The streets of Eldhar were different in daylight.
Liam walked beside Lilith through thoroughfares that bustled with life—demons trading, arguing, living.
The war felt distant here, a rumor rather than reality. Children played in alleys. rchants hawked with aggressive enthusiasm.
The sll of sulfur mixed with sothing almost pleasant, like spiced at cooking over open flas.
It should have felt alien. Odd. A human walking through a city that existed to oppose everything his forr world valued.
But Liam felt nothing except mild curiosity. Even that was fading.
"You’re quiet," Lilith observed. She’d chosen to walk rather than take a carriage, claiming the common demons needed to see their queen among them. Liam suspected she just needed the air. "Nervous?"
"No."
"Anxious?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Liam was silent for a mont, watching a mother demon guide her child away from a vendor selling what looked like weapons disguised as toys.
The child’s disappointnt was considerable. Universal, really—children wanted what they couldn’t have regardless of species.
"Empty," he said finally. "I’m about to et hundreds of demons who believe I’m their god. Who’ve pledged their lives to serving . Who worship with absolute devotion."
He looked at Lilith.
"And I feel nothing about it. No anxiety. No anticipation. Just recognition that this is necessary. That the performance requires it."
"Is that concerning?"
"I don’t know. I don’t feel concerned enough to determine if it’s concerning." His grey eyes held sothing that might have been amusent if he’d rembered how to access that emotion. "I think that’s the problem. I’m going to perform divinity for people who’ve sacrificed everything to believe in , and the only thing I feel is obligation."
Lilith studied him as they walked. "Like you said - two percent of yourself"
"Yes," he confird. "Turns out that’s not enough to feel appropriate emotions about things that should matter."
"But you’re still going."
"I can’t avoid my worshippers just because I’ve stopped feeling human enough to care properly." His voice was that odd tone. "Because the role demands presence whether the actor feels adequate to provide it or not."
They turned down a broader avenue, and the Cathedral of the Litany ca into view.
It dominated the skyline like a prayer made stone.
The architecture was deliberately different from the rest of Eldhar. Where the city was sharp angles, the Cathedral was flowing curves and dark marble.
Towers rose like reaching hands, windows glowed with internal light that seed almost alive, and carved into every surface were symbols that predated the current demon empire.
Ancient script that spoke of primordial things. Of sin made manifest. Of the darkness before creation that would exist after ending.
Of Azrakul.
"They built this," Lilith said softly, "over eighty years. One stone at a ti. Funded by donations from demons who had nothing except faith that their god would soday walk among them."
She gestured to the massive doors at the Cathedral’s entrance.
"Eighty years of faith sustained by nothing except desperate hope. And then you arrived. Made their faith real. Proved that their god wasn’t just comforting fiction."
"And now they expect miracles."
"They expect their god to see them. To acknowledge their devotion. To provide aning to sacrifices that would otherwise be aningless." Lilith stopped at the Cathedral steps. "I can’t go further. This is your performance. Your faithful. Your burden to carry."
She looked at him directly.
"They love you, Liam. In ways that transcend pragmatism or calculation. They’ve pledged their existence to serving sothing they believed was myth. And you made the myth real."
"Is there a point to this?"
"The point is that what you do in there matters. Not politically. Not strategically. But fundantally. To them." Her golden eyes were serious. "You’re about to walk into a room of demons who believe you’re their salvation. Their purpose. Their reason for existing."
She stepped back.
"Try to rember that even if you’ve stopped feeling human, they still find you deserving."
Then she turned and left, snow-white hair catching sunlight as she disappeared into the crowd.
Liam stood alone before the Cathedral doors.
They were massive—fifteen feet tall, carved from black wood that seed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Symbols covered every inch, telling stories in a language that the System translated automatically.
Stories of sin. Of darkness. Of the Primordial who would walk among demons and grant aning to their suffering.
Stories of him.
The doors opened silently despite their size, revealing a figure in dark robes waiting just inside.
The Head Priestess of the Naless Litany.
She was ancient—not in appearance, but in presence.
Her horns had been severed close to the skull, the scars healed but visible. Her eyes were completely black, pupils invisible against darkness.
When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of centuries.
"Lord Azrakul. The Originator of Sin." She bowed deeply, the gesture carrying absolute reverence. "We are blessed beyond asure by your presence."
"Rise," Liam said. The command was automatic. Part of the performance.
She straightened but kept her eyes lowered.
"I am called Severina. I have served as the head of this faith for sixty-three years. I have prayed every day that I might see this mont. That our god would walk among us."
She gestured deeper into the Cathedral.
"Will you walk with , my lord? There is much to show you before you et the faithful."
Liam followed her through corridors that seed designed to inspire awe.
Every surface was art—murals depicting battles between light and darkness, sculptures of demons in various states of devotion or despair, mosaics that told stories when viewed from the right angle.
"The Naless Litany," Severina explained as they walked, "began as whispered faith in shadows. Demons who believed in sothing greater than the Nine Houses. Sothing beyond political power and territorial conquest."
She paused before a mural showing a massive figure wreathed in flas, demons bowing before it.
"We believed in the Primordial. In Azrakul. In the embodint of sin itself walking among us and granting purpose to existence that the Radiant Empire called abomination."
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