Kael felt them before he saw them. Not footsteps, not sound but authority.
It pressed into the Throne Scar like a foreign weight, bending fractured reality back toward obedience. The air thickened, reality stitching itself tighter with every heartbeat.
Demon generals, not soldiers, not kings but executors.
Kael swore under his breath and severed his connection to the network immediately. The moment he pulled back, pain ripped through his chest as the seal snapped shut harder than before, locking demonic resonance behind layers of burning suppression, it was too slow.
The scar rejected him.
Space folded violently, spitting Kael out onto obsidian ground miles from Ashkar. He rolled, coughing blood, vision flashing white as his body struggled to recalibrate to reality that still believed
