Jeriah looked at the black stone arch with the black vortex in it. The ground all around it was smooth obsidian and he was carrying one of his youngest daughters to keep her from slipping and cutting herself on the ground. The black obsidian was interspersed with some color as wildflowers took advantage of the ash to bloom between the cracks in the stone. The black arch was raised on an island in the center of the lake that had formed where the asteroid had landed, glassed, and cratered the earth where his father’s castle had stood.
“What is that daddy?” his daughter Madalin asked him, tugging on his leg.
Jeriah looked down at one of his older daughters. “It is somewhere safe for us to go. The Warlord is waiting for us there.”
“I thought he died,” Madalin said.
“You can’t kill him,” Jeriah said, scooping up the other girl.
A group of people crested the hill and Jeriah tensed then calmed down when he saw his brother Tobias. His other brothers began to join them. What had been just his own family at first soon became hundreds and he could see more approaching in the distance. A cloud of ash approached them and Jeriah narrowed his vision, his mutations letting him see the feathered raptors and goblins riding them approach. They pulled to a stop at the edge of the lake and Jeriah could see the forms of humans bound across the backs of the raptors.
“Why do you have prisoners?” Tobias asked Juruk.
“The Herald told me to bring them,” Juruk said. “We must give tribute to the Warlord.”
“I don’t think he is the Warlord anymore,” Tobias said.
“He will always be the Warlord,” Juruk said, shaking his head. “Nothing can ever change that.”
“I think the goddess of war would disagree with that,” Jeriah said as he stepped towards the black arch across the bridge that spanned the lake. Another cloud of ash approached them, and they turned to look. Jeriah’s eyes narrowed and he saw the line of thousands of horses and other beasts.
“Get the children through the portal,” Tobias said.
Jeriah, Tobias, and the rest of their brothers reunited as they formed a defensive line while their wives and children streamed through the portal. The line of horses grew closer and closer then… a wall of green fire appeared between them as Exar’kun swept by. All kinds of ranged attacks pursued the dragon, but he ducked low behind a hill before folding in his wings and landing beside the refugees moving through the portal. Vone slid off his back holding her belly to keep it from jostling from the movement.
“That should buy us enough time to get everyone through,” Exar’kun said.
Jeriah and his brothers waited until they were the last ones then stepped through the inky black curtain through the portal. The sensation was like being dipped in icy water as they passed through, the shocking sensation matched only by the shock of what he saw.
A city made of obsidian, silver, and light stretched out below them. A dark sun hung above them, its presence somehow both benevolent and oppressive. Trees made of twisting silver grew everywhere, their roots twinning into the architecture of every structure. A singing chorus filled the air with a reverent and awestruck tone as their voices sang out in endless song.
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A strange androgenous faceless creature with long slender boneless wings landed before Jeriah garbed in black Void armor and carrying the bladeless hilt of a sword at its side.
“Hello Jeriah,” it said. “It is good to see you again.”
The voice was painfully familiar, but Jeriah couldn’t place it.
“Do I…know you?” Jeriah asked.
“It’s me, Rejiah,” the angelic figure said.
“Impossible,” Tobias whispered.
“All things are possible here,” Rejiah said as another angel landing beside him. “This is Ormias.”
“Are our children and wives here?” Ormias asked.
“Yes but…” Jeriah said, pausing. “They have remarried. You died.”
“We are still dead,” Rejiah said. “But I would like to see my childrens’ faces. We may not be beings of flesh anymore, but our spirits live on.”
“You’re not upset?” Tobias asked.
“Marriage is for the living,” Ormias said. “We have had some time to come to grips with who we are, and I couldn’t even satisfy my wives if I wanted to; I no longer feel such urges in my new form.”
“Isn’t that a kind of hell?” Jeriah asked. “To go on existing without pleasures?”
“We are not without our own pleasures,” Rejiah said. “To exist in the light of the Star of the Void and to join the chorus…it is a sensation you cannot understand until you take on the flesh of the Void.”
“Well, hopefully that day is long out,” Tobias said. “I’d still like to have many more children and enjoy my wives for many years.”
“And I pray you do so,” Rejiah said, clapping him on the shoulder and revealing just how much taller the angel was in comparison even to his giant of a brother. “We will see our blood later after you have settled down.”
The two angels leapt into the air, their voices joining the angelic chorus as the song drifted across the city.
“That was…eerie,” Tobias said.
“Yeah,” Jeriah agreed.
A spear flashed through the portal but hung suspended in midair.
“I would suggest you make room,” Mordred said. “It would appear that I have uninvited guests.”
Jeriah and Tobias turned and met Mordred’s eyes. Without even thinking they dropped to their knees, surprised by the suddenness of their own movements; what they had seen demanded their immediate unwavering obedience. Pushing back to their feet, they moved their children who still gawked at the city. They hurried down the bridge to the top of the ziggurat.
Looking back, Jeriah watched as men charged through the portal only to be snatched off their feet by the black angels. Hundreds of men charged through before a few managed to reverse course and the tide ended. The angels deposited them at Mordred’s feet and bands of black earth flowed around their legs and arms to secure them.
“Guinevere, come here please,” Mordred said.
His wife stepped forward wearing a pure white dress and a white veil that could barely contain the glory of her beauty.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“I need a high priestess,” Mordred said. “I want you to be the one that gets the killing blow so you can harvest their rank points.”
“Mordred that’s not…” Guinevere said.
“I will not be a god alone,” Mordred said, meeting her eyes. “There can only be one winner of the game of the gods; that winner will be you.”
“But you won’t be able to ascend, then,” Guinevere protested.
“The System may be able to speak to us here, but it does not control us,” Mordred said.
Guinevere hesitantly took the dagger Mordred conjured for her and stepped forward. Her gaze hardened as she looked down at the knight shivering in fear but unable to speak, his voice taken from him by the force of Mordred’s presence. She pulled back his head and slit his throat, his blood running down the steps of the temple into grooves and watering the roots of the silver leafed trees.
Juruk brought his captives forward and, one by one Guinevere sacrificed them all, their blood watering the forest of the city.
“Do you really think we can both ascend?” Guinevere asked, her arms stained red to the elbow. “Even here the System is powerful….”
Mordred interrupted her, “There is only one god of the Void, and my authority here is absolute.”