"What in the name of god…" The Sarafan General asked in utter astonishment as the green sky above sparked with yellow lightning. Those on the battlefields both the side of the clans and the side of the Order, paused in their fighting to stop and stare up in confusion as the sky burnt with neon flames.
Even Malek had to stop as the extraordinary events began to unfold.
"What Sarafan trick is this?" Turel demanded, staring up with a stunned expression on his face. Raziel stood beside him, his curved blade in one hand and the dead body of a Sarafan soldier hanging from the other. He bared his fangs and paused his face into a frown.
"This is no Order magic. The lord told me about this." He stated, looking past the Sarafan lines towards the southern horizon. To the southern east the green vortex infecting the sky seemed to be the brightest. From his knowledge of the terrain of northern Nosgoth Raziel knew that spot to be the site of the ruined city of Avernus.
"Hylden!" He hissed.
"But our lord told us they were banished!" Turel protested as Raziel dropped the dead soldier and flexed his arms. "I thought the Sarafan Lord, the demon, was dead."
"This is the rupturing." Vorador stated standing on the battlements of Dark Eden, staring up at the sky. All the Sarafan archers where so stunned not a single one was taking a shot at him. "The binding that keeps them bound is past the breaking point. The shackles have been removed."
"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Zephon asked, his vampires still standing by on the battlements beside them, even if their attention was diverted at this point.
"This moment means either salvation or destruction for our people." Vorador replied. Suddenly his face went alert, ears standing up rigid and eyes wide. Hs glanced up sharply towards the top of the eastern cliff face hedging them in. "Janos!" He declared in alarm, clapping his hands together and vanishing in the midst of a translocation spell.
Re-emerging out of the midst of the spell on the precipice, Vorador scanned the ragged rocks that littered the plateau. Nearby between two boulders he found the smoldering remains of a robe lying in amidst a pile of blackened ash.
Glancing back, Vorador saw a trail of blood leading away from it towards the cliff edge. Draped across the edge, blood dripping from the wound in his chest was Janos Audron.
Slowly the winged vampire rolled, further and further until he was tapering over the edge. Vorador leapt forward at last second, rolling through the dirt before catching his sire by the foot before he could take the plunge.
"I can feel it Vorador…" Janos whispered as Vorador tried to pull him back up. "I can feel it. The Pillar of Energy."
"That's nice to hear sire." Vorador grunted, hauling the wounded vampire back up onto the ledge. The wound ran right through Janos' chest from his back to his front, thankfully only just missing his heart. However he had shattered several ribs and his lung had collapsed. On top of this he was loosing a lot of blood. If he did not receive blood and soon he would die.
Acting on instinct, Vorador called forth a shower of magically summoned blood. The spell was not easy to maintain for long periods of time and was only manageable by vampire ancients, which was why it was not largely used by the vampire community, but as soon as it rained across Janos' body and began seeping into his mouth and the wound near his heart he started to heal.
Diverting all of his mana into maintaining it, Vorador kept the rain going for as long as he could. When the flesh closed around the gaping hole the rain stopped and Janos tried to sit up.
His skin was still torn in places and his muscle sore but at least now he was not on the thread hold of death.
"I prevailed Vorador… I can feel my position as a guardian of the Circle of nine, a connection to my very soul." Janos carried on, almost oblivious to either his wounds or his healing. "And now I understand now they left, the original circle. Baal and the others spoke of it often, but as the tenth guardian I could not experienced this bound.
It seems my destiny has been kinder than I ultimately believed."
With sudden purpose in his eyes he looked straight at Vorador.
"You are next. Your election is now." He gestured with a nod of his head towards the battlefield below. "Your opponent awaits."
Vorador followed his gaze and saw that Malek, despite complaints from his men, was walking alone out onto the battlefield towards the walls of darkened, his sword in hand.
Something deep inside Vorador noted this moment as an important turning point in his life, as long as it was.
Something that had been started from the moment he had accepted the Dark Gift was about to reach its apex.
He looked back at Janos a moment.
"I will be fine." The winged ancient assured him, placing a hand over his injury as he looked with a faint ironic smile at the green vortex to the south. "Now, before we are waist deep in Hylden. Finish this business with the Paladin."
Vorador took in a deep breath, stole a wary glance at the vortex, before clapping his hands together and hading into the white haze of a translocation.
Malek stopped halfway between the Sarafan front lines and Dark Eden. He was out of ear shot of his soldiers but still out of range of the clan archers. He adjusted the shield on his left arm and waited.
His challenger did not keep him waiting long.
Vorador appeared a short distance away, his own in hand with his golden eyes fixed on the animated suit of armour that served as the Paladin's body.
"Personally, I do not care whether the Order wins or loses this battle." Malek stated, turning to face the vampire. "One who has seen the endless twilight of the underworld places little importance's on the affairs of those who dwell on the earth, mortal or otherwise."
Vorador did not reply. Malek chuckled a little.
"Can you grasp the horribly ironic connection we share?" He gestured out around him. "I killed many of your brides and assisted in the death of your sire. Beings you swore to protect.
In return, you killed those wizards and guardians I was sworn to protect.
Since then both of us have attempted to claim neutrality in the wars of Nosgoth, you hiding in you swamp and me in my Bastion.
And only by ending that neutrality did we face each other again in this very spot.
And now, for a third time we meet in battle."
"Third time lucky." Vorador stated, rearing back his free hand and flashing forward a spell. Malek sliced up through the air, his sword cutting the magic projectile as if it was something solid. Green fire trailing after it.
At the sight of it Vorador felt a pang of familiarity.
"I am cold Vorador. This metal body knows no warm, and then you tore my former prison apart I thought I might find some heat in Heaven.
Only to find there is no such place and the underworld is even colder than the metal." Grasping the hilt of his sword tight he rushed forward. "I am eternally cold and I have you to thank for it!"
Vorador parried away the tip of the blade so it flew to his side, slicing through the end of his coat. The green flames were intently hot, burning the fabric like an fireball. Red lightning cracked along its length as well, burning through the air like a charge.
Grabbing a hold of Malek's body using telekinesis, the ancient tossed the paladin up into the air before slamming him down hard against the ground.
Malek rebounded as if the blow was nothing, darting in close faster than Vorador anticipated, nearly slicing him across the belly had the vampire not side stepped in time.
"How long must our fight be prolonged?" Vorador asked, grabbing a hold of Malek's wrist and pinning him there. "Even you must be tired of it."
"Fatigue means nothing to those will no flesh to feel it." Malek grabbed forward, snatching Vorador's arm and yanking him back.
Torn from his footing the ancient vampire tumbled into a punch that smacked him square in the face from a chain mail fist.
Staggering back Vorador, brought his hand back before thrusting forward unleashing a powerful elemental spell.
Leaping up into the air Malek avoided the blast, before coming down hard; driving his blade down into the air. Geysers of green fire burst up through the earth, one of them coming dangerously close to striking the ancient vampire. Only by back flipping through the air did Vorador managed to avoid its searing touch.
Using his sword to bring himself to a stop as he scrapped through the earth, Sword regarded the sword in Malek's hand.
A suspicion was growing within him about that sword. He'd thought he'd seen it before… but there was only one way to tell if it was indeed the same blade.
Darting in close, the vampire slashed upwards attempting to use his own sword to strike at Malek's head, throwing all his might into the blow. As he expected the paladin brought his own sword to block the attack.
As the two swords met, the green fire engulfing Malek's blade slashed at the vampire's weapon. The metal bubbled, reaching boiling point almost instantly. The blade melted, dripping to the ground and Vorador was left unarmed.
Using the momentary confusion to his advantage the vampire charged a spell between his talons and smashed it into Malek's helmet. The blow of elemental power was enough to throw the paladin backwards several feet so he landed flat on his face in the dirt.
"I knew it." Vorador muttered as Malek hoisted himself back up. "I thought I'd seen that sword before." Malek paused to shake the dirt and dry mud intermixed with dried blood out of the chinks in his armour. "That is the same blade the Sarafan Lord wielded in the battle for Meridian. The very sword he used to strike Kain into a slumber for two hundred years."
"I care not who used this sword before me." Malek replied dryly. "As long as it is capable of striking the both of us down, it matter not."
"The both of us?" Vorador repeated. "You mean to kill yourself as well?"
"Death would mean nothing for me at this point. Had I the Reaver Blade, I would fall upon it and allow my soul to be consumed. Rather that than return to the eternally cold abyss of the Underworld.
Lord Sabre told me this sword sears a man's soul, burning it as if it were flesh. I will fall upon it, hoping my soul destroyed, should I face defeat." The helmet turned with a loud scrapping of metal against metal. "But I intend to win. I intend to see your head removed for one final time and maybe then, the flesh you and Mortanious took from me might be restored."
At the back of the Sarafan army the scouts were raving about the ground opening up and swallowing anything that fell into it. Their stories told of the ruined city of Avernus plunging into the depths of the earth and the green sickness affecting the sky bleaching up from that same abyss.
The Generals might have dismissed them as lunatics had they not been disturbed by the strange sky above them.
One by one, moving into the ruined city streets came the long forgotten and unspoken. Appearing , materializing out of the rift in the city they manifested. The race almost forgotten by the world.
Py'tor pulled off his helmet and gazed out at the world with his glowing green eyes.
"Is this a dream, my lord"? One of the Hylden Soldiers of House Terra asked him.
"Not in the slightest." Py'tor replied. "In fact, this is more real than we've ever been in centuries." He knelt down and picked a handful of dry dirt off the ground. He let it grunt through the fingers of his gauntlet, falling down to cloud at his feet. "Its gone. Its finally gone."
As if remembering something, he turned to face the rift as more and more Hylden began to emerge out of it.
"The demons are right behind us!" Y'alp declared, nearly racing out with her warriors right behind her. Almost immediately, a Thunder Demon soared out of the rift with lightning burning between its pincer like limbs.
Without mercy it grabbed at dozens of Hylden electrocuting them on the spot and in some cases reducing them to piles of ash.
With a loud bellowing sound the Black thunder Demon with had dogged their retreat emerged, followed by over a dozen fire demons.
"We are nobodies pets anymore." It stated, flames leaping up from between its massive teeth, highlighting its skull like face. "Destroy them all! Human, Vampire and Hylden alike… let them all burn!"