As the glow of fires and the din from the beachhead drifted faintly through the twisted woodland, the air shimmered with heat over a thoroughly corrupted clearing deep within Crystalsong Glade.
This had once been a sacred woodland site where the elves held their summer solstice celebrations. Now, a profane altar built of black boulders and twisted metal stood there, pulsing constantly with fel energy.
Beside the altar, a towering figure stood in silence.
He was over three meters tall, covered in thick, dark red carapace that resembled cooled lava, with sharp bone spurs growing from his joints.
His head resembled a goat's, but was far more hideous. Green fel flames burned eternally on his great curved horns, and his thick tail ended in a sharp spearhead that gleamed coldly.
He was the Demon Lord charged with destroying the world tree... Doomhammer Grosag.
Grosag's burning, slit-pupiled eyes seemed capable of piercing the dense but withered and rotting trees, clearly "seeing" everything happening on the distant beach.
He saw how those humans stormed ashore with sheer, unreasonable force, how they swiftly organized amid the chaos and built defenses. Above all, he saw the fanaticism they had displayed in that brief clash, far beyond that of ordinary species, and their... contempt for death.
A familiar feeling, one he loathed intensely and even found faintly chilling, gradually took root in his destruction-hungry heart.
"This aura... this way of fighting..."
Grosag's deep growl rumbled in his throat, sounding like two rough rocks grinding together.
"Disregarding casualties, advancing like fanatics, even... welcoming death?"
He recalled a world long ago where the demons had suffered defeat, only to be driven back into the Abyss by a band of humans unafraid to die...
The people Grosag saw now were extraordinarily similar to those humans from before.
With