As the Knight holds the door, and the others defend themselves against the lovechild of a shadow and a squid, the outside is calm, quiet.
Things are normal, or what goes for normal in this world. The newly created birds, amalgams of golden memories and the whims of Father Darkness, roost in the branches of trees created in a similar manner. The lantern lights flicker over a spatially warped street; A sack of spider silk moves ever so slightly in the web covered ruins of an ancient civilisation.
And a small many-limbed crystal creature is making its way through an open buffet.
It had been despondent at first, its form had been made over many cycles, an enormous effort with many enemies in its way. It had lost all of that progress when it came into this place, sensing a world completely alien to it. A great area filled with… something, an enormous void below brimming with absence and a small island of normality.
It spent enormous amounts of energy to get here, falling into hibernation when it was on the ground once more.
When it came to it found itself still alive, not subsumed by a predator. Even better, there was copious amounts of unclaimed material around it, with no-one else within its range.
And now having made a simple body, the opalescent crystal, hulled in electricity skitters through the landscape. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, jut out of the ground all around it.
Its numerous thin legs are made of jade, reforming in shape as its lightning alters the structure of the crystals, causing haphazard extremely speedy movements and quite a bit of heat.
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The creature is ecstatic, rushing all over the place, tapping the various coloured growths with its little legs, using the vibrations to test for impurities and finding none. It is still moving around when the world changes noticeably; Noticeably for the birds and the tentacled monsters, at least.
The Crystalline doesn't notice at all when the background illumination ceases to exist. It is still happily cutting away at a piece of ruby with an electrical blade of jade, ready to make itself a new power core. The street lanterns still shed their Light, the internals of the trains remain lit and the crystal arch gives off a faint glow; Beyond what is illuminated by those lights– which is quite a lot actually, it doesn't lose strength the further it goes –the only thing visible is the White, not emitting Light, simply an absence of color perceived as such.
It's working on the sapphire orb when the golden shimmers in the sky, the sublimated memories and shreds of material that have been erased, begin to form tiny Stars; Stars which bring their own illumination to the world, lighting up what has now become Night.
It has the orbs of ruby and sapphire within a Jade container filled with molten salt when true Time, not the derivatives, takes hold and the Sun rises from the White as it becomes Day. The birds stir with some primal joy whereas the tentacled ones look on with a sense of caution.
The Crystalline does notice the Sun, not in the same way as the others though. It merely feels the energizing of its body as it heats up and realizes that it's not underground.
It attaches the new core to itself, becoming quite a bit bulkier when the wind begins to blow. It notes this too, the feeling of pressure as the Weather changes. Which is all it is to the Crystalline.
Fear fills it as it notices the presence of another of its kind, far above, but far more powerful. It braces for an attack, but lowers its guard when nothing comes. The Divine spark it senses lingers above, shaping its own self from the faith of mortals.
The fear is replaced by a growing hunger. An urge that was there before, but is strengthened now as it becomes one of the laws of this world. The Crystalline sees a prey, above, far stronger than it right now. But eventually, Apotheosis will occur.