Lucian moved first.

He was there the next second and inside Reese’s guard the next.

Reese reacted on instinct. His hand snapped toward the hidden blade at his waist, body turning sideways to open space for a slash.

Lucian’s left hand caught the wrist before the weapon cleared.

His right hand drove forward and two fingers struck the demon just under the throat.

Reese choked.

His whole body locked for half a second.

That half second was enough.

Lucian twisted the wrist until bone cracked, ripped the blade free himself, and drove it upward under Reese’s jaw.

The knife punched in clean.

Reese’s eyes went wide.

Lucian tore the blade out sideways and stepped back before the blood could hit his face.

Reese dropped to his knees clutching at a throat that no longer held together, gargling, falling, trying to move, failing.

Vance had already crossed the distance.

He hit like a truck.

A straight punch. Full shoulder behind it. No wasted motion. The kind of blow that ended ribs, lungs, and spine if it landed right.

Lucian turned with it instead of meeting it head-on. The punch skimmed his side. His hand shot up, caught Vance at the elbow, and pulled him forward.

Then he slammed Vance’s own fist into the wall beside them.

Concrete burst.

The impact shook the whole corridor.

Vance growled and came back immediately with the other arm, but Lucian was already below the line of the strike. His shoulder drove into Vance’s stomach. His knee came up hard into the demon’s ribs once. Twice. Then his palm hit the chest in a short brutal burst that sent Vance skidding back across the floor.

Daria’s runes ignited.

Not one.

Six at once.

She had carved them into slips hidden in her sleeves before entering the building. Smart. Prepared. The kind that survived by assuming things would go wrong.

Red lines flashed through the sealed space and hooked into the Kill Veil itself, trying to use Lucian’s own formation against him.

Lucian saw it and adjusted instantly.

All of it aligned in one thought.

The wall to his right wasn’t just wall anymore. It was surface, angle, anchor point.

He moved, kicked off it, changed height and line, and let the first two rune chains slam into empty air where his chest had been. They exploded across the floor instead, sending black fire racing out in a wave.

Lucian landed outside the spread.

Daria’s fingers cut through the air again and another formation burst open beneath him, this one a binding script built to hold the ankles and freeze movement for just long enough.

He didn’t jump.

He broke it.

His foot hit the center mark before it fully stabilized, heel driving down on the weak point of the structure. The rune shattered under his shoe like thin glass.

Daria’s breath caught.

That was enough for Lucian to reach her.

She pulled a thin infernal saber from a fold in space and slashed upward for his throat. The blade was fast and vicious and very well chosen for close halls and tight movement.

Lucian dipped his head, let the cut pass over him, and stepped inside her arms.

His forearm smashed into her sword wrist.

The saber tilted.

His other hand trapped her elbow.

Then he turned sharply and threw her into one of her own unfinished rune points on the wall.

The mark detonated against her shoulder and side.

Daria screamed.

Vance came back in with murder all over him now.

No more testing.

His disguise peeled in pieces and infernal pressure rolled off him in thick ugly waves. His muscles swelled. Skin hardened. Horns pushed through. The old operative vanished and the demon came out.

He hit Lucian with a full tackle from the side and drove both of them through the center of the corridor.

Lucian let himself move with it just long enough to avoid the next strike, then planted his foot against the wall and redirected the momentum.

Vance expected resistance.

He got nothing.

Lucian slipped off the line, caught the demon behind the neck and shoulder, and used the charge to send him headfirst into the opposite wall.

The crash was loud even inside the veil.

Vance ripped himself free through broken concrete and swung blind with one clawed hand.

Lucian leaned back.

The claws passed so close they pulled at his shirt.

Vance followed with a brutal low kick.

Lucian checked it with his shin, took the impact, and answered with an elbow to the temple that staggered the bigger demon for the first time.

Then he flowed into a short combination. Palm to the nose. Knife-hand to the throat. Hook to the liver. Knee into the ribs again.

Everything was compact.

Everything was deliberate.

No wasted violence.

Just enough force in every blow to ruin something important.

Vance roared, grabbed for him again, and this time managed to get a hand on Lucian’s shirt.

Lucian let him.

He dropped his weight, pivoted, and tore the arm down across his own shoulder. The joint dislocated with a wet crunch.

Before Vance could even process it, Lucian drove the stolen knife through the demon’s palm and pinned it to the wall.

Vance bellowed.

Lucian stepped in close and hit him in the mouth with the butt of the blade. Teeth and blood flew. Then another strike to the throat. Then his thumb jammed hard under the demon’s jaw and forced his head back.

For a heartbeat, they were face to face.

Lucian’s eyes were cold.

Vance’s were full of rage and dawning understanding.

He was losing.

Badly.

Daria was back on her feet.

She had burned through pain and shock and forced her arm to move. Good. Capable. Dangerous.

She put both hands together and this time she didn’t try to bind or trap.

She went for killing force.

A full infernal lance formed between her palms, sharp and narrow and dense enough to punch straight through Lucian’s back if it landed.

Lucian felt the power build before he saw it.

Presence Awareness.

Danger Sense.

Environmental Reading.

All of it came together.

He yanked Vance off the wall by the pinned hand, tearing flesh and knife loose together, and threw the larger demon directly into the line of the lance.

Daria saw it too late.

The infernal spear punched through Vance’s chest and out the other side.

He stared down at it in shock.

Daria froze.

Lucian didn’t.

He was already on her.

One step.

Two.

His hand caught her by the face and slammed her to the floor before she could cast again. The back of her head bounced hard.

He twisted her sword arm up behind her and pinned it with one knee.

Her free hand reached for another rune strip.

Lucian seized two of her fingers and bent them back until they snapped.

She gasped, body arching in pain.

He took the rune strip from her hand, looked at it once, then pressed it against her throat and fed his own mana through it.

The script turned.

Not hers anymore.

The seal activated wrong for her and right for him.

Dark lines spread from the strip across her neck and jaw, locking muscle and breath for one precious second.

That second was enough.

Lucian took her saber, reversed it, and drove it down through the center of her chest.

Daria jerked once.

Twice.

Then stopped.

Lucian rose immediately.

No pause.

No stare.

Vance was still alive somehow.

Barely.

The lance through his chest had not killed him outright. Old demon. Thick heart. Strong body. Ugly endurance.

He staggered forward anyway, blood pouring from mouth and wound both, trying to force one last charge through sheer hatred.

Lucian met him halfway.

This time he didn’t go for skill.

He went for ending.

His hand shot out and caught Vance by the throat. His feet planted. His shoulder turned. His entire body moved as one clean machine.

Then he drove the demon straight down.

The floor broke under the impact.

Vance’s head bounced once, body stunned.

Lucian knelt on him before he could recover, pinned one arm with his shin, and drove three rapid strikes into the chest wound where Daria’s lance had already opened him up.

One.

Two.

Three.

Each strike deeper than the last.

Vance coughed black-red blood into Lucian’s sleeve and still tried to claw at him with the free hand.

Lucian caught that wrist too.

Then he leaned down, seized Vance’s horn with one hand and the jaw with the other, and twisted.

The neck broke with a thick ugly snap.

Vance went limp.

For a second, only one sound remained.

Reese.

Still alive.

Still trying.

He had not died right away from the throat wound.

He was crawling.

Dragging himself through his own blood toward a dropped blade.

Lucian stood and looked at him.

Reese looked back with one eye wide and wet and full of animal panic now.

Not so eager anymore.

Not smiling anymore.

Lucian walked to him slowly.

Reese found enough voice for one ruined whisper.

"Please—"

Lucian kicked the blade away before the demon’s fingers touched it.

Then he crouched and picked Reese up by the front of the hoodie.

Blood ran over Lucian’s hand.

Reese clawed weakly at his wrist.

Lucian looked at him without a flicker.

"You came into a school to take my sister."

Reese tried to speak again.

Nothing useful came out.

Lucian dragged him to Vance’s corpse and dropped him beside it.

Then he looked around the corridor once.

Broken floor.

Broken wall.

Blood everywhere.

Bodies.

The kind of scene students were never supposed to see.

Good thing the veil still held.

Reese was still moving.

Lucian bent, picked up Daria’s fallen saber, and with one clean motion cut through the demon’s neck.

That ended it.

Completely.