The surface smelled like a funeral.
Ash. Copper. Something sweet underneath, rot, the kind that came from bodies left too long in the sun that no longer existed. The Demon Lord stood at the mouth of the Abyss and watched a world die in slow motion.
The sky wasn't black. That would've been merciful. It was gray. The gray of a corpse's flesh. The gray of smoke from a fire that had burned out but couldn't stop smoking. Somewhere above, the sun was a bruise behind the ash clouds, pulsing, purple-black, trying to tear itself back into existence and failing.
Seal's at maybe twelve percent. Four, if I keep moving.
Behind him, the Heroes spilled out of the tunnel like refugees. Twelve of them. Thirteen, the boy with the crushed legs had caught up, limping, leaning on the young woman who'd dropped her spear. They looked at the sky. At the dead marble spires of the city in the distance. At the ash falling like snow.
"Holy Father preserve us," the sergeant breathed.
"Holy Father," the Demon Lord muttered, "is currently having a very bad day."
The city of Vel Athor, once the jewel of the Empire, white walls and golden domes, the seat of the Celestial Choir, was a skeleton. The marble hadn't just cracked. It had aged. Eight hundred years of decay in three days. Walls pitted and blackened. Streets choked with rubble. And everywhere, the bodies.
He started walking.
The Heroes scrambled to follow. Like ducklings. Fucking ducklings. He'd spent eight centuries as the most feared thing in existence, and now he was leading a tour group through the apocalypse.
"You," he pointed at the sergeant without looking. "Name."
"Garrick. Ser Garrick of the,"
"I don't care. Garrick. The Church. The Empire. Where are they?"
The man's face did something complicated. Fear. Grief. The kind of shame that came from realizing your entire life was a lie. "Gone. When the sun went out, the people... they turned on each other. The Choir tried to calm them, said it was a test of faith. Then the things started coming up from the lower districts."
"What things?"
Garrick's hand tightened on his sword. "Corruption. The priests called it the Demon's Blight. But you said,"
"I said I was holding back entropy." The Demon Lord's boots crunched through ash. "Entropy doesn't have teeth. What's coming up isn't from the Abyss. It's from here. The rot you've been shoving down for eight hundred years. It finally found its way back up."
A scream cut through the gray.
Close. A woman's voice, cut off too fast.
The Flame Sword ignited without his command. White fire racing along the blade, and in that light, he saw them: three shapes in the ruins ahead. Human-shaped. Mostly. Their skin had the gray of the sky, their eyes were holes, and their mouths,
Their mouths were open too wide. Smiling too wide. And between the teeth, something moved that wasn't a tongue.
"Oh, fuck that," he breathed.
The first one lunged.
He didn't move. Didn't need to. The Flame Sword breathed, a pulse of white fire that hit the thing mid-leap and turned it to ash before it could scream. The second one tried to flank. He pivoted, blade horizontal, and the fire sang. Not heat. Something older. Something that burned the idea of corruption.
The third one stopped. Looked at him with those empty eyes. And then it spoke.
"You... bearer... we remember you."
The voice wasn't human. It was a choir of voices, all wrong, all layered on top of each other like screams compressed into sound.
"You held us... for so long... but you're dying now... and we're so hungry,"
The Flame Sword took its head.
The body crumpled. The head rolled. And from the mouth, that same layered voice whispered as it dissolved:
"Find another... or we will eat it all..."
Silence.
The Demon Lord stood in the ash, breathing hard, heart pounding against the hole in his chest. The Flame Sword's fire flickered once, twice, then died.
Behind him, Garrick made a sound like a man trying not to vomit.
"What," the sergeant said slowly, "was that?"
"That," the Demon Lord said, "was the bill. Eight hundred years of interest. Coming due." He looked at the gray sky. At the dying city. At the thirteen faces staring at him like he was their only chance.
They're not wrong. And that's the worst part.
He started walking again. Faster now. The Sorrow-Stone pulsed against his throat, and inside it, the voice was quiet. Waiting. But he could feel it thinking.
Find another.
He'd been looking for eight centuries. Never found anyone strong enough. Never found anyone stupid enough to take the weight.
Now he didn't have a choice.
"Where are we going?" Garrick called after him.
"To find the one person in this shithole who might survive what comes next."
"And who's that?"
The Demon Lord didn't answer. Because the truth was worse than anything he could say.
He had no fucking idea.