Chapter 62: The Dark One’s Suppressed Power’s

Chapter 62: Chapter 62: The Dark One’s Suppressed Power’s

The dust hadn’t even settled before Nova rose out of it. Instead of fury, instead of pain, his face split into something closer to delight. The black wings behind him flared once, scattering embers across the shattered stone, and he rolled his shoulders like a man waking from a long, satisfying sleep.

"There it is." He cracked his neck, the sound sharp in the sudden quiet, and grinned with teeth that had gone slightly sharper than before. "*There* he is."

He shot forward, and the mountain became a battlefield.

Theon had seen powerful fights before. He had fought in a few himself—against beasts that could level villages, against mages who bent the sky to their will, against Ifrith himself in a forest that still haunted his dreams. Nothing had prepared him for this.

Ifrith met Nova’s charge head-on. Black flame erupted around his fists as the two collided in the air above the ruined peak. The impact sent a visible ring of pressure rippling outward, flattening what few trees still clung to the slope below. Leaves and branches tore free in a single violent wave. The ground beneath Theon’s boots shuddered hard enough that he had to plant his feet or be thrown. Ifrith struck first... a punch that Nova barely managed to angle away from.... and the miss carved a smoking gouge clean through solid rock behind him. Molten stone dripped from the edges of the wound in the mountain. Nova answered with a claw swipe that Ifrith ducked beneath, close enough that Theon saw three parallel scores appear in the air where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. The space itself scarred by the force of the attempt, thin white lines hanging for a moment before fading like smoke.

They broke apart and came together again, faster this time. A blur of crimson and black that the eye could barely track. Ifrith moved like something unbound by ordinary rules of motion, appearing at Nova’s flank one instant and above him the next, each strike a controlled detonation of flame and force. The air itself seemed to scream under the pressure. Nova met every blow with his own, absorbing hits that should have shattered bone and grinning through the pain. Wounds opened and closed again in the space of a breath, flesh knitting itself back together faster than Theon could process the injury in the first place. Blood sprayed, then vanished as the body repaired itself mid-fight.

A blast of fire tore down the mountainside. The group scrambled back, Lazaria throwing up a barrier of stone that groaned under the heat. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface almost immediately. Lyra pressed close against Theon’s side, eyes wide, watching two forces neither of them could fully comprehend reshape the landscape around them. Beneath them, the ground itself had begun to shudder with every exchange, small stones bouncing loose and clattering down the slope in a constant, nervous rattle. The wolf pup on Theon’s shoulder dug his claws in tighter, ears flat, body trembling against the collar of Theon’s coat.

"They’re not even using their full strength," Silver murmured, and something in her voice made Theon look over. Her expression had gone tight, fixed on the battle with an intensity that bordered on fear. "Not yet."

The words settled into him like a stone dropped into deep water.

Above them, Nova laughed between exchanges, dodging a kick that split the air with an audible crack. The sound rolled down the mountain like distant thunder.

"Do you remember, Ifrith? Back then, you could have erased me with a single strike. I wouldn’t have even had time to scream."

Ifrith’s response came as another attack... faster, angrier, a flurry of blows that Nova blocked with crossed forearms, skidding back a full ten feet under the pressure of it. Boots carved twin trenches through the stone. Sparks flew where metal and flame met rock.

"And now look at you." Nova wiped a trickle of blood from his lip, still grinning. The blood steamed where it touched his skin. "You’re struggling. Actually *struggling* just to knock me unconscious."

"Keep quiet." The words came out low, dangerous, and the temperature around Ifrith spiked hard enough that frost on nearby rocks hissed into steam. The air shimmered. Heat rolled over the group in a wave that made Lyra flinch and press closer to Theon’s side.

He lunged again. This time Nova didn’t dodge. He caught Ifrith’s incoming leg with both hands, holding it fast despite the strain visibly cording the muscles in his arms. For one suspended moment the two of them stood locked in place, neither able to break the hold. The mountain groaned beneath them. Cracks spread outward from their feet like a spider’s web.

Nova’s eyes cut toward Theon.

"Do you know why he’s this weak?"

Theon’s whole body went still. The question landed heavier than any of the physical blows. "What do you mean?"

"Nova." Ifrith’s voice had dropped to something almost like a warning growl, straining against the grip on his leg. Black flame licked higher around his fists. "Don’t."

"It’s because he’s been suppressing his power," Nova said, and the words landed heavier than any of the blows that had come before them. They cut through the chaos of the fight like a blade through silk. "For a very long time. Longer than you’ve been alive, I’d wager."

Theon’s mind went somewhere else entirely.

The ancient forest. The night he’d first faced Ifrith, back when the demon had been an enemy rather than a servant, and every attack had felt like being struck by something closer to a natural disaster than a living being. He remembered how badly outmatched he’d been. How every ounce of strength he’d thrown at Ifrith had barely registered. How the ground itself had seemed to flinch away from every blow. The trees had burned. The earth had cracked. He had been nothing more than a boy standing in the path of something that could have ended him without effort.

He looked at the fight in front of him now. At the aura rolling off Ifrith undeniably immense, undeniably far beyond anything Theon could hope to match.

And yet.

It felt smaller. Restrained. Like watching a fire burning inside a sealed room instead of one left free to consume everything around it. The power was there, vast and terrible, but held back by walls Theon had never noticed until this moment.

"That actually makes sense," Theon said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. The words felt too small for what they carried.

Silver glanced over at him. Her eyes were sharp, searching.

"When I fought him back then," Theon continued, working through it as he spoke, the pieces clicking into place with uncomfortable clarity, "his power felt so much greater. But after he became my familiar, it always felt like something was... held back. Restrained. I told myself it was because he’d lost the will to fight against me. I never considered that he was actually holding himself in check on purpose."

Silver exhaled slowly, and something in her posture shifted, like a decision had settled into place. The weight of old knowledge pressing down on her shoulders.

"He was," she said. "He still is."

She drew him a few steps back from the fighting—close enough to watch, far enough that the words wouldn’t be lost in the roar of another collision. Another shockwave rolled past them, kicking up dust and small stones. Lazaria’s barrier groaned again. Lyra’s grip on Theon’s sleeve tightened until her knuckles went white.

"You need to understand something about him, Theon. Ifrith isn’t simply another primordial demon among many." She glanced toward the battle, toward the demon tearing through solid mountain with his bare hands, and her expression carried something close to reverence. Something close to grief. "He is the Dark One. The ruler of the Demon Realm. Ruler over every primordial demon that ever existed. His power once surpassed all of ours combined, so completely that some among us stopped calling him a primordial at all."

Theon felt the words settle into him like cold iron. "Then what did they call him?"

Silver’s voice dropped. The sound of the battle seemed to fade around the edges of it. "Something closer to a god."

Theon said nothing. There was nothing to say. The mountain continued to shake. Fire and black flame painted the darkening sky in violent strokes.

"His true power isn’t meant for this world," Silver went on. Her eyes never left the fight. "If he released everything he actually is, entire kingdoms would fall. Not because he attacked them. His presence alone would be enough. Mountains would crumble. Magic itself would warp and break around him. The balance of everything you know would come apart at the seams, and he wouldn’t need to lift a single finger to make it happen. The air would burn. The ground would reject the weight of him. People would die just from standing too close."

Theon stared at Ifrith’s back as the demon drove Nova into the stone again. The idea of that much power existing inside the demon who called him Master felt almost impossible to hold.

"There’s more," Silver said, watching another exchange of blows send a shockwave rattling through the ground beneath their feet. Small stones danced around their boots. "When the Flame Empress first tore her way into the Demon Realm, Ifrith fought her himself."

"He defeated her?"

"He did." A faint, almost fond smile touched Silver’s mouth, gone almost as quickly as it appeared. "But that wasn’t what mattered to him. What mattered was that she was the first opponent in longer than you could imagine who had actually made him work for the victory. That fight was the first time in centuries he’d felt anything close to being challenged." She paused. The wind carried the scent of scorched stone and blood. "It changed something in him. Eventually, she gave him a new name. Diablo. His power grew even further after that, evolved into something even he hadn’t fully mapped the limits of. Something that frightened even the other primordials."

"So why hide it?" Theon’s voice came out rougher than he intended.

"Because he understood what unleashing that power in the mortal realm would mean. He sealed it away—most of it—long before you ever crossed paths with him." Silver’s eyes met Theon’s, steady and serious. There was no room for doubt in them. "And when he chose to become your familiar, he sealed away even more. Because you couldn’t withstand his true power. Standing near it unshielded could have killed you without him ever intending harm. Your body would have simply... failed. Your mind might have broken under the weight of it. He knew that. But he chose to carry the cost himself."

The words settled over Theon like cold water. They soaked through every assumption he had made about the quiet, obedient figure who had stood at his side for so long.

"He weakened himself," he said slowly, "for me."

"He weakens himself every single day, for you," Silver said. Her voice was soft, but it cut deeper than any of Nova’s claws. "He isn’t holding back because he’s lost his edge. He’s protecting you from what he actually is. Every day. Every hour. Every time he stands near you and chooses not to let the full measure of himself free."

Theon looked back toward the fight, toward Ifrith trading blows with a being who called him by a name that apparently belonged to a king, and something in his chest twisted painfully. Guilt. Gratitude. A kind of aching understanding that arrived too late.

*He wasn’t weak. He was never weak. He was protecting me the entire time, and I never even noticed.*

"Wait." Theon looked back at Silver, something else occurring to him, the questions still coming even as the mountain continued to fall apart around them. "Aren’t you as powerful as he is? You’re both primordial demons."

Silver actually laughed, short and disbelieving. The sound was almost lost under another crash of stone. "As powerful as him?" She shook her head slowly. "I couldn’t hold a candle to him even on my best day, evolved or not. There’s him, and then there’s everyone else. The rest of us are stars. He is the dark between them."

"And yet you’re engaged," Lyra said brightly, appearing at Theon’s elbow with the impeccable timing of someone who had clearly been listening the whole time. Her voice was light, almost teasing, but her eyes were sharp, watching Silver carefully.

Silver blinked. "That’s not—" She stopped mid sentence, color rising in her cheeks despite the chaos still unfolding above them. The flush stood out starkly against the ash and dust on her skin. "And what does that have to do with anything?"

Lyra just tilted her head, entirely innocent, entirely unbothered. The wolf pup on Theon’s shoulder made a small, skeptical sound.

Silver glanced toward the battle, toward Ifrith, and her expression softened into something private even as embarrassment still colored her face. The look she gave him carried years of history Theon could only guess at.

"I love him," she said simply, as if that settled every question anyone could possibly ask. "Power has nothing to do with it. It never did."

For half a second, despite everything, despite the mountain crumbling around them, Theon almost smiled. The moment felt fragile, almost human, in the middle of so much power and violence.

"Then why," Theon asked, pulling himself back to the matter at hand, the weight of Silver’s revelations still settling into place, "does he keep suppressing himself? If he’s really that strong, couldn’t he just end this fight in a second?"

Silver’s expression sobered. The brief softness vanished. "Promises. He made promises... to the empire, to the people in it, to you. He didn’t want his existence to become a threat to everything he’d chosen to protect. So he sealed himself away, layer after layer, and kept doing it for longer than most kingdoms have stood. Every time he felt the power pushing against the seals, he pushed back harder. Every time the cost grew heavier, But he carried it anyway."

Above them, Nova’s laughter rang out again, cutting through the exchange like a blade. The sound was bright and sharp and full of something that was no longer entirely amusement.

"Now you understand." His voice carried easily despite the distance, despite the violence still unfolding around him. He caught one of Ifrith’s punches on a forearm wreathed in flame, skidding back several feet under the force of it, and grinned through the strain. Blood ran down his chin and was already beginning to dry. "So let me ask you something, little master. Do you know what happens to a primordial demon who suppresses his power for too long?"

"Silence," Ifrith snarled, closing the distance again, fists blazing brighter than before. The black flame around him had begun to take on a deeper, almost void-like quality.

Nova only laughed harder, ducking beneath one strike, weaving past another. The movements were still fluid, still confident, but there was a new edge to them—something sharper, more deliberate. "That much power, sealed away for that many years. Do you really think there’s no cost?"

"I said *silence*."

Ifrith’s next attack landed hard enough to send Nova skidding across the ruined peak, carving another trench through the stone. Dust and debris exploded upward. Even flat on his back, even bleeding from a dozen wounds already closing themselves, Nova kept talking, his voice carrying up toward where the others stood. The words reached them clearly, as if the mountain itself wanted them to hear.

Beside Theon, Silver went rigid.

"Wait."

Everyone turned toward her at once. Lyra’s hand tightened around a fold of Theon’s sleeve. Lazaria stepped closer, stone still flickering around her fingertips. Even the wolf pup lifted his head, ears pricked forward.

"What is it?" Lyra asked, small voice tight with sudden worry.

"What’s wrong?" Lazaria pressed, eyes scanning Silver’s face.

Silver didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes had gone distant, fixed on some memory none of them could see. The color had drained from her face. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost every trace of the warmth from a moment ago. It was thin, almost fragile.

"He’s not talking about Ifrith simply losing strength," she said, barely above a whisper. "There’s something worse. Something that happens when a demon of his kind holds back for too long. I’d almost forgotten it existed. Nobody has seen a case of it in centuries, not since the old wars, not since the last time a primordial tried to bury what they were and paid the price for it..."

She wasn’t able to finish the sentence.

Above them, Nova rose from the crater one last time. Wounds sealed shut with unnatural speed. Wings spread wide against the darkening sky, black flame licking along the edges. His crimson eyes locked onto Ifrith with something that had stopped being amusement entirely. There was no more play in that gaze. Only certainty.

He smiled.

Then he screamed the words down at all of them, loud enough to shake loose stone from the shattered peak. The sound rolled across the mountain like a declaration of war.

"** DEMON BLIGHT!**"