The rift in the sky looked like a festering wound. At first it was only a fine gray line, then it tore open in a burst of unspeakable agony. The clouds turned a putrid dark purple, their edges glowing lava-red like charred organs.
The warriors of the Blackwatch Legion formed a steel dam at the pass. In the front rank, heavily armored soldiers wore runed Plate Armor, the patterns on their long shields stained an eerie purple by the sky.
Behind them, the dark blue robes of the Mage Corps surged like an undercurrent. Arcana crystals floated above their Staff tips, and the Magic Power gathering within them sent ripples through the air.
Their very presence struck fear into living things. It was harder still to imagine what kind of enemy such a legion had come to stop.
The Gray Tide rose from the far horizon.
At first, it looked like a fleeting trace of sunset after dusk. Then it took shape across the land, clinging to the ground like the darkness left behind when the sun vanished, stripping the world of color.
A suffocating surge rolled in from afar—not the crash of waves, but the sound of a million sheets of sandpaper scraping rusty blades, as though some colossal beast were gnawing on the spine of the world.
A tide made entirely of Ratfolk churned and crowded forward. It washed against the rock walls of the pass, throwing up wave after wave of Ratfolk as it climbed higher.
The difference in elevation was swiftly erased. Against a Rat Tide of this scale, terrain was a joke.
The Hellfire Legion, the Musketeer Legion, the Disciplinary Legion... Had they been here, they would not have raised so much as a ripple.
"Hold back the Rat Tide until Dawn!"
The Legion Commander's