This document was recovered in its original Latin by a descendant of one of the Monks who came to inhabit the Monastery after its purging. It is suspected to be the only remaining account of one of Darkness's few triumphs over the Light.
I sing of arms and four men, who first from the fire-filled rivers of Cleveland journeyed to the distant East and sought the sight, the mind, and the force of three greater wielders of darkness than any dreamt by man's most horrible nightmares. As it was but their fate to aspire to so monumental a feat, into their hands the relics of these Three fell and soon the discarded ruins of Tristram felt their broken foundations shaken by the apocalyptic war that ensued.
As the four beacons of hope first into the great battlefield entered, so did they then see their first glimpse of Doom itself, for the legions marshaled against them laid siege with an overwhelming ferocity not known to any outside the deepest depths of the Internets. As they fought to gain even the tiniest glimpse of those three terrible horrors, it seemed that every slain beast lent the earth seed to grow two more fell creatures. The heroes were repeatedly sent back as mere wisps of the Light that had until then guided them with such steady a ray and filled them with so invincible a radiance.
Just as it seemed the Light could no longer be seen through the bones of those living dead striking at the four heroes did they contrive a plan so impeccably certain in its victory that it warped the very foundations of the universe to accommodate its being. Creating in his eccentric ways a sturdy wall, both vile and elegant, of the remains of those slain before, the Bone shaped the flow of battle into a river leading straight into Baal's own lake, trapping him beneath the unstoppable downpour of the Shadow's vicious wrath and the Shield's righteous fury, with the Staff calling upon the very heavens themselves to rain destruction upon that Lord. The brilliance he faced soon saw him shatter apart into the Void from which the mortal realm can never be seen.
As quickly and brightly as the light of a massive flare does burn out, so too did these Four soon see their momentary triumph fade when, in a rage even the most vengeful human could not attain, the Lord of Terror unleashed himself upon them. So unrelenting and wrathful was the assault that the Shield found his parries thwarted and the Shadow lost the body from which his outline was cast, leaving only the smallest of hopes to stand between Pandemonium and the heroes. But even the tiniest of flames can be nurtured into the most enraged blaze, and the Four let forth their burning perseverance until the Shadow needed to fend off Diablo no more.
It is the nature of the world to bring day after night, shine after rain, and peace after war; yet even as consistent an entity as the Universe itself must occasionally falter or stumble, causing the most dire of upsets in the realm of mortals. Alas, for as the Four were certain the battle with the last One was won, the unholy hatred harbored by Mephisto rendered Fate's inevitable circumstances into chaos and took away the dawn so eagerly expected by the heroes. The Lord's aura of spite was such that no amount of bravery allowed the Bone's craft, the Staff's will, the Shadow's aim or the Shield's might to lay the forces of Light upon him, and to extend forever his impenetrable flaunting of the Four's weakness before them, he broke apart the threads of time holding Tristram together and consigned everything within it to the inescapable location addressable only as Null.