[Location: Morningstar Manor, New York]
After somehow detaching Eris from me, I got up, freshened up and stared at myself in the mirror like a man awaiting a performance review from God's HR department.
Which, coincidentally, might not be a joke anymore.
I splashed water on my face.
"Okay," I muttered to my reflection. "You are calm. You are stable. You are not destabilising cosmic infrastructure. You are a completely normal demon prince in New York."
The mirror did not look convinced.
Neither was I.
The System did not speak.
It never did unless it wanted to.
Which made it worse.
The title screen in my peripheral vision flickered faintly for half a second.
No notification.
No explanation.
Just the lingering awareness that something had changed when I used that advancement card.
And somewhere, something had noticed.
I exhaled.
Right.
Pancakes first. Existential audits later.
...
When I stepped into the kitchen, chaos had already established itself.
