"The Abyss?" Zagan's voice wavered. Not in fear, but in expressive disgust, the edges of his canid lips curling up in a half-formed snarl. "A foul place. A foul thing. Alien. Corruptive. The long-standing enemy of demonkind."

"Enemy?" asked Li, surprised.

"I share the lad's wonder," commented Old Thane as he put his hand to his beard. "Of all the many creatures that roam these lands, it is said only three kinds are above all. The dragons, the primordial spirits, and, finally, the demons."

"That does remind me. A little off the topic at hand, but what of angels? I've yet to see one or hear of them," said Li. He knew that in the game, angels and demons were, as they traditionally were, diametrically opposed to each other in the same way light and dark were.

"Angels? The spirits of light? Gone," said Zagan. "In the beginning, when all magic and beings came crashing upon this world of mortals a millennia ago, there were angels. They fought us, the demons, for supremacy. Yet after the gods drove us west and ascended to their divine plane, the angels left also, and since then, they have never deigned to set their wings upon this plane of existence."

"I see," said Li. Strange, considering that even in Valhul, there were no angels. Or perhaps, considering that in game lore angels were essentially automatons fashioned through shards of Helius's life force, Helius no longer had the life force or willpower to maintain them.

"Then continue with the Abyss. I had wavered the idea of creating a spell to call angels, for they, like your kind, have some measure of resistance to eldritch insanity auras. One thing I notice, Zagan, is that you have complete contempt for the Abyss. I can understand your distaste of your kind drawing from its powers, but it seems you have a personal chip on your shoulder against the thing as a whole."

"All demonkind should. That is why the sacrilege is ever more heretic that the Burning One should now ally with the Abyss." Zagan continued his explanation.

"Eight centuries ago, merely two centuries after the dawn of the gods and magic, an entity fell from the moon. It crashed within the En Okearkos, the great ocean where a great many of the waterfaring members of this personage's kind lived.

This personage was not alive for this, but still aged enough to remember the tales and the duty invested upon us. The demons of the time had recovered from their routing by the gods. The second Burning One had come to rise in power, and she commanded seven new heralds, ready to bring forth the full might of the Swarm upon the mortal world once more.

But the fall of that entity, that alien, foul thing, presented a far greater threat.

The Burning One saw as the entity's tendrils spread through En Okearkos, corrupting and twisting all demonkin within, and understood that to leave it alone would be to leave the entire world to destruction.

Thus, she acted."

"Demons saving the world? How the taverns would laugh at that tale were I to spread it. And how the Light would try to purge even me if I spoke of it. A mighty shame - all should know of heroics, regardless of where it hails from." Old Thane nodded slowly, taking in the concept that the race that all mortals feared as evil, chaotic, and predatory above measure, had acted to save the world.

There was no disbelief in his voice, merely some slight surprise, with even that tempered over his years of experience.

Zagan stirred. "Hm. You mortal races seem to misunderstand. You are all prey. Whether you crawl on fours or stand on twos or fly on wings, in the end, to us, you are all meals. And yet, for balance to remain, both predator and prey must even each other out. Should that entity have emerged from En Okearkos, there would be nothing left."

"Isn't the whole point of calling the Rite of the Swarm to take over the whole world?" asked Li.

"And mortal life would still continue. Moderated as the humans moderate their cattle."

"Fair enough," said Li, because after all, when it came down to it, Zagan was a demon. "So, if I recall correctly, the second invasion happened much later than the first. Five hundred or so years after, I believe, and yet, there was a Burning One with seven heralds all ready to go just two hundred years in.

I'm assuming something happened to them."

Zagan nodded. "The entity was immensely corruptive, but it was not active. It was lethargic. Sleepy. And yet, its scale was massive, unable to be fully destroyed without threatening to wake it. Thus, the solution: a sealing. The Burning One and her seven heralds fashioned their souls into seals and embedded the sealing into their titles.

The Sin Aspect passed down from herald to herald grants not only power based upon the sin they embody, but also the seal. Thus, so long as a Burning One and seven heralds maintain the integrity of their souls, the Abyss remains sealed."

"Pretty worrying considering if what you say is true, the Burning One has already been compromised, meaning that other than you, all the seals are gone," said Li.

"That is not necessarily so." There was confidence in Zagan's voice. "The old ways are old for they are meant to withstand the tests of time. The seals are embedded in our souls when we receive the power of heralds or the title of the Burning One. We cannot relinquish them willingly; we must be devoured, and we cannot be devoured lightly, either.

The Swarm is split into seven hordes under command of the heralds. Not the Burning One. The Burning One merely holds title over the heralds. Should the heralds themselves rebel against the Burning One, then the Burning One is left with no army. No force.

The Burning One may hold individual might above all else, but they cannot afford to begin devouring the Heralds for the rest will stand against them quickly enough."

Li immediately saw holes in Zagan's statement. Theoretically, the chain of commands the demons had worked. It had worked for almost a thousand years, after all. But this was an unprecedented time. The Burning One had found some way to tap into the Abyss through some forbidden means even without breaking the seals, and in doing so, gained power capable of corrupting the minds of the other heralds.

That broke apart the entire safeguard system. It also meant that the seals were in dangerous hands now.

"This personage understands what you are thinking." Zagan's voice was more observant. Less confident. "The Burning One holds grasp over the minds of the heralds. Ideally, that should not be so. This personage, Wrath, and Pride stood against the heresy of the Burning One.

With this personage's defection, Wrath and Pride should follow."

"But they haven't," observed Li. "I hear no news of two powerful demons and their armies anywhere."

Zagan slightly bowed his head. "And that is why this personage now takes action. There is worry that Wrath and Pride have also fallen. Thus, the millennia old duty to stand against the Abyss lies solely through this personage, and if he must slay the whelp, every herald, and every single demon in his way, then so be it."

There was complete and utter determination in Zagan's voice. The demon was willing to commit genocide on his kind solely for the sake of upholding a tradition. Though, of course, in this case, that tradition meant saving the world as well.

Whatever the case, Zagan must have known about all the tensions brewing in the demonic army when he left for Li's service. Throughout all the time Zagan had been under Li, the demon must have continuously been waiting for his likeminded companions to appear, for at the heart of it all, the demon must have been hopeful that there was yet a way to save his kind.

And now, Zagan could only make the ultimate choice to kill his kind. But, if Li had his way, that was not going to be the only choice the demon could make.

"Kill every single demon? Do not be ridiculous, Zagan," said Li. "My garden will welcome all, demons included. And do you not know my strength? The extent of the miracles I can produce? Your kind is not doomed, and you do not have to wear this heavy burden upon your back.

The heart of this problem lies solely with the entity in the Abyss. I will personally deal with it, and with the head of the beast cut off, the rest of the rotted body should collapse."