Chapter 530: The Abyss [1]
A year passed. On a vast open field, the land closest to the Dragon Lair Mountain Range, nearly a million soldiers stood assembled.
They were the finest of their nations, n and won who had been hardened by endless drills, clad in the heaviest of armours forged for war, their hearts beating with unshakable zeal. This was no ordinary host, but a gathering of legends.
No man with the faintest tremor of fear had been allowed into these ranks, for fear was the scent of prey, and Saelix would hunt it.
At the vanguard, two hundred thousand cavalry stretched across the plain, mounted on horses and wolves alike. Their line seed unbreakable, a tide of muscle and steel that could trample cities into ruin with a single charge.
Behind them, six hundred thousand infantry stretched in disciplined blocks, the true backbone of the host. Spears and halberds glead in the muted light, their banners snapping violently as the wind rose.
Overhead, clouds thickened and swirled, as though even the heavens braced for what was coming.
Among these mortals stood tens of thousands of beastkin, the fox n, the wolf n, the tiger and bear n, even the antlered knights of the deer tribes, each one a warrior of renown, pledged to the Beastn Duke of Cyrenia.
Their roars and chants rolled like thunder across the field. Before them, in the foremost shield wall, stood the dwarves, stocky and broad as living fortresses.
Tower shields locked in perfect unison, thick spears braced, beards braided like family crests, they stood immovable, a wall of iron and muscle.
Beyond them lood the dark soldiers of Galvia, the Death Knights. Sixty thousand strong, they marched in a silence more chilling than war cries, each one a vessel of plague and ruin. Only the blazing wall of fire raised by Ilios, one of the Great Mountains, kept their corruption contained, a barrier of living fla that separated them from the rest of the army.
Behind this dreadful infantry, the elves arrayed themselves in flawless ranks. Tens of thousands of archers stood with bows in hand, clad in armour of exquisite make that glead with artistry as much as protection.
Centuries had passed since they were last seen in war, yet their discipline was flawless, their presence a reminder that the firstborn of the forests had not yet lost their title as the greatest archers of the realm.
Above them hovered nearly ten thousand fairies, wings glistening like dragonflies in sunlight. They floated in perfect formation, bows drawn, a glittering storm ready to descend.
For many, including Asher’s people, it was the first ti they had ever seen fairies gathered in such numbers, an otherworldly sight that seed both delicate and terrible.
Beside the elves were other archers, fine in their own right, but all paled before the Stormbringers.
Towering, lithe won of House Ashbourne, each eight feet tall, astride their majestic Ovoks. With powerful fras and unerring precision, they were fad for their lightning arrows that struck from unseen heights.
Known as the Daughters of Death, they brought ruin unseen, the storm given form. Mounted on their swift Ovoks, they were not only archers but cavalry, swift as the wind and deadly as the thunderbolt.
Behind them, the great siege engines of House Ashbourne stood ready, thousands of trebuchets, ballistas, and other machines of destruction. Each one manned by mage-pilots who could bend the weapons to even greater devastation.
The host stretched further than mortal eyes could follow, a living sea of steel, fur, and fla. And yet, even this was only half the might assembled. To the right of the mortal army stood the spirit host, their numbers even denser, their aura heavier.
Over a million strong, their presence swelled the combined force to nearly two million.
It was an army that could tear empires down in a single campaign, leaving behind nothing but blood and ashes.
Before this vast army stood their leaders, emperors, kings, dukes, and countless other lords of renown. At their head, astride Sirius, Asher raised the Warfather’s crown before all eyes. The ancient helm glead under the darkened sky. Slowly, he began to tear it apart.
Even with his monstrous strength, strength that could punch through mountains and tear stone as though it were cloth, he found himself straining against the tal.
It was no ordinary helm.
The crown resisted, groaning, as though the will of centuries clung stubbornly to it. Only when Asher poured nearly all his might into the act did cracks begin to spread across its surface, hairline fractures glowing faintly with light.
And then the world reacted. Above, the sky itself splintered, great lines of rupture spreading like cracks across glass struck by a hamr from within. A soundless shatter filled the air, so loud in silence it pressed into every chest. Asher’s grip tightened, and with a final wrench he tore the crown asunder.
The halves clattered to the earth, and the sky for miles and miles broke apart completely. The firmant rained down in shards, each fragnt of reality falling only to dissolve into the vast wound above them. From the great fracture poured a crimson light, molten, alive, writhing as if it carried breath and hunger. The heavens themselves seed to bleed.
And then the world turned. For an instant, a nonosecond stretched into eternity, the army felt the ground twist upside down. n stood upon the sky, their heads bowed toward the earth, their stomachs lurching as though the laws of existence itself had faltered.
Then, with the blink of an eye, it was gone.
Asher and the host found themselves no longer upon their field, but in a new world.
A volcanic wasteland stretched as far as sight could reach. The ground was blackened, ford of hardened magma, cracked and steaming like the skin of so wounded titan. At the horizon, hundreds of volcanoes belched fire and smoke, fountains of molten rock spewing skyward. Pyroclastic flows crawled down their sides like rivers of fire, and above, a ceiling of ash and gray cloud pressed low and suffocating. There was no sky here, only this smothering veil of smoke and poison.
The very air reeked of cruelty. It was not simply felt, but breathed, a poison in the lungs, a malice so thick it seed woven into every breath.
No sun, no moon, no stars marked the heavens. Only an endless wasteland choking itself in fire and smoke, the atmosphere so vile it could corrode steel, eat at flesh, and rot the bodies of knights.
It was a world not made for man, not for beast, not for any mortal thing. It was ruin given form. The vilest of realms. The abyss.
“So this is the Abyss,” Athanatos said, his voice hard. He struck his blade into the ground. The sound that rang out was not of stone, but of tal.
As if the realm itself had answered, the air quaked. A monstrous shadow descended, blotting the glow of distant volcanoes. A vast, winged creature landed atop a hardened magma dune, its colossal form shuddering the earth.
Its wings, once proud leather, were torn and full of holes, their span ragged with old wounds that never healed. Three draconic heads, each twisted into a different visage of malice, writhed upon its shoulders, smoke and embers spilling from fanged maws.
And upon its armored back sat a figure.
A man, or what was left of one. His face was concealed behind a skull mask, bone-white and grinning with death’s leer. His body, massive and plated in blackened armour, sprouted not two but four arms, each corded with muscle thick enough to tear through steel. He sat upon the dragon-beast as though it were nothing more than a steed, his presence a weight heavier than the volcanic air itself.
“Ah… you ca.”
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