Lilith Bowed.
A signal of fealty that the Nine Houses had pointedly refused to follow. They remained as they were, a ring of frozen power, their seated postures a blatant act of disrespect.
Only Veridia still stood, a statue of contempt.
Liam ignored them all.
He strolled into the center of the circular chamber, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his grey eyes sweeping over the faces of the Infernal Lords as if he were a scholar looking at a collection of particularly interesting insects.
There was no anger in his gaze.
"You know," he began, his voice conversational, almost musing, "I was told you were an audacious lot. But it is still quite a surprise to see such… petulance, masquerading as power."
Veridia's sneer was venomous. "So this is the human the desperate queen parades as a god. What an embarrassing, transparent joke."
Liam's smile was a slow curl of his lips. He didn't look at her. Instead, he looked into the middle distance, as if gazing through the veils of time.
"The stories your kind tells… I've heard their echoes in the void," he said, his tone shifting into something slower, older, resonant with a boredom that spanned eons.
"Whispers on the wind. Prayers in the dark. Your grandsires and granddames, huddled around fires under a bleeding moon, would speak my name. Not the one you use now—Azrakul—that is a later invention. They spoke of a Silence Before Screams. A Shadow That Casts Itself."
He finally turned his gaze upon Veridia, and it was no longer the gaze of a man.
"For most, these stories were a comfort. A promise that something greater than their suffering watched over them." His voice dropped, becoming intimate and terrible.
"But not for you, Veridia. Was it? As you grew, and your hunger for the throne became the core of your being, those childhood tales ceased to be a comfort. They became terror."
[Fear Detected: 1 Entitiy]
"What if your mother's stories were true?" Liam whispered, the words slithering into the ears of every demon present. "What if there truly existed a demon so powerful, so absolute, that it made your entire existence… inconsequential? That it rendered your desperate, bloody quest for a chair," he gestured dismissively at the Sovereign's Throne, "utterly, pathetically impossible?"
He took a single, soft step toward her.
"But even now, as you stand there, armored in your bitter hatred for anything above you… you are afraid."
[Fear Detected: 1 Entity]
"Your heart hammers against your ribs like a trapped bird with each word I speak. Your mind races, screaming a single, frantic question: What if the stories are true? What if I am the one? What if, right now, you stand before the most sacred entity your pathetic mind could ever comprehend… and you have uttered nothing but blasphemy?"
"LIES!" Veridia shrieked, the sound raw and ragged, tearing from her throat. Her composure shattered into a million pieces.
"Lies, lies, and more lies! No truth has left your mouth, you deceptive human! Your hypnosis will not work on me as it has on these others!"
She spun, her finger stabbing toward the hulking knight who stood guard by the Zarthus throne.
"If you are truly the Demon God, then prove it! If you possess the strength to save this empire, then first show us you can save yourself! HEIGARD!"
The knight, a mountain of obsidian plate, stepped forward instantly, his hand on the hilt of his greatsword.
[Cognitor Analysis: Knight Heigard, House Zarthus.
Loyalty to Veridia: 98%.
Secondary Loyalty: Doctrinal Devotee of the Nameless Litany. 96%
Internal Conflict Detected]
"Kill this pretender!" Veridia ordered.
Heigard drew his sword, but the movement was not fluid. There was a hesitation in the pull, a fraction of a second's delay that screamed of the conflict the Cognitor had already identified.
Lilith tensed, ready to intervene herself, but Liam gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
He simply watched Heigard approach, his expression one of mild amusement.
The knight took two heavy steps, three, raising his blade.
Liam looked him dead in the eye.
Then he spoke:
"Stop breathing," he said.
The command was simple. Absolute. It carried the weight of a fundamental law of reality.
[Primordial Authority Activated.
Target Belief/Subjugation Threshold: Exceeded.]
Heigard's body obeyed instantly.
His breath ceased in his lungs.
His eyes widened in shock behind his helm from sheer, impossible compulsion.
The greatsword clattered from his grasp, ringing loudly in the silent hall. He fell to one knee, gauntleted hands clawing at his throat, his chest utterly still.
He was a knight of a Great House, and he was dying because a single, quiet command had rewired his instinct to live.
The Nine Houses watched, utterly paralyzed, as the mighty knight began to suffocate on the spot.
Then, Liam turned back to Veridia.
The air in the hall died.
The green torch flames guttered and shrank, as if afraid. An aura poured from Liam—a sensation of pure, utter doom, the essence of true evil made manifest.
A pressure that threatened to crack stone and sanity alike.
"As for you," Liam's voice was now the sound of stars dying in the cold, empty void, "what is a fitting punishment for your insolence?"
He took a step toward her. Then another.
Veridia stood frozen, her disbelief finally, completely, replaced by a lingering fear that was now beginning to solidify.
Liam stopped before her.
"How about…" he murmured, the words a final judgment, "…eternal damnation."
He raised a hand.
And in that moment, the world went quiet.
Then the silence broke.
The air behind Veridia tore open.
A wound in reality, a jagged rip of screaming crimson and deepest black.
Through it, a wave of heat and a chorus of a billion damned souls washed over the hall. The ground trembled. The massive stone thrones groaned.
The Gates of Hell had opened.