Shaige's might would have been a spectacle to behold were it not so terrifying. With an unorthodox mixture of finesse and sheer brutality, he felled every man that tried to challenge him as he ascension up the temple path. A cloud of mystic smoke suddenly appeared in front of one charging warrior at the last moment before he reached Shaige. Blinded, the man thrashed and thrust his spear wildly. A ghastly blade materialized in the wraith's hand, and the spirit effortlessly cleaved the man in half with the sword of solid smoke and shadow. Another met a similar fate, Shaige grabbing him by the throat before hurling him to the side with an unearthly amount of force. Wreathed in the Ripper's cataclysmic magic, the wraith's touch had been enough to render the man dead before he even struck the ground and shattered half his bones.

The massacre came to an abrupt halt. The puny Klug shielded their eyes, but the Keeper raised his head to see the massive fireball, the luminosity of which was enough to light up the entire village. Filling the air with unnatural, piercing shrieks, the shadow beasts that had covered their master's advance were suddenly left terribly vulnerable. Still half blinded, the desperate warriors managed to banish the monsters back to the spirit realm while the things were incapacitated by the light. Summoning the shadow beasts once more would take incredible effort and no small amount of time. 

His ire now unleashed, Shaige's rasping voice swept over the entire battlefield like a frigid northern wind, [b][i]"The darkness is bottomless, amaranthine, inevitable. The accursed light may never triumph for long. Your light shall be extinguished by the Shadows. Your wives and children will fill the air with their wails and lamentations, until the Smoke fills their lungs and ushers deathly silence. The Blood shall flow in rivers. Your Souls shall be mine.[/i][/b] The warriors, now recovering from the sudden appearance of Emily's star, desperately hurled more javelins at the malevolent spirits. The light having banished the encircling shadows that had protected Shaige, the spears hit their mark. Then, they simply crumbled to dust upon coming into contact with the Ripper's ruinous magic that cloaked the Keeper.

The wraith outstretched one skeletal finger towards the fireball in the sky. The unadulterated magic of the Ripper that currently composed Shaige's robes began to glow more intensely. A scintillating, vermillion mist of raw power surged towards the artificial sun. The fireball reddened. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing had happened. Then the sun violently exploded. Its bloodied flames fell down like napalm. They showered the temple path and the already burning village. They bathed the flattened top of the temple in fire. 

The great blazes everywhere allowed one to see reasonably well, but they also created equally great shadows. Shaige lifted a hand, and great clouds of unholy smoke emerged from the corpses of the fallen. The vile substance found its way to the shadows of the surviving warriors that guarded the terraces. The shadows touched by Shaige's black magic suddenly sprung up from the ground, gaunt, elongated, and black as midnight, but otherwise identical to the men that they proceeded to mercilessly assault.

Shaige turned around to hear the thunderous footsteps of Ifrit, coming from somewhere within a great cloud of smoke. Behind the rogue being trailed a horde of pain elementals. The spirits had been largely unaffected by the sudden conflagration in the village. Not particularly vulnerable to flame, and capable of simply flying upwards and hovering above the fires, the few of the things had fallen. Shaige allowed Ifrit to draw the attention of the ragged remnants of the defending forces, following the beast up the path towards the temple.

The pain elementals gathered near the bottom of the path, spotting the two groups of incoming defenders that were retreating from Soran's forces. That army would have no easy time hacking their way through a couple hundred angry spirits in order to pursue Shaige.

===---_---===

The moment that it became clear that the klug were falling back to their temple, the zealots abandoned their formation and surged forward as a loose group of individual soldiers. If any Klug turned around to loose javelins, they would find that the zealots' tower shields served them well even without a rigid formation. The hundred zealots followed after one of the two groups. That particular group would likely suffer horrific casualties, the zealots catching up and attacking their rear the moment that they stopped to fight their way through the pain elementals.

The druids and bowmen continued to loose their projectiles until the Klug were well out of range. Then, they too took off in pursuit. Unlike the zealots, they possessed only ordinary strength, and as such the mud greatly hindered their progress. They likely would not be swift enough to partake in any more fighting before the battle was already done.

===---_---===

With a mixture of awe and fear, Soran beheld the fake sun as it hung suspended in the sky, basking the battlefield in light. The construct had never seen such an incredible feat performed by any save his master, and for a moment doubt crept into his heart. The Klug were proving to be far stronger than any had anticipated. Had the Dark Lord met his match? 

The imp construct spotted Shaige partway up the path. The Klug outside the village were now falling back, making a beeline for the Keeper and the temple. Soran's master was no doubt in need of help now more than ever. Without another thought, the imp construct ran after the second of the two groups, the one the zealots were allowing to flee unchallenged. By scorching the ground ahead with demonic flames, the construct instantly baked the earth dry and was able to move unhindered through the bog. The imp construct ran even harder, emboldened as Shaige brazenly addressed the pathetic humans. When the wraith's thunderous voice vanished and the battlefield became quiet by comparison, Soran could discern the sound of footsteps coming from behind.

The demonic general had expected that one of his nine imp subordinates had gathered the courage to follow him to battle, so naturally he was disappointed when it was suddenly Fangir that was running at his side. The construct had neither love nor trust for Fangir. Soran would hardly be shocked if the archdruid tried to assassinate him amidst all the chaos of the battlefield. Regardless, those thoughts were interrupted by the false sun's sudden explosion that shook the battleground.

((I don't have time to do another fancy list of casualties and remaining forces. All the shadow beasts are dead except to that owl that stayed in the forest after sending the pain elementals. As in for the pain elementals themselves, let's say that another 25 have died since that last post of mine.))