[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This-Chapter 100: In Which Azryth Kills His Brother

Azryth was losing.

Not the fight. The fight was going exactly as he’d planned, the spectral blade cutting through Veyrith’s shadows in ways his fire alone never could, every strike landing with precision born from five hundred years of necessity.

But Riven was dying.

He felt it through the binding, every moment of agony as Riven channeled power that was tearing him apart from the inside. The warden seal cracking, body systems failing one by one, vision going dark.

Azryth pressed the attack harder, fire blazing brighter, the spectral blade moving faster.

Veyrith blocked and countered, shadows manifesting despite the wounds bleeding amber light across his chest and arms and legs. "You’re distracted, brother. Not like you."

"Shut up," Azryth said, blade cutting through a tendril aimed at his throat.

"It’s the warden, isn’t it?" Veyrith’s smile widened. "You can feel what’s happening to him. The entity is eating him alive, using him as fuel."

Azryth didn’t respond, just attacked again, fire and blade working in coordination he’d never achieved before Riven had given him this weapon.

Another spike of agony through the binding. Riven’s warden seal breaking completely now, protection shattering.

Azryth felt his own rage spike in response, five hundred years of controlled fury threatening to break free.

"Your little warden won’t last," Veyrith said, blocking the blade with shadow armor that cracked under the impact. "Bound to you or not, he’s still mortal. Fragile. Temporary."

The binding screamed between them. Riven’s life flickering, dimming, seconds from going out entirely.

And something in Azryth broke.

Not the binding, not his control, something deeper, more fundamental.

Five hundred years of rage that he’d kept contained, locked away, controlled because losing control meant becoming what Veyrith had accused him of being.

Five hundred years of loss, of isolation, of darkness in an amulet with nothing but his own thoughts and the growing certainty he’d never escape.

Five hundred years of planning and hoping and clinging to the belief that someday he’d reclaim what was stolen.

All of it, compressed into a single moment of absolute fury at the realization that Veyrith was right.

Riven was dying, and Azryth couldn’t reach him, couldn’t help him, couldn’t do anything except feel every moment of it through their binding while fighting his brother for a throne he suddenly didn’t care about at all.

The rage broke free.

Azryth’s power exploded outward, not controlled fire but something primal, ancient, the full manifestation of what a demon lord actually was when stripped of civilization and restraint.

His form shifted, changed, became something that had nothing to do with the careful control he’d maintained for centuries. True infernal manifestation, power made flesh, five hundred years of everything given physical form.

The temperature in the throne room dropped to freezing. Frost spread across obsidian floors in perfect geometric patterns. His fire burned cold instead of hot, blue-white instead of amber, consuming shadows and light equally.

The coalition felt it immediately, the shift in power, in presence, in the fundamental wrongness of what Azryth had become.

"What is that?" someone shouted, but Azryth barely registered the words.

Demons closer to him dissipated without being struck, unable to exist in proximity to what he’d become. Coalition hunters stumbled back instinctively, warden instincts screaming danger in ways they’d never felt from Azryth before.

Even Ryota, coordinating the defense, stopped mid-command to stare.

This wasn’t the controlled demon lord who’d fought beside them for weeks, this was something primal, ancient, the kind of power that made the throne room’s infernal architecture look like a child’s drawing by comparison.

Azryth heard none of it, felt none of their fear.

Only Riven’s life flickering through the binding.

Veyrith’s expression changed. The smirk disappeared, replaced by something Azryth hadn’t seen from his brother in five centuries.

Fear.

"Wait—" Veyrith started.

Azryth didn’t wait.

He moved faster than Veyrith could track, the spectral blade forgotten as claws manifested from hands that weren’t quite hands anymore.

Veyrith tried to defend, shadows rising to block, but they burned away like paper in Azryth’s presence.

Azryth caught his brother by the throat, claws sinking into flesh that bled amber light.

"You’re right," Azryth said, his voice wrong now, layered with harmonics that came from something deeper than vocal cords. "He’s mortal, fragile, temporary."

Veyrith struggled, power manifesting desperately, trying to break free.

"And I will not let him die for your ambition."

Azryth’s claws tightened.

Then ripped.

Veyrith’s throat came apart in his hands, shadow and flesh and amber light spilling across obsidian floors. His brother’s eyes went wide, shocked, the expression freezing as his form began to dissipate.

Five hundred years of necessity, ended in seconds.

Veyrith’s body collapsed, dissolving into shadow that burned away in Azryth’s presence, leaving nothing behind except blood that wasn’t quite blood pooling on the throne room floor.

Brother dead. Throne reclaimed. Everything Azryth had fought for, achieved in a moment of rage so absolute he’d stopped being civilized and become something else entirely.

And he didn’t care.

Couldn’t care.

Because through the binding, Riven’s life was flickering like a candle in the wind, seconds from going out completely.

Azryth ran.

The throne room was still chaos, coalition hunters fighting demons, reality bleeding together at the seams. He burned through it all, fire clearing a path, demons dissipating from his presence alone because what he’d become was too much for them to exist near.

The nexus chamber was ahead, walls dissolved, purple-black energy swirling.

And in the center, barely visible through the energy, Riven.

Collapsed against the nexus heart, both hands pressed to crystalline surface, body shaking, blood running from his nose and ears, warden seal shattered completely on his wrist.

But still channeling. Still pushing the entity back through sheer desperate will despite the fact that his body had already given up.

Azryth reached the chamber entrance.

Felt through the binding exactly how close Riven was to death. Seconds, maybe, not minutes, seconds.

"Riven!" he said, his voice still wrong, still layered with infernal harmonics.

Riven didn’t respond, he couldn’t, too far gone, consciousness barely holding on to finish what he’d started.

The entity was being pushed back, forty percent now, maybe forty-five, but it wasn’t enough and Riven didn’t have anything left.

Azryth stepped into the chamber, into purple-black energy that burned and froze, into the presence of something ancient and massive trying to break through into reality.

And he made a decision.

If Riven didn’t have enough power alone, they’d do it together.

The way they’d done everything else since the binding formed.

Azryth reached for Riven’s shoulder, and poured everything he had left into their connection.