Dozens of ships arrived with tens of thousands of warriors, all landing and moving into place as though they had been here before. The other side of the planet had been strangely quiet for the last few days as the commander, Laz and everyone else had prepped for their arrival, making sure all of the currently stationed troops were ready to move out.

Once they landed and columns and legions were formed, the commander addressed the gathered troops. As an ancient god himself, his boom voice was heard all over in many directions.

"What you face now is the start of our counter attack. Once we destroy these invaders here, we shall launch attacks with this as our forward position and reclaim what we have lost, what they have taken. Today, you shall be remembered as the heroes who reclaimed our lands and our honor. "UNTIL DEATH!" the commander yelled as the response came back just as loud.

"UNTIL DEATH!"

"My command and I had a sweep job with several others. Cave dwellings where pools had been located were to be found and destroyed. On some distant planet somewhere, they had found what they called Eternal Ice and had made some sort of explosive device from it. Once a pool was found, we were to plant the bomb, collapse the cave and let the magic happen. Not sure if I believed it, but orders were orders. So we set out, just like the others. Tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of Ancient Gods and Dozens of Chaos gods of a mix of races including our Asura race went out to find and destroy our enemies. And when we found them we realized they had been waiting for us. Battles all over the massive dust planet ensued with hundreds dying each minute. My command ended up finding a pool and just as we were about the set the charge, an ancient god attacked, wiping out half of us before one of ours could stop him. Battered and broken, I set the explosive myself, collapse the cave with what remained of my strength and waited. The result was better than I expected. Whatever they did, it was really like magic. It wasn’t an explosion in the normal sense, but once the thing went off, it was like a massive ice crystal appeared out of nowhere, covering almost a mile above ground in massive ice spikes, ones so hard even an Infernal Ancient god was impaled on it. It was glorious and watching the results gave everyone hope."

The battle then raged on as Laz fought beast after beast and came face to face with Ancient gods more than once. But his unit never stopped and neither did the others. For six days and nights, they fought. The alliance gained ground during the night and fought all day to hold it. While the Infernals came after them with reckless abandon, they couldn’t stop the assault. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"By the time we came to what they considered their base, the ships in orbit were fighting just as aggressively as us on the ground. The planet was ravaged and more than once, I couldn’t help but ask myself, ’will this planet even be usable after this?’ I never got an answer though. Their base wasn’t like ours, a marvel of technology and old school cultivation practices. Their walls were towers of stone and fire while massive beasts hurled stones that exploded on contact. Beasts circled the sky as humanoid infernals fought our strongest warriors around them. The ground was nothing but pits and craters in many spots as rivers of blood and lava flowed in all directions. I remember thinking to myself, ’if there is a hell, I don’t see how it could be worse than this.’ But even then, we fought, driving forward. By the time my command reached the gates, there was only a handful of us left. But since all of the other squads were in the same condition, it didn’t matter much. The loudest among us told us to knock it down and that’s what we did."

Laz was surrounded by warriors of all races as they attacked the massive metal doors with everything they had, time and time again. Laz couldn’t say how long he bombarded the doors with his own attacks, but eventually they fell and everyone around him, including himself, rushed it. He heard a message in his head that anyone with Eternal Ice bombs were to head into the bowels of the building as soon as possible and began placing them wherever they found free space. Laz noticed he still had one on himself and went in along with this team, the handful of them not knowing what to expect but not willing to disobey orders. In the rush around, they got separated from other groups as they were told to spread them out and ended up in a corridor that ended in an older door, one that looked rusted and sealed with time, something that shouldn’t have been considering the Infernals had just arrived on this planet less than a year ago.

"I remember thinking that maybe it was from whatever civilization was here before, a thought that was echoed by one of those closest to me. When we walked forward and pushed the door open, and it took many of us to do it even though just one of us had the strength to break apart a block of iron with our bare hands, what we saw was both confusing and frightening. On the walls were paintings, old, old paintings of worlds burning and a great beast devouring suns. As we walked further down the hall, it showed the beast in battle with various warriors and planets. Some planets had large buildings with a modern look, others were vast castles of an old style and some even showed beings with wings and halos, battling with weapons of light. But all ended with the worlds and people burning and the beast continuing on it’s way. At the end of the hall, one final painting was shown of beings of fire sealing up the creature and putting it to sleep as many great asteroids surrounded it, laying on top of one another until it looked like a small planet itself. I remember seeing that and my heart sank into my chest as I almost passed out on the spot. One of my group actually did as even the slower ones were able to figure out what that painting depicted. I sent out the emergency notice at once and ran towards the door, beckoning others to help as we pushed the new door, rusted and worn, open, only to find dozens of humanoid Infernals in front of an alter that looked like a giant chain link. They saw us the moment the door crashed open and without hesitation, I threw the last Eternal Ice bomb in my hands and yelled at everyone to run."

Laz could feel his heart race as he bolted for the door, the sound of the device activating behind him and the first tickle of cool hair touching his back before he cleared the door and kept on running.

"Be it the devils luck or some god of our people watching over me, I made it out of the hall of paintings before the ice caught up to me. It then shattered the moment it stopped moving as a Chaos god had received the signal and rushed over, only to find our group gasping for breath outside the first old door."

"What happened," he asked, seeing the ice form and shatter and seeing our tired selves bent over.

"I didn’t even need to answer as dozens of ancient gods came flooding through the door we had just left from, setting off a wave of panic from even the chaos god. He held the line as more help was summoned with ancient gods and chaos gods arriving from both sides. We we had finally gotten far enough away, I drew over the attention of an ancient god I knew and explained what we saw and what we thought it meant. The man’s face turned pale in seconds and he ran off. Once we were almost along and out of the underground a notice to retreat was sent out which sent all of the troops running for the base and the drop ships." With this, the voice suddenly took on a slightly sad tone.

"I never made it off the planet. I stayed in the base and fought the rushing hordes that were chasing us, buying time for others to leave. All the brothers and sisters of my home were buried here and I felt it was a fitting place to be buried as well. As a reward for my actions, I got the chance to see, up close, the massive beast awaken as the planet was torn apart from the inside out. The last vision I had before everything went dark was a massive head, the size of which I couldn’t comprehend, lifting skyward and roaring into the firmament. After that, I saw no more..."