presences settling at the edge of the property's outer wall, deliberately spaced to cover multiple approach angles. Unlike Vherrow's single, curious intrusion, or Reyner's careful, solitary conversation, this felt calculated from the outset, coordinated in a way that su