[center][h1][color=gold]Eryx[/color][/h1][/center]
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The battle had become a blur long before the ships started burning.

Eryx moved with the rest of the retreat, half-guided by barked orders, half by some primal instinct that whispered at him to survive. Every muscle in his light frame screamed for rest he couldn't afford. Around him, his squad staggered like a wounded animal—too slow, too heavy to outrun the jaws closing in from both sides.

The golden light caught his eye, cutting through smoke and ash. He stopped for half a second, slack-jawed, as it split demons apart like paper. Awe cracked something open in his chest. For a heartbeat—a stupid, reckless heartbeat—Eryx let himself believe. Maybe, somehow, they could—

Then the world rotted.

It wasn’t smell. It wasn’t sound. It was the feel of it. Thick, suffocating, sinking into his skin and bones. His fingers twitched toward the spear in his hands, but it felt so small now. So useless.

As the Demon King roared out, Eryx flinched. His breath caught. Eryx tried to focus on anything other than that presence. He remembered the hope he felt just moments before, and began to run toward the source of that hope.

Eryx ran like his life depended on it. Like other lives might. His spear punched through anything in his path—goblins, lizardkin, wulvers. One dropped from the sky with a screech, wings folding in a dive. He threw his spear on reflex. The spear flew wide—of course it did. He wasn’t even aiming. Consequently, he was slammed onto his back.

For a moment, all he saw was blood and teeth.

His instinct took over. He braced with his forearm, shoved the beast off him, and rolled away just as another soldier lunged in to finish it off. Eryx didn’t look back.

He ripped a spear from the hands of a man long dead. He didn’t check the face. Didn’t want to. Just pick it up. Don't think about who it belonged to. The weapon was heavier than he liked. Rougher, splintered near the middle.

Didn’t matter.

He had to move.

Ahead, the ships burned. Ahead stood his patriarch. Ahead stood his final hope. But it all froze when he saw a chance—an opportunity.

Ahead was a man whom he could save.