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Burning black blood splashed across flawless white marble as Erak rammed his new spear through the demon spawn’s guts. The creature screamed, conical teeth showing as its long black talons scratched at the armor Erak had liberated. The screech of metal was loud and grating, assaulting his ears as he ripped and tore.

Lesser Hell-Spawn lvl. 4 Slain

Essence acquired

Level Earned

Bloodsworn lvl. 2

Erak shoved the stray words out of his eyesight as he kept moving, his heavy footsteps filling the cavernous halls. Tall stained glass windows shone a thousand colors across the marble as the distant shrieks of battle drifted into the museum. Nothing distracted him as he kept moving toward the exit, even these twisted beings could not perturb him as he focused on heading toward his Queen.

Glass shattered behind him, drawing his attention as he spun to watch as more of the corrupted creatures landed. Erak didn’t hesitate as he charged the cursed trio, his clanking form drawing their sulfur yellow eyes. A roar burst asunder, singing forth from his lips as he called upon the old gods to aid him.

The long spindly creature closest to him staggered back, swiping at him with talons black as sin. The heavy kite shield on his opposite arm rose and the talons scraped ineffectively across its mirror finish. Erak dropped his hips and drove his spear deep in the creature’s concave chest.

Bone and blood spewed out as the broadhead tore life from flesh. Erak kicked the creature free of the blade, sending it to the ground limply as the next two leapt at him.

Six and half feet of bone and flesh pulled taut, skin pale as moonlight while ink black blood dripped free of thin wounds from shattered glass. Ragged wings hung limp and ragged while yellow orbs danced in black seas as their bulging eyes rolled wildly as they struck.

Erak feared not, his heart stern as he struck. Neither of the beasts were skilled, standing tall and unafraid, presenting their chests to him as if death was not a possibility. Erak killed the one to his right, pinning it to the wall with his spear in a powerful strike that split the wall. His raised shield stopped the returning blow from its compatriot.

He turned and charged, his steps thundering like war drums as he drove the taller creature back. His shield pressed in its soft belly and bony chest, crushing and driving its breath free of it as he lifted up, shoulder straining as the creature's long feet left the ground.

Erak charged in silence, only the beat of his boots on the floor and the creature’s wail spinning into an orchestra of pain audible as he rammed it into a wall. Bone broke and organs pulped, hot black blood spattered across him as Erak twisted, grinding the screaming monster against the wall. It spasmed and grew still, body limp over his shield.

Lesser Hellspawn x3 lvl. 4 slain

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Essence acquired

Level Earned

Bloodsworn lvl. 3

Erak grunted, ignoring the words for now as he peered out the shattered windows the cursed beings had entered through. The city burned, black plumes of oily smoke mixed with puffy white clouds, leaping flames dancing on the horizons. Forms flitted across the skyline, dark and fell shrieking heart chilling cries, they circled and danced feasting on the pleas of the dying.

He looked down to the museum’s grounds twenty feet below. The museum was large and built to wander, with few direct ways to leave. Erak walked back and pulled the spear free of the wall, letting the corpse slump to the ground as he marched back toward the window.

Throwing a leg over the edge, he held himself with one large hand and dangled for a moment before releasing. He fell for a moment before the spear stabbed out and dug though the wall, sliding through the brick like it was paper. His momentum slowed and he hit the ground with a powerful rattle, his knees protesting loudly as he rose to his full height.

The well manicured grounds were strewn with bodies. The gala had filled the grounds and museum, a veritable feast for the monsters. Erak kept striding, passing corpses without looking, his eyes sweeping in front of him and the skies above him. The liberated spear in his hand felt natural, the heavy armor a second skin, the shield an extension of his being.

His breath rasped unnaturally in his helm as he had to sweep his head back and forth to obtain a full view around him. Survivors huddled in small groups, fear writ across their faces as he strode by them. Bloodstained, their courage shattered like the peace of the day, they were broken and haunted, eyes distant and lost as they prayed wordlessly.

It was beyond Erak at the moment to empathize with them. His purpose was ironclad and inviolate. His Queen called him and he would answer. Erak entered the wide boulevards, once kept pristine and now dirty and stained with blood and bodies.

Erak recognized the uniforms of a squad of Adjudicators, their small batons useless against the Hellspawn. The simple peacekeepers had been torn limb from limb and strewn across the road like detritus. A single spawn lay on the ground around them, abandoned where it fell.

Erak turned to look toward the Imperial Palace where the Queen had been whisked away too. He could feel her orders, tugging at his gut, urging him to find her. A bruise black portal hung over the Iron Cathedral, spawned between the forks of its peak. A form nestled there, backlit by the violet lights.

Nestled in chains that tore and constricted golden flesh. Black iron slashing and peeling skin to release a flow of golden ichor that dripped across the Iron Tower’s prongs. A crown of bone tore at its scalp, freeing its lifewater to run and ruin its vestments. Its eyes were carved out sockets, blackened and scorched with an infernal purple-red blaze in their cavernous depths.

It lifted a hand, chains stretching tight, as an unholy flame gathered along a shattered sword's edge. Its wrist twitched and the flame fell like rain and burned stone and flesh alike as the downtown region was desecrated. It stood between Erak and his Queen.

Erak looked about, eyes searching for an answer to the immovable roadblock in his way. The sounds of battle as the armies of the Empire shook themselves awake began to thunder up and down the stretching boulevards. History whispered in his mind and he looked directly away from the chained being and toward the ancient shipyards and its sole occupant.

Oblong and ancient, gunmetal gray, protruding weapons emplacements bristled outwards like the bristles of a hog. The Sword of Empire, the last battlecruiser to have ever seen combat. The wounds of its time still stretched across the breadth of its chassis. It was operable. It was well known as the Empire fired the engines and sailed it across the city every year.

Erak turned and started towards the shipyards. It was the most powerful weapon in the capital and offered him the best chance of slaying that being. He needed it removed to get to his liege and he cared not for the gathering shadows that crouched over the shipyard or the multicolored blasts of power that emanated from the armory underneath the great ship.

None would stop him.