Within the human kingdom of Hvestnir, all was not well. Inside a cavernous stone room, comfortably hidden beneath a luxurious mansion in the most wealthy district of the city, a ritual was nearing completion. A ritual that had one purpose: to bring about the end of the Age of Man. Fierce red lines cut across the floor, their burning glow casting shadows across the weak lightly of carefully placed candles. A precise symbol was cut by these lines into the exact center of the cavern. Like the tendrils of some nameless horror more glowing red lines ran from the center symbol to a sheer rock wall of the cavern, running through the stone. Within the center of the intricate diagram a young man and young woman lay dead, ghastly wounds upon their bodies, blood leaking from the torn flesh, feeding the glowing lines. They lay coiled around a magical core six feet tall and four across.

Twelve figures wearing heavy black robes surrounded the macabre display. Sweat ran down their exposed faces as they concentrated with all their heart on their given tasks. Chanting echoed and the flow of magical power filled the room. The leader of the figures stared in awe as the burning glow reached a climax. Roaring into existence, a blood red portal swelled large across the wall of the cavern, a testament to the size of the underground lair, the portal was large enough for two or three full sized wagons to pass through side by side. All over the kingdom of Hvestnir, similar portals began to open in the sky, high above the ground, their crimson light bringing a terrible dawn to the slumbering country. Horribly chittering and screams called out through the portals. Countless shadows shoved each other inside the red light, eager to be the first to enter this realm.

The work was done. This ritual had taken nearly ten hours to complete. A marathon that tested the endurance of all participants, and they had triumphed. The time of men was at an end. The dark clad figures sank to their knees in worship as they looked upon their work, awaiting the arrival of their master. Mighty figures lay silhouetted against the harsh red of the portal in the cavern. Twelve silhouettes in total: Their master and the eldest of his court. The cultists could already feel the terrible pressure of their power before they even fully manifested. The Demon King and his retinue were at hand. Their endless army would surely follow, bringing war and enslavement to Hvestnir in a single night, and the entire world after that!

The cultist leader’s name was Algber and his heart swelled with unfettered euphoria! Finally, after decades of planning and countless setbacks the moment was at hand! His moment! He had orchestrated this! All before him had failed. It was only natural, they were incompetent morons after all. In his experience cultists tended not to be the cream of the crop.

Oh they’ll see now. Algber thought, They’ll all see! They said I was unhinged. They laughed at my ideas! Denied my tenure, Conspired against my business dealings, But I shall laugh last!

The academy had failed to appreciate his genius, but now they’d see. Before he gouged out their eyes and fed their genitals to his Master’s minions, that is. Sherry, that buxom blonde receptionist would rue the day she turned down his invitations.

“I don’t do orgies” She'd said. Algber sneered,

Well, I’ll show her, they’ll all pay now! My time is nigh! All will--- Algber’s internal monologue was interrupted by the panicked cries and pointed motion of a minion.

“Master! It’s destabilizing!”

Alber suddenly realized he had been too distracted to notice that the previously orderly energies of the ritual had become chaotic, violent. Alber frantically scanned the room for the cause of the issue. His heart sank as he found the source of the destabilization.The issue was immediately in front of a minion on a symbol vertex directly opposite Algber. The minion stood in sweat soaked robes, watching in abject horror as the power of the ritual went haywire. At the minion’s feet a small pool of sweat had formed. It had intersected with a vertex of the ritual’s glowing centerpiece symbol, mixing with the blood inside the channels cut through the floor. This was a problem. The ritual relied on the mixture in the channels remaining extremely pure.

The room shook, events taking a turn for the worse. The portal in the basement, and all the portals across the sky's the the Kingdom of Hvestnir flickered. Algber wasn't sure he could salvage this. Suddenly he remembered with perfect clarity one of his father’s pedantic lectures on running a cult.

“Heavy concealing robes might seem like a good idea for your cult uniform, but remember my words son: they are not. Damn things get hotter than a dragon’s butthole and peeling them off to get into proper attire for a post ritual orgy is a nightmare. Use light silk instead. Silk breaths, son. Light and pleasant to the touch. Good for rituals AND orgies. That way you don’t have to change clothes so much.”

Looking at the pool of sweat ruining his crowning moment, Algber took a moment to process that maybe not all of his late father’s advice was totally without merit. The heavy robes looked nice, concealed the face and form, but made even short rituals a sweaty chore, let alone a marathon such as this.

A painful pulsing hum began to assault the ears of Algber and his fellows. Portals began to open, not just across the Kingdom of Hvestnir, but all across the skies Algber’s world. Without rhyme or reason some portals even opened in nearby dimensions and random space, sucking in whatever was nearby. No longer uniform crimson in color, the portals hue shifted with each moment, pink, yellow, orange, the eye could scarcely track the rapid shifts. The monster core in the center of the cavern showed signs of meltdown.

Albger saw that the ritual was past the point of salvation. His pathetic minion’s excessive sweating had ruined everything. An explosion was imminent. There was no easy escape. The entire capital would probably be consumed when the calamity class monster core at the center of the ritual exploded. From the hum,vibration, and blistering heat the core was emanating, Albger estimated such an event only a few moments away. He briefly considered diving into the portal to escape but decided against it. Albger was the preeminent authority on interdimensional portals and he had a very strong feeling that he’d rather face the explosion head on than the odds of surviving the portal blowing up while he was within it. Portals were dangerous even when they weren’t about to catastrophically explode.

Despite the plan unraveling in the final moments, Algber regretted nothing. His biggest hope was that the Demon King would arrive safely and complete the great work of humbling his enemies, bringing them despair and torment, but he wasn’t too sure if it was going to work out. The twelve mighty figures within the portal were looking less imposing, as many of the silhouettes were exhibiting behavior Algber could only describe as panicked. Oh well. There had to be other creatures of unimaginable power to worship in exchange for knowledge and power.

The cult leader’s fingers blurred as he wove complex sigils in the air to set up the strongest defenses he could manage. Knowing it would not be enough, Algber mournfully decided to hold nothing back. The enchantments from countless magical artifacts hidden across his body faded into nothing as he used every trump card he had to lay barrier after barrier upon himself. His defense expanded to a nearly five foot sphere around him, composed of layer after layer of defense against all known elements and forces. He had confidence in his defense, but a calamity class monster core exploding was no joke. Even so, there was probably a small chance of survival, for him, at least. He was a hair’s breadth from an Archmage, after all. His power was nothing to sneeze at either.

Algber surveyed his cult member’s antics as the core emanated terrifying heat and vibrated in an extremely worrisome fashion. They were running about in terror, pounding on the sealed exit. Jumping into the churning multi-colored portal. Soiling themselves. The brighter few were pounding on his personal barriers, begging to be included in their master's defenses. Algber wasn’t going to let them in. The future looked pretty dismal for them anyway, honestly speaking. None of them were really ‘that’ talented. Oh well Algber thought. There’s always more where that came from. If I survive maybe I’ll set up shop in the Oum kingdom. I hear they hand out noble titles for meritorious deeds. I’m sure I can find some dragon or monster king to vanquish. I can work my way up to Duke in a couple decades.

Moments later an explosion that reduced two thirds of Hvestnir’s capital city of Olverstant to rubble shocked the world. More shocking, was the rain of gore and debris from the countless portals that spanned the skylines of the world. The downpour lasted twenty minutes before the portals fully dispersed. It was twenty minutes many of the inhabitants of the world would never forget.

The debris was mostly dismembered demon chunks, projectiles of recently deceased demonic flesh and bone rained down upon the unprepared citizens of the world. The carnage tore through houses, decimated shops, and totaled food carts, utterly ruining their contents. Untold gallons of blue blood rained from the sky, entering buildings and getting absolutely everywhere. The cleanup would take months. The toll on mental health was devastating. Though it was not quite what they had in mind from the start, it cannot be denied that the armies of the Demon King truely rained horror upon the world.

However, out of sight of most there were several special things that fell from portals which less resembled meat grinders. To name but a few, a titanic chunk of seemingly solid metal fell into the monster infested mountains of the Oum Kingdom to the east, a humanoid creature with an insect-like appearance fell into elvish lands in the north, and in the far reaches of the desolate south twenty five surprised humans, a large gym’s worth of brand-spanking-new gym equipment, many backpacks, several hundred college orientation fliers, and the dismembered head of an ancient demon named Lome’Matar began a freefall from one hundred feet above the ground.