Abyss Surface.
Beneath the dim gray sky, within the pale forest, a demon over three meters long, with curved ram horns atop its head, spread its slender wings and flew toward the depths of the woods.
Before it had flown far, it saw smoke rising ahead.
"Found it! Master should be there." Thinking this, the ram-horned demon stopped flapping its wings and glided downward.
Nearly every tree in this dense forest was dead. They bore no leaves, and their branches were covered in thorns, yet because of their unusual material, they never decayed. Some powerful members of native tribes even snapped off branches to use as weapons, showing just how destructive they were. The ram-horned demon's wings were extremely broad, and as it descended, they inevitably scraped against the branches. Its thin, cicada-wing-like membranes were torn to tatters.
Only after the ram-horned demon landed did it belatedly feel the pain. When it turned back and saw its tattered wings, it said blankly, "I forgot to fold my wings away again. Master will probably scold me for being stupid again..."
"Why does Master live in these woods? They're terrifying and dark, and also... cold." The ram-horned demon looked into the distance. Though the dense forest obscured its view, it could still vaguely make out the rolling snow-capped mountains. At the sight of them, fear flashed through its eyes.
It was a demon Master had taken in halfway through its life. With no relatives of any kind, it had always lived as an exile on the Abyss Surface. After residing on the surface for so long, it knew every forbidden place there well. The snow mountain ahead was one such forbidden land.
Of course, the terrifying thing was not the snow mountain itself, but the... dragon living in the Ice Valley deep