"Please! We only wanted da power to survive, to seize da right to live!"

The eagle cowered beneath me, screaming of mercy as my fanatics tore him apart.

He had given me trouble for hours, flitting about the city as I pursued him.

Using his fanatical body guards to increase his chances of survival at every corner.

My boot found its way to his throat, cutting off his mewling as I stood in the center of the burning city. I had been switching between my human and draconic form, and of course testing the boundaries of the transformation.

I managed to catch him by pretending to be one of the warriors under his command, slaughtering his men from behind when a particularly large group of rioters found us.

I stepped back and watched him try and fail to overpower a couple hundred frenzied trolls when my work was finished.

"So do I. I just happen to want it more than you or your people ever did."

To prove it I broke broke his neck with a quick application of pressure.

The directionless and disoriented portion of power that fled from his form was easy to consume, flowing into my runes almost as soon as it left the trolls body.

Things had been getting bloody, I had the majority of the populace under my control, but most of the actual warriors still stood with the old empire.

I rose a few undead to fill in the numbers, but I prefer to keep them as they were, channeling their blood for the battle. Partly out of preference, and partly out of neccessity.

A darkfallen was somewhere in these lands. Something from the very top of scourge command.

I had no intention of being caught in the middle of an army commanded by that kind of being. I took a moment to process the power, tear it into smaller and more manageable pieces.

The urge to preserve the arbitrary balance of the planet disappeared far more quickly than it had the first time around. The discoveries the expansion of sense wrought were disturbing to say the least.

It was new perspective on matters I hadnt understood. The old gods.

I imagine all but the oldest of the Loa failed to understand what they are, but each and every one of them knew about the corruption imprisoned in the darkest corners of the world.

Even reduced, their powers locked behind magics far beyond my ken, they were something else.

The knowledge that they were so strong, yet so far from the strength I sought was almost enough to drive me mad with frustration.

At the same time it excited me. In a way I understood fully what so many others did not.

That power that constantly sought to release itself, that everything knew was a threat to the safety of the world at large?

It was only the surface. The gods had been imprisoned and reduced to a fraction of what they were. I imagine most beings only focused on the horror of that concept.

For me it only smelled like opportunity. The vilest monsters of this world were only as strong as what they could extend past their cages. Of course such a thought was dangerous.

They were feared for a very good reason, but I had an idea on how to approach them, how to consume them. It would take planning and diligence, but it could be done.

I knew of five old gods, three lay imprisoned, one lay dead, and one should be somewhere in Zandalar.

Find the corpse, find the experiment, and find the one playing dead.

When I was finished with Deathwing I would either be strong enough to see it through, or I would never have had the potential to succeed at all.

For now I would relish in my new playground for just a little longer. I had three targets left.

The dragon-hawk, the unknown, and Zul'jin. They had managed to gather together in the chaos I had risen, and now stood as one within Zul'Jins fortress.

They fought together outside the fort while I pursued the eagle, but around an hour ago they changed their strategy.

With roughly half of the defending forces they barred the fortress off, leaving the rest to die outside.

Some had thrown their weapons down and joined the winning side, others fought and died, screaming for the aid of those behind sturdy walls.

In a way it was an intelligent move, I would have to take humanoid form before I could properly fight within such a place, and it would be difficult to directly assault. Trolls had a habit of trapping their own defensive works.

I would be forced to fight by their rules, leaving me vulnerable and exposed, reduced from an impossible foe to simply a difficult one.

The entire fortress shook as my form slammed into the walls. I heard screams from within as the magically reinforced stone only just absorbed the force.

It probably woulda worked too, if I wasn't a fucking dragon. As it was the fortress wasn't too much larger than I am.

On top of the magic I could cast they made this all too easy.

The blood of countless citizens flowed through the streets, surrounding the castle as I rammed my bulk into it.

It formed a ritual circle around the masonry, focused on using the souls and life-force of those within. Waste not want not.

I couldn't help but let out roaring laughter as the stonework began to crumble, and I felt the first of many die inside.

The fortress was a temple of stone dedicated to the gods and magically crafted to withstand prolonged assault.

It took five more blows to topple it into nothing more than a pile of rubble.

I frowned when I felt the sudden surge of power coming up to greet me. The collective power of a few thousand trolls an expected but not quite appreciated result.

The power of any of the loa i knew to be within had not come with it.

A lance of burning pain in my side alerted me to their response. I whipped around to see a one armed troll standing across from me, holding a strange blade.

"I neva heard of a Loa quite like you, but you gonna die here."

My ears twitched at the sound of the others rising through the rubble with him.

Magic hummed around me as a barrier rose over the remains of the fortress, trapping me inside without the the aid of my servants.

"Lovely."