"We will take a direct road using subway." Wilson walked out of the door after they had successfuly descended all the way down, reaching the basement of the citadel, where a subway station was. Although before they had time to appreciate the station, several bones extended from Wilson's back, bones that were obviously not his.

"Undead." Lara whispered while looking around. The scene in front of them was like from a horror movie, the huge metro station was being flooded with undead of different kinds that were rising from the ground, the one unifying feature being spooky blue ligh shining in their eye sockets.

Toby kicked screeching Wilson lightly, sending him into a group of undead as bait and the screeching swiftly turned into sounds of gurgling blood.

"Come quick, the plan does not change. Which direction?" Toby turned at Qin, who pointed at the tunnel leading to the nearest boost facility. No one batted an eye at Toby's action, Wilson's original injury was a death sentence given the situation.

"Follow me, if you want to live." Toby started running in the right direction, he turned any skeletons he met into bone powder, trying to avoid the undead that looked troublesome to handle. Most of the fights were bound to be unfair for the undead, because he had the form of a demon that was one of the fastests fliers to get to the citadel, meaning his attributes were above average.

He was particularly careful to avoid the undead that had full armor possessing strong cold aura, an undead the appearance of which was begging to call it a death knight. Neither were any incorporeal undead an inviting sight as he avoided them as well.

They were nearing the tunnel, when one of the bigger death knights noticed their rampage of flying bones and chased after them. His sword began to shine with blue light signifying something sinister was about to happen.

"No you don't." Toby stopped briefly at the end of the passenger platform and sent out a stream of azure blue shards. The cold aura around the death knight gained substance, seemingly reinforcing his armor and he just witstood the rain of shards without much difficulty.

Immediately, he followed up by releasing the cold energy he had been gathering at the blade of his sword and a slow wave of piercing cold erupted from him in all directions.

"Oh shit! This guy is trouble!" Toby panicked a little and chose to jump down the patform, following the two, who were already running along the tracks. Luckily, they had entered the subway tunnel, before the wave of cold arrived.

"Too bad we could not take a ride." Qin breathed heavily while running. They had originally wanted to take one of the trains, but it was too much of a risk. If they were not able to make it move quickly, they would have ended up stuck in a train, even Toby could not face a big swarm of undead.

"How many stations are we passing through?" Toby asked, slowly making his way back to the front.

"Ugh!" Before Toby could make it, Lara collided with a skeleton, the emergency lights making it hard to see in the tunnel. The skeleton wanted to gut Lara with its sharp bony fingers, but she caught its hand and they began to wrestle for a time, before an axe embedded in the skeleton's skull ended their match.

"You are welcome." Qin pulled the axe out of the skull and put it on his shoulder.

"What?!" Toby shouted in his mind. Qin's action was further destroying his picture of Qin being a narcissistic hansome man.

"Emmm . .good job Qin." Toby said and Qin simply nodded in response.

"I will take the lead." He took again his position at the front to prevent another accident.

"It is the first station, we will be passing through none." Qin surprisingly had not forgotten the original question.

"That is convenient." Lara dusted herself off, not overly shocked with the ambush.

"Perfect." Toby led the way. Luckily it seemed that the death knight from before was not following them. Having lost track of time, as the only one with a watch had been left behind, they continued to walk forward, until Toby spotted a dark silhouette far in the distance.

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"Where did you get that fire axe anyway?" Lara asked Qin, still getting the last pieces of bones out of her hair, where they had been entangled thoroughly.

"At the usual place." Qin aswered dryly.

"Oh god! From the usual place! Such a loser!" Toby repeated in his mind with a funny voice, but to his horror, he could see it working judging from Lara's expression. "Fuck! Being handsome is not fair! Wait, this is not about picking up a girl in a dark tunnel, where did that shadow go?"

Toby focused back on the intruder and had a notion something was odd about this undead. Nearing closer, he figured out the oddity was the fact this one was breathing, the sound of the breaths bouncing off the bare walls.

"Hey, who are you?" Toby shouted, startling the figure, who immediately put his sword in the front.

"Die hellspawn!" The man shouted and tried to stab Toby as soon as he could see him clearly.

Immediately, Toby teleported back, but his instinctive reaction left the stranger's sword aimed at Lara, who walked directly behind him. It was too late, when Toby realized his mistake, but Lara just brushed the blade aside with a thick piece of a cable she had found somewhere earlier.

"Hostages? How despicable!" The man froze, not knowing what to do next.

"Silence human, we are looking for a mage to get out of here! Is there someone able to open a portal? " Toby shouted a question at the indecisive man.

"Keep your ridicule demon! You surely know all long distance teleportation is blocked!" The man shouted in return.

"Calm down both of you! How do you know? Who told you?" Lara tried to get the situation under control.

The man began laughing madly, replying only after a while.

"Who? I did! I am unable to make a portal anywhere, we are doomed! Doomed!"The man was apparently the portal mage they had been searching for, his news leaving them speechless. The man himself had clearly lost it and ran in the direction they had come from like a scared animal.

Soon after they knew why, a familiar blue aura began to lighten up the tunnel in front of them.

"Oh crap, I guess everyone knows who that is." Toby blurted out, remembering the last source of such an aura. the death knights.

"We need to go back, there is a maintenance tunnel entrance." Qin proposed and Toby looked at him venomously.

"Why have you not mentioned it earlier?"

"It is not big, It can be blocked easily."

"Fine, let's go."

Further back the rails, they have found an inconspicuous door, leading to a narrow tunnel that went more or less parallel to the main one. They entered and closed the door behind them, trying to bar it with some steel beams Toby tore out of the wall. It would hardly stop the knights, but it was better than doing nothing.

When working on the door, Toby could hear the screams of the mage they had met before.

"Let's be on our way." He wanted to ask what would they do next, but the question was stuck in his throat. Their plan A had blown up and there was no plan B in sight. He had intended to waltz through the demons in this form, but not only demons proved not entirely friendly to each other, but there were even tons of undead around. His disguise was getting less and less advantageous.

"Damnation, why does this tunnel has to be only this tall." There was some width to their path, but he had to bent down his head to fit his tall demon body through. In addition, his two companions became too silent for his taste and he had a feeling, they were about to jump on him with murderous intent.

It felt like a cold premonition of something terrible. . .

"Cold premonition . . ." Toby mumbled, but his mumble soon transformed into a shout, when he realized the cold was actually seeping through the wall. "COLD!"

It was too late, the wall burst open and a frosty blade touched the muscles on his chest. He knew, his only chance to escape was teleportation, but his mind went numb the moment the cursed blade touched his skin. He felt the awful sensation of his flesh tearing and watched the blade with horror, as it burrowed deep, until he could see or feel no more. Desperately trying to teleport away, anywhere, anyhow, he kept struggling until all his senses left him.

* * * *

"Eh?" Archibald made a face like eating the most sour thing in the world. "Someone escaped?"

"What? Aren't your space-isolation skills getting a bit rusty?" A raspy voice asked slowly with a hint of ridicule.

"Nonsense, the soul is damaged nonetheless, a complete one would never escape. Heading into The Sea of Void will finish the job." Archibald's eyes shone with red light, looking into another space.

"But he had been ended by one of mine, I want an additional point for him." The voice demanded with vigour.

"Fine, you are really into these games." Archibald sighed, switching his attention back on the siege of Durkan, this great game of theirs that was in full swing with undead racing against demons to get the greater number of souls.

* * * *

The Sea of Void, a strange place even for this plane of existance's standards. In the middle of this plane of existence belonging to demons and fiends that other planes hated for their brutality and ability, as there can be only laughter for those with just the first of the two attributes.

The Sea of Void ,a place where everything and nothing coexisted in a strange unification. It was said that in the nothingness of this void, everything was contained, but could manifest only when nothingness decided to gain a nature, to pick a side and segregated, when fire decided to be born creating ice in turn, it was a place where light decided to shine and gave birth to darkness as well.

Once the creation took place, all what had been born drifted aside, leaving The Sea of Void that was sitting in the exact middle of the demonic realm, the center where nothing had been, was and would be, but from whence everything on this plane had come to be.

Such was the dimension of fiends.

And the place where a distorted soul appeared out of nowhere, confused and damaged, oblivious to itself, drifting.

* * * *

Gloin dirfted through space outward, he felt confused for a time, when his will wavered, like it was attacked by something foreign, but it passed soon and he could feel his will again, his essence materializing slowly.

His instincts of a newborn demon told him only power and ability counted and he felt a strong power burning in him, never mind the strange, new sparkly flavor. Experimenting with his form, Gloin took a shape of one of the more common demonic appearances and readied for crossing the border of The Sea of Void, his memory filling with information, as his inherited memories flowed through his brain. He got information about the hierarchy of the demonic world, the lives of his previous ancestors and it could be said that it was the moment when his personality was being shaped, influenced by all the information, he saw demons, ghosts, undead, animals, mutants, demonic trees. . .and an old human grandpa.

"The hell?!" Gloin noticed there were some inconsistencies and it was not just his memories. He was about to search for the cause, when a sudden force pulled on him, tearing him out of space forcefully.