//------------------------------//
// Enclave: Massacre 
// Story: Sunset Shimmer: Path of the Damned 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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After slaying her first foe, and enjoying the feeling of ending someone's life with her own hands, Sunset readied her blade as she descended on the battlefield in front of her, finding more members of the Scarlet Crusade tending to the peasants that were working in the fields. The warriors and clerics noticed her and charged to meet her in battle, those who weren't in the middle of being torn down by some of the other death knights who attacked from the opposite side of the area, though she was fine with that as she called forth her new power. They found that the ground around her started to rot and decay as soon as they stepped into her domain, something she had learned from her blood aspect trainer, while the energies that a death knight could wield danced around her blade, empowering her strikes as she swung at her foes. Some of the clerics tried to use their holy spells on her, to slow her down or imprison Sunset so her foes could cut her down safely, but they found that such a thing didn't matter as her magic sprung to life, cancelling the spells before they hit her.

Some of the humans screamed in terror as she slashed through them, especially when she yanked some of the peasants and citizens over to the area that she happened to be fighting her way through at the moment, where she found that a number of them begged her not to kill them. Even without the Lich King whispering in her ears as those statements were said, encouraging her not to show weakness towards the weak or their enemies, Sunset showed no mercy as she swung her sword and ended the lives of the Scarlet Crusade soldiers. The peasants and citizens found that they weren't spared either, as she stabbed some of them in the heart, some she delivered crippling blows to so the removal of her blade killed them instantly, due to blood loss, and others she yanked in her direction so she could have a bit of fun as they died. Sunset also raised her hand to pull up the saronite arrows that had been fired upon this portion of the fields and sent them flying with her magic, wounding them to the point that she could take her time and slaughter them while they felt a new level of fear.

Eventually the fields near the lumber mill were filled with the dead, mostly the soldiers with a number of citizens mixed into the piles, and she paused for a moment, as if resting from her massacre of the Scarlet Crusade's soldiers, but found that, despite all the energy she used, she didn't feel tired. Sunset knew that death knights were tireless soldiers of the Scourge, fighting long after a mortal soldier or hero would have stopped and fallen, so this just confirmed what she had been told previously, to which she used her magic to gather the saronite arrows once more. This time around none of the arrows were used to slaughter the other Scarlet Crusade individuals who were in the area, rather she sent them back over to where Orithos and his archers had been firing from, as they would put them to good use as she focused on her other remaining assignment. As such she made her way over to the stables, or the staging area that all of the Scarlet Crusade's steeds were wandering in, and found a red brown that seemed the best to her eyes, likely another gift given to her by her master's grace, one that she climbed onto and made her way back to her camp.

Salanar was pleased with her actions and banished the horse to the realm of shadows, where Sunset entered the realm a few seconds later and found that it was just a shadowy version of what she had grown used to, causing her to focus on her mission, instead of wasting time. She found specters watching her as she walked down the path she had ridden up a couple of moments ago, beings of dark energy that either didn't seem interested in her or they were waiting for her to do something stupid to consume her mind, or whatever the consequence was for failing. Fortunately it didn't take her long to find a dark knight riding a steed that looked like death had touched it, as the reason for sending the horse to this realm, as she had learned, was so a shadowy dark rider of Acherus could raise the steed into undeath, similar to how the Lich King raised his own steed into this life. Of course she had to prove herself to both Salanar and the new deathcharger, though it didn't seem like much of a challenge to someone like her, where it was hard to tell if that was her own arrogance or what her master had poured into her to make the death knight champion he had been searching for.

Based on what she saw the rider was fighting while on the horse's back, instead of climbing down to face her, though she was fine with that turn of events, where Sunset swung her sword and called forth her powers once more, bashing her foe's blade backwards before knocking him to the ground, allowing her to end the battle and ride the twisted horse back up to where Salanar was currently standing.

"Impressive, Sunset Shimmer, most death knights fail this test, while others pass in incredible fashion... you took what you desired most without hesitation." Salanar commented, where he and the other commanders that the Lich King had picked for this mission stared at the newcomer that was the rising start of their master's forces, each wondering what she might have been like before she was raised into her new station, especially with the brutality she showed earlier, as in when she massacred the Scarlet Crusade's soldiers.

"And yet I desire more... more death and destruction, in the name of the Lich King." Sunset replied, as she relished the odd feeling she had felt as she slew her foes, broke their wills with her might, and littered the ground with corpses that would be raised in due time, to spread even more death across the continent.

"And you shall have it." Valanar remarked, as they knew more about Sunset than she realized, due to their master sharing information about her after her rebirth, but, after having witnessed her fight and destroy her enemies, with both of her powers, he knew that the Lich King had been right, the chosen death knight had been born at last, "Your efforts have led to more chaos than we expected, as now our enemies are trying to strip the nearby mine of everything inside it and load all of their cargo onto nearby ships... Gothik has a solution, to make things more interesting."

Gothik was a necromancer of the highest order, in fact he trained all death knights in the art of raising the dead, even the weakest of Sunset's new kind, and yet, due to her power and old study nature, he didn't need to help her since she had been able to raise a ghoul on her first attempt, much to his joy. Sunset found that the skills that brought her to Celestia's attention, and made her a princess' pupil for some time, aided her in more ways than she originally thought, as now those same skills allowed her to adapt to Azeroth's power. Of course she hadn't done anything with the power yet and felt that it might be some time before she bothered to raise her own ghoul, to which she forced herself to focus once more and took a moment to bow her head, to show Valanar that she understood the orders she had been given. With that in mind she walked over to the part of the camp that Gothik, who was taller than most humans, like the Lich King for example, while wearing a blue robe and an interesting helm over his head, though he seemed to be focusing on a nearby pit.

"Lord Gothik?" Sunset inquired, because it looked like the necromancer was busy doing something else right now, at least she was sure of that, though she was eager to see what sort of plan the figure had in store so they could spread more death and destruction across the land.

"You have fought hard to invade the realm of the harvester... wait." Gothik stated, as if she were one of the heroes he had faced in the past, because she learned that Naxxramas had been attacked by heroes at one point in time, though whether or not they were successful was up for debate among the leaders of the Scourge, before he looked at his notes and then glanced at her again, "My apologies, old habits die hard. Anyway, I have a gift for the Scarlet dogs that is sure to speed up their production in the mine... a portable plague spreader, which you will use on their miners and transform them into our ghouls, while informing our enemies that not even their miners are safe."

"Which will leave their backs open to us, opening new holes in their defenses." Sunset remarked, as she understood what the point of this particular mission was, they needed the Scarlet Crusade distracted and worried about fulfilling their own plans, so they would walk right into their traps and allow them to push forward.

Gothik nodded as he handed over the circular device in question, allowing her to study it for a few moments, though while she did that one of Orithos' archers presented her with a new cape to replace hers, to show that she was moving up from being a new recruit, one that symbolized the union of a death knight's powers. Most of her kind only focused on one type of power, in fact they only had the capacity to use one of the three types, while she, on the other hand, could use all three and her magic at the same time, without any serious consequences. This also told her that some of her superiors might also reward her for her actions against the Scarlet Crusade, giving her new gear and jewelry to replace what she had been given when she was reborn in this state, though she simply nodded her head a little before switching the old cape for the new one. With that done she carried the device down the path that was to the left of their camp, heading down to where the Scarlet Crusade was hard at work digging into the mountain so they could siphon off all of the materials that might be inside it, unaware of their proximity to the camp that she and the other members of the Scourge had set up.

The miners, as she expected, started to freak out as they noticed that she was approaching them, as she didn't need her deathcharger to reach this point, where she picked an area to fight in, deployed the dispenser, and started to use some of her power to drag her targets over to where she was standing. None of them tried to fight back as she knocked them to the ground and forced them to breath in more of the plague that was inside the circular device, where some were turned into near mindless ghouls, just as she intended, while some simply died and their souls transformed into spirits that tried to kill her, only for her to cut them down. When as the latter happened, something that would have likely annoyed a more mortal individual and not a death knight, Sunset just continued her onslaught and made sure the corpses were gathered by the geists, undead that had a gait to their walk and one of the lower ranking members of the Scourge, designed to help gather components for their masters. After spending a few minutes just massacring the miners, and any Scarlet soldier she had missed in her initial purge, likely hiding in the mines to save themselves, Sunset picked up the device and lead the ghouls back up to where Gothik was waiting, who was pleased with her efforts.

As the scene unfolded before them, the Scarlet soldiers proving that they were in a hurry after seeing her massacre their forces at the mine, she understood what needed to be done, she needed to use a mine cart to get past enemy lines, as in get passed all of the soldiers that were between them and the main fleet.

The moment the coast was clear, and they were sure of that, Valanar's minions placed a modified mine cart near the small outhouse that all of the miners used, where Sunset slipped into it and found that it contained some magic to hide the fact that someone was inside it. Sure enough a miner emerged from the outhouse and noticed the mine cart, where he openly wondered where it came from, meaning he must have assumed his fellow workers had cleaned out the mine, before he started to move the cart down the hill, heading for the beach that the ships were currently docked. Interestingly enough none of the soldiers she had seen earlier stopped the miner, meaning none of them had noticed the cart being placed by Valanar's minions, and it wasn't long before she came to a stop and the miner mentioned that this was the best place for him to place it. A few seconds later Sunset emerged from the mine cart and discovered that she had been brought to one of the two ships that were in the area, each one having a number of cannons for her to use, to which she channeled a bit of her magic and seized control over the cannons, all six of them, before beginning her assault on her enemies.

It was a bloody massacre as her cannon blasts tore through the Scarlet soldiers before they even realized that one of their enemies had taken control of their ships, and when any dared to get close to her Sunset unleashed bolts of lightning that shocked them to death... though when her foes were dead, their bodies scattered all over the place, she lifted the ships out of the water and crashed them against the rocky cliffs, before making her way back to her camp.

"The entire Scarlet fleet, wiped out in a matter of minutes... we shall receive commendations for this act." Valanar said, as he spoke as soon as Sunset returned to the camp, even though he and the others were slightly surprised by the amount of death and destruction she wrought on her enemies or targets, she didn't discriminate when it came to the living, to which he handed over two things, a sealed letter and a pair of plate saronite bracers, "Return to the Highlord and inform him of our success... we'll get to work turning Havenshire into our domain."

Sunset said nothing to that as she accepted the items, as she felt nothing after massacring the entire fleet, other than the desire to cause more death, to which she took one of the undead gryphons and returned to Acherus without delay, where she waited for it to arrive at her destination before switching her bracers with the new ones, leading to her approaching the Highlord with the letter.

"Ah, the report of what has transpired so far, let's see what Valanar has to say... you destroyed the ENTIRE Scarlet fleet, all on your own!?" Darion exclaimed, as while he had been expecting a tale of her victory, given that she had been picked by their master to be his champion and spread his influence over the rest of Azeroth, he wasn't expecting her to actually slay the entire fleet in a matter of minutes, even with her powers, "Such power... I haven't seen such a display of dominion in years, since my father... no, it doesn't matter. We have more work to do."

Indeed. a voice said, one that Sunset and Darion heard in their heads, the voice of the Lich King speaking to them as he observed the carnage and destruction from where he was standing, on top of Acherus since it gave him the best view in the entire area, Sunset Shimmer, you are return to Prince Valanar and continue the assault.

"As you wish, master." Sunset replied, though as she said that, and the voice retreated for the time being, Darion handed over a new set of leggings, plate like the rest of a death knight's attire and made out of saronite, where she took it with a slight bow of her head before moving to a private area to put it on.

With the newest piece of armor on, and she found that nothing was holding her down, Sunset moved out once more, as it was time to see what else she could do to bring about the Lich King's will, as she was eager to bring death to their enemies and wouldn't stop until the Scarlet Crusade was finished.