The extermination did not end with the demons. By the time Leylin completed his second sweep, his storage was nearly full. Satisfied, he withdrew to a concealed vantage point above the city, where Eliones' arcane signature soon approached.
She arrived without ceremony, her steps light, expression unreadable. "You exceeded the expected efficiency," Eliones said, her voice composed. "The corruption index in the affected zones has dropped below predictive models."
Leylin inclined his head slightly. "The Legion's foothold was poorly maintained."
Eliones' eyes flickered briefly toward his spatial storage. "And the materials?"
"Catalogued. Preserved. Separated by purity and function," Leylin replied evenly. "I assume you expected nothing less."
A faint smile touched Eliones' lips. "Yes… but expectation and confirmation are different things."
She waved her hand, conjuring a translucent arcane screen filled with shifting runes.
"My assessment is complete," she said. "You are… reliable. Dangerous. And not bound by Suramar's politics."
Her gaze hardened slightly. "Which makes you useful." Leylin said nothing.
After a brief pause, Eliones continued, more quietly, "However, your actions have produced an unintended variable."
Leylin raised an eyebrow. "Collateral?"
"No," Eliones replied. "A survivor."
Leylin knew this well as he walked alone through Suramar's lower districts, where the glow of arcane lanterns dimmed into something sickly and uneven. The city above gleamed with eternal magic, but here—beneath noble estates and towering spires—the arcane pulse faltered like a failing heartbeat.
This place was starving. Leylin slowed his pace, his senses spreading outward in silent waves. The residual fel energy from the Burning Legion had mostly dissipated, yet another disturbance lingered—thin, erratic, and deeply unstable.
Arcane decay, he concluded. Not demonic. Internal collapse. He stepped onto a fractured street paved with violet stone. The buildings here were older, their mana conduits cracked and poorly maintained.
The air carried a faint hum, as though the city itself were whispering in exhaustion.
Then he heard it.
A dragging sound. Soft. Uneven. Accompanied by shallow, rasping breaths.
Leylin stopped and observed from the shadows, deliberately suppressing his presence.
From behind a collapsed archway emerged a figure. It was once a Nightborne. Now, it was something else entirely.
The creature's frame was unnaturally thin, its elegant elven features twisted by hunger and prolonged deprivation. Cracks ran along its pale skin like dried riverbeds, glowing faintly with unstable arcane light. Its eyes—once refined and intelligent—burned with a dim, desperate glow, darting restlessly as if searching for something it could no longer name. Mana.
The Withered staggered forward, one clawed hand scraping along the stone wall for balance. Each step looked painful, as though its body were barely obeying its will. Leylin did not move.
He watched. Musculature severely atrophied, he noted. Arcane dependency has replaced biological sustenance entirely. The creature paused suddenly, head snapping toward a flickering mana conduit embedded in the wall. Its breathing quickened. A low, broken sound escaped its throat—half growl, half plea.
It shuffled closer. Before it could reach the conduit, the light flickered and died. The Withered froze. For a heartbeat, it stood perfectly still. Then it screamed.
The sound was hoarse and raw, filled with despair rather than rage. It clawed at the dead conduit, fingers scraping uselessly against cold stone. Arcane sparks burst erratically from its body, destabilizing its surroundings.
Leylin's eyes narrowed. Loss of control. Emotional stimuli directly affect arcane output. The Withered collapsed to its knees, trembling violently. It rocked back and forth, muttering fragments of broken elven speech—names, titles, half-remembered incantations that dissolved into meaningless noise.
Leylin felt a faint tightening in his chest. Not sympathy. Recognition.
"This is not corruption," he murmured quietly. "This is an addiction."
He remained hidden, allowing the observation to continue uninterrupted. After several minutes, the Withered slowly rose again. Its movements were sluggish now, weaker. Yet its instincts drove it onward, deeper into the district. Leylin followed at a distance.
The creature avoided open streets, favoring narrow alleys and collapsed corridors where mana residue lingered faintly in the air. It reacted strongly even to the weakest arcane traces, pressing its face against glowing runes like a starving man inhaling the scent of food.
Each exposure granted it brief clarity—seconds at most—before the hunger returned even stronger. Leylin memorized everything. Dependency cycle duration: unstable. Temporary lucidity achieved through minimal exposure. Long-term degeneration unavoidable without regulated intake.
He did not intervene. Not yet. Eventually, the Withered disappeared into a darkened structure—a forgotten storage hall half-swallowed by the city's foundations.
Leylin stopped at the entrance. He would not follow. This encounter had already yielded enough data.
Elsewhere in the city, Eliones observed faint fluctuations in the arcane network.
"…You're still down there," she muttered softly, gazing through a scrying array. She could sense Leylin's presence—but not his intentions. That irritated her.
Leylin returned to his temporary quarters hours later. Within the privacy of the arcane barrier he had erected, he opened his spatial storage and began reorganizing the materials collected during the extermination.
Most of the demon remains were catalogued openly—blood samples, horns, bones, hearts—all properly labeled and ready to be presented. But not all of them.
Leylin's fingers paused as he retrieved several carefully sealed containers. A crystallized demon core. A partially autonomous heart fragment. A horn etched naturally with fel-resistant runes. He separated them from the rest.
"These will not be shared," he said quietly.
Leylin already envisioned their use. An arcane construct—one capable of operating independently within hostile magical environments. Something resilient to both fel corruption and arcane instability.
Suramar provided the perfect testing ground. He sealed the hidden materials within a deeper layer of spatial compression, masking their signatures entirely. Then he turned his attention elsewhere.
"Shadow Khans," Leylin commanded softly. The shadows in the room shifted. Several tall, indistinct figures emerged, their forms composed of darkness and silent obedience. Their eyes glimmered faintly as they knelt.
"New directive," Leylin continued. "Disperse throughout the city. Priority target: libraries, private collections, abandoned archives."
The Khans listened without expression.
"Gather books," Leylin said. "Arcane theory. Nightborne history. Mana regulation techniques. Anything related to arcane dependency or city infrastructure."
He paused.
"Do not engage. Do not reveal yourselves. Record everything. Write what you cannot bring back."
The Shadow Khans bowed. In the next instant, they melted into the shadows, slipping through walls and streets like whispers carried by the arcane wind. Leylin exhaled slowly.
Between the demons, the Withered, and Suramar's obsessive reliance on arcane energy, a pattern was emerging. One that fascinated him.
"One city," Leylin murmured, gazing out at the glowing skyline beyond his window. "Sustained by magic… and dying from it."
Somewhere deep below, the Withered continued its endless search. And above, nobles feasted beneath eternal light—unaware of the decay creeping ever closer. Leylin smiled faintly.
This place was more valuable than he had ever anticipated.