Interest did not announce itself.
It noticed.
Deep beneath a city that had been rebuilt seven times on the same cursed foundation, a chamber breathed slowly. Not with air, but with contract-bound pressure. The walls were inscribed with sigils so old their meanings had collapsed into function. They did not glow. They endured.
A figure sat at the center.
Not imprisoned.
Contained.
Chains of concept wrapped around the space rather than the body, ensuring that what was sealed was not movement, but consequence. The demon within was tall, horned, and composed of a darkness that refused to absorb light properly. Shadows bent around him, uncertain whether to obey.
Asmodeus Noctyrr opened his eyes.
He had not been summoned.
That was what interested him.
Demons were sensitive to disruption, but not in the way mortals imagined. They did not feel magic flare or armies march. They felt inconsistency—systems failing to justify themselves.
Something had happened above.
Not violently.
Elegantly.
A minor distortion reached downward through layers of reality like a careless thought slipping through meditation. It brushed against the chamber's seals, not testing them, merely acknowledging their existence.
Asmodeus smiled.
"That's new," he murmured.
The attendants outside the chamber stiffened immediately. The seals vibrated, then steadied.
One of them swallowed. "Lord Noctyrr… do you require something?"
"No," Asmodeus replied pleasantly. "I'm noticing something."
Silence followed. No one asked him to elaborate.
He leaned back, chains humming softly as they accommodated the shift. His attention extended—not outward, but upward, sliding along the fault lines of doctrine and law.
Wind behavior anomaly.
Non-elemental influence.
Authority hesitation.
Ah.
"Someone is speaking to the world without asking permission," he said softly.
A memory stirred. Old. Buried beneath layers of erased records and Covenant edits. A time when the sky itself had been argued with, not commanded.
Asmodeus's interest sharpened.
"Find me the source," he said casually.
A pause.
"Lord," an attendant said carefully, "the Covenant has not issued any demon-class alerts."
Asmodeus laughed quietly. The sound did not echo.
"That's because they don't know yet," he said. "And because this isn't an invasion. It's a correction."
He closed his eyes again, focusing.
The disturbance was not loud enough to locate precisely. Whoever it was understood restraint. That made it more impressive than brute force.
More dangerous too.
"This one doesn't want followers," Asmodeus mused. "Or fear."
He opened one eye.
"He wants agreement."
Demons respected contracts above all else. A being who negotiated with reality itself without formalizing terms was an anomaly worth watching.
"Do not move," Asmodeus instructed. "Do not provoke. Do not report this to the Covenant unless asked."
The attendants bowed immediately.
Asmodeus settled back into stillness, his smile lingering.
"It's been a long time," he said quietly, "since the world surprised me."
Far away, Vale felt a brief, passing sensation—like being observed by something that had decided not to interfere.
He did not turn.
Some attention, he knew now, was inevitable.
The question was not whether it would come—
But what it would do once curiosity hardened into intent.