Vorath's destination was a complete mystery. A heavy escort of Mawsworn marched silently around him, leading the novice toward his very first mission, one personally commissioned by the Jailer himself.
He would be lying if he said he wasn't anxious. Being sent away from Torghast felt like both a rare boon and a lethal punishment. For all the soul-rending horrors housed within the tower, his existence there had slowly settled into a predictable, almost monotonous routine of forge work and brutal training.
The world beyond those iron walls was an entirely different story. Out in the ash-choked wastes of the Maw, beasts of shadow and insatiable Devourers roamed in droves. Gripping the hilt of his sword, Vorath honestly wasn't sure if his recent training was enough to bring down a single Devourer brute, let alone whatever the Jailer actually had planned for him.
The only measure of time Vorath had was the heavy, rhythmic thud of the boots belonging to his escort. The endlessly repetitive iron corridors did little to settle his mounting nerves.
Finally, after an interminable march, he stepped out of the tower for the very first time.
Before him stretched endless, ashen plains. The bruised, orange-colored skies were streaked with the plunging forms of literal dead souls, screaming as they were dragged down to be processed in the hellfires of the tower.
Vorath took a useless, phantom breath, as if trying to taste the anima in the air. All he sensed was suffocating dread and death.
Then, he looked straight ahead, and his breath caught in his throat.
Five bat-winged demons stood waiting for him in the ash.
'Fucking hell. Nathrezim?' Vorath forced himself to keep moving, following the Mawsworn guards as they marched directly toward the five Dreadlords. Two of the demons practically radiated a volatile, chaotic energy that made his skin crawl, undoubtedly Fel magic.
The other three simply reeked of pure, concentrated anima.
"Is he the one we are to ferry?" one of the Fel-touched demons asked, looking straight at Vorath.
Vorath glanced at his Mawsworn escorts. Seeing that none of the hulking armors had any intention of speaking, he took the initiative.
"Yes. I am on a mission for my Lord." the last word tasted absolutely disgusting in his mouth.
The lead Dreadlord simply nodded and gestured for Vorath to follow them.
They set off across the ashen plains in silence, but Vorath couldn't shake his mounting unease. He never thought he would actually see a Nathrezim in the flesh. Weren't they supposed to be spies, or master manipulators? He couldn't remember every single detail of the deeper Shadowlands lore, but he vaguely recalled that they were originally crafted by the leader of the Venthyr.
Argh, he grumbled internally, struggling to piece together his scattered memories. I really should have paid more attention to those lore videos on YouTube. This was literally one of the most important retcons of the entire expansion!
"Stop daydreaming!" a Death-aligned Nathrezim barked, shoving Vorath out of his thoughts. Vorath shot the demon a sharp glare beneath his helm, but the towering creature didn't even acknowledge it.
They navigated away from Torghast's main gates, trekking along the steep, jagged cliffsides to the right of the entrance. They moved through hidden, winding passageways the former human had no idea even existed.
At one point, he could have sworn something was watching them from the shadows. It looked... metallic. But it definitely wasn't the Eye of the Jailer. It was something else entirely.
They finally entered a small, secluded cavern. It seemed perfectly sized for the Nathrezim, the tips of their massive wings sitting at just the right height to avoid brushing the rocky ceiling.
At the dark rear of the cave stood a makeshift portal. It was constructed entirely of jagged bones and cracked skulls, a deeply repulsive sight even after all he saw in the tower. The two Fel-touched Dreadlords immediately took up positions on either side of the gate, their glowing eyes never leaving Vorath.
"What is your mission?" one of the Nathrezim behind him asked, his velvety voice dripping with suspicion.
"I am not required to divulge the Master's plans," Vorath replied coldly.
In truth, it was because he didn't know them. He had simply been ordered out of Torghast. He had absolutely no idea what he was actually supposed to do once he crossed the veil, and the realization terrified him.
Zovaal would never let someone simply walk out of the Maw without some kind of unseen leash. The thought gnawed violently at his sanity. What if he was already Dominated without realizing it? What if he wasn't truly 'him' anymore, but just a mindless puppet programmed to believe it still had the memories of a human from Earth?
What if this entire mission was just Zovaal's way of discarding a flawed doll?
"Do you think we wouldn't gladly pry your skull open to find out?" the Nathrezim hissed, stepping closer.
"And you would die if you took even a single step, or if a sliver of your magic slipped out of bounds," Vorath countered, his voice steady despite the hammer beating in his chest. "You are in the Master's domain now, not Revendreth."
Vorath almost gagged at the sycophant he had to become just to avoid being mangled by these Dreadlords. They could probably crack him open and rip his soul apart if they really wanted to, but he wouldn't go down without a fight. And surely, the Jailer was watching this exchange.
The Death-aligned Nathrezim simply snorted in contempt.
By the portal, the two Fel-infused demons looked thoroughly bored as they watched their brethren bicker.
"Are you finished, Dantalionax?" one of them pressed impatiently. "Our absence cannot be noticed by Kil'jaeden, or he will start asking far too many questions."
Vorath glanced at the two Fel agents. They seemed much more on edge, radiating a tense intensity that their Death-aligned brethren lacked. Perhaps the ruthless, cutthroat paranoia of the Burning Legion had worn them down a bit.
Good to know, Vorath noted darkly. I can work with that.
"Let us proceed," another voice commanded.
The five spellcasters immediately began their work. The two Fel-infused Nathrezim started to chant in a guttural, demonic tongue. The shadows around them began to coil like dark serpents, slithering directly into the archway and causing the jagged bone runes adorning it to pulse with a sickly, volatile purple light.
Vorath glanced over his shoulder. The three Death-aligned Dreadlords were molding pure anima into a complex, shifting formation he had never seen before, meticulously etching dark runes into the air around the floating mass of energy.
"One to pierce the Veil," Dantalionax intoned with dark reverence.
"One to bind the soul," another chanted.
"One to bind the body," the third finished.
In an instant, the swirling anima condensed into a single rune that flared with a sickly green light.
"Now," Dantalionax commanded, raising a clawed hand. "Let us sever your soul from its shell."
It was deeply unsettling to be manipulated so effortlessly. Vorath felt the dark bindings of his armor suddenly come loose. For the first time since becoming a Mawsworn, he was completely free of the heavy iron. He was floating. A bizarre rush of exhilaration washed over him, his disembodied essence practically hyperventilating with sudden, terrifying weightlessness.
The Nathrezim either couldn't hear him or simply didn't care, entirely focused on sustaining their spellcraft.
One of the Dreadlords conjured a jagged purple gemstone between his palms. To Vorath's utter stupefaction, the glowing runes seamlessly adhered to the facets of the gem, intertwining with flawless precision. Their absolute mastery over rune magic was staggering; from his grueling training, he knew very few smiths capable of weaving runes together so perfectly.
Except Raznal, of course.
"Place your hands upon the soulstone!" Dantalionax barked.
Vorath complied. The exact second his spectral hands made contact with the cold surface of the gem, all of his senses went violently dark. He lost all connection to the outside world.
The Dreadlords nodded to one another, carefully placing the filled soulstone into the center of the bone portal. At first, the gateway remained entirely dormant. But as agonizing minutes ticked by, the portal suddenly erupted with a surge of Fel magic so violently intense that the three Death-aligned Nathrezim actually took a wary step back.
"It appears the transaction is complete," one of the Fel agents noted dryly, staring at the empty air where the gemstone had been hovering just a moment prior.
The five demons shared a silent nod. A swirling vortex of crimson anima enveloped them, and in the blink of an eye, they vanished. Only the volatile crackling of the portal remained to break the silence of the dark cavern.
--
Mal'Ganis sneered down at the fresh corpse he had just created on this cursed world. Even now, he could feel the latent, thrumming power of Azeroth's sleeping World-soul pushing against his spectral presence, actively trying to expel his demonic form from the planet.
Irritable newborn, the Dreadlord grunted in annoyance.
Suddenly, a sharp, tearing sound echoed from the Veil overhead. A rift tore open to his true home, and a dark object plummeted toward him at blinding speed.
Mal'Ganis raised a claw, summoning tendrils of shadow to coil around the falling object and halt its descent mid-air. He plucked the jagged purple soulstone from the dark magic. With practiced, ruthless efficiency, he cracked the gem, tearing the dormant soul out from within. He extracted the glowing soul-rune, pressing it directly into the forehead of the murdered man at his feet. Then, he violently shoved the Mawsworn's essence into the cold flesh, taking the final body-rune and sealing it over the corpse's chest.
That should stop the newborn World soul from expelling the foreign soul, the demon noted with dark satisfaction, watching as the planetary repulsion completely bypassed the newly bound host.
Suddenly, two more objects materialized from the closing rift: a heavy, rune-etched sword, and a ghostly, floating tome. The sheer, suffocating aura of pure dread radiating from the book made even the seasoned Dreadlord take a wary step back.
A gift from the Banished One, no doubt. The spectral tome was quickly absorbed into the Mawsworn's soul. As it merged, the entity's presence grew exponentially more threatening to Mal'Ganis's Fel-corrupted form. Yet, the ancient, death-born creature he truly was beneath the demonic guise seemed to revel in that dark, chilling power.
Mal'Ganis carefully noted the anomaly's sheer threat level. If its mere presence was capable of unsettling a Nathrezim, what would a mindless ghoul feel in its wake?
How deliciously amusing. The realization sparked a dozen dark ideas in the Dreadlord's cunning mind. Spreading his massive bat wings, Mal'Ganis took to the skies, leaving the scene of his quiet murder behind. Soon, this entire world would feel the true, inescapable grip of Death. A pure, rumbling laugh of dark mirth escaped his throat. Soon, he wouldn't have to wear this false, burning mask anymore. Soon, he would finally be free of the Fel polluting his veins.
--
Vorath opened his eyes almost mechanically, triggered by a completely foreign sensation gently brushing against his face.
Wind.
A thick, overwhelming knot formed in his throat. He blinked, his vision clearing, and what greeted him was a sprawling, star-studded night sky. The gentle rustle of leaves and the distant, casual chirping of nocturnal birds filled his ears.
Vorath completely broke down. He wept every single tear he had left in him, sobbing openly and loudly into the dark. Snot and saltwater streamed down his face as the sheer, crushing weight of his time in Torghast finally washed out of his soul.
Wiping his face with the back of his arm, he raised his hands, blinking through his teary vision to look at them. He froze. They were an unnatural, pinkish color.
Pink hands? He stared at them for a long, uncomprehending moment, turning his palms over in the moonlight. Then, a sudden, raspy laugh that he had been repressing tore its way out of his throat. He laughed until his new lungs burned, a dizzying wave of pure, unfiltered joy washing over him. He didn't care about the unnatural color just yet. He was mortal again. He had flesh, blood, and working senses.
"It's good to be back," he whispered into the night air, though the voice that left his lips sounded slightly deeper and more melodic than what he was accustomed to.
His hysteria slowly faded as practical reality set back in. He looked down at his arms once more, flexing the long, unfamiliar fingers.
Now... what kind of race's body did they stuff me into?
–
Author's Note:
Sorry for the delay, everyone! I have my final school exams coming up in just a week, so I'm going to be studying to the max. Apologies again for the wait on this chapter!
Regardless, I absolutely loved writing this one. Now, the real question for you all: exactly what timeline has he just landed in?