CHAPTER 257: CHAPTER 258: OLD FRIEND

Far away, beyond the barren ridges and valleys of blackened ash, the demon castles stood like wounds torn into the horizon. Their spires were jagged, not built but clawed into the sky, each one etched with runes that glowed faintly in the perpetual twilight. The air here did not move — it pressed — thick and warm, as if it had once been alive and had simply refused to decay.

A low, rolling sound came from within, like the throat of some great beast, and then it swelled into laughter. Not mortal laughter — not even the booming mirth of high demons — but something that turned the air itself into a drum. Each guffaw sent a tremor through the black stone, so that the entire fortress seemed to chuckle with its master.

Inside, the tremors were felt in the bones. Servants — low demons in tight-fitting butler uniforms, their tails tucked low in constant submission — scurried about with platters that shimmered faintly with their own acidic fumes.

Beastfolk were among them too: a fox-headed maid with eyes the color of molten copper, a minotaur footman whose cloven hooves clicked against obsidian tiles. All moved in rhythm with the vibrations, the way a ship’s crew adjusts unconsciously to the roll of the deck.

One small demon, no taller than a child, bore a silver tray upon which a single crystal decanter sloshed with liquid the color of venom.

He paused in the threshold of the grand dining hall, his head bowed low — more from the heat in the air than respect. The fat green figure at the table looked up with lizard-yellow eyes, slit pupils narrowing at the sight of the drink.

The small demon placed it on the table with both clawed hands, as if laying down an offering.

Azezal was already seated across from the massive lord of the castle, his crimson skin almost swallowing the torchlight. The room’s smell was thick — roasted flesh, wine so strong it burned the throat simply to breathe it in, the faint undercurrent of sulphur rising from the cracks in the floor.

The lord leaned forward, his bulk causing the wooden chair to creak alarmingly. His voice was a low rumble that nonetheless carried across the hall.

{Oh, with the blessings of the One Below All... you came back. Oh, how many years I had thought you dead, old man.}

Azezal’s tusked mouth curved into something between a grin and a snarl.

{And yet here I sit. You disappoint me, blam — I thought you’d at least throw a sacrificial funeral festival in my name.}

The fat green lord — blam himself — roared, his laughter making the tableware tremble.

They spoke of their pasts, of the long centuries when they had ruled side by side over infernal territories, scheming against rivals, hosting festivals so lavish they had drawn even the dark elves from their hidden cities.

Azezal remembered the night of the Black Blossom, when they had lined the streets with thorned vines and caged spirits that sang until their throats tore.

Blam recounted the day they had drowned an enemy court in a rain of molten glass, a day still whispered of by the survivors as the "Burning Tears."

The candles guttered lower as the night deepened. The revelry in their words slowed, their laughter growing quieter, more measured. It was then that Azezal’s claw, idly circling the rim of his goblet, stilled.

{Tell me...} Azezal’s tone shifted, heavier now, {...how bad is it?}

Blam’s great yellow eyes dimmed, though the rest of his face held its smile.

{Bad enough. She wants the city — not its walls, not its people. She wants it stripped. She wants me erased.}

The air between them cooled. Azezal’s tail flicked once against the floor.

{You know she won’t have it.}

{You sound certain.}

{I am. Because you are not alone in this.}

Azezal leaned forward, shadows pooling behind his horns.

{The Queen may not care for your alliances, but she will care when she learns you are counted among the GUIDE’s apostles.}

At that, Bam’s gaze sharpened — the way a beast focuses not on a threat, but on prey it has already decided belongs to it.

{The GUIDE...}His voice rolled the word as if tasting it.{You’ve seen him again?}

{I’ve more than seen him. I’ve walked in the shadow of his will.}

Babylon’s thick fingers drummed on the table, claws tapping wood with an odd gentleness.

{I have seen him too... not here, not in flesh, but in the Dreaming.

The first dream I have had in... eons. I knew it was him. I knew because it burned, Azezal. It burned like the sun we fled from, but it felt like it did not consume me. It chose me.}

There was reverence in his voice now, a weight that did not suit a creature so gluttonous in appearance.

{And that is why... I will not burden him with my quarrels.}

Azezal’s gaze lingered on Blams, seeing not the corpulent lord but the beast he had once been — the war-bringer with eyes like molten gold, the rival who had fought him to a standstill for seven days and nights before they had laughed and shared a drink over the corpses.

But now, there was something else in those eyes. Not just survival. Not just cunning. Faith.

And faith in Hell was a dangerous thing.

The silence after Blam’s last words stretched long enough for the torches to hiss against their own dripping wax.

Azezal leaned back, the wooden chair sighing under his weight. His eyes narrowed in thought, and for a heartbeat he did not look like a demon at all — only a man who had carried too many burdens for too many lifetimes.

Blam raised the goblet to his mouth, but the way he drank was different now — slower, deliberate, as though each swallow was an act of remembering.

{If the GUIDE has chosen to move,}Balm murmured, {then hell will be shifted soon enough But I am not yet sure... if I will be shifted with it.}

Azezal did not answer. He didn’t need to. The unspoken answer lived in the stillness between them.

He tried to speak. Or convince, when suddenly.

{{{{Hold}}}}}

They froze.

Azezal froze wirh blam...but his innerself smiled...What blam didn’t know. Which Azezal absolutely knew, The Guide was a storm. It did not matter. If you were willing participate or not. When he arrives. It means one thing and one thing only.

{You will either shift or....Shifted.}