More Fallen Heroes arrived—ten, fifteen, twenty total—all converging on Seraphina with single-minded purpose.

She killed three in the first thirty seconds—throat cut, heart pierced, head severed—but the remaining seventeen kept coming.

And she couldn’t focus on killing the Four Heroes while defending against seventeen mindless attackers.

"CLEVER!" she shouted at the wounded heroes, her voice carrying fury. "Commander Elric sent his failed experiments to save you! Sacrificing abominations to protect his precious heroes!"

She killed two more Fallen Heroes—both decapitated with single strikes—but three more grabbed her from behind, their supernatural strength pinning her arms momentarily.

She broke free with demon lord power, her corruption energy disintegrating the three attackers, but the delay cost her precious seconds.

Gattychan saw his opportunity.

"MIKAZELLE!" he gasped, blood bubbling from his lips. "TELEPORT! NOW! ALL OF US! USE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE LEFT!"

Mikazelle understood immediately.

The Fallen Heroes had bought them exactly what they needed—time and distraction.

While Seraphina fought twenty mindless abominations, the heroes could escape.

"EVERYONE GRAB EACH OTHER!" Mikazelle commanded, her spatial magic gathering for one massive teleportation.

Rindelle grabbed Seraphelle with her functional right arm, dragging the barely-conscious healer close.

Gattychan crawled to them, his re-broken arm useless, his wounds bleeding.

Mikazelle placed her hands on all three of them, channeling every remaining scrap of spatial magic into one long-range teleport.

"THIS WILL DRAIN ME COMPLETELY!" she warned. "AFTER THIS, I HAVE NOTHING LEFT! NO MORE TELEPORTS!"

"DO IT!" Gattychan commanded.

Seraphina saw them preparing to escape, saw Mikazelle’s spatial magic building.

She killed four more Fallen Heroes in rapid succession—throat, heart, spine, head—trying to clear path to stop the teleportation.

But the remaining eleven Fallen Heroes surrounded her, attacking from all sides, their mindless aggression creating perfect interference.

"NO!" Seraphina roared, trying desperately to break through—

Too late.

Space folded.

The Four Heroes vanished.

Mikazelle had teleported them back to Third Line, using the last of her spatial magic in one desperate emergency evacuation.

Seraphina stood among eleven remaining Fallen Heroes, her corruption blades dripping with the blood of nine she’d already killed, her demon lord power still suppressed to one-tenth effectiveness from the lingering traces of Gattychan’s Villain’s Bane aura.

She looked at where the Four Heroes had been seconds ago.

Gone.

Escaped.

She’d been so close to killing Gattychan—her blade had been raised for execution, he’d been on his knees dying from seventeen wounds and punctured lung, helpless.

And these mindless abominations had interrupted at exactly the right moment to save him.

"COMMANDER ELRIC!" she screamed at the sky, her voice carrying fury across the battlefield. "YOU SAVED THEM WITH YOUR FAILED EXPERIMENTS! BUT NEXT TIME, I WILL KILL THEM! I SWEAR IT!"

The eleven remaining Fallen Heroes attacked her with mindless aggression.

She killed them all.

It took three more minutes of brutal combat—cutting, slashing, piercing, destroying the mindless creatures with demonic skill and fury.

By the end, all twenty Fallen Heroes lay dead across the scorched battlefield, their corpse-white bodies torn apart by corruption blades.

Seraphina stood among the carnage, breathing heavily despite demon lord endurance, her own body carrying wounds from the battle—the heroes had injured her more than she’d admitted, and fighting twenty Fallen Heroes immediately after had cost her.

Her back still burned from Seraphelle’s Divine Smite. Her arms ached from blocking superhuman strikes. Her demon lord healing was working, but slowly.

She was wounded. Exhausted. Furious.

And the Four Heroes had escaped.

"Next time," she whispered to herself, her glowing eyes fixed on the distant lights of Third Line where the heroes had teleported. "Next time I will kill you all. I will avenge my two hundred specialists. I promise them that."

She teleported away, returning to the settlement, leaving twenty Fallen Hero corpses behind as evidence of the brutal fight.

================

Third Line - The Heroes’ Return

Commander Elric stood at his elevated command post, watching the main battle continue below, when space tore open fifty yards from his position.

Four figures fell through the dimensional rift, collapsing onto the ground in heap of blood and torn clothing.

The Four Heroes had returned.

But their condition was catastrophic.

Gattychan could barely move, his body a mess of wounds—seventeen cuts across torso and limbs, left arm broken twice with bone visible, punctured lung causing blood to bubble from his lips with each labored breath. He’d lost so much blood that his skin was corpse-pale.

Seraphelle was unconscious, her healing magic completely depleted, her broken ribs making breathing agonizing, both forearms cut deeply, corruption energy still burning in her shoulder wound.

Mikazelle had collapsed from magical exhaustion, her spatial magic completely drained from that final emergency teleport, her broken ribs still not healed.

Rindelle’s left arm hung useless, broken bone grinding with every movement.

All four heroes were critically wounded, magically exhausted, barely alive.

Elric rushed to them, his experienced eyes assessing their injuries with horrified recognition.

"Light above... what happened out there?"

"Demon lord," Gattychan gasped, each word painful. "Seraphina. She... she nearly killed us. Would have... if your Fallen Heroes hadn’t... arrived..."

"The Fallen Heroes bought you time to escape?"

"Yes. Twenty of them. They... engaged her. Gave Mikazelle... seconds to teleport... us away." Gattychan coughed, blood spraying from his lips. "She killed all twenty. We barely... survived..."

Elric processed this information with tactical horror.

A demon lord who could fight four heroes simultaneously while suppressed to one-tenth power by Villain’s Bane, who nearly killed them all despite their combined abilities, who killed twenty Fallen Heroes after the true heroes escaped.

That was Demon Lord Seraphina’s true combat capability, she is far stronger than i imagined.

"BATTLEFIELD PRIESTS!" Elric shouted commands. "GET HEALING MAGIC ON THESE HEROES IMMEDIATELY! GATTYCHAN HAS PUNCTURED LUNG—PRIORITY ONE! SERAPHELLE’S HEALING MAGIC IS COMPROMISED—TREAT HER FOREARM WOUNDS! MIKAZELLE AND RINDELLE NEED BONE SETTING!"

Twenty priests rushed forward, their hands glowing with healing magic—not as powerful as Seraphelle’s divine healing, but sufficient for emergency treatment.

They began working frantically to stabilize the Four Heroes.

Elric pulled aside his senior remaining officer—a captain named Hendricks who’d survived the champion duels by being in reserve.