“We need more men! Call for the reserves!”

“We can’t hold these boney bastards back for much longer! Where are the reinforcements that were promised?!”

“Arrggh! My Hand! My Hand! They took my hand!”

“Give me arrows! I can’t shoot them without arrows! Dear Solinaye, what have we gotten ourselves into?!”

As the night dragged on, many cries both similar and dissimilar to these echoed out over the din of battle. Those sent to keep the rather ineffective and hastily made ‘wall’ defended had already been pushed off of it and had been slowly moved deeper and deeper into the coastal shantytown/ military encampment. Repeatedly, the beleaguered defenders had sent runners to request additional reinforcements, as the ‘elites’ of the invasion force had not yet been committed to the fight. Each messenger that was sent came back with the same message, that salvation was on its way and they merely needed to hold out just a bit longer.

However, as the battle spilled into the center of the appropriated ruins that made up the Sultanate’s attempt to establish a beachhead, the horrifying reality of what terrible joke had befallen them was made clear. The elites were nowhere to be seen, even as soldiers broke and ran from the defensive line up to the desiccated husk of the old church. All of their possessions, all of their equipment, all of the horses and supplies and food and fresh water, all of it had seemingly vanished from the camp without a single clue as to where it had all gone.

With the realization that somehow their leaders and backup had managed to flee and had left the rest of them to their deaths, the soldiers' morale hit rock bottom and then dropped even further than that. Almost all at once, the mass of mortal men broke and ran for the most defensible place they could think of, the ruined church. As the last man who managed to escape the seemingly endless tide of Skeletons helped the rest of his fellows hold the door shut while damaged furniture was being pushed into a makeshift barricade, the roar of a beast that all could remember echoed out across the stagnant air.

…

The undead outside were busy. They were those who had once called the nation of Ititlis their home or who had lived within the area under the direct rule of the Luminas Church, but exposure to the sheer volume of dark energy Kain had emitted during his battle with Kevin alongside that which was unleashed during and after his ascension to divinity had turned a once vibrant and bountiful landscape into a blighted nightmare realm that decayed any life that stayed there too long, eventually ending it and then returning it as an eternal unlife. Those who had been buried there, those who had been cremated, those who had been left to die and decayed to dust outside had all been revived as undead that had, at first, been completely feral and bound to no master, not even Kain himself.

After Pluton had ended them once, however, something strange began to occur. Because this land was so completely corrupted, there was ample dark magic to go around, all of it flowing from that flying fortress and suffusing itself with all things in this place. The overabundance of dark and necromantic energies in this place had, over the course of many, many destructions and revivals, resulted in the once feral undead slowly regaining their memories, their intellect, and their desire to worship a God. However, as Luminas’ faithful had been so easily brought low and as they themselves now could trace their new, some might say better, second life to the actions of the Abominable King, the God they worshiped in life was abandoned for a new, more edgy one.

Of course, given that Pluton had essentially made the entirety of the former lands of Ititlis untouchable, the undead within this exclusion zone had to create their own faith, completely unaware that some of their tenants were either remarkably similar to or radically different from the norm back in Darksol proper. This, combined with Pluton’s seemingly endless attempts to wipe them all out, had resulted in a faith that viewed Kain as a God who demanded sacrifice and destruction as well as their worship. Pluton’s propensity to simply arrive at random moments, destroy every standing structure, and occasionally eat the few undead that he didn’t reduce to dust didn’t help this misunderstanding either.

Now, they were destroying anything they could get their boney hands-on, gathering enough wood and kindling to hopefully burn the ruined church and those within it to the ground. They had intended to reduce this painful reminder of their first lives’ past foolishness to rubble long ago but had never gotten around to it until now. This was the perfect opportunity to show their devotion to the Angel of Ruin and His Master, the God of Destruction, Entropy, Suffering, and Death (not necessarily in that order).

As they piled wood around the already damaged structure, the roar of the Angel of Ruin echoed through the dead air. The undead ceased their actions and kneeled on the ground where they once stood to pray, and mere moments later a cleansing breath made of the Angel’s holy wrath consumed them once again.

…

Pluton never could understand the infestation that was these undead. Each time he destroyed them they would rise again, each time being more suicidal in nature and ever more aggressive towards any remainders of the nation and faith that once had a hold over these lands. As he purged the last of the undead from the area (for now, at least) he turned his attention to the heavily damaged church that, despite very nearly taking a decent hit from his breath, was still standing, and protecting those who huddled within.

Pluton could not have this and decided a one-two punch was going to be enough to wipe this nest of vermin from the nation-sized graveyard. He landed o the ground and slashed the side of the church with one of his massive claws. As one might expect, the wall he had struck gave way almost instantly and left a big, gaping hole for Pluton to exploit. The mortal men within gazed at him with palpable fear in their eyes. This was what Pluton had wanted! Sure, he could not hunt those that had been taken away by the Cringy Tin Man, but he could at least have some fun with these fools.

He was about to give them a choice of whether to run for it and live (which they wouldn’t because he would hunt them down like a cat with small animals) or stay and die, but as his eyes surveyed the cowering men in the church, he noticed something that set his mind to a new course of action. While it was not all of them, many had some kind of fetish held tight to their bodies. Even when overwhelmed by fear, some of these men were calling out to some false God of a kind. This did not sit well with Pluton, not well at all! It would have been fine if they had simply been willing to keep their faith down and out of his sight, but to dare worship any being on these shores that was not Kain or his family? That was punishable by death and then some.

Pluton would not hunt them down; he would not drown them in his deadly breath, and he would not crush them beneath his claws or tail. Pluton’s maw opened wide and swallowed the lot of them whole in a few quick movements. They would spend the rest of their short, painful lives trapped in the nightmarish hell that was his cursed stomach, and when they rose again due to the cursed terrain, he would find them again and again and again and repeat the process until they either stopped coming back or were so broken that they accepted this looping punishment for their sin.

With a dismissive look at the scattered remains of the invaders’ encampment, Pluton figured that his job was done, for now. With the beating of his huge black wings, he lifted off into the sky to begin his self-appointed duties once again. The dead lands were massive, and he would keep them dead and empty until his Master rose again and told him otherwise.