The dark lord sat in his workshop working on his creations. His grim reaper prototype showed promise in the upcoming war. Today, he had one of his wolf mutations strapped to the table, squealing in pain. He tried drilling into their teeth to add a way to dispense poison, but when he added the poison sack, it burst, killing it. After a few failures, he moved on to altering their fur to better resist attacks.

A mental tug on a dark thread leading to Nylian caught his attention. He separated a part of himself and sent it along the line until he could see through the mutated shadow beast squad leader. He recalled sending him and his friend out with a group of five each to cause havoc.

Nylian growled in frustration. A wolf fought his beast with two groups of elves facing off against the rest. Seeing the two dead already irritated him, but he could always make more. When he noticed Silvertree’s power radiating from their weapons, the deep-seated hatred burst forth enraging his minion.

Switching over to one of the other shadow beasts, he took control and forced the youngest of the two back. Her partner charged in, so he slashed at her face, ripping into her eye and down her cheek. He felt something jump on the beast's back, distracting him enough for the injured elf to thrust their blade into its chest, severing the link.

Back to Nylian, he urged his minion to press the attack harder. He roared when the last two shadow beasts fell, leaving the squad leader alone. Outraged, he forced Nylian to breathe in the aroma of death and channeled it into a blast of dark energy that knocked everyone over.

Free of the pesky wolf, he charged the youngest elf, going for the easy kill. Blinded by rage, he could not save Nylian when the sword, blazing white with Silvertree’s energy, impaled its mouth, obliterating the link. The dark lord retreated before he felt the backlash. Wanting to know more about his foe, he directed his consciousness back across the land to discover more.

He made it in time to watch the light spell fly out toward the mountains. He followed it into his rival's domain. Back in the forest next to the town that he assaulted so long ago. He cared not how it had changed. The passage of time meant little to beings like him.

Rushing back before Silvertree could attack his unguarded consciousness, the dark lord planned.

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“Do they wish to fight me? Let us test their mettle with a small force to begin with. I want to see my reaper in action. There is time yet still. Before the fun begins, I need to perform more tests.”

…

Erlan strode from his workshop, his reaper silently following behind him. His tests were complete. Time to assemble a force to attack the forest. He pulled on the connection to Feno, his dark knight.

The elf arrived a few minutes later, the dark handprint visible on their face. “I am at your disposal, my lord. What would you have me do?”

“Our enemy revealed their location to me. Pick one from your ranks to be my eyes during the assault. I will give them command over my reaper and a force of normal shadow beasts. I will leave my undead army here for the war.”

An elf appeared in short order to receive command over the dark lord's minions. Erlan directed his dark energy into the elf, empowering them to guide the beasts and giving himself an anchor to piggyback his consciousness and observe the fight himself.

The force set off toward the mountains, avoiding conflict along the way. They reached their destination inside Silvertree’s domain, just outside the forest. He commanded the elf to send a few shadow beasts into the forest to engage with the wolves he knew would be there while the rest focused on the settlement.

The reaper held back, letting the pack of shadow beasts engage with the elves. The shadow beasts ignored the arrows and climbed the wall, only to be forced off when it glowed brightly with power.

Silvertree intervenes. Send my reaper in. Let’s show them what genuine despair is.

“At once, my lord.”

The dark lord raged at the sight of Elwin charging in from the forest. He would be too late to save the elves from his reaper, though. After leaping onto the wall, it sliced into any elf it could with its bone sword arms until someone tackled it off the wall.

A shockwave erupted from the force behind Elwin’s sudden charge into the group of shadow beasts, slaughtering them with ease. Those close to the reaper pounced on the fool who tackled the reaper, ending their life.

His creation rose and prepared to jump back on the wall again when Elwin used the power granted by Silvertree to slam it back to the ground. Using all the chaos and death permeating the air, the reaper quickly put himself back together.

Outraged by his rival’s champion, he flooded his creation with the need to kill the wolf at any cost. To his dismay, Elwin defeated his creation, forcing the elf watcher to run in and blast the wolf with a dark bolt, giving them time to collect the severed head and order the body to follow them back home.

Consciousness whole once more, Erlan walked around his workshop pondering how he could improve his forces before they clashed again.

“I will be ready for you next time. You won’t escape my wrath this time, Elwin. Once you die, I shall devour Silvertree once and for all.”