Demons did not ask questions.
They tested.
Kael learned that the moment he crossed into the volcanic lowlands, where the land itself seemed half-aware and constantly irritated by its own existence. Rivers of slow-moving magma cut through blackened plains like exposed veins. Ash drifted perpetually in the air, dulling the light of both suns until everything looked scorched, unfinished, temporary.
This was demon territory—not claimed by banners or borders, but by survival. Only things that could endure heat, pressure, and violence remained here for long.
Kael felt eyes on him long before he saw their owners.
He did not slow.
Slowing invited interpretation.
The warband revealed itself gradually, as demons preferred—figures emerging from heat shimmer and smoke, tall and broad, skin like obsidian or rusted iron, armor fused directly to flesh in places where removal had once been optional. Their weapons were heavy, practical, scarred by use rather than ornament.
They did not surround Kael.
They paralleled him.
That alone told him everything.
Demons did not waste effort on what they intended to kill immediately.
The ground trembled then—deep, irregular pulses that vibrated up through Kael's boots and into his bones. A sound followed, somewhere between grinding stone and a furnace inhaling.
The beast.
It burst from a fissure ahead of them, colossal and furious, its body layered in molten rock that hardened and cracked as it moved. Fire leaked from joints and seams, dripping onto the ground where it ignited the air itself. Its eyes glowed with feral intelligence—not mindless destruction, but territorial certainty.
The demon warband tensed, weapons shifting into ready positions.
Kael did not step back.
He ran forward.
The laughter came instantly—deep, echoing, genuinely amused.
One demon barked something sharp and guttural, a sound that carried mockery and anticipation all at once. To them, Kael's charge looked like suicide wrapped in stubbornness.
Then Kael moved.
Not straight at the beast.
At the ground.
He angled his sprint toward a stretch of unstable stone where magma had hollowed the earth from beneath. He counted steps without looking, gauged heat by how the air warped in front of him, adjusted pace so the beast followed with maximum momentum.
The creature roared and charged, massive weight slamming down with every stride. Each impact cracked the surface further, fractures racing outward faster than the eye could track.
Kael cut hard to the side at the last moment.
The beast did not.
Its weight carried it forward into betrayal. The ground collapsed under its own exhaustion, giving way in a thunderous cascade of stone and fire. The creature crashed down into the sinkhole it had helped create, its bulk wedging awkwardly as molten rock surged up around it.
It thrashed.
Kael did not wait.
He darted in close, spear flashing—not to kill, but to blind, to unbalance, to keep the creature focused on him rather than freeing itself. Each strike was precise, economical, placed where reaction would be slowest.
The demons watched.
No laughter now.
Only attention.
The warband leader moved then, stepping forward with an axe whose edge glowed faintly from internal heat. He waited—not impatiently, not eagerly—until Kael forced the beast into stillness for half a heartbeat longer than it should have had.
Then the axe fell.
One clean, devastating strike.
The creature went silent.
Ash drifted down slowly, settling over cooling stone and scorched earth. The warband stood still for several breaths, the heat humming around them, the kill steaming at their feet.
Kael straightened, chest rising and falling steadily, sweat streaking his skin but his stance relaxed, ready.
The leader approached him openly.
He was enormous up close, horned, scarred, eyes glowing like banked coals. He studied Kael the way a craftsman studied an unfamiliar tool—turning perspective, assessing balance.
"You don't smell like prey," the demon said finally. "And you don't smell like authority."
Kael met his gaze without flinching.
"I don't kneel," he said.
The demon considered that.
Then nodded once.
"That will keep you alive."
There was no offer of alliance.
No demand for explanation.
No attempt to test him further.
Demons did not waste time on those who had already proven their position.
As Kael walked on, ash crunching softly beneath his boots, he felt the weight of eyes following him—not hostile, not reverent.
Remembering.
Among demons, word did not spread through rumor or exaggeration. They did not turn events into stories meant to impress.
They catalogued.
They remembered what survived.
They remembered what did not kneel.
They remembered what disrupted expectation.
And in places where gods relied on control, elves relied on continuity, and humans relied on numbers—
memory was power.
Kael crossed out of the lowlands alone, carrying no mark of demon favor, no trophy of his passage.
Just the quiet certainty that something fundamental had shifted.
He was no longer merely an inconvenience.
He was becoming a reference point.