"So I'm ie…" I mumbled with a clig growl, what my he spirits, and my magises screamed for the past hour, having painted a graphic picture while I flew there as fast as I could. My enhanced hearing from my bat form added to the whole.

  It wasn't a pretty sight from the safety of the sky. The devastated area was retively small; the number of hectares shouldn't go beyond the single digits even with the new growth ted. But the violend destru on such a localized point was immense and grisly even to me.

  It retty horrific sight.

  Shattered remains of treants and bodies–or what little remained of them–of night elves, taurens, and various animals from hippogriffs to kodos were spread around in bloody pieces. Unreizable charred husks still burning in green fmes were everywhere and spreading among, hungering for the forest.

  I must rectify this and look out for survivors in the process. Not everyone was dead, and the remnant that fled shouldn't have gone far.

  My attention, however, was ohing in particur and the epiter of it all—the headless and scarred body of arius.

  I didn't have a clear view of it among the stilled chaos, but his form was unmistakable. Beyond that, his smell lingered, as did the echoes of his mana, and this was the epiter of the death shriek I had felt earlier in the Emerald Dream.

  A shriek that signaled I never had any ce to get there in time, or if I hadn't goo help every furbolg, I would have probably arrived in time.

  That wasn't my fault that the Wild God died. He khe risk. I wasn't his nanny, nifted with ubiquity, but I could have been there and avoided this fate or, at the very least, tried to. Instead, I favored the successful migration of my kind… and that was the sequence.

  I was aware of it, yet I had to see it with my own two eyes; it was something else.

  The Lord of the Forest, of Ashenvale, was gone, and what unpleasant news full of ripples it was. I didn't personally know him, not for the fault of n, but life in the past three years was plex, and ve devices such as phones did.

  We have spoken a few times, and that's how I got Undrassil. Even if Ursol did the heavy lifting, he wasn't a plete stranger. Still, I wasn't so seal as to get attached, but his demise was extremely infuriating.

  He was a force of Nature and someone we could have ted on.

  'By the aors… fuck…' I shook my head. I made the right choice; I could only believe I did. Emotional and irrational, it may have been to favor the lives of small tribes over the patron of druidism himself.

  The knowledge of what we–the furbolgs–would bee was to to be ignored, and I saw it many times.

  The reality was that only a portion of corrupted furbolgs could be saved, and unwanted energies could be purged, but that was the tip of the iceberg. Years ago, Gripjaw had been lucky to have almost no after-effects. It was even more so for her daughter.

  It wasn't the damage on the psyches; those times and efforts were mended. It was the brains–I couldn't fix those–that got damaged, and some simply would remain rabid forever or lose entire ks of their personalities. Cubs were the primary victims of such cases.

  Be that as it may, the dismembered corpse of the demi-god was hardly all that took my focus. The culprits of this massacre were among the cadavers. In fact, they were the most numerous; only their red skin hid them in the bloodied, wounded nd.

  Orcs were what they were and doped on Fel by how much they reeked and weren't a dull radioactive green. But why focus on the dead when there were plenty of living further away? Thousands of them, to be exact.

  "What are they doing?" I growled, my instincts to rush down to cull those pests against Life and Nature, but the obvioushat if I went down, it would end in my demise taihem.

  Well, unless I went guerril warfare and used the pnts and mushrooms in my bag–currently shaped to fit my form, the hurdle to carry it in my jaw long since fixed–but evidently, it was impossible to do just that. Time wasn't to be wasted on poihings.

  'Hm, beh, let's give them a breath of spore.' It wasn't a sure killing blow at best of times, and with Fel in their veins, it would, at best, take down a dozen, but I wasn't going to go without leaving a few presents. The same was true for taking a male and female red-skinned orc to them to grasp what made them tick.

  Life ford Fel iing always have iis–mostly cerous, though occasionally some effects were beneficial, depending on how one defines 'beneficial'–every time new information was gleaned when I dissected and probed such creatures.

  Practice had always beeo my capabilities as a healer, and the sequences of this type of corruption slotted right in.

  Then, my eyes widened as something burned in my senses. Somehow, it had hidden until it didn't; my senses failed, and so did the wild spirits. No, it wasn't that… it had always been there among the spreading demonic taint. It just blended in.

  Something strohan anything I had ever felt.

  There was so much Fel in this demon that it made me want to puke my guts out. It was siing. I hated it, but now that it wasn't magically hidden, I felt it fully. It wasn't overwhelming, but I hated it. I wa gone, but I knew better.

  Then, as I advanced, it, or he by the appearance, came into view, and it clicked who the demon iion was. A daunting realization that made too much sense.

  This demon was Mannoroth, and to my sense, he appeared as if Fel was given a physical form, and he was as unsightly as possible. Bulbous fat yet muscur shape in a mutated taur-like body with two too-small tattered wings and massive horn-like tusks.

  He it lord and not any random ohe stro of them all and a monster dwarfing all orcs' bined destru thousand folds at the lowest. Or so was my limited knowledge of this creature.

  "That's ba-oh shit!" I was seen. We made eye tact, and my heart rate spiked with genuine fear and even terror, something I rarely, if ever, felt sihe Totemic Ritual.

  The fear for my life, one I was too familiar with, was that this demon lord redator, an apex above all else, and I knew he saw me as prey.

  It was unmistakable; that smile spoke a thousand words—infuriatingly arrogant words with too much objective truth irrefutable by me or anyone else. Anger and indignation fred in my chest from this fact alone, instincts and pride mixed in a desire to humble this hated abomination against nature.

  But separately, there was excitement at the prospect of a violent battle. Aement that felt almost overwhelming with bloodlust. By Ursol and Ursoc, I wao rip this demon to shreds, to make him suffer and ehe pit lord was gone from the face of Azeroth.

  'No.' I shook the red haze, or most of it, out of my mind. It was suicide and nothing else.

  Mannoroth alone wasn't a being I wished to fight–instincts thirsting the opposite, ging nothiheless unprepared and head-on and with a fug army of all things. No, it was not going to happen. I turned around, refusing the call for blood.

  ?????

  Staring at the giant bat with glowing fur glyph marking in the night sky, Mannoroth snorted in ridicule.

  "Running away… so predictable." His face shifted back to the orcs, and he ordered, his voice rumbling and iionless, shattering any argument before ception, "Grommash, my pet, take your warriors to your little friend's gathering of weaklings South of here and bring them eternal doom."

  "No…" The bdemaster's voice was barely a whisper, yet the despair a were unmistakable, but they soon vahe Chieftain of the Warsong's mind grew numb, and a feral smile graced his tusked fabsp;

  There was never any ce of winning. It wasn't a matter of will, ce, or honor. The Blood Curse that had been reignited and was strohan ever was cared not for any of the above mortal cepts. It was the rage in his heart, the fury of his thoughts, and the fire of his bound and empowered soul by the demon lord alone.

  Left alohe pit lord refocused on the 'Wild God.' It was unimpressive in its current speed and tent to remain steady. It was more so retreating than fleeing out of fear for its life. It was nearly a kilometer away already, with a quarter of that in altitude, and it was rising.

  Such safety was real, but for Mannoroth, it was an illusion, and he was all too happy to shatter. Dragons and simir creatures were on enough enemies of the Burning Legion; managing them was something the Fyer wasn't alien to.

  It was the exact opposite. He loved t those creatures down to earth and was extremely adept at doing so. Flights had always escaped his race–the annihins by their actual name–for they were too heavy and their wings vestigial at best used as shields and ons.

  He wasn't a mindless, barbaric brute like so many of his brethren. Power and ruthlessness never sufficed. ing was necessary and the reason for being the enforcer of Lord Archimonde and Lord Kil'jaeden.

  Hoisting his double-bded on, he began to t—his words ed and inprehensible to the weak-mihen he began to charge forward, his massive bulk and ceaseless Fel fire burning all that wasn't crushed uhe rge cwed feet of his reptilian lower half.

  The giant bat's sudden increase in speed and altitude in its flight was signal enough for the King of the Pit Lords to uand his rapid approach had been noticed. That only made him smile rger, and it only grew rger as his spell intation was finished and his on now alit with sickly green runs and fme was thrown.

  There was a boom, the air cracked, the ground shook, grass flew, and branches broke as the bded polearm turned spinning wheel of Fel soared at speed far beyond even Mannoroth's own eyes' ability to perceive.

  Yet the up-sized bat escaped the deadly projectile. Fast it may have been, it wasn't instantaneous, but it didn't dodge it all. The 'A' maneuver came with a heavy price, and the demonic bdes cut its left foot and two of its left wing fingers from the middle, shredding the membrane in the process.

  The agonizing screech that resonated across this side of Ashenvale was a delielody to the pit lord's ears, as was the sight of the falling, upsized animal iree line—a natural result of the bat's new inability to produce updraft with its cripple limbs.

  "Pitiful creature…" Mannoroth chuckled, running still as he extehe same hand from which he threw it, and like a faithful servant, the double-ended spear es course back at its beginning here. His movement had never ceased, and with speed betraying his bulk, he reached the nding zone.

  He was thhly unsurprised to see a ck of a broken body on the ground. He didn't sehe bat 'Wild God's death and was aware of its presenewhere among the tree, and its demise would have been heavily disappointing otherwise.

  Then, from the leafy , millions of minuscule white to blue sparkling particles–none brighter than even weak dlelight–slowly desded like snowfkes as if stars from the Great Dark Beyond had e to hug Azeroth.

  The Destructor couldn't care any less if it ossible; however, beyond that, a minute amount of magic was held in all of them, but it wasn't any dangerous quantity, even all bined. And if it were poison, it would be hopelessly useless if minutely clever in design. Praise was due where praise was due.

  "A light show is all you worthless animal do?" He taunted, iionally butchering Darnasian, and his answer came in a greater light show.

  The closest biolumi splowed brighter before silently popping in a stronger fsh, nothing worth noting if roughly five times brighter than before, stihan a sed and vanishing in the wind.

  But it wasn't alone. One spore turo two, and two turo several millions in a casg cresdo, drowning this se of the primeval forest into a blinding pale blue light as if the lights of the two moons and all the stars were summo once. And in more than one way, this was the case.

  "Petty tricks! Useless!" Mannoroth bemoaned in anger as, like everything, he was blinded. It wasn't a painful light, but his sight was temporarily robbed all the same.

  Brief clicks echoed, followed by a melodious whistle. Then something smaller yet parable to the demon lord's own size fell upon his wide open back. His fs buckled from the strain of the impad added mass, and his cwed feet dug into the moist soil.

  The pit lord roared from anger and the burning pain as the creature violently climbed his humanoid upper half. Cws dug through his thick, leathery skin, blubber, and muscles, serving for poor prote as the beast aimed for the head to maule it.

  Mannoroth reacted immediately, bellowing another roar that shook the air as he retaliated, blindly thrusting his double-ended bde backward and pushing his demonic fme within. There was a loud growl mixed with a pained whimpering whine, and the weight was lifted as the bat jumped off his back.

  Or as the demon lord's vision cleared, it became evident it wasn't a bat A, or an A at all. Before him was one of those easily rendered insaly mortals–furbolgs if his memory served him right–and one of the rgest he ever saw.

  Also, the first spe of its kind, Mannoroth saw his summoning in Ashenvale by Archimonde, oddly enough, but that was unimportant. They were ignorable pests. What mattered was that this one was moderately powerful. There was no need for more aside from its death.

  It reached his chest but was almost as bulky as him, with a far more defined muscuture us ebony bck fur covered in glowing glyphs, the majority of which were hidden behind an intricate and full-body living shell.

  An armor of pnts and its own body grown beyond its natural form. Living wood itself was covered in glyphs that ensnared limbs, neck, torso, and abdomen in thick pte and ce while boore through its ski leaving no blood pleted the rest. A ghostly aura surrou and made the runes further into evidence, a sort of shaman then using a form of neanpower itself.

  From where half its left hand-paw was bisected, wild bone growth pensated into a facsimile of its metallic bde-like cws with a ghostly proje. The left stump of a leg had quivering exposed muscles, roots, and bone merged in a hasty prosthesis with a simir spirit proje.

  However, there were no burn wounds oher, as was for where the demon lord plunged his bde. Or blood p, either, but both points were easily rectifiable.

  Only more bones and bark grew in thiess around its body, and various pnts added together in symbiosis with the living bohe growth was ceaseless and stant until a veritable breathing fortress of flesh, bone, and tree bark was raised with wisps of spirits.

  Its eyes were of a brilliant pale gold full of delectable hate, bzing fury, and vivid bloodlust, eclipsing eve lord to the tter exhiration. Saliva dripped from its snarling maw while the wound it had suffered glowed a ruby red and sealed itself in a sed. But there was no mindlessness.

  It was aware and intelligent, and it uood it was trapped. It couldn't escape, for it couldn't run, nor could it fly. It was scared and would fight to the death. And all of it was deeply eaining to Mannoroth, but what would be more was this bizarre furbolg timely demise.

  And the furbolg offered it by rushing with a rumbling growl, using its two arms to pensate for the missi. It was a charge fueled by desperation, but it wasn't clumsy, weak or slow yet all the same amateurishly telegraphed.

  The Fyer obliged and acted in kind to the suicidal charge. His aim was the heart, for the biological armor was thihere than the nape and head, and the result would be the same. Mortals were very delicate and breakable toys.

  Mannoroth's open-mouthed smile could hardly grow any wider if it could as the bde of his ohrough the bear-ma effortlessly. It was as if nothing was there as the furbolg's futile charge went onward, and the jagged sword exploded from its ba a shower of blood and splintering bone and timber.

  The pit lord's fanged smile eased into a pleased sneer, and a shat was to remain frozen as such for four cws coated in a mix of pale white, green, and red hues went through his unguarded lower jaw straight to his fragile brain.

  The impaled false Wild God grew a bloody, fanged sneer of equal proportion as inprehension fshed through the spasming eyes of the Destructor.

  A shat vanished moments ter as the massive body of the demon began to crack, hundreds of fluorest green fault lines spreading across his body from the death strike area.

  Then the world turned green and of fire as the pit lord fulminated, swallowing the wide-eyed furbolg in a final fgration.

  The_Bip_Boop2003

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  [colpse]