The War Room of Bastion was usually a place of grim determination and strategic planning. Today, however, it felt more like an intervention for a friend who kept bringing stray dogs home — except the dog was a Void-Summoner draped in the skins of alternate dimensions.

  “So,” Anna said, leaning against the table, her eyes fixed on Zareth. The summoner was currently allowing one of his floating grimoires to nibble affectionately on his finger. “Let me get this straight. Our new ally... talks to things that don’t really exist, invites them into our reality, and asks if they want to be friends or murder victims?”

  “Succinct,” Zareth noted, his voice hollow and pleasant. “Though you miss the nuance of the invitation, Mistress Anna. It is about etiquette. The Void is polite to those who know the knocks.”

  Zareth stood in the center of the room, his galaxy-eyes swirling lazily. His presence twisted the light in the corners of the room, making shadows stretch toward him like iron filings to a magnet.

  “He fits right in,” Silas murmured from a dark corner, though even he stayed a few feet back from the summoner.

  “He makes us look like the villains,” Anna sighed, gesturing at the ensemble. “Your Anima always were very eccentric but at least it was in a cute loving way. So you went ahead and summoned a warlock who wears a robe made of literal nightmares... Eren, are you sure we’re the good guys?”

  “We’re the efficient guys,” I corrected, smiling as Zareth patted his book. “And you’re misjudging him. He’s actually very sweet.”

  Zareth beamed — a terrifying expression where his smile seemed to split his face just a little too wide. “I am merely a host. I provide a venue for the lonely things in the dark.”

  “Speaking of the dark,” Lucas interrupted, always the pragmatist. “Eren mentioned your ability to ‘Call’ threats. Can you elaborate? We just secured the region. I’d prefer not to accidentally invite an invasion.”

  Zareth glided to the map table. He didn’t walk; his robes dragged on the floor, and his upper body simply arrived at the destination.

  “The Void is not empty,” Zareth explained, tracing a finger over the map. “It is... dense. Filled with hunger. And I simply build doors to allow them entry after a Call.”

  He held up three fingers.

  “There are three knocks. The first is the Bond Call. This asks for a friend. A familiar. Something to serve.” He pointed to the small imp-creature perched on his shoulder, grooming itself.

  “The second is the Bargain. I ask for a specific service — spy, move, hold — in exchange for Mana or Primal Essence from the kills.”

  He lowered his voice, the lights in the room dimming sympathetically.

  “And the third... is the Challenge.”

  “You summon an enemy intentionally?” Anna asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “I send out a pulse of pure, concentrated Killing Intent,” Zareth whispered. “I insult the dark. I find a thread in the lattice connected to a powerful entity, and I tug on it until it snaps. The entity comes through... annoyed.”

  “Annoyed?” I asked.

  “Murderous,” Zareth corrected. “But they come. That is the key. They cross the threshold. And once they are here... they are corporeal.”

  He looked at me with those swirling purple eyes.

  “It is a delivery service, Sovereign. For chaos.”

  “Why would you do that?” Lucas frowned.

  “Loot!” I shouted, realizing the potential instantly. “We don’t have to hunt high-tier monsters if we can deliver them into a kill-box.”

  Zareth clapped his hands softly. “Exactly! The Sovereign understands hospitality. Should you succeed in defeating the Called being, they tend to offer extremely valuable material.”

  “I want to see it,” I decided. “But not here. If you summon something ‘Annoyed’ inside Bastion, Leoric will have a stroke if his lab gets stepped on.”

  “There is a ravine three hundred miles north,” Silas suggested. “Desolate. Good lines of sight.”

  “Perfect,” I nodded. “Gear up. Let’s see what kind of guests Zareth can bring to the table.”

  An hour later, we stood on the edge of a jagged ravine in the northern wilds. The Essence Flood had turned the rock here into jagged spikes of black slate, and the air smelled of dust.

  We cleared the perimeter. I had Lucas and Anna hold a wide observation ring while Nyx stood by as a failsafe.

  Zareth stood in the center of the ravine floor. I stood twenty paces away, maximizing my Perception, with my new Tier 7 Domain contained but ready to explode.

  “What level of guest would you like?” Zareth asked politely, opening his central Grimoire. “A light snack? Or a main course?”

  “Not too crazy, but do push it,” I ordered. “I just evolved. I want to test my weight. Is it possible to bring me a Tier 7? Can you even determine their Tier beforehand?”

  Zareth paused. “I can get a general feel of their Tier during the Call, yes. I predict the highest I could call right now would be a Tier 8 but that’s extremely difficult and would need a long time to set up. For Tier 7, the mana required is... substantial. But I can accommodate.”

  He began to chant.

  It wasn’t magic as I knew it. He wasn’t pulling mana from the atmosphere. He was tearing it out of himself. His Spirit flared, massive and dense. He forced his will into the air, creating a geometric pattern of purple light that burned against the retina.

  The sound of the world muted. A low, grinding vibration shook the canyon walls.

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  Zareth reached into the portal and pulled.

  “I deny you!” he roared in a language of clicks and static. “Come and claim your debt!”

  He was making it a show for us. Taunting a cosmic horror.

  The portal ripped open.

  Something came through.

  It hit the ground with enough force to crack the bedrock. Dust and debris exploded outward.

  When the dust cleared, I stared.

  It was a Void-Tethered Ravager.

  It looked like a centipede made of oil and hate, easily fifty feet long. Its carapace shifted, phasing in and out of reality. It had too many legs, and each one ended in a blade of solidified vacuum. Its face was a cluster of red eyes surrounding a maw that dripped neon-blue saliva.

  “Our guest has arrived!” Zareth called out, floating backwards rapidly. “He is very grumpy!”

  The Ravager screamed — a sound that bypassed ears and hit the nervous system directly — and charged. Not at Zareth, but at the highest mana signature instead.

  It seemed like the creature saw what they thought to be food after being deprived for eternity.

  “Come on then,” I grinned.

  I met the charge.

  I didn’t dodge. I wanted to test my Body stat. I activated my Domain, condensing gravity around my arm, and slammed into the creature’s mandibles.

  The impact created a shockwave that flattened the surrounding slate spires. I skidded back ten feet, digging trenches with my boots. The Ravager reared back, stunned.

  “Strong,” I assessed. “Physical force equivalent to a low to mid Tier 7. Impressive you could summon something like that so quickly…”

  The beast dissolved into mist and reappeared behind me. Teleportation.

  I reacted instantly. [Void Perception] tracked its coordinate shift before it materialized. I spun, swinging my sword in a wide arc coated in fire from my [Ashen Domain].

  The blade connected with its flank. The fire bit deep, searing the oil-black shell. But the creature didn’t bleed; it leaked raw Void energy that tried to corrode my sword.

  We traded blows for ten minutes. It was brutal, high-speed combat. The Ravager used space as a weapon — opening mini-rifts to deflect my strikes, twisting gravity to throw me off balance.

  This would have been a good fight had I still been Tier 6. But I was an equal in Tier now.

  When it tried to crush me with a gravity well, I overwrote the well with my own Authority. When it tried to phase out, I followed it into the Void and kicked it back into reality.

  I was easily winning, but I was still sweating. This wasn’t a dungeon mob with a simple pattern. This was a wild, intelligent, hateful thing from the deep dark. And it was very powerful, with a strong Void Affinity somewhat comparable to Korthos'.

  “Zareth!” I shouted, dodging a tail-swipe that sheared a boulder in half. “You pulled a heavy one!”

  “It was the loudest voice in the local area!” Zareth shouted back, sounding delighted as he took notes in his book. “Void beasts usually have a tether to the Void if you can Perceive it!”

  I already saw it. My [Void Perception] showed thick tether connected to a cluster of glowing purple nerves between the armored plates.

  I engaged [Void Walk]. I appeared directly above the creature. I didn’t use the Flame of Ending — I didn’t want to overly rely on a tool I should reserve for emergencies. Instead, I channeled pure kinetic mana into my blade, increasing its density until it weighed as much as a tank.

  “How would you like a Gravity guillotine,” I growled.

  I drove the sword down.

  It punched through the armor, severed the junction, and pinned the beast to the canyon floor.

  The Ravager thrashed, shrieked, and went limp.

  Silence returned to the canyon.

  I stood on the corpse, panting slightly. My regeneration was already clearing the micro-fractures caused by my lack of control of my Body's enhanced strength.

  “Good Essence farm too,” I confirmed.

  Zareth floated over, clapping politely. “Excellent form, Sovereign. Very direct. Very violent. The Void approves.” He looked a little silly, giving me a thumbs up with a wide smile that would give most people horrific nightmares.

  “That was intense,” Anna said, descending from the cliffside with Lucas. “Eren, that thing was Tier 7. Legitimately. You summoned a regional boss just to spar?”

  “And look,” I pointed at the carcass.

  Unlike summoned mana-constructs, which usually vanished upon death, or clones which dissolved into Essence after a while... this body stayed.

  It lay there, a massive, steaming heap of high-tier materials. The carapace. The void-glands. The spatial-sacks.

  “It doesn’t disappear?” Lucas asked, touching the oily shell.

  “Real entity,” Zareth explained, running a hand over the dead beast’s flank lovingly. “I didn’t create it. I moved it. When it dies... the meat remains.”

  “Do you know what this means?” Leoric’s voice screeched over the comms link. I had been broadcasting the data.

  A portal opened nearby. The Artificer sprinted out, followed by a drone.

  He ran to the corpse, scanning it with frantic glee.

  “Void-Chitin! High-grade spatial catalyst! The blood alone is worth a fortune in the alchemy exchange! This is minimum Epic-grade material, possibly Legendary for the core!”

  Leoric looked up at Zareth with pure adoration.

  “You... you beautiful, well kept man! I have misjudged you! Welcome! Let us discuss what else you can bring, I have a few materials I need for...”

  Zareth preened, his robes billowing. “The Void provides.”

  “You said you could summon Tier 7s daily?” I asked Zareth.

  “With my current mana Core? Yes. Once a day,” Zareth confirmed. “I can also Call multiple lower Tiers daily if you desire. Or... if I rest for a week... I could widen the door. I could issue a Challenge to a Tier 8.”

  The team went silent.

  “Tier 8 loot,” Leoric whispered, drooling slightly.

  “We are not doing Tier 8 yet,” I said firmly. “This Tier 7 put up a fight. A fight against a Tier 8 might level up the entire settlement. I need more time to consolidate my new power and find a place a lot farther away for that.”

  But the implication was staggering.

  We didn’t need to scour the wilderness for rare spawns, Sanctum Lords or Awakened Ruins and Dungeons. We didn’t need to wait for our personal Dungeons to reset.

  Zareth was a walking Loot generator.

  “Is this normal?” I asked Zareth quietly as the others began to harvest the corpse. “Is this beast... special?”

  “Average,” Zareth shrugged. “A bottom-feeder in the deeper layers. There are trillions like it.”

  I looked at the massive, terrifying corpse being disassembled by Leoric’s drones. An average bottom feeder. The scope of the Void was terrifying.

  But for us?

  “Zareth,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Can you filter for specific materials? Say... heavy metals? Or conductors?”

  “I can call for creatures with ‘Heavy Souls’,” Zareth mused. “Usually Void Barons or elementals answer that Call.”

  “Good,” I grinned.

  I turned to the group. The sun was setting, casting long shadows over the ravine. But for the first time in a while, I didn't feel the pressure of the timeline.

  “Change of schedule,” I announced. “The next few days? We aren’t just training. We’re also Hunting.”

  “A Hunt!” Rexxar cheered from the comms, clearly upset he missed this one. “I want to slay a Void beast!”

  “Everyone gets a turn,” I promised. “We’re going to gear this entire army in a minimum of Tier 5 plating. As long as Leoric finds a way to make it feasible for a lower Tier. Maybe we can create special “downgraded” armor until their Cores can handle it.”

  I looked at Zareth. “Let us open the door again for a Tier 7 tomorrow.”

  Zareth bowed, his purple eyes swirling with mirth.

  “It will be my pleasure, Sovereign. The doorbell is always ringing.”