As Sapience's Pantheon battled Lanu Du, the demarcation between Prime and Chaos thinned, spawning eldritch monstrosities in the sky that threatened to bleed into Sapience. Drawing upon the pact granted to them by Abhorash as His stewards of Abyssal Chaos, the Hegemonist's Chosen waged war against these forces for over a season, ascending into these breaches time and time again. Beset by the infinite spawn of Chaos, Abhorash's Reavers manifested armies of their own will to engage in battle, carving through the hostile forces of Lahkencai, the Withered Lord, in support of God and Pantheon. Each campaign saw the Hegemony cast down one of the Withered Lord's twisted creations: as a collective, the Order shut the Gaping Maw and dismantled the Clockwork Horror.

With the war progressing, however, each Reaver was individually beset, isolated from their peers as each faced down and ultimately conquered their own abominations. The Whispering Mist was the first to perish thus, its essence stripped clean to nourish Khane's Abyssal brood. Made unrecognisable from a barrage of chaos powered arrows, the Eyeless Whisperer was transformed into nothing but a bloodied mass of hole-filled pulp by Aren. Shredded by Akarn's chaotic soul-wrought blast, the Shifting Limbs were reduced to little more than a bloody, bone-filled mist.

A pitiful whimper accompanied the subjugation of the Infinite Coil as it was broken 'neath the painful perfection of Maeve's magnificent hilunite heel. Gael watched on as his will made manifest sheared the Silent Herald from reality. The Screaming Abyss' innards burst out from its ribcage in wings of gore as it was reduced to an insignificant smudge under the imperious pressure of Azvameth's colossal thumb. Proclaiming that the Writhing Shadows be naught, Elene's manifest disregard unmade its fundamental essence, erasing it utterly from Creation's ineffable weave.

This thinning of Lahkencai's creations set the scene for a confrontation with the Scion of Fundamental Chaos, Lahkencai himself; when that day came, it was ushered in by twin slashes piercing through the increasingly thin veneer betwixt planes, threads shredded with the tremendous momentum of titanic strikes thrown awry.

The blood-soaked edge of Caelestis screamed through the sky as the Warlord plummeted across the firmament, slowly regaining His bearings amidst some monumental strike. Smouldering Odasto carved its path across the heavens as the Hegemonist was likewise cleft through the barrier between planes, stabilising His descent beside the Divine Commander.

The crackling tension of Strife lanced alongside the ravenous aura of Tyranny as the slender pair, each as much a weapon as the blades They wielded, steadied Themselves side by side. Harrowed were the lines that created sculpted brawn and alabaster flesh alike; raging was the bloodlust that seared through eyes of glacier blue and mercurial silver. Strife and Tyranny shared no glance or nod, for none was necessitated.

They flew as one onto the breach once more.

Abhorash sketched unseen patterns through the atmosphere as He flourished His hilunite sword in intricate, whirling manoeuvres, increasing the lethality of His advance. Whorls of domineering strength rippled along the weapon, staining His surroundings crimson. Unconcerned with such theatrics, Bamathis released a raging roar, joined by His domain in this wordless warcry; the thunderclap of countless cavalry, the blast of trumpets, the clash of arms and armour, and the screams of the dying echoed beneath the shattering invocation.

Neither deity spared a glance backward at the now-alien respite of the Prime. They entered the fray once more, and the war upon Chaos was laid bare to witness in Their wake.

Though thinned by the campaign of the Progenitor's Reavers, the Faceless One's horde still sprawled unendingly. Infinitude and possibility formed the imaginations of Chaos, stirring the plane into a stirring morass of willpower made reality. There was no truer example of this than the Withered Lord, mere Nazetu once, now bending Chaos to his whims with a skill that far eclipsed even empowered Divinity: Haern the Hunter, submerged in battle, put this inequality to the test.

Haern leaped into battle with a feral roar of His own, His wargauntlet-clad fists bashing through legions of twisted daydreams. Ripples of Dia'ruian force resounded with every blow, obliterating those minions foolish enough to try and catch Him unawares. With the rabble dispatched, the Lord of the Hunt bounded forward and unhinged His jaw, transforming mere teeth into brutal leonine incisors. Surging toward the eldritch Fundament, the maw snapped forward and began to close, hungry for a chunk of Lanu Du.

Lahkencai intervened before He could close in upon His prey; Haern's teeth blunted and shrank as His body shed mass and bulk, bending into the diminutive form of a chattering chipmunk. The Faceless One's countless protrusions sprayed forward, batting the Wild God's vulnerable form aside.

Next, the Withered Lord turned His sights toward two disparate Deities upon the opposite end of the field, crooking one decrepit finger. Jade and orange light smeared across the horizon of the riotous Chaos realm, chaining Chakrasul and Euthymius together within an incoherent mass of unbound energy. Corruption let loose a scream of frustration and unleashed a churning tide of acidic essence upon Her bindings, though it availed Her naught. The Sacred Heart flickered in a rare display of uncertainty and panic, Their inspiring light smothered by Their shackles.

With sorrow directed toward the dismal state of Morale and Corruption, the Dauntless Goddess flicked Her wrist in a fluid motion, beckoning forth shining tides that crashed down against the shrunken Haern. Cascading liquid engulfed the Hunter, thoroughly drenching Him as the price of His salvation from Slyphe.

The Dauntless turned Her attention toward the grotesque appendages of the Faceless One, each tentacle yet poised to wound the poly-morphed Hunter. She raised Her hands in a gesture of denial, the motion compelling the vastness of elemental excess to obey Her, and so it did. Bound to Silafi's will, a colossal wave emerged from the ether, carving through the liminal space of the chaotic battlefield. It enclosed Haern in a protective, hydrous embrace, thus shielding Him from the maddened Fundament's relentless assaults.

Pleased with these distractions, Lahkencai turned his gaze to the bloodied slaughter unfolding further along the Faceless One's wriggling mass.

Bamathis carved through the endless ranks of the Mad God with Caelestis' burning edge, His martial forms discarded in favour of sheer brutality. He moved like a bellicose whirlwind, His free hand employed only to shove aside the rabble or unleash His Immortal might in tandem with butchery.

Undeterred by the brutality on display, the Withered Lord lifted both his hands, conducting the horrors of chaotic possibility; a tremendous wall of bone sprang up to impede Strife's progress, inspiring a frustrated roar to tear from the Warlord's chest. He hammered into the wall with all His might, its deceptively dense material chipping away into an ivory mist with every titanic strike of His weapon. Lost in rage, engulfed in His need for brutal physicality, Bamathis continued to hammer at the wall, His endless assault sending shudders through Chaos.

Crackling streams of gilded lightning and aurulent fire scythed through the battlefield as Celezor incinerated a path forward toward Lanu Du's horrific heart. Even a single spark of the Accordant Lord's fury cauterised the tentacles, tendrils, and maws in His wake, stymying their endless recuperation. Celezor's conflagrant frame twisted into being beside Morale, His cobalt gaze taking stock of Euthymius' predicament.

One burning hand reached out to His compatriot's bonds, His expression darkening when He identified Chakrasul at the chain's opposite end. Alabaster fire raced down the links, gnawing away at the jade light imbued within them. The Dark Lady hissed in agony as the chalky blaze consumed Her and Morale's bindings in tandem, pure venom reflected in the warning glance She shot toward Celezor. The equal and opposite energies clashed for but a moment before the chains faded to naught, the essence-wrought stalemate broken by the intervention of Light Incarnate.

As Incarnate Madness' foremost servant continually thwarted Sapience's advance upon the Fundament, Tyranny manifested His usurped Chaos about Himself. The God's form bubbled and writhed as the conquered spoils of Abyssal Chaos poured forth, bestowing upon the Progenitor the mantle of a Chaos Lord twice devoured. Marble flesh sloughed away to reveal ebon edifices boiling with masses of tentacles; slick with slime and seething with multitudes of mouths, their pulsating, ever-shifting colours were a thing beyond mortal comprehension. Phosphorescent dots and splotches shined from fungal entities that infected the morphing God's figure, lights and movement ever-visible across His petrified flesh and the grinning rictus of His maw.

Wearing the visage of Hansekkaramnis, the Usurper of Abyssal Chaos stomped into the heart of conjoined bedlam, myriad tentacles flaring out at Lahkencai in challenge.

"At last you reveal your true self, Hansekkaramnis," Lahkencai shouted across the field, absconding his imposition upon the field of Chaos, eagerly falling to meet the challenge of his once-mentor.

With the way clear, the remaining six Gods rallied and pressed forward. Shining strands of jade, alabaster, cerulean, viridian, argent, and orange wove into an impenetrable aegis that guarded Their backs, Their collective might carving the way forward into the Faceless One's heart.

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 12th of Haernos, in the year 4 AC.