There are no shadows in the Nether Realm. The fires that burn the faces of its revenants reveal all scars, all emotions, and intentions. There are no shadows like that in other realms.
Here on Shang Tsung's island, the shadows dance like woman across the halls of Goro's chambers, through the bars of prisoners souls still caged in the withered corpses, and beneath flicker of gold strewn across after the destruction of Shang Tsung's empire.
Here, there grows a great weight on the shoulders of the world in the shadows of the underground. The Kytinn, so few, yet so much more than man is willing to handle.
The cackle of carapace husks cracked beneath loose stone and the breath of an ancient past followed me down into the depths of the his sanctum, deeper than even Goro's lair.
"Show me, bug." My deep voice, soft but echoed in this hollow lung of a chamber deep within the Earth.
D'Vorah behind me soon fluttered her wings and trickled down the stone steps like little pebbles thrown at the sinner to skip ahead of me. Her movements, almost avian, but yet so deeply disturbed and unnatural that it was a nightmare just to watch her move.
Her body, though feminine in nature, was a threat of violence from the very force of evolution. Ancient, so lost in the past she could only be described as alien. It beckoned me to know what those heartless innards pulsed for.
What do you live for D'Vorah?
"This one will now show you the Hive." She said with a quick jerk of her head nearly fully round her neck like a praying mantis then she disappeared into a black hollow only big enough for one body to enter at a time.
On the other side, there were husks and webs, stone-like eggs that stood as pillars of the past and an obelisk that once terrorized the world, formerly known as the Queen of the Hive. The sight was truly horrendous to any mortal man, but to this free-roam sorcerer, every stench, every cackle and buzz of the few that remained was like a godsend.
"Onaga has promised survival of the Hive." She echoed his promise, but then added with a dejected click of her mandibles, "with the loss of the Kamidogu, that now falls to me, and you."
A promise I had convinced her would be kept.
"Yes, bug. Outworld will see the Kytinn rise again. Under Quan Chi." An echo for her to devour.
"What do you propose?"
All eyes were cast upon me and expected an answer they could easily grasp with their primitive minds. All they knew was survival and it is all they cared about. D'Vorah didn't care about her own life, none of them did, only the life of the hive. Unlike them, I only cared for mine, but she would assist in my own plans for survival, and conquest.
They would all have a role to play.
"With Sindel dead, Kitana has been greatly wounded. Her heart, her pride, her kingdom. This is the best time to take one enemy out, while we plan for the next."
"Kotal Kahn sails across the river to the Centaur Hills, would it not be best to sink his ship and let his kingdom drown with him?" She had a point, but all things in due time.
"No, bug. Kotal Kahn has just gained an army, and Kitana has lost an entire world. She will be the easiest to remove."
"The Kahn will see it coming."
"Oh, I don't intend on killing the Kahn."
Her eyes fell upon me and if they could tighten, they would have in an attempt to understand my intentions.
Kitana would see them clearly without a single word spoken.