Time became fluid.
Alaric couldn't tell if he'd been watching for days or weeks or months. The fortress preparations stretched on in what felt like endless repetition, walls reinforced, formations layered, defensive positions perfected.
Then suddenly everything changed.
The army appeared on the horizon.
Malachai's coalition.
Twenty-three houses. Thousands of soldiers. All organized in formations.
And at their head.
Malachai Drakenmoor stood alone, fifty meters ahead of his assembled forces. His midnight black robes billowed in wind that affected nothing else. His blood-red eyes blazed, casting crimson light across the ground before him.
The power radiating from him was visible. Actual distortions in reality itself, like heat haze made malevolent, warping space around his form.
His voice carried across the distance, existing everywhere simultaneously...
"Here I come, Primordials!"
