[ToroMor]

On the shores of nowhere, black meets black - and darkness melts with darkness. Creeping shadows on a lost horizon. Two spawns of the void - yet, nothing but void. Fading mists of a strange illusion. Tumbling through the swamps of time, they fight a desolate battle.

But they fight with a vengeance.

---

Performing a wide bow, a crimson lightning cuts at Toromor, like the scythe of the reaper. Deadly orbs of energy dart at him and long to consume the Dark One's core with their illuminated intensity.

As time freezes.

The mind of Toromor is a sunless pit, only lit by the sudden flashes of an everlasting thunderstorm. Thousand voices scream in madness, each one of them an incarnation of doom. Yelling out of the bottomless dark, they form a horrible pandemonium of lunacy.

Cut him in two! Drink his blood! Tear his throat out! Bite off his head! Bath in his entrails! Ahahahaha! Muhahahaa! Smash his face! Kill! Destroy! Ahahahaha! Wipe it out, wipe it all out! Ahahahaha! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

Among them, a spooky shadow walks down a steep and narrow stairway. The outline of the figure suggests that it wears a cloak but is otherwise perfectly indistinct. The murky loner makes no sounds as he descends deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss, surrounded by the bloodcurdling screams. At last, he arrives at a small and artless door. A tiny key unites with a rusty lock.

With the tone of a giant gong resounding under water, a dark portal opens. It leads from the inside of the Dark Lord to his outside, connecting the world in which he stands, with the heart of darkness - a plane of reality that is just the other side of existence. It is the nothingness that is integral to everything; and on the other side of the door, it swirls in its purest form. It swirls - and flows through the gate.

Waves of darkness fill the circle of Pillars. It appears as if the air turns into black jelly, shaking in wobbling ripples. All movements appear strangely smooth and deliberate, like they are covered in a silk pall. Yet they seem to struggle against a tenacious space that is occupied with thick and choking blackness. A mortal man would be reminded of an escape dream; or some others, of a near-death experience.

Where the holy orbs meet the dark force, the picture is a wholly different one. Like wave-breakers, they discerp the black front. They continue their way towards the Dark Christ, ploughing through the black swell and producing vortexes of antipodal energy. More and more, the distractions in the magical ether tear at the orbs and affect their course. As they near their target, they are forced into a strange kind of spiral, resembling the trajectory of an asteroid that is caught by a gravity field. They still try to reach their target, while the dark waves push them back. Locked in a stalemate, their struggle forms an accelerating loop of sizzling charge.

Since the fight started, silence has been the dominant sound. All the gunfire and the brawl were but interludes of a voluminous still that held dominion over the scene. Then, with the released souls of the damned, the awakening of the Pillars' cracking energy and the moaning and crawling tapestry, stillness has already been pushed to the edge of retreat. But now, the supremacy of sonic emptiness is finally over.

And time explodes in a sudden eruption.

The warrior within Toromor acts instinctively. With a quick step to the left front, he seeks to avoid a hit, while his right arm brings down Morrigu to parry his opponent's blow. Anomaly's sword scarcely misses Mor's leg and is caught by the demonic soul eater. But it is ill-timed! The Anomalist, this winged absurdity of nature, possesses dratted speed and Toromor was distracted for the fragment of a second. The paree is incomplete. The Blood Reaver slides along the blocking blade. Another spray of sparks and Morrigu's cry of rage follow its way. Then it hacks fiercely into the right shoulder of the archdemon Mor. With a sharp crack, the black shoulder armour explodes into a thousand pieces. A fountain of acidly blood bespatters the scene.

Mor feels the cold steel as it enters his matter and starts to suck on his demonic blood. Throughout his blasphemous existence, he had received many a blow. But this blade is surely one of the finest and most agonizing ones he had ever come across. Sticking in his flesh, it inflicts a chilling numbness as it drinks from the unholy liquids. Mor's eyes turn into fire-breathing volcanoes. Almost drunk from the pain and bloodshed, his mind is inflamed.

Like a roaring tornado, light and darkness whirl around the two combatants, now at the boundary of the Pillar's circle. It seems that everything inside - air, sound, even light - sweeps along with the magic maelstrom. Fume, fire, blood and sparks are torn from Toromor’s face and form a carrousel of madness. Still, the momentum of the howling dervish is fed by the continuing stream of blackness and it whirls and riots ever faster. And as to accompany them, the condemned souls, spat out from the demonic sword, screech a maniacal cacophony.

Even louder, Month Morra Morrigu yells out its anger. Hatred beyond compare and insatiable hunger for vengeance burn inside the abstruse being. By chance, that shit stained toothpick had touched Morrigu's master! It even showed the insolence to question Morrigu's superior strength! Now it would PAY! Frantic and outraged, Month Morra seeks instant revenge. It moves on his own behalf, at a speed that even its Dark Lord had never witnessed before. Taking control of Toromor's bruised arm, it transforms the miscarried paree into a sudden slash, directed to cut off the forearms of its opponent.

As Morrigu tosses Mor's sword arm sidewards, a bomb of pain explodes in his shoulder. The cut is deep and has ruptured many of the massive muscle strands. Although the arm is still fairly useable, it produces a hellful agony. Toromor roars like a stampeding bull. Only for a split second, he loses control of the dark stream.

With a violent outburst, a powerful wave of darkness soars from the portal. Inside Mor, a cloaked obscurity slams a certain door. But it is too late. The massive gush of darkness escapes its embankment and erupts out of the sinister Christ. Flooding the scene, it meets with the already huge aggregation of wizardry that is concentrated in an impetuous struggle. The extent of such magic accumulation exceeds the limits which have been set up by their creators. Jumping off the respective rails of their original form, both spells break free from all constraints.

When sorcery of such level runs amok, it is usually a spectacle of astonishing vehemence. And this case is no exception. A whirlwind of doom implodes in a thunderous collapse of unchained magic energy. Slipstreams of destructive force rage among the combatants while energy balls patter down like infernal hailstones. Shockwaves of uncontrolled theurgy pound the air and shake the hall. Both fiends are now trapped within a cataclysm of boiling chaos and disintegration.

For the first time, the Keep shivers under the impact of the two giants' duel. And as much as, to an imaginary beholder, this inferno might appear as the ultimate Armageddon, it is just an omen of things to come.