Both sides now focused their attention on the Nameless Thing, the creature that dominated the center of the battlefield.
The Nameless Thing was devastatingly powerful. Against it, the armies of Elves, Men, and Dwarves were nothing more than fodder; no matter how many charged, they were not enough to sate its hunger. Even the Maiar could not inflict meaningful damage. Only beings of Vala-level power could hope to restrain it.
Tulkas struck first.
The Champion of the Valar transformed into a towering giant and charged into close combat with the creature. But even at his most imposing, compared to the Nameless Thing's continental scale, he was insignificant. The creature coiled around him with terrifying speed, crushing force tightening like a vise, then opened its maw, a gaping void of absolute darkness, intending to devour him whole.
Tulkas fought with everything he had. His fists, powerful enough to shatter the earth itself, hammered into the creature's body. But every blow was absorbed, the kinetic energy transformed into nourishment. The creature only grew stronger. Tulkas could do nothing but grip the edges of its maw with both hands, holding the jaws apart through sheer brute strength to keep himself from being swallowed.
Oromë, seeing the danger, drew his divine bow and loosed a devastating arrow directly into the creature's open mouth. The shaft pierced its head entirely.
But the wound healed almost instantly. The Nameless Thing, now even more ferocious, thrashed wildly, attacking everything around it without discrimination. The only benefit was that Tulkas seized the momentary distraction to wrench himself free and retreat.
The two Valar joined forces to engage the creature, but what made them, and every Vala watching from the rear lines, deeply uneasy was this: the Nameless Thing appeared to be truly unkillable. No attack, regardless of its nature or magnitude, produced any lasting effect.
"Sylas, I must ask for your help. We need to deal with this creature quickly. Morgoth has not yet shown himself, and I fear he is plotting something in the shadows."
Manwë's voice was taut with urgency.
Sylas nodded.
But rather than engaging the creature directly, he summoned the Ungoliant Vase, Naururë. The black vessel expanded rapidly, transforming into a massive singularity that generated a gravitational pull of terrifying magnitude. The surrounding mountains, debris, and even portions of Morgoth's dark army were drawn shrieking into the vase's maw.
Tulkas and Oromë retreated swiftly to avoid being caught in the pull.
The Nameless Thing sensed the threat immediately and attempted to burrow into the earth to escape. But its enormous body was caught in the vase's grip, held fast by the devouring force. The creature roared, a sound that shook the foundations of the world, and struggled with primal fury. But inch by inch, its colossal form was drawn into the vessel until it was consumed entirely.
A roar of celebration erupted from the Host of the Valar.
But as Sylas retrieved the vase, before he could even allow himself a moment of relief, his expression changed.
Drastically.
He hurled the vase away from himself and launched into a dimensional retreat at maximum speed.
The next instant, Naururë detonated.
An impossibly brilliant flash of light accompanied an explosion of annihilating force. Space itself collapsed into nothingness. Everything within the blast radius, all matter, all life, all energy, was obliterated without exception.
More than half of Middle-earth was torn apart and consumed in an instant. The sphere of Arda, once whole and complete, appeared to have been forcibly stripped of a piece, becoming broken and incomplete. The world teetered on the edge of returning to primordial chaos.
Sylas emerged from the dimensional fold, his face grim, his body battered. He gritted his teeth.
"That treacherous filth."
He had not anticipated that the Nameless Thing was a trap. When Naururë had attempted to reduce the creature to its original form, a failsafe had triggered, a self-destruction sequence of unimaginable magnitude. If Sylas had not reacted instantly, throwing the vase and escaping into another dimension, he would have been severely wounded or killed outright.
He surveyed the battlefield.
It was annihilated. The armies of light and darkness alike were gone. Almost nothing remained. Even the Maiar had been broken apart, their physical forms disintegrating, leaving only faint, wandering souls devoid of strength.
Sylas attempted to use time reversal, to restore the battlefield to its state before the explosion.
It was useless.
The detonation had not merely destroyed matter and energy. It had erased the very laws of time within the blast radius. That segment of temporal existence had been forcibly deleted from the River of Time. No matter how Sylas tried to reverse the flow, he could not restore a point in time that no longer existed.
"What a pity. I had originally planned to at least seriously wound you. But it seems that was too much to hope for."
Morgoth materialized from the Void, wearing a look of mock regret.
He drifted through the air to the center of the devastation. Extending his hand, he summoned a flame, the Flame Imperishable, which rested quietly in his palm, radiating the most fundamental creative force in existence.
"Rise again, my servants."
He raised the Flame high, then drove it into the shattered earth.
The sacred fire erupted outward, transforming into a raging inferno that spread in all directions. Within the blaze, every member of Morgoth's dark host, every creature destroyed by the explosion, had their souls reborn. Physical bodies reconstituted around them. Ancalagon returned to the skies. Gothmog stood wreathed in flame once more. The Nameless Thing, which had self-destructed as a weapon, was resurrected whole and unchanged.
And then Sylas's eyes widened.
Ungoliant. The primordial spider he had defeated and whose body he had given to Aulë to forge into Naururë. She, too, stood before him once more, resurrected by the Flame Imperishable, glaring at Sylas with venomous, hateful eyes.
This was the power of the Flame Imperishable.
Even if a soul had been utterly scattered, even if it had ceased to exist in this world for ages beyond counting, the Flame could recreate it from nothing and restore the being to life. It was not resurrection. It was creation. True, absolute, unlimited creation.
Such power surpassed Sylas's time reversal completely. Time reversal could only restore what had once existed. The Flame Imperishable could bring forth what had never existed.
It was, in every sense of the word, infinite resurrection.
Sylas's expression was grave beyond measure. The other Valar wore equally grim faces.
Morgoth now possessed the Flame Imperishable and had clearly fused with it. His strength had long since surpassed every other Vala, reaching the absolute ceiling of the Vala realm, just one step from breaking through to creation-level power. And beyond his own might, he had resurrected both Ungoliant and the Nameless Thing, each of whom individually approached Vala-level strength.
The combined force arrayed against them had already far surpassed anything the Host of the Valar could match.
Oromë received the command from Manwë. He raised the great horn Valaróma and blew it, the sound echoing across all of Arda and reaching Valinor itself.
A moment later, all fourteen Valar stood upon the battlefield, unleashing their full power to confront Morgoth, Ungoliant, and the Nameless Thing.
Without further deliberation, the battle lines were drawn.
Manwë led the assault on Morgoth personally. Seven of the male Valar joined him: Ulmo, Tulkas, Oromë, Aulë, Mandos, and Irmo. Manwë, Ulmo, Tulkas, and Oromë served as the primary attackers, engaging Morgoth directly. Aulë, Mandos, and Irmo provided support and harassment from the flanks, denying Morgoth any moment of respite.
Varda, leading the seven female Valar, took command of the siege against the Nameless Thing. Varda's dominion over light possessed a natural suppressive effect on the creature, which instinctively feared illumination. Combined with the strength of the other Valier, it was sufficient to contain and overwhelm the beast.
As for Ungoliant, she was Sylas's to face alone.
The battles at Vala level were incomparably more devastating than anything that had come before. The scale of destruction rendered the battlefield uninhabitable for any lesser being. The Maiar could no longer participate. Even the mightiest Elven warriors were at risk of being annihilated by the shockwaves alone.
The entire Host of the Valar, the armies of Elves, Men, and Dwarves, was forced to retreat to Tol Eressëa. Simultaneously, Ulmo and Ossë raised the island from the shallow seas, increasing the distance between it and the mainland to shield those aboard from the Valar's cataclysmic exchanges.
From the island, the army stretched in endless ranks, watching the horizon. They could not see the details of the battle. All they could perceive was the world itself convulsing.
The continent sank. The sea boiled away. Stars were torn from Varda's sky and fell as giant meteorites, smashing through the crust of the earth and reaching the molten core beneath. The entire world howled in agony, shaking itself apart.
Arda stood on the brink of total annihilation, nearly destroyed.