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| - The Battle of Hephaisteion is an ongoing conflict between the Resistance consisting of the Black Hunters, the Fellowship of Shipwreck Cove and the Justice League; the Southern Horde and their allies; and the Totenkopfs and the Clergy of Nergal at Hephaisteion, the Temple of Hephaestus on Falgorn in Southern Yamato, in early winter of 1017 AE. The battle began shortly after the Battle of Otoineppu, in which the Black Hunters had successfully freed dozens of slaves from the Southern Horde and fled to the temple ruins, prompting the demons to retaliate and try to take over the ruins by force. Aside from the Hunters and the Southern Horde, the battle ended up involving more factions over time as various Yamatian resistance cells, which had formed the Justice League under the Akai Tora to combat the demon menace, decided to use the opportunity provided by the battle to strike a decisive blow at the distracted horde and its allies. While all of this was taking place, two Blue Dragon ships belonging to the Fellowship of Shipwreck Cove approached the temple they hoped to gain acess to from the seaside after having survived the Battle of Devilfish Strait, unaware of the battle taking place on the cliffs above. The Clergy of Nergal and the Totenkopfs also participated in the battle and attempted to use Unithien Greyrain and Sasuke Ofuchi, both of whom had been subjected to magical experiments, in a Stormborn rite to unleash the fury of the elementals on their enemies. Unbeknownst to the Black Hunters, the Fellowship of Shipwreck Cove and the Justice League, the demons were setting their own plan in motion, intending to lure all their enemies in one place and unleash the power of the Scepter of the Stormborn in an effort to not only annihilate the Resistance's army with the ritual but to also use the temple and the tainted power within it as a conduit to corrupt the Silverbranch Tree and merge the Land of the Living with the Demon Realm. These plans made the demons the unwitting pawns of a traitor among their ranks, the Totenkopfs' necromancer acolyte Enenra, who intended to sabotage the ritual during a pivotal moment once magic was unleashed, which would result in sacrificing all of the present parties and raising them as undead in order to strenghten the unholy magic of the Dragolich Katla, the Totenkopfs' greatest creation which they hoped to use in the Battle of Alent, and weaken the barriers between realms for the coming of Death.
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