The world was already breaking. Alyc gripped the cold iron bars of her prison window, her gaze locked on the chaos consuming Solaria. The divine city; once a beacon of celestial grandeur, was now a ruin of shattered marble, fire, and blood. Emberfall and Selenia had clashed in full force, and no gods were coming to stop it. She could see them from here, soldiers in the streets, armor glinting in the flames. Steel rang against steel, the music of war filling the air. Emberfall’s army, led by Erik Alistar, moved like an unstoppable wave, their disciplined formations slicing through the Selenian resistance with terrifying precision. Warriors clad in crimson cloaks cut down their enemies with brutal efficiency, fighting with the arrogance of men who already believed they had won. For every Emberfall soldier that fell, ten more pressed forward. They would not stop. Not until the city was theirs. And yet, Selenia did not break. Despite being outnumbered, the warriors of Selenia fought back with a deadly elegance,every movement calculated, every strike meant to kill. Their shield formations held. Their archers lined the rooftops, raining death upon the invaders. Their commanders barked orders, maneuvering through the burning streets like they had rehearsed this very battle a thousand times. It should have been a battle between two great kingdoms. Instead, it was a funeral pyre. The city screamed. Not in words, but in collapsing buildings, in the crackle of spreading fire, in the distant wails of the dying. The war had no victors. Only corpses. Alyc inhaled sharply, her fingers digging into the rusted metal.
She had caused this the fire, the senseless death. All in the name of revenge. Her father was dead the world was burning, and Prigo had orchestrated everything. The war, the chaos, it was all a game to him, a carefully placed blade against the throat of the world. And here she was. Helpless. Trapped. Just one of his tools. Her stomach twisted in fury. Then, the world shook. A deep, guttural rumbling roared through the battlefield. Swords halted mid-swing. Soldiers stumbled. The ground cracked beneath their feet, splitting through the marble streets like a wound in the skin of the earth. Another tremor. Then another. Silence. For one breath, just one, all of Solaria held still. And then the mountain opened. From the depths of Ignus-Luna, something moved. Alyc’s grip tightened. Her heart pounded in her chest. The silence was shattered by a sound unlike anything mortal, a deep, resonating howl that seemed to crawl up from the very bones of the earth. It was ancient. Endless. The kind of sound that didn't just shake the ground, but the soul itself. And then they came. The first to emerge were the Gors. Massive figures of fused bone and obsidian, their molten veins pulsing beneath cracked, armor-like hides. They dragged chains the size of siege towers, their jagged links screaming as they tore against the stone.
The first of them swung. A single sweep of its spiked chain sent entire battalions flying, Emberfall and Selenian warriors alike. Armor crumpled like paper. Limbs scattered like broken dolls. The screams began. The second wave followed. The Kurs poured forth from the fissures, crawling from the shadows like whispers given form. Their elongated bodies flickered between solid and spectral, their razor-sharp talons phasing through plate armor before solidifying inside their victims. A Selenian knight gasped, his mouth open in a silent scream as one of the creatures reached into his chest. His heart stopped, not from pain, but from pure terror. The Kurs dragged him backward into the darkness, where the echoes of his gasps faded to nothing. A ripple of panic spread through the battlefield. The soldiers, who had been fighting a war just moments ago, hesitated.
And that was when the Ravager emerged. The earth exploded. The massive, centipede-like beast tore through the battlefield, its obsidian plating glistening under the dying light. Each of its many legs ended in hooked talons, tearing into the ground with every monstrous step. Its lidless eyes gleamed like burning coals, unblinking, unfaltering, staring into the souls of those who dared to fight. Then, it struck. Its mandibles unhinged, revealing a spiraling abyss of teeth. A single lunge, and an entire section of the battlefield was gone. Screams vanished mid-air. Not just bodies. Not just armor. Existence itself was devoured. A section of the battlefield where warriors had once stood, where banners had once waved, was now nothing. No remains. No blood. Just a void, an empty wound in the world itself. Alyc sucked in a sharp breath. Her fingers curled around the cold iron of her prison window. Even through the thick walls, she felt it, a pull, a whisper, a hunger. The Ravager lifted its head, mandibles clicking together as if tasting the souls it had just consumed. Then, it turned, its countless eyes glowing like dying embers, seeking out its next prey. The battlefield descended into madness. Men who had stood fearless before their enemies now ran. Emberfall’s disciplined ranks broke. Selenian formations shattered. It no longer mattered which kingdom they fought for. There was no kingdom left. Only survival. And not all would find it. The first to die were those who hesitated. An Emberfall soldier, clad in red and gold, stood frozen as the Kurs slithered toward him. His sword remained raised, but his hands shook, his breath coming in shallow gasps. The creature flickered, there one second, gone the next, until it appeared behind him. A talon passed through his breastplate as if it were air. His body convulsed. His mouth opened, but no scream came. His eyes went wide, his veins darkening as the Kurs solidified inside him. Then, in an instant, he was gone, dragged backward into the abyss from which the creature had come. Across the battlefield, another soldier wasn’t so lucky. A Selenian archer tried to flee, his boots skidding against the blood-slicked stone. But a Gor had already seen him. The monstrous figure lifted its chain, spiked links glistening with fresh carnage, and swung. The first impact took the archer’s legs. The second caved in his chest. The third scattered what remained of him across the battlefield. The Gors did not stop. They swung their massive chains like judges delivering a final sentence. Walls collapsed, buildings cracked, and warriors were ripped apart before they could even scream. A single Gor tore through dozens with each attack, their molten veins glowing brighter with every kill. And still, the Ravager moved. It coiled, its massive body shifting with an unnatural grace. It did not rush. It did not flail. It hunted. A formation of Emberfall spearmen tried to regroup, their captain barking orders over the chaos. "Hold the line! HOLD THE LINE!!
The Ravager struck. One moment, the men were there. The next, they were not. The earth split open beneath them, the Ravager’s mandibles swallowing them whole. A dozen warriors, gone. Their weapons. Their armor. Their screams. All of it, devoured. Alyc’s grip on the bars tightened. The air itself felt thinner. The pull of the abyss was no longer just on the battlefield. It was in her bones. Everywhere she looked, something died. A Selenian war Thyndar , its rider already torn from the saddle, reared back in terror. A Kurs flickered to its side, talons sinking into its flank. The beast did not fall. It simply collapsed inward, hollowed from the inside out. A company of Emberfall archers fired volley after volley of flaming arrows. The Gors didn’t even flinch. The firelight danced along their armor, reflecting in the pools of blood at their feet. A desperate group of Selenian warriors made a final charge, their battle cry cutting through the night. The Ravager did not hesitate. Its mandibles opened once more, and in a single, sickening moment, Another piece of the world was erased. A blinding light split the sky.
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The battlefield froze, if only for a heartbeat. The darkness had reigned unchecked, an unrelenting tide of slaughter and ruin. But now, the heavens answered. The Divine Council descended, their forms wreathed in celestial radiance. Twelve figures, the last remnants of divine order, the only force left between Divinia and total annihilation. The Warden of Light was the first to act. His voice, deep and absolute, rang through the battlefield like a tolling bell. He lifted his arms, and from the heavens, pillars of radiant energy crashed down. The Harrowed Stalkers screamed. Their spectral bodies burned away beneath the searing light, their flickering forms reduced to nothing more than ash and smoke. For each one that fell, another slithered forth. They were endless. An army of nightmares with no beginning, no end. The Flamebearer followed, his body a living inferno, his hands raised toward the battlefield. Fire
Rained from the heavens. The Flamebearer’s wrath tore across the battlefield, a raging inferno consuming everything in its path. The screams of dying warriors, both Emberfall and Selenian, were swallowed by the roar of the flames. The Kurs shrieked, their shadowy bodies twisting and burning as they disintegrated into the smoke-filled air. But they did not stop coming. For every one that perished, another slithered forth. Emerging from the cracks of the broken earth, slipping out from the darkness of the mountain’s maw, their elongated forms whispering through the battlefield like phantoms. The Flamebearer’s firestorm should have ended them.
It didn’t. The Gors waded through the fire unscathed, their molten veins pulsing brighter, almost as if they were drinking in the heat. One of the towering monstrosities turned its eyeless head toward the Flamebearer, chains rattling in its massive hands. And then, it swung. The air shattered as the weapon struck, carving a path through the flames, through the battlefield, through everything. The Flamebearer barely had time to react before the impact sent him spiralling backward, his fire flickering, his divine essence dimming. Above, the Skywatcher raised her arms, her voice like rolling thunder. The winds screamed in answer. A hurricane erupted, a vortex of violent air and lightning, lifting warriors, bodies, and rubble alike into the sky. Torrential rain hammered the battlefield, flooding the streets of Solaria, turning the ground into a churning sea of mud and blood. Lightning crashed down, striking the Gors, the Kurs, and the soldiers caught in the fray. A bolt the size of a siege tower struck the Ravager, its impact sending a shockwave through the battlefield. The centipede-like horror lurched, its armor cracking, a piercing screech escaping from its maw. For a moment, it stilled, its many legs curling inward, its body shuddering. But then, it moved again. The Ravager twisted, its mandibles unhinging, revealing the abyss within. The lightning had not weakened it, only angered it.
It burrowed, vanishing beneath the war-torn city, slithering through the earth like a phantom of death. The Gors roared in response, their chains lashing out. One of them tore through a line of Emberfall’s cavalry, the warriors and their mounts ripped from the ground, their bodies pulverized midair. The force of the impact sent shockwaves across the battlefield, buildings collapsing, streets splitting apart as the Gors waded through the destruction. The Flamebearer recovered, his divine fire flaring once more. He lifted his hands, and a wave of molten fury burst forth, sweeping across the battlefield. Fire consumed the Kurs, their flickering bodies screeching as they were reduced to embers. But for every one that burned, another slithered from the shadows. The Tideweaver’s flood surged forth, black waves crashing through the streets, swallowing entire battalions, human and monster alike. The divine waters, imbued with the goddess’s strength, should have been unstoppable. And yet, they darkened. Abyssal filth bled into the tides, twisting the waves into something unnatural. The Kurs slithered through the water untouched, their hollow eyes gleaming, their talons reaching for the drowning. The Skywatcher turned her gaze to the heavens. A whisper left her lips, a single word lost in the storm. The clouds split. The sun burned brighter. And then, the sky fell. Golden spears of divine light rained from the heavens, searing through the battlefield. The beams pierced the Kurs, the Gors, the Ravager as it surfaced, sending it shrinking back with a hissing snarl. The ground sizzled where the light touched, blackened veins of corruption retreating, if only for a moment. For the first time since the creatures had emerged, they faltered. But only for a moment.
The Gors pressed forward again, their molten veins pulsing hotter, absorbing the power meant to destroy them. The Ravager twisted through the ruined city, its countless legs carving deep trenches into the shattered streets. The divine light had forced it back but not defeated it. Its lidless eyes gleamed with something worse than hunger. Understanding. It was learning. Adapting. The Gors advanced, their molten veins drinking in the divine energy, their massive chains snapping forward like whips of raw destruction. One struck the Tideweaver, the impact sending her spiralling through the air, crashing through the remnants of a Solarian temple. Another slammed into the Warden of Light, shattering the ground beneath him. He staggered, but did not fall. His radiance burned brighter, and with a flick of his wrist, the heavens split open once more. Blades of light rained down, impaling the battlefield, cutting through Kurs and Ravager spawn alike. But the Gors did not fall. They absorbed the light, their molten cores flaring hotter as they fed upon it. The Skywatcher’s storm raged on, lightning striking the battlefield in relentless waves, yet the Chasmborne Ravager burrowed deep, evading her fury. Then, it struck again. The earth buckled as the monstrous centipede erupted from below, directly behind the Flamebearer. Its mandibles clicked, once, twice, then lunged. The Flamebearer twisted, barely evading as the Ravager’s abyssal maw snapped shut, missing him by inches. He retaliated, unleashing a torrent of white-hot fire, but the beast vanished beneath the earth once more, burrowing faster than even the gods could react. The battle had changed. This was not a fight between two sides. It was a fight against something unnatural. Something that should not exist. The Divine Council pressed forward, but even they were faltering. The Tideweaver, bloodied but unbroken, raised her hands once more. The flooded streets swelled, the waves rising into massive, crushing torrents aimed at the Kurs. The creatures shrieked; their flickering forms swallowed by the waters. But the moment they vanished; new ones took their place. They did not end. They did not retreat. The Kurs were infinite. The Gors raised their chains again. The Ravager surfaced once more. The Divine Council stood their ground, and they were not certain they would win. Alyc stood motionless, her fingers locked around the cold iron of her prison window. The battle outside had transcended war, this was something else. Something far worse. The gods, the Divine Council, the beings she had once cursed and resented, they were struggling. For the first time in her life, Alyc saw them not as all-powerful, untouchable forces, but as warriors fighting a battle they could not control. And they were losing.
