The cleansing of Kyanos, the brutal unmaking of Malakor's insidious curse, had been a visceral, internal purge. But the rage that had fueled Alex, the cold, diamond-hard fury born of Vorlag's violation, was not sated. It simmered beneath the surface, a coiled serpent of Speed Force energy, demanding an outlet, a target. Kyanos was safe, for now. But the source of the poison, the architect of their near self-destruction, Warlord Vorlag and his Blood Sorcerer, still festered in the Obsidian Citadel. And Alex knew, with a chilling certainty that resonated through every Sky-fallen in Stormfront, that their "reply," as he had so grimly promised, was long overdue.
This time, there was no pretense of diplomacy, no careful selection of a limited strike force. This was not about sending a message. This was about delivering a fucking opera of pain and annihilation. Alex stood before the assembled might of the Stormguard in the central plaza of Kyanos, the blue light of his Speed Force a pulsating aura around him, his eyes the color of a winter superstorm.
"Vorlag dared to strike at our hearts, in our home," his voice, amplified by a subtle manipulation of air currents, boomed across the plaza, each word a hammer blow. "He sought to break us with whispers and shadows. He thought us weak, divided, a collection of broken toys to be played with and discarded." A low, guttural snarl rippled through the diverse assembly – from the fiery Ignis, whose fists were already wreathed in molten rock, to the scaled Krystos deserters who had recently sought asylum, their tridents humming with captured oceanic fury, to the hulking, furred Ursine warriors whose battle roars could shatter stone. "He was wrong."
"Today," Alex continued, his gaze sweeping over them, a silent promise of carnage in his eyes, "we show him the meaning of Stormfront's fury. We will not just defend. We will attack. We will take the fight to his doorstep. We will burn his fortresses, slaughter his warbands, and make him choke on the ashes of his arrogance. We will carve a scar across the Blasted Wastes so deep, so bloody, that even the entities Malakor serves will piss themselves in terror."
A deafening roar of approval, a symphony of a hundred alien war cries, shook the very foundations of Kyanos. This was not a call to defense; this was a declaration of a holy fucking crusade.
Their target was not a single outpost, but a strategic network of Iron Horde fortifications and supply lines that formed the vanguard of Vorlag's planned eastern offensive – a jagged spine of volcanic rock fortresses, blood-pylon amplified watchtowers, and slave-labor driven siege engine manufactories that stretched across the Blasted Wastes like a cancerous growth. To cripple this network was to cripple Vorlag's ability to wage war on this front, to buy Stormfront, and perhaps the Weirdwood, precious, blood-soaked time.
The Stormguard moved as a single, cohesive entity, a multi-faceted engine of destruction. Alex, at their head, was no longer just a leader; he was a conductor, his Speed Force a symphony of controlled chaos, subtly enhancing the abilities of those around him, coordinating their movements with a precision that was both breathtaking and terrifying. He didn't just run; he warped them, short-range temporal distortions and spatial folds allowing the entire strike force to traverse the blighted landscape at speeds that made their previous assault on Blackfang Peak look like a leisurely stroll.
Their first target was a heavily fortified watchtower complex, bristling with Gore-reaver cannons and defended by a legion of Ironblood warriors. They appeared not as an approaching army, but as a sudden, localized apocalypse. Alex, a streak of incandescent blue lightning, hit the central command tower first, phasing through its obsidian walls, his vibrating hands turning the Horde commanders and their communication arrays into a screaming, dissolving slurry of gore and molten electronics before the alarms even had a chance to sound.
Then, the Stormguard descended.
Ignis, his pyrokinetic fury amplified by Alex's Speed Force, became a living volcano. He didn't just throw fire; he became fire, his form a towering inferno that melted the obsidian towers into rivers of incandescent slag, incinerating entire battalions of Horde warriors in a single, contemptuous sweep of his molten arms. Their screams were swallowed by the roar of his flames, their armor offering no protection against the unholy heat.
Sylas and his shadow-adepts, their forms now flickering with an unnatural, Speed Force-enhanced celerity, moved through the burning fortress like vengeful wraiths. Their shadow-blades, now imbued with a chilling, temporal distortion, didn't just cut; they aged, they withered, they unraveled their victims at a molecular level, turning heavily armored brutes into desiccated husks, their flesh flaking away to reveal blackened, screaming skulls before they crumbled into dust. They danced through the carnage, their laughter a chorus of delighted sadism.
Zephyr's Aerians, their wings now beating with a hypersonic thrum, became a storm of razor-sharp talons and explosive death from above. They moved too fast for the Horde's anti-air defenses, their attacks a blur of motion, disemboweling gunners, severing siege engine cables, and dropping their volatile crystalline charges with pinpoint accuracy, turning entire sections of the fortress into shrapnel-filled kill-zones.
Bor, the Earthshaper, his strength magnified tenfold by Alex's ambient energy, didn't just crack foundations; he unmade them. He tore entire towers from their moorings, hurling them at other structures, creating a domino effect of catastrophic destruction. He punched holes through reinforced obsidian walls as if they were wet parchment, his roars of exertion shaking the very mountains.
Shimmer, her light-refracting abilities now amplified to an almost blinding intensity, became a living laser show of death. She created a dozen, a hundred, shimmering duplicates of herself, each one wielding blades of pure, solidified light that sliced through armor, flesh, and bone with contemptuous ease. The Horde warriors, disoriented, blinded, terrified, swung their weapons wildly, often striking their own comrades, their ranks dissolving into a chaotic, screaming mob.
And Kaelen… Kaelen was a goddess of war, her Silvanesti grace fused with the raw, untamed power of Alex's storm. Her movements were a blur, her twin swords, now blazing with an almost unbearable blue-white light, a whirlwind of destruction. She didn't just fight; she danced, a crimson ballet of severed limbs, decapitated heads, and geysers of arterial spray. Her Weave-infused arrows, now moving at near light-speed, punched through multiple enemies at once, their explosive impact turning ranks of Horde warriors into showers of gore and bone fragments. Her eyes, those beautiful amber pools, now held a chilling, predatory light, the grief and rage of Vorlag's violation channeled into a focused, terrifyingly efficient engine of retribution.
Alex himself was the eye of this hurricane, the conductor of this symphony of slaughter. He moved through the battlefield like a phantom, a blue streak of pure, unadulterated death. He didn't bother with subtle takedowns, with tactical strikes. This was about terror. This was about annihilation. He used his vibrating hand with a chilling, almost casual precision, unmaking Horde champions, siege engine crews, anyone who dared to stand against him. He created localized temporal loops, forcing groups of warriors to relive their own gruesome deaths over and over again, their screams of madness a sweet, terrible music to his enraged senses. He ran circles around entire battalions, creating superheated vortexes that cooked them alive in their armor, their flesh melting and bubbling, their last moments an agony beyond comprehension.
The slaughter was absolute. The Iron Hordes, for all their numbers, their brutality, their dark enchantments, were simply… outclassed. Overwhelmed. Annihilated. They had faced warriors before. They had faced mages. They had faced monsters. They had never faced… this. This was not war. This was an extinction event.
One by one, the Iron Horde fortifications fell, each one a new canvas for the Stormguard's brutal artistry. Watchtowers were toppled, their defenders impaled on their own shattered ramparts. Supply depots were incinerated, the resulting explosions sending mushroom clouds of black, oily smoke into the blighted sky. Siege engine manufactories were reduced to twisted, molten slag, the enslaved laborers within – a wretched collection of captured Drylanders and unfortunate Sky-fallen – freed by Shimmer's illusions and Sylas's shadows, then escorted to safety by a detachment of Aerians.
The message was clear, written in letters of fire, blood, and screaming, unmade souls. Stormfront was not to be trifled with. The Herald was not a reluctant leader; he was a god of vengeance. And the Stormguard… they were his angels of death.
As the second sun of the Unheavens began to set, casting long, blood-red shadows across the devastated landscape, Alex stood atop the shattered remnants of Vorlag's primary eastern command bunker. Below him, the Blasted Wastes were a panorama of fire, ruin, and unimaginable carnage. The air was thick with the stench of burnt flesh, molten metal, and the coppery tang of a thousand spilled lifebloods.
Kaelen landed gracefully beside him, her swords still dripping, her face a mask of grim satisfaction and a deep, weary sorrow. She looked at Alex, at the cold, hard light in his eyes, the faint, lingering tremor in his hands. The storm had been unleashed. And it had been… terrible. And magnificent.
"Is it enough, Alex?" her mental voice was a soft whisper against the crackle of distant fires. "Will Vorlag understand now?"
Alex looked out over the devastation, his expression unreadable. "He'll understand," he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "He'll understand that we're not just a nuisance to be swatted away. We're a fucking plague. A reckoning." He clenched his fists, the blue lightning around them flaring for a moment. "This isn't over, Kaelen. This is just the overture."
The Crimson Ballet of Retribution had reached its bloody crescendo. The Iron Hordes were reeling, their eastern front shattered, their morale broken. Stormfront had proven its lethality, its willingness to meet brutality with an even greater, more terrifying brutality. The upper hand, for now, was undeniably theirs. But the cost of such a victory, the echoes of such carnage, would linger long in the souls of those who had danced in its fiery, blood-soaked light. And the true storm, Alex knew, the one that would decide the fate of all the Unheavens, was still gathering, its unseen pressures building towards a final, cataclysmic confrontation.