Cassiathon kept his sword lowered. He refrained from calling forth a shield.
He accomplished the act that neither his father nor Morgan had anticipated. The sole deed arising from the frantic disorderly mix, within him.
He extended his hand not wielding a weapon but driven by his resolve and seized the advancing surrounding rot he had unleashed throughout the battle—the areas of atmosphere the fragility, in Raziel's armor the exhausted power lingering in the dust.
Then he tugged.
It wasn't an assault on Raziel. It was a withdrawal. He drew every particle of his dispersed death-energy back, into his center a fierce undoing.
The effect was catastrophic. For him.
The energy that came back was defiled, twisted by mingling with the Abyssal nature of the pass and Raziel's own force. It struck him not as an instrument. Like a malady. Pain, scalding and icy flared through every nerve. His veins blackened beneath his skin. A choked cry burst, from his mouth.
However the recoil produced a consequence.
The fierce internal void of energy disturbed all that surrounded his form. The principles of physics faltered. Gravity contorted.
Raziel's flawless final strike was off by a fraction as the earth below him turned liquid and then hardened. The General faltered, losing his footing his lance striking the rock next, to Cassiathon's head.
For a moment they were both exposed—Raziel staggered, while Cassiathon struggled with inner anguish.
Amidst the fog of pain Cassiathon perceived not a demon. The thread. Not a mental link,. The command thread. The unseen strand of control and concentration that linked Raziel to each soldier in the formation transforming them into a legion, than a crowd. It was a striking and savage interlacing of intent and sorcery.
With a hand shaking Cassiathon failed to cut it.
He pulled it out.
A single, discordant note of negation, targeted at the central knot of the command web.
The psychic retaliation was not aimed at Raziel. Instead it spread outward across the network to the troops.
The orderly line halted. A surge of bewilderment and abrupt directionless fear swept across the troops. Demons glanced among themselves at their arms, as though losing sight of their purpose. The unified resolve that held them together crumbled.
Raziel gripping his head screamed in agony and exasperation. He stared at Cassiathon with a gaze that transcended hatred—a mixture of acknowledgment. "What… what are you?"
Cassiathon was unable to respond. He was occupied with preventing himself from disgorging his tainted substance onto the floor.
From, above Morgan's voice pierced sharply. "Now Cass! Their ranks are shattered! Give them a cause to flee!"
Clenching his jaw against the raging turmoil Cassiathon compelled himself down to his knees. He was unable to maintain accuracy. He could hardly remain upright. So he unleashed upon them wildfire.
He pounded his fists against the soil not with fatal intent but fueled by the wild impulsive force now corrupting him. A surge of dark rock and abrupt clutching thorn-vines burst forth from the ground in a curve, between him and the bewildered legion's frontline. It wasn't a battlefield of death. It was a display of unnatural expansion—a barrier of ancient aberration emerging within moments.
That was the straw. The demon troops, without leadership already staggered by the command network witnessed the terrain itself revolt in a sacrilege that unsettled them deeply. Crying out warnings the front lines collapsed, forcing a fallback into the rear. The disciplined formation fractured into a frantic withdrawing throng hastily retreating down the pass.
Raziel stood solo in front of the new barrier his lance held with a relaxed grip. His gaze shifted from the withdrawing figures of his troops to the quivering kneeling figure of Cassiathon. The rage had vanished, substituted by a analytical evaluation.
"This isn't a triumph Abysswalker " he stated, his tone emotionless. "You have corrupted yourself to execute a withdrawal. You are a fracture in existence seeping into both factions. The Queen will be informed of this. Her concern will now be… detached." He moved backward dissolving into the darkness of the pass with the composure his troops lacked. "We shall cross paths more.. I will be ready, for your anomalies."
Then, he was gone.