Demonion Gaiden 01 -

"Drinking again, my lord?" a soft, chittering voice whispered.

"What kind of something?"

He found the mine entrance torn open, the holy seals cracked like eggshells. A strange, pulsing hum resonated from the dark—a sound he had not heard in a decade. It was a heartbeat. His heartbeat. Demonion Gaiden 01

"Not just a rib," Zagan whispered, his voice echoing with a forgotten cadence of command. "A key."

And then he saw the truth the Fragment showed him. The Liberators had not won through strength. They had cheated. They had used a stolen piece of the Demonion—a heart-shard —to forge a cage for his power. That cage was still intact. And it was hidden. "Drinking again, my lord

And they had left him alive.

Inside, the walls wept a black ichor. The air tasted of rust and ozone. And in the deepest cavern, surrounded by the broken bodies of the Thornwood villagers who had dared to touch it, lay the Fragment. It was a heartbeat

"The village of Thornwood," Kael hissed. "A day's march west. They found something in the old mine shaft. Something from the Before."