UL1 - Book 11 - Chapter 105

Sog stood alone in the arena, surrounded by the corpses of his own demons.

Twelve of them lay scattered across the stone floor, their bodies already dissolving back into the dark mana that had spawned them. They'd lasted longer this time—almost four minutes before he'd cut down the last one—but it still wasn't enough.

"Again," he growled.

His mana reserves were low, but he reached into himself anyway, pulling at the dark energy that defined his existence. Summoning demons was expensive. Summoning demons strong enough to actually challenge him was even more expensive. But he needed the practice, and he needed it against opponents who wouldn't hold back.

Twelve new forms coalesced from the shadows, each one a reflection of his own power given independent will. They were smaller than him, but they were fast, vicious, and utterly without mercy. Perfect training partners.

"Come," Sog said, raising his fists.

They came.

The first demon reached him in a heartbeat, claws raking toward his throat. Sog caught its wrist and snapped the bone, then drove his knee into its chest hard enough to shatter ribs. It crumpled, and he was already moving, spinning to meet the next attacker.

Two came at him together, flanking. He let the one on his left get close, then grabbed it by the horn and swung it into its partner. Both went down in a tangle of limbs. A fourth demon leaped onto his back, teeth sinking into his shoulder. Sog reached back, seized it by the neck, and threw it into a fifth that was charging from his right.

Pain flared through him—the bite had gone deep—but he ignored it. Pain was nothing. Pain was just his body telling him he was still alive.

Six demons remained. They circled him now, wary after watching him destroy half their number in seconds. Sog bared his teeth at them, tasting blood in his mouth.

"What are you waiting for? I said come!"

They rushed him as one.

The next thirty seconds were chaos. Claws and teeth and fists, bodies colliding and breaking, blood spraying across the white stone floor. Sog took hits, a slash across his ribs, a bite on his forearm, a kick to his knee that nearly buckled him, but he gave back worse. He fought with the brutal efficiency of a predator, every movement designed to maim or kill.

When the last demon fell, Sog stood alone again, breathing hard. His body was a mess of wounds, his mana reserves completely drained. But he was standing.

That was all that mattered.

He dismissed the corpses with a wave of his hand, letting them dissolve back into nothing. Then he walked to the edge of the arena and sat down heavily, his back against the wall.

Not good enough.

The thought came unbidden, as it always did. He'd won, but winning against his own summons meant nothing. They were tier one at best, limited by his own power. A real opponent, a god who'd been growing for centuries, would have torn through them like paper.

Would have torn through him like paper.

Sog clenched his fists, feeling the wounds on his knuckles reopen. He hated this. Hated the waiting, the training, the slow accumulation of strength point by point. He was a demon. His kind were meant to fight, to conquer, to dominate. Not to sit in a tower for decades, getting marginally stronger while the real threats grew beyond his reach.

But you're not just a demon anymore, a voice in his head reminded him. You're part of something bigger.

That was true. And that was the problem.

***

An hour later, cleaned up and healed, Sog made his way to the common area. He needed food, and he needed company, though he'd never admit the second part out loud.

Fowl was there, nursing a mug of ale and looking like he'd been dragged through a furnace. Which, knowing his training routine, he probably had.

"You look terrible," Sog said, dropping into a chair across from the dwarf.

"Back at you." Fowl gestured at the fading bite marks on Sog's neck. "Summoning practice?"

"Twelve demons. I managed to last four minutes this time."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"It's not enough." Sog grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and bit into it savagely. "Twelve tier-two demons can't simulate what we'll actually face. I need stronger summons, but stronger summons require more mana, and more mana requires—"

"Time," Fowl finished. "Yeah. I know the feeling."

They sat in silence for a moment, two immortals contemplating the inadequacy of their progress. Then Fowl leaned forward, his expression unusually serious. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

"Something else, smartass." The dwarf set down his mug. "Does it bother you? The boost from Max?"

Sog stopped mid-bite. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You're bonded to him. You get a portion of the stats he absorbs from his kills." Fowl's eyes were steady on his. "Does it bother you that a chunk of your strength comes from someone else?"

The question hit harder than Sog expected. He finished the bite slowly, buying himself time to think.

"Yes," he finally admitted. "It bothers me."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a demon." Sog set down the apple, his appetite suddenly gone. "My kind measures worth by personal strength. What you kill, what you conquer, what you take with your own hands. Borrowed power is..." He searched for the right word. "Shameful. It’s okay to have a contract and acquire it, but the goal is to break that contract and the one you made it with."

Fowl nodded slowly. "But you're still bonded to him."

"Because the alternative is being weaker." Sog's jaw tightened. "And being weaker means being dead. So I swallow my pride and I take the boost and I hate myself a little bit every time I feel stronger after Max wins a fight."

"That's..." Fowl paused. "That's actually really messed up."

"I know."

"Have you talked to Max about it?"

"What would I say? 'Thanks for making me stronger, I hate it'?" Sog shook his head. "Max has enough to worry about. He doesn't need me having an identity crisis on top of everything else."

"Maybe. But he's also your friend. He'd want to know if something was bothering you."

Sog didn't respond. The dwarf was right, Max would want to know. Max would probably feel guilty about it, would offer to break the bond if that's what Sog wanted. And that was exactly why Sog couldn't tell him. Because he didn't want to break the bond. He needed that boost to survive what was coming.

He just wished he didn't need it.

"Can I give you some advice?" Fowl asked.

"Can I stop you?"

"No." The dwarf grinned briefly, then grew serious again. "Stop thinking about where the strength comes from. Start thinking about what you do with it."

"That's easy to say when your strength is your own."

"Is it?" Fowl held up his hands, showing the pink new skin from his latest regeneration. "Batrire healed these. Rakonath provided the fire that burned them. Max built the training arena. Everything I am, everything any of us are, is built on what the others provide." He lowered his hands. "You're not weak because you get a boost from Max. You're strong because you use that boost to become something more than you were."

Sog considered that. It was a different way of looking at things, a dwarf's way, perhaps, focused on practical results rather than abstract honor. But there was truth in it.

"When did you get wise?" he asked.

"About ten minutes ago. I'm trying it out." Fowl picked up his mug again. "Let me know if it sticks."

***

That night, Sog couldn't sleep.

He lay in his quarters, staring at the ceiling, Fowl's words running through his mind. Stop thinking about where the strength comes from. Start thinking about what you do with it.

What did he do with it?

He trained. He summoned demons and killed them. He sparred with the others when they had time. He helped manage the demon population on their world, settling disputes and establishing hierarchies. He attended meetings and offered opinions, and tried to contribute to the group's planning.

But none of that felt like enough. None of that felt like him.

Before Max, before the tower, before any of this, Sog had been a warrior. A conqueror. He'd carved out a small territory in the demon realm through blood and fire, building a reputation that made lesser demons flee at the sound of his name. He'd been feared by a few, but that had never been enough.

Now he was a god, technically more powerful than he'd ever been, and he felt like a passenger in his own life. Waiting for Max to fight so he could get stronger. Waiting for protection to end so something would finally happen. Waiting, waiting, always waiting.

Enough.

Sog sat up, his decision made. If he couldn't fight real opponents, he'd find another way to prove his strength. If he couldn't grow through combat, he'd grow through will.

He stood and walked to his equipment storage, pulling out a small chest he'd acquired a long time ago. Inside were items he'd been saving for a desperate moment. Stimulants, enhancers, and catalysts that could temporarily boost his abilities to dangerous levels.

One vial in particular caught his eye. A murky red liquid that seemed to pulse with inner light. Berserker's Fury. It would triple his strength and speed for ten minutes, at the cost of burning through his mana reserves and leaving him weakened for days afterward.

He'd planned to save it for a real fight. But maybe there was a better use.

Sog took the vial and walked back to the training area.

***

The space was empty at this hour, the training floor pristine. Sog stood in the center and uncorked the vial, staring at the liquid inside.

This was stupid. He knew it was stupid. Using Berserker's Fury for training was wasteful at best, dangerous at worst. If something went wrong, if he lost control, he could hurt himself badly enough that even healing magic would struggle to fix it.

But he needed this. He needed to feel his own power, unfiltered and overwhelming, even if just for a few minutes. He needed to remember what it felt like to be strong.

He drank the vial.

The effect was immediate and violent. Fire exploded through his veins, his muscles swelling with sudden power. His vision went red at the edges, his thoughts simplifying to pure instinct. Fight. Kill. Dominate.

Sog threw back his head and roared.

The sound echoed off the arena walls, primal and furious. He could feel his mana burning away, the fuel for this temporary transformation, but he didn't care. He was strong. He was powerful. This was what he was meant to be.

He summoned demons. Not twelve this time, but twenty. Thirty. As many as his enhanced mana could produce before it ran dry. They appeared in waves, filling the arena with snarling, clawing bodies.

Then he tore into them.

There was no technique, no strategy. Just violence. Sog moved through his summons like a hurricane, ripping and smashing and destroying everything in his path. Claws bounced off his skin. Teeth shattered against his bones. He was invincible, unstoppable, a force of nature given demon form.

Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. The arena floor was slick with dissolving demon ichor, the air thick with the smell of blood and mana. Sog kept fighting, kept killing, even as he felt the Berserker's Fury beginning to fade.

Not yet. Just a little longer.

He pushed harder, wringing every last drop of power from the enhancement. His summons fell before him, one after another, unable to even slow his assault. He was a god. He was a demon. He was—

The enhancement ended.

It was like hitting a wall. One moment he was invincible, the next, he was empty. His legs gave out, his vision blurred, and he collapsed face-first onto the blood-slicked stone.

For a while, he just lay there, too weak to move. His mana was gone—completely, utterly gone. His muscles felt like wet noodles. Even breathing was an effort.

But he was smiling.

That's what I'm capable of, he thought. That's what I can be when I stop holding back.

The boost from Max was real, and it helped. But the core of his strength, the demon warrior who'd conquered territory and built a reputation, that was still there. It had always been there. He'd just forgotten how to access it.

Stop thinking about where the strength comes from. Start thinking about what you do with it.

Sog lay on the arena floor, too exhausted to stand, and made himself a promise. He would stop resenting the bond with Max. He would stop treating the boost as borrowed power and start treating it as a foundation to build on. He was a demon, yes, but he was also a god and a member of this party. Those identities didn't have to conflict.

He would become something new. Something that combined demon ferocity with the loyalty and cooperation he'd learned from his friends. Something that used every advantage available—his own strength, the boost from Max, the training with the others—and forged it into a weapon that could actually matter when the time came.

Tomorrow, he would tell Max about his struggles, and they would work through it together. He would train smarter, not just harder, building on his strengths instead of mourning his perceived weaknesses.

But tonight, he would lie here and remember what it felt like to be powerful.

That memory would carry him through the hard work ahead.

***

He wasn't sure how long he lay there before the door opened.

"Sog?" Cordellia's voice, concerned. "What happened? The whole tower heard that roar."

"Training," he managed. "Overdid it."

Footsteps approached, and then she was kneeling beside him, her hand on his shoulder. "Can you move?"

"Give me a minute."

"I'll give you ten." She sat down beside him, not seeming to mind the mess. "Want to talk about it?"

Sog considered refusing. He was a demon. Demons didn't talk about their feelings.

But he was also tired of being alone with this.

"I've been struggling," he admitted. "With the boost from Max. With my place in the group. With... a lot of things."

"I know."

He turned his head to look at her. "You know?"

"We all know." Cordellia's expression was gentle. "You've been pushing yourself too hard, isolating yourself, refusing help. We've been waiting for you to come to us, but..." She shrugged. "Demons are stubborn."

"We are." Sog managed a weak laugh. "I'm an idiot."

"Sometimes. But you're our idiot." She echoed his words to Fowl without knowing it, and somehow that made it funnier. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up and fed. You can tell me what's been going on, and I can tell you that you're overthinking everything."

"You think I'm overthinking?"

"I think you're a demon who's trying to apply demon logic to a situation that requires something different." Cordellia helped him sit up, her archer's strength supporting his weight easily. "You're not alone anymore, Sog. You haven't been for a long time. Maybe it's time to start acting like it."

She was right. They were all right. He'd been so focused on what he'd lost, his independence, his solo identity, that he'd forgotten to appreciate what he'd gained.

"Okay," he said. "Let's talk."

They left the arena together, Sog leaning on Cordellia more than he wanted to admit. Behind them, the evidence of his breakdown slowly dissolved, the demon corpses returning to mana and fading away.

Tomorrow, he would be stronger. Not just in body, but in mind.

Tonight, he would let his friends help him.

That was its own kind of strength.