As his cloak slid across the wasteland of the west, the snow turned to ice. As he trotted, he could feel the dark presence drawing closer. The landscape was desolate; a snowy ground with freezing zephyrs cutting across the land. Mountains stretched on both sides of the massive valley, and in the distance was a high mountain that reached to the sky. Its top was flat, and even from afar, he could feel what he searched for.
As he approached, he could make out small structures atop the plateau, appearing to be made by sentient life. The stallion quickly came to the bottom and his horn ignited. A furious black glow covered the area as the wind swept around the black stallion. The torrent began to spin in one direction, creating a furious whirlwind. He slowly lifted into the air as it lifted him, the top of the mountain becoming clearer after a minute.
The flurry calmed as Yogg-Saron extended his forelegs, planting them firmly onto the ice-like stone of the plateau. His back legs fell just behind as he looked around.
To his surprise, dozens of Norse-style houses were scattered in front of him. They had roofs made of straw, and wooden exteriors. It appeared to be a village of some sort, and he could hear the noises of creatures living within. He took another step, and he slammed into something.
Similar to the wall he had hit when first arriving on Equestria, a blue dome lit up around the village. Annoyed at this, he rammed into the wall, and it warped inward to his will. Suddenly, it pushed back with immeasurable force, sending him back a few feet. He then noticed the silence of those who lived atop the mountain, for all he could hear was the bustling wind.
Storming down from the largest building at the center of town, two lines of armored creatures marched towards Yogg-Saron. They had talons for feet, beaks for mouths, wings on their sides, and tails on their back. They were griffons, a sentient animal he had heard of long ago on both Azeroth and Equus. He knew they would occasionally visit Equestria, but he did not expect to see so many in one place.
He could use that to his advantage, though. They were likely separated from their kind, alienated, and their own civilization in the frozen wastes. This also meant no one would come to rescue them…
As the—what he could only assume to be guards—reached the edge of the magical dome, they stared at the giant stallion who wore a menacing grin. They all carried metal-tipped spears, and the two in front put them upright as they took in a breath. Their armor was golden, and covered their whole bodies, unlike the silver-colored chestplates the others wore.
“Who trespasses in the land of The Outcasts?” the guard on the left spoke in a commanding voice. This only triggered a laugh from the pony.
“Who are you to trespass on my world?” he responded, which did little to phase the griffons. He spoke again, raising his voice so more could hear, saying, “You do not know who I am, but you will learn. I have come to be known by a multitude of names, the number of titles just as numerous.” All the inhabitants seemed to gather near the outskirts of town to find out what the disturbance to their normally peaceful area was.
“I give you an offer—a rather simple one,” he said, pausing to let his listeners prepare. “Submit to me and I will spare your bloodlines, your children. Do not,” he looked around the entire group of gathered creatures, “and I will slaughter you.”
The guards laughed out loud at this—a most foolish action. “You are one pony. You cannot possibly face all of us alone,” the one on the left spoke in ignorance.
“Plus, you could never get through the barrier, it was made by Starswirl the Bearded himself. Now, begone!” the one on the right said. The stallion only grinned further.
“So be it.”
With that, his eyes lit up in a blaze of infinite void. The air darkened, and the griffons in the town, including the guards, started to look uneased. Their unease turned to fear as the stallion changed.
Five black, wispy tendrils erupted from the stallion’s back, rising into the air like snakes. They dove towards the guards with lightning speed, but they were stopped by the blue dome. The snakes of shadow seemed to leech the energy from the dome, for it started to flicker. The guards readied themselves, and the citizens started to panic. The tendrils drew back, like the snake about to deliver the final blow to its prey, and then they struck.
The magic barrier shattered as Yogg-Saron’s power crashed into it, causing everyone in the town to shriek in fright. The magic border that had protected them from the cold of the west—as well as intruders—for hundreds of years, had been destroyed by this strange equine.
The stallion still had his grin upon his face as he trotted forward. The two guards collected themselves, returning to their militaristic ways, and went to stab him with their weapons, but they never got the chance.
Yogg-Saron’s grin remained as two of his tendrils stabbed into the armored guards, piercing their armor like nothing and bursting through their spines while they slowly lifted into the air. They dropped their spears to the ground as blood dripped from their chests. Everyone’s eyes were wide with pure terror as the stallion threw the two strongest warriors in the village to the ground like nothing more than insects. And yet, the grin remained.
The crowd of griffons erupted into chaos as they all tried to flee anywhere away from the stallion. Knowing this, Yogg-Saron’s horn called forth a lightning bolt from the heavens. The purple bolt of energy in the sky obeyed, striking the center of the town with a thunderous “clap.” The few griffons too slow to move out of the way were turned to bones, while the others were fatally seared by the heat. This seemed to quicken the pace of the fleeing, for they raced to their homes with all their strength.
“There is nowhere to hide,” Yogg-Saron spoke, now embracing his true voice. They noticed, for their hearts tensed at the sound of it. It was like a symphony of a thousand tortured souls all screaming in pain as the God of Death spoke, the very sound chilling the inhabitants of the mountain to their bones. His voice was terror itself, and it didn’t help that his words could not be more true.
More tendrils came out of him as he began to lay waste to the village. They almost had a mind of their own, tearing through houses and dragging out the bodies of men, women, and children with indifference. The multitudes of screams from the families were carried on the wind of the mountaintop, but they never reached an ear.
The stallion continued to do what he said he would. He ran across the town, breaking down doors and burning everything inside the homes of the villagers with blasts of fire.
Inside one home, a family of three were huddled in the center of their living room as part of their wooden home caught fire from a nearby building. The mother and father had their wings stretched over their daughter, who was only about fifteen years old. They could hear the screams of their next-door neighbors before they instantly fell silent.
“We have to keep quiet,” the father whispered before pushing his daughter upstairs. “Go under your bed upstairs, Jaina. Do not come out, no matter what happens down here until I say ‘mercy.’” The poor child stood motionless, too scared to do anything.
The father knelt down, the mother joining at his side. “Sweetie, things aren’t looking good here. You are our first and only priority. If one of us screams ‘mercy,’ then you come out of the bed and fly out your window. Do you understand?” the mother attempted to explain.
Jaina at least understood what her parents were implying, because she nodded to her mother. The three embraced in a tight hug before Jaina ran off to her room, hearing her mother say, “We love you!” The parents then returned to the main open room, hiding behind a counter in the kitchen in utter silence.
It was then that the hoofsteps of Yogg-Saron echoed through the house as his now metal-wearing hooves approached. There was a pregnant pause, the parents only able to hear their own breathing and their racing hearts.
The front door decayed, the wood rotting, as a spear-like horn stabbed through it. The hinges shattered in the process, and the wood fell away, revealing the stallion responsible for the deaths of dozens of families.
His eyes lost their black glow, revealing the blue, almost lifeless orbs of the pony. He snickered as if to mock the two griffons whom he could hear breathing behind the counter.
“I know you’re there; there’s no point in hiding,” he spoke. The two came out from their shelter, facing him.
“Why are you doing this?!” the mother demanded, tears beginning to fall from her cheeks and onto the planks of the floor.
“I offered you a chance at life, but you refused.” His answer was so simple, so concise, yet so cruel. The mother gawked at his response before her partner spoke up this time.
“The griffons have a treaty with Equestria; you can’t do this; you are disobeying Celestia!”
“Oh? Am I?” Yogg-Saron said with mock confusion. “Is it not true that you are a group of outcasts, forsaken by your people? Is it not true no other souls know of your existence?” he questioned, putting a hoof to his chin for exaggeration. “Either way, I do not serve the sun, and I am not one of her subjects. No, I am something far more.”
“A monster is what you are!” the mother shouted, her tears waterfalling now as she sensed what was coming.
“You’re right, I am a monster. But do you think it wise to call a creature as such a monster?” His grin resurfaced, his eyes igniting. “I am Death itself… now, let me show you my realm…” he said, his voice dropping to a mere whisper at the conclusion.
All the parents managed was a gasp as they were constricted by black magic. They struggled and warred with the tangible force, but to no avail.
“Mercy, mercy! Please, mercy!” the father roared out, begging for life and also sending a message to Jaina.
Upstairs, she carefully got out from under the bed, slowly opened the window in her room, and started to step out. She froze, looking back down the stairs, being able to see her parents suspended by black energy. She knew there was nothing she could do, so she leaped through the window, letting her wings extend.
The stallion could feel her vibrations moving through the air, so his expression turned cold. His magic instantly snapped the necks of his two hostages, letting their bodies fall to the floor. He charged outside, seeing Jaina flying away. His black tentacles revealed themselves again and prepared to attack. Before he could, an armored griffon slammed into his side, forcing him to the ground.
The two grunted as they rolled over each other. “Now!” the guard yelled as he got hold of his spear and stabbed Yogg-Saron through a foreleg. The stallion grunted in pain, seeing about a dozen survivors taking flight.
“Not so fast,” he said, his horn blaring intensely now. He impaled the guard through the neck with it, absorbing the guard’s lifeforce as the spell was woven together.
A shroud of dark mist covered the ground in a ten-foot radius around him. He stood back to his four legs, looking back at the sky. The ground shook as two, five, seven, no, ten thick tentacles of void came out from it. They surged forth, quickly catching up to the fleeing townspeople.
Some of the tentacles simply tore the griffons apart, and others wrapped around the winged beasts, pulling them down. As they fell, they could feel every last ounce of strength in their bodies being sucked from them like a wicked kiss. That was before their carcasses fell to the earth.
Jaina had seen the two flying beside her taken by the murderer, so she tried as hard as she could to escape him. It looked grim, though, for she was one of the only two left in the sky. Luckily for her, another chilling sound erupted over the battlefield. The sound would allow for her to escape, leaving the only place she ever knew.
A blast of ice-cold wind caused Yogg-Saron to falter, making his spell falter as well. The tentacles slipped from their paths, falling out of the sky. One managed to grab the griffon next to Jaina as it fell, dragging the now screaming victim to their death.
Annoyed by this, the stallion snapped his head to the left. A stone building stood where the blast had come from, and so he marched towards it. It was then that five guards who could barely stand came out from near the stone of the building, blocking the way of the pony.
“You fool! Your hatred and malice has awoken the trapped windigo!” one of them shouted. This told the God of Death what it was that drew him here: a windigo. He had heard the legends of the spiritual creatures that feed off negative emotions. The same creatures that had almost wiped out all of ponykind.
With a lowering of his head, a beam spiraled forward from Yogg-Saron’s horn and towards the temple. As it impacted, the stone was broken into a thousand pieces, and a loud “snap” could be heard, followed by a “clank.”
The whinny of a freed creature sounded as the windigo left its prison. Trotting on air, it emerged from the ruins of the building, looking at the guards and the titanic stallion.
It looked like an Azerothian horse, muscles bulging from everywhere. Unlike normal horses, this one looked like a ghost because it was translucent and white with a flowing mane. Being like a traditional equine, the windigo was close to Sorin in size.
“Windigo!” the stallion yelled, drawing the attention of the spirit. “I am the one who allowed you to awaken from your slumber by bringing pain and suffering to this town, and I am the one who ultimately freed you. I am Yogg-Saron, the God of Death.”
The spirit did something that none of those present expected: it bowed. It let gravity take hold by placing its hooves on the ground, and then it bent its front knees and bowed down before the stallion who had freed it. It then did another thing no one expected.
“I serve thee, master. I will follow you to the ends of this realm and for the rest of my days and yours, whichever comes first. This is my price for freedom,” it finished in its croaky and husked voice, still staying down.
“Rise.”
The windigo stood up, collecting—what sounded like—himself before speaking again. “My name is Vultrax, lord Yogg-Saron.”
The stallion smiled this time, a very large smile. “Join me in teaching these lesser beings what pain truly is…” the master commanded, and the windigo obeyed, turning to the baffled guards and pouncing upon them. The stallion who had single-handedly massacred a village then joined into the fray.
Yogg-Saron stood over the bodies of the guards who had been the last living beings in the village. The pool of blood escaping them grew larger as it stained the ground a permanent red. Vultrax stood beside his new master, watching the supposed Death God contemplate.
“If I am to gain dominion over this world, I must first plant a seed of corruption so it may fester over the land.” Yogg-Saron turned around to what was the windigo’s prison. “I am not of this world, therefore none know of my true power. This realm is weak, for its strongest magic is that of something as finite as friendship. Today you will see real power, the power of an Old God…” he finished, his horn and eyes reacting.
Vultrax watched as the ground around the stone building began to turn black like ash, and the infection spread to the stone itself. As the stallion's horn burned brighter, brighter than ever before, the ground quaked. From the pool of darkness, four pitch-black pointed rocks jutted out from the ground in the cardinal directions. They grew taller and taller, slanting towards each other slightly.
The spires became thicker as they rose from the ground, awing the windigo who watched. The spires reached a hundred feet into the air when they touched at the tips, creating a pyramid. The ground ceased its shaking, but the darkness below the pyramid began to slowly spread, covering all that it touched and causing the bodies of the guards to wither to bone.
“What is it?” Yogg-Saron heard from the ghost beside him. He genuinely laughed at this, seeing the windigo looking from the top of the structure to the spreading darkness—something very rare for the Old God.
“As the mortals of my world call it: saronite. Named after me, it is literally my blood. Its mere touch drives mortals and those of weak minds to madness, even the mindless undead. When manipulated, it can be turned into a supernatural metal.”
“Why is it… growing?”
“The saronite on my world was shed tens of thousands of years ago, and so it has dried up. This blood is fresh. Like a parasite, it wants to infect everything it can and continue to consume as it grows,” Yogg-Saron explained, turning to the spirit.
“When my blood fuses with something it wishes to bond with, the product will have strength far beyond what the original had,” he hinted. “When I first came to Equestria, a single drop of my blood merged with Princess Luna. As a result, she spent countless hours hearing maddening whispers and barely being able to sleep. It turned her mad, creating a new creature of rage from her.” He took a minute to let his words saturate before taking a final breath.
“I will call upon you soon. For now, I must return and rest. Sadly, this body requires at least some sleep to function properly. Farewell, Vultrax…”