Homun spread his arms like a bird, gliding through the skin as his thin frame allowed. Frost had become to form on his body, and his sight began to blur. He was far above the clouds, looking down upon the pitiful world and all its creatures. The clouds flashed below him as it seems he flew over the elven encampment, their radiant aura illuminating and coloring the clouds with their might. However, it didn't take him long until he reached a strange part of the sky: one entirely filled by Xem'zund's dark creatures. They didn't seem to mind him at first, perhaps because he was channeling the scent of Death Lord Elmirah.

He could feel that he was getting close to the one he sought. A wash of adrenaline passed over him, his excitement reaching his peak. Is this what it was like to feel true power? Omniscience never seemed closer to his grasp than now. As he passed by the flying beasts of terror, he noticed that they rapidly descended downwards, as if hailing a new attack from the sky upon the elven forces.

There were some slower ones as well. Large, bulbous bat-like creatures that seemed to have only one purpose: To explode in a poisonous bile and cover the sanctified elven encampment in plague. Even if the lands were sanctified, the elves themselves were not.

Once he decided he was directly above The Dark Lord, Homun flattened his body some more and compressed his weight, floating in the air like a feather for a few moments. He only had one chance to get this right. Interestingly, there was a spell in Elmirah's arsenal that was quite fortuitous. She had the ability to create artificial beams of sunlight. Homun thought about all the things he had done up until this point; his body had been a conduit for all sorts of transformations... but what of magic itself? Was his very being so magically malleable that he could take the form of spells? There was only one way to find out.

His body reverted to its normal stature, weight, and shape, and he started falling. His assimilation with Elmirah was also drawing to a close as well. As he fell head-first, he pressed his palms into his shoulders and concentrated. To become light itself. To pass through the sky with its clouds, its wind, its very air. He would become light. He would become the sun!

His body disappeared, and the clouds parted slightly above The Dark Lord to let a ray of sunlight through, almost indiscernible from any normal light. Xem'zund stood at the edge of the forest, the ground beneath him churning like quicksand yet not sucking him in. There was something going on below the very dirt, something that the elven forces could not expect.

As soon as Elmirah attacks, I shall reach deep below the sanctified lands, down to the very pillars of Althanas, and pull it right out from under them, he declared. Indeed, such a shift would cause immediate earthquakes that would rock the entire elven army. After all, Xem'zund commanded the very elements themselves. Anything that the ground touched was his plaything. In addition to the new threat from the sky, and the coming through of the deadly Elmirah from the rear, this would be the one-two punch that would obliterate the elves in the most gruesome manner.

However, things were not going to go exactly as planned. Homun's melding with sunlight diffused right as he was several feet above Xem'zund, since his assimilation with Elmirah abruptly ended. His speed was preserved, and while Xem'zund was a fast sorcerer who could be in many places at once, he was not faster than the speed of light. So, he deflected The Homunculus above him with his hand, and the force of the action created an enormous explosion of soil and trees. Several plumes of dust were kicked up, and Xem'zund found himself standing on a small piece of untouched ground amid a crater of rock and broken trees. While slightly curious, The Dark Lord kept his composure.

The sun would go black before I could be felled by mere force!

Something wasn't right. The dust started clearing, the dirt pooling between the cracks in the ground. For the first time in years, The Dark Lord felt a chill run down his spine. The area was now clear, and at the edge of the crater a man was... stretching. He had short brown hair, blue eyes, and he was wearing a simple tunic and cotton pants. There was a sheath wrapped around his side.

"Is that so?" said a familiar voice. "Explains why it's so dark out."

Xem'zund's figure was still. His eyes were locked his place and his mind was reeling from the contradiction. This man was dead! His own body was proof of that. There was no way, through necromancy or any sort of spiritual revival, could this possibly occur. Yet, there he was. The one who nearly killed him for good.

Devon von Sabriel, The Slayer of Stars.