Merak stood above the planet Ver, cloaked against the sights of the hundreds or so eyes that constantly watched the entire system from all sides.

  Leceia had departed a few hours ago on some assignment from the emerald lords, and his newly enslaved ascendants had been sent away to keep the attention of their former masters away from this system.

  The deaths of a few ascendants was one thing, but the sudden disappearance of all of them would have brought down the full might of the Jezaar's down on this part of the Galaxy, an occurrence Merak knew the nations here weren't ready for.

  While one body hovered above the planet, another was tracking the movements of the Herald, Kairen Kord who, for some reason, was alarmingly close to the Lese Worlds.

  With his actions against the Sun Spirit of his ward's home system and the assassination and subjugation of half of the Jezaar's Ascendants, he felt like he'd meddled enough. Too much and Karma could swiftly turn against him.

  A third avatar hovered deep in the body of a nebula, hidden cleanly from both the senses and sights of the dozen ascendants from the Millennials Wardens meeting concerning the sudden disappearance of the WorldSackers. He knew a concern like this was never going to be left un-investigated, seeing as it was the disappearance of multiple ascendants, not Spirit Kings.

  The fear and concern that those ascendants could be hidden away, waiting to strike at an inopportune moment was something that couldn't be simply shrugged away.

  Amongst the other Ascendants, Attrevia Verrille was a prominent presence here. He knew she wasn't fully here, as an avatar of her's, though one far less powerful, still remained in her home system, guarding it. But the fact that she'd taken a significant portion of her power with her showed how much she cared about the presence of the WorldSackers.

  While he watched, his mind went to work, cataloging information from all of his avatars to be analyzed and worked on later, while another part of his mind used his inherent authority over the essence of Divination to look through the past, present, and future for any threats.

  Suddenly, darkness encroached from sides, snuffing out his sights, both in the metaphysical and the physical; all were swallowed by darkness, and a cold feeling of dread suddenly swept over him.

  Merak was down two-thirds of his full power, and normally that would have been more powerful than what most average ascendants could bring to bear. So considering that even with that, the future of this body, his main body, seemed so bleak as to be non-existent, he took precautions into his own hands and stepped back through space, appearing on the outskirts of the system.

  He'd only just appeared when a voice came forth, deep and soul wrenching, causing all of the system and even those beyond to tremble.

  I CALL TO THE BEYOND,

  TO THE OTHER OF REALITY.

  I CALL TO THE ONES OUTSIDE CREATION,

  TO THE ONES UNMADE,

  WHO LURK AND LOOM,

  I GIVE MY SOUL AS PAYMENT,

  DESCEND...

  AND DEVOUR.

  Merak hissed when the chant finally came to fruition. He knew those words, all ascendants and even Spirit Kings knew those words. They were words that should never have been thought off, talk less of spoken off.

  He watched as the giant, powerful sun dimmed, its light swallowed by a deep, eternal darkness that swept into the system in a wave, freezing time and eroding the fabric of reality by its mere presence.

  Reality shattered, forming into a hole that hovered above the three planets...

  And something stepped through.

  ***

  Domien watched from the arena as the sky was swallowed up by darkness, a darkness born from some kind of nightmare. And then it swallowed the planet as well.

  He crashed down on his knees, blinded and choking as a corrosive substance began eating at his mind and soul. He felt his soul slowly corrode away just as memories from years ago began vanishing.

  Damien panicked, recognizing that within moments he'd be nothing more than a walking husk of flesh, devoid of soul and mind. And even with that knowledge, there was nothing he could do.

  From deep within, Gray's voice came forth, deep and comforting.

  [Hold on,] and then a wave of gray energy swept out from Damien's body, rolling through the arena and even beyond. And wherever it passed, the sea of darkness was pushed away, kept at bay.

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  And then the World Spirit awoke.

  PROTECTION

  Light returned just as a bright dome of blue white light spread across the planet, rising into the sky until an all round shield had formed, on the surface of which were written hundreds and hundreds of runic languages Damien knew nothing of but which felt archaic.

  After one last blinding brilliance, evoking a feeling of healing and protection, they dimmed into invisibility, and thank goodness they did at that moment. A little more and he'd have gone unconscious from merely looking at them.

  A silent shriek, felt both in his mind and soul, swept across the world, and Damien turned his face upwards towards the giant hole hovering over them. He watched as a creature, trailing power of such sheer scale that space itself died at its presence stepped through.

  It was a humanoid creature, thin as a skeleton and pale as a corpse, with a gangly looking appearance.

  Thin rags clothed its form except for the extremely oblong face, which was like a nightmare come true, seeing as where its eyes and mouth should have been, deep black holes existed, giving off the intense feeling of dreadful and unquenchable hunger, like a ravenous monster that wanted to eat and eat and not get satisfied.

  And then a bolt of crimson lightning struck at it.

  From nowhere at all, a woman appeared. She was old and hunched, with pure white hair and leaning on a walking stick which she used to slowly hobble forward.

  Her dreadful visage was clothed in wrath as she beheld the creature that had just stepped through the unreal.

  "Begone, creature!" She said, and her eyes shone a blinding crimson, filled with so much destruction that wherever she looked, space cracked and shattered. "My home will not be sustenance for you."

  Multiple lightning bolts struck out in the wake of her words, each stretching across the sky in such massiveness that it was like somebody took a massive paint brush the size of a continent and drew a jagged lightning bolt across half the sky.

  The woman fired dozens every second, causing the planetary shield to brighten and crack.

  And then the creature finally turned its attention to her.

  Its black Abyssal maw opened wide and a black substance spread out of it in a crushing wave, moving to engulf her, only to be met with another wave of crimson.

  "Hmph!"

  The old woman flicked her walking stick at the creature with one hand and then snapped her fingers with the other, and Damien grunted from the sheer pressure as a massive crescent wave of crimson death washed over the creature, lighting it up alongside space for light-years.

  The old woman wasn't the only one who rose against the creature.

  From deeper in the system, there was a tiny flash of white gold, which suddenly grew until it became another wall of essence that pushed back the darkness. And then another woman stepped forward.

  She was an elf with beautiful, yet harsh features. Her hair was a bright green and her beautiful jade eyes stared at the creature with a deep expression of contempt, like it was the antithesis of her existence.

  In both her hands were two long, deadly sickles, made from some kind of black steel and trailing sickly green smoke.

  The weapon must have been extremely powerful because Damien could swear he felt like the life was being sucked out of him just by looking at it.

  A third ascendant rose into the sky.

  Narkyra Verrille was brimming with nightmarish power as she rose to hover behind the old woman.

  Her deep black hair roiled as if caught in a storm and her eyes, despite the distance, shone a bright crimson no less horrific than those of the old woman.

  Two sharp, serrated daggers, exhaling catastrophic power were gripped in her hands, set in a combat stance with the edges facing the invading creature.

  A third ascendant brimming with the power of an ocean also rose to join them, surrounded by a swirling orb of water so massive that Damien knew it could swallow this planet whole with space to spare.

  The man held a wooden staff in both hands, hovering with a wave of deep azure rising behind him.

  And then a fifth entity joined them.

  The Sun Spirit of the Ver system had been swallowed up in the earlier arrival of the creature, but now its luminescence glowed, shining so bright it sliced off the wall of darkness attempting to consume it.

  Like the one back at the system Sceleris, it projected a humanoid body, this time made with flames of crimson gold, with power so crushing that it wasn't much different from that of the first woman.

  "Abomination," the Sun Spirit said, its voice thundering through the world like a global earthquake.

  "Phew!" Somebody said and Damien turned to look at Huiron. The Saulae scion mimed wiping sweat from his brow and then he sighed in relief. "Five high tier Ascendants against a monster. The result of this is already settled. We need to start planning the cleanup."

  [I wouldn't be so sure about that,] Gray said and the eyes of everyone present turned to him.

  "Who're you?!" Huiron asked just as Sareina murmured.

  "A Minder."

  "Yes," Vanis stepped forward. "It belongs to Damien." He gestured. "Minder, tell us what you mean."

  Clearly unbothered by the many wary stares directed at him, Gray spoke. [That thing up there is a hollow, the equivalent of a high tier Harbinger or Herald. Powerful beyond imagination and capable of growing extremely powerful within a short while. I'm very sorry to say, young scion, but if help—Cult Help—does not arrive soon, we're all going to die.]

  The room was deadly silent as everyone looked at Gray, and then Huiron laughed loudly. "Damien, was it? I think your Minder is malfunctioning."

  But Damien wasn't listening to him, he was focused on Gray and the fear that laced his voice. Of all the dangerous situations Damien had ever been in, this was the first time the minder was showing fear, actual fear.

  "Gray, what do you mean?"

  [Hollows, like their masters, the creatures of the unreal, are beings antithetical to reality in its entirety. They exist to consume and consume until there's nothing left. And no matter how powerful those Ascendants up there are, they won't be able to defeat it before it consumes one of them, which would only make it stronger. Nothing short of a fundamental element can defeat a creature of the unreal.]

  "But Grandma wields a fundamental element," Vanis interjected.

  [Child, your Duchess is not at full power at the moment. A significant part of herself is off system, far away. And even if she were here in her entirety, we would still be dead. You of all people should know the reason she's called the Desolate Duchess.]

  Vanis said nothing, but his brother did. "We've got to help her. What about the Divine Kings? We should rally them to help Grandma."

  Gray sighed. [I think your Divine Kings are pre-occupied at the moment, and are going to be for a long while.]

  Damien, alongside everyone else, looked up, and then he turned his attention down on Gray. "What are you talking about? None of the Divine Kings have risen to fight that thing."

  At that moment Nalon, alongside the other three warders, snapped up their heads, their auras erupting in an instant.

  "We're being invaded.”