The burning gaze of Woe's Prince swept over the memory of Shallam before it at last rose to meet the united Divinities. In a rarity rivalled only by the terrible rise of Bal'met, the Pantheon stood together, focused on a singular goal: the destruction of Pazuzu and the reacquisition of his stolen Protean Relics.

But the New God would not go silently.

First Pazuzu shattered Huskmaker over his knee, breaking the aeons-old relic in an unleashing of a strange and corrupted magic at odds with its Origin. Poisonous fog choked Shallam's landmarks as husks of Woe arose with hunger and violence, their image wrought in mimicry of their maker and all the Protean tools chained to his yoke. The voice of Aegis rang out, tasking the army of Sapience to end these crude conjurations.

To mortal blade, fang, and claw did they fall.

Lucky strikes, bleeding slices, and rage-fuelled flurries cut a swathe through dragonscale as mortal after mortal and body after body fell. Yet just as victory came and the last, acidic echoes of Woe faded, the Prince turned New God unleashed his next weapon: Caspian's Gauntlet of the Roaring Wave. A tsunami tall enough to rival the heights of the Vashnars rose from Memory's horizons, crashing upon the Jewel of the East to drown all within in a deluge of death and saltwater and summon forth the rise of ephemeral triton legions. To battle they marched, pitting their might against Sapience's landwalkers.

To mortal blade, fang, and claw did they fall.

Next came the Dragon Bow, a relic crafted by Proteus at Ayar's guidance in a time before lost Starhome's discovery by either God or Aldar. Wrought in the image of Krenindala's own the Bow did rain meteoric flame over golden Shallam, the New God spurring Memory to action once again as he conjured ephemeral dragons that plagued the streets with their rage. Corrupted roars more akin to scourging bile rang out as the fog-wrought wyrms rampaged through the Pantheon's armies until death and Finality at last claimed them for his own.

To mortal blade, fang, and claw did they fall.

Even the Golden Braid, borne once in distant history by Lord Prospero, was put to use as Pazuzu called the legendary Mercenaries of Arn with both coin and jewel. The Arcanian soldiers held Sycaerunax's brood at bay when and whence they could, but it is neither prodigious size nor mountain-crushing strength that bears the might to stave off hundreds of dragons forever.

To mortal blade, fang, and claw did they fall.

All the while the Pantheon's assault continued as They fought Black Pazuzu in the skies high above. Rageblade clashed with Warp Witch while Bloodletter met Blade of Perdition and Scimitar of Dawn in a flurry of Divine steel faster than the eye could follow. Every futile blow landed upon the War Veil as Pazuzu retaliated over and over again against the encroaching Gods.

And such was the exchange, so vibrant the Power, that none seemed any closer to victory until a three-pronged assault by Gaia, Aegis, and Twilight saw Pazuzu first entangled, the War Veil stripped away, and then, at last, restrained by both God and collective mortality.

Death loomed over the New God, but in denial of even the hint of a Divine victory the Crowned Prince instead chose to take his own life. For he sought to invoke the restorative magic of Lifegiver and break free of his bindings.

It was a strategy the watching mortals knew well, for what warrior among them had not considered the same tactic in the years of Lifegiver's passage through their hands?

But though Pazuzu did in his counterattack cast the Gods into the depthless abyss of remembrance, it would only buy him mere minutes as he descended into Shallam's streets, spewing rage and bile upon those mortals who refused him and his friendship.

The blood in living veins grew slow and sluggish as the fell tones of Black Pazuzu, the New God pervaded, "How do you not side with Me?! Am I not the New God? Do I not offer you all of Creation? I would raise you to be kings of all the worlds!"

The response he received from assembled mortality was in equal parts predictable and violent.

And then the Divine returned.

A final clash blazed over Memory as the Demon Prince lashed out at the Pantheon with all the frenzy of a cornered animal. It was here, at the limits of mortal and immortal potential, that Pazuzu's greatest error at last captured him. Even with his perversion of Memory and centuries spent learning to release the trapped, hidden power of the Protean Relics, the Prince of Woe could not call himself master of any of them.

First he fled to the heavens, yet there he met the Sky's Lord.

It was with a horrible, tearing sound of flesh ripping, bone snapping, and cartilage forever sundering that the wings of Black Pazuzu, the New God, the Prince of Woe, and Lord of the Infernal Skies, were ripped free from his body by Vastar and the now-flightless Crowned Prince fell like a blazing, flaming meteor to the earth.

It was next the charge of Babel in His chariot that saw the New God run over.

It was under a hail of arrows from Pandora and Twilight that the New God was pinned in place.

It was in defiance of all the pain and agony of His own returned blow that Sartan wrenched free Paincatcher from the New God's grip.

It was under the shroud of the Sea's fluvial blessing that Neraeos reclaimed His Father's Gauntlet from the New God.

Then came Lightbringer and Malevolence, and in a clash to rend the worlds did Rageblade and Bloodletter meet Dawn, Righteousness, Damocles, and Perdition.

One sword could never match the Rageblade lest it be a blade wielded by Matsuhama. Nor even two swords, or three. But four is within the bounds of possibility, and slowly yet surely did ever more wounds accumulate upon the desperate, flailing New God. And at last both Lifegiver and Rageblade flew free alongside severed fingers.

Pazuzu's scream strained against Creation with every strike he took, leaving him bereft of his final relics and hapless before the stature of War's Lord. Even the Seed of Yggdrasil, once intended for Raclawice, had inexplicably turned against him.

The blood in living veins grew slow and sluggish as the fell tones of Black Pazuzu, the New God shrieked, "Hear me, Father, in your slumber! I will-"

But guided by the moonlight of Ourania, Aegis took up His Warp Witch and advanced on the broken Demon Prince with hardened brutality in His eyes. His blade whirled through the air and - with a warcry to shatter the heavens - He brought it down, cleaving flesh, bone, and cartilage in twain.

Thus did the Age of Black Woe end.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary: In a battle of cataclysmic proportions, both Gods and mortals clashed with Pazuzu and the unleashed might of the Protean relics. Eventually Pazuzu's limit was reached, and the united Pantheon overwhelmed and slew him within the Memory of Shallam.

Penned by My hand on the 9th of Aeguary, in the year 926 AF.