The Guardian gods

As the enormous wave crashed over the demons, lightning descended from the heavens like a furious rain, electrifying the water and the millions of demons trapped within it. In a matter of minutes, the horde was completely annihilated.

Slowly, the sky began to clear, its oppressive darkness giving way to the sun. The vast body of water that had flooded the land began to evaporate, dissipating into clouds and steam.

On the battlefield, Rattan, disguised as Kaelen, found himself trembling. The terrifying display of power brought back memories he had long tried to suppress. He was a Fifth-tier mage, and facing one of these Sixth-tier mages was a nightmare. He couldn't believe he had survived a confrontation with one.

Despite his fear, he knew it was his time to act. He stood tall on the field, pulling his sword and pointing it forward toward the distant Abyss portal. His voice, amplified by mana, bellowed, "Attack!"

In response, the army and generals roared back with a thunderous cry of courage. Rattan could feel the surge of power and bravery from their unified shout, and his head swelled with the pride of a leader. His mount, a warhorse eager for battle, tried to join the charge, but he held it back, waiting for the right moment to lead the final push.

Meanwhile, back at the abyss, the Zarvok army was now fully assembled. Arranged in a disciplined formation, they waited as their leader, Zarvok, emerged. The impish figure floated out, followed closely by the castle's butler and the towering forms of Ikenga and Keles.

Seeing the quartet, the army, clad in their dark uniforms, dropped to one knee and bowed their heads. Zarvok, small but powerful, began to speak, his voice echoing across the silent ranks.

"The time for harvest has come," he announced, his voice gaining a chilling resonance. "Our targets, with their so-called bravery, are making their way toward us even now. It is a fool's bravery, for they have no idea what is to come."

His voice grew deeper and louder with each word. "They know not of the nightmare they are about to face."

As if in response to his proclamation, the space behind him tore open, revealing a gate to his domain. Beyond it lay a vast, fiery landscape. It was a forge of immense scale, with rivers of magma and a sky of embers. At its center, a massive, molten-red crucible pulsed with an ominous light, ready to receive its next offering.

Zarvok raised his hand, and three terrified figures appeared. Ikenga watched as a chained goblin, an ogre, and a rat-man, all shaking with fear, hovered above the crucible. With a simple gesture from Zarvok, they fell with a scream into the molten depths.

Zarvok then regarded his army once more. "Let the enemy know they have faced nothing but a glimpse of my army's true might. Teach them my name."

His voice grew louder, echoing with a terrible finality. "Make my name a core memory for them. Let them know the name of the one they dare to face, and remind them why I am called Zarvok 'The Race Killer'."

The army began to stir, a low chant building as they stomped their feet and slammed their weapons against the ground. The sound grew into a thunderous roar: "Race Killer! Race Killer! Race Killer!"

As the chant began, three colored lights rose from the crucible. One of them, a ball of light, appeared in Zarvok's hand. He crushed it, and the sky above the abyss and his army took on the light's color before raining down upon them.

As the rain fell, the chant became even louder. One by one, the other balls of light were crushed by Zarvok, each one raining down a different color like a terrible blessing upon his army.

"A blessing," Ikenga thought to himself as he watched the demon army receive Zarvok's grace. He looked at the Imp, and it so happened that Zarvok was also looking at him with a smirk.

"The Race Killer," Ikenga murmured to himself, the name a chilling weight on his tongue. The chant continued as the army moved as one, turning their attention to the portal, waiting for their prey to appear.

Zarvok turned back toward his army, a smirk on his face and his blood boiling with the excitement of the coming bloodshed. He was an imp demon, a race considered one of the abyss's best cannon fodder. Imp demons had a weak starting point and low strength. Even if they managed to grow stronger, it would be too late; they would still end up being used as cannon fodder by greater, more powerful demons. But Zarvok... Zarvok was different.

Zarvok saw himself as an anomaly among his kind. He was never content with his destiny as cannon fodder. So, he began early to tap into the inherent knowledge all demons were blessed with.

An act most demons found pointless, as what good is knowledge when you lack the strength to use it? Zarvok agreed with this sentiment, but his use of knowledge wasn't a blind hope to defeat those stronger and bigger than him. Instead, it was to defeat himself and those weaker than him.

For a decade in the abyss, Zarvok's enemies were himself and demons weaker than him. He first began by learning his own race's weaknesses, which he then used to kill his fellow imp demons, all while feeding on their souls.

Before long, killing his own kind was as easy as breathing, for he understood all their vulnerabilities. He then applied this deadly knowledge to other demonic races, and so began his bloody ascent to his current power and position.

Zarvok spoke no lie when he named his domain "The Infernal Crucible," but he never told Ikenga what his forge was made of or what fueled its flames.

The forge was Knowledge a vast, living forge of conceptual refinement. Its flames were fueled by knowledge and observation. Zarvok understood that true power wasn't about strength; it was about knowing your enemy better than they knew themselves and using that knowledge to become their perfect counter.

Throughout the war, he had been watching and learning about the empire, the goblins, the ogres, and the ratfolk. He had been preparing for them. To make matters even better, he acquired members of each race and threw them into his crucible. There, their essence was broken down and perfectly understood.

He was now ready or rather his army is ready to become their perfect counter. The balls of light were blessing meant to manifest as a counter to the very existence of the races thrown into his crucible, turning the dynamic between his army and the empire's into that of predator and prey.

The blessing made his army the predators. To a normal observer, they were still demons, but in the eyes of their designated prey, they were a living nightmare come to life.

The best part about this, the race necssary doesn't have to have a counter, it can be an idea of what one consider as a weakness and the blessing will manifest as that.

The ogre generals came through first, barking orders for their people to get into position. By the time the entire empire army was stationed and ready, there was barely a sound from them.

It was a strange sight. Ikenga, who was now watching from the sky, saw the demon army seem to toy with the empire's forces. The demons would take a step forward, and the empire's soldiers would take a step back, as if looking at something horrifying.

It was at this moment that Vellok's figure flew in, followed by the emperor and other sixth-tier figures.

Like their army, as soon as they noticed Zarvok's forces, the same effect took hold. Even one of the sixth-tier mages roared, "Impossible!" before everyone became completely stuck, frozen in place.

The empire army wasn't seeing demons anymore. They were seeing a reflection of their deepest, most primal fears. The "blessing" was a parasitic form of perfect knowledge, warping the perception of the prey to see their predators not as they are, but as something that would be the absolute, inescapable end of their existence.

To the ogres, the demons were no longer ugly figures with sharp teeth and claws. They saw hulking, grotesque parodies of their own kind—monsters with limbs too long and jaws too wide, their movements a caricature of ogre combat. Each movement of the demons was like an, unnatural grace that perfectly exploited the ogres' slow, deliberate style of fighting.

Every step the demons took was a threat, a calculated move to get into the exact position to sever a tendon or pierce a vital point. The air itself grew thick with a scent that spoke of imminent death, a smell like burnt hair and freshly spilled blood that overwhelmed the ogres' senses and triggered their most basic survival instincts to run. But their feet were glued to the ground, a biological shutdown as their minds screamed that there was no escape.