The men of the Lucent Navy heard the rage of a descending demon.

They looked to the skies, where the tiny Drytchling before their fleet had pointed, and saw a dark shadow moving in front of the sun.

A shadow with wings that stretched out, and from which a black smog descended upon the fleet, blanketing the navy in darkness.

Boats disappeared from sight. Men who had once been standing shoulder to shoulder now stood alone, shaking, terror gripping their once confident minds.

And then: a hellstorm broke out among the fleet.

A beam of fiery light hit the first boats and tore them to shreds, turning the cannons, decks, and the men that tried to sprint down them to ash. Only the Greycloaks remained, sputtering and flailing in the water, before a dark shadow dipped down and sliced off their heads like a flash of malevolent wind.

Those further down the ranks heard the carnage. They saw their comrades disappear in a spectacle of evil, killing lights: volcanic red, poisonous green, and lightning blue. Three beams of terrifying power passed over the fleet vanguard and destroyed the armaments that were now being turned to fire upon the center of the storm.

But any attempts to regain control of the fleet were in vain. Those ships on the right flank – the ones farthest away from the raging hellstorm that was ravaging the fleet – attempted to turn about and launch a devastating volley right into the spot where the Archon must be – where another toxic cloud of deadly poison had just been belched.

But as they turned, they found that their ships were suddenly stuck. The boats held fast, unmoving, even as the captains commanded that they be steered with all their might.

In total confusion, some of them threw off the deck hands and set to steering themselves, only to find that the ships were somehow being…controlled.

Below decks, the gunners called out for help as the portside windows closed abruptly, shutting off their lines of fire just as they had lit the cannon fuses.

And just as that realization had been made, the boats exploded in a hail of wooden splinters. Those at the rearguard watched in horror as the ships of the left flank went up in flames, and plumes of smoke from the gunpowder discharge flew into the skies – the only remains of at least two dozen ships that were now nothing more than floating pieces of flotsam and rubble on the fiery sea.

Chaos followed. Men began deserting their posts. Even the intimidation of their Greycloak masters was not enough to make them stand against the thing that was crashing through their ranks, commanding their boats themselves to turn against them.

Some brave souls on the right flank decided that desperate measures had to be taken. They filled their boats with as much gunpowder kegs as they could get together and sailed them right into where the Archon was tearing through their frontlines. They converted their ships into mobile battering rams, ready to light the kegs in the moment of impact and hope that they could jump for their lives and deal a blow to the demon.

But when they came within a few meters of the Archon's position, the only thing they saw was a set of six amber eyes stare back at them in anger.

And above those six, a single crimson eye that pierced their very souls.

They watched in shock and awe as a series of sinuous, pulsing vines erupted from out of the smoke, tore into the hulls of their ships, and smashed the gunpowder barrels apart or threw them into the ocean where they floated noiselessly away. Then, from three spots just beneath those glowing eyes, three threads of killing light erupted.

Those who weren't lucky enough to be instantly vaporized by the searing heatwaves of the Archon's assault had nothing but a watery grave to look forward to. As they leaped from the masts of their doomed ships, they saw their brothers and sisters in arms floating down with them, clutching at vines wrapped round their throats. One man wrestled with a shadow creature that choked the life out of him. Another one had shards of ice embedded in his throat and chest. Yet more were pocketed with thorns that had pierced every limb on their bodies and now weighed them down towards the abyss of their ocean grave.

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In this way, the fleet of Lucent burned, and the men of Westerweald understood exactly what they were now up against.

Only one ship stood against the dark. The ship at the very center of the crumbling fleet. The vessel commanded by the Greycloaks Sir Ranok and Fenrik.

Ranok blinked through the shock of the initial attack and kept his men steady. Beside him, Fenrik stood, fighting against the miasma of shadow that the Archon had launched against them.

"Brother!" Ranok roared above the chaos. "What's the ability the demon's using?"

Fenrik bellowed an agitated answer: "A Mana Veil! But one more potent than anything I have seen!"

"Can you disrupt it?"

"I – By Kaedmon – I – will!"

The old man slammed his staff into the ground, piercing the deck of the ship as it rocked and swayed on choppy waters. The men around him glared in awe as a glimmering light shone on the stave's tip.

"By Kaedmon!" he roared, beard fluttering against the evil winds. "I send this darkness back!"

The cloud of shadow fought against him, and Ranok spotted five ghostly forms that suddenly appeared from out of the storm, each one racing towards the old mage with murderous intent.

"Men of Lucent!" he cried. "Protect our brother!"

The soldiers hesitated. Seeing the Greycloak mage struggle against the Archon's power, and seeing their brethren fall in fire and storms of poison around them, the men could barely even stand.

So Ranok decided to show them a demonstration. He wasn't about to let this fleet die without bringing down the monster that killed it.

He drew his blade, summoned the Divine Light of his Lord, and then activated the ability he was known for throughout the ranks of the Greys.

[Blink]

He surged forward, cutting through two shadows at once and leaving their vile forms to dissolve into the dead air. Then he pirouetted, employing [Blink] to bput him behind another slashing shade, and made a backwards thrust that ripped its chest and forced a scream of anguish from its amorphous lips. He spun his blade and dealt with the other one as its claws came towards him. Without hesitation his blade sliced its hands off and then he finished it with a quick mercy stroke that took its head.

The men who still survived watched their captain deal with the threats and were compelled to follow his lead. Ranok shone like a beacon in the pall of night. He raised his blade as more shadow fiends emerged to assault his Brother magus.

"Men of Lucent!" he bellowed into the storm. "I'm no man for fancy speeches. And I'm no zealot. So, I'll just ask you this: if any of you value the lives of your families back home, if any of you value the love of your fellow men, if any of you still want to see the sun shine on Argwyll tomorrow - follow me! Follow me and let's take the head from this bastard demon's throat!"

The exhortation was simple, but it did its job. The men rallied behind the cry of Ranok, and leaped with him into battle. Together they formed a defensive ring around Fenrik, who battled the encroaching darkness as only a Magi could.

The men of Lucent finally began to fight well. They stood shoulder to shoulder, cutting down shadows and hefting their shields as lightning forked over their ship. The gunmen brought their cannons to bear, and the ships beside theirs blasted a volley into the eye of the storm, cheering as they heard the monster inside roar in pain. For a few fleeting moments, it looked as though they might just stem the tide of this massacre.

"Brother," Fenrik said after what seemed like an eternity of combat. "Stand aside."

Ranok turned to see his brother Greycloak holding his staff aloft, aiming it directly into the eye of the storm.

In his eyes burnt a holy fire.

"Men!" Ranok yelled. "Give our brother space!"

His command had barely left his lips before the crowd retreated, hacking and slashing at the dark creatures that had suddenly stopped before the divine beam that was slowly forming at the tip of Fenrik's stave.

Then, with a sudden burst of power, he let his attack fly.

"BURN, HERETICS!"

A feeling of intense heat radiated past the shoulders of the magi, searing the blades of the warriors who stood behind. Instantly the shadows parted before the old mage, breaking apart like the last vestiges of night before dawn. Fenrik kept his arms steady, channeling all the energy in his old bones into a decisive strike that broke through the dark.

And there, right in front of Fenrik, they saw him.

The old mage looked right into his crimson eyeball before his three jaws clamped down on his body, ripping into his flesh and crushing every bone in his ribcage before splitting him apart like a dog's chew toy.

The blood of the old mage rained down on his comrades, and Fenrik's cry of pain died in his eviscerated throat.

"B-By-BY KAEDMON!"

The cry went up from the men in the rear, as the Archon's true horror revealed itself: a three-headed Chimera with a set of demonic, bat-like wings stretching out to knock back the cannon fire that flew towards him. He reared up, let out a roar that pierced the heavens, and then set all of his terrible eyes on the one warrior who still stood against him on the ship.

This….Ranok thought as his legs began to quiver. This is the Archon…

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