"Fergus! No!" With a sharp cry from the bird, Lanlos urged his Strider into the burning village. He gathered a Fireball in his hands faster than ever before. The violently flickering flames seemed to waver with either rage or pain.
Boom!
The Felhound, engrossed in tearing into flesh, never expected a sneak attack. The Fireball blasted its flesh apart, exposing even its ribs.
"No! Fergus, wake up!" Lanlos practically fell straight off the bird's back. He didn't even notice the dirt and blood on himself as he clutched Fergus's mangled corpse tightly in his arms. His pupils trembled unconsciously, growing wide...
His body shook violently, and his pleading voice was filled with despair and grief. "Please... wake up..."
The flames were reflected in his deep blue eyes. Every memory from the past was being burned to ash and torn apart.
The pain was beyond words. He could hardly believe anyone could live through agony this intense. Even what he'd suffered in the Shattered Abyss hadn't been a fraction of this. It felt as if the Felhound were tearing into him, leaving bite marks all over his body, each one piercing to the bone.
As Lanlos held the old man's body, growing colder by the moment, tears so hot they seemed about to boil slid slowly from the corners of his eyes. Mixed with blood and dirt, they fell onto the muddy red earth.
The land where he'd lived for so long...
Impulsiveness was the devil. Lanlos had saved a corpse, but in doing so, he'd thrown himself into the midst of Trolls and demons.
In that situation, retreat had been the right choice. But he couldn't stand by and watch Fergus, who had treated him like family, suffer such a fate. The horrifying sight and his fraying mental defenses had driven him to lose control...
Pain, rage, or hatred? Or perhaps he was simply too cowardly to do anything but seek death? Was death frightening? To him, death was a release, just like last time.
Yet, as he once again surrendered to suffering, he overlooked one thing: in this life, he had something he'd never had before...
Lanlos clutched the remains tightly, shut his eyes, and buried that gaze filled with boundless hatred, anger, and grief deep within himself.
So what if I'm in another world? There's still no place for me here. Maybe I should never have set foot in Azeroth. The Shattered Abyss... what a fitting name for me...
Why? Why run? Why lead the danger elsewhere? What was I hoping for...?
'Fate is unjust!'
Deep in his mind, a slow yet powerful voice spoke each word of the resentment that had echoed across both his lives. There was no time to wonder. Lanlos only felt his chest suddenly tighten. A raging inferno surged and swelled within him, yet could not break through the confines of his chest.
'Accept my power... Take revenge!'
A thunderclap rang out in his mind. Lanlos gave a pained, low growl and instinctively seized the green crystal floating alone in the corner of his consciousness, struck by the assault that pierced his very soul.
It was the Sargerite Keystone!
"Damn it! Where are you, Lance?!" A familiar shout from behind interrupted Lanlos. He suddenly came to his senses and stared at the monsters around him, salivating as they watched. He froze.
Why weren't the demons attacking?
But the question flashed through his mind and vanished. Ilana's wail and Sores's roar made his heart stop.
He turned and saw the innocent elven girl standing behind Sores, a spear thrust straight through her chest.
"No!" As the girl collapsed to the ground, Sores roared so fiercely that Lanlos's eyes nearly burst with rage. But with enemies closing in on all sides, even looking at each other for one more moment was a luxury they couldn't afford!
"Beast! I'll kill you!" Sores kicked aside the Amani Troll blocking his path. As the Troll stumbled, Sores swiftly slashed his curved blade across its throat. With the grating tear of its throat and spine, a hideous head shot into the sky on a geyser of blood.
If it had been one-on-one, Lanlos had every reason to believe the Ranger could defeat his opponent. But this was a war, not a duel.
A streak of black light stood out even in the night. Lanlos tried to warn Sores, but it was already too late.
Sores raised his curved blade to kill the Troll holding a spear. The black light struck his back and sank into him. Almost at once, the blade in his hand grew as heavy as a mountain. The veins bulged across Sores's body, but he couldn't bear the weight. Caught off guard, he was crushed beneath his own weapon.
Curse of Weakness. These Darkpine Troll Warlocks didn't just deal with demons.
Seeing their enemy fall, a nearby Amani Troll immediately roared and thrust its spear at Sores, trying to pin him to the ground, just as it had done to that woman...
Smack!
Things didn't go as planned. A black whip slammed into the Troll, its shadow power tearing through flesh. The soul-deep pain made it howl and stagger backward.
"Mindless savage. This elf is more useful to me alive." Alisa looked scornfully at the Amani warrior trembling beneath her lash, then smiled seductively at Sores, whose heart had turned to ash. "Can't bear to abandon your companion? You mortals are always so foolish."
"Want to save him?" Alisa pointed a slender finger at the dazed Lanlos, putting a heavy emphasis on "him" as if to express her surprise. Sores's bloodshot eyes finally sparked with a glimmer of hope. What kind of hope? That Lanlos would run? That he would fight back? Or anger at Lanlos's recklessness?
Perhaps all of those. Only Sores knew for sure...
"That's right. Hee-hee! I can't get enough of that look." She covered her mouth with a giggle, savoring his inner torment as the Succubus wrapped her whip around his neck and dragged him forward without mercy, ever closer to Lanlos.
"Did you know? The soul hiding in that body is a demon, just like me." Alisa pointed at Lanlos, her smile growing more and more vicious. "He defied his master, betrayed the Burning Legion, and now he's brought destruction to his homeland."
"Just look at all this." She pointed at the scorching flames raging around them. The Succubus's voice gradually grew choked with sobs, and tears streamed down her face as though she truly grieved over Lanlos's "crimes." "He did this. This demon caused it all!"
With a furious swing of her whip, she sent Sores's body sprawling beside Lanlos like a rag doll. The skin on his neck was torn open, covered in countless bloody wounds, and what little strength he had left was fading fast.
"Is... is this... all true?" Despite the pain racking his body, Sores struggled to rise and seized Lanlos by the collar. "Is it true?"
What could he say? Admit it? Struggle to explain? No. That wasn't what Sores wanted. He wanted Lanlos to deny it with conviction. He wanted this close friend of his to become the last hope sustaining him in such a desperate situation.
But his hope...
Lanlos didn't reply. He simply stared blankly at Ilana's corpse and Sores, whose life was hanging by a thread. The shrill laughter of Trolls and demons rang out around him. His impulsiveness, his cowardice, his conceit—all of it crumbled beneath their undisguised mockery.
He still hadn't achieved a thing. Once again, he had lost everything.
Sores knew he would never get the answer he wanted. The eyes that had once shone with a light he couldn't understand, eyes beautiful enough to make him jealous, had lost all their luster. They were now as lifeless as an empty shell. The elf who had such unique views on Quel'Thalas and the world, who could chat and laugh with people even while leaning on a cane, the boy whose eyes lit up whenever he picked up a book—all of him had disappeared.
He wasn't hiding. He was just like the Lanlos who had once been declared dead: lifeless, a corpse. Fate had long since decided the end of this body and soul. He hadn't escaped it in his previous life. In this one, he'd thought he could fight back, but the cost had nearly broken him. He'd surrendered. He'd accepted his fate.
"Ha... hahaha..." Sores laughed like a madman, his bloodshot eyes nearly dripping blood.
"Lanlos!" The Ranger clung to his wrist and shouted his name with all his strength. "You're not fit to be a demon now, and you don't deserve to be Quel'dorei!"
Tears mixed with blood flew wildly across the retired Ranger's face. Pain? Grief? Regret? None of those. Lanlos vaguely recognized what it was. He'd once possessed it, but in the end he'd laid it down and surrendered before fate...
Squish!
As the boy stood dazed, Sores plunged his curved blade into his own chest, swift and deadly.
"Quel'dorei... would rather die... than submit! Lanlos..." Scarlet blood poured from his mouth. It took Lanlos a long time to make out his slurred words. "Anar'alah... belore... (In the name of the Sun)"
All the boy could see was a blinding scarlet. Blood, which should have made him recoil, looked instead like gasoline igniting a spark.
Almost at the same time, that deafening voice thundered in his mind once more.
'Destruction...'
'Or rebirth...'
Revenge?
Revenge!
Whoosh!
A gale suddenly rose around them. The air seemed to fear something at the center of it. It was fleeing, escaping the area!
Like the frigid winds of Northrend sweeping across their souls, Tregra and the Amani Trolls with him shuddered. They turned their gazes toward the Warlocks and their demonic minions. There, Kergash and his Succubus wore identical smiles—smiles of triumph.
Unconcerned by the changes around him, Lanlos reached out and closed Sores's furious eyes. In a daze, he murmured, "Would rather die than submit? Would rather die than submit? Would rather die than submit!"
Ha! If there was no escaping it, then bring it on, demon!
Ding!
Deep within his soul, the long-silent Keystone rang out. It was impossible to tell whether it was rejoicing or sharing his fury.
Green Fel flames devoured the blood and seared the flesh. Chaotic energy, like a ravenous beast, savaged this unfamiliar body. Starved for ages, it finally burst from its cage, instinctively turning everything into fuel. It craved chaos. It devoured whatever it could find. It blazed fiercely, determined to melt the shackles of fate and leave nothing but scorched earth in this ridiculous world.
Compared to the torment of his soul, the insignificant pain in his body drove Lanlos to a crazed, manic laugh. A streak of green light suddenly bloomed from the hand covering the Ranger's eyes, slithering into his skin like countless little snakes.
'Cataclysm, sacrifice, and at last, burning...'
The shrill, sinister laughter grew hoarser, quickly becoming the low growl of some savage beast, tinged with the terrifying wails of vengeful ghosts. At the same time, Sores's body visibly shrank and rotted away, then vanished in a burst of ominous Fel fire, leaving only his clothes behind, with even the bloodstains gone.
Fed by soul and flesh, the ever-brighter chaotic energy surged joyfully into Lanlos. His flesh roared, his soul howled, and power burst forth from his innermost organs.
Emerald flames ignited in his eyes. His wild, untamed soul seemed ready to leap out of them. A savage grin stretched almost to his ears, distorting the boy's once-handsome face beyond recognition. He swept his gaze over the Trolls cowed by his power, fixing every ugly, brutish face in his blazing eyes.
Blood for blood!
BOOM—
Scorching air surged around Lanlos. Vast quantities of Fel energy gathered and churned over him like flames in a pile of kindling, lashing out, swelling, and roaring in the gale, as if they could hardly wait to burn everything to ash and destroy it all.
"What are you doing?!" Tregra, shaken into a cold sweat by the sight, turned to seek advice from the others. But he saw Kergash silently leading a group of demonic minions out of the village. Tregra shouted at him, only to draw the attention of the burning elf.
When their eyes met, the Fel fire scorching Lanlos's gaze made every hair on Tregra's body stand on end. His battle-honed instincts screamed at him.
Run! Run now!
"What... is this?"
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