The Pillars were in danger.
The foreboding premonition grew stronger every second as he flew south towards the Pillars. But it was only when he approached the Abyss that he received the first concrete clue as to the nature of the threat: the waters were agitated, stirred up in a thousand eddies on the surface of the swirling maelstrom; there was a deep, rumbling sound in the air, one not overshadowed even by the angry roar of water. He looked before himself, to the south –
The land moved. The entire southern part of Nosgoth, as far away as the horizon, was quivering and trembling in the throes of a massive earthquake.
He knew where to search for its epicentre: in the fallen Sanctuary, at the Pillars’ platform.

Through the heavy cerulean mist of stagnant energy surrounding the Pillars, he could see an enormous rip in the ground, a fissure whose course crossed the Pillars’ platform, northwest-to-southeast, on one side disappearing beneath the dais between the pristine, immaculate white of the healed Pillar of Dimension and the ugly, rotten stump of the Pillar of Conflict; on the other side, reappearing to the right of the small steps which led to the platform. The platform itself stood untouched, the arcane magic of its creation still able to protect it from such a mundane force, however powerful – but the split was widening; the soil and the shattered tiles and all the evidence of the recent fights – carcasses, some several days old, some fresher than that – were falling into the darkness of the two deep cracks which had formed at the foot of the platform. The demons to whom he had been forced to concede this ground the day before were all gone.
Squatting by the gap near the stairs, he could see the promise of a giant cave, a subterranean chamber hidden under a thin layer of earth. Smiling grimly, he leapt into the cleft, already wide enough to admit him passage.
Slowly, stealthily, hardly making a single sound, he descended; debris and rubble was falling all around him. He strained to listen what sounds it made – the dull sound of hitting a firm surface, or perchance a splash on falling into water – but all was lost in the deep rumble of the tortured earth.
But even that sound was quiet next to the deafening voice which he now heard in his mind –
“Kain. We meet again.”
And then, he finally saw that which he sought. In the two shafts of the weak, dull light coming from the gaps, now far above, he saw below him a platform surrounded by water – judging by appearance, twin in size to the one above him, with arcane symbols of the Pillars and the Elements engraved on its surface, most obscured at least in part by the fallen debris. Around him, there was the faint suggestion of walls – which may have once been adorned with murals; with two niches which once may have been side passages, but now had been apparently long caved in. There were the three restored Pillars – and, rising from the water, coiled around the Pillars, as though holding them in a lover’s embrace, the tentacles.
“Yes,” he replied dryly, settling on the platform, on the large sigil of the Spirit which occupied its centre. “We do. I see, false God, that you have forgotten my advice.”
“The advice of a fool still unaware that he had already lost the game,” answered from the abysmal depths below the voice of the self-proclaimed hub of the Wheel of Fate; another spasm tore through the ground; another deep rumble underscored the creature’s words. “But a century ago, you might yet have had a chance to turn Nosgoth your way, Kain – but not now. Now –”
“Now, cherish the last remnants of your powers, demon,” he spat out. “I know you for what you are, fraud; as soon will know all Nosgoth. Before long, your lies will find none willing to heed them.”
The Elder One replied in an almost condescending tone, “You delude yourself if you think I will ever find myself in need of servants, Kain. What can you offer to your disciples? Only death, or the torment of undeath; whilst I rule over true death and true life. You and I both know well the puny hearts of mortals: when I offer to resurrect their fallen, none will hesitate to betray your forfeit cause.”
Feigning disbelief, he leisurely eyed the tentacles up and down, “And to prove your point, you will allow souls to escape your precious Wheel? Good. The more witnesses there will be to your fall.”
It appeared that the taunt hit its target. “I may choose to curb my appetite... for the time being. After all –” the voice suddenly regained its previous patronising tone – “you cater to my needs more than well enough. You do know that, Scion of Balance, do you not? Even the wretch your creation did. Even now, as you yearn to destroy me, each time you kill, each time your blade reaves the souls of mortals, you nourish me.” Now, the scorn in the creature’s voice was unmistakable.
Somehow, someway, the Soul Reaver had already found its way into his hands, as it always had when some fool had tested the patience of the Emperor of Nosgoth. “Very well, demon,” he countered, “Shall we see how nourished you will be when I feed you your own soul?”
He struck, cutting off in one swift move both the tentacle coiled around the Pillar of Balance and its sister which had been strangling the Pillar of Dimension. The severed appendages fell to the platform, smearing it gratuitously with the green, unctuous blood. He was by the Pillar of Mind even before they hit the floor; but the third tentacle was already uncoiled from the Pillar and sliding back into the water, splashing it around; some droplets fell on his skin, burning into it. And at this very moment the deep, rumbling sound, the scream of Nosgoth’s very soil, returned, and even louder than before; and so did the tremors, likewise amplified in intensity. This was, apparently, the Elder One’s only answer to his challenge.
He sheathed the Reaver and looked up, assessing the situation. Any minute now, and the Pillar platform above him would lose whatever support it still had; and then –

Having fled back to the putrid depths which housed him, my enemy resumed his assault on the Pillars’ integrity. Secured within these waters as he was, he was beyond my reach; whatever might or magic he employed, I was nigh powerless to counteract it.
The Pillars’ only salvation lay within themselves: within the ancient magic which aligned them with the elemental principles of Nosgoth. If balance was to return to Earth and the tremors stopped, that sublime union between the aspect and its associated Pillars had to be restored.

There wasn’t even the slightest remainder of the corrupt Pillars in the underground chamber; in the spots where they should have emerged from the platform, its surface was smooth, glabrous and unbroken, as though the magic of this place had prevented at least this damage to its integrity. But when, heedless to the growing chaos of the tremors and the noise and the debris falling into the cavern, he approached slowly the sigil of Earth engraved in front and slightly to the right of the Pillar of Balance, he felt it again – that faint sensation at the very edge of his awareness, a single note resonating in perfect accord with some sentiment, some power, some feeling deep within his soul –
This time, he did not even have to perform any bodily action: he willed the Pillars of Energy and Time be restored, and the Pillars obeyed his will: the will of the Scion of Balance, the bearer of the Soul Reaver and the last one who could lay a rightful claim to them –
Two pristine white columns materialised in front of him out of the air; the tremors around him abruptly came to a halt; all was again silent – then the silence was broken, as, from the depths below the platform, came the single, sudden scream of anguish of the one whose plans were now thwarted – and then the cry of despair broke, and the deafening silence reigned again; the last bits of debris fell from the above; the last specks of dust danced in the two wide streams of light coming from the above; but he was oblivious to it all.
The terrible, magnificent power of the Change hit him in full up front, washing all around him, taking him with itself; he almost could not bear it, could not withstand its intensity; forced to his knees, for a moment he even tried to close his eyes, to shield them with his hand; but found that he could not; degraded to the position of the impotent witness, he could but watch – he had to watch – as the Pillars affected the whole realm, and him in it –
And then, it was all over; his awareness of the outside world slowly returned, and the only thing which remained of that brief moment were the new powers which he even now felt cruise in his veins.
Outside, above, the demons awaited; he had no way to tell this – for his sensitive ears did not catch even the slightest wisp of sound in this utter silence; but he knew this with a terrible certainty, as surely as he would have known this if he had seen it in one of the Chronoplast portals. And these would not be those pitiful, pedestrian hellfire-red and lightning-blue and poison-green demons which had been assailing him ever since he had set foot in this Nosgoth – and before, in Avernus and the Citadel of Tears; these would be the gigantic jet-black demons the likes of which he had fought only once in the course of his long existence; sent here to face him – and fail against him – by the fury of his now twice-vanquished enemy. He smiled to himself an unpleasant, private smile; he was eager to test his new powers upon these fiends.
He shot back outside from the darkness of the chamber as rapidly as his wings could carry him; even so, he barely managed to evade the fire the demons spewed out at him the moment they spotted him.

The demons were fast, that much he would grant them; as with all demons, their massive bodies hinted at some innate slowness – but from experience, he knew this was an utterly misleading impression. Even so, he hardly expected that which was to come.
He had just dodged the crossfire of the fiery breaths of the two demons which awaited him near the egress from the underworld when he spotted three telekinetic projectiles coming his way from three different directions. He tried to fly up and away from their path, then to alter his position quickly, randomly – but the bolts always changed their trajectories accordingly, unerringly homing on him. Meanwhile, one of the two nearest demons was already spewing another fiery breath towards him, while the other straightened fully up – it actually appeared to grow and swell somewhat in the process – and tried to catch him in its mammoth claws; all the while the bolts still followed –
Instead of releasing his Mind projections to divert the projectiles and disorient his opponents, he reached to the forces of Energy. Immediately, he was surrounded on all sides by a shield of fulgent, white light; one of the projectiles struck the shield –
And passed through it, hitting him hard just below his left clavicle; he hissed, partly from pain, partly in disbelief at the shield’s ineffectiveness. But as he lurched sideways in a frantic – and failed – attempt to avoid the other two projectiles (at the same time striking with the Reaver the extended claw of the demon which attempted to engage him in mêlée fight), he saw in the distance a peculiar sight: as the two projectiles hit him in turn – one in the left foot, the other in the tip of the left wing – two fiends in the distance growled and bent double in pain. Apparently, in the end the Energy shield was effective, if its effect was different from what he had expected: the projectiles did hit him and harm him – but the majority of the damage was reflected back to those who had cast them.
But the Energy shield soon disappeared, while the demons remained – and all those that had chosen not to attack him while the spell had lasted were still unharmed. He could use his already familiar Dimension powers next; instead, he called to the newfound forces of Time. This time, the effect was just as he had anticipated: the movements of the fiends, the fire disgorged by the grotesque lips, the telekinetic bolts – they all slowed down nearly to a halt as he slowed his enemies’ time.
Fighting the horde of demons now became easy; almost as easy as fighting humans. He moved effortlessly between the colossal, almost immobilised bodies of his opponents, efficiently distributing blows, so that he would hit the critical spots; letting the Reaver feast on the creatures’ souls. Whatever projectiles the demons still managed to throw at him, he caught on the Energy shield; they stung, but hurt him little; and in return, he was afforded the delightful view of the malformed visages as the creatures realised that their own weapons were now used against them –

The fight was over. He settled on the edge of the Pillars’ platform, pausing for a moment to take a quick look at the surroundings. A steady trickle of the green demon blood flowed from a nearby body into the depths of the cavern below; the whole carcass soon followed as he kicked it off the platform. All around the podium, a new layer of corpses was added to the previous piles –
And, in the middle of all this filth and the sweet stench of the decomposing bodies, the five Pillars now stood proudly, tall and immaculate; perfect. With the restoration of the Pillar of Energy, the dark blue mist around the Pillars disappeared; he sensed that so did the erratic stagnant pools of energy which until this point had at times given him sustenance: the universal flow of power within the realm was restored, and they had been absorbed into it. But the loss of the pools did not overly concern him: because in return, his innate healing powers had increased slightly. Already could he feel how, through the symbiotic link which joined him with the Pillars, they used the forces of the land to heal the wounds his body had sustained in the fight – not yet as speedily as they had in the epoch whence he had come to this Nosgoth; but almost. That would still improve once more Pillars were healed.
But, he suddenly realised, this will have to wait for another time. A different matter would soon demand his attention –
“My Lord Kain?” The Whisper of the human’s mind was hesitant, as though, despite his clear orders, she was still unsure if she could interrupt him.
“Zosha.” He already knew what the gist of the human’s message would be; she wouldn’t have dared contact him on a non-essential matter. Still –
“The Ward Shield is down.”
“I will enter the Ash Village from the east. We shall meet within.”