With that, Tia flapped her wings once, and she was gone, speeding away up and forwards like an emerald bullet. Her tiny figure flew with complete grace, a wide smile plastered atop her face as the wind billowed and pushed her back while she spun figure eights throughout the wide and free sky.

But despite that, Li kept up rather easily, and Zagan did also, both of them keeping up leisurely enough to track her with one eye while having the other focused on each other and the conversation to be had.

While they flew, Li made sure to keep tabs on the Vukanovi, sensing its health and location.

"But it is not so now. This personage has thought long and at depth during his service to you, Great One, witnessing your dreams of united order and what it must take and what it must mean to embrace that which is different and new," said Zagan. "It has become apparent now that change must be in order. Amon was heretical in many ways, but this personage was wrong to blame him for embracing change."

"Amon?" asked Li.

"The reigning Burning One."

"And your once pupil," noted Li.

"Once," emphasized Zagan. "This personage will not hesitate to strike down the heretic should the chance arise."

"And I fear that it will come to that," said Li. "If what I remember is correct, so long as the Burning One is alive and maintaining the Rite of the Swarm, then he has control over the entire body of demons, no? The only way to break apart the rite is to eliminate the Burning One, just as was done in the Fourth Darkening."

"There is yet another way. The Rite of the Swarm may be taken through rightful combat by those with demonic blood flowing within them."

"That does expand possibilities," said Li as he thought of the implications of this. Though, as he processed the revelation, he realized it did not change too much. Rather, it made things easier for him.

"Zagan," continued Li. "How much of my power have you restored yourself on by now?"

"This personage has feasted quite amply. His strength has returned to a height that eclipses that which has ever been reached before."

"Good," said Li. "Then I want you to face the Burning One and take the Rite of the Swarm from him. Become the new leader of the demons. Be the one to bridge my message to them."

"This personage has no qualms with that. But the power he holds now will not be sufficientx for the Burning One."

"Really now? I understand that the current Burning One has been siphoning power from corrupted eldritch sources, but I only have previous Burning Ones to base his power off of. And from what I know, Sunstar alone was enough to defeat the previous Burning One, and if I lend you enough strength, you should easily eclipse that level of strength."

Tia stopped in the air, huffing as she took a quick break. They had flown up much higher now, up to the point where a huge, full cloud of snowy white floated lazily in front of them. She watched it with curiosity.

Li smiled at Tia. She was probably thinking that the cloud looked like the fluffy sugar candy that some of the street food sellers in Riviera peddled.

Zagan's eyes dimmed in thought, and a discernable change in his aura alerted Li's attention.

"It is not strength in its raw form that this personage is concerned of," said Zagan. "It is the nature of this current Darkening, if indeed it can even be called such. It is unlike any that this personage has ever seen. It has been long since any emotion resembling something so fickle and weak as worry has entered this heart, but it does so now."

Worry and Zagan were two things Li had a hard time ever correlating together, and that alone made him that much more alert and wary of what the demon was saying. "How so? What is so different this time around?"

"Whence this personage last left the Burning One's service, there were not yet any commands made for the seven swarms to begin moving. The Burning One only stowed himself away in communion within the Abyss, and there, none could reach him.

Thus, this personage decided to act on his own."

"Which is why I saw you invading Riviera, but no other swarms or demonic heralds came," said Li. "Until Gluttony."

"And Gluttony appeared before us thoroughly corrupted, spreading a plague of madness that reeked of the Abyss," said Zagan. "Pride, an old friend that has fought with this personage since the Third Darkening five hundred years ago, still cannot be reached. This personage fears the swarms are no more, or at the least, hold not the principles which they once lived and died by.

A Rite of the Swarm as it has been through the ages is not a time to fret and plan. It is a celebration. An unleashing of all seven swarms in symbolic commemoration of the Signum, the seal that the Light god and his angels forced upon us, breaking. We celebrate in image of our ancestors in the First Darkening, spreading our might throughout the known world."

"What about world domination?"

"Something akin to that would be a natural consequence of our celebration, this personage supposes. However, the Rite of the Swarm celebrates freedom first and foremost. With the freedom to roam and do as we wish, then no doubt, as the mightiest of beings, the world would fall under our heel, but that is a consequence, not so a goal.

However, that freedom this personage shall admit does hinder us. We gather not as armies, but as swarms, and a swarm has no heed for rank and file or order. We are seven swarms of countless differing tribes loosed to their own devices upon the world.

The Burning One may command, but never before has one been able to truly exert authority capable of binding the swarms into a strategically guided body of soldiers. Nor should such be attempted, for the swarms would rebel in any of their freedoms finding restriction."

"And yet now this Burning One seems to have a tight leash over the seven swarms," Li pointed out. "A leash you believe comes from eldritch manipulation."

"This personage does not like the term 'leash' used for the mighty demonic see, but it is so. This personage surmises that with how little the seven swarms have stirred, with even the bloodthirsty packs of Wrath holding still, that all of demonkind has fallen."

"And again, I have the power to undo it," said Li. "I hold the same power that this Burning One is trying to tap into. No, not just that, I am that power – it is part and parcel of my being. I am not trying to tap into or siphon or steal anything, I simply am. I have little doubt that I will be able to undo whatever the Burning One has brought upon the demons."

"Never has this personage questioned your ability. There is simply a questioning of intent. Why is it so that the Burning One holds the seven swarms back? It is entirely unlike any of the prior Darkenings."

"And tell me, how were the other Darkenings? You can go into detail. It would be good to get a sense of how the demons worked before this whole abyss ordeal."

"Hm." Zagan closed his eyes, remembering.