A foul stench filled her nose. A was a stew of smells emanating from the amalgamation of corpses - the corpses of Man, Tohr, Palyd, Uldaer, Va’sai and Morkin alike; all intertwined with one another - and their blood brewing together in the heat of the Taathic sun. It was a stench so vile it could make a gibbot flea from a perfectly laid-out moltar carcass. Yet she did not falter.

Even though such stench hung in the air…

Even though such a scene laid out in front of her…

She still staggered on - trudging through the ocean of bodies and staggering over the occasional detached limb.

She somehow managed to block out the stench as well as the choir of moans and howls from those still clinging onto their final breaths.

She removed her dented helmet and flung it to the sandy floor revealing her face - it was stained from war. She was an Uldaer. Still young and beautiful with long golden hair discoloured by blood not of her own; and tired brown eyes glazed with a coat of resolution. She lumbered towards her sword, it was only a few meters away but to her it felt almost unreachable. The sword was still wedged into the back of a faen, gleaming in the light of the sun. She slowly made her way to the sword, took hold of the gold-etched hilt, pressed her foot down onto the faen and drew her sword from it’s lifeless body.

Even though the fighting had stopped and she was the only being with the strength to move, the battle was not yet won. He was still alive.

She knew he was; she could feel him. She could feel his presence still lingering about, it almost made it hard to even breathe. He was still breathing the very air she was, that thought alone made her stomach wrench but it also gave her the energy to keep on moving - almost involuntarily as if some force was carrying her exhausted body.

She would not stop moving. She could not stop moving. She had to rid him from this world and all the darkness that lurks within him. If she did not - she knew the world would fall to the Shadow. The light-filled days of Faera would cease, and the evernights of Shaa would come to be. She could not allow that to happen for she was Sarelli of the Light, The Hand of Faera, and the protector of the Shining World. It was her duty to vanquish all darkness and to restore the peace this war-riddled world dreamed for.

As she stumbled her way to the peak of a dune dotted with the bodies of Morkin, a bitterness crept into her face. She stopped…

It was him…

Malakoth - The Lord of Shadows. The Son of Shaa. Finally he was in her sight.

He was slumped on the floor, his body leaning backwards with support from his hands buried into the sands beneath him. He was badly wounded, a large laceration drew from his left rib cage down to his hip - gushing out streams of blood which poured into a pool below him. His head hung back. Face even more pale than it usually was, and his shadow-filled eyes fixated on the empty sky above. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, exhaled, then open them again.

“It seems the storm clouds have passed and the sun has finally decided to show herself.” he muttered with his eyes still not breaking their hold with the sky. She spared no consideration for his comment, she couldn’t care to entertain his final thoughts. Instead she kept on walking towards him with barely enough energy to carry her sword; causing it to drag in the red sand leaving a trail behind her.

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He finally broke lock with the sky and his eyes fell upon her as she waded towards him. “Ah, I see my time has finally come. My execution shall we call it.” He gave a short chuckle before being interrupted by a bloody cough.

“This is indeed your execution Malakoth, as well as the exorcism of all the shadows you’ve laced into this world.” she barked.

She lifted her sword with the strength she thought had run dry. She held it over his chest in preparation for the execution. “If you truly think impaling that length of steel through my heart will purge this world of the Shadows of Shaa, you are gravely mistaken my old friend.” He grinned. “There will always be shadows behind the light, you of all people should know this young Sarelli.”

“Hold your tongue! Your merciless reign has come to an end, your corruption is no more! Now you shall die!”

She plunged her sword down into Malakoth’s chest. A loud wince broke from him, “My shadows have traveled further than you think lightbearer… and closer than you wish to know.”. A black cloud of shadows began to pour out from the point where the sword embedded itself into his body, then from the wound on his side as well as his eyes and mouth. “My purpose was to simply to plant the seed and that is what I have done. Shaa is eternal!” he howled.

Sarelli knew what she now had to do; and she knew what the cost of doing it would be - but she couldn’t allow the Shadow to consume any more souls than it already had. She pulled her sword out from Malakoth’s body and held it parallel to her own.

“I Sarelli of the Light call onto Faera, the mother of all which breathes. The just and the merciful. Lend me your light one last time so that I can rid this world of the Shadows of Shaa once and for all. I am a Sylarie, a bearer of light and the Hand of Faera. Now watch me shine!” Her body engulfed into a white blaze and her sword began to shine a light so bright it rivaled the sun.

“Shadow fear me now for your time is over!” Her skin began to broil and char. She was harnessing more light than any being could handle. She couldn’t take much more, her body would turn to ash if she did; but she had to finish this.

The mass of shadows billowing out from Malakoth’s body began to siphon in towards the iridescent sword. “The one who has plagued this realm for so long shall be purged!”. She began to rise up with the sword still inhaling the shadows from below.

“BEGONE!” she roared - a roar loud enough to scare even the largest of beltor - followed by a colossus outburst of pure white light erupting from Sarelli. A ripple of the light flooded the land, consuming all life in its path and blinding those from distant lands who happened to set their eyes upon it.

Then, just as quickly as it came, the bright light faded - revealing leagues of empty, lifeless land. It was as if the war had never happened; as if the countless lives had never been lost. There were no more remnants of war; everything, erased.

All that remained as a reminder of the Black War were the occasional ruins still standing, the tears from the ones who lost those they loved, and Sarelli’s sword - lodged upright into the ground where Malakoth perished.

However, they were just reminders, stories of a dark past wanting to be forgotten - and once the centuries had passed, the tears had dried out, and the sword had been hidden away; those stories turned to legends. Legends told as bedtime stories to children about the light of Sarelli - the Protector of the Shining World, and the darkness of Malakoth - the Son of Shaa - in the hope their hearts will shine in Faera’s light and never wander down the path of shadows.

But they were no fantastical legends. They were true stories; incomplete.