//------------------------------//
// Ahn'Qiraj, Part 3: The Unscarred 
// Story: Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth 
// by Xarmar13 
//------------------------------//

Following the destruction of the obsidian destroyer known as Moam, Rajaxx had ordered the collapse of the passage it came from, forcing the party to take the long way around to reach the general.

The party continued their exploration of the city through an eastern passage which was guarded by a few wasp-like silithid that walked on four legs with two front legs used as arms. Unlike the wasps, these types had stunted wings which made them incapable of flight.

“And here we have the silithid reavers,” Thanatas announced cheerfully. “Also known as battle tanks, these are the soldier class of silithid and make for speedy mounts if trained right.”

“Anything we need to know about them?” Lokosh asked.

“Nothing special, conventional attacks are sufficient to eliminate them.”

The reavers put up some fight using their claws and their ability to quickly burrow underground and ambush unsuspecting prey, but the party was not caught by surprise.

At the end of the corridor, the party entered a huge room that appeared to have been dug into a huge pit. Living silithid hive structures filled much of the area. There were also what appeared to have once been underground stone pipes or tunnels broken and exposed over the pit, possibly a sewer. A massive silithid that looked to have no combat capabilities and a massive abdomen that was larger than its entire body lay at the back of the pit. The party guessed that it was primarily an egg-laying silithid.

At the bottom of the pit were a few eggs that looked ready to hatch that were guarded by a dark blue silithid colossus with red markings and claws. Thanatas smirked as she saw it. “You guys ready to take on your first silithid colossus?” She pointed at it. “That is Buru the Gorger, and your equipment won’t protect you from those claws. Its carapace is pretty hard so you will need to weaken it with the eggs which contain a caustic substance that will do the job.”

A gurgling sound was heard nearby. The party turned their heads to spot a monster made of ooze creeping toward them. The creature looked like it had seen some battle as it had arrows in its body and it was using someone’s skull for a head and someone’s ribs as an imitation spine.

Thanatas didn’t want to waste time with the slime monster so she froze it with frost magic before a thrust from her sword shattered it.

With that distraction taken care of, the party began carefully climbing down into the pit since there appeared to be no path into it from their side. Those who could fly or float did so while Lokosh and Jaqueline nearly fell due to a combination of their heavy armor and the fact that they were climbing down a wall of sand.

Buru sensed a threat to the eggs and quickly spotted the intruders. Slowly, the colossus skittered toward them with its claws at the ready. Lokosh attempted to gain its attention by clanging his shield, but it ignored him in favor of chasing Mena.

Thankfully, the gnome priest sensed the danger and began running for one of the eggs. As the colossus closed in on the gnome, it raised one of its claws to strike while taking care to avoid the egg next to it. Surprise quickly took over and blasted the egg with enough shadow magic to cause it to explode, splashing a green substance on Buru’s face. A silithid drone emerged from the egg but the priest destroyed its newborn mind before it became a threat.

While the colossus was busy wiping the substance off of it, the party watched with anticipation while they waited for it to pick another target to chase. Suddenly, Rajaxx called out from somewhere, “The Hatchery is under attack! Major He’al-ie, Major Pakkon, Major Yeggeth, protect the eggs.” The three majors appeared from the broken sewer pipes and ordered battleguards to swoop in and collect the eggs in the hatchery. The party attempted to stop them from taking the eggs since they were needed to defeat Buru but a group of qiraji gladiators jumped down to distract them. Though they were defeated quickly, the battleguards were able to escape with the eggs at that time.

Thanatas frowned as she saw the last of the eggs get carried away before she stared at the three officers who jumped down beside Buru. “So, your plan was to get the eggs away from the Hatchery so we couldn’t use them against Buru?” Her frown quickly transformed into a smirk. “Clever plan, let me ruin that for you.” She then glanced at the other party members, “Me and Sophia can deal with the silithid ourselves, you three deal with the officers.”

With the plan made, Flutashe, Bella and Lokosh charged in and faced one qiraji each. The rest, save for Stella who dealt with the returning battleguards, attacked the officers.

Buru chose that time to go after Groun. However, Thanatas quickly forced it to change its plans when she hurled a vial at its carapace. The vial shattered and exposed Buru to the substance within. At first it ignored the attack before it felt an intense burning pain spreading across its body. Its shrill, pained roar clued the majors in that something was wrong with the colossus. This distraction cost Yeggeth his life because of Andorov using his axes to tear open an exposed point in his chitinous armor and rupturing a few vital organs.

“I’d say this experiment was a success,” Sophia said.

Thanatas proudly nodded, “Yes, you have impressive knowledge of genetic modification to be able to alter one of my flesh-eating viruses to attack chitinous tissue. It takes incredible precision to pull off what you did.”

Buru continued to struggle with the chitin-eating virus eating away at its armor. The pain made focusing on any one target difficult so it decided to attack the one who infected it in the first place.

As Buru began skittering toward the death knight, the virus ate through the chitin on its head and exposed its brain, which was massive and seemed to take up at least forty percent of its overall body mass. With such a huge weak point revealed, Sophia moved in. She floated above Buru and charged her wrist blades with psionic power. She then performed a dive while she spun toward it like a drill. Blades met brain tissue as she literally tunneled through its cerebral cortex and tore through its brain cells like a runaway blender. The colossus twitched and spasmed as it rapidly lost more of its mental functions from its motor functions to its memory to its consciousness, ending in the destruction of its vital functions.

The majors were not faring any better. Jaqueline exploited the same weakness in Pakkon that Andorov found in Yeggeth and him the same way. He’al-ie ended up getting roasted by Talia and Farra’jin.

Once the guardians were finished, Stella set the egg-laying silithid queen on fire to prevent any further production of eggs from this hive.

With the threats in the area removed, the party proceeded up a ramp, freeze-shattering another slime monster along the way. They crossed another threshold to find an area that was writhing with silithid structures, showing that they were nearing the very heart of the hive.

The area looked the most infested of any other location in the ruins so far, given the large number of silithid in the area. Wasps buzzed around the area in one of three different colors: red, green or white. There was also a species that they hadn’t seen before spraying some disgusting maroon substance that seemed to expand the hive structures in the area. There were also large scorpions and silithid larvae that were over half as large as the other silithid in the area.

The party reeled in disgust at what they saw and Talia considered setting the area on fire but Sophia warned against it as it would block the only path to Rajaxx.

With no other option, the party trekked through the living mass. The silithid reacted aggressively to the intrusion but were incinerated by Talia, Farra’jin and Stella who took care not to hit the hive structures in case they were flammable. Groun’s vines pulled the wasps to the ground where they were crushed.

The corridor ultimately led the party into a larger room that was almost completely living hive matter. Silithid larva crawled all over the area along with several groups of wasps who appeared to be watching over them. To their right was the threshold to the next area which appeared to go up a set of stairs to what may be the highest point in the ruins since they felt sure that they had traveled through the majority of the city by this point, not counting the area that Rajaxx ordered sealed off earlier.

To the party’s left was a tall hive structure that appeared to be some sort of hatchery for wasp type silithid. In front of it was a stone altar that was guarded by an unusually colored wasp hovering over the altar. 

This one had a colorful display of red, orange and yellow chitin over most of its body with a black underbelly. It was also shaped a little differently from the silithid wasps. This one had one pair of legs that were thicker and jagged and had a hook on the end while the other pair were thinner and shaped like serrated scythes. Unlike other wasps who had clear or gray wings, this one had an orange coloration to its wings that faded to red at the edges. Its mandibles were also much larger than a regular silithid wasp.

“That’s a rare variant of the silithid wasp,” Thanatas commented. “I’d say they are about as rare as the sand reavers. I like to call them alpha wasps because they are an overall improvement to the regular wasp to the point they are practically an evolved version. 

“This one is named Ayamiss the Hunter. It contains a potent paralytic poison in its stinger that can paralyze its prey in an instant. It’s fond of that altar for a reason, it likes to abduct its paralyzed prey and place them on it while the victim awaits their fate by being eaten alive by a larva.”

While the group was observing the alpha wasp, another wasp flew in from behind and abducted Jaqueline. “What the!? Lemme go ya overgrown varmint!” The party pursued the wasp and the warrior but the abductor was able to bring her to Ayamiss before Stella burned its wings with a Fireball.

Before Jaqueline had a chance to get back on her feet to fight the alpha wasp, Ayamiss struck first by stinging her below her ribcage, piercing through the armor and just missing the stomach. The toxin quickly worked its way into her system and paralyzed her. Ayamiss then placed her atop the altar and screeched, calling for a larva to emerge from the ground and feast on the offering.

Thankfully, the others made it to the altar in time for Bella to send the larva flying with a hammer of light. A gust of wind from Farra’jin sent the grub flying back toward them where Talia’s felguard grabbed it, threw it down and crushed it under his foot.

Enraged, Ayamiss called for a swarm of wasps to attack the interlopers while spraying poison at them from its mouth. The party moved out of the way of the poison rain but suffered a few stings from the wasp swarm.

Groun handled the wasps by calling on a predator plant that released a mist into the air that lured the wasps to it. Each wasp that flew too close to it ended up devoured. Every few wasps devoured caused the plant to branch out and another floral maw growing from it. Within a minute, the plant grew enough devouring blooms to eat the entire swarm.

Ayamiss called for more of its swarm to attack but this only served to feed the plant more. Instead, it attacked the plant with globs of caustic poison while it continued to rain poison from 
its stinger gland toward the party.

The alpha wasp was so preoccupied fighting the others and the plant that it had briefly forgotten how long the paralysis poison would last. It sensed the danger from the warrior and tried to fly away, only for one of the mouths of the plant to reach it and grab one of its legs. Ayamiss struggled to free itself but took too long as Jaqueline, who had recovered, was jumping from branch to branch to reach the escaping wasp before she severed its abdomen.

The plant was able to finish Ayamiss off by biting into its four legs followed by its head. In a brutal display, the predatory plant pulled back and ripped its limbs and head off before collecting every part of it and consuming them.

After her attack, Jaqueline fell to the ground on her face. She was slow to recover as she struggled to get up. A brief sharp pain in her chest made recovery difficult

Concern showed on Bella’s face, “Darling, are you alright?”

“Ah’m fine,” Jaqueline said, somewhat forcefully. “Still workin’ off the poison, ah guess.”

The party took a few minutes while the warrior recovered. During that time, Sophia and Thanatas listened to Twilight who seemed concerned about something. “Oh no! No, this is bad!”

“What is it, Twilight?” Sweetie asked.

“Ever since we discovered that magical core inside Jaqueline, I’ve been running periodic scans on her vitals. The more she fights, the stronger the core becomes. As the magic grows within her, it places a strain on her body. Without any means of using it, her internal organs will shut down. Most likely she will suffer cardiac arrest.”

“We already knew that the thing was killing her, Twilight,” Lyra recalled. “Why are you panicking now?”

“The poison from that wasp weakened her internal organs. Normally, the poison could be flushed from their system and the body could recover over time, but the core is weakening her body’s ability to do so.” Twilight sighed in resignation before looking to Midnight, “How long would you estimate she has?”

Midnight, being the former program that she was, ran the calculations in her head and came up with the answer a few seconds later. “At the rate she’s going, and taking into account that she will continue fighting without long periods of rest, I estimate that she has about a year at the most, a few months at worst.”

“Isn’t there anything you could do to prevent this from happening, Thanatas?” Twilight begged.

“I could, but something tells me that if I did, I would ruin her destiny which would have a negative impact on Project Ankh. I know where this core originates from and I think it best to let it run its course. Trust me on this one.”

Twilight struggled to find her words as she heard that. It took her a moment to find them. ”Run its course? She’s going to die! What good could come of that?!”

“Fate seems to be guiding these girls down their respective paths for a reason. Fluttershy appears to be gaining power through Wild God blessings. If Applejack’s fate is going where I think it is, she will need my guidance in the future, once the core runs its course.

“I hope you’re right,” Twilight sighed, defeated.

While the psychic conversation was going on, the big question was asked about where the plant had come from. Groun replied that he always had the ability to grow plants in any environment, regardless of species. Of course, Thanatas and Sophia knew that the plant had its Equestrian origins. They figured that he most likely studied the plant during his isolation in the jungle, but they weren’t about to reveal that to the others.

With their curiosity somewhat satisfied, the party proceeded through the next opening and up the stairs. Atop the stairs, they came across another large area. This one was devoid of all hive structures. Massive stone pillars with writing on them that nobody could translate were scattered around the area. A large number of colossal anubisath patrolled the area flanked by a pair of qiraji gladiators. The party also noticed a swarm of qiraji battleguards flying over the area.

Andorov nodded as he observed the area, “Yeah, if Rajaxx is anywhere in this city, it would either be here or the temple.”

Sophia hummed as she rubbed her chin, “Looks like they’ve pulled the last of the city’s defenders to this place. Here’s the plan, Stella, you handle the battleguards. Bring them to the ground if you need assistance.”

Stella nodded, “Got it!”

“Andorov, you and your troops engage any ranked officers in the area.”

“Understood, as long as Rajaxx goes down, how it happens doesn’t matter to me.”

Sophia was glad that the lieutenant general was flexible on the matter. “Glad to hear it, because I’m taking out Rajaxx. The rest of you will focus on the anubisath and gladiators.”

“A good plan…” Thanatas cut in. “However, there is one detail you aren’t aware of. In the back of the area is a unique anubisath construct that was reshaped by his brethren after the War of the Shifting Sands. He’s named Ossirian the Unscarred, famed for being the first anubisath construct to fell a dragon. His new form changed his black-skinned, jackal-headed appearance to a blue-skinned, hawk-headed appearance and had been reclassified as a horusath, since all anubisaths are modeled after jackals and horusaths are modeled after hawks.

“As part of his reward for his efforts in battling the dragons, Ossirian was not only reshaped, but his essence was bound to the crystals buried in the sands in the room, granting him near invulnerability at the cost of being unable to leave this room.”

“I see…” Sophia mused. “Well, since you likely know his weakness, you can handle Ossirian.”

Thanatas shrugged nonchalantly, “Eh, that’s fine.” She then added through the mental link, “If I’m taking the big guy, I need you to be my spotter. When I engage him, the crystals will emerge periodically to empower him before they sink. I need you to pinpoint those crystals for me.”

“Alright, let’s do this!” Sophia declared before the party and Andorov’s group ran into the room.

Rajaxx quickly noticed the intruders and barked orders to his remaining officers, “Colonel Zerran, Brigadier General Pax-lish, Lieutenant General Nokhor, they come for us! This shall be our last stand! Make them bleed!”

With that, Zerran, Pax-lish and Nohkor charged the group. Andorov rushed ahead with his soldiers and engaged the officers. Rajaxx joined the fray but something small grabbed his left arm and he found himself flying into a distant pillar a split second later. 

The roaming anubisath and gladiators noticed this and wandered toward their general, only for a roar of challenge from a bear to draw their attention away. Lokosh slammed into a gladiator while a line of flames snaked up one anubisath’s leg and singed its skin slightly, which was not noticeable since its skin was obsidian. Still, the ground soldiers assessed the group as a threat and moved to attack. 

The flying battleguards observed the situation but were drawn into battle themselves when a beam of frost froze the wings of some of their number which sent them plummeting toward the sands below. The female qiraji focused their attention on the lone dracthyr and moved to swarm her.

From the small adjacent room, Ossirian observed the sudden battle occurring and became enraged by this. “Sands of the desert, rise and block out the sun!” he cried out. Suddenly, the sky darkened as the city became enveloped in a blinding sandstorm. Numerous dust devils formed in the room which quickly strengthened to become sand tornadoes that blindly drifted around the room.

With his power on display, Ossirian began to move into the room. However, one lone small figure stood in his way. Seeing her as a pest to be crushed, Ossirian raised his foot to stomp on her, only for a giant bone to rise out of the sands and push back the horusath, leaving him off balance and falling on his back.

Thanatas took this opportunity to freeze the entrance to the small room so nobody would see her fight. As Ossirian attempted to get back on his feet, Thanatas began her transformation where she shed her armor and flesh, her bones growing and transforming, becoming more draconic with each second until she became a giant skeletal dragon about Ossirian’s size.

“What manner of creature are you?” Ossirian asked.

Thanatas giggled, as much as she could with her voice deepened as a result of her new form, “It’s ironic how you are the first of C’thun’s constructs to fell a dragon, only to meet your end at the bones of one. I can hear Grakkarond’s cries for vengeance, and he shall have it.”

Meanwhile, Rajaxx got back on his feet after his meeting with a pillar. He rubbed the back of his head wondering what threw him there. His answer quickly came in the form of a blue humanoid rabbit girl before him. Her innocent smile only served to unnerve the qiraji general. “You! Tiny creature, was it you who hurled me into a pillar?”

Sophia tilted her head while maintaining her smile. “Indeed. You may not want to believe this, but I’m probably the one you want to kill the most.”

“And why is that?”

“Remember those creatures who routed your armies and forced you to retreat back into the city? The ones who made those silithid colossi cry for their mommies? You’re looking at the one who controls them; their leader.”

“That was you?!” he roared. “Impudent fool! You face General Rajaxx, leader of the Qiraji armies directly under the Twin Emperors!”

“A good introduction. I suppose, it’s only fair that I give mine. I am Admiral Sophia Craft, leader of many fleets of celestial ships. It seems that this will be a battle of a general versus an admiral. Let’s see if you can entertain me.”

Every inch of the terrace became embroiled in battle as Stella whittled down the battleguards with each attack while skillfully dodging their hidden blades. The majority of the group kept the attention of the anubisath and gladiators while Andorov and his soldiers faced the officers. When sand tornadoes began roaming the area, the party had to take great care not to get caught up in them which diverted their focus.

Sophia toyed with Rajaxx by dodging his slow attacks. Her small and nimble body made avoiding the giant qiraji trivial. She suddenly noticed a crystal rising from the sands in front of Thanatas’ ice block. With pinpoint precision, she calculated the position of the crystal relative to the room. She relayed the location to her cousin which resulted in a series of giant bone spikes bursting from the sand and piercing it in multiple places. The crystal cracked for a second, then shattered.

Thanatas and Ossirian were slugging each other with their fists. Stone splintering bone, bone breaking stone. The bone dragon traded the construct blow for blow. She knew that the crystals would restore his body because of his conditional immortality which was why she didn’t bother using her powers and waited for her cousin to mark the crystals for her.

Stella may have been busy dealing with the female qiraji but once their numbers dwindled, she was able to observe the battlefield. She saw her friends holding their own against the constructs and qiraji. One of Andorov’s soldiers finished off one of the officers. Sophia looked like she was playing around with Rajaxx. Crystals were rising from the sands only for bone spikes to shatter them a moment later.

What the dracthyr wasn’t expecting was the battle happening behind the ice wall. From her aerial position, she saw a giant skeletal dragon duking it out with Ossirian. She could only conclude that Thanatas had a secret dragon form that she wanted to keep hidden from her friends. She decided to file that knowledge for later if the death knight became a problem. After another minute of combat, she froze the last battleguard and hurled her into the stone wall, shattering her.

Andorov used the strength of one of the officers against them by making them overextend. He always wondered why huge creatures were so overconfident that they were prone to mistakes. He tripped one of the officers by knocking one of their legs out from under them and sent them faceplanting into the ground. One final strike from his axes sealed the officer’s fate. His subordinates finished the last officer moments later.

After several minutes of combat, Sophia noticed that the battles were beginning to wind down. Only a few gladiators and a couple of anubisath remained standing. They would fall soon. She noticed that her cousin had shattered quite a few crystals by this point so there couldn’t be many left.

Her battle with Rajaxx proved disappointing as she hoped that the general had more to offer than a lightning strike that would have caused serious harm to most fighters. Sadly, she came to the conclusion that the general had too little diversity in his attacks. It was time to end this.

Dodging another attack, Sophia went on the offensive. She struck Rajaxx’s chest with her knee and cracked his chitin. He was surprised by how much power she put into that but the real surprise was when she ran her hand into his chest and reached for his heart. Before he could respond, the templar pulled away and took his heart with her.

Realizing that he was pretty much dead at this point, Rajaxx made one last cry, “My emperors, I have fallen. The temple is in danger!” He then collapsed and never rose again.

Feeling a little peckish, Sophia decided to eat the qiraji’s heart before she located what she believed to be the last of the crystals. Once she relayed the location and saw it shatter, she held her arms behind her head as she casually strolled around.

Ossirian sensed the disconnect from the crystals he was bound to. He knew that he would die without them. In his desperation to take his opponent with him, the construct blasted her with deadly blasts of sand in an attempt to erode her bones. Thanatas sensed his desperation so she ended the fight quickly by showering the stone construct with globs of highly corrosive chemicals which Ossirian was unable to avoid. He felt his end coming and mourned his failure in his duty to C’thun before he crumbled.

At the same time, the last of the anubisath in the area were felled by the party and the gladiators were in full retreat once they realized that the chain of command had been destroyed. They fled toward the temple.

With Ossirian’s demise, the sands settled somewhat. The tornadoes had subsided but the sandstorm persisted. The party saw the ice wall shatter and melt away, revealing the death knight back in her human form. Stella narrowed her eyes at her, making a note to confront her about that other form later.

The party soon regrouped in the center of the terrace, taking care to avoid stumbling over the crystal shards that littered the field.

“Ah think we need to find shelter from this storm,” Jaqueline said. “It’s gonna be trouble if we have to fight more threats in this.”

Farra’jin set an air totem that produced an air dome that protected them from the storm while they planned. “Dere, now what else is in these ruins dat we need ta worry about?”

“Actually, we’ve pretty much cleared out the ruins of the major threats.” Thanatas said. “The allied forces can move in and secure the city. Beyond here is the reservoir that leads back to the General’s Terrace that was blocked off before. That area was originally guarded by Moam, so there’s no need to explore that area now.”

“In that case, I need to head back and report to Saurfang that we’ve accomplished our mission,” Andorov informed. “Your assistance was greatly appreciated and will be added in my report.” He then turned to his squad. “Men, we’re moving out!” The squad quickly gathered what supplies they had and returned back the way they came from. Andorov gave the party one last bow. He did not envy them for where they would be headed next. He knew that only a fool would enter the temple that housed one of the most malevolent beings on Azeroth.

Before Andorov moved any further, Stella stopped them by stating something they didn’t anticipate. “You all know that I’m a mage, right? I can just create a portal back to the entrance and save you the needless return trek through the ruins.”

Andorov froze. He didn’t want to admit that he failed to take that into account but the red on the shirtless man’s face said it all.

Since the ruins were ready to be secured, Stella prepared a portal to the entrance of the ruins. There was still one path to explore and they knew that it would lead them straight to the eldritch horror that controlled the silithid and the qiraji. Everyone but Thanatas and Sophia knew that they would be lying if they said they weren’t scared. They had to bank on the horror inside Mena’s mind for any chance of seeing tomorrow and this didn’t sit well with them.

Once the portal spell was cast, everyone passed through it and returned to the entrance.







High above the Watcher’s Terrace, a giant phantasmal eyeball observed the battles occurring throughout the ruins of the city. Its armies had been decimated, its minions had been slaughtered. The leader of the Qiraji army had fallen along with one of its strongest constructs.

However, it was not worried. They were but the weaker of its armies. Only its strongest minions were allowed inside the temple. If the fiend inside the gnome intended to come for it, she and her allies would have to face the horrors that resided in its stronghold.

"̷̤̓T̵͎͍̓͐̅h̸͙͉̃̀̚͠ë̷̛̪̻̜̤̱̲̏ȳ̴̡̯͖͉̻̯̃̅̅ ̸̗̥͓͗̒w̵̞͕͔͓͔̰̽î̴̧̛͕͗͒͘͝l̷̛͚͆͜l̸̠̦̹͛ ̶̮̏̔͂̒c̴̳̟̈́̊o̷̗͛m̷̢̹̼̤̱̄̊̋e̶̗̤͈͆̉͛̃̈́̈́.̴̨̮̼̍͑.̴̛̛͇͚̻̬̎͂̋̐.̵̠̩̜̭̣͓͒̾̊̒̚͠ṯ̶͗͑̔̓͘h̵̡̖̰̦̖̆͒͘ë̷̡̬͕̗̖́y̷̼͉͑̔͌̃ ̴̗͈̣̩̈́̈́͑́w̸̨̨̝̱̃i̶̤͈͍̼̰̓͗́͗̀̄l̴̘̪̈͋̂̎ĺ̷̡́̑̽̃ ̵̙͎͙͗̇̓̏̅d̸̮̩̯͙̔͑́̍̑̚͜i̶̝̇̂e̵͈̠̣͗̿͗͌͌.̴̪̅͜ ̸̲͕̇́̄͛̋͑C̵̺̆̓͊h̷̘̜̺̮͍̊à̴̰̤̥͙̍̀ǭ̷̺͝s̸̳̒͛̊͆̕ ̸̛͉̎͊̑͑̀ã̶̘̝͉͈̾͊͂̇n̷͎̽̅͜d̴̰̙̻̞̰̊̀ ̷̼̫͕̦͔̯̀͊͂́̐͂m̶̹̯͠ą̶̗̰̙̥̽̄̆́̊͆d̸̘̤̎̔͌͌͑n̵̻̣̝̓́͆̃͋͝e̵̙̯̗̳͑̓ṣ̸̛̦͎̞̒̈́̄̏̚s̸̝̺̍̀ ̷̨̢̯̓͐̿͐͐͋ḁ̸̦͈̣̒́ȓ̶̟̲͑͗̽̿̂e̷̜͓̥̓͆̈́̌̎ ̵̣̥̀̐̿̓̉a̸̲͕̭͙͌̕l̸̹̼̼͇͙͉̍̅̈l̵͓̬̀̇̓̀͠ ̴̥̹̱̄̓̍́t̴̮͕̦́h̷̫͚́̈́̉ạ̶͒̀̐͊̔t̷͓͆ ̸̨̘̟̲͒̇̑̚a̴̡͈͈͖̟͉͆͐̋̈́̄ẘ̷̻̬̑͊͆͛͑ǎ̶̟i̶̜̤̲͈̥̜̿̔̈̔͝t̴̜̭̫͓̰̀̽͋̕̕͜.̵̨̧̫̭̾̀͛͘"̸̗̓̓͂̿́

The eyeball faded as its owner prepared for battle.