Before the war, there was balance.
The world was not empty, nor was it cruel. It was old, ordered, and alive. The demons were its keepers—bound to land, flame, storm, and shadow. We did not rule the world; we tended it. Our thrones were covenants, not chains.
Then the humans came.
They arrived small and afraid, crawling from distant shores and frozen wastes. We watched them struggle and pitied them. The land was harsh to creatures so fragile, and many died. Some of our kind offered shelter. Others taught them fire, stone, and the shaping of metal, hoping they might survive without breaking what already was.
They learned quickly.
Too quickly.
Steel multiplied. Settlements became fortresses. The humans spoke of gods who demanded dominion, not coexistence. Forests were cleared. Leylines were severed. The old pacts were forgotten, then denied.
When we protested, they called it tyranny.
When we defended sacred ground, they named it terror.
And when the first demon-lord fell to human steel, the lie became truth.
War followed—not in a single moment, but as a thousand small betrayals. Shrines burned. Children were taken to be raised as weapons against us. Light was twisted into a blade meant only for demon blood.
Yes, cities burned. Yes, blood was spilled. We are not innocent of wrath. We answered extermination with fury, and the world paid for it.
But understand this:
We did not descend upon them without cause.
We did not seek their extinction.
We sought remembrance.
In the end, their numbers drowned us. Their gods did not turn away. Ours did. One by one, the great thrones fell, and we were driven into ash and shadow, renamed monsters so the victors could sleep.
Now only fragments remain.
Yet memory endures.
And memory waits.
For the world was not saved—
it was claimed.