The mountain pass was a knife's edge between sky and abyss.

Twenty soldiers marched in tight formation behind Liam, their armor muted to avoid alerting Radiant Empire scouts. Koth led the vanguard, Zara the rear, and Varg ranged ahead like a hunting hound searching for threats.

They'd been walking for a day and a half, and the landscape had grown progressively more hostile. Not from enemies – those they could handle – but from the land itself.

Ashard was called the Burning Peaks for a reason.

Volcanic vents punctured the mountainside like wounds, bleeding heat and sulfurous smoke.

Rivers of cooled lava formed black scars across the terrain. The air tasted of copper, thick enough that human lungs would struggle after hours of breathing it.

Demon lungs adapted. Liam's... were somewhere in between.

He wasn't entirely human anymore. The System had made sure of that. But he wasn't quite demon either. He existed in the uncomfortable space between, feeling the heat more than the demons but less than he should have.

Another thing lost to the role he played.

"My lord," Koth said, falling back to walk beside him. "A word about Gorath."

"Speak."

The Commander chose his words carefully. "You've heard he's powerful. That he's old. That he's pragmatic." He paused. "What you haven't heard is that he's bored."

Liam glanced at him. "Bored?"

"Three centuries holding the same territory. Fighting the same enemies. Surviving the same political games." Koth's molten eyes fixed on the path ahead. "Gorath is a demon who's done everything a demon can do and found it all... insufficient. He doesn't want power anymore. He has power. He doesn't want glory. He's had glory."

"Then what does he want?"

"Something new," Koth said softly. "Something that breaks the pattern. You—" He gestured at Liam. "—might be the most interesting thing to happen to him in a century. That makes you either his greatest entertainment or his greatest threat."

"And which am I?"

"That," Koth said with something almost like a smile, "is what we're about to find out."

---

They crested a ridge at sunset, and Gorath's fortress came into view.

It wasn't built into the mountain. It was carved from it, a massive structure of black volcanic stone that looked less like architecture and more like the mountain had grown teeth.

Towers rose. Walls curved like ribs. Windows glowed with internal fire, giving the impression of a sleeping beast whose eyes occasionally flickered open.

It was simultaneously beautiful and deeply unsettling.

As they approached the main gate, Liam noticed something that made his tactical instincts scream.

"There are no guards," he said quietly.

Zara had noticed too. "No sentries on the walls. No patrols. The gates are open." Her silver eyes narrowed. "Either supremely confident or—"

"A trap," Varg finished, his hand on his sword hilt.

"Both," Liam decided. "It's both."

They walked through gates tall enough for giants, into a courtyard that could have held a thousand soldiers. But it was empty. Silent. Only the distant sound of something that might have been wind or might have been breathing.

Then a voice—deep and resonant, carrying the weight of centuries—echoed from everywhere and nowhere.

"The Demon God graces us with his presence."

The words dripped with such elaborate sarcasm that Liam almost smiled.

"How... unprecedented."

A figure emerged from the fortress's main entrance.

Emerged - as if the stone itself had birthed him into being.

Gorath the Unyielding was a contradiction.

He was massive—taller than Koth, broader than any demon Liam had seen. His armor was ancient, black as midnight, and seemed to be fused directly to his scaled hide. Twin horns, each as long as Liam's arm, curved back from his skull like a crown of bone.

But his face...

His face was tired.

Not old—demons didn't age the way humans did. But exhausted in a way that went deeper than years. His eyes, burning like coals in deep sockets, held the weariness of someone who'd seen everything worth seeing and found it all wanting.

"Lord Gorath," Koth said, bowing. The soldiers followed suit.

Liam did not bow.

Gorath's burning eyes fixed on him, and for a long moment, the Arch-Demon simply... studied him. Like a scholar examining a particularly interesting specimen.

Then he laughed.

It was a genuine laugh—deep, rich, and utterly unexpected. It echoed off the courtyard walls, startling birds from hidden roosts.

"Oh," Gorath said, his voice carrying delight that sounded rusty from disuse. "Oh, you're perfect."

He descended the steps with surprising grace for something so massive, stopping a few paces from Liam.

"I heard the reports, of course. 'The human who fights like a demon.' 'The one who killed Aldric Thorne.' 'The man pretending to be our god.'" Gorath's smile was sharp enough to cut. "I expected a charlatan. A desperate man in over his head. Maybe someone Lilith had put just enough magic into to be dangerous."

He leaned closer, those burning eyes boring into Liam's grey ones.

"But you're not pretending, are you?"

Liam met his gaze without flinching. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." Gorath straightened, beginning to circle Liam like a predator. "You're not pretending to be powerful. You are powerful. You're not pretending to be dangerous. You are dangerous. But here's what makes you fascinating—"

He stopped directly behind Liam, his voice dropping to something almost gentle.

"You're still pretending to be a demon."

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