[VOLUME 12: THE ORIGIN][ERA: THE PRIMEVAL AGE][LOCATION: THE WHISPERING WOODS / ELARA'S APOTHECARY]
Deep within the suffocating darkness of the Whispering Woods, General Varak reveled in the stench of decay.
He was a hulking, grotesque mass of rot and shadow, seated atop a throne of withered, blackened oak. Before him stood a legion of three thousand low-tier plague demons, all feeding off the residual miasma he had unleashed upon the pathetic mortal valley below.
"The pestilence spreads," Varak hissed, his voice like grinding stones. "By tomorrow, the valley will be a graveyard. We will use their rotting corpses to build a gateway back to the Abyssal Realm. The Demon Lord has been missing for a century. The throne is empty. I, Varak, shall claim it!"
The demonic legion screeched in chaotic approval, their jagged weapons clattering.
Then, the ambient temperature of the entire forest plummeted to absolute zero.
