Three lifeforms descended from the white-gold boat, and Damian's eyes did not leave any of them.
The logical explanation assembled itself in the time it took the boat to drop from its height above the River toward the level where he and Serala floated.
Two presences that exceeded the Nine Circles entirely had arrived at the River of the World carrying the Demon Emperor between them on a white-gold vessel. The Demon Emperor, whose Eye had been projected above the Covenant to retrieve his Dukes and had fled when the Hallowed Voice produced a Sacred Ancestral Bone, had not come to this confrontation alone.
He had run to his connections the moment the Primordial Source stripped the Murderous Saint of everything he had built across a lifetime. He had felt what happened at the Dominion of Crimson Stone across however many miles separated it from his throne, and what he had felt had sent him directly to whoever had agreed to stand behind him.
Ancestral Celestials.
