William

The sudden lurch was undeniable. Every single Hylden felt it in the form of the sensation of a lifted burden. All of them stopped where they stood and gazed up in astonishment at the neon green sky above them began to crack open, sparks of power lancing down through the fits driving the hole open wider.

"That can't be…" T'kral, leader of House Pyre stated gazing at it in complete and utter disbelief. "Impossible!"

"No cousin, I can feel it too." The Hylden female beside him replied, gazing up at the widening rift with equal wonder. She was Y'alp, leader of House Aqua. She had been direct subordinate to their patron the Hylden General and while their leader had been alive she had been the one chosen to lead his army out of the gate they constructed. "The binding is not only failing… it is being removed!"

"Then what are we waiting for!" A large Hylden demanded, barging his ay into the chamber. He was a foot larger than them and while most Hylden had a thin almost skeletal like form his body had a good deal of well developed muscle on it. His name was Py'tor, the leader of House Terra.

He was already in full bronze battle armour, the armour plates spread over his legs and chest; a helmet placed over his head; the glowing green eyes staring out through the visor.

"This may be the one and only chance we ever have to escape this place."

T'kral did not take his eyes off the opening rift. Who in Nosgoth had the ability to remove the binding?

The one thing that had kept them tethered to this place, unable to exist outside it without an open passage to and through. The chains Baal placed upon their race so long ago.

"Are you deaf?" Py'tor demanded, placing a large hand on his shoulder tearing him around to face the larger Hylden. "I will not let our chance be lost on stunned awe. Now are you coming are not?"

It did not take long for the Houses to marshal themselves. All Hylden could see the rift and feel the lifting of the binding on their souls.

This was a relief unlike nothing they had left before. The pillars were weakened to the point where an invasion attempt that been possible but even so the bindings of Baal did not allow them to leave the dimension without an open gateway there.

Kain had foiled their General by shutting the gate and once that line had been cut, all the Hylden still standing on Nosgoth's soil died.

This was not so here.

The binding was disappearing completely and if it did… the possibility of such a thing put the Hylden into awe. If such a thing happened then they could leave… without consequences.

G'tor the leader of House Aer already has his entire house mobilized outside the city by the time the other four arrived. His automatons, the mechanized robotic soldiers the Hylden sometimes employed as scouts were flying skyward into the rift.

All watching held their breath as the metallic shells ascended and finally disappeared into the light.

The scientists who built them, occasionally called mages and alchemists by the uninformed, told their liege that they still had sense of their creations beyond.

"That is good enough for me." Py'tor declared. "To me my housemen, this night we return to Nosgoth!"

"G'tor sir!" The leader of house Aer looked up as one of his scouts came running towards him. "Demons are approaching the rift from the city perimeter. They're not responding to our commands."

"What?" T'kral demanded.

"How many?" G'tor asked but the scout did not need to answer. A loud roar echoed up and glancing up towards the ridges surrounding the Hylden settlement. Standing there alone was a black fire demon, spikes jutting out of its shoulders and arms and red eyes burning. It stared down at the Hylden, red eyes blaring, as if challenging them.

The Hylden had tamed many demons in their pursuit to survive in this evil place. Now one of their breed was challenging their authority.

A moment later it was joined by more demons up on the ridge, a dozen of so lesser fire demons all blaring smoke and fire from their mouths as if to intimidate their enemy.

"They're trying to flank us!" Y'alp announced and T'kral turned to follow her gaze up towards the plains on the fair side of the city. Movement could be seen as a sizeable number of lesser demons; insect like predators moving amongst the jagged rock structures there.

The black fire demon on the cliff roared once again and more joined its army, at least twenty lightning beasts manifesting around it one by one in flashes of blue light.

"They sense the rift." The female hissed through clenched teeth. "They seek to take Nosgoth for themselves."

The rift above intensified, widening open like a fissure and through the whips of power encircling it; another sky was beheld.

"Stars…" G'tor breathed. "I see… I see stars!"

The black fire demon watched the rift for a moment, snorted loudly out through its nostrils before turning its attention back to the Hylden.

"These beasts will kill us if we do not go." T'kral spat. "If this is truly the day of our salvation then let our luck be put to the test!"

Before any of his fellows could stop him T'kral hurled himself upwards towards the rift. Caught by its pull he was pulled higher and higher until finally he past through.

---

The ancient city of Avernus had been almost completely destroyed by demons summoned by Azimuth over two hundred years ago.

It had been no coincidence that she had chosen this place to do her summoning, for Avenus stood over the original Hylden gate; a passageway constructed by the ancient vampires. It was through this that the Hylden were banished.

After so long, lying dormant under the earth, the gate stirred.

Massive gears began turning and with a ground that shook the heavens, the underground doorway began to pull itself apart. A fissure tore its way down the centre of the ruined city. The ancient crumbling buildings began toppling in one by one, falling down into the abyss.

The massive cathedral which had stood for hundreds of years, built by the first Sarafan order, cracked like an egg. The spires toppled down, crashing to the ground and breaking into bellowing clouds of dust.

The walls around the abandoned settlement cascaded down, crumbling like sand and falling to the ground engulfed in clouds of dust.

Before it was over most of the ruin had been swallowed up by the earth. Moments later a geyser of swirling green light rocketed out of that dark void to strict the sky infecting it. A low squeal and screeching echoed up from the darkness along with it, a protest of trespass made perhaps by the earth itself.

William could feel the gate opening and he could feel objects already coming through it, unshackled by the restraints placed upon them.

"You stupid idiot." Swift hissed picking up his sword. "You could have fallen to your death and that would have been the end of it. Yet you persist like some cliché hero of folklore!"

Around the human shades began appearing, dozens of creatures made from darkness; all swirling like liquid with three purple eyes as the only solid piece.

"I've spent years trying to make my way to the top. I won't be denied now by some deluded vampire!"

His jabbed his sword forward towards William's exposed back. Even before the blade could strike his shades were swooping forward, forming claws out of their darkness.

William clapped both hands together, the sound surprisingly louder than it should have been and echoing where it should not.

Before him, a rift tore itself open; a hole running vertically down through thin air; spraying neon green fumes out Swift's face. His shades froze as a massive head, adorn with horns near a skull like face pushed itself out.

The demon was over eight feet tall, covered in short red fur and bulging with muscle, standing on its goat like hind legs and gigantic teeth in the midst of its jaws.

It roared as it pulled itself fully out the gate, long claws slicing forward trailing fire. These talons racked through the shades, tearing through their flimsily forms and searing them as if they were solid flesh.

Swift backed up and tried to run, but before he could take two paces the demon's giant mouth snapped down on him from above.

He managed to let off one scream, before he was crushed by the powerful jaws. The serrated teeth tore off the human's legs and blood spilled out to stain the floor, red spraying into the air.

William, his face contorting with effort, tried to fight the fatigue being forced upon him. But eventually the pull was too much and he collapsed to his knees, sweat pouring off him.

The demon remained, hunched over the remains of its victim, lapping up the blood and chewing the fat off the dismembered legs.

"This is your fault traitor!" Anubis hissed at the injured Archon, who sat down on one knee nearby; gripping a hand to the deep wound in his shoulder. "The master will subject you to eternal torment for this heresy!"

"Let him." Archon replied. "I've spent far too long as a hunter of souls to willingly serve him ever again. Their screams as they are used to feed him still haunt me, their agony I feel every moment of my existence." He looked up towards sally "I was nominated by the master to be his candidate fore the Pillar of the Mind.

I now relinquish that position to you." He hand a hand on Sally's forehead. "I knew from the first moment I manifested in a human body that I was not meant to be a Guardian.

Perhaps now, I fill find some peace. Perhaps now, the screams will stop."

"Ah yes, the screams." The expression on Anubis' face turned intensely sadistic. "Oh the delicious screams. I love hearing them, crying out for help which they will never receive.

The master gave me the opportunity to be more than feral beast a prowling the underworld.

He made you the same offer and yet you spit in his face. Well I will..." She was interrupted by a loud roar. The demon had finished stuffing down the remains of Swift and now it had turned its attention on her.

It charged at her with arms spread wide, mouth open with fire burning between the teeth. Leaping back, the incarnated Slugah leapt out of the way as its claws slashed down, bearing open the stone floor.

"Damn you!" She spat, before clapping her hands together and vanishing in the midst of a translocation spell.

"William, control that beast!" The sear shouted to the winged vampire. William however was too exhausted to so much as lift an arm never mind force his will over the creature.

He was too tired to even notice that the small rift through which the demon had entered their world was still open.

Without any warning, a slender form began to push itself sway out. As if sensing the intrusion, the demon turned and snorted a a hairless hair with glowing green eyes emerged, followed by the rest of the body.

T'kral nearly fell out of the hole in reality, rolling before coming to a stop. Reaching before him instinctively, the Hylden brought his scythe to bear.

"I made it…" He breathed almost in debrief. "I... I actually made it." He glared up at the sky above. While the rift was staining it a pale green it was undoubtedly not the sky he was used to seeing.

"NOSGOTH!" He screamed in complete triumph, standing up and holding his weapon higher. Laughing like a madman he relished in the feeling of the cold wind on his skin and the sensation of freedom, denied from him for centuries.

The demon roared loudly, scrapping its hind legs across the floor before charging at T'kral with its mouth wide open.

The Hylden looked down at the last second and slamming the blunt end of his weapon down on the floor, using it to pole-vault over the creature as it lunged at him. Spiralling up over its blade, he brought the blade of the scythe around in a swinging arch; the metal singing as it moved through the air. The song ended abruptly when the curved blade struck flesh, and then bone.

In a single stroke the Hylden decapitated the beast.

The demon's body tripped over its own feet as it moved before crashing down to the ground. The severed head rolled a short distance before tipping over the edge of the tower and falling.

Once the demon was dead, the small rift William had pried open closed with a soft whoosh of air.

But T'kral was still there.

"It's gone… the binding is… its finally gone." The Hylden took a long breath. "It may not be at its best but it's a damn sight better than the air once must breath in the demon dimension." He paused, before turning to face those present. "I felt myself pulled here. Which of you did it? Which of you removed the bindings?"

"That would be him." Archon muttered, gesturing with a toss of his head towards William; whose wings were draped over his body almost lifelessly; sweat dripping off each feather.

"A vampire?" T'kral asked in utter astonishment. "A vampire… of all beings… destroyed the binding?" He walked over and roughly lifted William up, staring him in the face. "Are you mad? My people will hunt down and destroy yours. You've doomed your entire species." He made a face. "And perhaps even more.

My people are preparing to leave but even as I speak, the native demons of that realm are preparing to leave after them.

Unless you shut the gate after my people come through then you're going to have an invasion of hell hordes streaming through Nosgoth."

"That is a chance we will just have to take, T'kral."

T'kral froze at the sound of the voice and he left William drop. With a twitching of his hands, his scythe fell from his hand and clattered on the floor.

Slowly, he turned around to face the speaker he came face to face with the Seer. His mouth hung open in mute astonishment and the demonic green glow in his eyes died down as if a fire were burning through the last few embers of its life.

"S… s… sister…"

Miles away, at site of the pillars the broken stone began to stir again. The remains of both the Pillar of the Mind and the Pillar of Dimension began rising out of the ground, the plants encircling the fragments snapping under the stain. Fitting together like a complex puzzle they moved up, sliding back into their places until the pillars were complete against.

With one final metamorphosis their dulled, cracked surfaces changed to whole and pure marble white.

Three uncorrupted pillars now stood where for centuries none had graced the skies. Around the base of the pillars, the dying plant life began to look ever so slightly greener.