The catastrophe in Arda drew the immediate attention of the Valar in Valinor. In the Halls of Mandos, the death toll among humans surged so dramatically that the entire realm of the dead was nearly overwhelmed.
Even the Valar were caught off guard. The world of Arda was instantly enveloped in a dark miasma spewed by the Nameless Thing, obscuring all vision and making it impossible to perceive what was happening below.
Then came something far worse.
Two devastating attacks struck the Sun and Moon in the sky, piercing them. Both celestial bodies collapsed and perished, their light extinguished.
The attacker was Morgoth.
With the Sun and Moon destroyed, the world of Arda plunged into total darkness. Morgoth's armies, creatures of shadow that had always been weakened by light, reached the peak of their power and began wreaking havoc across the earth. Humanity faced an apocalypse. Ordinary humans were helpless. Even the strongest among them could not match the Balrogs or the evil dragons, let alone the Nameless Thing.
The Nameless Thing had always possessed terrifying, primordial power, a being born from dark chaos with no weakness save one: its lack of intelligence.
Morgoth had now corrected that flaw. Using the Flame Imperishable, he crafted a dark soul specifically for the creature, granting it intelligence and obedience.
The Nameless Thing became Morgoth's most powerful subordinate, surpassing even Ancalagon the Black and Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, approaching Vala-level strength while retaining its incomprehensibly massive body.
Under Morgoth's command, the Nameless Thing devoured the Misty Mountains, the greatest mountain range in Middle-earth, and continued to consume the land without pause, intent on swallowing the entire world.
The Valar of Valinor convened their largest council in history. All fourteen Valar attended, along with Sylas and a great assembly of Maiar leaders.
The decision was unanimous.
They would reassemble their host and march to Arda to confront Morgoth, reclaim the Flame Imperishable, and prevent the utter destruction of the world.
To build their army, the Valar decreed the release of the spirits housed in the Halls of Mandos: the souls of fallen Elves, Men, and Dwarves, restored to physical form to fight once more. A great host of the resurrected dead would march alongside the Valar.
Furthermore, because Morgoth had destroyed the Sun and Moon, the Valar made a momentous decision: they would level the Pelóri Mountains.
The towering peaks had always blocked the light of the Two Trees from reaching beyond Valinor. With the mountains razed, the radiance of Laurelin and Telperion would spread unimpeded across the entire world, replacing the fallen Sun and Moon, illuminating Arda, and simultaneously weakening Morgoth's creatures of darkness.
The Valar willingly abandoned their own halls. Manwë removed his palace from the summit of Taniquetil. Then Aulë, the great Smith, unleashed his full power and unmade the Pelóri, leveling the world's highest peaks into a vast, flat plain.
The radiant light of the Two Trees, no longer obstructed, poured across the world. Light returned to Arda.
Though the dark miasma of the Nameless Thing still contested the radiance, light and darkness reached a stalemate, intertwined across the earth. This was enough. The host of the Valar could now advance into Arda without being overwhelmed by total darkness.
When the light of the Two Trees shone upon the world of Arda, it was the official declaration of war.
The Dagor Dagorath had begun.
Morgoth assembled the full might of his dark host: dragons, Balrogs, monsters, and evil spirits, all positioned to block the western approach and engage the Valar's army in a battle to the death.
Even Sauron, long defeated, had been resurrected by Morgoth through the Flame Imperishable, becoming the Dark Enemy's strongest fallen general and commander of the dark army.
Draugluin, the Lord of Werewolves, and the Progenitor of Vampires, Thuringwethil, were likewise restored to life. Morgoth had used the Flame to rebuild virtually his entire host from the First Age, resurrecting every great servant he had ever commanded.
On the side of Valinor, Manwë himself led the campaign. Tulkas, the Champion, and Oromë, the Huntsman, served as the primary commanders of the vanguard. Eärendil, still bearing the Silmaril upon his brow, sailed Vingilótë once more through the heavens.
The Vanyar marched in their host. The Noldor who had returned from exile joined them. The Teleri provided their ships. The resurrected Dwarves formed their own battalions. Together, they composed a vast and powerful army of light.
Among them, Sylas served as the highest-ranking advisor, ready to assist in the fight against Morgoth at any moment.
The army assembled on the shores of Aman. Ulmo, Lord of Waters, seized command of the crossing, guiding the fleet through the Enchanted Isles and the Shadowy Seas until they reached the waters off the western coast of Middle-earth.
The host of Valinor crossed the world-barrier and the vast ocean, finally making landfall on the western shores of Middle-earth.
Morgoth's dark army was already waiting.
The tension was absolute.
High above, Eärendil aboard Vingilótë, leading a host of Great Eagles and Thunderbirds, engaged Ancalagon the Black in the skies. The two ancient enemies faced each other once more, their hatred blazing across the ages.
Ancalagon, resurrected and more powerful than before, had nursed his grievance across death itself. He launched himself at Eärendil with the fury of a creature that had spent an eternity dreaming of vengeance.
Eönwë, the mightiest of the Maiar, fought Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, in single combat. Thunder and fire clashed with cataclysmic violence, evaporating the sea where it met the shore, tearing the earth asunder, and shattering mountain peaks.
Meanwhile, the supreme kings of the Elven kindreds led their hosts into the fray. Ingwë, High King of the Vanyar, Finarfin, High King of the Noldor, and Olwë, High King of the Teleri, each commanded their warriors in fierce battle against Morgoth's dark legions.
The resurrected Men and Dwarves joined the assault, swelling the ranks of the Host of the Valar.
On another front, Ulmo and Ossë unleashed a raging flood across the continent, extinguishing the flames that wreathed the Balrogs' bodies and triggering volcanic eruptions that turned Morgoth's own terrain against him.
The battle between the Host of the Valar and Morgoth's dark army was fierce and magnificent, surpassing even the War of Wrath in its brutality. Countless lives were lost with every passing moment. The heavens were shrouded in darkness. Meteorites fell from the ruined sky. The earth cracked and split. Floods engulfed the lowlands while a sea of fire consumed the highlands.
It was a scene of absolute apocalypse.
Even though the Valar had not yet committed their full remaining strength, the sheer destruction already inflicted upon Arda had pushed the world to the brink of collapse.
And just as the forces of Valinor were gradually gaining the upper hand, the ground of Middle-earth shook with a violence that dwarfed anything that had come before.
The Nameless Thing erupted from the depths.
It tore a chasm thousands of miles across the continent as it burst through the surface, its colossal body crushing the armies of Elves, Men, and Dwarves beneath it, devouring entire battalions in a single gulp.
The creature was beyond comprehension. Its body was dark and viscous, its height immeasurable, its far end invisible. It radiated a primordial, chaotic aura that instilled a suffocating, primal terror in every living being that beheld it, as though they were staring into the end of all things.
Even the survivors, the bravest warriors of Valinor, felt their will to fight drain away at the sight of it. Despair took hold.
Then the world stopped.
Time itself froze across the entirety of Arda. And then, impossibly, it began to reverse.
The River of Time manifested in the physical world, vast and luminous, flowing backward at tremendous speed. In an instant, every soldier of the Host of the Valar who had died, crushed or devoured by the Nameless Thing, was restored to life.
Sylas had intervened.
Standing atop the River of Time, his figure colossal against the burning sky, he reversed death itself and returned every fallen warrior to the battlefield.
The resurrected soldiers retained their memories of dying. Their faces showed relief and lingering fear in equal measure. Then they looked upward, toward the towering figure astride the temporal current, and their expressions shifted to awe and fierce gratitude.
Knowing that even death could not claim them so long as the Lord of Time stood watch, the morale of the Host of the Valar surged. With renewed fury, they charged once more into the dark army.
On Morgoth's side, panic spread rapidly. The dark forces faced an impossible tactical reality: the enemy could be resurrected endlessly, while their own casualties were permanent and irreversible. In a short time, Morgoth's legions began to fall back.