Despite the changing tide of battle, Tichondrius was grinning. The annoying mage-king had finally shown his hand and revealed quite an extent of his golden armory. The constructs were tearing through the Gilneans with ease for no visible loss. Protective bubbles sparked harmlessly around the insectile things while they contemptuously crushed and blasted all that sought to mob around them.

A barrage of green flames from a group of harvest-warlocks splashed ineffectually against one of the spindly, towering constructs, the destructive magic that could bore through castle walls failing to breach the invisible shielding. In exchange, a sweep from the colossal thing’s beams blasted the warlocks and those around them to ash.

The destructive display was impressive indeed, enough to contest Tichondrius’ rising rage at such a turnabout.

“We must capture the mage-king,” he declared through his link to the other dreadlords. “If nothing else, the knowledge of his construct army would be a fine addition to the Burning Legion.”

“Agreed,” Balnazzar dryly said. “Though it would be easier if we weren’t so fully committed right now to find him.”

As if on cue, said mage-king appeared in a flash of light before the Gilnean Death Knights. The young king wore a defiant scowl within his unusual golden armor, with blades of light extended out of his bracers.

Tichondrius grinned. “It seems that we need only commit to seizing him.”

The nearby chaff instinctively rushed at him, but a sweep of his arms conjured a lightning storm that thoroughly incinerated his would-be enemies. Curiously, Tichondrius could not pick up any arcane signature from the spell. More curtains of lightning lashed down all around him, keeping the mage-king from being swamped by Gilneans while his golden army slowly burned and blasted to join him.

It was impressive, Tichondrius had broken similar warriors in the worlds he offered to the Burning Legion. The fool probably thought that his spells and constructs would be enough to carry the day.

It might be the case against the Gilneans, but unfortunately for him, the rabid army was merely expendable fuel for the dreadlords.

“Mal’Ganis, Detheroc. Are you in position?”

“We are,” Detheroc answered with reservations clear in his tone. “Without a proper ritual site defined, the energies would be unstable.”

“It matters not,” the dreadlords’ leader retorted, already going over this before. “Balnazzar, prioritize their protection.”

The dreadlords offered curt affirmatives before cutting the link to focus on the grand ritual, leaving Tichondrius to continue observing the annihilation of Gilneas’ invading host. Under the control of Genn, who was in turn under the dreadlords’ influence, the corrupted force threw themselves at the Alliance and its golden reinforcements. Only the Death Knights were still kept back, too much was invested in them to be so callously spent.

Tichondrius’ grin grew wider as he felt the ripple of Fel energies bubbling up. Of course, the human magi felt it as well, though predictably, with Balnazzar dispersing the Fel energies to mask the locus point, they fell into defensive spellcasting at what might follow. The dreadlord felt the fresh shimmer of wards blanketing the Alliance lines, as well as the odd walls of fire or frost erected in anticipation of blocking sudden attacks. The mage-king was aware of the nascent spell as well, though being surrounded by lightning and a berserk mob left him little options to act.

The ritual’s completion was heralded by gusts of wind from every angle, drawn into the center of the battlefield. The dwindling Gilnean forces crashed mid-charge or simply crumpled, heaving desperately like fish out of water, and many of the weaker mutants shriveled into desiccated husks as the Fel green glow was drained out of them.

Corpses glowed and shook apart as the Fel energies contained within them were forcibly torn out. Even the charred chunks that were large enough broke apart for whatever dregs of corruptive magic still laced in them.

Without ritual circles or glyphs to properly contain and channel the released energies, the Fel vitae swirled wildly around the battlefield into loose aggregations. Aggregations that coalesced into black-green vortexes that tore open the veil between dimensions.

They were far from strong enough to form stable portals to the mustering grounds of the Burning Legion, nor were the swirling Fel energies concentrated enough to create large breaches to allow in larger siege engines. But there were many of them, scattered all over the battlefield.

The flickering portals were not enough to permit a demonic host to take over the world, but they more than adequate to let in a force to burn down a kingdom, or a magical city.

Tichondrius felt a wave of soothing familiarity as Fel energies washed out of the portals and flooded the battlefield like a thick smog. Green flames belched as figures of many shapes and sizes stepped out. Packs of mana-hungry felhounds ran between cadres of brutish felguards and covens of eredar warlocks. The occasional doom guard hunched through those portals large enough to support their massive sizes, and promptly took to the skies to better assume command of the demonic forces.

By the time the rifts between realms self-mended, the Burning Legion vanguard had numbers pitifully small in comparison to the broken Gilneans strewn by their feet. But that only meant that they still slightly outnumbered the Alliance forces arrayed against them.

The demons were forced into action the moment they came through however, as the mage-king’s constructs were not affected by the dread majesty of their arrival.

Holes were blasted into ranks of felguards as they broke into a charge similar in single-minded ferocity to the Gilneans before them. Many of the demons endured at least a couple of direct hits before falling into mangled heaps. The felguards’ massive blades and pole weapons soon hammered against the gilded constructs’ shields, and Tichondrius felt immense satisfaction as he witnessed the first protective bubbles eventually shatter into shards of evaporating light. The arachnoid walkers and plated grubs were then surrounded and hacked apart, their golden armor cracking and finally giving way under raw, demonic strength.

At the same time, the doom guards hurled themselves straight into the colossal walkers, swooping in with their burning blades and bolts of Fel fire. After the first three doom guard were brought down by the bolts of energy below them, the demons were forced to respect the weapons of the mage-king’s constructs, and took the rare action of taking evasive maneuvers. Despite their hulking size, they juked through the barrage with passable agility. Many kept harassing the massive constructs, and the gangly things were unable to bring their beam weapons to bear. Commands were roared to redirect the felguards to swarm the walkers, and eventually their shields too burst with the sound of crashing glass.

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It took an uncomfortable amount of felguards to finally disassemble the constructs, but that only reinforced the importance of capturing the mage-king.

The dreadlord turned his focus on said king, who was now busy flitting between bolts of red lightning and green fire as the eredar warlocks attempted to surround him. The speed at which the young human moved was beyond what Tichondrius had observed his species to be capable of. Even with arcane enhancements, the human frame didn’t seem suitable for zipping about with such suddenness.

Perhaps that meant that the mortal would quickly tire from exhaustion or vertigo.

Or perhaps this king was an oddity in more ways than one, which might be…annoying.

Tichondrius scowled at the possibility of the latter, and he commanded his subordinate dreadlords to take care of the matter.

At the same time, he finally unleashed the Lich King and the Death Knights, sending the corrupted nobility of Gilneas straight for the Alliance lines now that the field was far less hazardous to their survival. Tichondrius paid no heed to the inhuman roar coming from the puppet king clad in eldritch armor as Genn likely lived out the illusion of leading a valiant charge against his foes. The monstrous steeds of the Death Knights snorted flames as they reared and then broke into a charge. Claws and hooves tore up the ground and crushed anyone underfoot, whether they were still breathing or not.

In the meantime the felhounds were well ahead, rushing straight for the battered Alliance line, streaming past the felguards and the golden constructs after it was clear that the beasts would be all but useless against the latter. The tendrils on their backs whipped about excitedly, ever hungry for mana, though their slavering maws also settled for tearing apart flesh and bone.

With more and more of the constructs falling, a growing number of felguard shifted their attention as well. Even those grievously wounded fell into formation, forming small squads that obeyed the beck and call of the two doom guards that had brought low a colossal walker.

Behind them stalked the rest of the eredar warlocks, contemptuously trading spells with the Kirin Tor magi. Those close enough casually drained the Gilnean harvest-warlocks to fuel their own powers, either hurling Fel magic or unmaking the Alliance’s protective spells. Horrific screams could be heard from the back of the defenders’ lines as the warlocks directed tendrils of red lightning - the aptly named Fingers of Pain - at the human magi.

There were also remnants of the Gilnean chaff who tried to resume the fight, but at best their withered states made them little better than distractions. Corrupted beasts wailed with their last breaths as they flailed uselessly in anguish in the midst of stabbing spears and swords, while the Gilnean humans struggled futilely to cling onto the Alliance shields that they once pushed back with insensate rage.

At least they still occupied the enemy’s attention, allowing the demons to close the distance with little opposition. However, as the first felhounds leapt for the shield walls, they crashed into walls of shimmering air, no doubt conjured by the mage-king’s constructs. The translucent barriers were impervious to even the dark enchantments of the Death Knights’ blades and the brutal weapons of the felguards that reached them.

Tichondrius growled in annoyance as fangs, claws, and blades failed to tear through the walls, and demons and thralls were forced to make their way around them. It bought the Alliance time to put down the last of the Gilneans and reform their lines, and their cannon-toting walkers even took the opportunity to fire a defiant volley.

A commotion drew the dreadlord’s attention away from the defenders, and Tichondrius turned to see the other demons pause in hesitation as the golden constructs suddenly froze and took on a bluish translucence. Then he grinned with dark joy as they vanished from the battlefield with a thunderclap of displaced air.

Good, it would make this victory all the more easier.

Surprisingly, a glance to the rear of the advancing demons revealed to Tichondrius that the mage-king was still fighting. Or rather, he was still desperately dancing about, somehow still able to keep out of reach from not just the flurry of spells from the eredar warlocks, but the slashing claws of Mal’Ganis, Detheroc, and Balnazzar.

Was he buying time?

It was no matter. The mage-king would either be defeated or he would flee. Regardless, victory was assured here. At worst, these mortals remaining would leave a bigger dent in the Burning Legion’s forces than optimal, but with the prisoners and corpses sure to be left behind after the ensuing carnage, the demonic host would easily refill its ranks with even the crudest of summoning rituals before resuming the march for Dalaran.

Still, it was better to minimize the role of chance in the outcome.

Tichondrius drew himself up and channeled his energies, and then cast an arm out to the heavens. A new vortex opened, but for a much briefer moment, only allowing for a small group of green meteors to rain down. Four boulders wreathed in green flame hurtled towards the Alliance defenders. With the magi fully occupied by the warlocks, the barrage of Infernals should be more than enough to break up the defensive formations and occupy them until the rest of the vanguard cleared the shimmering walls.

Several things then occurred in quick succession that strained Tichondrius’ attention:

The first was the spike of outrage that suddenly came from the other dreadlords. Tichondrius snapped his gaze towards them just in time to find the mage-king evaporating like a mirage from what should have been an eviscerating strike from Detheroc. Where he once stood, now was a spherical gilded construct, the same probe steeds that his royal guard mounted. Its side was rent apart by Detheroc’s strike, but before anyone could act further, the probe took on the same translucence as the other constructs and vanished.

Then horrendous screeching made Tichondrius and the other demons snap their heads skywards, in time to see great balls of lightning shooting down from beyond the clouds. The first coruscating orbs intercepted and engulfed the falling Infernals, causing spectacular detonations of sparks, green fire, and shattered stone. The rest of the barrage struck the doom guards, the crackling energies disintegrating them before they could react, before continuing on to explode among the felguards’ ranks with equally destructive results.

Behind the crackling barrage came the mage-king’s flying constructs, the same dart-like things that had tore through the decks of the Gilnean navy. Missiles and sparks rained down to stop the demons’ attempt at circumventing the shimmering wall. There were other variants as well; crafts with wings that curved forward, and delicate things that flew with gossamer blue wings.

Some of the constructs with curved wings dove in, and their entire hull darkened and their wings glowed before energy shot out to swallow and lift the Death Knights high into the air. The rest of them simply hovered around the floating Death Knights, and the streams of light that shot out from the tips of their wings turned the nobles of Gilneas into drizzles of gore.

Those crafts with glasslike wings flew over the Alliance lines before unfurling like an inverted flower. Columns of light erupted from below them that molded and solidified into silhouettes of more golden walkers.

And then, as the field was awash with gold and lightning, the air directly above the battlefield crackled before a blinding flash forced all who witnessed it to turn away. Tichondrius forced himself to look up again to face the new threat, and even before the dazzling afterimages could clear he realized that the entire battlefield had darkened significantly. As his vision returned, the dreadlord’s skyward vision was filled with gleaming gold dotted and lined with blue lights.

It was vast, the size of a city at least, with massive plates surrounding a great hollow center like lobes.

Before the dreadlord could take in further details, a familiar voice impossibly slipped through his innate defenses to speak into his head.

“Carrier has arrived.”

And then more golden things came pouring out of the golden sky above, and death truly rained from the skies.