186 Heart of the Demon (1/2)

Between them, the still corpse of an insect lay. It looked to be a hybrid between a wasp and a spider with eight carapaced legs, an abdomen that ended in a curved stinger, and shredded insectoid wings. It was the size of a small child, and it was a wonder it could fit so easily into the body of the orc warchief.

”Tell me, Zagan, do you recognize this being?” said Li.

Zagan bared a few of his fangs. ”This personage does. It is Zerzal, demon general and herald of Gluttony.”

”I figured it was a demon of some noteworth,” said Li. ”And so I subdued him with force almost equivalent to that which I used upon you. Unfortunately, this thing was far weaker than you, and crumbled under pressure immediately.

Died before I could even make it feel any measure of pain. Before I could get it to talk more.”

”Zerzal is a being of many, capable of splitting itself apart into a swarm, and in exchange, each of his bodies is fragile.”

”Then he is still alive? This is just one of many bodies?”

Zagan shook his head. ”No. As herald, my personage knows well the scent of living demon. The power you used to purge his being echoed throughout every single one of his bodies. The herald Zerzal is no more.”

Zagan began to utter a low, rattling growl. ”But that is not punishment enough. Not only does Zerzal deign to intrude upon your territory, but he has succumbed to the forbidden power of the Abyss.

Power that no demonkind should ever rely upon.”

”Not only him,” said Li. ”Zerzal was still acting in his capacity as a herald for another, and in this case, it was still the Burning One. The demonic invasion this time around is wildly different than the one you and others talked about.

This time, it isn't just demons, it's eldritch power coming into the mix as well.”

”A conclusion that my personage has also reached,” said Zagan. He became still, almost solemn. ”To think the whelp this personage counseled in all the millennia long traditions and principles of the Swarm would turn to the Abyss for strength and to enforce its corrupting curse upon demonkind.”

”Tell me of this Abyss.” Li understood that it was the body of water nearby where the demons lived and also capable of being accessed by the Hinterlanders, considering that Azhar when training as a shaman knew that there was an eldritch existence lying in those depths.

”It is a body of ill-fated waters that stands still beside En Arkennan, the center of chaos within which my kind spawns and hunts. Its depths are obscured, hidden even to demonkind, but throughout the centuries, we have come to understand that there is power lurking in the depths, power that ripples sweetly and alluringly, but so sweet is its taste that it becomes maddening, a rotten fruit that we decided many centuries ago to never indulge in.”

”Doesn't your kind believe in power? The hunt? Preying upon each other to reach superiority? It seems like such a power source would be to your kind's interest.”

Zagan snorted. ”The heart of demonkind may be based upon power, but not like this.

Our kind believes fundamentally in power invested within ourselves. Power projected by our own proud bodies built up by centuries of fight and consumption.

Power emanating from minds sane and honed by the whetstone of time, not guided by spectral whisperings that have no place in this realm.”