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Ward History

Learn more about the origins of the world of WARD.

the first age saga

Birth of a Universe

the undead invasion saga

Return of the Damned

world of the orcs saga

Rise of the Cabal War Chief

Chapter 1 - Questions in the Dark

In the beginning, there was nothing. Only a vast, colorless emptiness. Then suddenly, a consciousness began to manifest. This consciousness was an infinite and omnipotent being.

The consciousness did something that had never been done before. He formed the first thought. His first thought consisted of a very simple question: What? This thought then began to grow into an idea, and from that idea sprang a plan, a plan to create a universe in which he could live with others. Others maybe like him, or others not like him. He desired anything but the emptiness of the void in which he currently resided.

Millions of years passed as the Creator lay in the void thinking. Suddenly, from his thoughts formed an object. A simple object, but an object formed from mere thought. The object resembled a sphere. The sphere was not alive, did not move, and could not interact with him. This did not bother the consciousness. He did not care if the sphere was a simple creation. He was exhilarated that there was now something in this void. It was at this point that the consciousness became The Creator.

As time passed on, the Creator began to form other simple objects. He created more spheres, and other variations of that sphere. As he concentrated harder, one of his spheres began to erupt in a bright light. This did not frighten the Creator, for fear was not yet an aspect of the universe. He was intrigued by this discovery. The empty void that he had loomed in for so long now had light, and from that light came shadow. And from that shadow, something began to form.

The shadow formed a physical being of darkness. It had no name and no words, but the Creator could sense that this being was conscious, like him. The Creator felt the first feeling of excitement in the universe. He tried to interact with this new physical being, but he was not sure how to perform such an act. The Creator then thought hard about the form this being now took. In his concentration, he created for himself a physical body like the creature.

Now that the Creator had a physical body, he was able to speak with the being. He asked what it called itself. The being did not respond. The Creator asked the being if it had existed as long as he had. Still no response. The being only stared at the Creator with its horrible, glowing eyes.

The Creator then tried to show the being how he created objects. He formed a pyramid in his hand and held it out to the being. The being hesitated for a moment, then took the pyramid from the Creator and held it out in front of itself. The being then clenched its horrible, clawed hand into a fist and destroyed the pyramid. The Creator was in shock at this act, for he did not understand what destruction was, or why anyone would destroy anything.

The being let out a loud, horrific cry of pure terror, as if all the horrible sounds of the universe were wrapped into one single shout. It then began to jump from object to object that the Creator had spent so many years creating, destroying them one by one. The Creator had never fathomed the idea of destruction.

It was at this moment that the Creator felt a new feeling that had not yet existed: rage. And in the Creator’s rage, he manifested a new being, a colossal, metallic, titan. The Titan saw the destruction the evil being was causing, and the anguish it brought upon his Creator.

The Titan then lunged toward the being and grabbed him by the throat. The being clawed at the Titan, forcing him to loosen his grip. A battle ensued between the two beings. The Creator sat and watched as the battle resulted in devastating explosions and destruction.

Seeing that the Titan was not helping protect his precious creations, the Creator then manifested himself into a size that words cannot explain. He grabbed hold of the evil being and expelled him from his universe to remain for all time. He named this other universe Hell.

The Creator then returned to the Titan and ordered him to protect his creation. If the creature, now known as the Cosmic Demon, were to return, the Titan would spend eternity destroying it and sending it back to Hell. The being looked to the Creator, then fled off into the blackness of the void, becoming The Eternal Titan.

Another several million years passed. During this time, the Creator constructed what is known as the cosmos, infinite space of stars, planets, and dust. The Creator determined that he needed to manifest something that would make his universe cycle and live. He then created time. With time, his universe began to take shape and flow.

With many years of construction behind him, the Creator determined that he would allow life to thrive on his massive planets. He constructed the air, water, earth, and fire. From there, he placed these planets close enough to his stars for life to grow in the warmth of his first creations.

The Creator watched as life began to sprout across his worlds. At first, it was simple creatures, some moving through the water, others skittering across the ground. He moved from planet to planet, examining the new life that was forming. It varied from world to world, but one in particular piqued his interest.

A small planet in one of his lesser galaxies. The life there was different. Colossal, scaly beasts roamed, and the sound of thunder followed when they moved. He decided to take a closer look at this world. The creatures he observed ate the plant life and drank from the streams. They seemed to enjoy the warm climate and moist air. They were all peaceful until he heard a terrible roar.

A ferocious version of one of these beasts sprang from the jungle and killed the peaceful one with a strong bite of its razor-toothed jaw. He watched as the beast devoured the creature to sustain its own life. The creature was as large as a tree, and a tyrant amongst the other creatures. He named these titanic creatures Dinosaurs.

The Creator saw promise in this interesting world and wanted to protect its natural balance. This would allow him to observe it throughout the years. He named it WARD in honor of the protection he would leave over it.

He fashioned beings of pure light that he called Angels. The Angels were charged with the protection of Ward, but were strictly instructed not to interfere with the natural order of the world itself.

After creating the Angels, the Creator left. He moved on to create many more worlds like Ward, hoping to fill his universe with life.

Many years after the Creator left Ward, the dinosaurs ruled unopposed. The plants grew, herbivores ate the plants, the predators ate the herbivores, and then died, allowing the plants to feed off their corpses. During this time, there was evidence of very primitive humans that existed in small tribes. They kept to the caves and stayed away from the beasts that roamed the land.

At this point in history, a new creature emerged. It is not fully known whether these beasts were created, or evolved from the dinosaurs. All that is known is that before the dragons, Ward was a simple, yet brutal, world.

The first to emerge were the Red Dragons. These fearsome flying machines of destruction bore the appearance of carnivorous dinosaurs, but sprouted gigantic, bat-like, scaly wings and donned a similar appearance to serpents. They could breathe fire hot enough to melt steel, and possessed an intellect not yet witnessed. They were able to speak to one another in their own tongue and strategize attacks against the dinosaurs.

For years, war laid siege to the planet. The dinosaurs slowly became fewer and fewer. During the war, other dragon species began to emerge. Swamp Dragons, Blue Dragons, and even Dragons so intelligent that they developed psychic powers.

Even with the intellect of the dragons, there were several dinosaurs they had trouble contending with. The Tyrannosaurus Rex seemed not to fear the dragons, but instead would catch those that ventured too close to the ground and feed on them as though they were any other beast. The Raptor moved in large packs and ambushed dragons that were sleeping or caught off guard. The Allosaurus devastated the Red Dragons with razor-sharp teeth and claws.

Of all the dinosaurs, there was one that the dragons dared not engage, the Giganotosaurus, or Giga. These creatures were taller than the trees in the forest and stronger than a hurricane. It was not intelligent like a dragon, but he was an incredibly cunning predator.

He was so large that he could snatch dragons flying at lower altitudes and kill them before they even knew he was there. His skin was tough enough to withstand even Red Dragon fire.

During this period, the Eternal Titan came to Ward while tracking the Cosmic Demon. During this time, he fought with the Giga and was physically overpowered by the fearsome dino. He managed to subdue it long enough to retreat back into the cosmos. The dragons learned of this battle and began to devise a new plan.

The Dragons could not win a physical fight with the dinosaurs, so they used their intellect to destroy them. The dragons began killing all the herbivores and weaker dinosaurs to the point of near extinction. They then avoided the predator dinosaurs so the predators could not feed on them. This caused the dinosaur numbers to dwindle to the point of near extinction. The dragons then began their reign as the apex of Ward. To this day, the dragons avoid certain dinosaurs.

For many years, the dragons ruled Ward. For many years, they flourished. Each species carved out its own territory of the world and lived well. Swamp Dragons ruled the marshes, Blue Dragons ruled the frozen north, Dragon Foxes stayed to the caves focusing on their psychic abilities, and the Red Dragons ruled over all the rest.

During this time, a rip in space and time opened in one of the swamps. Out of the rift poured thousands of demons from the dimension of Hell. Leading this army was a being known as The Demon King.

The Swamp Dragons were the first to battle these horrific creatures. They slew many demons, but their power was no match for the Demon King. He killed most of them, and corrupted the others.

The demon army ripped across Ward, killing any creature in its path. The Red Dragons responded to this terror and did battle with the Demon King on the great open plains, now known as the Plains of Black Flame. Thousands of demons were scorched, and hundreds of dragons were slain.

The battle seemed to be in the favor of the Demon King, until a loud thunder was heard from the nearby forest. The battle stopped, and for a brief moment both sides felt the same fear. The demons feared the unknown sounds, and the dragons feared what they knew was a Giga roaming toward the plains. The Dragons took flight, high out of the Giga’s reach. The Demon King ordered the attack of the Giga, and watched as nearly his entire army was depleted by the savage wild beast.

The dragons saw their opportunity. They flew in close and scorched the entire battlefield with red flame. The Demon King was in a losing position, but he had a plan. At that moment, he used the souls of the fallen dragons to rip a larger hole into Hell, and from this rift came the Cosmic Demon.

The Cosmic Demon laid waste to the remaining dragons, forcing them to retreat. He then turned his attention to the Giga, which was still wreaking havoc upon the lesser demons, and engaged the creature. Though he appeared to be physically outmatched, the Cosmic Demon was able to use his negative energy to force the beast away.

Following the defeat on the plains, the Red Dragons retreated to the mountains to formulate a plan. There were many ideas, and many harsh words, but no strategy.

During their planning, the demon army continued to pillage across Ward. Corruption, blood, and fire spread. All hope seemed lost. Then, from the flames of corruption, a being was born, a godlike being made of fire.

This Fire God showed no love for the demon army that birthed him. He swept through the armies of crude weapons and gnashing teeth. Nothing seemed able to stop him. He commanded the very essence of fire as though he were the embodiment of all flame that had ever existed.

The Cosmic Demon engaged the Fire God. This conflict caused volcanoes to erupt, the sky to blacken, and the earth to quake. This battle would have caused the very planet beneath them to explode if not stopped.

With the impending doom of Ward at stake, a flash of light exploded from the sky, and from that light came the Angels. The Angels used their holy power, bestowed upon them by the Creator, to interject.

The dragons watched from the distant mountains. Fire, corruption, and light engulfed the horizon. They had never felt anything like this before, a power terrible enough to frighten dragons. The dragon elders decided they would stay away from the battle until one of the beings was destroyed. But a small group of Red Dragons betrayed the commands of their elders and flew into the battle.

The dragons entered the battle and began scorching the demon army. Many died to the might of the Demon King, but with every breath of fire, the Fire God grew more powerful. The Angels used their angelic power to cleanse the demons.

The battle raged on for two days and two nights. No victory could be achieved by any faction. Finally, the Angels channeled the power of the Creator himself and ripped open a portal to Hell. With the portal opened, the dragons, angels, and Fire God combined their power to drive the Cosmic Demon and his army into Hell. The remaining demons that managed to avoid being driven into the portal fled from the battle and into hiding. Now leaderless and scattered, the demonic threat was quelled.

After the defeat of the demon army, the Fire God fled deep into Char Rock Volcano, where he slumbered until Ward would burn again.

The dragons that joined the battle found their scales charred by the flames of the Fire God. They flew far from their dragon brethren and became the first of the Black Dragons.

The Angels had protected Ward, as they had been charged to do, but they were unable to fully close the Hell Gate that had been opened by the Demon King. They erected the Citadel of Agony, a colossal white structure of angelic power. Years of demonic corruption from the Hell Gate would slowly turn the citadel black as night. After erecting the Citadel of Agony, the Angels returned to the heavens.

With the end of the first appearance of the demons upon Ward, the planet seemed quiet. The dragons continued to rule from their high mountain peaks. Some Black Dragons returned to Char Rock Volcano to live among the heat of the Fire God.

Small skirmishes occurred between the different dragon factions, and the occasional dinosaur, but for the remainder of many years, Ward was at peace.

Thousands of years passed, and Ward grew silent. But even silence can be the loudest echo. Over the years, the corruption from the Hell Gate, and the remnants of angelic light, surged with new life.

No one is certain how the mortals of Ward came to be, but many years after the Demon King tore a hole into Ward, new intelligent humanoid races began to emerge.

Elves were the first of these races. They were born from the light of the Angels. They kept mostly to the wooded areas of the world and formed societies with nature. They worshipped nature as though it were a god.

With the Elves came another race, the Dark Elves. These beings were formed from the corruption left behind by the demons. They also stayed to the forests, but lived among the darker creatures of Ward. They were known to worship the night, and they hated their light-skinned counterparts.

For years, both races of elves battled over plots of territory in the forest. Back and forth they exchanged land. The Dark Elves began to tame the scurrying spiders of the forest to aid them, whereas the Elves allied themselves with the Giant Eagles that streaked across the skies.

During this time, other creatures also began to arise in the world. Birds took to the skies, crawling things scurried across the earth, animals drank from the rivers, and beasts hunted one another. The first reported appearance of the Owlverine was during this age, though even to this day, he is considered myth.

Another race arose from the angelic and demonic powers left behind: Man. Man is a product of both light and dark. He is capable of great good, and terrible evil.

With the emergence of man came the need to worship. A being known only as The Old God arrived upon Ward and demanded the worship of all mortals. Man, being a young race, bowed to the Old God and erected great structures in his name.

With the help of the Old God, man spread far and wide. They started as small, warring tribes among themselves until the Old God bestowed upon one man the title of King. Now, with a leader, man formed together into a great nation. The Old God spoke to the King and bestowed upon him a holy mission: to rule Ward.

For a generation, man spread his influence across Ward. Through diplomacy or force, the human empire was unstoppable. Many humans began to specialize in different aspects of life.

Some became priests in worship of the Old God, some became devout Knights of justice, others studied the arcane arts, and some began experimenting with necromancy.

The humans began sending armies into the forests to force the Elves to bow to the King. The Elves resisted, and war began. The King’s army pushed the Elves deep into the woods, and eventually launched a siege against the Elven city of Evergreen.

The siege lasted for seven days. The necromancers of the human army began to raise the dead, both human and elf, who had fallen in battle. These undead ghouls were used to assault the gates of Evergreen, while the living Warriors stayed back. Although effective, the generals of men could not help but feel uneasy about this necromantic work.

During the siege, a Dark Elf managed to sneak his way into the Elven city. A reluctant deal was made between the Elves and Dark Elves. The threat of the human empire was too great, and the military invasion of their forest seemed hopeless.

During the night following the Elven alliance, a loud and intimidating war horn was heard in the blackness. Suddenly, the human lines were bombarded by catapult fire, and then they came. A massive, bloodthirsty, savage horde of new green-skinned creatures called Orcs flooded out of the darkness. Crude axes, large teeth, these things seemed bred for battle.

The Dark Elves had been experimenting with dark arcane arts to form a creature that knew only war. They created the Orc to finally wipe out the Elves. But history had different plans.

The savage Orc legion engaged the human army. The sound of metal and screams could be heard from the darkness. The necromancers fled the battle, and with them their ghouls returned to death.

The human commanders retreated from the battle and out of the woods. The Orcs gave chase and killed hundreds more fleeing Warriors. The battle was over, and the empire was finally stopped.

With the defeat of the empire at Evergreen, the human King turned to a power he did not fully understand. He began to speak with the necromancers about their studies. He formulated plans with them to build a large undead army that could wipe out the Orcs and finally take the city of Evergreen.

During this time, the King began to learn the dark arts of necromancy for himself. With this newfound knowledge, he launched attacks on Orcish war posts that had now been erected outside the forests.

With every fallen Orc and human, the King raised them into undeath as his servants. Eventually, he became far more proficient in summoning the dead than even the necromancers under his command. But with this power, madness soon followed.

The King saw how quickly he could amass an army to assault Evergreen again, but he needed more. He came to see that his undead Warriors were completely obedient to his orders, and more effective than the living.

The King began an assault upon the Orc war compound of Dur’ Grob. The battle went on for hours, but the Orcs were still far too strong and bloodthirsty. For every one Orc that fell in battle, twenty undead and men would fall. The King raised as many Warriors back to life as he could, but the battle was lost, and he was forced to flee again.

After fleeing, the Orcs moved away from the forests and began attacking human settlements, killing all who resided there. The King could do nothing but watch as all he had worked for began to crumble to the might of the Orc Legion.

After slaughtering many settlements, the Orc Legion began to assault the human capital of Westgard. With the capital’s armies emptied, the city would not hold, and the empire would fall in a single day.

The King went mad with anger over the idea of losing everything that the Old God had charged him with, and all the work he had done. He then went to his own human settlements, killing his own people in order to build his undead army.

The King’s own commanders refused his orders to kill their own people. Many were slain and turned undead themselves, while others took their platoons and abandoned the Empire.

Once the King had an army of thousands of undead humans, he marched back to Westgard. He attacked the Orcs from the rear flank. Many undead were destroyed, but the numbers were too many for the Orcs to stop. It took only one hour for the King’s undead to thwart the Orcs and save the capital.

The King marched into the city with his army. Rather than cheers for a savior, the residents of the capital watched in silence as hundreds of ghouls, zombies, and undead knights entered the city. The King marched to his keep and locked himself away, alone with his madness.

It did not take long for the living to vacate the capital in fear. They renamed the King the Undead King. The Old God abandoned the King as well, and never spoke through him again. This further fueled the Undead King’s madness. Now he had no subjects, no society, and no god. He decided that he would be the new god of Ward and began plans to end all life that had ever existed. The Empire of Man had fallen.

Over ten years passed with the fall of the human empire. Ward was in turmoil, with no authority to lead it. Out of the chaos came the Holy Order.

This new faction denounced the rule of any king and instead focused on the mission of the Old God. Their mission was to cleanse all demonic, undead, and any other creature they believed to be a plague upon society. The Order was composed mostly of humans, but invited all races to join. Even some Orcs turned themselves over to the Order.

The Holy Order spread far across Ward. They purged the lands and converted new followers to the faith. The Old God spoke directly to the High Priest and issued him missions. These missions ranged from converting new settlements to wiping out entire kingdoms. All was done in his name, and his word was LAW.

After years of the Order growing in power and influence, the Undead King took notice. His minions that were spread throughout the land began to dwindle in number. One of his armies was destroyed by a crusade flying the banner of the Old God.

With this, the Undead King began his long-awaited conquest of Ward. He amassed every unholy thing under his control and set forth from Westgard as the Empire of the Damned.

The Empire of the Damned engaged the Holy Order in the open field. The battle was long, with the Damned losing thousands of troops. But in the end, the Holy Order was forced to retreat. With every dead Holy Order Warrior, a new Damned was added to the Undead King’s army.

The Damned moved across the land like a horde of locusts devouring crop. One by one, every living thing in sight was killed and added to the Undead King’s army. Humans, Orcs, Elves, Dragons, and even Dinosaurs were now under the control of the Damned.

The Holy Order continued to battle against the undead. They won some battles against small platoons of roaming ghouls, but if they came across an army, they fell victim to the Undead King.

The Grand Priest branded the Undead King as the God of Death himself. He used this title to increase morale among the Warriors and told them they were battling not only for the Order, but for the entirety of Ward itself.

The Old God began to worry about the Empire of the Damned. He could not fathom how a normal mortal man could attain so much power as to threaten the very fabric of his world.

The Old God began to come to terms with the idea that the Damned might destroy his Holy Order. He could not imagine another one of his great societies falling to the madness of the old King he had once appointed.

The Old God then met with the Red Dragon Arie, and bestowed upon them the gift of gods. With this power, the Dragons were able to combine their flame with the Old God’s cosmic power. From the cosmic ash of that flame, the eldest of the dragons was given a power so great that he rivaled the Old God himself.

The Eternal Dragon was born.

The Empire of the Damned and the Holy Order exchanged both victory and defeat. The Grand Priest met with leaders from the other mortal races at the Cathedral of Dawn, in the new capital city of High Rock. Leaders of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings all met there, and from their meeting formed an alliance with the Holy Order known to this day as The Order of Dawn.

Meanwhile, in the new Orc stronghold of Thul, the darker races of the world forged a separate alliance. Leaders of the Orcs, Dark Elves, Goblins, Trolls, and Minotaur formed an alliance known as the Cabal. The Cabal had no love for the Order of Dawn, but they also believed the Empire of the Damned had to be destroyed before they could pursue their own plans.

The Order of Dawn launched a military campaign across the land. They learned to burn the bodies of their dead to keep the Undead King from adding more might to his army.

While the Order pressed toward Westgard, the Damned prepared for siege. The Order invaded the Damned in the Decay Lands. The battles seemed to be evenly matched between the living and the dead until the Cabal attacked from the flank. The Orcs brutally mangled the clattering bones of the undead, the Minotaur crushed the skulls of the stumbling corpses, and the Night Elves launched barrages of dark arcane magic from a distance. The Order did not welcome assistance from the Cabal, but to stop the Empire of the Damned, they were willing to make an exception.

The living pushed the Damned as far back as the unholy city of Westgard. They began to establish military lines and heavy weaponry for siege. It was then that the gates to the city opened, and the Undead King walked out. He let out a loud and terrible scream before raising both arms into the sky. Suddenly, the sounds of shrieking roars echoed across the heavens. Then, from the darkened sky, a full fleet of undead dragons flew to the gates and scorched the armies of the living. The Order returned fire by launching volleys of arrows, while the Cabal hurled dark arcane magic into the air. Nothing slowed the green flame of the unholy flying beasts.

Defeat was inevitable. The Order and Cabal lost too many troops to the Damned. The Undead King then began to raise the dead of both factions back to life and send them forth to finish off the remaining living mortals.

Suddenly, a burst of cosmic energy fell from the heavens, destroying most of the unholy dragons. From that cosmic energy emerged the Eternal Dragon, a colossal humanoid dragon clad in armor and bearing long, sprawling wings.

The Undead King sent all of his forces after the Eternal Dragon, but the clamoring bones of the undead were easily dispatched by the beast. The Undead King then drew his unholy sword and charged the creature. The battle was fierce. Cosmic energy and unholy power swarmed the area surrounding the two mighty entities.

The High Priest of the Order could not help but admire his former King. A man, a mortal human man, was contending with the will of a beast created by the god he worshipped. He began to question the power of his own faith.

As strong as the Undead King had become, the Eternal Dragon was still too powerful and forced him to surrender. After the Undead King was defeated, the Eternal Dragon flew high into the cosmos, leaving Ward.

The Undead King was then taken into the custody of the Order of Dawn and transported as far north as north went on Ward. They wanted to execute him far from any place where his necromancer followers could find him. He was killed in the frozen wasteland of Everfrost. His body was buried deep beneath the permafrost. With no master, the remaining undead were now free from the control of the Undead King to live a second life in undeath.

After the defeat of the Empire of the Damned, tensions ran high between the Cabal and the Order of Dawn. It began with harsh words and small skirmishes between both factions. This then led to greater conflict: battles, invasions, assaults, and occupations.

The Dark Elves went against the rest of the Cabal and sent a small group to the Citadel of Agony. There, they used their dark magic to force open the doors and gain access to the Hell Gate. It is not known exactly how it happened, but rumor says the Dark Elves made a pact with the demons that still lurked in the halls of the citadel. Blood sacrifices were made, and the Hell Gate opened wide once again.

Out walked the Demon King.

Thus, the second demonic invasion began.

With the Demon King back on Ward, he immediately slaughtered the Dark Elves that had summoned him. He then ordered his armies through the portal, fortified the Citadel of Agony, and prepared for war.

The Hell Gate was open, but the power of the Dark Elves was not enough to allow the Cosmic Demon to pass through. Although the Cosmic Demon is the most powerful of all the evil things in Hell, the Demon King held a strong hatred for him.

Upon entering the lands of Ward, the Demon King came across a necromancer who was practicing the summoning of his own small warband of undead. The Demon King ordered the immediate slaughter of the necromancer and all his minions. The demons hated necromancy because it kept evil souls from entering Hell and fueling their power.

The demons scoured the land with a desire for revenge, revenge for the defeat they had suffered all those years ago. This time, the Demon King gave the ordered his minions not to use too much Hellfire, lest they awaken the Fire God and ruin his plans again.

One by one, the mortals of Ward fell to the might of Hell’s legions. Cities were destroyed, villages obliterated, forests burned, and generals executed. The Demon King then marched upon the capital city of High Rock.

When Hell’s legions arrived at the city, the Demon King sensed something different. This power was not of the Creator or the Angels. It was new. Something weaker and more vulnerable.

The Demon King ordered the assault of High Rock. The Holy Order’s Warriors fortified the city and managed to hold off the demons for several days. However, the armies of Hell seemed never-ending. Even from the highest point of the keep, all one could see were demons stretching to the horizon.

It was then that a flash of light burst forth from the midst of the demonic army. From that brilliant light came the Old God. With one swing of his mighty wing, hundreds of demons immediately disintegrated into nothing. The High Priest witnessed this event from the top of the keep. He then ordered his Warriors to charge out from the gates, engage the enemy, and aid their Lord.

The Demon King engaged the Old God. He was able to withstand the massive burst of cosmic energy the god unleashed from his being, but he was still outmatched. The Demon King then channeled enough energy to rip the Hell Gate wider and allow the Cosmic Demon through. Once through the Hell Gate, the Cosmic Demon streaked across the sky to High Rock in an instant and began to battle with the Old God. The Old God was still more powerful than even the Cosmic Demon, but he was losing strength to the corruption of Hell’s forces. The Holy Order continued to battle through the hordes of demons and toward their god.

Then, a flash from the heavens filled the sky. Everyone involved in the battle stopped to witness what was happening. The Eternal Titan had returned to Ward to finally face his foe.

A battle between the Eternal Titan, the Cosmic Demon, the Old God, and the Demon King began. Like the first demonic invasion, the power erupting from these cosmic beings was enough to threaten the entire planet on which they stood. The Old God feared losing his world and his followers. He poured all of his power into a single blast aimed at the Cosmic Demon. This caused the land to quake and the world itself to split.

The sound of a great crack thundered across the sky, and suddenly Ward was broken into two halves. Yet the battle did not stop. The Cosmic Demon continued fighting the Eternal Titan and the Old God, until everything stopped.

It was as if all things were frozen in place for a moment, and then The Creator revealed himself. He was so large that he could have held the entire planet in his hand. He let out a loud, thundering shout: All Shall Cease. In that instant, everyone was blown away from one another, and the Creator was now upon the planet. He was no longer a titanic god gazing down on the battle, but a normal-sized man with glowing yellow eyes, as though his body could barely contain the massive amount of energy within.

The Cosmic Demon lunged at the Creator with a horrible scream. The Creator turned toward him. With a single wave of his hand, the terrible monster was gone. The Creator then snapped his fingers, and every demon in the battle was sucked back across the land and forced into the Hell Gate. The Citadel of Agony was then sealed shut as though it had never been opened. The Creator commanded the Eternal Titan to return to the cosmos, for his mortal enemy was gone, for now. The Creator then brought his hands together, and Ward was no longer cracked in two.

The Warriors on the battlefield began to weep in both fear and amazement at what they were witnessing. They had met the true God of the universe.

The Old God, now filled with rage, could feel his followers slipping from his grasp. He approached the Creator and told him that Ward belonged to him, and that he needed to vacate his world. The Creator looked the Old God up and down and simply said, No. This was new to the Old God. He had never met anything that would defy him. He then unleashed the strongest energy blast from his beak that he had ever mustered. The Creator took the blast directly to his chest, and it was enough to push him back several feet.

How interesting, the Creator said aloud.

He then waved his hand at the Old God, hurling him into a nearby mountain and causing it to split apart beneath falling boulders. The Old God recovered and lunged again, striking the Creator several times with terrible force. The Creator then seized the Old God and dragged him up into the cosmos and away from Ward. He hurled the Old God so hard that he flew light-years away from the planet in an instant.

The time of the Old God was over.

The Creator then returned to Ward and spoke with the Warriors on the battlefield. They collapsed to their knees and vowed to worship him as their one true god. He told them they were free to worship whatever they liked, but he would not interfere again with Ward, and he would not come to their aid. He then flew high into the heavens and vanished.

The second demonic invasion had ended.

With the end of the second demonic invasion, and the banishment of the Old God, Ward was left without a leader, or purpose. As with all things, war was inevitable.

Across the land, warlords and commanders began to rise. All laid claim to small portions of the world and battled for power. These warlords amassed armies to battle one another. They recruited all races, creatures, beasts, undead, and even demons into their forces.

Who will form the strongest force the world has ever seen, and become the new ruler of Ward?

Chapter 1 - Blood and Steel

Two hundred years passed as Ward was left to fend for itself, a world abandoned by its own Creator. Warlords and their armies battled back and forth, fighting for small pockets of the world. The Order and the Cabal clashed regularly in the open field. With all the battles and wars, the mortals of Ward stood on the brink of societal collapse.

During this time, a mortal known as Polymorph Dwarf managed to unearth the ancient power of the Time Dragons. He utilized this power to enter the Tournament of Iron. The Tournament was hosted by a large business conglomerate, which used powerful magics of ancient runes and relics to build its wealth. Polymorph Dwarf won the tournament and began to further exploit the powers of the Time Dragons. This led to a near collapse of the fabric of Ward’s reality. The Creator took notice of these events and began an act to end the Time Dragons. He used his omnipotence to remove their power from them all. With the loss of their power, the Time Dragons were left as walking husks of their former selves.

Shortly after the Tournament of Iron, a group calling themselves the Cult of the Old Ones began to emerge. This cult was a small religion devoted entirely to the worship of several ancient beings that had existed on Ward for as long as anyone could remember. With the Old God ruling Ward for so long, these ancient beings had remained deep beneath the surface of the world. They feared the Old God, for they had been aware of his existence in the universe long before his arrival upon Ward. They were aware, and they were afraid.

With the end of the Old God, the mortals of Ward grew fearful. They did not fear the wars that erupted after his banishment, but they feared the power of the cosmic beings that had emerged and nearly destroyed their world during the second demonic invasion.

With this fear came the need to find a way to even the odds should another cosmic being return to Ward. This led to the creation of Steam Weapons. These weapons ranged from simple projectile firearms to towering golems that could crush a mountain with a single blow. At this point in history, steam weapons were used mostly for mining operations by the dwarves. But another entity had bigger plans.

With the demand for weapons of war came the Westward Trading Company. This company specialized in creating weapons for the highest bidder. From small warbands requesting steel swords, to Cabal generals buying catapults and battering rams. War was their business, and business was good.

The Westward Trading Company gained such tremendous profits from the sale of weapons that they built a factory in a small village known as Buck Village. This village was a small human settlement far beyond the reach of the Cabal and the Order’s constant battles. It lay deep in the forest and was known for its hunters. These hunters were hailed throughout Ward as the greatest in the land. They hunted prized deer and sold the hides and venison across the world.

With the arrival of the Westward Trading Company in Buck Village, many jobs were created. These jobs pulled the hunters away from their survivalist nature and into a life of factory work. Some considered this a blessing, while others wished the company had never come. Whichever side of the debate one stood on, none could deny that the Westward Trading Company made Buck Village very rich. So rich, in fact, that others began to move there for the high-paying work. This caused the village to grow at an incredible rate the likes of which Ward had never seen. The village was no longer a village, but a sprawling city of incredible wealth and new technology. The settlement was renamed Buck City because of this vast increase in size and population.

With the wealth, technology, and size of Buck City, the people there began to call themselves the capital of Ward. This was something the Order did not take kindly to, for they believed that they, and the city of High Rock, were the true capital of Ward. Plans were made by the Order to launch a siege upon Buck City and show them that military might was what determined who ruled the world.

The Order mobilized and marched on Buck City. They set their military lines at the gates and prepared to fire upon the city with the very weapons the Westward Trading Company had sold them. However, their campaign came to a swift end. After a single night of siege preparations, an army larger than any Ward had ever seen came from the west. This army flew no banner and swore allegiance to none. It was an army of hundreds of warbands, bought and paid for by the Westward Trading Company. This host consisted of nearly every known creature upon Ward. Some say there were even dragons among them. Dragons do love gold, after all.

The generals of the Order saw before them a battle they had no chance of winning. They reluctantly withdrew from the siege and returned to High Rock.

The Westward Trading Company had gold, and gold was power.

While the Order and the Westward Trading Company stood at each other’s throats over control of the planet, a strange event occurred, something that had never happened before.

In the desolate desert sands to the east, a vortex of energy began to form. From the vortex stepped a man. This man was unlike any other to have existed upon Ward. He was clad in armor, but not leather or steel. This armor was blue, almost indestructible, and as light as a feather. His helmet bore a glass-like visor where normal eye slits would be, and he carried a weapon like a crossbow, but one that required no bolts. This weapon fired lead projectiles through the use of gunpowder.

This man was from Ward, the Ward of the distant future.

This Future Warrior met with leaders of both the Cabal and the Order. He gave them a strict warning, that they needed to form an alliance and put an end to the Westward Trading Company. He explained that the Company was the reason for the return of the Undead King and the Empire of the Damned. He continued by telling them that in his time, Ward was a desolate wasteland of undead. Mortals were nearly extinct, and there was no hope.

He stated that, with the assistance of an Evolved Dino, they had developed the technology to travel back through time and change their future.

Some within the Cabal believed what the Future Warrior said. Others thought him a madman who had used too many illegal herbs. Regardless of their belief in his story, both the Cabal and the Order agreed that the Company was growing too powerful. They formed a temporary alliance to bring down the Company and Buck City, so that they might reclaim their place as the controlling factions of Ward.

After his dealings with the Cabal and the Order, the Future Warrior went to Buck City, where he met with the head of the Company. He gave the same warning he had previously delivered. He warned them of the Undead King and the Empire of the Damned. He warned them that it was their actions that began the end of Ward.

Rather than heed his warning, the Company took him into custody and brought him deep underground, far beneath the surface of Buck City. There, their most powerful and secret weapons were being created. The Westward Trading Company was experimenting with Bio Weapons. A group of Dark Elves and Alchemists were working together to turn mortals into weapons of war and to bring the dead back to life.

As the Future Warrior was being escorted to his prison cell, he saw him. In a reinforced glass cage, wrapped in chains, the Undead King was there, and he was alive. As the CEO of the Company walked beside the Future Warrior, he explained to him that they had discovered the secret to immortality. Through the experimentation of the Dark Elves and the chemistry of their Alchemists, they had learned that they were missing something. Their experiments all turned into monstrosities and were difficult to control. By chance, the Company discovered the final resting place of the Undead King. They excavated the burial site and moved his corpse to Buck City. Once in the laboratory, they managed to bring him back to life with alchemical technology. Now that they had him, they finally possessed the missing piece to everlasting life.

The Future Warrior finally understood how the Undead King had returned. This knowledge had been lost in his own time. He had always suspected it was the work of a maniacal necromancer. But the truth was worse than he had ever imagined. Human greed and the lust for immortality were the catalyst that would bring Ward to its end.

While the Company experimented with alchemy and bio-weapons, another part of the planet was moving toward its own doom. The Cult of the Old Ones had plans of its own.

With the banishment of the Old God, other, more horrible beings began to grow in power. The Old Ones were primordial entities that had secretly ruled Ward before the arrival of the Old God. They fed on the fear and negative energy of mortals. They had thrived during the ages before the Old God, when Ward was locked in a constant state of survival and terror. Death waited around every corner, and these beings feasted on every moment of it.

When the Old God arrived and formed the Empire of Man, the Old Ones lost much of their power. They elected to lie dormant and wait for the right opportunity to return.

That time had now come.

The Cult of the Old Ones provided enough worship to awaken these beings from slumber and begin their conquest of the planet. They were hungry, but not stupid. They were fully aware of the Creator and his arrival during the second demonic invasion. They were also aware of the Cosmic Demon that had once arrived on Ward. They made their plans in secret so as not to draw the attention of these greater cosmic beings.

They devised a plan millions of years in the making, a plan that would allow them to feed forever.

For weeks, the Warrior was held captive in the laboratory below Buck City. His cell lay only a few short feet from where the Undead King was being experimented upon. The bringer of the end, the herald of death, the destroyer of Ward, was so close. He had never believed that, when he traveled through time, he would ever stand near the Undead King himself.

With his warning ignored, the Future Warrior felt it was up to him to stop the end of the world. He knew the Undead King was there, and weakened by alchemical potions and Dark Elf chains meant to suppress his true power. This was the moment to strike. This was the moment to save the world.

Through trickery and bribes, the Future Warrior escaped his prison and recovered his weapons and equipment. He then fought his way to the Undead King’s holding chamber. The guards in the facility were no match for the future technology of his weapons. Once he reached the containment cell, he gazed through the glass. How could this human man have gained so much power, enough to do what even demons and other immortal entities could not? As the Future Warrior looked at the Undead King, the Undead King looked right back at him and said nothing. His terrifying stare pierced straight through the Warrior’s visor. Those sharp green glowing eyes, eyes that had lost their humanity long ago, eyes that would stare into the souls of millions across Ward, eyes that would command a plague of undead across the world.

The Future Warrior wasted no more time. He used his weapons to shatter the reinforced glass and enter the cell with the Undead King. He raised his weapon to kill the greatest threat to Ward since the arrival of the demons.

The Undead King was not fazed by the threat to his life. He turned toward the Future Warrior and spoke to him. It is not known exactly what was said, but whatever was spoken ended with these words:

And I’m the only one who can save this world.

The Future Warrior lowered his weapon and released the Undead King from his prison.

Once freed, the Undead King destroyed the laboratory. This caused the bio-weapon monstrosities to escape and wreak havoc on the guards and Alchemists in the facility. With chaos spreading, several alchemical potions spilled, causing Alchemists and guards alike to rise again as undead. These potions were the result of harnessing alchemy and necromancy into a bio-organic substance.

It did not take long for this outbreak in the laboratory to spread to the surface. Rumors began to spread through the metropolis of strange creatures roaming the streets at night. The city guard mobilized to investigate. A special unit of elite warriors was organized to uncover and destroy these reported creatures.

The Military Order of Necromancy, also known as M.O.O.N., was sent into the towering building of the Westward Trading Company. M.O.O.N. was an elite force created in Buck City to specialize in quelling necromantic works. This, of course, was merely a cover created by the Company to turn unwanted attention away from its own secret experiments.

M.O.O.N. entered the Company’s great tower and began to investigate the strange reports. There, they discovered the secret experiments being conducted beneath the city. Many members of M.O.O.N. were killed in the laboratory by the undead. These soldiers then rose again and turned upon their former comrades.

Deep within the heart of the laboratory, M.O.O.N. discovered the ultimate weapon upon which the Company had been working. There is no name for this creature besides its designation: Subject #4212. A hideous humanoid with tentacles sprawling from its back and a horrid jack-o’-lantern head. M.O.O.N. fought the creature, but could not destroy it. The elite warriors managed only to wound the beast enough to escape from the building.

They returned to the elders of Buck City and reported their findings, but their warnings fell on deaf ears. The upper class of Buck City was bought and paid for by the Westward Trading Company.

It did not take long after the outbreak in the laboratory for the entire city to fall victim to this alchemical nightmare. Some managed to escape, but most became twisted and horrific versions of their former selves.

Buck City had fallen.

And the Westward Trading Company had fallen with it.

After the fall of Buck City, the Undead King returned to his former throne in Westgard. There, he was able to resurrect several undead horrors from his old army. With this small host, he began to reforge his capital into the foundation of his new campaign.

It did not take long for other necromancers to sense the presence of their long-lost King and begin returning to the unholy city of Westgard. With the help of these necromancers, the Undead King began raiding nearby settlements. With each mortal death, the Undead King strengthened his forces more and more.

His necromancers came across a small band of Order Crusaders. These crusaders had devoted their lives to quelling all undead threats from Ward. The battle between them was fierce, and the crusaders proved too well-trained for the clumsy necromancers to handle. This was only until the Undead King himself appeared on the battlefield. With his might returned, the crusaders were hopelessly outmatched. They realized that the Undead King was more than a simple necromancer, he was a man who could contend with the powers of gods. They were all killed within minutes of the Undead King unleashing his power. These devoted crusaders, who had given their lives to protect Ward from the undead, were now nothing more than mindless zombies in the Undead King’s army.

The undead continued to ravage the northern regions of Ward. Humans, Orcs, Elves, Dragons, animals, and all manner of unspeakable monstrosities were killed and brought into the Undead King’s army.

The undead host became a full legion of terrible things, clattering bones and gnashing teeth. No longer was Ward safe. No longer were the Order and the Cabal the ruling militaries of the world.

The Empire of the Damned had returned.

And death followed with it.

From the unholy city of Westgard, the dead came. Villages, castles, and cities fell before the nightmare that was the Empire of the Damned. The Undead King personally led the army. He wanted to ensure that his plans would not be thwarted, and not to overextend himself into a battle he could not win.

Rather than launching an invasion based on sheer might alone, he adopted a careful and deliberate campaign. He moved slowly from one civilized region to the next. Every victory earned him more undead horrors to bolster his ranks.

Even with such a large military force behind him, he was not yet confident enough to clash with either the Order or the Cabal in full battle. He also feared the Dragons, whose raw power could decimate large portions of his zombies and ghouls with ease.

Rather than risk an all-out clash with the living too soon, the Undead King turned his attention to another place, a part of Ward crawling with tens of thousands of undead that served no master.

He turned his armies away from High Rock and Dur’ Grob.

He turned them toward Buck City.

Back in Buck City, a small group of M.O.O.N. Warriors fought for their lives as they tried to escape the city. With the streets overrun by zombies, ghouls, and Subject #4212, their chances of survival seemed thin.

Eventually, M.O.O.N. found an old steam train and managed to get it running. They used it to escape the city. At last, the nightmare seemed over, and they believed they could warn the rest of Ward about the horrors of Buck City.

Once the train moved beyond the city, a towering undead ghoul stepped onto the tracks. This creature was the size of a building and appeared to be thousands of bodies sewn together into a single horrific monster.

This Undead Tower grabbed the front of the train and brought it to a halt. M.O.O.N. was forced to battle the monster and managed to push it back long enough for the train to continue forward. They were an elite military unit, after all. This was what they did best.

As the train made its way into the countryside, the M.O.O.N. Warriors began to rest.

Then, the train stopped dead on the tracks.

Before them stood the Undead King and his legion of rotting flesh and gnashing teeth.

The Undead King took M.O.O.N. prisoner. He then questioned them about Buck City and the kinds of experiments the Westward Trading Company had been conducting there. They had no choice but to tell him everything.

While interrogating M.O.O.N., the Undead King noticed a striking resemblance between one of the Warriors and the strange Future Warrior who had allowed him to escape. Rather than kill them, the Undead King did something utterly out of character. He released every one of the M.O.O.N. Warriors unharmed.

After releasing them, the Empire of the Damned flooded Buck City. There were small skirmishes between the Damned and the alchemical undead, but the purpose was not to destroy them, it was to control them.

The Undead King used his necromantic power to command the experiments and ghouls of Buck City, but it failed. No matter how much he tried to enter their minds and bend them to his will, he could not. Their minds were like those of wild animals, driven only by instinct and survival. It was then that he realized these creatures were not truly undead like his own army, but more like a plague spreading from living host to living host through alchemical corruption.

While deciding what should be done with Buck City, a monstrous humanoid creature lunged from a nearby alley and began to destroy several zombies in the Undead King’s army. This creature was known as Subject #149. It had once been a brilliant Alchemist in the Buck City laboratory before the Company turned him into this thing.

The Undead King saw there was no hope of bringing these creatures under his control. So instead, he chose to destroy them, lest this plague interfere with his plans.

The battle began.

The nightmarish screams of the Empire of the Damned clashing with the alchemical creatures of Buck City filled the air. The battle was gruesome. Blood, claws, and decayed flesh exploded across the streets. Ripping, tearing, biting, this was no ordinary clash of steel and swords.

This was brutal.

This was a nightmare.

It did not take long for the Empire of the Damned to eradicate the alchemical undead of Buck City. In the end, the Damned were far too organized for the wild and ravaging creatures of the city to withstand.

Now that the Undead King held Buck City as a military post, he was poised to move his armies into the High Rock region and destroy the capital city of man.

Leaders from the Cabal and the Order held a meeting in the city of High Rock. A desperate alliance was forged to quell the Empire of the Damned. Human villages and Orc outposts across northern Ward had been destroyed by the Damned, and their citizens raised as horrific zombies.

Until this point, the return of the Undead King had been little more than rumor on the city streets. Now, rumor had become reality, and the dead had to be eradicated. Without an alliance, there would be no hope of victory against the Damned in open battle.

Orc scouts confirmed that Buck City had fallen to the Empire of the Damned. The Orc War Chief understood the advantage this gave the Undead King. Rather than wait for the dead to come to them, the Cabal and the Order organized a full offensive against the city.

Without hesitation, their armies marched on Buck City and established siege lines. They wasted no time bombarding the city with cannon fire, trebuchets, and catapults.

One by one, the beautiful, towering skyscrapers of Buck City crumbled beneath the assault. The very weapons the Westward Trading Company had sold to these factions were now destroying the city it had built.

After a full night of bombardment, the Orc captains ordered a ceasefire. The city lay devastated. Clouds of dust choked the air, so thick that one could have cut through them with a sword.

Then a loud, horrible, screeching war horn sounded from within the city.

It was followed by the sound of thousands of nightmarish screams.

The Warriors of the Order could not help but feel terror at whatever waited within that dust-choked ruin.

Then all at once, a horde of screaming ghouls erupted from the dust at incredible speed, far faster than any common clattering skeleton or lumbering zombie. The Undead King was powerful, and he commanded his horrors with absolute precision.

The undead crashed into the Order’s front lines. The battle was fierce, and the Order held against the dead with discipline and precision. Then the Cabal flanked from the north and caught the ghouls off guard. The battle raged for just under an hour.

In the end, the living were victorious.

For now.

When the dust finally settled, the living looked toward the city. There stood the Undead King, watching. His green, glowing eyes pierced the souls of the humans he had once ruled so many years before. He seemed almost godlike. How could a normal human become so powerful? And why did he seek to destroy everything? Was it revenge, spite, hatred, or something else?

Then the Orc War Chief shouted across the battlefield, challenging the Undead King to single combat. He believed the King to be too prideful to refuse. If he could defeat him, the rest of the Damned would fall.

The Undead King stared at the battle-hardened Orc and stepped forward. The two met in the center of the field, surrounded by twisted bodies.

The Orc wasted no time, for his strategy had always been to overwhelm his enemies with aggression. Yet the Undead King was faster than anyone had imagined. He dodged every swing the Orc made. Again and again, the War Chief tried to strike with his mighty axe, and every swing missed its mark.

At last, the Undead King paused just long enough for the War Chief to land what he thought was a decisive blow.

Or so he believed.

The Undead King caught the axe by its blade.

He gazed directly into the Orc’s eyes, as though looking into his soul. The Orc pulled his weapon back, stunned by the speed and strength the Undead King possessed. He raised the axe once more, but this time the unholy master of death seized him by the throat and lifted him into the air. As the Orc struggled for breath, the Undead King turned his glowing eyes toward the Orc army. Then, with a terrible clench of his hand, he crushed the War Chief’s throat.

The duel was over.

After the duel, the Undead King pointed his hand toward the Cabal and the Order. From the city behind him came a horde of undead dinosaurs, rushing out toward the military lines. The living tried to defend themselves from the titanic prehistoric beasts, but they had not been trained to handle such monsters. The air filled with screams and the sound of crushing jaws as the officers of the living ordered retreat.

They escaped.

But their losses were great.

It seemed that death was coming for all of Ward.

And nothing could stop it.

With the defeat at Buck City, the Cabal and the Order returned to their respective capitals. Their alliance had not been broken, but it did little to strengthen them against the dead.

The Empire of the Damned marched out from Buck City and into the rest of Ward. One by one, the cities of the living fell to the might of the Undead King. It seemed that the Future Warrior’s warning was becoming reality. Ward stood only one step away from becoming a land of the dead.

It was then, when all hope seemed lost, that the Order turned to a power they did not fully understand. Leaders of the Order met with the fanatical Cult of the Old Ones. From that meeting, an agreement was forged to release the Old Ones of Ward back onto the surface. The Order prayed that their desperation would not become their downfall.

The Cult of the Old Ones was given all the resources it required to feed the Old Ones. This included human sacrifice. The citizens of High Rock knew what they were doing was evil, but they believed they had no choice. The Empire of the Damned would eradicate them all if nothing was done.

Once enough worship and sacrifice had been offered, a loud, thundering sound was heard across all of Ward.

The Ancient One, a nightmarish insect-like creature, erupted from the earth, screeching an echo of terror.

The Old One, a towering monster of tentacles and fear, emerged from the great ocean.

And the Forgotten One, an alien-like creature engulfed in lightning, fell from the sky in a flash of blinding light.

The Old Ones had returned to Ward.

And they had come to feed.

The King of High Rock spoke to the Old One and told him of the Empire of the Damned and the Undead King. He said that the Undead King was only a man, and that such ancient beings should have no trouble stopping him.

The Old One was prideful, but he was not foolish. He knew of the Undead King and his power. He understood that they were dealing with a man who had made himself into the god of death.

As agreed, the Old Ones left High Rock and marched toward Buck City.

The future of Ward would soon be decided.

The Old Ones arrived at Buck City. There, they laid waste to the clattering bones of the Empire of the Damned. They easily dispatched the Decayed Dinos and moved into the streets of the city.

Subject #4212 emerged from the ruined skyscraper that had once been the Westward Trading Company. With a flash of speed, the creature lunged at the Forgotten One. The battle was brutal. Red lightning and mutated tentacles filled the streets. The Old One and Ancient One joined the battle and forced Subject #4212 back. This abomination was powerful, but not powerful enough to contend with the might of these ancient beings.

Then it opened its jack-o’-lantern-like mouth and let out a terrible scream. At that moment, hundreds of Pumpkin Men began to rise from the outskirts of Buck City. They charged into the streets and attacked the Old Ones. Like ants defending their queen, they swarmed the titanic beasts. They latched onto them with farm axes and jagged fingernails, tearing and wounding them.

Then the Old One raised its massive arm to the sky. A great black cosmic hole tore open above the city. This vacuum-like void sucked the Pumpkin Men inside, along with large portions of the Empire of the Damned.

Subject #4212 knew he had lost this battle. He fled Buck City and disappeared into the wild.

As the Old One continued to drag the undead into the portal, a sword came hurling from the darkness and impaled the titanic creature directly through the chest. The Old One collapsed to the ground, gravely wounded.

Then, from the darkness, the Undead King emerged.

He stretched out his hand, and his unholy, green-glowing sword returned to him.

The Ancient One and the Forgotten One lunged at the Undead King.

The battle began.

The last hope of the living now rested in the hands of these ancient horrors.

The clash raged for what felt like hours. The Undead King held off both Old Ones while still commanding his forces. It was then that the remaining armies of Men, Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Dark Elves, Dragons, and even some dinosaurs invaded the city.

The final battle for Ward had begun.

Every living being capable of fighting had come to Buck City.

The Undead King continued to battle the Old Ones, but he was now also trying to direct his armies against the living. He ordered his undead toward the waterfront. But from the water emerged a race of Naga, who attacked the undead from the sea. The Naga were joined by a creature calling himself the Perfect Shark, an evolved version of the great white. This creature proved far too much for the undead to handle.

Then the Undead King erupted in green flame and pointed toward the Old Ones and the armies behind them. From the dark streets behind him rose the most horrific sight anyone had ever seen.

A Giga.

Not a living Giga.

An Undead Giga.

The monster came screaming from the shadows and slammed into the Old Ones. It caught the Forgotten One in its powerful jaws and tore off several of its insect-like legs. The Ancient One tried to fight the beast away, but it was no match. The Giga was undead, and would not stop until the Undead King commanded it.

While the Undead Giga ripped through the Old Ones and the armies of the living, a loud horn sounded from the distance.

The Dwarves and Gnomes had arrived at Buck City.

With them came a legion of steam-powered mechs, including a Steam Rex and a Steam Golem. The Steam Golem had been built specifically to fight cosmic threats to Ward. The steam machines charged the Giga and fought it without fear. The Undead Giga would not stop, and the steam constructs would continue battling until they either broke down or were ordered otherwise.

With the battle raging across Buck City, the Undead King found himself in a losing position. His armies were dwindling faster than he could replace them, and his Giga was being torn apart by the Steam Rex and the Golem. He felt he had no choice but to retreat with what remained of his host and gather more forces.

He called the Giga back to him, mounted the terrible creature, and rode out of the city toward Westgard.

The battle for Buck City was over.

The living had won.

But the war was not over.

There was still a King to slay.

After the victory at Buck City, the living armies of Ward rejoiced. It was the first true victory they had claimed against the Empire of the Damned since the return of the Undead King.

The leaders of every race of Ward met in the abandoned Westward Trading Company building. There, they discussed their next move. Many argued that they would need time to rebuild their forces before marching upon Westgard. However, the Ancient One began to manipulate the minds of the leaders during the meeting. It corrupted their thoughts and convinced them that the time to attack was now. They tried to resist, but the corruption of the Old Ones was too strong. The Order’s decision to allow human sacrifice had made their influence impossible to fight.

A plan was put into motion to march on Westgard the very next morning.

Yet during the night, a small group of young shamans saw the corruption the Old Ones held over their leaders. They slipped out of the city and performed a ritual that had been passed down for thousands of years. They would summon an ancient elemental being whose only purpose was to protect Ward from all threats to the planet itself.

They would summon Captain Ward.

They could not summon him until enough damage had been done to the world. This ritual had been created after the Creator was forced to mend Ward during the second demonic invasion. Legend held that the Creator himself had passed down the rite to be used in his absence, should the planet ever again face destruction.

The young shamans placed their ancient bracelets together and chanted the incantation. Then a burst of wind, leaves, and water erupted from the earth, and with a flash, Captain Ward appeared.

They tried to explain the situation, but Captain Ward became fixated on the Old Ones, seeing them as villains and himself as their heroic counter. He immediately rushed into the city and began fighting them, proving to be their equal in battle. Yet the fight ended quickly after he saw the great number of undead lying lifeless in the streets. Captain Ward was then told that the Undead King, not the Old Ones, was the reason for his summoning.

Captain Ward knew what the Old Ones were. He knew they always sought to corrupt the mortals of the world. Until the Undead King was finally defeated, he agreed to help. However, once the planet was no longer under threat, he would have to return to his slumber.

Morning came, and the armies of the living marched for Westgard. The journey took over a week. When they arrived, they formed battle lines and prepared to lay siege to the unholy stronghold of the dead.

After arranging their formations, one of the generals noticed something strange.

The undead were not coming out to meet them.

Normally, the Undead King would have sent his forces rushing forward like a rotting tide.

Westgard was quiet.

An eerie silence fell over the corrupted field on which they stood.

The human generals ordered the army to advance on the city walls. They marched through a heavy fog, and as they drew closer, they saw it.

The Undead Giga.

It stood directly before the gate.

But it did not attack.

It did not move.

It only watched.

It seemed too weak to move even an inch, as though trapped in some strange daze.

The armies of the living halted outside the walls and organized a small scouting party to enter the city. They chose a representative of each race, a man, elf, dwarf, goblin, halfling, Orc, and dark elf, to go inside and return with what they found. The main gate had been left slightly open, enough for them to slip through. The Giga did not so much as twitch when they passed.

Inside the city, the scouting party saw thousands of undead.

But none of them moved.

All wore the same strange expressionless stare the Giga had worn beyond the gate.

They slowly made their way through the eerily silent streets of Westgard. The undead turned their heads to look at them, but it was as though they did not care that they were there.

At last, they reached the keep, where the Undead King once sat upon his throne. They prepared themselves for the final battle against the greatest threat Ward had ever known.

Captain Ward flew down from the skies above and landed beside the party. He told them they would need his aid, for the Undead King’s power was beyond any of them.

They entered the keep.

And there they saw him.

The Undead King sat upon his throne, sword in hand.

The party prepared for battle.

But the Undead King did not move.

They stepped closer.

Then the King slowly lifted his head and looked directly at them.

He rose from his throne and began to walk toward them.

But something was terribly wrong.

He moved slowly, as though wounded. He dragged his sword behind him as if it had become too heavy for him to carry. He walked directly up to the Dark Elf captain in the party. The elf prepared himself.

But the Undead King did not strike.

He simply wandered past him, as if he were not even there.

They watched in silence as the Undead King shuffled around the throne room like a lost man. He never spoke to them directly, but kept muttering the same words under his breath again and again:

I wanted to save them.

I wanted to save them.

Over and over, he repeated it, as though his mind were gone.

Then, from behind the throne, stepped the Future Warrior.

He explained to the scouting party that the Undead King was no more. He had spent all of his power. He told them that the Undead King had never truly died after the first Empire of the Damned, but had instead lain in a slumber until the Westward Trading Company awakened him. During that slumber, his mind had grown in power. He had discovered the truth of Ward.

The Future Warrior told the party that the Old Ones were keeping the souls of Ward trapped upon the planet. When a living being dies, its soul is meant to pass into the cosmos for eternal peace until it is returned to life by the Creator. This is how universal knowledge is gained, and how all living things work toward eternal prosperity and peace.

But the Old Ones had planted a Soul Sphere within one of Ward’s moons.

Now, when a living being dies, its soul is dragged back to Ward before it can ever reach the Creator.

This cycle began shortly after the Old God was banished, when the Old Ones were finally able to rise again in power.

The Old Ones did this so they could keep Ward in a constant state of war and violence. They fed on the negative energy created by living beings.

The Future Warrior explained that the Undead King had discovered this soul cycle and learned that all were trapped in an eternity of torment simply to feed the Old Ones. He also learned that the soul of an undead creature never fully left the planet, and therefore did not serve as nourishment for the Old Ones. This was when he formed his plan to eradicate all living beings on Ward, so that the Old Ones would starve to death. Only then could they truly be destroyed. Afterward, he intended to destroy the undead as well and allow their souls to finally leave Ward, so that life might begin again without the Old Ones.

The Future Warrior continued by saying that the necromantic power which had coursed through the Undead King’s body for so long had destroyed his mind. He no longer knew who he was, where he was, or even what he was. His mind was not far from that of an infant child. He had become a walking husk, little different from the undead he had raised for so many years.

After hearing the Future Warrior’s story, he also revealed that in his own timeline, the Undead King had completed his plan and eradicated all life. Now he realized that he might only have traded one apocalypse for another.

The Future Warrior left the decision of the Undead King’s fate to the scouting party. None stepped forward. None, that is, except the most unlikely of them all.

The Halfling. The Halfling stepped toward the Undead King and placed his short sword against the King’s throat. The Undead King looked back at him. It was not a look of terror or fear. It was confusion.

As though he did not even know what was happening to him.

This once all-powerful being, who had contended with gods, was now weaker than the frailest of men. Sunken and broken, the Undead King lowered his gaze to the floor. His mind was so shattered that he did not understand what was about to happen. Then, with one swift cut, the Halfling slew the Undead King.

The Undead Invasion was over.

After the death of the Undead King, the Future Warrior faded from existence, for his timeline no longer existed. Captain Ward left the keep and returned to his slumber. The scouting party gathered themselves and returned to their leaders to tell them what had happened.

Word spread among the armies of the living, and they all returned to their own cities and villages. There were rumors of rebellion against the Old Ones, but their corruption had spread too deeply among the rulers of every faction.

The Ancient One went to the Cabal cities to rule over the darker races. The Forgotten One had the Order erect monuments in his name. And the Old One returned to the sea to rule over the aquatic races and their naval armies.

The war with the undead was over.

But the soul cycle of the Old Ones, and their dominion, endured.

Chapter 1 - Bound with Chains

After the fall of the Undead King and the Empire of the Damned, the world became bound in chains it could not see. High above the clouds, buried deep within the dead stone of Ward’s dark moon, the Soul Sphere pulsed with ancient, alien power. Every soul that died upon Ward was torn from the brink of the afterlife and dragged screaming back into the world, denied Heaven, denied Hell, denied rest.

The mortal races did not know they were trapped. They prayed to the Old Ones as gods. They begged them for victory, for survival, for dominion over their enemies. The Old Ones answered those prayers only by ensuring the wars never ended. Conflict bred fear. Fear bred anguish. Anguish fed the Old Ones directly, and through the Soul Sphere they drank deeply. Never before had they been so strong.

Ward was not a world at war. It was a world cultivated for suffering.

Yet not all realms benefited from this cycle. In Hell, the Demon King watched his legions wither. Souls meant for eternal battle never arrived. His grand design, to one day gather an army vast enough to challenge Heaven itself and tear down the Creator, was being slowly strangled by forces that did not rule Hell at all. The Demon King understood then that rage alone would not save his ambition.

He would need lies.

The Cosmic Demon desired only one thing, the annihilation of the Creator. It had no loyalty, no kingdom, no followers. It was destruction given will, and that singular hunger made it vulnerable.

The Demon King whispered to it across the void and lured it down into Hell. He spoke of forbidden knowledge, of a final truth hidden even from the Eternal Titan. He promised a path to end the Creator forever. The Cosmic Demon followed without hesitation, blinded by obsession.

What awaited it was not revelation, but betrayal.

Hidden within Hell’s deepest vaults was the Macrocon, a blasphemous tome authored by the Old Ones themselves. It contained the true mechanisms of the soul cycle, the precise rituals by which the Soul Sphere bound worlds and devoured the dead. During the Undead Invasion, the book had been stolen from the Old Ones and taken to Westgard. The Undead King had intended to use it to shatter the Soul Sphere and end the cycle, but his death left the book abandoned.

A roaming pack of Chaos Demons that scavenged the ruins of Westgard eventually recovered it and brought it to their master.

When the Cosmic Demon descended into Hell, the Demon King used the rituals of the Macrocon to bind it in cosmic chains. Once bound, the Demon King began to cast the Macrocon’s cosmic power. He ripped the Cosmic Demon’s soul from its form and sealed it within a strange jewel, and bound its physical body in a massive scarlet diamond.

The Cosmic Demon was imprisoned.

And Hell fell quiet.

With his greatest threat bound, the Demon King left Hell and traveled to Dur’ Grob, the ancestral seat of Orc power. There he revealed a truth the Old Ones had worked ages to conceal. He told the Orcs they were being lied to, and their endless wars did not honor gods.

They fed them.

Orc souls were not passing into Hell; the eternal battlefield they believed awaited them upon their demise. They were being stolen, trapped, recycled, denied the chaos they loved.

To an Orc, Hell was not punishment. It was their Heavan. A brutal eternity of slaughter and pain. When a new orc soul enters Hell, the demon’s quake with fear.

The Demon King did not threaten the orcs; he offered them an age of dominion.

He spoke of a legendary Orc of lightning, a War Chief born to rule the Cabal, Ward, and beyond. Under this War Chief, Orc-kind would conquer worlds and spill blood across the stars.

While the Demon King attempted to cajole the orcish elders, The Ancient One began to sense the demonic magic at play in his kingdom. He used his influence and tightened control over his Orcish minds, twisting fear into refusal. The Orcs rejected the offer, and the Demon King withdrew back to Hell.

Years passed. The wars and bloodshed continued, and the Old Ones continued to feed. The Angels did not intervene as the Soul Sphere did not violate The Creator’s Will. The Creator himself, nowhere to be seen. Ward was left to the torment and dark cosmic horror of the Old Ones.

If God will not help the planet, then perhaps the devil will.

The Demon King returned, wearing a different face. He appeared as a proud Orc warrior of ancient legend, long dead yet honored in song and scar. With the guise of a respected clan warrior, his presence commanded obedience without words. This time, he spoke not only of Ward, but of the greater cosmos. Endless war. Endless conquest. A universe built for Orcs to dominate.

Once Ward was conquered by the orcs, the Old Ones would be destroyed and the Soul Sphere shattered. The orcs would rule the planet and expand into the cosmos. However, there was a price. The Demon King’s goal was not Ward or the Old Ones; it was The Creator.

In return, Orc souls would once again belong to Hell, but they now would belong to the Demon King in life. When called upon by Hell’s Legion, the orcs were contractually obliged to serve.

Without hesitation, the contract was signed in blood by every elder of every orc clan.

The Demon King revealed the Macrocon and recited its words before a chosen Orc woman. The imprisoned soul of the Cosmic Demon was then bound into her womb. She would bear the messiah of Orc-kind, the one destined to break gods.

The drums of Dur’ Grob thundered through the night.

After another brutal year of endless violence and war, an orc child was born.

His skin was green like any other Orc, but from his very first breath, it was clear that something within him was different. Power radiated from his small frame, unnatural and undeniable. When anger stirred in him, faint arcs of electricity crawled across his flesh, snapping and whispering like a storm waiting to break.

As he grew, that power only intensified. While still a youth, he defeated seasoned Cabal warriors with ease, cutting them down as if they were nothing more than initiates. Many feared him, though none spoke it aloud. They understood what he was, and that he was their salvation. A path away from the cage that the Ancient One held over them.

Deep within him, something ancient stirred. Because of the Cosmic Demon bound to his soul, the influence of the Ancient One never fully took hold. Where others were consumed, he remained separate, a vessel but not a slave.

He learned patience, he learned obedience, and he learned how to kneel while quietly sharpening his blade. He watched, he listened, and he waited.

When he reached full maturity, the whispers began. The Cosmic Demon spoke from within, its voice coiling through his thoughts like smoke, guiding him and tempting him. It called him toward Hell, toward union, toward a destiny far greater than warbands and tribal conquest.

The Orc did not resist. He listened, and then, without hesitation, he began to gather warriors, not as a servant, but as something far more dangerous.

The Orc did not gather followers through faith or prophecy. He gathered them through dominance. He challenged champions, broke raiders, and took the strongest survivors under his command, forging them through relentless training and discipline. Under his hand, chaos was stripped away and replaced with order, precision, and purpose.

For every champion he defeated, the Cosmic Demon within the Orc unleashed its power, shattering the grip the Ancient One held over them and replacing it with its own form of control.

The legion he built was unlike anything Ward had ever seen. They did not fight as scattered tribes or reckless warbands. They moved as a single storm, struck as one blade, and killed without hesitation or ceremony. Every warrior understood their place, and every action served a greater design.

When the time came, the legion marched for the Citadel of Agony, the ancient fortress that guarded the last stable gateway into Hell. It was a place of dread and silence, where even the air felt heavy with the weight of countless battles fought in ages past. The Dark Angels stood watch over it, beings long corrupted by their proximity to Hell, yet still bound by their original purpose to prevent any demonic passage.

Along their march, the legion discovered a hidden outpost of the Order, concealed from the world and protected by powerful defenses. The last thing they needed was scouts from The Order notifying High Rock of their location. They launched a quick and strategic attack on the outpost. The battle was swift and merciless. Bloodshed followed as the Orc forces overwhelmed the outpost, tearing through its defenders with brutal efficiency. When the stronghold finally fell, they uncovered something far more dangerous than weapons or relics.

The Order had been hiding a creation born of desperation and defiance.

Steam Angels.

Mechanical angels powered not by faith or light, but by stolen souls.

The Orc war party was not like the others. They did not slaughter indiscriminately or leave nothing behind but ash. Instead, they chose their victims carefully, sparing a select few and keeping them alive. From these survivors, they extracted information, breaking them slowly until every secret was revealed.

One of the captive dwarves informed the orcs that The Order had been kidnapping children and wizard apprentices, binding their souls into steam-forged angels as part of a greater plan to seize the Citadel of Agony and exploit the power of Hell itself. It was not a war for survival, but a calculated attempt to control what should never be controlled.

The Orcs forced the Dwarves to teach them the incantation. Under threat and torment, the knowledge was given. When it was done, the Orcs showed no mercy. They killed them where they stood, ensuring the secret would belong to them alone.

The ritual that followed was brutal and unforgiving. They were forced to sacrifice their own warriors in the war party and seal their souls into the Steam Angels. Elevated into something far beyond flesh and bone. They became angelic beings of technology. Creations that roared with Orcish fury, powered by bound souls and driven by unrelenting aggression.

Once they finished the ritual, the war party turned their attention to the Citadel of Agony. The assault upon the Citadel of Agony was catastrophic. Angels burned in the sky, their forms collapsing into ash and light. Orcs died screaming as fire and steel tore through their ranks. The battlefield became a storm of destruction, where neither side showed restraint and survival was measured in moments.

Yet in the end, the combined might of the orcs with the new technology of the Steam Angels, were far too powerful.

The Citadel of Agony was now under orc control.

With the Citadel of Agony now under control, the war party wasted no time. They marched through the Gate and into the realm Hell.

They were met immediately by Hell’s Legions and were forced into one of the most brutal and violent fights ever to exist.

Orcs and Steam Angels tore through the demon legions with relentless force, carving a path deeper into Hell. Steel clashed against claw, and electricity ripped through shadow as the invasion pushed forward with terrifying momentum.

For a time, it seemed unstoppable. Then, the Demon King arrived. His presence alone shattered the advance. Power radiated from him in crushing waves, breaking formations and tearing through the Orc ranks. Steam Angels were ripped apart mid-charge, their stolen souls screaming as their mechanical bodies failed. Orc warriors fell in droves, and what had been a disciplined force, quickly collapsed into chaos.

The Demon King locked eyes with the orc leader. He sensed the power within him and lunged forth grabbing the orc by its throat. He snarled at him saying that he was breaking their contract and that he owns them in life and death.

Struggling to breath, the Orc leader heard the whispers again. The voice of the Cosmic Demon gave him enough power to break free of the Demon King’s grip and allowed him to flee from the battlefield, and guide him deeper into Hell.

While his army was being destroyed, he moved with purpose, driven by something greater than survival. The whispers led him to a chamber untouched by the battle, where a massive red diamond hovered in the air, pulsing with dark energy. Within it, the Cosmic Demon’s physical body was imprisoned, bound by forces older than Hell itself.

The orc leader stepped forward and struck the jewel with his axe, but the blade shattered against its surface. The whispers intensified, urging him onward. Power surged through his body as electricity began to crawl across his skin. He raised his hand and unleashed it. Lightning struck the diamond, and cracks spread across its surface with each violent surge. The chamber trembled as the energy built, until at last the jewel shattered.

The Cosmic Demon was freed, and in the same instant, it fused completely with him. No longer a voice within, it became his power. His body transformed under the force of it. His green skin darkened into a deep purple, his eyes burned with a piercing green light, and lightning erupted from every inch of his body. The Orc who had led the invasion was gone, replaced by something far more powerful and far more dangerous.

The Cabal War Chief was born.

The Cabal War Chief returned to the portal and found his army slaughtered, their bodies scattered across the battlefield and their souls tormented by laughing demons. The air itself was filled with their suffering, echoing through the ruins of what had once been a disciplined and unstoppable force. The Demon King sensed his presence, but far too late.

Lightning erupted across the battlefield with overwhelming force, annihilating everything in its path. Demons were reduced to ash, the ground split and burned, and the very air trembled under the power now coursing through the War Chief. What had once been a battle became something else entirely, a one-sided display of destruction.

The Demon King stood against him, but the outcome was no longer in question. He was beaten, broken, and cast down beneath the War Chief’s boot. Stripped of his dominance, he was forced to end the contract that bound the Orcs, doing so under the threat of absolute annihilation.

In that moment, the Orcs were freed. However, the Cabal War Chief was not finished. Hell, lay in ruins, and the Demon King was vulnerable. The War Chief imprisoned him within a cage of cosmic lightning. In Hell, the Demon King could not die, but he could be contained.

The War Chief then appointed his last living Orc Champion as the ruler of Hell, commanding him to govern with force and brutal aggression. The lesser demons were to be used as training for the Orc souls that would arrive after falling in battle on Ward.

Hell was now fully under the control of the Cabal and the Orcs. Every Orc that died on Ward would return to Hell, allowing the Cabal War Chief, still bound to the Cosmic Demon, to amass an army strong enough to one day challenge The Creator. However, the Soul Sphere remained on the moon and would need to be dealt with before any Orc souls could enter Hell.

With Hell secured and the Citadel of Agony left undefended, the portal had to be destroyed to prevent any intrusion, or the possibility of the Demon King being freed. The War Chief exited the gate and summoned a massive lightning storm upon the Citadel. Its ancient structure collapsed under the same power that had shattered Hell’s hold over the Orcs. The gateway could no longer stand. The portal destabilized, then collapsed entirely, sealing Hell away from Ward once more.

What remained was not the end of a war, but the beginning of something new.

The World of the Orcs had begun.

After the Citadel of Agony was laid to ruin, the Cabal War Chief returned to the Cabal Capitol and seized control. He executing its leaders and forced the Dark Elves to reactivate the ancient Orc spawning pits. Over a million Orcs were born for war, and Dur’ Grob became the capital of Ward.

The Cabal immediately began its conquest across Ward. Order villages burned as the Orc forces marched toward High Rock, 1 million bloodthirsty orcs ready for battle.

However, at the Gate to High Rock the Forgotten One revealed itself. It used its influence to warp the minds of the invading Orcs, turning them against one another and shattering the invasion.

While the Cabal army destroyed itself, The Forgotten One spoke to the War Chief as if addressing the Cosmic Demon within him. It declared Ward its feeding ground and to return to the cosmos or perish in the fleshy orc body it was bound to. The Cabal War Chief was the living embodiment of destruction and chaos. He immediately lunged for the Forgotten One in an attempt to end its miserable existence.

Their battle tore the sky apart. The clash between the Cabal War Chief and the Forgotten One shook the heavens, sending waves of force across the battlefield and splitting the clouds with unnatural light. Mountains trembled beneath them, and the air itself seemed to groan under the weight of their power. The War Chief fought with all the fury of the Cosmic Demon burning within him, and for a moment it seemed possible that even a god could bleed. He struck the Forgotten One and wounded it, drawing a reaction no mortal should have been capable of. But even that was not enough. The Forgotten One could not be overcome so easily. With overwhelming force, it seized the War Chief and cast him away from Ward, hurling him into the void of space.

The War Chief drifted through the stars, cast out into cold silence far beyond the world he had sought to conquer. Time lost meaning as he passed through darkness, surrounded only by distant suns and lifeless stone.

Then, from the darkness of space descended a large metallic being. The Eternal Titan found him. Vast and ancient beyond comprehension, the Titan descended upon him like a living catastrophe. It sensed the power of the Cosmic Demon fused within the War Chief, recognizing its ancient enemy housed in a weakened, mortal form. It did not speak. Instead, it charged forward and struck the Orc, its blow crashing into his tusk-filled jaw with devastating force.

Their battle began among the asteroids, where stone was shattered into dust and entire fields of debris were broken apart by their blows.
From there, the conflict carried them onto a dead world, barren and forgotten, where the sky hung dim and empty over a ruined surface. While they continued to fight on the barren planet, they were watched. The beings watching them were small, with gray skin and big black eyes. They wore no cloths and showed no emotion.

Regardless of being watched the Cabal war Chief and the Eternal Titan continued to fight. Lighting and energy ripping the very ground they stood on. The battle raged, but the Cabal War Chief channeled the Cosmic Demons fury and unleased a devastating strike to the Eternal Titan, cracking his metallic body.

The strike was too much for the titan to continue fighting. It was forced to flee, fusing itself with a mass of living black matter in order to escape destruction.

Once the titan had fled, the small gray beings approach the War Chief. They did not greet him as a savior or an enemy, but as one more being who had come too close to a truth that few were meant to understand.

They revealed that they are known as The Visitors, and explained what happened to their world and warned him that Ward was not unique. It was not the first world to be harvested, and it would not be the last. They revealed to him that their planet was once like Ward. It was beautiful and full of life. Until the Old Ones arrived.

The Old Ones promised gifts and prosperity and a freedom from death itself. With these promises they easily abandoned their faith in The Creator and bowed to these ancient beings without question. However, the Old Ones began to demand worship and spread wars and rumors of wars across the globe. They then fed on the pain and anguish of the mortal races and never allowed their souls to pass on to the next life.

For hundreds of years this took place but eventually, the mortal souls can only be fed on for so long before it disappears and leaves the body soulless. When their souls disappeared, the Old Ones abandoned their planet, leaving them as husks.

They revealed that they had been watching Ward since the cycle first began, though they possessed no power to intervene. Still, the Visitors wielded knowledge and technology far beyond anything known on Ward.

Using this forbidden understanding, they forged a weapon for the War Chief, a mighty axe unlike any before it. They called the Axe Zero. This axe could channel the power of the Cosmic Demon within him, acting as a conduit to draw his true strength to the surface.

Yet even with such power awakened, it was not enough. He still lacked the strength to destroy the Old Ones. He would have to first use this new weapon to shatter the Soul Sphere and finally end the prison that the Old Ones held over the mortals of Ward.

Armed with this knowledge, the Visitors granted the War Chief a transport pod, a vessel unlike anything ever forged on Ward. With it, he could return to his world in mere minutes.

Without hesitation, he entered, and the Visitors sealed the chamber, programming a one-way course back to Ward.

The pod ignited and tore through the void at impossible speed, bending distance as stars stretched into streaks of light. Within moments, Ward came into view, vast and waiting. But as he descended, the moon drifted in its ancient orbit and moved directly into the pod’s path. There was no time to react. The collision was devastating. The pod slammed into the lunar surface with immense force, shattering against the cold stone and letting out a loud ringing like a celestial bell.

From the wreckage, the War Chief rose unscathed, though the pod lay destroyed beyond repair. Where any mortal would have perished, he endured. The vacuum of space clawed at nothing, his cosmic nature shielding him from its grasp. As he stepped free from the wreckage, he felt it immediately, a deep, oppressive pulse echoing through the void.

The Soul Sphere.

Its presence pressed against his mind, ancient and suffocating, calling to him. Drawn by its power, the War Chief crossed the barren surface of the moon with purpose. And there, before him, he found it, the dreaded Soul Sphere. A grotesque embodiment of the prison that was Ward, and the very source of the Old Ones’ power.

The Cabal War Chief stood before the Soul Sphere; his gaze fixed upon it as silence stretched between them. For a moment, he did not move. His mind churned with the truth of what this ancient relic had done to his people, denying the orcs their rightful passage to Hell, trapping their souls in an endless cycle of imprisonment.

Within him, the Cosmic Demon stirred, watching with cold disgust. To it, the Old Ones were no gods. They were parasites, insignificant insects clinging to power that was never theirs to wield. They were a flaw in the order of existence, and flaws were meant to be erased.
The will of the demon surged forward, taking hold of the War Chief. It was time to fulfill its purpose. To destroy.

The War Chief gripped his axe and raised it high above his head. With a roar that echoed across the barren moon, he brought it down upon the Soul Sphere. The impact rang out like thunder. Again, he struck, and again, each blow fueled by rage, by bloodlust, by the unrelenting need to break what had bound his kind for so long.

As the axe crashed against the Sphere, a terrible sound answered him. Cries. Endless cries of pain and agony. The voices of the trapped, countless souls imprisoned within, waiting to be cast back into Ward, denied their true fate. But he did not stop.

Swing after swing, the War Chief hammered against the Sphere. Cracks began to spread across its surface, thin at first, then widening with each brutal strike. The power within him surged, lightning and cosmic force pouring into every blow.

Then, with one final, devastating strike, the Sphere shattered. A blinding eruption of energy tore through the darkness as millions of souls were released at once. They poured outward in every direction, a storm of spirits breaking free from their prison. The wicked souls surged back toward Ward, drawn into Hell. The pure and righteous ascended into Heaven. Toward the Angels, and The Creator.

However, not all followed those paths. Some drifted elsewhere, pulled into a deep and unnatural darkness. A tear in space and time had opened, and through it, these souls vanished into the unknown.

The War Chief watched only for a moment. Wherever they went was of no concern to him.

The Soul Sphere was destroyed. Now, it was time to return to Ward… and finish the Old Ones.

With a mighty, electrified leap, the Cabal War Chief launched himself from the surface of the moon. Space seemed to bend around him as he screamed toward Ward, the planet growing larger with every passing second. Then, like a blazing meteor, he tore across the sky and crashed into the earth with a thunderous roar.

He had returned.

Rising from the impact, the War Chief brushed the dust and debris from Zero and steadied his breath. His purpose was clear. Dur’ Grob awaited, and within it, the Ancient One. He would drive his axe into that insect-like eye and end the creature forever.

As he approached the Cabal capital, the Ancient One sensed the cosmic energy within him and immediately unleashed its forces. The War Chief hesitated only for a moment. Then he charged. Blade and lightning tore through the ranks as he was forced to cut down his own former brothers and sisters of war. Alive or dead, it no longer mattered. The living would be broken and reforged under his rule. The dead would be sent to Hell, where his Champion now ruled.

None could stand against him. One by one, they fell. Thunder cracked above the bone-littered capital, and lightning carved through the sky as the War Chief advanced, unstoppable, toward the stronghold.

He forced his way inside and descended deep into the fortress, pushing through its lower dungeons and into the suffocating depths below. There, in the darkness, he found it. The Ancient One loomed before him, its grotesque insect husk shifting, its many eyes fixed upon him like a parasite clinging to existence.

The presence within him surged.

The Cosmic Demon could no longer be contained. It seized control of the War Chief’s body and spoke through him, its voice filled with ancient hatred. It called the Ancient One an insignificant insect and declared that it would be destroyed here and now. The cosmos itself belonged to him, and creatures like this had no right to exist.

The Ancient One only laughed.

It told the Demon that he was no longer what he once was. In his true celestial form, perhaps he could have destroyed it. But now, bound in mortal flesh, he was nothing more than prey. A vessel to be consumed.

Then it revealed the truth.

It was the Ancient One and its brethren who had manipulated the Demon King into imprisoning the Cosmic Demon. They knew that once the Macrocon was claimed, the Demon King would seize the opportunity to trap his ancient enemy. They had even anticipated that the orcs would revolt against the Demon King. What they had not predicted was that the Demon King would bind the Cosmic Demon’s essence to something so fragile… a mortal body.

And through their influence over the Cabal, they had shaped the War Chief into exactly what they needed, a force strong enough to invade Hell and destroy the demons once and for all.

It had all been planned.

The Cosmic Demon lifted Zero, its energy crackling. The Ancient One’s limbs twitched as it laughed again, mocking him. “The Visitors,” it said, “do you truly believe that a soulless race of trash like them could help you? They were relics of a forgotten purpose.” The horror continued stating that their technology meant nothing as long as the Old Ones controlled the Soul Sphere.

“The Soul Sphere is gone,” the Cosmic Demon answered coldly. “Destroyed… by me.”

For the first time, the Ancient One faltered. It inhaled deeply, drawing the air into a violent spiral that tore through the cavern, then unleashed a piercing scream. Its work, its design, its careful manipulation over thousands of years… undone. Destroyed by a mortal. By a savage, purple-skinned orc.

The War Chief surged forward, tearing control of his body back from the Demon, his voice erupting with fury.

“THE CABAL IS MINE!”

Lightning exploded around him as he lunged, and the two collided in a battle that shook the very foundation of the world. Thunder crashed through the cavern as chitin and steel met in a storm of violence. The War Chief struck again and again, carving through the Ancient One’s limbs, severing them one by one. With each blow, the creature weakened, its monstrous form collapsing under the relentless assault.

At last, the battle drove them to the edge of a vast underground chasm, molten lava churning below.

The Ancient One faltered.

The War Chief seized it by its insect husk and dragged it to the brink. Instead of granting it a swift death, he raised Zero and drove it deep into the creature’s eye. The Ancient One let out a horrific, echoing scream as its life began to fade, but something was wrong.

Its soul did not escape, it did not move on, it was pulled into Zero. Ancient power surged through the weapon and into the War Chief, flooding his body with overwhelming force as the strength of the Ancient One and all the souls it had consumed coursed through him. In that moment, he held the power of both the Cosmic Demon and the Ancient One.

He stood in silence, feeling it, absorbing it, until the voice returned. The Cosmic Demon whispered that there were still two Old Ones remaining, and both possessed even greater power waiting to be taken. The War Chief did not want this. He had never sought the power of ancient horrors. All he had ever wanted was to free his people, to break the chains that bound the orcs to forces beyond their control.

But the being within him had no such desire for freedom.

It wanted destruction.

And its plans had only just begun.

Word of the War Chief’s return spread across Ward not through whispers, but through fear. Villages burned in his wake, strongholds bent the knee, and the remnants of the Cabal either joined him or were crushed beneath him. Orcs rallied first, drawn by the promise of freedom and conquest. Then came the others, dark elves from the shadowed forests, minotaur from the broken plains, and goblins from their scattered warrens. The forgotten races, the feared races, the ones cast aside by the so-called order of the world gathered beneath a single banner of the Cabal. The War Chief did not speak of ruling. He spoke of breaking chains. But something within him spoke of something else.

From the depths of the ocean came a presence older than the Ward itself. A force that had watched in silence as the surface burned and bled. The Cosmic Demon stirred within him when it felt it, not with anger, but with hunger.

The Old One. Its domain lay beneath the endless black waters, in a sunken city known as Nhal’Mora, the Drowned Throne. A place whispered about in half-forgotten myths, a city of towering coral spires, ancient stone, and impossible architecture that twisted like living flesh. It was said no land-born creature could enter its domain and live. The War Chief intended to prove that wrong.

He commanded the Cabal to build. Forests were torn down and reforged into massive warships, brutal and jagged, plated with iron and bone. Goblins, cackling with manic brilliance. They crafted hulking submersible war machines, crude yet terrifying, driven by steam, pressure, and inventions that defied reason. Orcish submarines were not made for elegance, they were made for war. The fleet gathered at the edge of the world, and without hesitation, they descended.

The ocean swallowed them whole. Darkness pressed in from every direction as the fleet pushed deeper, the pressure groaning against their vessels. Strange shapes moved just beyond sight, brushing against the hulls like ghosts of something ancient and watching. Then the army of the deep came. Naga surged forward, their serpentine bodies cutting through the water with lethal grace. Merfolk followed, their eyes empty, their movements unnatural, bound to a will not their own. And then came the shock troops, the creatures known as the Shark Men, towering humanoid predators built for killing. They did not fight like beasts. They fought like soldiers.

The ocean itself turned against the Cabal. Waves twisted unnaturally, currents crushed vessels, and the sea bent to a greater will. Still, the War Chief pushed forward. Ship after ship fell, but enough remained. Enough to reach the gates of Nhal’Mora.

The city revealed itself like a nightmare. A massive dome of shimmering energy held back the crushing ocean, creating a pocket of air within the depths. Inside, towering structures of coral, bone, and ancient stone spiraled upward in unnatural forms. At the center stood a colossal throne carved into the likeness of something far beyond mortal understanding. And upon it sat the Old One, a grotesque mass of flesh and writhing tentacles where a face should be. Its presence pressed against the minds of all who entered, a psychic weight that bent weaker beings into submission. The aquatic races did not serve it. They were enslaved by it.

The War Chief charged forward with his army, but the Old One did not move. It did not need to. With a single thought, the battlefield shifted. The Shark Men surged forward, led by their champion, the largest among them, the one known only as the Perfect Shark. What followed was not a battle, it was a collapse. The Cabal was overwhelmed, dragged down, broken, and captured. The War Chief carved through dozens, then hundreds, but even he could not turn the tide alone. As he pushed forward, the Old One raised a massive appendage, and from its throne emerged a relic of the Visitors, a construct of impossible design that pulsed with cosmic energy.

The Abyssal Nullifier activated with a violent surge, and Zero was ripped from the War Chief’s grasp as if reality itself rejected his hold over it. For the first time since his return, he felt empty. That moment was enough. The Perfect Shark struck, and the War Chief fell.

When he awoke, it was not to war, but to spectacle. He stood within a massive arena carved into the heart of the city, a colosseum beneath the sea. Above him, rising in endless tiers, the enslaved races of the deep watched in silence under the gaze of the Old One upon its throne. His army had been brought as well, chained and beaten, forced to watch. Their leader would die here.

The Old One shouted down to the War Chief. He shouted that if he could survive his arena, he would let him and his army live as long as they served him. The orc could not stand the though of becoming a slave once again, but he had not choice. He would have to beat this area in order to have the chance at The Old One.

The gates opened, and the first creature emerged. The Owlverine shrieked as it lunged, a twisted fusion of feather and muscle, beak and claw, its movements erratic and vicious. It struck fast, tearing into the War Chief and drawing blood, but he endured. He caught it mid-attack, snapped its arm, and drove it into the ground before crushing its skull with his bare hands. No problem.

Then, behind him, the second gate opened, and a Behemoth entered. Massive and relentless, it charged with unstoppable force, its horns crashing into the War Chief and sending him across the arena. This was no quick battle. Each blow broke bone, each strike tested his limits. But he rose again and again, until at last he met the creature head-on and brought it down with a killing strike and ripped its massive body in half. He let out a war cry that echoed through the arena.

Tired and covered in blood, the War Chief turned to the sound of the third gate opening. Out crawled a blue dragon into the pit. Frost poured from its jaws, freezing the ground and locking the War Chief in place. Again and again, the dragon struck, freezing and shattering him where he stood. But each time, he broke free. Each time, he endured. With a final surge of strength, he pushed through the storm of ice, tore into the creature, and reached into its mouth, ripping its tongue out. The Blue Dragon, pulled back while still clawing at the orc. The War Chief then forced himself into the mouth of the dragon. The dragon swallowed. However, its belly began to pulsate. The orc then erupted out of the body of the dragon, leaving its cold dead scaly body lying on the sand floor.

The War Chief was tired, but his orc nature grew excited at the carnage he was able to unleash.

He looked around and did not see any more gates however; the Old One made a pointing gesture to The Perfect Shark. As if reluctantly giving him the ok to fight.

The Perfect Shark stepped forward, calm and controlled. This was not a beast, but a warrior. Every movement was precise, every strike deliberate. The War Chief attacked with raw fury, driven by bloodlust and rage, but it was not enough. The Perfect Shark countered everything. It broke his stance, punished his aggression, and turned his strength against him. Blow after blow landed with brutal efficiency. The orc continued his aggressive tactics and blood raged attacks, but The Perfect Shark was too fast, too precise. For every attempted strike by the War Chief, the Perfect Shark would land 3 brutal blows. It aimed for the orc’s vital areas and weak point with unnatural precision.

Finally, the War Chief let out a loud scream and lunged for one last final brutal attack. The Perfect Shark grabbed the orc by his face ands then bit hard into his arm causing him to bleed to the point that he could no longer fight.

The arena fell silent as the Perfect Shark dragged the War Chief’s body across the sand toward the throne.

The Old One loomed over the area as the orc was dragged ever closer. He asked the Cosmic Demon inside him how it felt to now be his personal pet. The once terror of the entire universe, reduced to a mere play toy for its amusement.

The Old One laughed as the Perfect Shark continued closer.

Then came chaos.

A goblin, small and overlooked, triggered a hidden device among the naga guards, a crackling Scrapflash Decoy that erupted in blinding light and thunderous noise. Confusion spread instantly. In that moment, the goblin seized Zero and hurled it across the arena.

The axe did not fall, but moved as if alive.

It tore itself through the air and slammed into the War Chief’s hand. His eyes snapped open, and lightning erupted from his body as he rose in a single motion. The Perfect Shark turned just in time to meet him, but this time, the War Chief was different. His movements were no longer wild. The fury remained, but it was controlled, sharpened. The Cosmic Power that returned to him was far too much for a simple Shark Man to contend with.

Strike for strike, the War Chief adapted, learned, and overcame. The Perfect Shark faltered for the first time, and with a final crushing blow, the War Chief brought it to its knees. The creature looked up at him and saw something beyond rage, something greater. In that moment, the psychic hold of the Old One shattered. The Perfect Shark was free.

Now that he was finally released from the grip of The Old One, he looked to the War chief and saw not an enemy, but an ally. Together, they turned toward the throne.

The Old One rose, its full form unfolding in monstrous scale as its psychic presence bore down upon them. The arena cracked and trembled under its power, but it no longer mattered. The War Chief charged, and the Perfect Shark leapt beside him. Tentacles lashed out, tearing through stone and air alike, but they pushed through.

Before they could reach the throne, the Old One struck with overwhelming force. A massive tentacle coiled around the War Chief mid-charge, lifting him from the ground and crushing him in its grip, while another slammed into the Perfect Shark and sent it skidding across the arena floor. The psychic pressure intensified, clawing into their minds, attempting to bend them back under its control. The War Chief roared through the crushing force as lightning burst from his body, burning into the creature’s flesh until the tentacle loosened just enough for him to tear free. Across the arena, the Perfect Shark recovered and surged forward once more.

The Perfect Shark reached the throne first, launching itself onto the Old One and sinking its jaws deep into its writhing face. With a violent tear, it ripped the creature’s face away. The War Chief followed. With a roar that shook the city itself, he drove Zero deep into the core of the Old One. The creature screamed, a sound that echoed through the ocean and beyond, before falling silent. Its soul did not escape. It did not move on. It was pulled into Zero.

Power surged through the War Chief once more, greater than before, heavier, deeper. The strength of another Old One now lived within him. Around him, the city fell still. The ocean no longer moved with purpose. The chains had been broken.

But within him, the Cosmic Demon stirred, and the orc’s mortal body felt filled. Like a cup almost full. It didn’t matter; he had more than enough power to put down the final Old One.

The creature that managed to cajole the entirety of The Order. The Forgotten One

In the aftermath of Nhal’Mora, the ocean grew still.

The War Chief stood at the edge of the drowned throne, looking out across the endless black waters as the freed races of the deep gathered at a distance. Naga, merfolk, and the Perfect Sharks no longer moved as slaves, their eyes clear for the first time in ages. They watched him, wary, uncertain, no longer bound, but not yet allies.

He offered them a choice. Join him, march with the Cabal, and help bring an end to the Old Ones and the chains that bound all of Ward. But they refused.

Their hatred of the surface ran deep, and deeper still was their distrust of the orcs. They did not forget the wars, the blood, the burning of coasts and the poisoning of waters. They were grateful for their freedom, but they would not trade one master for another, no matter what the War Chief promised, they would remain in the seas.

The Perfect Shark stood among them, silent, watching. The War Chief offered him leadership of the aquatic races, a chance to unite them and stand as something more than a weapon. The Perfect Shark did not accept. He did not refuse either. He simply turned away, choosing neither throne nor command. He would walk his own path.

With that, the alliance ended before it began. The Cabal departed the ocean and returned to Dul’Grob, where the War Chief wasted no time. The war was not over. It was only beginning. Under his command, the Cabal rebuilt with terrifying speed. War machines rose from the forges, larger and more brutal than before. Siege engines plated in iron and bone, massive constructs driven by goblin ingenuity and orcish fury, engines built not for defense, but for annihilation. The army swelled once more and marched toward High Rock

High Rock stood as the heart of the Empire, a city of towering stone and shining banners, the seat of The Order, and the domain of the final Old One, the Forgotten One. Unlike the others, it did not rule from shadows or isolation. It ruled through power, through influence, through the might of an entire empire, and it was ready.

The battle began at the walls. The Cabal crashed against High Rock like a storm. Siege towers rose, war engines roared, and the sky darkened with fire and ash. The defenders answered in kind. Arrows rained from the battlements, spells tore through the advancing ranks, and the ground itself shook beneath the clash of steel and fury. Orcs scaled the walls, minotaur smashed through gates, goblin machines detonated in bursts of chaos, while the forces of The Order held their ground with unwavering discipline.

It was not a slaughter.

It was a war.

Back and forth the tide shifted. Streets ran with blood as the Cabal pushed deeper into the city, only to be driven back by counterattacks from the Empire’s elite. Towers collapsed, fires spread, and the once-proud city of High Rock began to crumble under the weight of the assault.

Then the Forgotten One entered the field. Its presence alone shifted the battle. It did not descend like a god, but moved among the ranks, its influence bending the will of soldiers, strengthening them, driving them into a frenzy. It knew better than to face the War Chief alone. Instead, it used the battlefield itself as its weapon, overwhelming him with wave after wave of warriors, never allowing him a moment to strike directly.

Even so, the War Chief carved through them. Nothing held him for long. Realizing this, the Forgotten One made its move. It called upon its final weapon. From the heart of High Rock, he descended.

A man.

Golden-haired, clad in a yellow suit with a flowing red cape, the crest of Ward emblazoned across his chest. He did not look like a monster, nor a god, but something far more unsettling. Something perfect.

The Super Hero.

He moved faster than the eye could follow, striking the War Chief with a force that sent him crashing through stone and steel alike. Before the War Chief could recover, the Super Hero seized him and launched into the sky, carrying him away from the battlefield and into the cathedral at the heart of the city.

They crashed through its stained glass in an explosion of light and color, shards scattering across the sacred floor as they slammed into the stone beneath. The clash that followed shattered the silence of the holy place. Pews were torn apart, pillars cracked, and the very foundation of the cathedral trembled as the two forces collided.

It was a fight between gods in a house built for one.

The Super Hero fought with precision and overwhelming strength, his movements controlled, his power immense. He struck with fists that cracked stone, moved with impossible speed, and wielded strength beyond anything the War Chief had faced. He was not like the Old Ones. He was something else entirely. Something stronger.

The War Chief met him with equal fury, their blows shaking the cathedral as they tore through it. Still, the balance never fully tipped. The War Chief was stronger than anything before him, but this was different. This was a force that matched him, strike for strike.

The battle raged until both stood bloodied and breathing heavily, neither able to finish the other.

Meanwhile, deep within the city, far from the cathedral, soldiers of M.O.O.N. had carried out their own war. Through narrow streets and crumbling structures, they fought their way to the Old One using weapons and tactics born from desperation. Their final act was not a blade, but a bomb, a relic from Buck City, detonated in a final, desperate assault that obliterated the creature where it stood.

The sound of monstrous screams and red lighting reverberated through the city. Then, in a thunderous crash, the last of the Old Ones was defeated.

Back in the cathedral, The Super Hero staggered, the influence over him gone. He looked at the War Chief, no longer as an enemy, but as something else. They spoke, not as warriors, but as survivors. Because the War Chief respected this man for the incredible power he possessed, he told him everything. He explained the Old Ones, the Cosmic Demon, the truth behind the war. For a brief moment, the tension broke, and they laughed together. They sat side by side on the stage of the cathedral and gazed out of the shattered stain glass window.

Suddenly, a surge of energy tore through the cathedral as the soul of the Forgotten One, denied its end, rushed into the nearest vessel strong enough to contain it.

The Super Hero.

His body convulsed as the Old One took hold, its power flooding into him, twisting his expression into something unnatural. But it was not complete. The control was unstable, unfamiliar.

And that was enough.

The War Chief stood back up, clutching Zero in his bloodies grip. The Super Hero, now twisted, looked at the War Chief with eyes of red lighting. The Forgotten One spoke through him. He shouted that you can never be rid of us. We are never ending and eternal. Once we finish with your planet, we will move to the next. Over and over again until time itself stops. We will feast on your souls as we devour your fear.

The Super Hero then sped toward the orc and punched him across his jaw, sending him streaking backward into the cathedral wall. He got up and reluctantly charged at The Super Hero.

The fight resumed, more brutal than before. The Super Hero still held immense power, but his movements faltered, his control fractured. The War Chief pressed the advantage, each strike heavier, each blow more final.

He did not want to do this, but he had no choice. With a final, devastating strike, he brought the Super Hero down. For a moment, there was silence. Then, Zero pulsed.

The power of the Forgotten One and the Super Hero surged into the War Chief all at once. It was too much. Far too much. Energy exploded outward from him, tearing through the cathedral, ripping stone apart as the entire structure began to collapse.

The War Chief screamed as the power coursed through him, threatening to tear his mortal body apart. He could feel it, all of it, the Old Ones, the Super Hero, the Cosmic Demon, all the souls they consumed. It was all inside of him. Inside his fleshy, mortal, orc body.

Then something shifted. The War Chief was no longer in control. The Cosmic Demon rose fully within him, its presence overwhelming, its will absolute. Through the War Chief’s body, it finally spoke without resistance.

This had always been the plan.

The Old Ones were never the end. They were the means. Their power was necessary, a stepping stone toward something greater. Ward would not be destroyed entirely, only enough to force The Creator to return. And when he did, the Cosmic Demon would finally have the power to destroy him.

From within, the War Chief resisted, but he could not stop it. His body moved without him. The mind of the Cosmic Demon taking hold of him and all the souls within. How could one trust such a monster.

High Rock erupted in a catastrophic explosion, the force tearing through the city in a wave of destruction that left nothing untouched. Stone shattered, fire consumed what remained, and the heart of the Empire was reduced to ruin in a single, devastating moment.

Then, with a surge of impossible speed, the Cosmic Demon, wearing the body of the War Chief, launched himself into the distance, leaving the broken city behind.

The World of the Orcs, a lie.

The sky above Ward did not darken, it fractured. Thin veins of light split across the heavens as the being that wore the War Chief’s body tore through the atmosphere like a living comet. Lightning bent toward him, oceans churned beneath him, and the land itself trembled under the weight of what he had become. This was no longer the Cabal War Chief, this was the Cosmic Demon, unbound, carrying within it the stolen power of Old Ones, the Super Hero, and forces never meant to exist within a mortal shell.

Within that collapsing vessel, the War Chief still fought. He felt every surge, every violent collision of power tearing through him from the inside out, his body cracking with blinding light as energy spilled through flesh and bone as if his very existence could no longer contain it. Still, the Cosmic Demon pressed forward, indifferent to the destruction of its host, because it had waited for this moment since the dawn of creation and now it would call to the only being it had ever truly hated. The energy it unleashed was not mere destruction, it was a signal, a cosmic imprint cast outward across existence itself, ancient and unmistakable as it rippled through the void beyond Ward and cut across the boundaries of creation.

Something answered. The sky split open, not as a storm but as a wound, and from it descended a presence vast beyond comprehension. The Eternal Titan fell from the heavens like a collapsing star, striking Ward with a force that shattered mountains and tore the oceans from their rhythm, its metallic form shimmering with divine energy, a construct of The Creator’s own essence, ancient and absolute. It did not speak or hesitate, it came to end what had been unleashed, and the Cosmic Demon surged forward to meet it without pause.

Their collision rippled across the entire planet, the impact alone splitting the land and sending shockwaves tearing across continents as the Titan struck with the weight of creation itself, each blow deliberate and controlled, carrying divine authority. But the Cosmic Demon was no longer what it had once been, it moved faster, struck harder, fueled by the combined power of everything it had consumed, meeting the Titan’s precision with overwhelming force. The battle did not remain on the surface, as the ground beneath them collapsed and they tore into one another, crashing through stone and earth and descending deep into the core of Ward itself where the pressure of the world closed in around them.

There, in the crushing depths, the Cosmic Demon seized the Eternal Titan and began to tear it apart. This was not a battle of victory, it was annihilation

Piece by piece it ripped through the Titan’s metallic form, breaking through its divine structure until the energy within it began to rupture. The Titan resisted, its power surging violently as it attempted to hold itself together, but it was not enough, and the Cosmic Demon forced its way into the core of the Titan and tore it open. The divine energy of The Creator erupted outward in a catastrophic surge, not as fire but as raw existence breaking free, tearing upward through the planet, splitting the earth, the oceans, and the sky itself.

Reality fractured under the strain. The sky shattered into vast, glowing rifts as the boundaries of the universe gave way, and through them other realms became visible, not as distant visions but as overlapping existence pressing into Ward. Then The Creator descended, not with force or spectacle, but with presence, appearing above the broken world as if he had always been there, a perfect form, alpha and omega, his expression unchanged, his gaze empty of emotion as he observed what stood before him. For the second time, something had forced him to act, and when his eyes fell upon the being that stood where the War Chief once was, there was something new in that stillness, not fear, but recognition.

The Cosmic Demon met his gaze, and for the first time since creation they stood on something close to equal ground. When they moved, it was not a clash of bodies but a collision of existence itself, their power tearing through reality as the Cosmic Demon, still in the orc’s body, struck with overwhelming force fueled by rage, stolen power, and ancient hatred.

However, The Creator answered with perfect control, each movement precise, each counter absolute. Space collapsed and reformed around them with every strike, unable to withstand the force of their battle, and even as they fought, the War Chief felt his end approaching, his body failing completely under the pressure of what it carried.

The power inside him surged beyond restraint, beyond even the control of the Cosmic Demon, as the forces within him clashed without balance. This was no longer sustainable, and for one final moment, buried beneath everything, the War Chief made a choice. He did not try to control it, he did not try to survive it, he simply let it all go at once, releasing every ounce of power contained within him in a single, catastrophic moment.

The eruption that followed consumed him entirely. His body shattered into pure cosmic energy, a violent release that tore outward in all directions, striking The Creator directly and forcing something that had never happened before. The Creator was wounded. His form destabilized, flickering as the explosion tore through not just his presence but the very structure of creation itself, and the damage did not stop there.

The universe itself shattered, the sky splitting into rifts that tore open into overlapping realities, where fire and torment bled into existence from one fracture, and blinding light and silent judgment poured from another, revealing Hell, Heaven, and many other realms beyond them.

The Creator withdrew, not in defeat but in necessity, recognizing that the damage had gone too far to contain. Without a word or expression, he vanished back into the cosmos, leaving Ward broken behind him.

Where the War Chief had stood, there was nothing left of him, no body, no trace, only the aftermath of what he had become. From the fading remnants of that explosion, the essence of the Cosmic Demon and all the souls that once fused with the Cabal War Chief, slipped free, no longer bound to mortal flesh. With Heaven and Hell both bleeding into Ward’s universe, the Souls simply roamed without purpose and no after life. Just and endless eternity of lost souls wandering the cosmos.

From the ground the Cabal and Order had ended their fight. They looked to the sky. They saw beams of pure light coming from Heaven, and below them, the ground cracked as Hell’s fire erupted from the depths.

Aside from Heaven and Hell, other tears in space and time loomed across the sky. One shimmered with bright, unnatural colors, as if it had been crudely painted into existence. Another revealed an endless night, a void filled with distant stars that did not belong to Ward.

But one stood apart. One was pure darkness, as if that portion of the sky itself had been erased. From within it came sounds that no mortal mind could comprehend, things that should not exist, pressing faintly against the edges of reality.

Ward was left in shambles. There were no gods left to pray to, no higher power to answer. The Creator had fled, the Cosmic Demon was gone, and the Old Ones had been eradicated.

Across the shattered fields of Ward, where fires still smoldered and the sky hung broken above them, the world stood in silence. Orcs, dark elves, minotaur, goblins, and even those who had once stood against them looked upon the ruin and felt something unfamiliar settle over them. The War Chief was gone, not fallen in battle, not defeated, but gone in a way that left nothing behind but the scars of what he had become.

He had not promised peace, or glory, or even survival. He had promised freedom, and in the end, he had given it to all of them. The Creator had fled, the Old Ones were gone, and no higher force remained to command the fate of Ward. For the first time, the world belonged to those who lived in it, and whatever came next would not be decided by gods, but by themselves.

The World of the Orcs had ended before it could truly begin.

Far beyond Ward, above the broken world and its fractured sky, its silent moon drifted untouched by the chaos below. There, perched upon its cold surface, something remained. A being as old as the universe itself. A golden bird, still and watching. An Old God.

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