The Worldeater Saga, Part XX: Bloody Conquest
In the final hours of the two-hundred-and-twenty-second day of the Creators’ Monomachy, the Hegemonist summoned Maeve and Paxe to His side and charged them with collecting a crucial catalyst for Bloodloch’s forthcoming siege. From the subsumed base of Abyssal Chaos, He carved a rift to unexplored facets of the primordial plane; without delay, His two loyall servants jumped to the task and stepped forward upon a journey that took them through myriad exotic realms within the plane’s endless expanse.
Choosing for the most part to conquer rather than negotiate – including the utterly heartless razing of a perfect Utopian society – the two carved a cruel swathe through each metaphysical pocket and claimed the essence expelled in the bloody aftermath. Several realms fell before their might, culminating in a fight with Maladrek, a powerful Chaos Lord presiding over a realm of utter pestilence.
Calling forth deadly plagues both alien and familiar, the dangerous being fought with malicious brutality, staved off only by Maeve’s increasingly reckless use of Tyranny’s immortal power to quell the diseases swarming around her and her companion. Though they battled sickening Maladrek with all the frenzied fury they could muster, a decisive blow eventually secured Paxe’s downfall. Stricken by an agonising blood curse under the Chaos Lord’s control, the sanity and self of Abhorash’s Reaver began to unravel.
While Paxe struggled with the ancient curse stirring within her veins, Maeve turned once more to the well of Tyranny afforded to the Hegemonist’s Conqueror; too far this time, however, as her control slipped and the conduit burned out, leaving the pair well and truly alone at the mercy of pestilence. With one succumbing to the torment of the blood curse and the other left a hollowed husk by the severed connection to her God, the spectre of defeat loomed heavy upon Tyranny’s disciples.
Not for nothing was this duo chosen, however, as each refused to accept the grim fate scribed for them. Reaching into the deepest recesses of her resolve, Paxe peeled back the agony excavating the caverns of her sanity, and curse became gift as it was bent to her dominion. Simultaneously, Maeve refused to accept the emptiness: clawing with impassioned desperation, the Conqueror pried the conduit open once more, unlimited, unrestrained.
Thus did the twin ascended unwrite the tale of oblivion consigned to them, Nocturn and Tyranny’s Adherent rising in unison to face down their would-be vanquisher. Wielding the visceral potency of blood alongside despotic might, the two vanquished Maladrek and claimed his bountiful essence, the final piece of the puzzle to unlock Abhorash’s machinations. With the overseer of this realm slain, the two set forth to rejoin the Sanguine Fist on the eve of its bloody triumph, tearing a breach from Chaos back onto the Prime.
As these two ascendants toiled in the name of their God, Drakkenmont’s designs became evident…
Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 4th of Variach, in the year 512 MA.
