I Have a Military Shop Tab in Fantasy World-Chapter 218: Humiliated

The Rift Castle did not sleep. Its walls breathed with the green firelight of eternal braziers, its spires cutting into the torn sky like black knives. Beyond the throne hall, in chambers carved from obsidian and bone, generals of the Demon King returned one by one from their tasks across the world. Yet the air that night was different—thicker, charged, restless. Word had already reached the fortress: the Lady of Illusion had fallen.

And now, the Lord of Destruction came home wounded.

He entered the throne hall with his steps echoing like hammers on coffins. His molten eyes glowed dimmer than usual, helm fractured where Inigo's bullets had bitten. The rune along his left palm flickered unsteady. Even his cloak of fire clung close to him, thin and wavering.

The Demon King was already seated. He did not lean forward this time. He sat back upon the jagged throne, fingers laced together, eyes half-lidded, as if waiting to savor the taste of disappointment.

The other generals stood along the chamber's length. Lady Death, veiled in her mourning silks, arms crossed. Lord Fate, shuffling his violet deck without looking down, though every card he drew whispered judgment. The space Illusion once filled remained empty, a hollow reminder of her absence.

Destruction stopped before the steps. He bowed his head, only slightly. A concession, not respect.

"My King."

The Demon King's voice cut like silk over steel. "You return. Alone."

"I return," Destruction admitted. His tone was level, but his gauntlets tightened. "The anomaly—the Unbound Soul—is more than rumor."

That got a stir. Fate arched one silver brow. Death's veiled head tilted, listening closer.

The Demon King's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

Destruction's jaw flexed. "He fought me. Not with gods, not with magic, but with iron. Weapons born of man's hand. Guns, rockets, artillery… endless teeth bought from a void. Each time I struck him down, he answered with something new. Each time I pressed harder, he forced me to adjust. For the first time in centuries, I bled. For the first time, I was… bested."

The chamber went silent. The word hung like ash in the air.

Death's voice cut the stillness, sharp as a knife. "Bested? By a mortal?"

Destruction met her gaze. "Not mortal in any sense you know. His weapons carried enchantment without being magic. His hands wielded iron like extensions of his fury. And beside him—an archer who sees seams where armor lies. Together, they fought like a storm given flesh. I crushed her once. Still, she rose enough to matter."

Fate let a card slide free from his fingers. It turned in the air—The Tower, burning, crumbling stone. He smirked without humor. "So the Joker draws companions. How poetic."

The Demon King's voice dropped lower. "You say you were bested. Then why do you stand here breathing?"

Destruction's molten eyes narrowed. "Because he did not kill me. He could not finish it. Not yet. He had power, yes—but borrowed, summoned. His tokens buy weapons, but they do not make him infinite. I saw the limits in his breath, in the way his hands shook between barrages. He bleeds like any man. He—"

"You retreated," the Demon King interrupted.

The throne hall seemed to tighten with those two words.

Destruction stiffened. "I withdrew. To measure. To learn. To return sharper."

Death's laugh was quiet, cruel. "Illusion said the same. She played her games with this Unbound Soul. She lies scattered in the dirt now."

"Her death was her own folly," Destruction snapped, fire flaring along his shoulders. "She toyed where she should have struck. I fought. I endured. I will—"

"You will listen," the Demon King thundered, rising from the throne. The hall shook. The green flames bent inward as if afraid. "First Illusion, now you. My generals, my chosen, faltering before a man not written in fate. Tell me, Destruction, why should I not unmake you where you stand and birth another warlord in your place?"

The molten brute dropped to one knee, gauntlet to the obsidian floor. His cloak flared, then guttered. His voice was iron dragged through fire. "Because I bring you knowledge, my King. Knowledge no corpse could deliver."

The King's glare burned like twin stars, but he stilled. "Speak."

Destruction raised his head, defiance tempered with calculation. "The Unbound Soul cannot be read by fate. That much you know. But I have felt him. He does not wield chaos like you or Illusion. He wields preparation. Every weapon he calls, he uses with soldier's honesty. He learns, adapts, and carves discipline into madness. He is not random. He is practical. That is why he is dangerous."

Fate chuckled darkly, fanning his deck. "A Joker that plays by rules. Delicious contradiction."

Death folded her arms. "And what of you? You admit he made you bleed. That he forced you back into the Rift with scars you cannot hide. What then, Destruction? Will you ask the King for more soldiers to throw under his iron storms?"

"No." Destruction's voice rumbled, sure. "More bodies will only feed his Shop with targets to practice on. What I need is time. Time to shape counters. Time to study his iron until I make it betray him."

The Demon King stepped down from his throne. The hall went silent under his approach. He stopped before Destruction and looked down with eyes that pierced deeper than heat.

"You ask me for time," the King said, his voice calm again. "Time I have already wasted on Illusion's arrogance. Time I cannot squander again."

Destruction bowed his head lower. "Grant me this, and I will not fail. I have already rewritten my armor, seeded counters in my runes, tuned my body to his storms. The next time we meet, he will bleed louder than I did."

The silence stretched. Fate stopped shuffling his deck. Death tilted her veiled face, curious if her King would end one general to make example of him.

Finally, the Demon King's lips curved—faint, sharp. "You burn with humiliation. Good. Shame makes sharper blades than pride. Very well. I will grant you time. But know this: if you return again with only excuses, I will make your name a warning etched into the Rift itself."

Destruction bowed deeper, cloak licking the floor. "As you command."

The King turned from him, gaze sweeping the chamber. "Fate. Watch the city. If the threads so much as twitch, I want to know before the humans do."

"Gladly," Fate purred. "The cards hunger for another draw."

"Death. Prepare the legions of shadow. If Destruction falters, they will march, and Eldrath will drown in mourning."

Death inclined her head. "With pleasure." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"And Destruction…" The Demon King's voice was final, ringing with quiet threat. "Do not confuse endurance with victory. Next time, bring me his head, or do not come back."

Destruction rose, slower than usual, but taller. He turned, molten eyes simmering with fury not at his King, but at the memory of a cook with iron storms and an archer's leaf that dared sting.

As he strode from the hall, Fate flicked one card lazily into the air. It turned end over end, landing face-up upon the obsidian floor.

The Joker.

Destruction's gauntlet clenched. He crushed the card underfoot and left without a word.

In his quarters—a chamber of basalt ribs and low, patient vents—the Lord of Destruction did not sit. He paced. Each step left a shallow glow in the stone that faded only after it had considered keeping the mark. He stripped his helm, set it on the work-stone with a care that would have looked gentle on any other creature, and stared at the starred visor until the crack seemed to stare back.

Humiliation burned hotter than the forge-heat humming through the room. He had bowed. He had said bested. Before the King. Before Death's quiet smile and Fate's shuffling judgment. The word curdled in his mouth now.

"Inigo," he said, tasting the name like a shard. "Cook of iron. Thief of hours."

His gauntlet curled; the work-stone groaned and spidered. He made himself release it, exhaled through rune and bone, and pulled the helm closer. A chisel of black glass waited; he etched new channels inside the star, catch-pockets to drink any future bullet that dared repeat the insult. He threaded a whisper of pressure through the visor seam and watched it hold. Better. Never perfect. He would leave a roughness—scars teach.

The palm-runes on his left hand guttered once, memory of the TOW's bite. He carved a second line beneath the skin-plate, a buried path no eye would read, a false silence he could turn loud when the human decided he understood the gesture. He tuned his shoulder so the force lived there instead. Let Inigo shoot the wrong rhythm.

"Endless teeth," he muttered. "Endless answers." He bared his own. "Then I bring better questions."

He pictured the JLTV's snarl, the Black Dragon's recoil, the archer's leaf-sting threading seams. He pictured the moment the man's hands had trembled between salvos—fatigue admitted, quickly hidden. There. Not invincible. Not inexhaustible. Just loud.

"Next time, you will run out before I do," he promised the empty room. "Next time, I take the hand that writes your storms. Then the bow."

He lifted the helm, turned it until the star caught the room's heat like an eye, and set it on his brow. The cloak rekindled, steady now, anger shaped into purpose.

"Sleep, if you can," he told the air that smelled faintly of onions far away. "I will not."