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Part 2
~820 words
Warnings: Complementary action ;)
From that moment in the ash-choked valley, when death passed him by wrapped in black robes and pale eyes, something within him changed.
He did not forget the way she stood, still as a monument, the undead rising at her call. Nor the way her voice brushed past him—barely human, yet unmistakably alive.
He trained. He bled. He prayed not for peace, but for purpose. For the strength to stand beside her, to repay what words could not. When the time came, he donned armour not to be a saviour… but a shield.
He became a Crusader.
Now, fire rains from the sky. The ground splits open with demonic roars. Diablo, risen again, strides through ruin and screams, his fury eclipsing all light.
And she is there.
The Necromancer stands in the storm’s heart, her spells fracturing the air, bone beasts swarming like shadows under her command. But even her power has its limit.
She falters. The air shudders. Diablo raises a claw wreathed in flame—death meant not for her minions, but for her.
And then—he is there.
His shield slams into the blow with a crash that splits the silence. Holy light explodes outward, halting the demon’s strike.
The Necromancer turns, eyes wide—not with fear, but disbelief.
He meets her gaze, grinning under his helm, eyes bright with fire and something he’d never admit aloud.
“I owed you one.”
She stares for a breath longer than she ever should have.
“…You should have run.”
“Couldn’t.” His hammer glows with radiant power. “Didn’t want to.”
They stand together—life and death, bone and light, opposites forged by fate. And as Diablo roars, they charge.
He does not know if she will ever thank him.
But in this war, standing beside her again…
He does not need her to.
....The sky cracked with red lightning. The ground bled molten fire. Diablo stood—titanic, snarling, his eyes twin furnaces of malice—as the Necromancer and the Crusader faced him beneath the shattered spires of the Black Cathedral.
"COME THEN!" Diablo roared, his voice a cataclysm, shaking the bones of the world. "TASTE ANNIHILATION!"
And they did not falter.
She moved first—cloak billowing, hands casting ancient, unspeakable sigils. The ground groaned, split—and rose. Rotten fists punched through scorched earth, dragging fetid bodies from their shallow sleep. Her army of the dead staggered forward, dozens of undead snarling with ragged teeth. Her skeletal golem—massive, rust-stained, and chained to her will—charged like a siege beast, slamming into the demon's leg with bone-crushing force.
Then came the poison—green, hissing, a wave of necrotic gas that curled around Diablo's hide. His armour smoked, skin blistered. He shrieked.
From the opposite side, the Crusader raised his banner—and light screamed from the heavens. His holy beam, pure and searing, lanced straight through Diablo’s wing. Black blood spilled like oil, sizzling as it hit the dirt.
"By the Light—bleed, monster!" he roared, driving his Shield Glare into the demon’s eyes. Diablo staggered, snarling—but not defeated.
"RISE!" Diablo bellowed, and the shadows obeyed. The Fanged Flayer, a venomous beast with eyes like coals and claws like scythes, leapt from the abyss, followed by an onslaught of demonic soldiers, blades gleaming and howls echoing.
The Crusader turned to meet them—but his hammer cracked mid-swing. Too many. Too fast.
And then—her golem took the blow. It burst apart in a flash of brittle bone, shielding the Crusader. She stood behind him, cold eyes blazing.
“Don’t die, paladin. I’m not done using you.”
He laughed breathlessly, bloodied and grinning.
“You almost sound like you’d miss me.”
Together, they pushed forward.
He guarded her with his shield as she raised more dead from the battlefield itself—reclaiming Diablo’s own fallen pawns, turning them against him.
She targeted the Fanged Layer with a plague of spirits, unravelling it from within. He crushed demon soldiers beneath blessed strikes, his aura amplifying her decay—each death feeding her power.
Finally, with Diablo weakened, snarling, fire dripping from his mouth like molten hate, they stood side by side.
“Now,” she whispered.
He lifted his shield. She placed her hand on it—and her necrotic energy coiled around his holy light, corrupt and pure twisting together.
They charged.
Diablo swung, but they were faster—his blade crashing into her wall of bone, her spell igniting with his sanctified fury.
And then—the final strike.
She cast forth her last spell, the Mark of Death, searing Diablo’s chest with a black sigil. He staggered—
—and the Crusader drove his hammer into the mark, light pouring through it like sunlight through a shattered window.
Diablo screamed.
Not in rage. In defeat.
He collapsed, burning from the inside out—his body crumbling, limbs thrashing until only ash remained.
And in the silence that followed, the two stood together—heaving, bloodied, eyes locked.
“I didn’t think we’d win,” he said.
She didn’t reply. Just looked at him, something unreadable in her frozen gaze.
Then, softly—barely audible over the wind—
“When death walks with light… even Hell must kneel.”