For the Hate of God

When the reason dreams monsters come forth

Kandreah’s POV

We haven’t yet passed the Mortherra, the bridge between Morsburg and Waltherra. No, more precisely, we haven’t moved an inch from where we were after Morsanctu was defeated. We are seriously struggling to advance as Azabrahs are wreaking havoc amongst our soldiers without even laying a finger on our fighting forces. Thersar, Malleteagan and I merged our powers to make a protective cloak around us, Nexelex and ranked warriors of our allied forces. If it were any different situation than this, I would say that our cloak was spectacular, merging Thersar’s dark magic and mine, together with Malletegan moonlight haze tendrils of power in one magnificent armour. However, there was no time for gloating and admiring the armour. Our low-ranked warriors were taking the greatest brunt of Azabrah’s silent and motionless attack. The four of us stood there in what would seem as a stoic and static observation of Azabrah's clash with our warriors. But we were actually assessing and strategising. We were trying to find weaknesses of Azabrahs and tactics for attack.

The scenery before us was horrendous, the one of absolute mayhem. We silently and helplessly watched a maelstrom of omegas, lesser faes, and lower-ranked dwarves on their knees, yelping, wailing, thrashing and begging for mercy as they clutched their heads in anguish and despair. We knew that Azabrahs were using the greatest fears of warriors against them in a bid to shatter their spirits, break their will and take away their souls. This is how they usually operate. Warriors were screaming the names of their mates, children and parents before they went completely silent as imagery of their greatest fears played before their eyes. And that moment of silence was even more ominous. I have told Malleteagan to try to command his warriors to resist Azabrah’s compulsion but to no avail. Even his Lycan Alpha command was proven futile against Azabrah’s compelling abilities. I have then looked at my warriors being shattered as well. They were destroyed by their own fears straight in front of my eyes. They are my creation. I made them, and that makes them my family. Again, Wengarthrians are taking away my loved ones from me. In a brazen foray, someone dared to shatter and break them in front of my eyes. They did so without moving a finger. All the warriors we sent to the frontline stood motionless as if their feet were buried beneath the ground. They stood frozen with fear clearly displayed in their eyes, which were wide open, dull and deadpan as if time stopped. We were the only ones moving, but we were under the safety of our cloak. Well, they are not exactly the only ones moving. Azabrahs sprung forward towards paralysed low-rank soldiers and stuck their talons into their chests. The souls of our fallen soldiers siphoned and slivered in Azabrah’s, along with the hearts which were ripped out of their ribcages. And then, in a moment of epiphany, it clicked to me.

When the reason dreams monsters come forth. Our warriors were not battling against the Azabrahs but against their own inner monsters' fears and themselves. And this is the hardest battle to face. Is there a greater fear of the living soul than the fear of death? Some of them were dreading their own death and mortality, while some dreaded the death of their loved ones. Still, all of them had something in common: a panic fright of death. We have lost almost two thousand warriors in total since the beginning of our attack on Wengarthria. Most of them fell during the raid of Azabrahs.

But, fear of death is not more powerful than the death itself. Or is it? Death is the only constant that has surrounded us since the beginning of time. Then, does that mean that I can face and defeat Azabrahs? For I am the one who is dead, an unliving creature who can hardly die. Who could be better than me to suffocate the fear of death than me? Who is more invited to defeat Azabrahs than myself? The unliving soul with necromancy, the power of death etched within my core. Because, at the end of the day, necromancy is grounded on the summoning of the death magic. The one who lost his soul. The one who lost the love of his life, the one who can manipulate death, time and necromancy, has no fear. But..have I lost my soul? I thought as I watched my lower vampires being tormented, as well as other warriors. Souls of my warriors were vanishing in the whirl of dust, together with souls of fallen omegas, light faes and dwarves. However, unlike light faes, Lycans and dwarves whose limp, lifeless bodies would fall in the battleground, my vampires would just cease to exist. There is no trace that they have ever existed, just like that. Anger and bile flurried through me, and I felt necromancy magic starting to flare up and writhe within me, threatening and begging to burst out of me. Not yet, not yet. I have to think this through before I attack.

My ability to manipulate the time is minimal and basic. I can stop, speed up or slow the time, but not for long. That means I would need to plan my steps very well and calculate attack timing wisely and carefully. And I intend to do just that.

“Send more low-ranked warriors. All of you.” I said. Malleteagan looked at me like I was insane. He was royally pissed off with me.

“Are you out of your mind?! We need to think these through and agree on the tactics. I have just lost five hundred warriors. That means five hundred families are ruined, Kandreah! I am not sending them into certain death without a plan in place.” he said with annoyance in his loud and clear voice.

“Look, Malleteagan, are you in it or not? You will have to trust me a bit more than you do at the moment. You have been unhelpful and mistrustful since the very beginning. Sending them to the front is part of the plan. I will send my warriors too, and Nexelex and Thersar will do the same.” I turned around for a second and saw indecisive Nexelex and Thersar.

I gave them a stern look and asked: “You trust me, right? And you will send off your soldiers, right?” Thersar and Nexelex were silent for a few long moments but eventually nodded their heads somewhat reluctantly thought. We sent another group of warriors to the front. Azabrahs looked at them with a greedy grin. And a new bout of warriors was just about to fall on their knees when I did it.

With the click of my fingers, everything stopped. Everyone around me seemed to be frozen in time. Malleteagan‘s face was a mixture of rage, shock, and worry for his warriors. Thersar’s and Nexelex’s faces mimicked the same emotions. I calmly but swiftly went to the joint protective cloak and made the crack in it with my finger. The crack was big enough to allow me to walk out of the cloak. As I left the armour, I walked straight into the crowd of Azabrahs. They were as frozen as everyone else on the battlefield.

They were still looking at the warriors with a wicked grin on their faces. However, they could not act upon their vile plans as they were frozen in time. Same as vampires and other warriors. I saw the hunger for more souls in the eyes of Azabrahs. They wanted to devour and syphon more souls. They tried to steal the souls of my creations away from me. Anger possessed me. Necromancy energy rippled, surged and swirled in a thick smoke around me. And then, in a flash of unrefined rage, I released it towards Azabrahs, intending to sla.sh and slay bastards here and now. Vampires are my children, and no one is taking what is mine away from me. Well, at least not anymore. The bitter memory of how Minthe had even taken away from me flew to my mind. Not anymore. No one will take away from me what is mine—especially not detestable Wengarthrians.

They have already taken too much from me. They have deprived me of too much. No, they have taken all from me. They have taken the most sacred away from me. And now, in a token of my most spiteful, righteous and revengeful duty to protect my race, my children, I am going to destroy them. All of them. My necromancy burst straight into Azabrahs, but although they still remained frozen in time, it seemed that it didn’t affect them at all. What a f**k? How is this possible? Time is ticking away, and I need to find a strategy to destroy them quickly if I don’t want to end up like our fallen warriors. I cannot halt the time for much longer, so I need to find a way to destroy them. And I need to do so quickly.