A dirty win is still a win!

Rohaan had given his best; never before had he been involved in such a large-scale battle. It was an opportunity he longed for, a chance to prove his own worth, and he proudly had.

He breathed heavily; his right arm had been burnt to a crisp up to the shoulder, despite being made of light. This was the penalty that the lightsword claimed for using its essence in a single concentrated attack.

Sadly, there was no time for rest or respite. The Resistance army was doing an amazing job of pushing the morally defeated mercenaries back, after their general had been slain. But Rohaan knew it was all a charade, a fleeting victory with death lingering just beyond the horizon.

Rohaan gruntingly stood up; the lightsword did not listen to him and had turned into an extremely heavy piece of metal. He lacked the energy to lift it. He extended his hand outwards, and a similar dagger, the one Queen Lara had given him before the mission, appeared. Gazing upon it, all that existed around him disappeared as his mind wandered away from the horrors of war, from the cacophony of steel and sorrow.

Familiar winds suddenly caressed his cheeks, carrying trinkets upon them. He felt fresh, new; the fatigue had simply disappeared. In front of him was the same figure he had seen before, doing kata. The figure dropped a sword that resembled the lightsword, except the hilt was different, and casually walked to Rohaan. It looked like a blur walking towards him; he squinted his eyes to see clearly, but it did not help.

"Here," a distant voice echoed in the memory.

"HERE!" The voice seemed closer as Rohaan noticed the blur's mouth moving violently.

"SHE'S HERE, SIR!" Rohaan felt a deep slap upon his cheeks as he was brutally torn away from the pleasant memory and placed back into reality.

He looked up dumbfounded; a captain from the clan Wushitu, tiny earth dragon-like creatures, was shouting at him.

Suddenly, the whole ground breathed up and down in a giant ripple.

"Wasl," Rohaan's eyes widened as he mumbled to himself, then took an offensive stance with the golden dagger still clenched in his hands and shouted orders at all those who could hear him. The endgame had started.

************

Thousands of meters below was another battle approaching its climax, but unlike the battle upon the surface, Aatish and Amawas were suffering against the abominable worm that had emerged from hell itself.

It did not give up, despite being frozen, despite being slashed, despite being cut in two pieces; it quickly regenerated. The persistent demon was as sturdy as they were.

Currently, it was sawn in half after Amawas had launched a massive attack of darkness against it, depleting most of her stamina, and its body was already clicking together back again.

Wasl had come; they both had sensed her presence for quite some time now. She was rampaging above, and Rohaan needed their help.

"Aatish, listen to me," Amawas said, her chainscythe dripping darkness below in the abyss.

Raw strength against the worm had proven to be useless, and half-baked strategies as well. But gladly, during the chaos, Amawas had enough time to come up with a flawless plan.

She covered them both in a shell of darkness from where no sound could escape. They had discovered that the damn worm could also pick up on their conversation, understanding the language. It simply chose not to converse with them.

But perhaps the most comical thing was, the worm waited patiently, not attacking them at all, for them to complete a plan so it could boast more thoroughly after voiding it yet again.

The dark shell broke, it decayed, revealing a knelt figure of Aatish, slowly burning with blue flames. She had decided to give it her all against the abomination and wasn't holding anything back.

Amawas wasn't there.

The abomination quickly looked around; it did not have any specific eyes; instead, its countless spikes served as antennas of sorts.

It twisted around, sensing every single presence as far as it could. There, on the edge of the ancient gateway it was tasked to protect, was Amawas and a tiny creature that looked like walking stacks of sheets.

The worm shrieked and launched itself, its speed defying its humongous body, as thousands of slashes were heard in the air.

Before it could reach Amawas, a rope made of fire coiled around its supposed neck as Aatish pulled it back. Then, as quickly as it turned, a lance of fire struck the same gap they had struck countless times before, the worm wreathed in agony.

But it figured that whatever Amawas was doing was much more important than focusing on the foe behind.

Aatish could not believe herself when the worm actually ignored her despite the strike and aimed at Amawas again. Such a petty trick against something as formidable as the worm could work, she smirked.

She left the rope; in the next second, the worm bulletted forward with its maw opened wide against the knelt Amawas who tried very hard to defy death but was chomped.

Something felt off.

The worm did not feel any flesh; there was no satisfaction, only... before it could comprehend what was going on, it completely swooshed past the gateway and Amawas and the tiny creature; they all decayed into darkness, the real gate was waiting for it, opened just behind the curtain of perfect mimicry.

It could not stop its momentum and was launched directly into the open gateway. It tried to creep back into the dimension, but the gateway was much happier to host it than the guest outwards.

No one could tell when Amawas had actually replaced the gateway, instructed Lakeer to open it. Even Aatish was stunned as she was told about the plan in the dark shell. But they had successfully gotten rid of the worm.

A dirty win was still a win.

***********

Rohaan stood his ground, only some hundreds were remaining of his force, most were slain, barely reaching a total of a thousand. He could not understand yet why the whole battalion under Commandress Aatish had simply vanished and abandoned them on the most important battle, but he trusted her.

Just by the horizon, was a huge cloud of dust forming slowly, devouring the mercenaries one by one.

"RALLY BEHIND ME," Rohaan shouted and all those who heard fell into ranks behind him, the sudden ripple in the ground had stopped the fighting temporarily, there were powers at work already in the battle but none were capable of launching a move of this magnitude.

Undoubtedly, the worst had arrived.

"LISTEN WELL," Rohaan shouted, gaining the attention of his troops as far as his voice reached,

"That right there is our task, the demon that has entrapped your countries for centuries, your fathers and forefathers, they were all slaves to her, but you are NOT! SO STAND AGAINST IT WITH YOUR LIVES, DYING AS FREE CREATURES IS BETTER THAN LIVING AS SLAVES."

The little speech gave the crowd much needed push of adrenaline as they jeered and took positions, lances in front, arrows behind.

Wasl was upon them, at any moment they'd be engulfed in a storm. There was no real plan against a power as mighty as a sovereign; death was certain. Rohaan could not find appropriate words for a plan of action; all he had left was a smoldering will deep in his chest to liberate all the creatures behind him.

The fight he was about to engage in with only a long dagger and left arm would go down as one of the most important events in the history of Shargh onwards.