Outside the Bronze Citadel, the Abyssal host had long since swallowed both earth and sky. Everywhere one looked, piles of demon corpses smoldered with black smoke.
Winged demons, such as vrocks and chasmes, gathered in the skies, blotting out the blood-red firmament of Avernus. On the ground, goristros, hezrous, and demon giants rampaged forward, swarming in droves as they vied to shatter the defensive line of the Legion of Hell.
The devils fought desperately to hold them back. Heavily armored chain devil fighters anchored the front rank. With a ripple through the Weave, a solid wall of force materialized along the line, smashing the foremost demons into bloody heaps.
Fork-wielding horned devils and spined devils took to the air, locked in mortal combat and sending winged demons plummeting from the sky one after another.
Robed devil sorcerers hovered in midair, chanting ancient, profane incantations. Countless streaks of hellfire rained down, detonating against the demons pinned along their advance. Plumes of black smoke and shrill shrieks erupted throughout the horde.
Right then, a resounding horn call echoed from the distance. A frigid gale swept across the plains. The glowing, heat-blistered weapons and armor of the devils cooled with sharp hisses, quickly frosting over in white rime.
"These hellish bastards are weak as paper! Crush them—for the great Prince of Wrath, Kostchtchie!"
The earth trembled. Devils across the battlefield turned their eyes toward the horizon in horror. Far in the distance, several mountain-sized Abyssal behemoths bellowed low, guttural roars. Demon frost giants rode atop their backs, brandishing spears and warhammers as they loosed mad battle cries.
The leading frost giant wore pitch-black heavy armor and carried a colossal hammer. His towering, burly frame was covered in cracks glowing with an eerie light, and twisted spikes jutted from his elbows and knees. He radiated a thick aura of chaos, bearing the plain hallmarks of long-standing corruption by the Abyss.
A black eyepatch covered one eye, and a hideous scar ran across his face. In his lone right eye, dark green flames flickered.
Riding atop a draconic drake, the frost giant chieftain trampled a dozen dretches and lower demons into mincemeat, cursing in fury, "Out of my way, all of you! You useless garbage, failing for so long to break through these hellish bastards' defenses—forcing the great Klemun to take the field himself!"
This "great Klemun" was a confidant of Kostchtchie. Following the fall of the giant pantheon, he had followed the Prince of Wrath into the depths of the Abyss. Over millennia of fighting across planes, he had earned a formidable reputation throughout the Abyss.
Panic seized the lesser demons massed before the wall of force. Pressed by both his status and the raw terror of death, they hurriedly scrambled aside to clear a wide path.
"Bastards of Hell! You are fit only to shiver before Lord Kostchtchie's legions, marching toward your doom!"
Klemun raised his warhammer high and charged forward with a deafening bellow. Just before colliding with the line, the demonic frost giant swung his massive hammer with one hand, smashing it with all his might against the wall of force.
Space seemed to fracture under the blow, the hammer carrying a howling, biting gale and the roar of primal chaos.
*Boom!*
A cataclysmic blast shook the battlefield. A shockwave laced with hailstones hurled hundreds of demons and devils into the air. Under the force of that single blow, the wall of force abruptly shattered into countless shimmering arcane shards.
A devil officer's face twisted in savage desperation as he rasped, "Quick! Hold back that damned demon giant!"
"Stop him! Do not let these Abyssal mongrels breach the line!"
Klemun swept his colossal hammer, instantly battering several charging devil soldiers to pulp. As the biting frost wind blasted past, they fragmented into countless frozen shards that flew through the air.
The Abyssal behemoth beneath him slammed into the formation as well, grinding a dozen chain devils into paste in a heartbeat.
More than a dozen frost giant riders followed right behind. Wielding warhammers and lances, they kicked up billowing clouds of dust, driving the wasteland's biting wind to an even harsher chill.
Like a spiked iron sledgehammer, they smashed straight through the infernal ranks, ripping open a massive breach in what had been a tightly woven defense.
With another brutal hammer strike, Klemun smashed the devil officer's head like a burst waterskin, sending gore and blood flying in all directions. Bathing in the blood, he bellowed with laughter, "The great Klemun will crush everything! All of Hell will belong to us frost giants—belong to Lord Kostchtchie!"
*Roar!*
With the wall of force shattered, demons poured through the breach like a bursting dam, madly throwing themselves at the devils.
At once, the devils on the outer defense line were utterly submerged beneath the mottled tide of demons. The fiends fought tooth and nail to claw, bite, and gorge upon the devils' flesh, tearing the foremost dozen-odd devil soldiers into scraps of meat in seconds.
The demons outnumbered the devils by more than twenty to one. Every demon was like a rabid beast, bloodthirsty and heedless of its own survival.
Once dragged into a melee, no amount of discipline or tactical perfection could save the devils. They could only watch helplessly as the demonic horde engulfed them, turning them into bloody spoils for the frenzied monsters.
"We can't hold them!"
"Lord Uriel, the horde is breaking through!"
The overall commander of this defensive perimeter, the pit fiend Uriel, glared at the distant demonic horde and gritted his teeth. "The Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Legions are beyond saving. Let them buy us time while we pull back."
"Yes, my lord."
Though neither legion belonged directly to Uriel's core forces, both possessed formidable combat strength, and abandoning them pained him deeply.
Yet pit fiends operated with ruthless efficiency and never hesitated to sacrifice subordinates. Securing the vital war material, he mobilized his elite guards and retreated into the next line of defense shortly thereafter.
The devils left behind were ripped to pieces by the ravenous demons, not a single intact corpse remaining—yet this had been the decision that maximized their strategic interests.
Klemun thrust his warhammer skyward, brandishing it with boisterous laughter. "Do you see? They're terrified! These infernal cowards can't stand against us! Lord Kostchtchie will conquer Avernus, and this land shall become a paradise for demons!"
"Long live the Abyss!"
"Praise Lord Kostchtchie!"
The demons thoroughly overran the outer defense line, letting out raw, discordant roars of triumph.
In mere moments, tens of thousands of devils were wiped out, leaving only blood, mangled flesh, and broken gear across the earth.
Such were demons: spawn of chaos, born purely for slaughter and destruction. Rather than living creatures, they were living catastrophes.
Hell's second defensive perimeter was formed by a scorching river of lava. Magma erupted frequently from its surface, splashing high into the sky, while thick, lethal toxic fumes drifted across the waters. Along the far bank stood the massed legions of devils, their ranks bristling with siege engines of every description.
Flapping their wings in a frantic frenzy, low-ranking winged demons formed swarms as dense as storm clouds, attempting to cross above the river. Yet the magma and toxic smoke barred their way. Their twisted bodies caught fire, and with shrill shrieks and wails, they fell like burning rain into the lava, leaving behind plumes of foul-smelling black smoke.
More powerful demons roared and beat their wings with all their might, veins bulging along their heavily corded shoulders as they tried to force their way across. But heavy gravity magic crushed down upon them, swatting them out of the sky like flies and plunging them into the molten river.
The devils also raised infernal hand-crossbows, aiming in unison toward the sky. Volleys of fire-tipped bolts poured upward like a violent squall, bringing down swaths of airborne fiends.
Within minutes, thousands of demons died swept along in the tide. Stinking black smoke choked the battlefield, poisoning the surrounding air with an unbearable stench.
Fortunately, both Hell and the Abyss were planes of extreme hostility; demonic corruption was an everyday matter in Baator. If the Material Plane were subjected to such taint, the surrounding land would remain barren for decades.
"For the Lord of the Nine Hells!"
"Hold the line! Under no circumstances may those Abyssal mongrels reach the Bronze Citadel! Remember, Lord Bel is watching you all!
"Whoever performs meritorious service will have the chance to be promoted! But cowards who flee will face only death—the Nine Hells has no place for craven dogs! Such scum deserve only to become lemures!"
A devil officer roared, brandishing a longsword as he issued strict orders to his troops.
To make an example, this higher-ranking devil dragged out an imp engineer who had been attempting to flee toward the inner perimeter, hoisting it high before the assembled ranks.
"My lord, my lord, I didn't know! I was following superior orders, reassigned to the Bronze Citadel!" the imp shrieked, squirming desperately in the officer's grip.
The imp knew full well that confessing to fault in a moment like this meant certain doom.
Yet the officer cared nothing for the imp's motives, thoughts, or even the truth; he simply needed a convenient scapegoat to establish discipline.
"Still making excuses! It is precisely because there are too many deserters like you that those Abyssal bastards have grown so bold!" His face contorted in savage fury as he barked curses.
"No, I—I didn't..." the imp squeaked in despair.
The devil officer wasted no more words. With a single slash of his blade, the imp's head tumbled neatly from its shoulders, dark blood spurting from the severed neck.
Holding up the severed head, its wide eyes still frozen in terror, he bellowed, "Do you see? That is the fate of deserters! Lord Bel has no need for the useless, and the Nine Hells has no place for trash!
"Do you want to become higher devils like me? Then throw yourselves into the fray against the demons! You too can rise to become mighty devils of Hell!"
"For the Nine Hells!"
"Long live Lord Bel!"
The devils thrust their weapons high, raising fervent battle cries, though how much of that zeal was genuine and how much was mere feigning was impossible to say.
...
"Look at that. The devils have to rely on such pathetic tricks just to maintain morale. How fragile."
"This time, Lord Kostchtchie has joined forces with two other demon lords to invade Hell with unstoppable momentum. If the Nine Hells falls, given your standing in Lord Kostchtchie's eyes, you'll surely secure yourself the seat of an archduke."
"Hahahahaha! I'd say Avernus looks rather fine—just the place for me!" Listening to his subordinate's flattery, Klemun threw back his head and laughed, his deep voice rolling like thunder.
Demons continued to surge toward the devils' lines, tumbling from the sky without pause. Some even hurled themselves heedlessly into the molten river, racing toward death amid the crackling sizzle of scorching heat.
Were it not for the fact that demonic corpses dissolved and returned to the Abyss upon death, the entire moat would have been choked solid with their remains.
"Enough. It's time to put an end to this dull game." Klemun rose to his feet with his great hammer in hand. Looking into the distance with a cruel smirk, he roared, "Bel, you pathetic devil duke! If you don't show yourself soon, I'll have slaughtered every last one of your subordinates!"
He stepped forward, sneering down at the infernal moat of lava.
"Hmph. You think a ditch like this... can stop me?"
Gripping the shaft with both hands, the frost giant raised the massive hammer above his head. The runes etched across its head flared with an eerie blue light.
All at once, a bone-chilling cold erupted. A howling blizzard laced with countless hailstones and snowflakes swirled around the giant's towering frame, coalescing into a terrifying tempest of extreme frost.
Unlike ordinary blizzards, however, the snow and hail Klemun summoned were not pure white. Instead, they bore a murky, sickly green hue, as though steeped in foul, reeking slime.
These frost giants had served Kostchtchie for millennia in the Abyss, and this was the twisted fusion of frost giant rune magic and the chaotic power of the Infinite Layers.
Veins bulged along Klemun's arms as his face twisted in a ferocious grimace. Then he slammed the hammer down with all his might.
*Boom!*
A tremendous crash rattled the earth, leaving a massive crater where the hammer struck. Frigid ice radiating chaotic power surged outward from the epicenter, instantly freezing the ground solid.
The boiling, searing river of lava solidified into black rock in an instant, and the hundreds of devil soldiers stationed at the forefront were frozen solid into ice sculptures.
With faint, crisp snaps, fine cracks spread across their bodies, and their forms shattered into countless rigid shards.
These devils had been the most loyal, the most courageous, yet they received none of the promotions they had envisioned, serving only as the first wave of cannon fodder.
Several other frost giants followed suit, unleashing waves of frost that rapidly froze the molten river before them, opening pathways for the demonic advance.
A devil officer screamed, "Careful! These frost giants have bizarre magic—it's freezing power!"
The Legion of Hell reacted with tremendous speed. Soon, devil sorcerers stepped forward along the battlements, raising bone scepters and chanting incantations that caused the surrounding temperature to skyrocket until the very air distorted.
Yet it was already too late. Bridges of solid black rock now spanned the lava river, and swarms of demons scrambled across them, pouring over in jagged streams toward the devils on the opposing bank.
The infernal ranks struggled fiercely to hold the crossings. Scores of demons plunged into the remaining lava during the carnage, splashing molten rock that burned craters into the ground.
Yet with the first defensive line breached, the fall of the second appeared to be merely a matter of time. The demons grew more numerous by the second, their swarms blotting out even the distant horizon.
"Cease your useless struggles! The Bronze Citadel will fall! Bel—no, not even the Lord of the Nine Hells himself can save you now!" Klemun roared.
The blizzard still raged around the frost giant. Steering his Abyssal behemoth, he charged straight across the frozen river and plunged into the tight formations of the infernal army, rampaging through their ranks.
Right at that moment, a resounding dragon roar split the battlefield.
*ROAAAR—*
The roar carried a vast, indescribable power, shaking all of Avernus to its core—and the demon frost giant was no exception.
Chapter 724