‘It was ten years after the end of the Shatter Wars, the most horrifying conflict the Universe had ever seen... but of course, despite the destruction, the horror, the death... it was nothing compared to what awaited us... a war where Demons, led by Myklor, the Devil of Devils, fought the Emahra Warriors and armies of light for control; and where all that was good fought for freedom.

But that was still yet to come... even as the Universe still reeled from the horror of the Shatter Wars, and after the great and terrible destruction of the war that had already left most of the Universe in ruins, and after insurmountable slaughter, and the destruction of countless worlds, all mourned in fear that the Universe was dying.

And it was…

It would not survive another war of a greater intensity... but still that war was… inevitable…

-From the Journals of Nell Sorrow

IKIAGO

The colour of grey ash and inky soot, churning, curling and rumbling with thunder, dense clouds stirred angrily. The cloak was all encompassing, fully oppressive. Still, there was something of beauty to them, but great foreboding too, with danger coiled deeply inside. A low rumble of thunder was drowned out by a shattering crack. In streak of light something appeared - for a moment greatly elongated, quickly it snapped to proper shape and size, resolving itself into an enormous, evil-looking vessel. Hateful, black and red, craggy hull, sharp and bristling with weapons. It almost looked alive.

There were more flashes of light, and more ships appeared, but none so big as the first.

With a growl, the enormous ship rolled across the tumultuous sky, toward an ancient grey castle, set on a floating, crumbling, piece of land that was held aloft by mahgic and a large antigravity system – hanging spires, silver collection dishes, and twisting tubes, built into the craggy bottom. The floating island looked almost as ancient and dilapidated as the castle itself, which was a mere shell of what it had once been. Towers lay half crumbled, and outer walls had collapsed in places, creating great yawning U-shaped openings. Once majestic flags were now nothing more than faded tatters. Shattered windows appeared as little more than dark eerie portholes into a ruined, disintegrating shell.

The colossal ship continued toward the castle, as if drawn to it, and while the companion ships hung back, the monstrous vessel settled over the castle, dwarfing and overshadowing it. Hanging above the palace, the immense dreadnought rumbled from stem to stern, great shuddering vibrations causing the ancient structure below to quake. Pieces of loose stone crumbled away here and there.

A port in the bottom of the ship slid open and showed only darkness.

Half a heartbeat later a screaming twisting, black cloud – like smoke, trailing behind an inky black point – fell toward the ruined castle. More and more smoky spirits followed, and they careened down, through the broken roof of a tall dark tower. The inky forms fell right to the floor, and then rolled upward, resolving into what almost looked like robed spectres, though they roiled and churned with angry black vapour. Evil red eyes shone out, in the rough area where they might on a Human being.

Hissing and screeching, the evil spectres floated quickly forward, their smoky forms sliding smoothly across the old, rotting wooden floor. Then they dropped down a decaying stairwell, down, down, down, to the very bottom of the tower. One rolled ahead of the others, while the others began scouring this lower chamber, moving through old, rotting crates and debris.

The leader’s eyes, red and hateful, scanned the chamber as carefully as did his minions. Movement caught the leader’s attention, and he shot forward, reforming directly in front of a cowering being that had a thin, pale body, like a worm. His face and head were narrow, and the top of his head continued up, like a lizard’s tail.

It was quivering.

The worm-like being had narrow arms and wore a bright red vest, while the lower fully-worm half of his body was swaddled in cloth from waist to tip. The being had large round eyes that looked all the rounder now as they were filled with terror. His bottom lip trembled under his prominent upper lip, and on the end of his round chin his little, white, bristly beard shook like a fuzz-hound.

‘Here!’ the leader hissed in a voice that sounded like grinding stones.

‘Please,’ the worm-like man begged, ‘let me be.’

A something, like a smoky snake, shot out from the leader’s body and wrapped tightly around the worm-man’s neck, he choked, his eyes bugging, and the leader shot up, dragging the worm man behind him, his minions following closely. With speed, and barely a whisper of sound, they returned to their ship. The hatch sealed behind them, and then, with a crack that echoed through the stormy sky, the immense dreadnought launched away from the crumbling castle. The smaller ships followed.

Winks of blinding light flashed in the sky, and the evil ships vanished with their quarry.