"Enough."
Primus’s father rose from the throne. His voice shook the air and every demon in the hall fell silent instantly.
But it didn’t last.
Primus’s mother spun around, eyes flaring crimson.
"You shut up," she snapped.
The hall froze.
"You shut up," she repeated, stabbing a finger toward the throne. "My son has returned after YEARS and you want to lecture us about gatherings?!"
A stunned silence followed.
Then—A cough.
A snort.
And suddenly half the hall burst into laughter.
Even Primus’s siblings chuckled behind their hands.
Primus’s father’s eye twitched, a tiny movement, but enough to send the hall into another wave of muffled laughter.
I almost laughed too from my hidden spot.
Primus’s mother huffed, and marched back to her seat beside him. Only after she sat did the hall slowly regain its composure.
Primus’s father exhaled heavily, looked at Lara and his stern face softened a little.
"Come here," he said. "To your grandfather."
Lara looked up at Primus. He nodded gently, and she walked forward carefully, still gripping her cloak. She stood in front of the throne, chin raised, fearless.
The old demon knelt to meet her height.
"You’ve grown," he said quietly.
Lara blinked once. "Father says I must."
A faint smile tugged at his lips. He lifted a hand, hesitated then placed it softly on her head.
"You did well surviving."
Lara nodded like it was an obvious fact. "Father came for me."
"And he always will," the old demon said, eyes flicking to Primus. "Thats what fathers do."
After a moment, he straightened and looked at his son.
"Now," he said calmly, "introduce your... guests."
Primus gestured.
Steve and North stepped forward.
In one smooth motion, both lowered their hoods.
Gasps rippled through the hall like a shockwave.
"Humans?!"
"Impossible—"
"They exist?!"
"Humans! Real humans!"
Chaos erupted—whispers, stunned stares, demons pointing, some stepping back, others stepping closer.
Primus raised a hand. The room went quiet instantly.
"They saved me," Primus said, voice steady. "And they saved Lara."
Every pair of demon eyes shifted to Steve and North, but this time with something else—respect and recognition.
Primus’s mother leaned forward. "Saved? From what?"
Primus exhaled slowly.
And the hall listened.
"Years ago a tragedy hit my family. Lara was kidnapped," he began. "I found her trail and followed it to the city of Balor. But it was a trap. They were waiting for me."
Primus continued, voice calm but heavy, "I was caught, almost beaten to death, and sold as a slave."
A horrified gasp rippled through the hall.
His siblings shot to their feet.
"Who?!"
"Who would dare—"
"You, a slave?!"
Primus’s father’s aura flared violently. The floor beneath his feet cracked.
"Name them," he growled.
"I don’t know," Primus said simply.
Silence.
"I don’t know who orchestrated it. I don’t know who paid for it. I woke up chained in Shenzhou, and after that sold to random places."
I could see Primus hiding the information that he was bought by a human and then blackmailed and used.
His mother covered her mouth, eyes shining with fury.
His siblings whispered among themselves but Primus raised a hand.
"If I knew," he said firmly, "I would’ve ended them myself."
His father inhaled slowly, forcing himself to calm.
"And the Del Reys?" he asked. "Where is Lana?"
Primus shook his head. "I don’t know. But hear me clearly, the Del Reys are NOT behind my disappearance. Lana was not with us when that happened. I am not sure where she is now."
A few elders frowned.
"Then why are they blaming us?"
"Why are they fighting us?"
"Why did they retaliate?"
Primus’s jaw clenched.
"I believe someone played both sides."
The hall erupted again but Primus continued before anyone could stop him.
"We need to talk to them. Properly. Not on the battlefield, with our blades in each other’s throats but as clans who have both lost something."
His father stared at him in disbelief.
"You expect them to BELIEVE you?" the old demon asked. "To accept your story? That you vanished, returned after years, and claim innocence?"
A harsh laugh escaped him.
"No, boy. They will say YOU killed their daughter. They will say you ran. Hid. Returned only now."
Primus didn’t flinch.
"They can say whatever they want," he said quietly. "But the truth won’t change."
Lara interrupted.
"Father didn’t hide," she said simply. "He fought. He protected me."
And something in the old demon’s expression cracked, his furious expression calmed down a little.
Primus’s mother stepped down and placed a hand on Lara’s head.
"Enough," she said softly. "We’ve waited long enough to have them home. Let them breathe."
Primus’s father grunted but didn’t object.
He pointed at the siblings, the crowd, the entire hall.
"Sit," Primus’s father commanded. "We will hear everything."
Chairs scraped. Heavy boots thudded. The entire hall slowly settled as dozens of demons took their seats again. Primus pointed toward two empty chairs near him, and Steve and North sat down quietly, keeping their cloaks close.
As Primus began explaining his ordeal in more detail, I slipped away.
I let my form fade into the folds of space and left the hall without a sound.
A single teleport placed me in the inner courtyard of the Bloodreaver fort, isolated, quiet, wrapped in red mist drifting slowly through the air like faint smoke.
I had sensed this place earlier.
More specifically, someone inside it.
Someone who radiated age... and fading power.
A demon far older than Primus’s father.
Probably the ancestor of the blood-reaver that Primus had told me about.
What gave him away entirely were two things:
His level—300, floating at the threshold of Transcendence.
And the ritual he was performing.
The courtyard was protected by multiple layers of barriers, blood runes and demon warriors but none of them reacted to me. I bypassed them like they were thin paper veils.
A single ripple of space carried me into the underground chamber beneath the courtyard.
And there he was.
Floating cross-legged on a wooden plank, suspended above a circular pool of blood.
The blood wasn’t normal, it glowed with crimson light, and strands of it rose and sank as if breathing. Ancient runes drifted over the surface of the pool and crawled over the old demon’s skin like living ink.
He was thin and wrinkled, long horns cracked with age, hair white and falling over his shoulders like dried threads.
My eyes moved from the old man to the pool beneath him.
The blood was thick and it swirled slowly as if it had a heartbeat of its own. When I scanned it properly, I realized it wasn’t just demon blood. It was a mixture of many species... but demon blood made up the biggest part.
I could tell instantly. It carried the same heat I had sensed many times around Primus, like fire buried inside the blood itself.
The old man floated above it without fear, as if this boiling mixture was nothing more than warm water to him.
Behind him, pushed against the stone wall, was a simple wooden bed. Beside it stood a tall stack of heavy books with some neatly arranged, others piled carelessly.
I let my perception sweep through them.
Blood techniques. Fire techniques. Methods to refine bloodlines. Ancient rituals.
And deeper inside the stacks, thick volumes holding the entire history of the Bloodreaver family, records tracing their rise and fall across hundreds of years.
But none of that was the reason I had come here.
What truly caught my attention was something else, something tucked deeper behind the old demon’s chamber, hidden so well that even most a transcendent would miss it.
A pocket space. And inside it, a single teleportation circle pulsing faintly like a blinking eye.
A secret exit.
A pathway used by someone who wanted to move unseen.
I looked at it for a moment... and smiled.