The images flickering through the portal were scattered at best, but Thulos watched them intently. Sometimes words passed through, accompanying the dilution of color. His fingers brushed the smoky substance, touching something like glass.

Forgive me, Tess, I was wrong. Close the damn thing!

The words stabbed a sliver of doubt into the war god's chest. The portal, closed? Not while his soldiers still fought among the virgin lands, not when he was so close to entering the long lost realm of Celestia. He thought he could see the goddess through the portal, standing with her arms wide and her hair flowing in a torrent of wind. Behind her, two shapes huddled together, and a third lay prone in the corner.

No, said the wraith-voice from the portal. You've earned this.

His generals and advisors kneeled around him on the lower steps of the massive pyramid. Regardless of which direction they looked upon it, the swirling vortex looked flat, like a painting. The sky was dull and red, as if the millions of slaughtered lives had saturated the heavens as well as the soil.

Thulos put a giant hand on the hilt of his sword and pressed harder against the portal with the other. Normally when entering a new world, his most powerful mages emerged first and combined their might to open a pathway. This one, however, had opened of its own accord, and the few messengers that traveled back assured him only two necromancers held open the gate.

Thulos's soldiers had passed through, with significant strain upon the two, but Thulos himself could not yet pass. The portal resisted, still far too weak. But now…

“Stand back,” Thulos told his men, his eyes peering at the woman, her face obscured as if she were underneath starlit water. “The time is now.”

The ground beneath them cracked. Wind howled into the portal. The glassy substance against his hand weakened, then broke. His arm pushed through. Without a moment of hesitation he followed within, passing from his world to one he had conquered untold centuries before.