*Day 28 - The Last Alliance*
The world gathered to die.
Thirty thousand souls converged on the Iron Plains—dwarves with axes that sang of death, Sylvani with living bows that wept resin, humans clutching useless swords, Kytinn calculating zero probability of victory but marching anyway. Above, eighteen dragons flew in formations not used since the First War.
Ora stood on the hill, corruption pulsing stronger than ever. She could feel Vorgoth now, a shadow at her mind's edge. They were drawing each other in—ingredient and recipe, destiny and choice.
Kaelen brought her the mirror. Forged from the Prima Fragment, it showed not her corrupted face but Lyra's. Every lost memory of her sister, captured and preserved.
"So when you make the final choice," he said, "you'll remember what you're fighting for."
Malakor had modified her blades. "They can cut more than flesh now. They can sever the connections Vorgoth uses to control. If you can reach the machine's heart..."
"I can free the Death Angels." She understood. "But there's no return."
"We're all coming with you," Seraphina said firmly.
Before Ora could protest, the sky tore open. Not like when dragons came—worse. The Prima bleeding through. Pieces of unformed possibility fell like rain, becoming impossible things. An upward-flowing lake. A tree growing backward. Reality itself becoming negotiable.
"We march now," Marcus declared. "Every moment we wait, Vorgoth grows stronger and reality grows weaker."
The army roared—not confidence, but defiance. The roar of the damned who march anyway.
---
*Day 29 - The Southern Desolations*
The ground shouldn't exist like this.
Ora walked on sand that was glass that was ash that was nameless substance. Each step changed the matter beneath her feet. The Desolations had always been dangerous—deadlands from the First War—but now they were worse. Vorgoth's God-Eater was already influencing the world, and it wasn't even fully active.
"The terrain's getting worse," Kaelen said, his stability-runed boots occasionally sinking into pieces of reality that forgot to be solid.
Ora placed her hand on the ground. Corruption flowed from her, not to destroy but to anchor. Where she touched, the ground stopped changing. Became simply earth. Dead, but stable.
"You're using corruption to create order," Kaelen whispered in amazement.
"Company incoming," Aetherios called from above.
Hundreds of corrupted emerged like ants from a disturbed nest. But these were wrong even by Vorgoth's standards. Their forms shifted constantly, influenced by reality's instability around them.
The battle was chaos. Ground changed beneath them. Enemies ignored physics. Reality itself was the enemy.
Then Vorgoth appeared—not in person, but a projection made of the same unstable substance as the corrupted. Beautiful and terrible, with the Prima itself in his eyes.
"Come to complete your destiny, Ora of Crysillia?"
"I've come to end yours."
Vorgoth laughed. "You don't understand. You are my destiny. Every choice you've made brought you exactly where I need you."
The corrupted attacked with renewed ferocity. For every enemy that fell, two appeared. The ground grew increasingly unstable.
Then Seraphina screamed.
A corrupted had struck her. Not fatally, but bright green blood flowed—pure elven blood.
Something in Ora broke. Or fixed itself.
Corruption exploded from her in a wave that made reality tremble. But it wasn't random destruction—it was creation. Where the wave passed, ground stabilized completely. The unstable corrupted became solid, vulnerable to normal weapons.
"ENOUGH."
The word wasn't shouted. It was imposed on reality.
The corrupted stopped. Vorgoth's projection flickered.
"Interesting. You're learning to use corruption not just to destroy, but to redefine. You're becoming what I hoped."
"I'm becoming your end."
"We'll see. The fortress is two days' march. I'll wait. And Ora? Bring everyone. I want a complete audience for the new world's birth."
---
*Day 30 - The Traitor Revealed*
The discovery happened by accident. Kaelen was studying ancient texts when blood dripped onto the page. Not his blood—it came from above, where a crow perched.
But crows don't bleed silver.
The construct spoke with metallic voice: "Calculation complete. Victory probability is zero. Survival requires adaptation."
"K'tharax," Ora said coldly. "Show your true face."
The Kytinn commander emerged from shadow, compound eyes reflecting firelight in a thousand fragments.
"You made a deal with Vorgoth."
"I made a calculation. My species' survival against mathematical certainty of defeat. The choice was logical."
"And the price?"
"Information. Weaknesses. The best moment to strike. And you. Alive, at the right time."
The camp erupted. Three thousand Kytinn suddenly seemed less like allies, more like threats.
"Why confess now?" Kaelen asked.
"Because my calculations encountered a variable they cannot process." K'tharax pointed at Seraphina. "Her. When she healed the enemy's weapon. When she chose compassion over logic. My calculations... broke."
Ora studied him. The corruption whispered to kill him, make an example. But there was opportunity here.
"You have a communication channel with Vorgoth?"
"Yes. Hidden through the Lower Web."
"Your warriors will follow you?"
K'tharax looked at the gathered Kytinn. Some raised weapons, others remained still. "Some. We are... divided."
"Then choose! All of you! Now, here, before everyone!" Ora raised her voice. "Who stands with Vorgoth, go. We won't stop you. But go now, and don't return."
About five hundred Kytinn walked away without a word. The remaining twenty-five hundred stayed, their compound eyes fixed on K'tharax.
"Why remain?" their commander asked.
One answered: "Because we want to see what happens when the impossible meets the inevitable. It's... interesting."
"I offer new information," K'tharax said. "Vorgoth doesn't expect you to reach the fortress. He's prepared a killing field one day's march from here. Plans to destroy the army and take you alone."
"Then we'll go around—"
"No. There's another way. A passage through the Lower Web. Dangerous—reality is even thinner there. But we'd emerge behind the trap, half a day from the fortress."
They divided the forces. Twenty thousand chose the secret passage with K'tharax. Ten thousand, mostly dwarves who distrusted the unstable Lower Web, chose the direct route.
"Why trust me?" K'tharax asked Ora.
She looked at the calculating mind that had made an impossible choice.
"Because in my experience, repentant traitors are the most reliable allies. They've already paid the price of betrayal. They can't afford to pay it again."
The Lower Web entrance opened like a wound in the world. Twenty thousand souls entered, not knowing if they'd ever emerge.
But they entered anyway.
Because choice, even potentially fatal choice, was better than inevitability.
And somewhere in the south, Vorgoth waited, unaware his traitor had become a traitor twice over.
Or maybe he knew.
With Vorgoth, it was impossible to tell what was planned and what was unforeseen.
The end was approaching rapidly. And with it, the final test of what they were willing to become to win—and what they were willing to lose.
---