The moment the Supreme King made his decision, heaven and earth fell silent.
Even the rumbling from the distant Present Realm became insignificant. Everything seemed like dust, and only the stooped Storm High Priest beneath the throne raised his head.
On the withered shell of a body that had endured torment through countless eras, fervor overflowed from his wrinkled face. He struck the great drum before him and hoarsely proclaimed to the hell before his eyes:
"By the Sovereign's command, advance!"
In the distance, dozens of half-kneeling Gnome Kings bowed reverently, raised their heads, and turned toward the battlefield. Before them, heralds brandished lightning and cried out in wild delight toward hell: "Advance!"
Ahead of them, ranks of pitch-black legions, like statues, suddenly shuddered. They raised their long spears and blades, roaring, "Advance!!"
Fire flared up, stretching from the abyss and racing across the earth like a gale. The cries blew toward the Present Realm, shouting forth the will of the King of Hell: "Advance!!!"
The cries rolled like mountains collapsing and seas surging.
The earth wailed its praises, the sky sang aloud, and ten-thousand-foot Brilliant Light shot from within Disaster Cloud. Countless flames spread through the fissures in the land.
Those innumerable howls overlapped, becoming a cry from the abyss: "Advance! Advance!! Advance!!!"
Thus, thunder served as proclamation and destruction as scripture.
Driven by countless frozen souls, the King of Hell's decree moved between heaven and earth, becoming an iron law that could not be defied—natural law, like the rising sun, setting moon, and ebb and flow of the tides.
Lord of Cold Blood, Lord of Tide Moon, Lord of Rock Dwelling... the Gnome Kings emerged from fleeting flashes of catastrophic lightning and stepped, one by one, toward the Present Realm.
The Descendants of Giants marched across land reduced