"Anything?" Avorá, the pontiff of the Church of Space, asked one of the cardinals that just entered her office.
“Not a single answer from the Myriad Palace. Pontiff, if we wait much longer our defense lines will collapse, we need to perform the ritual of summoning as soon as-” He got interrupted as his body suddenly felt the force of gravity increasing by several times, only managing to avoid being crushed to death due to his high stats and own spatial skills.
“Cardinal Ferdinand, I must remind you that the summoning ritual isn’t forbidden without its reasons, it must not be considered so lightly by anyone, even less from someone in the position of a cardinal like you” Avorá scolded Ferdinand like a disobedient child. “I ordered all of the cardinals to read the secret documents about the summoning ritual, so I know you know why it was forbidden in the first place. If we attempt to start the ritual without the proper catalyst, we will end up with a bunch of creatures deformed by the void. So tell me, cardinal, do you want to fight void creatures AND the half-demons?”
“..forgive me for my foolishness, pontiff” Ferdinand said with his head low, the pressure Avorá was emitting vanishing like it was never there. “If you excuse me, I’ll check the stability of the magical matrix of the ritual”
Ferdinand left the room after Avorá gave him her permission to leave. She sat on her chair behind her desk and gave out a long sigh.
“It seems that you are having trouble keeping your subordinates in line” A female voice came from behind the pontiff, startling her as she teleported from her chain next to the door already standing up and looking at the source of the voice. Behind her chair, next to the closed window, was a androgynous human in a formal suit. Their hair was golden and reached the middle of their back and their eyes were shining in a rainbow color that was constantly changing. The suit itself was an immaculate black, without a single speck of dust or fold, almost as if the suit was made to be exactly the size of the wearer. Avorá was in position to be able to teleport to a safe place in case of anything this person might try, even though they already teleported to an area she considered safe as her room had piles upon piles of safeguards against spatial magic like teleportation or portals.
“I assume you already know but following your customs of presenting oneself when first meeting someone I am Lilith, first Angel of The Dragon King” Lilith presented themselves and Avorá’s eyes went wide as she realized who was in front of her. The angel in front of her was none other than the highest position someone in the Myriad Palace could have without being the Dragon King himself, after all Lilith was created by the divine powers of the Dragon King and no one would be stupid enough to take her presence lightly.
“O-of course, Mrs Lilith. I was just surprised at your sudden appearance at my office” Avorá smiled as she prepared a chair for Lilith to sit, to which they accepted. “Would you like something to drink? Perhaps some tea?” She said as she took a cup and a teapot from her storage space and place directly in front of Lilith, but they refused.
“Perhaps on another occasion. At the moment I’m here to discuss the request your church made to the Myriad Palace with the signature of the king of this country” They said, to which Avorá immediately stored the cup and teapot back inside her storage space and smiled at Lilith before speaking back.
“Yes, we are honored to have someone of your stature here to discuss this matter. But first I must ask. If I remember correctly, we just made the request for a spatial matrix that could sustain enough energy to collapse a small pocket dimension, I’m sure such an item wouldn’t require the attention of someone so important like yourself” Avorá asked. Even though she was desperate for the catalyst to finish the summoning ritual, she couldn’t shake the itch in her brain about why Lilith of all people would come personally to discuss something so below her.
“If it were any other time you would be correct. A simple spatial matrix like the one you describe is easy enough for us to create that it wouldn’t even be a bother” They said as a crystal formed in their hand. “As you can see, it didn’t even take me a second to create such an item, but yet, I’m here” They said as the crystal in their hand broke apart and disappeared back inside Lilith’s body.
“If I could be so bold as to ask why you, a person who must be so occupied by much more important tasks, would choose to come to this lowly kingdom to discuss our request” Avorá said with a smile as her back was starting to sweat with anxiousness.
“I will be honest, If this were a normal circumstance I would not have come here and another one would have been designated to approve or reject your request” Lilith said.
“Then why-” Avorá started but got interrupted by Lilith.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“My master knows about your preparations for the summoning ritual” She said, which immediately made Avorá freeze in place for a few seconds. “As the pontiff of your church, you must know the reasons as to why it was forbidden in the first place. But not only did you chose to ignore the restrictions and try to use it, you even tried to hide this information from the Myriad Palace”
“We are so-...” Avorá got interrupted again.
“But by a reason only known to my master and the Gods, he chose to not only let you continue the summoning ritual, but lent you something so precious that I cannot even fathom why he would lend this to someone as you” Lilith said. Avorá was confused as to what they were talking about, after all, what kind of spatial matrix would be so important for The Dragon King to be personally involved, but all the doubts she had were washed away when Lilith took what they brought from their pocket dimension.
In Lilith’s hand rested an egg that was the size of their own torso. It was a coloration like Avorá never saw before, it looked like a nebula trapped inside an egg shaped glass, it even moved around in the shell. It was clearly a dragon egg given the size and the pattern on its shell, though to whom it belongs to, there was only one answer that would involve Lilith and The Dragon King both.
“Is this the Dragon King’s egg?” Avorá asked, her voice trembling as if she would anger Lilith asking such a question.
“Yes, this is my master’s only egg. That’s why I can’t understand the reasoning for lending you his child. But understand your position here. This egg will be lent to you for your usage as the spatial matrix in the summoning ritual, and only that. If something happens with his egg, your nation and your church will cease to exist in the face of this planet. Is that understood?” Lilith said with such seriousness that left no doubt that they would follow their threat to eradicate the kingdom and every member of her church. With a nod from Avorá, Lilith said “Good” before standing up and walking around the desk to give the egg to Avorá, who received it and almost fell to the ground when Lilith took their hands off the egg, it weighted next to 200 kilos, Avorá suspected, to be able to almost knock her to the ground like this.
After Lilith had vanished like she was never there, with the only thing that confirmed she was in fact there was the egg resting in Avorá’s arms. Without a moment's hesitation, she called four cardinals who rushed in and helped her to bring the egg to the grand hall where the summoning ritual would be happening.
After placing the egg in the middle of the ritual, suspended in the air by magic. The four cardinals and the one hundred bishops hurried to finish the adjustments to the ritual to allow for something so powerful as the Dragon King’s egg to be used as the catalyst for the ritual. Big columns of complex magic circuit rose to the air as the bishop drew them and placed inside them jewels so precious that simply using them as they were being used right now would throw the kingdom in an economic crisis, but it was what was necessary for them to survive the plague that were the half-demons.
Next were five available cardinals of the eight in total that the church had. Ferdinand and the other cardinals used a skill called [Collaboration] to synchronize their magic, casting a high level spatial magic called [Dimensional Collapse]. A single cardinal using [Dimensional Collapse] would be enough to compress a space of 10 cubed meters down to a single centimeter, crushing everything inside with the same force as a mountain, but as the five cardinals each compressed the same area synchronizing their magic, the area encompassing the ritual, space itself started to collapse into itself and only held together by the ritual.
As the entire ritual area was compressed down to the size of a dust particle, the space it once stood was now empty, but before the universe could refill the nothingness with more space, Avorá threw ten white diamonds that danced around the edge of the small void created by combining five uses of [Dimensional Collapse] before connecting all of them with her magic. The diamonds stood still with a single line of magicules connecting all of them as it surrounded the void, with a twist of her hand, the diamonds turned the tip of its facet to the void while her other hand touched it.
“[Black Hole]” She chanted and the edge of the void became bright as millions of intricate magical circuit drew themselves in the nothingness before they all fell into the center, the compressed ritual, it engraved itself on the barrier the ritual created and compressed it way further than its Schwarzschild radius, collapsing it into a true black hole. “[Black Nova]” She chanted at the same time as she channeled the magic through the diamond link, making them shoot a pale white light into the newly formed black hole.
Immediately the world shook as the black hole decompressed all at once, and the only reason Avorá, the cardinals and the bishops weren’t throw into the walls of the grand hall was because they each were wearing dimensional anchor amulets head to toe, but even then some of the weaker bishops were thrown a few meters behind as space bent all around them. Those who managed to keep in the same place were now inside another room filled with people who were wearing strange clothes, but they all had terrified expressions on their faces.
Avorá dismissed the results of the ritual for the moment, her eyes focusing in the center of the room. Where it looked like something should be in there judging by the strange room she found herself in, it was replaced by the floor of the grand hall the centerpiece of the ritual was placed, and in there, suspended in midair by the magic that still hold it there, was the egg that was entrusted to her. With a sigh of relief, Avorá took a step forward to retrieve the egg and return it to its owner.
As she placed her hands on the egg, relief turned to horror as the egg cracked and shattered into dozens of pieces, revealing nothing but a single white scale inside.