William King - Illidan

This is not real, he told himself.

It is very real, and if you die here in this spell-born dream, you die forever, and I will have your soul and your body. Already I have infected you. Already I can use your skills, your thoughts. Already I am so much more than I once was.

He tried to pull the jaws apart, but it took all his strength to keep them from closing. The teeth sawed into his fingers. He knew it was only a matter of time before he lost this struggle.

He lowered his head, trying to get it out of reach of the snapping jaws by resting it against the demon hound’s short neck. The creature’s claws bit into his unprotected chest, ripping strands of flesh free, tearing ribbons from muscle and rib. He knew he had only one chance. He let go of the beast’s jaws, got his body underneath it, and raised it on high. It struggled frantically, trying to overbalance him. He held it above his head then brought it down, snapping its spine across his knee.

The felhound thrashed, all control of its limbs lost. Vandel brought his foot down on its throat and crushed its windpipe until it stopped moving.

Then driven by an instinct he could not understand, he kicked open its squelching stomach, reached into its chest cavity, and pulled out its heart. He held it up, squeezed green blood from the ventricles into his mouth, and then devoured the meat.

It tingled as it went down, but this time he felt he was gaining strength from it. The world shimmered and went dark. Nausea filled him. He fell forward over the body of his enemy. A wrenching, tearing sensation tugged at his bowels.

He stood above his own corpse where it sprawled atop the dead felhound. Slowly, impelled by some external force, his spirit rose and drifted out into the blackness. He saw that Outland was but a tiny speck in the infinity of the Great Dark Beyond. A tiny worldlet that floated in a void too vast for any mind to encompass. He became aware that all around him in that void were millions upon millions of worlds, teeming with life and glittering with promise.

He focused on one and saw a golden land, bright with sunshine, where a carefree people harvested. Then he saw a portal tear open in the fabric of reality. Through that rent poured the unstoppable forces of the Burning Legion, invincible armies of demons, bent only on destruction and slaughter.

All of this had happened many years ago. Long before the Legion had ever reached Azeroth, it had smashed its way across countless worlds, destroying everything that got in its path. Its sole relentless purpose was to kill.

There were times and places where the Legion was halted, but it always came back, stronger than before. Sometimes worlds were not destroyed; they were conquered and incorporated into the Legion’s structure, producing more soldiers to feed its unceasing war engine.

He was not the only parent who had ever lost a child to the Legion. Every moment, somewhere, ten thousand children were killed by its unrelenting savagery.

Images of innumerable dead worlds flickered through his mind. He saw gigantic ruins, toppled buildings that had once reached the sky, lakes of glass where proud cities had once stood, endless plains of rubble. He saw the lights of life in the universe winking slowly out until only a few remained.

He never doubted the truth of what he was seeing. The Burning Legion left behind a trail of smoldering worlds in its wake.

There was madness here on an incomprehensible scale. The Legion existed only to destroy. It would not stop until everything everywhere was dead, and then it would turn on itself with all its savagery until nothing remained. It was a vision of unspeakable horror. The worst of it was that he knew now how strong the Legion was. Nowhere in all the worlds in all existence was any force capable of defeating it.

Now you know the truth. Join us. The voice was back. This time there was a wheedling, pleading note, but he sensed the same hunger lay behind it.

Never.

Reality shifted. He stood amid the shattered heart of a tower. A carpet of blackened bones crunched beneath his feet. A felhound lurched forward, determined to kill him. He stooped, picked up a broken rib, and stabbed the demon through the heart. It was easier this time and he felt stronger, as if each time he slew the beast, he gained part of its strength. Once again, he opened its chest cavity, drank its blood, and devoured its heart.

A titanic vision smashed into his brain. This time he saw not just one universe but a near infinity of them, a complex fractal structure, where new worlds were born each minute from the decisions made a heartbeat before.

Everywhere the Burning Legion marched, destroying world after world. Every death narrowed the range of possible worlds, till eventually all the multitude of possibilities narrowed to but a few. In every one of them, the Legion marched triumphant, leaving futures stillborn and presents empty of all life. He saw countless Azeroths, countless Vandels, and countless Khariels, and to every one of them came death. He saw his child die in an infinity of different ways, and in every one of those possible worlds, he was powerless to prevent it.

In every world, in every future, the Burning Legion strode, invincible, unstoppable, dooming the universe to eternal darkness in its wake. Behind it all, he saw the looming demonic figures of its leaders: Archimonde—who was believed dead by so many—Kil’jaeden, and above all others, Sargeras the fallen titan, once sworn to guard the universe, now bent on destroying it.

On and on the visions roared, tearing through his brain, goading him to the edge of madness and beyond. And every time he saw one, part of him died, and the demon within him fed on his agony and gloated. He covered his eyes with his hands, but it did not stop the horrors from flowing in. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, but still he saw and saw and saw, until he could bear no more.

Drowning in horror, he inserted his fingers into his eye sockets, feeling the blood flow and the jelly puncture beneath his nails. He pulled and pulled and pulled, straining against muscle and optic nerve until his eyeballs came free with a hideous sucking sound.

At the last moment, before horror overwhelmed him, he realized this was what Illidan once saw. This was what had turned him into what he was. The Betrayer had walked this path before him. This whole ritual was intended to re-create his experience.

Pain seared through Vandel’s skull.

Darkness.

Silence.

Vandel woke in agony. He had no idea where he was. He could see nothing around him, only flickers of shimmering light. He reached up and touched his ruined face with fumbling fingers and found, as he had feared he would, that his eye sockets were empty. He had indeed torn out his eyes.

Fear flashed through him. Was he alive? He could see nothing. Perhaps he had died in the aftermath of the ritual. Perhaps his soul wandered in that cold wasteland where it had drifted during its voyage. Fragments of memory returned to haunt him, shards of the terrible vision eating the demon’s heart had given him. He could recall only a tiny portion of what he had seen. He was grateful he could not remember more. The mind was not meant to hold such a tidal wave of horror.

He tried to stand upright but felt himself totter and fall. His head banged into the cold stone and sent tiny flickers through the darkness around him. He allowed himself to hope that perhaps it was his sight returning, but he knew it was not. He was blind and he was useless.

Mad laughter bubbled from his lips. He had wanted the power to kill demons. Now he could not even see. He had been filled with the desire to oppose the Burning Legion, and now he knew it was invincible.

Hopelessness flooded through his mind. Somewhere deep inside him, a demon was feeding. It took nourishment from his bleak mood and gloated over every crumb of wretchedness.