In the heart of the sprawling Kaldaran forest, where ancient trees intertwined their gnarled branches, Maledrakor halted his army’s advance. His presence alone seemed to cast a spell over the verdant landscape as if the very essence of darkness itself had taken form within him. With a sudden turn, his eyes ablaze with a crimson fire that seemed to pierce through the dense foliage, he fixed his gaze eastward, towards the distant shores of the High Elven continent.
The dense foliage of the Kaldaran forest seemed to quiver under the weight of Maledrakor's stare. His crimson eyes glinted with a hellish intensity as an unbridled rage began to fill his chest.
Someone had defied him. Someone had killed his Orc General.
Maledrakor could feel it like a disturbance in the fabric of reality, a ripple of defiance in his carefully laid plans.
A palpable wave of unease swept through the ranks of his possessed army, their very souls tethered to his will, as they sensed the chill of the seething rage of their General. The 80,000-strong force came to an abrupt standstill, their anticipation hanging in the air.
He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the hand of the High Elven Chosen was behind this audacious act—a Chosen that had challenged Maledrakor with his defiance before.
As his crimson eyes narrowed, Maledrakor's mind churned with strategies, each calculated move a step towards his ultimate goal. The death of his Orc General was not just a loss; it was a breach of his authority, a challenge to his dominion. And Maledrakor would not allow such insolence to go unpunished.
Maledrakor looked away from the direction of the High Elven continent, a plan formulating in his mind. Reaching down, Maledrakor touched the grass of the forest floor.
Maledrakor knew that he couldn’t leave the continent of Kaldara, not while they were so close to victory. He had recently defeated the Chosen of the Lizardmen, the latest victory in his conquest of dominance. It was now only Saphiron, the Chosen of the Wolfman, that stood in his way of the total control of the continent of Kaldara. No, Maledrakor knew that corrupting Saphiron and the Wolfman people was his next goal.
Instead, Maledrakor would send his Troll General to the High Elven Continent to establish a foothold for the possessed. With their current possessed number, Maledrakor could afford to send nearly 50,000 possessed with the Troll General in their expedition to the High Elven continent.
So far, Maledrakor had been working with his Troll General to corrupt the continent of Kaldara. However, with the recent addition of the Lizardmen Chosen into the possessed ranks, Maledrakor could afford to send the Troll General off while he and his new Lizardmen General dealt with the last resistance on the continent of Kaldara.
Only when Kaldara lay fully ensnared in the grip of darkness would Maledrakor reunite with his forces on the High Elven continent. At that point in time, Maledakor would be able to muster a force numbering the hundreds of thousands.
They would march over the High Elven continent like a black wave, crushing any resistance in their path. The High Elven continent, a famous bastion of light, would be quickly plunged into the darkness under Maledrakor’s wrath.
With that plan in mind, Maledrakor closed his eyes, his hand still connected to the forest floor beneath him. He began to channel his mana through his arm and into his ground. It wasn't long before the first planes of hell were filled by his power and rage.
Maledrakor's presence in the forest grew darker, the very air vibrating with his malevolent energy as he tapped into the infernal realms. The ground beneath him trembled as his power surged forth, reaching out across the veil between worlds. He continued to channel his power until he held the attention of every possessed that walked the land of the land.
Then, he commanded.
"Turn your gaze westward; forsake the meager rebellions and abandon the trivial delights of torment,” he told them. “All of the wandering east armies of possessed gather your legions to the west. There, we will gather such an army to wash over the continent as a flame of hell, leaving no corner unscarred. The hour of reckoning is upon us; the final bastion of resistance shall crumble. From there, we will turn our gaze eastward and pierce straight into the continent of High Elves, where I will personally crush the soul of the Chosen.”
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As his command echoed through the forest, a chorus of guttural cries and roars rose up from the possessed army, their fervor fueled by Maledrakor's dark presence.
Turning his gaze once more towards the east, towards the distant shores of the High Elven continent, Maledrakor's crimson eyes burned with a fierce determination.
Your time is coming, he whispered.
No force in this world or any other would stand in his way. The time had come to unleash the full fury of his wrath upon those who dared oppose him.
With a resolute step, Maledrakor began to lead his army forward, the ground trembling beneath their feet as they marched toward their next conquest. Maledrakor would stop at nothing until every last soul bowed before him in submission.
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Saphiron
Saphiron, the Chosen of the Wolfmen, looked worriedly eastward as he listened to the scout’s report. It seemed that the demon the scout had been watching was closer than expected. The demon that the people of the continent of Aran’thral called “Maledrakor.”
Saphiron frowned as the scout continued his report.
“It knows we are here. It moves confidently against us, especially with the fall of the Lizardmen Chosen who we now see has been corrupted by Maledrakor.”
Saphiron’s frown deepened with the news. He had recently heard the grim news of the Lizardmen Chosen’s death. The Lizardmen, with their last army, had been backed into a corner by possessed armies, attacked on all sides. Heavily outnumbered, the final Lizardmen army, with their Chosen, had been butchered by the possessed army, a possessed army that had been led by the infamous Maldrekor.
It wasn’t long until the rest of the Lizardmen race were brutally slaughtered with no defenses or Chosen to protect them. Saphiron feared that he and his race were the next on the chopping block.
Despite the racial grudge that had existed for centuries between the Lizardmen and the Wolfmen race, a grudge in which both races had constantly fought for control and dominance over the continent of Kaldara, the death of the Lizardmen was a brutal blow for the Wolfmen. That was because, recently, against all of their historical precedence, the Wolfmen and the Lizardmen had formed an unlikely allyship to fight off the possessed.
The continent of Kaldara encountered the possessed more than half a year ago. At first, it was nothing more than smaller armies of 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers. The size of the armies began to grow quickly, however, and it wasn’t even a month later before armies of the possessed numbering in the tens of thousands began to appear. The Lizardmen and Wolfmen quickly realized that the size of the possessed was too great for any one of their races to handle and, as a result, they decided to form a temporary allyship as they tried to fight off the possessed.
At first, the allies' efforts were successful, with the Lizardmen and Wolfmen using their knowledge of the terrain to their advantage to combat the numbers of the possessed. For months Saphiron had been one step ahead of the possessed, constantly outwitting them at every turn. That was until Maledrakor appeared.
It took Maledrakor all but a week to capture many of the major Lizardmen cities, a crippling blow for the Lizardmen. Despite the best efforts of both of the races’ efforts, it seemed as if the doom of the continent of Kaldara was inevitable.
But Saphiron was not one to succumb to despair. As the Chosen of the Wolfman, he bore the weight of his people's hopes and dreams upon his shoulders. He knew that he could not falter, for the fate of their continent, and his people, hung in the balance.
Saphiron gathered his closest advisors, his mind racing with strategies to counter Maledrakor's advance. With the fall of the Lizardmen Chosen, he knew he needed to act swiftly and decisively to rally what forces remained and stand against the tide of darkness.
"We cannot afford to linger in indecision," Saphiron declared, his voice firm with resolve. "Maledrakor's march must be halted, lest all of Kaldara fall under his dominion. We must unite what allies we have left and prepare for the coming storm."
His advisors nodded in agreement, their expressions mirroring his determination. They knew that their chances of victory were slim, but they also knew that they could not surrender their homeland without a fight. Together, they began to formulate a plan to confront Maledrakor and his army of the possessed.
First, they would send scouts to gather intelligence on Maledrakor's movements and strengths. They needed to know their enemy if they were to have any hope of defeating him. Meanwhile, they would rally whatever forces remained loyal to their cause, calling upon allies both old and new to join them in their struggle.
As they set their plan into motion, Saphiron couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. The road ahead would be filled with peril, and the outcome uncertain. But he knew that he could not falter in the face of adversity. For the sake of his people, and the future of Kaldara, he would stand firm against the darkness that threatened to engulf them all.