Silence.
Not the kind born of peace — but the kind born when even the bravest souls forget how to breathe.
Azrador's half-summoned form towered above the circle, a silhouette of obsidian fire and shifting shadow. His mere presence distorted the air like heat off scorched stone, but it was not the heat that terrified them.
It was the weight.
A presence that did not simply arrive — it pressed upon the world like a hand flattening mountains.
All across the ritual grounds, no one moved.
Not the angels, crushed to the ground by the double assault of the World Tree's suppression and Azrador's corrupted aura. Their bodies twitched beneath the pressure like insects beneath divine glass, their halos cracked and bleeding light.
Not the alliance leaders, who stood like statues — stunned, locked between awe and existential terror.
Arthur Pendragon, golden light dimming, barely stood upright, unable to hide the tremor in his jaw. He was a newly ascended god... and yet he felt like a child before this being.
The Demon Lord's confident demeanor had been obliterated. His eyes were wide, jaw clenched, sweat beading along his temple despite his control.
Even the Dragon Monarch, embodiment of pride and might, looked up at Azrador and instinctively took a step back, his tail curling with primal tension.
And Aren Vale... knelt.
He dropped to one knee — not in submission, but in protection. His gaze fixed on the towering being before him, body poised to act... if only there was anything he could do.
He had fought two angels alone — beings on his level — and barely survived.
Azrador had crushed them with nothing but a look and the passive leaking of his half-bound soul.
They had all miscalculated.
Everyone had believed the same quiet lie: a half-summoned Primordial would be fragile, weakened, barely coherent.
But what stood before them was not weak.
It was majesty incarnate.
Azrador moved. Slowly.
No footsteps.
Only motion — like the world bent to let him glide forward.
His crimson gaze passed over the kneeling angels. It did not linger.
Then it turned… and swept across the circle.
He looked to Arthur, and something ancient flared in his soul. Royalty. Power. Fragility.
He looked to the Demon Lord, and paused. A flicker of something unreadable crossed his shrouded face.
Then he turned to the Dragon Monarch... and smiled.
A smile that did not promise violence.
But acknowledgment.
Finally, he turned to the World Tree. Though she had no body, the glow of her massive branches pulsed in response.
And then he looked down... to Aren.
For the first time, Azrador's voice came without command. Still layered in distortion, but slower. Measured.
"Two angels, brought to kneeling by breath alone."
He tilted his head slightly.
"And you—"
His gaze pressed into Aren's soul.
"...held the line."
A beat passed.
And then — as if answering a question no one had yet asked — Azrador's voice filled the space like thunder caught in silk.
"I accept."
Just that.
Two words.
And yet the three anchors stiffened as if stabbed. Even the World Tree's branches slowed their pulsing rhythm, as if surprised.
Arthur whispered, "He… understood the deal without being told."
The Demon Lord, ever composed, looked shaken for the first time.
"Then… he's seen everything."
Azrador did not confirm. He didn't need to.
He turned his back to them, walking back toward the exact center of the summoning circle. His voice rumbled again:
"Begin the bond, or I shall make these winged corpses your last concern."
There was no disagreement.
There was no possibility of it.
The anchors moved in tandem, returning to their places. The elves reactivated the circle — its pattern shifting, now shaped not for summoning, but for binding.
The World Tree's glow turned silver-green. Ancient. Unyielding.
Her divine essence reached downward, brushing Azrador's corrupted soul with something gentler than wind.
There was no resistance.
Azrador opened his arms — not in welcome, but in offering.
"Take what you must," he said.
The ritual of the Soul Bind began.
What followed was sixteen hours of absolute stillness.
None dared interrupt. None dared move.
Azrador stood unshaken, like a monument being carved in real time by the divine.
The World Tree extended one of her translucent leaves, inscribed with shifting runes — a representation of his soul's contract, a spiritual bond like no other.
Every second felt like thunder rolling through the earth.
And as the sixteenth hour passed—
—it was done.
Azrador's soul, bound by the World Tree's contract, glowed with a dull crimson seal beneath the skin of his torso.
He looked down at it once.
Then said nothing.
The summoning circle changed again — and the ritual to complete his full descent began.
Not one word was spoken.
Because no one dared speak in the presence of Pride itself.