Chapter 16: Let loose the dogs of war.
Malzahar was on the frontlines, waiting for the Horde to meet his power.
Himos had showed his power to the world. It was not beautiful or particularly precise. What it could do, however, was rend the minds of entire armies with ease. Immense beasts were no problem either, as all simple brutes would fall no matter their size.
Mind War was a common spell known to all as a dangerous and unreliable spell, but when an induced Void nightmare was introduced, Malzahar was at minimal risk to his own psyche. Very few people, no, very few beings could stand against the Void and even less likely to not have psychological scars in the aftermath.
He could hear the clutter of spears behind him as the Uebel Guard forces were nervously waiting for the inevitable cavalry charge.
Malzahar knew what it was like to stare down such a charge. The hooves would thunder against the ground with such power that it should have been classed as an average earthquake, the deafening battle cries blocking out every order the superiors would give and the truly devastating force it delivered from lane, sword and axe. A successful charge could remove entire infantry columns from the battle even from a dozen horsemen.
That was why he was here.
To not allow them that luxury of a good charge.
A dust cloud appeared in the distance. The rumble of earth confirming
Xerath has started? That means-
A large blast of green tinted fire came from behind him.
Several men were reduced to smoldering pulp while others were screaming as their limbs had been scattered by the explosion.
SH*T!
Malzahar hushed his startled camel, looking back to the Horde's position.
An onrush of sand blasted him.
A conjured sandstorm? Such parlor tricks.
A very distant roar of hooves on sand immediately stopped his thoughts.
Well then.
"Commander Jinai! We need Xerath to take out the mage responsible for this sandstorm. Now!"
"Copy that."
Another strange sound came out of the storm. The barking of hounds?
To his right, he saw a hound the size of a horse jump upon the Guard, which ripped a man's head with ease. The sound of other hounds resounded across the Guard ranks, followed by screaming and retaliating spears skewering some of the hell-spawned dogs.
A closer explosion of Xerath's making echoed to him, followed by the harsh wind slowing and dissipating. The mage was taken care of. Good.
Another Hellhound emerged out of the calming storm, eyeing Malzahar with clear intent of its obvious move.
It was akin to a weird Hyena-wolf hybrid, its scimitar fangs bore circling him, thinking Malzahar easy prey. It began its pounce.
Malzahar held his hand up, blasting the hound with a wave of alien origin.
The hound's mind was snuffed out like a candle, its corpse falling hard on the sand without even a sound. His camel was scared, but its experience with Himos had allowed it to quickly calm itself. Betty is always reliable, Malzahar thought.
Other Hellhounds pounced out from the decaying sandstorm, hungry for man-flesh.
Their feasts were interrupted by cold stabs of steel, ripping into their tough hides like blunt knives cutting muscle.
Only a few Hellhounds remained, with the remaining beasts rounded up and cut down. At least that is done. Ordnance continued to rain down on Uebel, but the frequency had been significantly reduced thanks to Xerath's efforts.
A massive wave of cavalry rode into view on the horizon.
"Now is where the battle really begins. Ready yourself Commander, I'm about to show you things that go beyond reality."
Malzahar closed his eyes, completely calming his breath.
He felt energy surge inside him.
The sound of thundering hooves approached.
Reality warped two hundred meters away from him.
The roar of battle cries drowned everything out.
NIHILI VORAGO!
Reality itself cracked like glass, leaving two gaping holes into a world of utter chaos and mutation.
So many just lost their lives from the alien maw spewing raw unrefined energy into them. Some fused with their horses, their skin melting like slag while their bones contorted into twisted and sickening trees of bone and muscle, their very beings now void of material laws. Some were even possessed by Void entities, mutating them into creatures that could not even spawn from nightmares. Another man and his horse exploded in a display of red mist, covering his allies in his still boiling blood.
A war elephant cried out in pain as its bones protruded out from its skin into a living fortress of tusk.
The two portals sparked with magenta and violet lightning that slagged and cauterized steel and flesh with equal power, creating long tendrils that thrashed out in the middle of the cavalry charge. Man and horse were eviscerated by their slightest touch. As the portals' tendrils finally met, Void Space was established, allowing more energy to flood in to the unlucky men trapped by the prison.
The two portals merged into a single door to the alien dimension.
More and more energy flooded the Space, soaking every atom with raw chaos.
It was time to close it.
As Malzahar clutched his hands, the gaping maw slowly closing shut as the wound in space sewed itself shut, returning all of Void space back to where it came along with all inside. As the maw collapsed, the air itself hummed with the energy produced from the dimensional rift.
In a final cacophonous blast of energy that blasted men and horse aside, the remnants of all that had happened disappeared. In the minute of hell Malzahar had unleashed, only white-hot sand remained.
The cavalry backed off from the catastrophic damage Malzahar had wrought upon them. They had been thinned significantly and all of their momentum had been stopped. That had not stopped them though as the commanders barked their orders to reform and continue onwards. Such were the casualties of battle.
He would need more than a single spell to stop them.
Malzahar knew that it was a given.
He was panting slightly, not the best of signs.
He could go on though.
He could handle so much more.
This was only the beginning.
Malzahar steadied himself once more, ready to cast another spell.
Powers surged inside him once more.
AGER SIPHONEM ANIMARUM!
The ground beneath the reforming horsemen festered and bubbled, sending those above into intense hysteria from the noxious energies that filled their minds with nightmares. From every corpse rose a vapor of souls, returning it to the festering ground.
"Lord Vragin, the summoning is almost finished."
"Oh good! Hurry along then, get whatever you have to destroy Uebel."
"Before that, my lord, we would ask of you this one thing?"
"Speak quickly then, cultist. My interest can only be taxed so long."
"My lord, do you wish complete control over the colossus? Your intellect and presence on the battlefield will send the worms scurrying away into the ground."
"My interest is yours. Then tell me, how might I attain the control."
"It is simple, my Lord. Just drink from this chalice."
The cultist priest held up a chalice containing some form of thick wine to Vragin.
"It is that simple?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"This power shall be mine then. Give it here."
Vragin downed the sweet wine immediately, not concerned for what it actually was.
Power would be his! No brother or sister of his would be able to handle Father's empire.
He felt his mind wane as his eyes closed.
"CULTIST! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO LORD VRAGIN!" The Lord General Humnis rushed to Vragin's side.
"I've prepared him for his reincarnation."
"SAY YOUR MEANING BEFORE EVERY LAST ONE OF THE TERRORUM DOMINAE ARE SLAUGHTERED AND THE TOLERATION OF YOUR HERETICAL WAYS ARE REVOKED!"
The priest pointed over to the summoning altar, where the ground quaked with arcane energy.
"I must return to my practice now. If we do not finish the ceremony then Lord Vragin will be gone for good."
Humnis was seething with rage, his teeth bared like some feral animal. He calmed himself, looking back at the priest with eyes still filled with rage.
"FINE! Get back to conjuring your false deity, Cultist." Humnis barked, before returning to Vragin's side, trying to make sense with his uneducated mind.
Returning back to the altar, the priest spoke to the heavens.
"We welcome you back to the living, Lord of Earth! All the world's beings came from you and so tax must be paid in return! To you, we offer these sacrifices of blood and magic! We ask you harbor this one soul as a beacon of our strength to the unbelievers! They have betrayed your blessing of their existence! Return their Heresies with your mighty and holy wrath! I BRING YOU FORTH INTO THIS WORLD!"
As slave blood saturated the sand, the priest poured the last drop of blood wine to the ground.
The Earth responded with a quaking roar, the sands shifting as immense boulders stirred from their millennia long slumber.
Malzahar drew his blood soaked blade from another horseman. Thanks to him, the massive charge had been averted and decimated. The Uebel Guard had stood fast, thankfully. Xerath's interception of annihilating multiple Bellua Arcana had also helped significantly. The few remaining horsemen were falling back, so depleted their numbers that the once monstrous school of horsemen had been replaced with a handful of minnows. The Guard had taken significant losses, but the level had been comparatively less than the casualties sustained in Himos during those first few hours of battle.
Himos, the memories of that hell were constantly creeping back into his mind. There had been none of this arcane bombardment back then. It was a simple melee death match that had changed with Horde flanks and Fabian strategy removing any hope of reinforcement for Himos. The General back then was absolutely legendary, his only downfall being the entrance of Malzahar to the Defense of the city.
But this one, this mere brute general, was nothing more than a simple fool whose only thought was destruction by the most impressive means possible and the knowledge that he would be put into the history books.
Definitely in the history books, as a complete failure.
The ground quaked with raw power.
Xerath had been going at it non-stop since the battle had begun.
"Malzahar, do you read me?"
"Xerath? What is it?"
"I know what you may be thinking and it isn't me. It is something different. The wards around the center of the Horde have just distorted massively. There is something coming, and the scale is massive. Ready yourself for anything."
"Copy that. I might know something that can defeat it."
"IT'S HERE! Should be on your 2 o' clock. Halt it. I may be able to interrupt the control mechanisms governing its movement. With luck, I could even get it to turn on the Horde itself. I just need time to break any safeguards down."
Stones towered above the world, forming an immense colossus of rock and earth.
A Golem. Colossus class.
The Golems at the Institute were less than babes compared to this monster.
More rock and stone continuously attached itself to the beast, each piece solidifying into bones the size of an entire palace. The 'eye' belched forth arcane light from its head, illuminating the ground below in some unholy blood red aura.
A Titan class Golem.
Such things were unheard of.
The energy required to sustain them was truly massive, equal to its immense size.
Its limbs could have easily extended and reached the sky if it so wanted.
The hulking Titan being completed, its weight finally caught up with it, lowered its two massive bulging arms down to the ground like a gorilla to stabilize itself.
With effort, it started its own advance, uncaring for those that were crushed under its incredible stone mass.
Monsters must be used to fight monsters I guess.
Time for me to show mine.
COME FORTH! KANSER VORAGINIS!
A massive magenta blade pierced the fabric of reality with a resounding blast of energy.
The blade slowly sloughed off its ichor of energy, revealing a monstrous claw of barbed chitin.
The blade-claw dragged its way down through reality's fabric, leaving a gaping maw of chaos in its wake.
More ichor spilled forth from the wound, in turn sloughing off to reveal an immense and alien crustacean.
A Void crab.
Clicking its mandibles, it watched and measured up its opponent with three slanted compound eyes. Knowing the high possibility of taking down the Titan, it snapped its chitin claws and began its assault on the monstrous being.