War of Light and Shadow - Light's Last Stand (part V)

The Shadow God appeared at the head of the assault, flanked by his mightiest lieutenants among the Shadowsworn.

Together, they approached Caldonnas as one, and engaged with the champion even as the rest of the forces of Shadow broke down upon the inner bastions with all their might.

It was a truly fierce battle in all of its glory. The warriors of Light held back the assailants, but the battle was relentless. Already wounded from the previous confrontations, Caldonnas fought against Ulhaeron and his lieutenants. At first he was almost overwhelmed, but soon he raised his pace, scything the air with the sevenfold blade, while the others carefully evaded the blows that could mean their undoing. In turn, they tried to wound him with many ways, but his armor, a gift from Kaehir, that he had donned without a single word of thanks stopped most of these attacks, while Caldonnas evaded and parried the rest of them with ease, using his wings as weapons.

Even so, the duel would end up in a stalemate it seemed, but Caldonnas begun to shout with fury, while his blows became more and more fierce, swift and lethal. Some of the lieutenants begun to die, while others fled to a safer distance. Even the Shadow God received a wound that caused him to scream with horror - a scream that froze the vim on all who were present in that final fight.

But the battle intensified. The Shadow God changed his tactic, constantly shifting form between an ethereal smokey shadow and his actual form so fast, that he always evaded Caldonnas' attacks. Then Caldonnas using the terrible power of the Sevenfold Blade, begun to tear void rifts in Ulhaeron's Shadow Form causing newfound agony upon his foe.

But the Shadow God transformed again into a different form that could not interact with Caldonnas' attacks or the void rifts. He used this form to possess his foe' allies and command their bodies to attack the champion. At first he could possess only one at a time, so Caldonnas fought defensively, avoiding the risk. Soon, the Shadow God divided himself inside multiple bodies, who attacked Caldonnas with masterful timing and cunning. Twice Ulhaeron wounded Caldonnas in this way.

But the Bronze Titan saw through this ruse, and retreated from his possessed allies, while attacking Ulhaeron's lieutenants with renewed ferocity. This forced the Shadow God to change tactics. This time he shifted form into an even more sinister, slippery being made of shadow, smoke and corruption. He begun to seep into the very world around Caldonnas, corrupting the structures, the ground, and the very air, with his essence, so that the champion had to fight against them.

And yet, this did not stop Caldonnas who now unleashed the full destructive power of the sevenfold blade, wreaking a terrible ruin around him, as he chased the Shadow God relentlessly.

Elsewhere the defenders held their ground against the onslaught of the mightiest warriors of Hell. There was no respite, because there were so many assailants, and therefore so much death. Aellon and Nuviel fought side by side, and they were an equal wonder to behold in war, as they had been in peace. They gleamed as true paragons of the forces of Light in this relentless struggle where Shadow strove to dominate the entirety of Creation.

This was the ultimate battle between many things. Light and Shadow, Truth and Falsehood, Idealism and Egoism, Dream and Nightmare, Apotheosis and Entropy, Freedom and Tyranny. But the battle was extremely unfair and one-sided. The side of light had little else but their diminishing remnants of noble hopes and aspirations, while the forces of Shadow smote and violated all they held dear with soul-crushing echoes of despair and misery. Only Caldonnas was triumphant. But his triumph was a fearsome thing.

Caldonnas smote the skies, and the earth. The terrible tears he wrought with his blade became singularities that caused everything that touched them to collapse towards them. Cleansing Flame poured through the blade, scourging the corruption of the Shadow God, and in its wake the winged Shanacan were born, multiplying with each new destruction that the flame wrought. Delivering their fiery devastation in a growing, spiraling circle.

The defenders watched the end arrive in tears. All their work, all they had fought for in Akuinor would be lost. Everything would be consigned to the avenging fire of the wrathful champion. Their only solace, were the growing screams of the Shadow God and the Shadowsworn who wailed in anguish as the flames devoured them and consigned their ashes into oblivion.

And then, everyone realized, that since the whole of the universe had been likewise touched by the Shadow, it would all burn away in this manner. And their horror towards Caldonnas grew.

Ulhaeron was forced to return to his physical form. Battered, torn, tortured, and wounded, the Shadow God lay on the ground, struggling to get up. Struggling to bring his weapon to defend himself, he parried a single blow from the Sevenfold Blade, before his own glaive shattered near the hilt.

Caldonnas raised his weapon as an executioner, his gaze locked to the hollow sockets of the Shadow God, relentlessly penetrating with its light the darkest depths of Ulhaeron's consciousness. "It all ends now, tyrant." he said, just when a humongous shadow covered the skies. A wail that was many wails echoed in the darkness. A scream that was the culmination of all horror was unleashed. The skies burnt for a small moment. Then thousands of things begun to fall down. These things were the lifeless corpses of a thousand Dragons. The Shadow God begun to laugh, but his laughter was drowned by the terrible echoes of the Abyssal roar that had preceded them.

Khorugoth, the hulking Lord of the Abyss, the Father of the Colgatha, the Ender of Light, hovered in the skies. A mass of tentacles and maws. Of eyes and mouths. Of talons and serpentine limbs. A true horror, if there ever was one, Khorugoth projected fear so that all who saw him, whether they were Celestial, Fallen or Shadowsworn they all stood transfixed, paralyzed with terror.

Caldonnas spun around and took flight. He rose to meet the impossible horror. From his mighty blade he issued a challenge and his fire attacked the Abyssal in a terrible searing beam. Another terrible scream issued from a myriad mouths. The horror counterattacked with a thousand attacks.

The Bronze Titan scythed left and right destroying countless tentacles. He whirled in the air, and dodged many of the blows. He used his wings as swords, cutting through some of the limbs and tentacles that attacked. The fire of his attacks begun to eat at the Horror's limbs, when Caldonnas plunged the Sevenfold Blade deep into the torso of the abyssal monstrosity.

Another terrible cry issued, but then, before the Bronze Titan could release the blade, a dozen thick tentacles gripped him with overwhelming force. Talons and fangs bit past his armor, causing a score of fresh wounds. The sickening appendages brought the prone, but still living champion close to the colossal central maw of Khorugoth, but then the voice of the Shadow God thundered in the silence.

"No! Wait a moment longer! I want him to see! I want all of them to see!". Ulhaeron was standing in full majesty before the broken gate of the last bastion, his hand raised to command Khorugoth as if the latter were nothing more than a loyal pet - which is exactly what he was.

Elora lay fallen before Ulhaeron. With a mere gesture, the Shadow God sent her crushing against a structure, and then he strode into the inner circle.

Behind the last bastion, scores of Khorgons and Shadowsworn had overtaken the inner reaches of Akuinor, slaying the last defenders. The pillar of the Flame Eternal still stood in the center of the realm, where Aellon, Nuviel and a handful of brave souls still held their ground. Ulhaeron gestured for his shadowsworn to attack. They slew most of the defenders, but left Aellon and Nuviel alive, pinning them down to their knees with force.

Up above, Khorugoth stretched his tentacles bringing Caldonnas close, even as the champion struggled to break free. He screamed promises of destruction to the Shadow God, but they were all hollow.

Ulhaeron laughed. It was a cold, harsh, laughter filled with arrogance. With his force of will alone, the Shadow God commanded his shattered glaive to reassemble. He approached before the kneeling pair, who gazed at him defiantly. Then staring at Aellon with his hollow sockets, he drove his glaive through Nuviel's  heart, taking her life, and shattering his spirit.

"Behold!" he said "As all you've ever strove for amounts to naught! Behold! As my dominion becomes eternal." And as he said those words, he stamped past the fallen Lord of Light, approaching the Flame Eternal which begun to diminish. As Ulhaeron finally found himself before the Pillar, the Flame Eternal was gone completely, and the whole universe now was covered in complete gloom and shadow. And yet, a single giant monument stood before Ulhaeron, posing upon him a silent challenge.

Before him stood the colossal throne of Akaon which Kaehir himself had crafted to honor the Lord of all creation. Akaon was in his draconic form, exactly as Aellon had seen him in their private encounter. He sat like a benign god, coiled around the throne. His half-shut eyes glimmered with the myriad dreams that had come to existence, including the Ashar and the Vaenu themselves.

The throne lay vacant. It was a symbol and a challenge. None. Not even Akaon himself rules the Cosmos, because the Cosmos needs no Kings, no Tyrants and no Despots. This was the foundation of the Creed of Akaon, the founding belief of the Aldoren. "No more!" Ulhaeron said, and he stepped up and sat on the throne.

The next thing that escaped the Shadow God's mouth was an agonizing scream. Spiked chains, fashioned from a black metal that glowed with the resonance of the abyss issued forth from the throne. They tore through Ulhaeron's body, and then they stretched far and wide and begun to ensnare the mightiest of his lieutenants, the mightiest of the Shadowsworn and the Fallen, the mightiest of the Colgatha, including Khorugoth himself.

Now they all screamed together with horror as the terrible chains multiplied, and continued to tear through their bodies, paralyzing them and binding them in place. And their combined screams seemed to summon forth a terrible wind that blew like a whirling hurricane. A vortex formed in the eye of the hurricane, which was centered on the Throne of Akaon. A portal opened to some dismal realm that Kaehir had fashioned meticulously after the materials he had stolen from the abyss.

And thus, at last, Kaehir's Folly was revealed. The Forger had fashioned a prison that none could ever escape from, where Ulhaeron and his mightiest followers would forever be entombed. A realm like the Abyss, but bounded and sealed, and yet, still lost in the emptiness of the nether realms.

The vortex grew and spun faster and faster as it devoured the throne, the Shadow God, and all who had followed him within the Inner Circle, past the Last Bastion.

Before Khorugoth was lost, Caldonnas tore the Sevenfold Blade free and thundered after the armies of the Shadow God. Even though he had almost been broken, the champion was keeping it together with sheer force of will. He chased the armies of the Shadow, and seeing him, others took courage and joined him, though many had been wounded, or had fallen to near-death.

And so, in near defeat, Light prevailed in the end, but through this victory many more good and bad things came to pass.