Raziel, leader of Clan Razielim, was for once unsure of himself. He, along with the other clans chiefs and their personal guard, were flying west with all haste; braving the merciless maelstrom.

Queen Umah, (until they heard otherwise from Kain himself, no clan chieftain would dispute the claim), was leading them in their master's absence

Turel was almost directly behind her, leading his transformed troops through the air tight formation.

The source of the chaos reigning over the land had to be contained, at least according to their informant.

"Are you utterly certain about this?" Raziel asked, calling down to the two vampires flying just below.

"Completely." Janos Audron replied. "We must get to the pillars with all haste." The vampire next to him was having trouble keeping aloft in the savage winds around them, occasionally tipping to the side or loosing a little speed.

"Do not fight the air currents Vorador, use them." He called back.

"What air currents?" Vorador asked, beating his new wings twice to regain some group and fly alongside his sire. The tornados spinning through the land they had just left behind had all but completely destroyed the flow of air leaving flight difficult, even dangerous, for those inexperienced with wings.

Sally was right behind, having some difficultly controlling her wings in the ever changing air. Neither she nor her sire were used to such conditions yet.

Moving on the ground below, in lupine form, Ewoden was keeping up with ease. With the enhanced speed and agility of the wolf he was easily leaping over the man obstacles that were in his way.

The Hylden were heading west along with them, right alongside their demon allies.

T'kral and the leaders of the other Houses were up front, the Seer there with them as well. Surprisingly, Malek was also riding with them.

Many of their escort metal beasts, which the Hylden called robots, unable to deal with the harsh winds were sucked back to be consumed by the cyclone that was encroaching on them from behind.

"What is happening sire?" Vorador asked, holding an arm up to shield his eyes from the stinging wind.

"Unless we hurry to the Pillars; Armageddon."

With water pouring through the streets of Willendorf, the people retreated as fast as they could across the bridge even as if was crumbled with the torrent beneath it. The royal Militia herded those they could inside the fortress gates which the wave swept over the stragglers.

"What are your orders your majesty?" The captain of the guard asked as the waters battered away at the door, his men putting their shoulder against it keep it closed with reinforcements were fetched to strengthen the barrier. Princess Alicia stood at the top of the stairs leading up from the lobby. With her father dead she was now the ruling monarch and with the Sarafan Order's collapse she was now in control of Willendorf, or what was left of it.

"Take the citizens up to the higher levels; hold off the waters as long as you can." She told them, her eyes still ringed red from tears but despite this she never looked more determined.

"Wait, your majesty where are you going?" The captain called out as she walked away from her guard towards the winged vampire waiting for her at the end of the banister for her, perched on the open window. Sparks of lightning would charge past now and then, highlighting his handsome features.

He offered her a cloven hand.

"I am going to end this. I am going to claim what is mine and stop this madness." She took it and a moment later the pair of them was hurtling out the window and into the maelstrom of the chaos.

-

I struggled against the Elder's grip, but too many of his limbs held me down. I couldn't break free and was forced to endure the torture of watching Nosgoth being destroyed, unable to lift a single finger to do anything about it.

As more and more people, humans, Vampires and even Hylden; died in the chaos, their souls feed the wheel, giving the Elder strength. More and more souls were being churned down through that agonizing vortex, their combined energy slowly swallowed bit by bit by the hideous life form.

The irony of this entire situation was that the Elder was right in saying he could not have arrived at this position had I not interfered in history. By going back and making the changes I desired, the timeline skewed off creating a reality in which Nosgoth was to be consumed.

This was his contingency plan. If all else failed, he had planned on absorbing the wheel of fate itself and destroy Nosgoth with its combined power.

I could still hear those souls even from within that hideous body, all screaming at me, a message from beyond the grave no doubt filled with malice, contempt and utter hatred of me.

I could not say they were mistaken in doing so.

I no more deserved to be Guardian of Balance any more than Sabre had, but I could not simply stand idly by while this calamity was allowed to occur.

I began pushing against the tentacles holding my left arm down, straining against them with every ounce of strength I could summon.

Lubricated by the slimy running along the tentacle, my arm slipped free and I reached out for the Reaver. It was out of my reach but I began telekinetically pulling it towards me, hilt extended.

"I think not Kain." The tentacles around the sword tightened their grip and pulled the weapon back while others began retraining my arm again.

"You are powerless against me. When will you accept this simple fact? Your actions, past, present and future…even your very own existence…are nothing when placed in comparison to mine."

A long, shrill howl suddenly echoed through the chamber and the Elder's large eye looked up from me in surprise.

It was the howl of a wolf, a single salute that hung like a high musical note above. As it died away, a transparent form emerged out of the ether on the edge of the platform. Slowly it gained solidarity before emerging completely.

Sitting before me was the Guardian of Midguard, the wolf who had instructed the Seer to bring the nine of us to the temple.

"You again? Just who are you?" The Elder asked; the massive lean leaning forward to peer down at the beast. "Why do you hamper me so?"

"You know me Elder, for we have met many times before." The wolf replied, staring up defiantly. Slowly it rose onto its hind legs and during the movement its body began to change.

First its height increased and the muscles and bones twisted into the positions of arms and legs. The fur seemed to melt away like thawing ice to be replaced by dark blue skin. From the shoulder blades came two large raven black wings, the feathers spreading out to reach the ankles.

"You…" The Elder rasped as the transformation completed itself and I lay there staring up at the image of a vampire. I had seen this one before as well. "Baal your defiance has been the most annoying of all creatures in this land."

"Baal?" I repeated.

Was this the spirit of the first Balance Guardian? The very architect of the pillars and my first predecessor?

"I defy you because it is what I must do." The ancient carried on ignoring me. "This is my punishment and my atonement. My penance." He turned to look back over his shoulder towards me.

Now I could look at his face I recognized him once more as the ancient who I warned me of my tasks during the vision I had experienced in the Midguard temple. We looked so alike it was almost like staring at a mirror image.

He smiled at me.

"Kain, you have come far to reach this place and time.

This is the moment foretold so long ago. A moment no amount of tampering with history can alter." Two large tentacles rose up out of the darkness, arching high to tower over the first balance guardian. "I have spent thousands of years safe guarding the Midguard temple, awaiting the arrival of those who would be sent to redeem our kind.

You are worthy of this task Kain."

"I am a killer and a murderer." I replied. "I am no divine saviour. Listen to those screams of anguished souls, all of them cursing my name."

The swirling vortex of souls around us, all being sucked down into the darkness to fed the mass encroached on the cavern walls, was hissing jumbled words that when spoken together sounded like the murmuring of countless people. All of their statements, thought non understandable, were directed at me.

"Look deep Kain. There is much beyond the façade of Kain the Destroyer. Find it and set yourself free. Another will speak to you after I depart. Heed him Kain, although it will go against your better judgement." Without another word he turned from me to face the Reaver, still engulfed in tentacles. "It is time Raziel, take my soul and reunite it with those who took up my burden."

"I will not permit this!" The elder hissed and the two tentacles soared down. Baal gently touched the top of the Reaver's hilt and instantly his body was engulfed in a strong white light. His body became the glow itself, which traveled down through the hilt and into the blade itself. The eyes of the ivory hilt glowed blue. Now all the souls of the Balance Guardians who had ever lived resided within the blade, save for me resided with the blade.

The Reaver's blade glowed intensely and smoke began rising from the tentacles as they clung to the sword. Hissing in both pain and anger the Elder was forced to drop the blade onto the ground.

Telekinetically wrenching it to me, I sliced down at the tentacles holding my body to the floor. Slash after slash was sent into those monstrous green limbs and finally I wrenched myself free, spreading my wings to throw his disgusting grip off.

The phantoms whispered soured through my head at such a rushed rate it was impossible to hear exactly what they were saying. All rushed words spoken by so many and said so fast it came out as a constant whisper.

Voices I could put faces to were intermixed with the countless humans I could not recall. There was Mortanious the Necromancer who had raised me from the grave. Nupraptor the Mentalist, the telepathic wizards whose madness had infected the circle. Magnus, my champion who I released from his ruined flesh and the torment of the Eternal Prison.

Even the Sarafan Lord himself was there, his soul crying out amongst the multitudes as they swirled through me head.

"Kain, Raziel!" A single voice managed through the chaos. Slowly my eyes opened as I recognised this speaker. "Kain… the name…the name that needs to be spoken!" A translucent form manifested before me, an old man in a hood and sorcerer robes. The figure '8' was scared into his forehead.

"You…" I began, my hand tightening around the Reaver. Here was another who had fallen by my hand… more than once. "Baal wished me to speak with you?"

"You dare defy the Wheel, Moebius?" The Elder demanded as the central massive eye closed and then opened, glaring down at the spectre. The Time Streamer's spirit was barely holding itself together, his outline wavering as if I were seeing him through air full of intense heat. "Your time is over. Accept it. Turn the Wheel."

The tentacles engulfing the chamber quivering at the intrusion of a soul that had somehow managed to break through the cycle that sustained the horrific mass.

The specter of the Time Streamer ignored the long slimy limbs as dozens of them snaked towards him, sliding out of dark crevices and moving towards him.

"The name Kain, listen to us. Know it… you are both a stones throw away from ending it!" Before he could say anything more, the tentacles wrapped around him.

"You expect me to trust you?" I demanded.

I had more reason to hate Moebius, in both life and death, more than anyone else in all of Nosgoth. It was because of his machinations through history that most of this had come about.

"Forget me Kain." He pleaded, desperately struggling against the tentacles that clung to him as if he had physical form. "He lied to me, lied to all of us! Sabre, the first Sarafan and myself. End it here. End it now!" A large limb slowly sank over the Time Streamers spirit and his essence was sucked back through it into the wheel. I heard his anguished scream of torment before it died away.

The silence was more chilling than the scream.

For the first time, I felt pity for the old man

"This is the end Scion of Balance." The Elder declared, withdrawing the tentacles back into the walls. "Nosgoth dies here. All three races will be extinct before the day is out."

"And what then?" I asked without looking up at the massive eye. "With no more souls to spin, to reincarnate, to feed off of again; your wheel will become still and you will starve."

"The death of so many will give me strength enough to leave, Kain." Was the reply, all the eyes around the chamber blinking shut and opening in unison. "When the Norse died out, I hadn't the energy necessary to move myself to another more hospitable continent. That was why I coerced them into creating the three races.

Now, with more than enough energy to sustain me I will travel out beyond Nosgoth's borders to other lands and continents, locate other species and races. Their souls with sustain me for all eternity while you are your kind become fossils in the rock."

"Then your own words prove me right." I snapped. "You are no god. You're the very personification of the word 'parasite'. You take and take, giving nothing back. You care nothing for the Wheel, the only reason you kept it going was because it fed you. But now that its inconvenient you opt to destroy it!."

"I am the incarnation of all life. All other forms are simply slumps of flesh that mimic my glory." All the eyes opened and stared directly at me. "I am the only life in this universe that matters!"

I stood there, silently fuming with the hilt of the Reaver tight in my grasp. Even with Baal's soul it was worthless against the Elder now. It could not destroy him.

My only hope now was to banish him, but without knowing his true name that was impossible.

But wait... what was it both Baal and Moebius had told me? To look deep… to listen? Listen to what?

Look deep to find what?

All I could hear in my head and feel deep within were the souls around me, their constant whispering driving me to distraction.

Suddenly, it all became clear.

The voices, the thousands flying through me head.

Listen to US not listen to ME: that had been Moebius' exact message. Even now I could hear his voice added back to the multitudes that were yelling at me.

Now I understood.

The voices I was hearing were within the Wheel of Fate itself, not the souls of those I had killed.

They were constantly being drained to feed the Elder's gigantic and horrid mass.

But from within that circle, they were effectively within the Elder himself. From there, they saw all his secrets and now… they were giving those secrets to me.

They had not been screaming their outrage.

They had been trying to tell me how to win.

Slowly, I turned to look at Raziel. He had worked that much out as well. He simply nodded and his transparent hand floated over mine, clutching the hilt of the Reaver just below my own grip.

"In binding locks, hell the prison, open and take the uttered convict." I began, slowly raising the sword high into the air. The roots of the pillars began to hum in response, each one emitting a different note.

"You can not banish me fools." The Elder hissed, several tentacles rising from the darkness and crossing through the air towards us. "You can not utter my holy name."

"Guilty of evil, guilty of malice. Guilty of hate." I carried on ignoring him and Raziel began the same verse in time with mine.

A steady glow began to surround the blade as both myself and Raziel held it aloft, the sword pointed directly up. The ground began shaking as the pillars suddenly started to turn less and less grey. "I invoke the binding, I invoke the Pillars, I invoke the judgement of banishment on…" We swung the sword down together to point directly at the giant central eye.

The tentacles were all around us, a massive sea of them, threatening to swarm over us in an instant.

The souls voices screeched on, hunger in anticipation for what I would say next. They were anxious, desperate to know if their message had been understood.

It had been.

"Banishment on the Kraken!"

"What?!!!" The Elder demanded in utter shock, hearing a mortal utter his true name for the first time in countless centuries.

Suddenly it was as if the Reaver was consumed by light. It was like a beacon, burning with so much illumination I had to look away, my wings coming up to shield my face. The pillars reacted in exactly the same way, each one suddenly glowing like a sun.

"The Pillars." The seer asked in awe staring out at the magnificent sight, holding up her arm to shield her eyes from the glare.

Those flying and charging towards the pillars had to stop or at least slow to watch as the nine white pillars of legend lanced up from the ground miles away to jab so high into the clouds they could not see the top.

The storm still thundered around them, its intensity threatening to rip Nosgoth asunder. But this visage, the pure stature of the Pillars restored was enough to make it seem minuscule.

Anyone who gazed upon this spectacle instantly was bathed in the power of spirit, the veil lifted from their sight, the purity spreading out into this world of corruption and the light began to return to that which had been in darkness for far too long.

Even as far away as Willendorf, people stopped away they were doing to simply stare at the beacon of light in the west. There was no where in Nosgoth the light was not seen.

"They're even more beautiful than I remember." Ewoden breathed, speaking over the Whisper. Sally just nodded once in agreement, her mouth agape in both awe and astonishment.

"What is going on sire?" Vorador asked. Janos was staring out at the pillars with an expression of renewed hope on his face.

"The final act." He replied. "Come, we must go to the pillars. Our time is now!"

When the light from the sword finally died down the elder looked back towards me, seeing that the sword in my grasp was outlined with a pure white glow and that the pillars began me corresponded.

"You blasphemers!" The elder cried; every tentacle arched up like a snake to come soured at me.

"This is the end." I announced, my wings spreading out wide. "And thus your wheel will shatter upon my sword."