The horrors of the battlefield could not prepare him for what was charging at them from the swirling blackness behind the gate. As demons approached, it was common to see their form emerge before stepping through the portal, generally their details discernable through a dark cloud or mist. This time, the portal appeared altogether empty, with the exception of a lone rider rolling forward towards the end of days.
Even the experienced and traveled wizard’s mind ran blank at the sight before him.
Holy shit. Holy shit..
Indeed, the rider was the lord of the demons himself, never seen but known in all whispers. “Diablo”, “Satan”, “Lucifer”, “Beelzebub”, “Mephisto”, and “Hades” were all names bandied about in different tales told over cold drinks by irrational drinkers, and every single one of them were wrong. What charged here was altogether different.
The sheer enormity of the rider was enough to weaken the knees of the magician as he dismounted, slowly stepping from the horse and taking a few steps in the direction of the gate. The rider was visible from his mount up, and from his hips to his head seemed to be twenty feet as best Storm could surmise. Beneath him, a charging lion carried, his fur replaced with fire, a brightly glowing orange that contrasted sharply from the void of black. The mane of hellfire shrouded the Demon Lord’s legs, but did nothing to hide the impossibly thick and seemingly endlessly muscled torso. His black body wore no armor, but appeared entirely unharmed, with unmanageable piles of thick mass stacked perfectly as though chiseled from obsidian. His shoulders sloped sharply to his head, his neck obscured by enormous trapezius muscle. His face was obscured by an ornate, ghoulish helmet, a face of horror carved before a ring of fire. Behind the mask, the glow of orange suggested the terrible thing was actually one of flame.
The Demon Lord clutched a chain of lava to serve as reins in his left hand, and hoisted the large, glowing sword that the Crown had mentioned in their initial foray. The weapon was a two-handed claymore in the hands of a man larger than Storm; to the Demon Lord it appeared no more than a dagger.
Aside him, Storm noticed demons stopping to kneel before the portal. Wolves would stop to lower their heads, disengaging from combat. A few were slain by Machiavellian dwarves, but more of the dwarves simply stopped to gaze at the marvel of misery that rode towards them. Catapult fire was now bouncing off the perimeter of the gate; flecks of stone chipped and fell, but the portal remained seemingly untouched.
“Fire! Fire already, gods!” Cazri was exasperated.
Absent mindedly, Storm used a tiny pulse to pull the arrowhead from his thigh at last, a roaring wave of pain awakening him from the fear-induced stupor. A small flicker of blue-white light sizzled across his upper leg as he cauterized the wound without thought. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t even thinking now. His body had taken control of his train of thought. Grimacing, he set his feet wide in a deep squat holding both of his arms to the skies above.
Nothing gets left on the table. Clear the deck. It all ends here.
One of the most magnificent journeys of Althanian legend was set to end. Partnerships, friendships; love and loss laid bare. Championship glory, mythical wealth and fame set to blaze. Storm conjured every singular ounce of magical energy that his soul could generate, his entire body humming a dull tone and pulsing bright white as lightning flew from the skies to his body. The charging lion paid no heed, barreling ahead towards the gate with avarice.
A sizzle-crack, and a thunderous boom. A pillar of pure white twisting and exploding upon the gate. Storm Veritas fell lifeless to the ground.
There was silence.
