Blood of the First Age Chapter 22

Chapter 22  The Night of Black Suns

The night the world changed the stars vanished. Not hidden. Not covered by storm clouds. Gone. One by one, every light in the heavens died above the deserts of Baalania until only darkness remained over the world.

Then the black suns appeared. Seven enormous circles formed silently across the sky above western Molochia. Dark eclipsed spheres hanging impossibly close above the desert like watching eyes. They gave no warmth. No light. Yet the entire world beneath them became darker. Even fire dimmed.

Across Baalania, people fell to their knees screaming. Animals tore themselves apart trying to flee invisible terror. Entire villages went silent as every dog, horse, and bird suddenly died at the exact same moment. And beneath the buried temples the cult began singing.

The abyssal throne chamber overflowed with thousands of black-robed followers gathered around rivers of burning blood flowing toward the endless pit below.

Inferno priests carved sacred symbols into their own flesh while chanting ancient scripture forbidden even within Baalania’s highest temples.

At the center stood High Priest Za’Rakh. His golden ceremonial mask had been removed. Underneath his face was changing. Black veins crawled beneath his skin while his eyes leaked thick dark fluid onto his crimson robes.

Still he smiled. Still he prayed.

“The Hollow Gods awaken!”

The cult answered in unison:

“LET THE FALSE WORLD BURN!”

Prince Azrakar stood near the chamber entrance with visible disgust.

“This is madness.”

Around him, even veteran Baalanian soldiers looked terrified now. The air itself felt wrong. Heavy. Breathing.

Mehmeth remained near the abyss watching silently.

The black suns reflected faintly in his eyes.

“You wished to understand true power,” the Sultan said calmly.
“Now witness its cost.”

Azrakar stepped closer.

“Father… we should destroy this place.”

Then the abyss moved. A gigantic sound echoed upward from beneath the darkness below. Not a roar. Not an animal. Something older. Like mountains grinding together beneath an ocean. The entire buried city trembled violently.Ancient stone cracked apart. And the cultists began laughing.

The first horror emerged slowly. Long pale fingers gripped the edge of the abyss before an enormous skeletal figure pulled itself upward from the darkness.

Its body resembled a starving giant wrapped in rotting ceremonial cloth. But its face had no eyes. Only a massive vertical mouth stretching from forehead to throat filled with moving black teeth. The creature smiled.And every torch in the chamber exploded simultaneously.

Darkness swallowed the temple. Then the screaming began. The eldritch creature moved impossibly fast. One moment it stood beside the abyss. The next entire rows of cultists vanished into sprays of blood and shattered bone.

The thing tore bodies apart with elongated claws while its mouth opened impossibly wide releasing a sound that made soldiers claw at their own ears. Several priests collapsed instantly, their faces melting beneath black blood.

Za’Rakh raised both arms ecstatically.

“They have returned!”

Then six more creatures climbed from the abyss behind the first.

The buried city erupted into chaos. Far above the desert, both armies watched the sands begin collapsing inward across the western dunes.

Massive sinkholes swallowed entire war camps while ancient black towers burst upward from beneath the earth like the bones of dead gods clawing through the surface.

Then the creatures came. Thousands of them. Some resembled twisted humans stretched unnaturally tall with limbs bending backward.

Others crawled across the sands on dozens of clawed arms while eyeless heads whispered in broken languages. Gigantic skeletal beasts emerged from beneath the dunes dragging chains the size of fortress walls behind them. And all of them moved toward the living. Eastern and Baalanian armies immediately opened fire.

Silver artillery thundered across the desert. Inferno cannons unleashed rivers of sacred flame. Explosions illuminated the black night beneath the seven suns. But the horrors kept coming.

One gigantic creature shaped like a skinless serpent burst beneath a Baalanian formation and swallowed dozens of soldiers whole into a mouth filled with human hands grasping from inside its throat. Another eldritch beast walked directly through inferno fire while hundreds of glowing eyes opened across its body one by one. Men went insane simply looking at it.

General Zerafin shouted desperately above the chaos.

“HOLD THE LINES!”

But there were no lines anymore.

Only survival. The battlefield became hell. Baalanian holy warriors fought beside vampire knights against waves of creatures neither side understood.

Inferno priests and storm mages unleashed magic together merely to slow the advancing horrors. Men who spent years slaughtering one another now died shoulder to shoulder beneath the black suns. Still the eldritch army kept growing.

Then the demons arrived. Massive cracks spread across the dunes as black fire erupted from beneath the earth itself. Ancient infernal gates opened throughout the battlefield. And from within them stepped creatures from the old abyssal wars: horned giants wrapped in burning chains, armored beasts with molten blood and winged predators formed entirely from shadow and teeth.

Even the eldritch horrors turned toward them. The ancient enemies recognized one another. The desert became a war between nightmares.

Mordecai crashed directly into a horned demon large enough to crush siege towers, tearing through molten flesh with monstrous claws while shadow armor spread violently across his gigantic frame.

The demon bit through half his shoulder.

Mordecai ripped its jaw off.

Tenji moved through the battlefield like living moonlight.

The Fairy glided above collapsing dunes while massive swarms of shadow crows descended upon eldritch creatures from every direction.

Wherever Tenji passed silver symbols burned through the air behind him. Ancient. Celestial. Forbidden.

The creatures feared him. One towering horror covered in black eyes stopped moving entirely upon seeing Tenji descend from the sky.

Its countless mouths whispered simultaneously:

“SKYBORN…”

Tenji’s expression darkened.

“You should have remained buried.”

Then the Fairy raised one hand.

The shadow crows exploded forward like a living storm.

The creature vanished beneath black wings.

Meanwhile Dragun unleashed catastrophe itself.

The Vampire King stood atop a shattered obsidian ridge while crimson storm clouds spiraled violently above the battlefield.

His silver-black armor dripped with rain and blood as thousands of shadow bats filled the heavens around him.

Then he lifted his hand toward the black suns.

And the storm answered.

Gigantic crimson lightning crashed across the desert continuously, vaporizing entire hordes of eldritch creatures beneath exploding thunder while hurricane winds swallowed dunes whole.

Rain began falling again. But this time it was black.

The floodwaters carried corpses across the battlefield while demons and horrors tore each other apart beneath endless lightning.

The world no longer resembled war. It resembled the end of creation itself. Then something enormous awakened beneath the buried city. The desert stopped moving.

Every creature froze. Even the demons turned toward the western abyss.

And slowly one gigantic eye opened beneath the sands.

Far larger than cities. Ancient beyond imagination. Watching. Hungry.

Tenji stared toward the distant desert in horror.

“No…”

Dragun stepped beside him.

“What is that?”

The Fairy’s voice trembled for the first time.

“One of the Hollow Gods.”

Then the eye blinked.

And the heavens cracked open above Baalania.