"In a way, you demons do understand what balance is and how to keep it," said Li. "But of course, it remains to be seen whether every demon is as level headed and reasonable as you are, Zagan."

"This personage is one that has remained alive for half of all history since the Convergence. There are few wiser than he, few that have waded through the vast river of time. Many demons there are, many that are more impulsive, more worldly, less principled, it is true."

Zagan's eyes flashed with a hint of threatening red. "But within our natures is a deference to power. Should you lay down commands in a position of might, a position with which you are quite familiar with, then this personage's kin should fall in deference to you as this one has." 

"I do not like enforcing ideas through might, but I can understand when it is needed," said Li. "And in the case of your kin, with how much they value the idea of power, I believe it will be necessary. However, I will warn you now that this Rite of the Swarm must be broken apart. It cannot exist in a world with the order I am to envision."

"This personage understands," said Zagan simply.

"That is not to say I am going to seal your kin away. They have faced that treatment for a millennium already."

"Then what is it do you propose? Demon kin will always wish to feed. We may feed upon each other, but the temptation of mortal sin will always allure us."

"I have considered that also, and it makes for a challenge in integrating your kin with the rest of the world. But is that not balance? That there is both life and death?" Li nodded to himself. "The demons will spread among the world if they so wish. But I know as you have said that many are fond of their home. Those that desire to stay will stay.

Those that do choose to enter the wider world, into the fold of my garden, will have to do so with necessary restrictions under my guidance. They will have to become messengers of myself. Messengers of the death that I am to represent also.

Death, I cannot entrust to mortal lives. But your kin know it well. They will become my emissaries of death, feasting upon enemies of the garden, preying upon mortals engorged with sin that do not deserve the gift of life."

"This…will take time," said Zagan. "And you must show power if they are to listen. Overwhelming, crushing power. Such as that which you showed this personage."

Li closed a fist. "That, I have plenty of. I will break the Rite of the Swarm and cleanse your kin of whatever madness affects them. Those that oppose me still, even after they are beaten, I will have to deal with."

"Kin of this personage that does not heed power – the purest of all principles – are not worth the breath they draw," agreed Zagan. 

"And you, Zagan, will have to be the one to enforce much of this change. You are a demon, you know your ways, and you know the value of what you are changing." Li looked to Zagan, his green lit eyes full of life matching the demon's fiery, reddened pupils in a contrasting match of life and death. "Will you be willing to become my herald? A herald of change?"

Zagan lowered his head. "This personage knows change. How it is needed, how it cannot be forced unnaturally. He will ensure that this time, change falls upon the demonic see properly."

"I know of none better for the task," said Li with a smile. "Probably because you are the only demon I know."

"You should not worry, Great One, for this personage considers himself a representative among representatives of his kin, of their true ways," said Zagan.

"I was joking, Zagan," said Li. "I already know you are worthy."

"Papa!" Tia's voice cut through the air, interrupting the conversation. 

Li immediately turned to her direction. He saw her a dozen meters away, suspended in the air as she looked down, squinting and pointing to the ground with her claw. 

"What's that?" asked Tia. 

Li focused his own eyes, and at first, he saw nothing, just the same old layer of ashen, nearly solid white. But then he saw it. Flashes of light permeating through the ash. Faint flickers that barely colored the fog, but it was still visible. 

"Something is there," said Li. His tone become more serious, more authoritative as more unknowns came into consideration. Normally, though he was serious, he took things in stride, but right now, with this fog he knew nothing of, he was on higher alert. "I am sorry, Tia, but we have to get back with the others. Come, let us leave."

===================

Inside the Vukanovi, Li watched the screen projected atop the central fire. Because he was looking at is with such tension, everyone else was silent, feeling the gravity of the situation. He wondered whether he was making everyone worry without reason, but at the same time, he could not help it. Better to be alert than to be sorry.

For now, Li could only see a wall of white from the fog. He willed the Vukanovi to keep moving forward, towards the light, but slowly and carefully, its combat capabilities readied at a moment's notice.

"Light not so scary," said Tia as she fidgeted by Li's side. She tugged at his jacket collar, wanting to comfort him. "When I see it. It was warm. Not like cold fog."

"I believe you, Tia, but papa just has to make sure," said Li with a slight smile as he kept his attention up, for the Vukanovi was nearing the source of the light in the depths of this desolate, ash choked land.

Zagan, unlike before, did not lie down in sleep, but instead also sat beside Li, his eyes gazing into the image. The demon was ready to fight. 

So too was everybody else. Old Thane and Vilga's fists were clenched. Sheela's claws were out. Mason and Mercer held their longsword and daggers respectively. 

It took a tense minute, but the source of the light became apparent. The fog cleared up abruptly, almost as if the Vukanovi had stepped into a completely different dimension, but as Li narrowed his eyes to watch for details, he realized that this was just a small clearing in the fog.

The sky was still shrouded in ash. But up ahead, perhaps forty meters away, there was a scene that Li took in at first with calm analysis, then with genuine surprise.

There was a flickering ripple in space at the center of the clearing, distorting and twisting the colors of the space around it into constantly shimmering and fluxing spirals. In front of that spatial flux, a woman sat atop a squid-like creature that dwarfed her several times over. 

Its bright, angry red tentacles stretched limp behind it like tails of fire and its bulb-like head was molten red and lined with fiery cracks like the surface of a burnt planet, and a single eye stared listlessly down to the cracked earth with a dim purple glow. 

Li recognized the creature. It was a Fire Vampire. A dead one, though, thankfully. 

Li immediately bade the Vukanovi to stop. He knew well what Fire Vampires were, how tremendously difficult an enemy they could be even for Li, especially in swarms. They had no relation to vampires, for those, Li could deal with in spades, and they were known also as Fthagguans.

Eldritch monsters of fire that acted as emissaries for an Old One named the Living Flame.

The woman sitting atop the fire vampire looked up to the Vukanovi and stood. She was dressed in light crimson armor that shimmered like smoky fire, and her eyes were lit up iridescent with the colors of the rainbow as she stared directly at the Vukanovi through a sheen of messy, long golden blonde hair. 

As her multi-colored eyes set on the Vukanovi, she thrust her arm out besides her, her hand open, grasping a weapon that rapidly began materializing in her hand in a shower of sparks. It looked initially like a spear, but as it formed more completely, Li realized it was a lengthy torch, though unlike any ordinary one.

It was made of black, segmented metal so dark it reached a shade of vantablack. The butt of the torch ended into an elongated, two pronged point, and the head of the torch was elaborately patterned in a spiral of black metal curved into the image of a flickering flame. 

The torch lit up, a surprisingly normal colored fire bursting from the vantablack metal in a neat, controlled blaze. 

When Asala saw the torch, she hissed not in threat, but in surprise. 

"What is it, lads?" said Old Thane. "Mine hearing is quite lacking in these confines, aye."

"A shame that thou hath lost thy sight," said Asala as she immediately materialized a tablet to record with. "For thou wouldst have looked upon the form of Lira the Seeker, greatest adventurer to have ever walked upon the slopes of this world." 

"Nobody leaves the Vukanovi," said Li as he raised himself to the ceiling. "I will handle this. No, I am the only one capable of handling this."