The hall was vast, unadorned.
Its walls, carved from polished black stone, reflected the bluish flicker of torches embedded directly into the rock.
No banners. No skulls. No grotesque staging.
Just silence—cold, deliberate, controlled.

At the far end, a throne of carved basalt stood on a raised platform.
Empty.
Yet clearly occupied.
They didn’t need to see him.
They knew he was there.

Kneeling before the throne was Carea.
His body still smoking, chest wrapped hastily, survival magic barely holding him together.

Around him stood five figures.

Three bore the marks of a life left behind:
— an elven warrior clad in dulled but well-kept armor,
— a stocky dwarven healer, as solid as her reputation,
— and two darker, towering forms—members of the demon elite.

Their armor seemed to breathe with every motion, forged in a metal so dark it bled red veins, as if ancient magma still pulsed within.

Together, they formed what the rumors called: The Black Guard.

Carea, the tracker, was the only one who had crawled back from a mission into sanctified lands.
He was neither the fastest nor the strongest.
But he had survived—again and again.
His blades were plain, unenchanted.
But they had never failed him.
Nor had his instinct.
He rarely spoke—especially since the day they’d left him for dead.
He remembered that day. Every day.

The elven warrior, Kraes, still carried the martial grace of his people, though his face was etched with the weight of countless battles.
He had fallen during the final assault against the Demon King, slain in a desperate duel against an abyssal champion.
But the kingdom’s magic had pulled him back—not as a puppet, but as a mind tethered by debt.
He fought with twin sabers, forged for him by a dwarven blacksmith—an insult to his lineage that his clan had never forgiven.

Danbur, the dwarf, had nothing of a gentle healer.
She had died alongside Kraes and Carea in that same hopeless siege.
They had fought to their last breath, believing it was the end.
But the King, rather than reducing them to ashes, had chosen to raise them.
Not as slaves.
Not as hollowed-out husks.
But as bound souls—aware, awake, aligned to his will.

Since then, Danbur barely spoke.
She healed with mechanical precision, cold and impersonal.
Her thick hands knew bones better than herbs.
She didn’t apply care. She enforced it.
Her signature weapon, a mace forged of fused medical bones, never left her side.

As for the two elite demons, they remained silent and still, exuding quiet dominance.
One wore a helmet and bore at his waist a sandless hourglass—a symbol, they said, of a pact never fulfilled.
The other had a moving tattoo curled around his neck—an ink-black line that shifted with his emotions.
No one had ever heard his voice in this chamber.

There were no horned helmets. No flamboyant armor.
Only weary stares—stares of those who had seen the world for what it truly was…
and had chosen to stop pretending otherwise.

It was then that Carea reappeared.
He stumbled from the rear chamber where he’d been taken.
His armor was split. His flesh raw.
He was bleeding—literally painting a red trail on the black stone floor.

He said nothing.
He knelt once more.
Whether from pride or reverence, none could say.

Danbur rushed to his side, her hands already glowing faint green.
She got to work—methodical, surgical.
No one spoke to her.
She knew her place.

— “He’s growing,” Carea breathed at last, his voice barely audible.
— “That kid… he’s becoming a real problem.”

He lifted his dim gaze toward Kraes.

— “He’ll never join us without a reason. A real one.
And I’m not even sure we can stop him… and he’s not even using ten percent of his potential.”

A voice rose then.
Soft, but echoing from every crevice.
A whisper from the unseen throne:

— “Tharion must die.
And be brought here.
Perhaps he’ll be able to reason with the boy.
If not… I’ll be forced to kill him myself.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Still kneeling, Carea added without lifting his head:

— “My king… the half-elf girl is becoming a threat as well.
Her elven bond… she’s starting to feel it more and more.”

He turned toward Kraes.

Kraes didn’t respond.
He didn’t flinch.
But his gaze lingered a fraction too long on the stone floor.
And his right hand clenched, just slightly, around one of his sword hilts.

He knew exactly who Carea was talking about.
And he knew that this bond… could never be severed without leaving a scar deeper than death.

At last, the helmeted demon lifted his head.
His voice, metallic and raw, sliced through the air for the first time in years:

— “If it must come to that, then so be it.
But let none of you forget—
We are not the monsters they believe.
They are the ones who cast us into this place.”

Silence returned.

Heavier than before.

The throne spoke no more.
But in the shadows…
Everyone felt it.

A decision had been made.