//------------------------------//
// Pandaria: Four Winds and Despair 
// Story: Sunset Shimmer: Path of the Damned 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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Sunset stood still for a moment as she observed the corrupted ground that was around her, as the energy of the Sha, the giant creature she had absorbed the power of not a few seconds ago, had painted the ground pitch black while the edges were an eerie white, and even with her doing what she did the minor Sha continued to spread it's influence.

"My Queen, are you... alright?" Nazgrim asked, as while she seemed fine, because her form hadn't changed, he and most of their army were worried that something might have happened to her after absorbing such a beast, even though he was a little surprised the lesser creatures didn't attack them, meaning they might be under her control as well.

"Yes, I am fine." Sunset replied, which was the truth, even though she noticed the new icon on her armor and noticed that it confirmed her thoughts, not to mention many of the stories that had been shared with her by raising the slain of the Jade Forest, there were seven Sha and she had six more to track down, not to mention what appeared to be a heart, before she turned towards her enlarged army, the Pandaren force anyway, "Now that we have expanded the force of our army, a lot sooner than I was expecting, I want you to divide into two forces under General Nazgrim and Admiral Taylor, where the former's force will march into the Valley of the Four Winds and the latter will head into the Krasarang Wilds... Sha, keep up the good work and spread across this province."

"Are we still keeping the living alive, for now, or are we openly declaring war on Pandaria?" Taylor inquired, because while he knew that he had informed the people of the Jade Forest of Taran Zhu's actions, and her response to said actions, he also wanted to know if they were falling back to her previous orders, before she was attacked.

"Kill them all. Spare no one as you darken the land." Sunset stated, a command that was followed by the undead saluting her for a few moments, confirming that they understood her orders and would follow through on them, not that she was surprised to see that since her will was absolute and none of the Scourge could disobey her, "I will travel to the southern province soon, as I can feel one of the Prime Sha, like the one I absorbed earlier, somewhere inside it, and I would like to add another to my collection. After that I will travel to the Valley of the Four Winds and check your progress, as some of the slain indicate that there's a massive wall that separates two of the provinces from the rest of the continent, with the entirety of an army on the other side... I wish to see if the rumors are true before we invade the northern province."

As her forces started to spread out Sunset took to the air and observed them for a time, watching as Taylor's ship headed for the southern province as their leftover forces actually walked over the water to reach the wilds, thanks to the death knight power to walk on water, while Nazgrim's force marched towards their destination. As they did that, however, she spotted the pandaren with the red serpent dragon flying off to another portion of the continent, no doubt to get away so he could survive to see another day, before she turned her attention to the remainder of the minor Sha. They were doing their best to corrupt the rest of the province they were in, plaguing the land with the power of Y'Shaarj, and as their new domain grew the more poured out of the ancient prison that the first Prime Sha had been in for a long time, but there was one thing stopping them, the temple of Yulon. As such Sunset rushed over to the temple and found that there were a few monks gathered in the courtyard of the entrance, ushering in the remaining citizens as they guarded the area, but they were small fry as she found the jade serpent, in the flesh, flying through the air.

It didn't last for long as she drove Frostmourne into the serpent's head and drove her to the ground in the center of her own temple, where Sunset allowed the citizens to watch as she raised their patron into undeath and used the power that was inside Yulon to corrupt her living followers, turning them into undead with relative ease. As Yulon fell into Death's hand, much like everything else Sunset came across, the rest of the Sha got more excited as they corrupted everything in the forest as fast as they could, though those that reached the edge seemed to move into the Krasarang Wilds, while yet another sect slowly made their way towards the highest point for the remaining imprisoned Prime Sha. From what Sunset could tell there was one Prime Sha somewhere in the wilds, none in the valley, supposedly three in the mountain province, and one on the western side of the continent, leaving the seventh, by her estimates, in the heart of Pandaria, the central province that would be the last she checked out.

Her plan was to use the living of the continent against the seals that were keeping the Prime Sha imprisoned, because the fear, doubt, despair, anger, and hatred they would soon feel would weaken each of the remaining seals and allow the Sha to escape for a time, to use their powers however they wished, and by doing that she would be able to pinpoint where all of them were located.

Once her chosen commanders understood her desires they pressed into their provinces and she could practically hear the screams of the living as Nazgrim's forces tore down the living, be they pandaren, virmen, the animals, or whatever else her soldiers found in the province in question. At the same time Taylor's force found more Mogu in the southern province, not to mention some foolish night elves who must have come here in secret to discover some ancient secret or treasure, an idea she could get behind as her forces quickly slaughtered them. In addition to that there were a couple of tauren who fell once her forces clashed with them, allowing Sunset to discover that they seemed to be searching for the same thing, water that, if the tales were true, would give the user eternal life, but, based on what the Mogu were doing, it looked like they had already corrupted the font of power and had broken it. After discovering that, however, Sunset decided to fly into the province that Taylor was currently in the middle of conquering and found that there weren't a lot of people to kill in this place, save for a village at the start of it, a Jinyu village on the western half of the province, and the temple that the Red Crane, Chi-Ji, lived in as he watched over his own order.

Based on what she was feeling it seemed like her plans had been successful, in part, because she could feel the Sha energy starting to seep out of the prison that the second Prime Sha was trapped in, to which she made her way over to it and found an interesting sight when she reached her destination. She discovered that the exterior of the temple was already falling to the corruption of the Prime Sha that Chi-Ji was watching over, meaning it must have slowly been working behind the scenes to twist everything to it's desire, and there were large Sha beasts gathering around the temple. The Crane Wing Order, the pandaren who served Chi-Ji, were scattered around the exterior of the temple, with all sorts of Sha inflicting despair on their former captors, as she found that they were either kneeling or huddled on the ground, none possessing the power to fight against the power that had overtaken them. In addition to that she found two larger beasts, Maws of Despair, that were in the process of spreading their negative emotion to the rest of the province, all from the safety of their base of operations, and there was a general level Sha, an Embodiment or Incarnation, wandering around while commanding the lesser Sha, but the Prime Sha was nowhere to be seen.

Such a thing caused her to head inside the temple, where the Sha actually moved out of the way when she landed and a few even bowed to her, showing her that even these creatures knew who this world's master was, before Sunset found her way to the basement and discovered the Sha of Despair in the middle of it, keeping Chi-Ji pinned to the ground while inflicting despair on him, dealing massive damage by the looks of it.

"You know, if you want to really make him feel the weight of your negative emotion, I can give him eternal despair by raising him as a servant of Death." Sunset remarked, causing the Prime Sha to turn his massive head towards her, where she found that the basement was large enough for him to freely move around in, why she had no idea and she wasn't about to ask why it was designed like this, while finding that he looked nearly identical to the Sha of Doubt, before he presented the figure to her, "Glad we understand each other."

Chi-Ji barely had time to realize what was going on as Sunset drove Frostmourne into the powerful being's heart, where she quickly brought an end to his natural life before reviving him as a servant of the Scourge, but once that was done she turned her runeblade on the Sha of Despair, who bowed his head and offered himself freely, allowing her to absorb his power into a second crystal on her chest armor. With that done she headed outside and watched as the Sha continued to spread over the province, wearing down the living so her army could cut them down, allowing the val'kyr to raise them like those who came before them, all while she turned her focus to the Valley of the Four Winds. As such she left the forces in Krasarang Wilds with the same orders she had given them earlier, spread Death to the region she assigned to them, while she flew into the province to the immediate north of Chi-Ji's temple to see how Nazgrim was faring. What she discovered was that the Valley of the Four Winds was a massive farmland that was used to grow food and, at the same time, convert a portion of items into components that went into brewing beer, but that wasn't the part that interested her.

What held her attention right now was the massive stone wall, easily a fourth of the size of Icecrown Citadel, that rested on the western side of the province, Serpent's Spine she believed it was called, though what really caught her attention at the moment was the large force of bugs that happened to be attacking this side of it. These pests were bipedal, like most of the races of Pandaria, and while one seemed cunning she could tell that multiple in a group were dangerous to their enemies, all while noticing that they resembled pray mantis, in a sense. Fortunately it looked like Nazgrim's force was on the scene as well, as Sunset could tell that there wasn't a lot of defenders in this province, in fact there was no standing army in case things went south, a terrible thing indeed when she considered that the Mantid could break through the wall if they had a powerful battering ram. Such a thing was proven right not even a few moments later as a massive blue beast, an insect of some kind, smashed through the wall and rained stones down on the farmland that the Mantid had been in the middle of tearing down, allowing Sunset to see a massive province with what she assumed were massive amber trees and an army of Mantid that were ready to consume everything in their path.

One Mantid clearly through she was a weakling or something and tired to take her down, where Sunset cut it down before it could touch her, though when she raised it into undeath all sorts of information surged into her head, where she could tell that all of the fear that the living had felt over the last few hours had born fruit, another of the Prime Sha had broken out of it's prison and the Mantid were attacking early because of it.

"Already three of the Prime Sha have been freed, and I can feel the prisons of the other three weakening, while the prison of the seventh seems as strong as ever." Sunset commented, which was the truth of the matter, meaning she needed to figure out where the last of the Prime Sha was buried to break the last prison, and she already had an idea as to where to look for her target, before she focused on the Mantid army, "Well then, let's get the party started, shall we?"

Sure enough the gunship opened fire on the army that was in front of them, blasting Mantid out of the air, while the rest of the army clashed with their foes that happened to be on the ground, though Sunset found that their foes only thought they had a single army to face, which caused surprise to appear on their faces as Taylor's group marched up a path to the left of the wall and crashed into their side. The Mantid were further surprised as her army revealed their next card, where the val'kyr raised the fallen into undeath and Sunset turned the newly revived Mantid on their former allies, tearing them down while more and more flocked into the Valley of the Four Winds. While they did that she rushed through the air and swung Frostmourne into the massive head of the siege insect, the Kunchong as the insect race called them, which came as a surprise to the Mantid as she downed the beast and raised it into undeath as well, even if she pulled it back to watch the fight between it's former allies and it's new brothers and sisters. Her intent was for the Kunchong, the Colossus as many of the Mantid called it, to act as a buffer in case more of it's kind came through the opening, while her actions would cause a great deal of them to worry about challenging this undead host, but for the time being their fear was driving them to die in the name of their Empress, so Sunset's army was just growing as time went on.

As the moments ticked by she found that her forces swelled due to the foolishness of the Mantid swarm, allowing her to sit back and observe her handiwork for awhile, as she enjoyed watching her forces tear all of their enemies to pieces, but, in the end, she had business to attend to and called forth her commanders for a few seconds.

"General Nazgrim, I want you, your forces, and seventy-five percent of our army to stay here, collecting resources from the Mantid Empire." Sunset stated, where the orc commander nodded his head, confirming that he understood her orders on the matter, before she turned to face Taylor, who was interested in what his force would be doing next, "Admiral Taylor, you and your forces, along with the remaining fourth of our army, will be joining me as I head to Kun-Lai Summit, where we will find more of the living to slay... and, at the same time, we'll be able to flank the Mantid army without them even knowing what's coming their way."

As Taylor nodded his head and got to work figuring out which soldiers would be following them, as she wanted one soldier from each conquered race, Sunset grinned as she turned her head to the north, because she was curious as to what she might find in the mountains and which Sha she would free next.