Everything was almost aligned. What had brought everything together had nearly neatly wrapped itself up. The Grand Chase's delay had not been enough, however. Dahlia had failed him in the Elven Kingdom twice. She was ready to be disposed of. Ashtaroth had little use of the insane dark elf now. She had tried far too hard to garner the god's attention, anyways. Her death would be of no loss to him.
Everything was not ready for the Grand Chase's interference, however. He hadn't had enough time to set the apparatus up. So he would have to take matters into his own hands. Dahlia and the Demonic Army accompanying her would fail. They were far too weak. Ashtaroth would no doubt have to use the leftover Highlander souls to forge a distraction that would at least delay the guild on account of Ercnard's own guilt.
Graham, even more so, would serve a time-consuming delay. But would it be enough? Ashtaroth watched from the summit with disappointment as he saw the first few demons crumble in death. The magic released from the death of their cores would speed up the Hammer's reactivation, but Ashtaroth knew it wouldn't be enough. The guild locked swords with Dahlia soon enough. Ashtaroth would have to interfere. He'd have to get his hands dirty.
The Chase would swarm his new form, but even he couldn't predict whether they would win or not. The pseudo-god hadn't had the opportunity to test his newfound powers between setting up traps for the Grand Chase and trying to locate and reactivate the Aernas Hammer, and Klara refused to explain whether or not he'd be able to defeat them. Beneath his transformed mask, Ashtaroth grimaced. Didn't they understand what he was doing? He was trying to create a new world. Hadn't they yet realized that the gods had abandoned this one? They were plotting now, even, to destroy it. And yet the gods' "chosen heroes" came to stop him. Harkion was coming to reset everything to nothing. Ernasis, Lisnar, and Armenian had given up on the world as everyone had known it.
So why were their mortal incarnates still coming to stop the coming destruction?
Ashtaroth's grip tightened around his sword with an audible noise. The Hammer was still warming up. He'd placed the Soul Stone into it perhaps a week ago, but without the key the time it took for it to start up was abysmally long. He had no choice but to wait for it to finish, and watch and wait he did. From the summit, the ascended man growled as he saw Dahlia fall to those pesky heroes. Even from the top of the revived capital he could hear her shout for more of his power. She'd had her chances. Six of them, now. He'd granted her a beast to help smite the Chase, even, and yet she fled before the group had even arrived in the same room as Quoronnos. Dahlia was an incompetent strategist, a coward, and a weakling all wrapped into one miserable being. There was no reason for Ashtaroth to like her, even if he'd played her for a fool into thinking he cared about her.
Needless to say, it was satisfying to be granted the blow that rid the world of her himself. He watched the Chase in shock and horror as he'd done her in, but using her as a sacrifice would save him magic either way. Spells were much easier to do with a surplus on oneself, and despite her weakness, Dahlia's soul still contained just enough magic to summon the Highlanders back into being before the Chasers. Ashtaroth relished in the agony he saw split Sieghart's face before the young Highlander entered a rage. Before Ashtaroth had a chance to be attacked, he absconded, however, to tend once more to the Hammer.
He would destroy the group in due time. He just needed enough time to finish with the Aernas Hammer. Arawn and Gilberta's forces had still been preoccupied with the legions of demons, and would be nowhere near to help rid the Chase of the Highlander's souls. Ashtaroth had likely bought himself no more than another few minutes. The Hammer wouldn't be ready. But he still had Graham. Graham was his trump card. So long as they didn't find a way to destroy his soul, it would take them some time to get past the apparition, if they ever did. None of them had enough power individually to collapse his three souls. Only a focussed attack by all of them would prove to be enough to break just one of them. That was the only conceivable way they would be able to defeat Graham. Ashtaroth only had to hope that the group wouldn't split up because of the horrific Highlander. He mused on the idea for a moment though; perhaps it would prove easier to kill them separate each other.
Once more, however, Ashtaroth was forced to divert attention to keeping the Hammer safe. The Grand Chase had swept away the Highlander forces like ants. Graham wouldn't be the same. In the dust of the Highlander's broken souls, Ashtaroth would be able to summon their detained leader. And he did just that. Ercnard's disgust was worth the appearance, but not enough to mitigate the concern over just how close the guild was to the summit. Ashtaroth hadn't stayed long enough to allow Kassias another chance to try to persuade him to stop. He'd already done that when he'd sent the Chasers after Ronan's dead friend, Harpe. Ashtaroth didn't intend to have the elf waste more breath.
The Hammer was almost ready. Almost, but not quite. And with Kassias now in the picture, it seemed as if Ashtaroth really would have to interfere himself. If it weren't for that damned copy of Klara the elf had, Ashtaroth would have enough time to finish his plot and the Grand Chase, for the most part, would be obliterated along with the rest of the world in a burst of destruction and recreation that would be quick enough to end them that the pain would almost be inexistant. Sieghart would be the exception to that. But Sieghart didn't deserve a painless death. He'd done terrible things in his life, even if the mortals around him had been left ignorant of those things. Of course, things never went as planned for Ashtaroth.
The Aernas Hammer pulsed with energy as it continued calibrating and charging to the Soul Stone. Ashtaroth caught a glance of the telltale sign of a Highlander's demise. Had Graham already perished? Kassias must have gotten better at his offense with that hackneyed copy of the Klara Libri he'd been carrying around. Of course he would have. But the elf wouldn't dare attack Ashtaroth, would he? Surely he must have come to realize that Ashtaroth had spoken nothing but the truth to him. And yet he was still fighting through the resurrected city. Kassias always had been dense.
With what could easily be his last glance at the Aernas Hammer, Ashtaroth departed to once more delay the Chase. Whether Ashtaroth succeeded today or not, Harkion was coming to desolate the world in the name of the gods this Chase so graciously followed. Every death today was but a precursor to the destruction the gods felt necessary to wreak upon Aernas, Elyos and the Underworld. Humankind, elvenkind, dwarvenkind… The dead. The living. All would perish at the wrath of the gods, bored with the world.
Even if Ashtaroth failed today, Harkion was coming.