User:GoldenYak/Chronicle/Volume One/Chapter Three
Related to Worlds of Warcraft - Chronicle of the Titan Worlds
Volume One, Chapter Three - The Army of Light and the Titan Infernals
The Army of Light
Sargeras' fury was stoked hotter by his injuries, and his fel green flames reflected this as they grew brighter. The stump of Sargeras' horn smouldered with sickly green light and flames licked out of his cracked visage. In spite of Azeroth's defiance though, he knew victory was only a matter of time. While Azeroth had conjured a mighty force that continued to decimate the Burning Legion, she had no more reinforcements to call forth. Every warrior she lost could not be replaced, and even now moment by moment their number began to dwindle, starlight avatars winking out under the weight of the enemy's forces, slaying thousands of demons before their fall but falling all the same. The Legion continued to pour out of the Nether, showing no signs of slowing. While most of the Legion's armada of ships had been decimated by Azeroth's earlier maneuvering, the sheer number of demonic soldiers was enough to ultimately crush all resistance. Sargeras said as much to his enemy, his words carrying across the void to her. He intended to break her of her defiant spirit before destroying her, make her realize the hopelessness of her situation.
Azeroth listened at first, then at once turned her head aside, looking away, past the roiling Netherstorms at a still-visible patch of starry darkness. It was as if she had heard another voice, a call audible only to her. She then turned back to Sargeras, and gave a confident smile. Sargeras' bluster died away, as he realized what it was his enemy had heard. He heard it now too.
All across the Nether-shrouded system, flares of light blazed into being. The light did not fade, but continued to burn brighter and brighter, pushing back the stormy curtain of Netherspace. In the dark now hung thousands of shining vessels. The largest were like great castles and fortresses made of bright colored crystal, encased in artful hulls of metal and pearl. Around each one beings of glowing light and transcendent geometries hovered like fireflies around a torch. Ship and entity alike poured forth a glorious light, the cosmic energy of creation made manifest as radiance of impossible beauty. The naaru had come, bringing with them the limitless power of the Light. Alongside the naaru vessels were countless smaller ships, like silver sailing vessels whose open decks swirled with bands of arcane light, holding back the ravages of open space. Sails of arcane brilliance bore them through the void, and on their bridges stood legions of armored warriors garbed in cloth that hung across bodies of pure energy - the ethereals. All the cabals of fallen K'aresh were represented - the Ethereum, the Protectorate, the Consortium, and more. They were joined by the sapphire vessels of the lemurians, their void-ravens arranged in great flocks. The misshapen metal hulks of the mekkanoi swung into position alongside the great living star-leviathans of the zuhnai. A dazzling variety of space-going vessels could be seen, each one carrying legions soldiers and spell-casters gathered from a hundred worlds. For millennia the naaru had crossed the stars, seeking out peoples and cultures who shared the highest of ideals of peace, justice, and unity. Assembled to free the universe from the evils that would consume it, the Army of Light had come.
At the fore of the great army's fleet was Tempest Keep, the flagship of the naaru and commanding vessel. Surrounded by its satellite vessels, the colossal star-fortress bore the mightiest of the Army of Light's forces - the indomitable draenei, garbed in immaculate armor glowing alabaster and glittering silver, their crystalline swords and maces held ready and glowing runes blazing on their brows. Each draenei seemed to glow within of a light all their own, swelling them from within and making them seem the equal of the Legion's most diabolical forces. The draenei mustered in the thousands aboard the outer decks of their vessels, and with a cry of praise to Azeroth and the Light they raced to the edges of their ships and leapt off. As the draenei streamed out into the void, naaru would swoop low over them, their light reaching out to embrace the draenei, and carrying them towards the battlelines where the Burning Legion fought. All across the fleet the same thing occurred - alien warriors ferrying into battle by radiant naaru, as vessels trained their weapons on the demon horde.
Sargeras gaped in disbelief as this new threat moved to engage his forces. His Legion had shattered countless worlds, burned millions of races, yet never had he witnessed an alliance such as this. Never had he anticipated so organized a resistance. The Demon Titan barely noticed Azeroth begin to move, but to his surprise the enemy Titan had begun to move away from him, away from the battle-lines, though she her gaze met his evenly as she did so. She was moving back towards the point in the system where she'd originally slept in nascency - she was retreating. Sargeras snarled in disbelief and confusion - the move made no tactical sense. Rather than pressing the advantage she'd gained, she'd instead left Sargeras free to counter the newly arrived threat. Sargeras turned away from Azeroth and angrily bawled orders to his Legion, sending great hordes of demons wheeling about to face the Army of Light. Another multitude he called to his side and, spreading his fiery wings, he turned and began to move in pursuit of Azeroth. There would be no escape from his wrath. Sargeras gaze fell upon the distant Titan, and spied near her two other sources of light. Hanging in the void near Azeroth were the two companions that had watched over her since the very dawning of her nascency - Azeroth's moons, the White Lady and the Blue Child. Reflecting Azeroth's arcane light, the two moons gleamed brilliantly in the darkness. Within Azeroth's mind, the memories of her Titan brethren told her the function of the blue moon, while her own dreams explained the true nature of the white. It was time for both celestial bodies to fulfill their intended purpose.
Azeroth and the White Lady
With a wave of her colossal hand, Azeroth sent a band of arcane light spiraling towards the Blue Child. Upon the azure surface of the moon stood immense structures of Titan make - artifacts of the Pantheon placed there at the conclusion of their ancient efforts to bring order to Azeroth's slumbering worldsoul. The arcane signal sent by Azeroth flashed across the lunar surface, racing over miles and miles of machinery, then suddenly plunged down into the sprawling city-sized mechanism. Within the innermost chamber of the machine-complex, the signal at last reached its intended target, a figure seated upon a great ornate throne. For an eternity he had watched over the world that Azeroth had been, his duty given to him by his revered masters, the Pantheon themselves. He had watched the world and its people, their triumphs and tragedies, their perseverance in the face of cosmically calculated odds and their defiance of any declaration, any judgment that would seek to steal the future from them. The watcher had defied his own duty out of admiration of the tenacity of the mortals that had devoted their lives to their world, and unbeknownst to them the miraculous being that lay within that world. Though he had possessed the power to destroy them, had had instead granted them the chance to fight on, and in their constant struggles against their fate had unknowingly given to Azeroth invaluable lessons that would decide the fate of all worlds.
The arcane power that now crackled through the moon's machinery told the watcher that his vigil was over. Only the will of the Titans could command him, and now at last the command was given. It was time for him to do more than watch. It was time for all his kind to do more than watch. Reaching out his will into the mechanisms he commanded them to activate. Raw power thrummed through fantastic mechanisms, colossal machine components grinding to life and re-ordering themselves into spectacular new configurations. Towers burst upwards through the moon's crust, grinding gears ripped open canyons. The surface of the moon cracked like an egg, shedding mountainous chunks of azure stone. As the last of the moon crumbled away, the vast Titan-crafted machine within was exposed, a great metallic ring whose center crackled with arcane lightning. At the apex of the ring-device, the watcher stood, guiding the works of the fantastic device. The arcane lighting with the ring flared violently, then the space within unfolded like a yawning vortex, showing a million stars swirling within its depths. The call had been answered. Algalon the Observer had summoned all his kin to the battle. For an eternity they had obeyed the edicts of the Titan Pantheon to watch over the universe. Now, the final Titan who could command their loyalty had given them a new task. At long last, the constellar were going to war.
In fantastic multitudes they came forth - ethereal giants made of living stars, constellations come to life. Many resembled great humanoids like Algalon, but the constellar were living stars and could wear any shape they pleased - the humanoid form had simply been one that many constellar had adopted in emulation of the Titans. There were those that appeared as huge celestial serpents, others that soared forth on equine lower-bodies. Some took the form of beasts and monsters, great bears and snarling lions, fanged draconic creatures and bestial sphinxes. Images conjured from the mythology of a million worlds that the constellar had watched over since their pact with the Titans was forged an eternity ago. Racing out of the mystical stellar gate the Titans had built, the constellar surged forth like a galaxy come to life. Brandishing shields and swords made of stars, the constellar soared towards the Burning Legion. The Legion now suffered attack on three fronts - the newly arrived constellar, the Army of Light, and Azeroth's own indomitable forces. Howling in fury, Sargeras was forced to break off his pursuit of Azeroth and direct his forces against their enemies. The Demon Titan moved to assault the gravest threat, the mighty constellar, hacking at the celestial giants. Though he slew them with every swing of Gorribal, the mighty beings commanded powers that even the Demon Titan respected, and swarmed him like wolves attacking a bear, cutting at him with blades of starlight and shedding burning blood with every strike.
With the Legion assaulted on all sides and Sargeras distracted, Azeroth at last turned her attention to the demons still infesting her surface. The attacking hordes cut at her forests and clawed apart her mountains, pouring fel pollution into her wounds that made her feel weak. They would have to be dealt with before she could make her next move. Though she had released all of the forces into the aether that she could to combat the Burning Legion, there were still defenders she could call upon now, defenders so closely tied with her very being that she had not been able to send them forth as she had her other armies. They had been there with her at the very dawn of her existence, and would be with her as long as she lived. As demons hacked at her surface, she sent her summons inwards, deep, deep into her very core, and brought her very oldest children forth.
On the surface, demons felt Azeroth shudder. The great burning wounds they had cut into her which had blazed with poisonous green fel now suddenly began to gush arcane light in great torrents. Geysers of pure arcane energy erupted all around them, sending sheathes of light roaring across Azeroth's surface. Demons howled as the arcane storms devoured them, the weakest among them burnt to cinders in an instant. Stronger demons screeched out spells and sorceries to defend themselves. Eredar and nathrezim chanted protections and tried to conjure the power to somehow fight back. Annihilan bawled furiously for their forces to hold fast, seeking some enemy to attack. On one rocky shore, overlooking a vast shimmering sea, the mighty annihilan leading the invading force bellowed for his troops to rally, clinging to the heaving landscape that had seemed so helpless against their ravaging moments ago. The pitlord watched with growing disbelief as a wave taller than mountains slowly rose up before him and then came crashing down with awesome force. At the crest of the wave was Neptulon, the Tidehunter. Elsewhere, canyons that the Legion had torn open in Azeroth's surface suddenly heaved close, crushing millions of demons in jaws of rock. Bursting up from underground came massive giants of stone, like living mountains, crushing infernals and fel reavers underfoot like children's toys. At the fore of this army of giants was Therazane, the Stonemother. Volcanoes burst across Azeroth, spewing forth blazing magma and burning flames that incinerated countless demons. Erupting from the largest came Conflagra, the Eternal Blaze, queen of the fire elementals. Demons that attempted to flee were caught up in tornadoes and hurricanes and dashed to pieces at the command of Thunderaan, the Stormlord. Unstoppable, unforgiving, the elementals of Azeroth raged across their mother's surface, purging the demons wherever they found them. Thrashing and bellowing beneath the ocean waves, Mannoroth fought with the viciousness born of an eternity of demon crusading, but all his strength was futile against Neptulon. With a surge of effort, Neptulon encased the demon general in a tomb of ice and hurled him bodily off of Azeroth's surface. Locked frozen in his prison, Mannoroth sailed off screaming silently into the darkness.
With the demons on her surface dealt with, Azeroth turned finally to the moon her mortal children had called the White Lady. The Titans had built nothing upon this celestial sphere, but in its own way it was of even greater significance than the moon that had once housed the constellar's stellar gate. Mortals for generations had worshiped the moon as a deity, in particular the night elves of Kalimdor. The kaldorei had seen the moon as the abode of Elune, the moon goddess, a benevolent deity of goodness and tranquility, a beacon to light the darkness. For millennia, they and other races that had revered the moon had filled it with their prayers, their hopes. They had made Elune a focus of their dreams for peace and their belief in the power of light over darkness, of good over evil. The moon's light grew brighter and brighter as Azeroth drew closer. Its surface shone like a star. It ceased to be something of rock and stone and through some miraculous alchemy became a sphere of pure light. There was one final child of Azeroth that had yet to be reunited with its mother. Azeroth now called Elune home.
The sphere of light merged with Azeroth, two beings of unfathomable power - one a radiant deity, the other a cosmic Titan, becoming one. Azeroth had carefully marshaled all of her strength for this moment, to tap this last and greatest reservoir of power and equip herself to win the final battle against the evil Sargeras represented. Azeroth's aura blazed brighter than ever, the light within her closing over canyons and craters torn open by the demons. The last of the fel flame that had marred her faded away - once again forests of solid light grew and covered her surface, oceans and rivers swelled, mountains renewed themselves. Azeroth's marvelous armor was restored, gleaming and perfect. Her shining hair trailed out behind her, as if stirred by cosmic winds. Finally, two immense angelic wings of radiant starlight unfolded from her back, gleaming like galaxies. With a thunderous motion, Azeroth soared to battle, sailing forth on cosmic pinions.
The Titan Infernals
All the forces arrayed in battle were dumb-founded at the cosmic spectacle before them. Azeroth sailed through the void like a comet, bright and beautiful, scattering demons with every flap of her great wings. New strength surged through her forces. The naaru sang joyously at the sight of their most glorious hope. Sargeras fumed and raged as the constellar broke off their attack on him and moved to engage the Legion. Spreading his own fiery wings wide, Sargeras brandished Gorribal and leapt towards Azeroth, the two cosmic winged Titans hurtling towards each other on a collision course. At the last moment, as Sargeras swung his wicked blade around in an arc, Azeroth's wings pumped suddenly and sent her soaring up, over the head of the Demon Titan. Furious, Sargeras dove and wheeled about, bracing for an attack, only to see his enemy soaring away from him into the heart of the great battle between the Legion and forces arrayed against it. Sargeras, who cared nothing for his own forces, had underestimated Azeroth and her bond with her armies. She would leave them to fight alone no longer. Bellowing with rage, Sargeras wings thundered as he flew in pursuit.
Azeroth drew up above the still-raging battle. The Netherstorms still raged across light-years of space, spilling out the demon multitude. To her left, the Army of Light held strong, naaru and their followers guarding their shared fleet. To her right, the constellar engaged the Legion, the giants of starlight reaping a wicked toll on the weaker demons. Beneath her, her armies fought tirelessly, arcane avatars of her mortal children fighting side by side. They had suffered many losses, but still they fought on, and now she could at last reinforce them. This final summoning would be the deathblow to the Legion. There was yet one race of living creature that had not yet been represented on the fields of battle. They had slumbered within her to this moment, until her powers had reached their apex and she was at last ready to give them form.
Flinging both arms wide, Azeroth brought forth her grandest defenders - from her outstretched arms soared colossal dragons of pure white light, shining and perfect. Their roars echoing impossibly across the length breadth of the cosmic battlefield, the dragons swooped into battle, breathing gouts of pure white flame. Demons shrieked as the flame unmade them in an instant, while the forces of Azeroth were renewed and revitalized when bathed in the white fires. Thousands and thousands of great wyrms, vast as the Dragon Aspects of legend, soared across space leaving trails of light behind them, arriving in an instant wherever the forces arrayed against the Legion needed them most. Fanged maws snapped shut over eredar warlocks, swallowing them whole. They pulled doomships apart like a wolves eviscerating a stag. White flame devoured clouds of flying demons. A hideous doom lord aimed a blade at the neck of a passing dragon, only for another of the beasts to close its jaws over the fiend's head and tear it off with a twist of its serpentine neck.
Sargeras, seeing his forces withering in the face of this potent new threat, seeing the terrible Legion he had forged over innumerable millennia taken apart effortlessly like so many of the mortal races they had exterminated, screamed in denial and launched himself towards Azeroth. Azeroth turned as the Demon Titan barreled into her with all his strength and fury, the force of their collision blasting their shared armies away from them. Blazing like a cosmic furnace, fel fire erupting outwards like solar prominence, Sargeras attacked again and again with all his might. Blows that had shattered worlds and waves of fury that had unmade stars crashed into Azeroth, washing over her armored form. Before, she might have withered in the face of the Demon Titan's onslaught. But Azeroth had come into her full power - every blow of Gorribal was fended off, every wave of fel flame broke over her like a harmless breeze. Azeroth fought bare handed, turning aside every sword stroke with precise blows to Sargeras' limbs, every failed attack serving only to fuel the Demon Titan's fury and make him more reckless. Finally, one arcing strike left Sargeras over-extended - with a blow that could have cracked apart a planet, Azeroth slammed a fist into the Demon Titan's armored chest. The fel-infused armored was blasted apart by the impact, falling in fragments away from Sargeras' torso. Bellowing in rage, Sargeras swept his blade back, aiming to decapitate. Azeroth shrugged down under the blade and snapped out another blow into her foe's armored pectoral - with another thunderous impact, Sargeras was flung back, his armored pauldron crumbling loose. Surging forth immediately, Sargeras brought his blade arcing up, but Azeroth dodged back just out of striking distance, then whirled and kicked out - Sargeras howled as her armored boot crashed into his side, breaking open another rent in his armor. Sargeras opened his jaws wide and spewed out a great roiling cloud of green fel fire - Azeroth brought her wings curling around herself, shielding her from the flames. Flinging her wings wide to brush away the last of the fel fire, Azeroth brought both hands forwards and sent a great bolt of blazing arcane energy lancing into Sargeras, blasting apart his damaged chestplate and hurling the Demon Titan back.
Gathering himself, Sargeras' fury for a moment ebbed as an impossible realization came to him. All around him, the once seemingly endless hordes of demons streaming in from Netherspace had begun to thin. The unimaginable truth had at last become apparent - his Burning Legion, his invincible, limitless army, had been nearly depleted. A universe of demons had been flung into combat against the last defenders of a failed cosmos and, against all reason, the demons were going to fail. In moments more, the last of his forces would be spent. Attrition, the factor that had played a part in defeating so many of the Legions enemies, had now bled his own his Legion dry. This could not be. And yet, with his fury overcome by shock, Sargeras could see that it was so.
Since the very beginning of the battle, the Demon Titan had been matched move for move by his enemy. Azeroth had calculated the perfect battle strategy to counter his Legion. Sargeras realized that here, at last, represented an enemy that surpassed him. This was a foe whose strength eclipsed his, who could truly defeat him. Indeed, his every advantage in the battle was gone, taken away through the superior tactics and stratagems of his Titan adversary. Horror crawled through Sargeras. The unthinkable was happening. He would lose. He would be defeated, destroyed. His glorious vision for the future, a new cosmos made in his image, would be undone. The darkness that lay beyond the cosmos, the loathsome chaos that his every action had been meant to fight against, would be victorious. His Titan foe could not hope to comprehend the true enemy - she would never do what was necessary to secure the future against the Void Lords. He could not fail. He must not fail.
There was only one way. One way to turn the tide and seize victory. Glaring coldly at Azeroth, Sargeras gave one thunderous flap of his wings that sent him sailing back to the edge of the Netherstorm, putting him on the very cusp of the Twisting Nether. Azeroth hesitated, having expected Sargeras to charge her in fury again. She had not anticipated that the Demon Titan would try to leave the battle. Sargeras saw his enemy's hesitation. It was the opening he needed. In truth, he had not imagined that his Burning Crusade would ever require what he was planning to do now. He had only expected to employ this final tactic if the worst of his fears had come true, and the Void Lords had found a nascent Titan to employ as their vessel. He had devised this strategy to counter such a possibility. But now, he would gladly employ it to crush Azeroth once and for all.
Sargeras sent his will deep into the Twisting Nether, calling forth his ultimate weapon. The Netherstorms engulfing space suddenly surged to greater fury than ever before. The demon hordes still streaming through the gulf in reality shrieked as they were devoured by the raging currents of the Nether. The chaos spilled out across the battlefield, consuming demons and their foes alike. The Army of Light's fleet was sent into disarray, every ship tossed by the raging storms and wheeling about in desperate efforts to survive. Constellar fell back, those who moved too late sucked into the Nether and dashed apart by the chaotic energies. Azeroth's forces leapt back as the magical firmament on which they fought dissolved. White dragons swooped to and fro, gathering up starlight warriors and carrying them to safety. Azeroth spread her arms wide and forged a shell of mystical protection around as many of her allies as she could, holding back the worst of the storms. She could not guess at Sargeras' strategy - was the Demon Titan attempting to destroy everything, or escape into the Twisting Nether? Her eyes found Sargeras, who stood immovable in the heart of the raging storms, and his burning gaze locked on hers. The Demon Titan was grinning.
From within the raging Netherstorms, something immense moved. Vast and terrible shapes drew closer through the storms, like great leviathans breaching the surface of a raging sea. It was their very approach that had been the cause of the storms, their immense power distorting the Nether itself as they drew closer to realspace. One by one, they emerged from the Twisting Nether, and all saw what Sargeras had wrought - six colossal beings of planetary scale, each one as vast as Titan, rough humanoid figures of broken black stone that blazed from within with green fel fire. Their twisted features were stretched in eternal howls, hateful eyes glaring with fel, mouths pouring forth emerald flame. All those present quailed with fear as the immense beings came forth. The last of the demons swarming from the Nether were scorched by continent-sized gouts of flame erupting from the giants' bodies, or dragged down screaming to impact on their black surfaces by their sheer gravity. The Army of Light, the constellar, and Azeroth's defenders all shrank at the sight of the fiends. As she looked upon the hideous faces of the giants, Azeroth realized with horror that she recognized them. Their features were broken black stone twisted with fury and madness, but each of the six colossals bore the face of one of the Titan Pantheon.
Aggramar. Norgannon. Eonar. Golganneth. Khaz'goroth. And Highfather Aman'Thul. Their shattered bodies had been somehow reassembled and were now animated by blazing fel fire, creatures akin to the infernals but on a vastly larger scale. This, at last, was Sargeras' greatest weapon revealed. The bodies of his former brethren, distorted and transformed into demonic horrors.
The Titan Infernals.
Additional Information and Sidebars
Sidebar - Azeroth and Elune
Long ago in Azeroth's ancient past, the Old God Y'Shaarj was slain, and the eldritch fiend's death tore open a wound in Azeroth's surface. The Titanic lifeblood that flowed forth from the injury was transformed by the Pantheon into the Well of Eternity, a vortex of vast arcane energy that spread the light of magic across the world. After the Pantheon departed, a newly born mortal race of trolls found the Well, drawn to settle near it by its miraculous energies. The energy changed the trolls over the generations, slowly molding their form to be more akin to that of the Titans themselves. At the dawn of their history, a matriarch of changing trolls named E'lun learned to tap the arcane power of the well, becoming one of the first mortal beings to wield the power of sorcery. E'lun taught her new art to her people for decades, becoming revered as a being who had touched the divine. At the twilight of her life, when the white moon of Azeroth gleamed fully in the night sky, E'lun gathered her people and told them that she would always watch over them for all time, for the spirit was eternal and the light of life would shine on in the darkness, as the moon brought light to the night. E'lun strode out across the Well of Eternity and, bidding her grieving folk farewell, she let herself sink forever beneath the arcane waters, seeming to fade away into the reflection of the white moon on its surface. Always remembering E'lun's final words, her people continued to give homage to her as if she truly did watch over them, every spell they cast a prayer to her spirit to guide them and protect them. E'lun's spirit, resting within the Well of Eternity, drew the hopes and prayers of her people to her like the gravity of a world, the souls of thousands of her kin touching hers and imparting it with a spark of power. Over the centuries, the power of E'lun's soul grew and changed, bathed in the worship of mortals and the radiance of Azeroth's arcane light, and rose up on currents of moonlight to watch over her mortal children as a true deity, a mortal soul ascended to godhood. In time, the trolls who settled around the Well became the kaldorei, the night elves, and their spirit-protector became Elune, the goddess of the moon and the starlight.
Sidebar - Deceiver's End
As the Army of Light and the constellar joined Azeroth's armies in battle against the Burning Legion, Sargeras ordered his mightiest agents, the eredar, to take to the field and personally take command the demons. Mightiest among the eredar was Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, ruler of Argus in the distant past and scourge of a thousand worlds. Kil'jaeden's might had only risen in the centuries since he was cast out of Azeroth, the failed invasion he'd led feeding his loathing of the world. Now, not only was the doom of Azeroth at hand, but the draenei - the exiles - the last of the eredar who had spurned Sargeras' offer to join the Burning Legion had appeared. Though the draenei prophet Velen had perished years ago, Kil'jaden still held hatred in his heart for his defiant brethren, and vowed that he would at last see the end of them. Gathering a great host of doomguard to his side, Kil'jaden magically increased his size to become a giant and conjured great bat-like wings to carry him through the void towards the draenei, who flew within the aegis of the naaru. With cries of battle on both sides, the draenei host and Kil'jaeden's demons collided. Crystal maces stoved in demon skulls. Fel-iron swords cut out draenic hearts. Kil'jaeden fought with a long lash of enchanted flame, its every crack lashing open shining silver armor and ripping apart the blue flesh of his foe. The draenei fought fearlessly, the Light glowing from within their forms making them the equal of any demon. One flank of Kil'jaeden's guard collapsed and draenei vindicators cut down the doomguard with crystal sabres, exposing the eredar lord to three approaching naaru. Snarling, Kil'jaeden readied his sorceries - the naaru were formidable, but he had slain their kind before and three alone could not summon enough Light to threaten him. Too late Kil'jaeden realized that the naaru were not attacking - the three glowing creatures suddenly altered their course, flying towards one another. The naaru merged into a single form, a sphere of light that grew brighter and brighter. THe naaru had surrendered their individual forms to perform a summoning - to call forth a soul from within the Light. Taking form in space as an elegant giant glowing with the Light was a form Kil'jaeden instantly recognized - it was Velen the Prophet, no longer bowed with age but standing tall and wondrous, an avatar of shining illumination that equaled Kil'jaeden in size and far surpassed him in power. Kil'jaeden struck out at his hated enemy, but his power was nothing before the Light - his demonic lash turned to cinders in his hand. The Deceiver turned and attempted to flee, but with a gesture Velen bound him in strands of pure Light. Velen drew in his former friend, the power of the Light holding the demon still, and told him that his evil was at last at an end - it was time for Velen to return to the Light, and his brother would be coming with him. As the horrible radiance engulfed them both, Kil'jaeden felt it burn through to his very soul. Howling in futile defiance, Kil'jaden was dragged screaming into the Light.
Sidebar - Lords of the Void
Sargeras had once been a great and noble champion of the Pantheon, a being of valor and principle who cherished life and sought to protect it. Tragically, his desire to safeguard the universe was corrupted by his own despair and hopelessness when he was confronted with the terrible reality of the Void. A malevolent evil lay within this most chaotic of dimensions - the Void Lords. Ancient beings of pure darkness and infinite malice, the Void Lords hungered to consume the material universe and transform it into a realm of torment, where every living thing was their eternal slave. The Void Lords were the architects of the Old Gods, and had flung the eldritch abominations into the material universe to seek out and infect nascent Titans so that the Void Lords might use them as vessels, for without a sufficiently powerful vessel to inhabit the Void Lords were trapped in their own dark dimension. Sargeras became convinced that the Void Lords could only be thwarted if the universe were completely unmade - better for all life within it to be annihilated entirely than to exist as playthings of the Void Lords. All nascent Titans would need to be destroyed as well - any that lived were potential pawns of the Void Lords, vectors for the corruption of the Void to spread. Sargeras became utterly convinced of the necessity of his plan, that only the direst of actions could avoid the most terrible of fates. Thus, with this original good intention, Sargeras embarked on his Burning Crusade. With every world destroyed, Sargeras' heart grew more tainted and corrupt, his atrocities justified as necessary to avoid the loathsome chaos of the Void.