Your time is up

Everything was turned upside down. Smoke clouded the skies and blood soaked the soil. 

 Screams of warriors echoed as they slashed and tore each other appeared in a frenzy.

And yet, despite the madness—despite blades flashing and limbs flying—none of them came close to the man who stood amidst it all.

He stood just a few feet away from the carnage, an average-height man with black hair matted by sweat, and eyes wide with disbelief. Riley.

Even as men and women flung their blades with reckless abandon, not one of them glanced in his direction. Not one of them acknowledged his presence.

"Stop…!" Riley called out, stepping toward a pair locked in a desperate struggle. "Please! Just stop all of… this!" 

He reached for one of them—a young warrior whose name he never learned—but the man simply ignored like like he was smoke.

 None of the people he tried reaching out responded, he doubted they could even see him. 

 One cleaved into the other with a sharp SCHLICK, and the other retaliated before collapsing in a bloody heap.

Riley staggered back, his feet slipping on the blood-soaked earth.

"What the hell is going on…?" he whispered. "Why… why is everyone…?"

His eyes snapped upward, locking onto the figure in the distance—the demon lord. Towering, cloaked in dark, flickering flames. Surrounded by an aura of death.

Riley's eyes burned with fury. They weren't all his friends—not really. Most of the men and women dying today were strangers. But he trained with them. Ate with them. Bled with them. And in every battle, they were the reason he was still alive.

He was a nobody. A coward hiding behind stronger backs. A footnote among heroes.

And now they were all dying, and he was still here. Alive.

The demon lord's eyes drifted lazily across the field… and then stopped. They narrowed, glinting with sudden interest.

"How long…" the demon lord murmured, "have you been standing there?"

Riley flinched. The voice was like knives across his ears.

The demon lord tilted his head slightly. "How strange... I didn't feel your presence at all."

There was wariness in his gaze now—sharper than even when he fought Terry, humanity's strongest hero.

"Are you by any chance… one of 'them'?" he asked, voice low.

But Riley didn't answer. He turned, his face twisted in horror as he looked across the battlefield again. More screams. More blood.

Then he pointed a trembling finger at the demon lord. "You… did this."

His voice cracked. Then it rose, burning with pain.

"I'll make you pay for this! For trampling on their lives like they were nothing!"

He reached to his sides and drew two silver daggers, their edges dulled from use.

The demon lord laughed. A deep, guttural sound. "Hah! You're unaffected by my aura. Impressive, for a human. But do you actually believe you can do anything?"

He pointed at Riley's daggers. "Those pathetic toys won't even scratch me, much less kill me."

His lip curled in disgust. "You're just an annoying pest. One I'll squash."

Riley didn't flinch. He gnashed his teeth, taking a simple, almost amateur stance with his blades. His mana flared—small, flickering, barely a ripple in the overwhelming tide that was the demon lord's presence.

"I'm not a pest," he said.

"My name is Riley."

The demon lord hissed, his eye twitching. "I don't know how you managed to escape my spell, but it doesn't mean, you're just a misfake," he spat.

 "You have no strength, no presence. You're less than nothing compared to the warriors who've already died!"

He could feel it—Riley was struggling to stand under even the lightest pressure he emitted. Yet the man remained standing.

"You're not even worth my time," the demon lord growled. "What difference does knowing your name make?"

Riley's face was slick with sweat, his hands trembling slightly from the force pressing down on him. But a smirk crept across his lips.

"Better remember it… because it's the name of the man who's going to kill you!"

The demon lord's expression twisted in fury—but then he burst into laughter, throwing his head back.

"HAHAHAHA!! That's rich! You?! You, of all people?!"

But Riley didn't laugh with him. He stared, steady and resolute.

"Terry was right," he said coldly. "You're on your last legs."

The laughter stopped.

The demon lord's gaze snapped back to him, cold and sharp. "Even if I were ten times weaker, you wouldn't last a second against me."

"We'll see about that," Riley said, then roared:

"[Demon Wolf Transformation]!"

A crimson light exploded from his body.

Blood-red fur erupted from his skin, ripping his armor to shreds. His limbs thickened, his body tripled in size. A long snout jutted from his face, baring razor-sharp fangs, and claws tore from his fingers with a deafening CRACK.

The air howled.

The demon lord's eyes widened, and he whispered in awe, "That transformation…"

A red streak blurred through the air.

FWOOOSH!

Riley vanished from where he stood and appeared in front of the demon lord in the blink of an eye. A clawed hand gripped the demon lord's skull, lifting him into the air.

"Grrraaaaaahhh!!" Riley howled.

His jaws opened wide—then CHOMP!—he bit down into the demon lord's neck.

SHLURK!

"AAAAGHHHH!!" the demon lord screamed in pain as flesh tore from his throat.

Riley didn't hesitate. He ripped a chunk of the demon's neck out and swallowed it, his bloodstained fangs gleaming with crimson fury.

The demon lord stumbled backward, clutching at his throat as blood gushed from the open wound.

"Ghk—ghraah—!"

Suddenly, cracks began spreading in the space around him—sharp, black fractures in the air itself.

CRACK!

Crack! crack! crack!

And then—

SHATTER!

The world seemed to break apart like glass, revealing the real demon lord behind the illusion.

He was kneeling, battered and broken. His body was covered in wounds, his robe torn and burnt. 

 Two of his horns were even broken, with a strange black liquid slowly dripping from them. 

 But one injury stood out above all—the wide, jagged gash carved across his chest.

Riley's eyes locked onto it immediately.

It was the same wound Terry had inflicted before he fell.

The demon lord's chest rose and fell rapidly, his breath ragged. For the first time… there was fear in his eyes.

Riley snarled, the beast within him surging with bloodlust.

"Your time is up, now you can't hide yourself anymore."