Chapter 42
Amidst thunderous cheers of victory, the armies of the Valar, like a flood bursting through a dam, launched their final, devastating assault. Leaderless and demoralized, the remnants of Morgoth's host were like lambs to the slaughter, reduced to ash by the divine light or crushed to dust by the enraged warriors of the allied forces. Angband, the dark fortress that had stood for ages, was completely breached and shattered by the overwhelming might of the allied forces, leaving only smoking ruins and foul embers.
Morgoth, the once mighty Dark Lord, was now utterly weakened. He abandoned his throne in terror and, like a frightened mouse, fled to the deepest, foulest, and most disgusting corners of the underworld of Angband. There, he crouched, attempting to implore the pursuing Valar for reconciliation and forgiveness.
He received only the cold reverberation of chains, his judgment sealed. The power of the Valar ignored his pleas, dragging him from his filthy lair like a scavenger's waste. The mighty chains of Angainor, forged by Aulë himself and once bound him, once again entwined themselves around his foul, massive form. He was cast down by the mighty force, facedown like a lowly reptile. His feet were severed, stripping him of his right to tread upon the earth. His iron crown, a symbol of dark power, once adorned with Silmarils and countless other unholy gems, was bent and twisted by the furious hammer, becoming a collar of shame that cleaved tightly around his drooping neck. The power of the Valar forced his head down to his knees, forcing him to gaze no longer with pride at the heavens, but only at the sight of his fallen kingdom and the crumbling earth beneath his feet.
This source of all evil, the cause of endless suffering for Arda, was dragged by the Valar across the shattered battlefield, toward the edge of the world. At its edge stood the Gate of Night. The combined strength of the Valar thrust this most foul of beings, like a piece of thoroughly rotten rubbish, through this gate and out of the walls of Arda. Morgoth screamed and tumbled, falling into the eternal void, a place without light, form, or time, only eternal exile and nothingness. To prevent his possible return, the Valar set an eternal vigil at the Gate of Night. And Eärendil, the bright star of hope, took on the duty of eternal watch. After the battle, he gave the Silmarils to Yavanna, and sailed aboard his great ship, orbiting the sky walls of Arda, a beacon of light watching over the void, ensuring that Morgoth would never return.
Before the cheers of victory died down, the price of the Valar's prophecy and the warning of Meereen's dream turned into cruel reality.
The fury unleashed in the final battle between the hosts of the Valar and Morgoth was of a fury beyond imagination. The clash of star-shattering divine powers between the opposing factions left the northern reaches of the western world irreparably scarred. The earth groaned in agony, its tremors a death knell. Vast chasms, like hideous wounds, crept across the surface, their depths unfathomable. The long-simmering, roaring waters of Belegaer found vent, pouring into these chasms with the force of a million raging beasts, their thunderous force unleashing upon them.
Rivers were cut off, diverted, or even vanished; once-mighty hills were flattened by unseen forces with a roar; deep valleys mysteriously rose to form new heights. Sirion, the mother river that had witnessed countless joys and sorrows, and where Eärendil had set sail, had its course completely torn and twisted, ultimately disappearing beneath the boiling waters and crumbling mountains.
After countless ages of enslavement deep within Angband, a vast number of elves and human slaves were finally freed from their nightmarish prison beneath the earth after the battle subsided. However, what they found was not a paradise of liberation, but a world shattered and sinking into ruin! Sunlight struggled to penetrate the dust and steam, illuminating a devastating scene of doom. The earth beneath their feet trembled and crumbled, and icy waters surged in from all sides, swallowing up the ground they had just regained. Hope, barely ignited, was ruthlessly extinguished by the mighty waves, leaving only cries of despair, dwarfed by the roaring waves.
Most of the land west of the Ered Luin, including the vast heartland of Beleriand and the vast massifs of the Ered Luin's western slopes, lay in ruins in this cataclysmic upheaval. The sea surged relentlessly, drowning forests, plains, and shattered cities. Soon, under the relentless tremors and erosion of the sea, this land, once the birthplace of countless legends—with the magnificent halls of Nargothrond, the Thousand Caves of Doriath, the ancient battlefields of the War of Tears—slowly and irrevocably sank beneath the cold, deep waves of Beleriand. Thus, the land of Beleriand became nothing more than legend, sunk beneath the sea, leaving only a few towering peaks like lonely tombstones along the newly formed coastline.
Meereen stood on a devastated, sea-encroaching new coastline, crumbling rock beneath his feet. He gazed upon the surging, unfamiliar sea that had swallowed his homeland. The salty sea breeze carried the scent of destruction and rebirth. He had witnessed the end of Morgoth and the sinking of his homeland. The wrath of the Valar had purged the darkness, but it also reshaped the world. He felt a mixture of exhaustion, sorrow, relief, and a sense of bewilderment at the prospect of a new and unknown future. In his hands, he clutched a water-marked stone he had salvaged from the ruins of Nargothrond, a final reminder of the sunken land.
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