That night a world had a slight interruption to whatever entertainment they favored.
It was a much more advanced world than Earth, or at least the world humans referred to as ‘Earth,’ so this interruption was a little more all-encompassing. Video games were paused, ‘offline’ entertainment followed suit and even board games radiated a simple message.
Unknown anomaly detected. Threat to the masses detected. If you believe you know the location of an anomaly inform your local authorities. The anomaly is described as a [unknown]. Please await further information, it will be provided as it becomes available.
There were abilities that let you detect when you were in danger, as well as a number of abilities that could indirectly give you information about a being.
And obviously once they found out they were in serious trouble the governments and other actual powers stepped in, preparing to negotiate with or destroy this being or failing that find out how to keep as many safe as possible.
These governments worked together well when their higher ranks had something screaming in their minds about how they were going to die horribly. They quickly gathered its general location and the fact that a slaver cult had summoned it in a randomized teleportation circle.
Normally you would need exact coordinates to teleport something any distance at all, so to get around this, randomized teleportation circles would grab someone from somewhere at random and list the general coordinates of where it came from. Useful if you don't have to deal with the consequences of whatever they had just grabbed.
They knew a bit more about it than that, stuff that was also released to the public.
The thing that proved to be so dangerous was bright. So bright that you couldn't see it.
And bright so that you don't apparently, a number of messages came in from many kingdoms simultaneously. Using abilities to see it caused insanity, looking at it was rewarded with madness and death. It could also see you when you scryed it, quickly everyone's citizens were informed specifically that scrying it was now a felony and punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Something that had more weight when there were people who could detect what crimes you have committed just from being in your vicinity.
A proper force was gathered. One that could operate without sight with enough various abilities to effectively counter the slavers and the monster.
They were dispatched via teleportation circle to just outside of the fortress. It had been hidden from scrying for decades through a combination of abilities, now defunct.
Of course, their greatest defense was the fact that they had never before done something heinous enough that the entire world was sparing no expense at having them killed.
And now multiple worlds were now trying apparently.
Inside the slaver’s fortress the dragonoid slave that had originally been positioned to kill the human took cover.
Metaphorically, of course, she had been specifically ordered to stand right there so she couldn't not stand, and she couldn't move from that spot.
She also couldn't purposefully not look at the human, who she had been ordered to watch.
So when something started crawling out of a hole that was in the air and told her that she was not to look if she valued her life she picked up the human and used him to cover her face. Instead of not looking she simply started looking at him to the very maximum.
The human - who was still under the effects of a mind numb spell - had heard something tell him not to look and promptly covered his eyes, having too little mental fortitude to currently do anything other than what was asked of him.
He even heard the person with the ability for everyone to always understand her screaming to get away. He tried, only to find that he was no longer on the ground and thus could not walk away. A very puzzling situation to be in. The thing holding him was vice-like.
The band of criminals, for all they resisted the law, followed orders well and reacted as if they had trained for this moment.
That was because they did; they trained. It was why they were an elite branch that had existed for centuries.
Everyone capable of distorting vision had done so, this creature that was clawing its way through wasn't bright to them right now they could see its terrible claws trying to drag itself towards them.
Darkness covered the area, their own troops were given temporary blindness disabilities or had everything in their vision twist suddenly as if looking through a kaleidoscope.
And then they attacked, unloading ice and fire, the elements, commanding plants and twisted monstrous animals to attack. Summoning constructs, lightning, and in one case, tossing dice.
It was not a small target, so while it was strong, eveyone was capable of hitting it at once.
It very likely would not stop until it or they were dead, that was how angels did things.
It eventually tore through, they could tell by the sound. Their attacks didn't seem to phase it at all.
They used magic to remove their sight and enhanced their other senses so they knew could locate the enemy without seeing it. The smell and slimy wet noises it made as it pulled itself forward.
"Your darkness does not hide you, interloper!"
Then it screamed, loud enough to make her flinch. The adaptation caused her to go deaf for a moment before readjusting itself.
The person next to her had command based abilities, she screamed because she could feel it attacking the person unlucky enough to be standing closest to the portal.
All of their skin was ripped off and they were left curled on the floor, an attack that both defeated one cultist and almost disabled the psionic commander.
They were unloading, tossing everything they had. Magical charms or created artifacts, guns and explosives. It wasn't stopping.
She heard someone yell from the other side of the room. "Its regenerating! Its growing more limbs and eyes every time one is blown off we need to-"
He was cut short in multiple ways right then.
Regenerating. You dealt with regenerative species by either hiring someone with abilities that stopped healing, having a large group unload into them at once, or you used methods that would disable it without damaging them.
She couldn't carve a mark of servitude into it without getting close and carving a mark into it.
"Slaves! Everyone that can hear me is to attack immediately!"
No one heard her, there were explosions and sonic booms as another bolt of lightning was tossed across the room.
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She felt the ground tremble as it turned towards her, it heard her giving commands.
The commander.
She heard it take a step forward.
~
Outside, the world's kill squads converged.
The team that had been sent to contain this threat gathered around the entrance to the fortress, dark stone and darker iron doors blocked their path. Dealing with that much was the easy part now that they knew where these criminals were holed up. A lion strode forwards on two legs, punched its arms through the metal, and tore it off its hinges. Stronger and faster than was physically possible with a tough enough body to remain undamaged by ordinary explosives.
Everyone here had been blinded before they had even set out and either blessed with the rough knowledge of their surroundings or possessed other methods of seeing.
The detectors took point and five squads of eight entered the dark tower.
~
Inside the angel stilled for a moment, having eliminated everyone it was sent to deal with. The human was still there, squished flat against the slave's face. Trembling.
It did not have orders to retrieve the human, only that a group had attacked their world and it was to eliminate them. It could do almost anything, but it had only been ordered to kill that group.
The angel was not an individual being, it was the flawed reflection of another entity. Gods were powerful enough that they naturally twisted the reality around them and these lesser copies were the result of that.
It felt eyes, staring at it. It couldn't quite see them back, so most likely they were using recon abilities to investigate the area or discover its abilities instead of physically looking at it.
But still, millions of eyes. Entire worlds trying to watch its movements without actually seeing it. If it had emotions it would have described itself as nervous.
The angel did not have feelings, it simply felt danger from having so many things looking at it at once. Danger was to be avoided, obviously. It quickly came to a decision: its job was finished, so it would simply leave. Their master might want the human, or might want it to deal with the vermin who had come to investigate the interloper's deaths. It was intelligent enough to know this.
But if that happened it would simply come back, these new creatures did not seem overly hostile. To Earth and its people at least, if it had to put its feelings into words it would say its danger senses were starting to make themselves known.
It could undo not being here. It could also undo choosing to let everyone live. But it could not undo killing everyone.
Its path decided, the angel crawled back to its place of segmented reality and slept, waiting to be awoken again.
~
And the first squad sent into the fortress walked into a hallway covered in blood, limbs and flesh dispersed seemingly equally.
The squad commander wanted information on the target. "Cause of death?"
"No illusions, different for each body, that one had something lock its mandibles around its ribs and pull them out one by one. Those two had dozens of limbs grab them and pull them in different directions simultaneously, enhanced strength very likely. That fourth... Skinned alive."
She put three bullets into the fourth victim, they might have survived if they had been immediately teleported to a hospital, but then this group had been dispatched from the world over to kill them.
Wasting the strike team's time and limited resources saving the suspected slavers would be fairly antithetical.
If there was a more intact person further inside they might spare them, for questioning of course. But they weren't going to do something like quickly evacuate with the one body they found.
The fifth person in the row spoke up. "Danger sense is no longer triggered."
That got some hopes up, they were experienced so of course they didn't relax, but it would be nice if whatever had done this crawled back to where it belonged.
They wouldn't rule out that it had fallen asleep or that it was simply not trying to kill everyone right this very moment.
Or maybe it had begun stalking them, and now resisted indirect detection abilities.
"Forwards." The leader barked.
The moved, covering each other. Three with rifles and five with various other abilities and weapons.
Four squads trailing behind, searching through the maze they were navigating.
Strike team one and two were to investigate the portal room. Three and four to investigate the room that was still showing many life signs. Five was a reserve who was to stay a few rooms behind squad one and two, and reinforce one of the other squads if something went wrong.
Three and four met their objective before one and two did.
The magically enhanced radio activated, "Confirmation, slavers. Eighty seven slaves in iron cages. Over." Short and simple, it told the commander everything he needed to know.
"Understood, do not release. Dig in and wait for evac and investigations. Over."
They would be checked for infections, curses or other harmful maladies before they were allowed to interact with the public. Even if they were in dire straights they were sadly not the highest priority.
"Roger, out."
The lion strode forward and everyone took cover, he planted his arms though another door and then threw it behind him.
You didn't want to throw it inwards in case it broke something important or activated someone's ability, and you didn't want to hold a door you had just ripped off longer than necessary in case of an IED.
The group had a teleportation portal, something that needed a lot of energy of some kind, that energy being released could kill the entire kill squad conglomerate.
Or worse, destroy all evidence of what the slavers had done and how to prevent it from happening again.
They saw more corpses, another hallway of gore. To the left a doorway showing a shared bedroom, some kind of barracks, which was also coated in blood and body parts.
The commander asked, "Any variations?"
"None. Two living in the room, request to put them down?" Those with mental detection based abilities often had issues because they knew exactly how much pain someone was in.
"Granted. Burn it."
One member took position and filled the room with fire.
No one had to enter, no one had to risk anything. Everything they could detect in that room was immediately killed.
"The readings showed that whatever attacked here was big right?"
The commander considered this question. "Yes. An issue?"
The member who spoke up stood for a moment. "How did it fit through that door? There are no other holes, can it change sizes?"
"Noted." The commander settled on that as a proper response before grabbing his radio. "Be advised, the creature is shown to be able to fit or attack through a standard doorway. Assume that physical barriers reliant on its size cannot stop it. Over."
"Roger, out."
They continued onwards, one final door until they reached the portal room.
The lion tore the door off and got rid of it, squad one burst through while squad two took cover behind them.
The room was filled with corpses, nearly eighty bodies torn into pieces or wriggling without their skin.
Their detector spoke up. "Numbers match, four multi-stealth based are dead."
So, every slaver was accounted for.
"Pick anyone still alive and drag them over here. Dime, any report?"
Dime, short for dimension, which was a nickname for their ability, replied. "Two most recent, a large creature entered and then a large creature left."
The commander nodded. "Overlay test."
Dimension began layering a proper circle to teleport the large creature back before their detector stopped them.
"Danger reacted, do not summon, same creature."
The group nodded, whatever it was apparently felt no need to kill everyone on the basis it was angry and was kind enough to leave after accomplishing its goals.
Detection spoke up again, "Sir there are two more entities in this room, non slaver affiliated."
He had noticed them, they seemed benign and their detector hadn’t spoken about any threat so he ignored it. They could be illusions or shapechangers. But if they were innocent that also meant they held information about what had occurred.
The commander gestured for everyone to take defensive positions. There was no danger or slavers currently, but that did not mean there was nothing in here or that it was safe, there was a difference between safe and currently unlikely to die. Danger detection wouldn't notice a landmine until they specifically were about to step on it.
“Information on the two.” He ordered.
"Dragonoid and currently unknown."
An unknown species? That had been somewhat expected given the unknown entity that had slaughtered everything.
The commander asked. "Status check on him? Magic? Summoning ability?"
"Nothing of note, the beast was not connected to him through any metaphysical means."
"Proceed with caution, attempt to remain friendly. Stats on the dragon."
"Humanoid, speed three, strength four, toughness level three on scales, sharpness level two on teeth and claws, toughness of two on flesh, breath attack - beam, Mark of servitude on their neck. The other creature is under a mind numb."
In other words, slightly stronger and tougher than their lion, roughly as fast, without the enhanced senses. Plus the usual dragon type breath attack, beams were more manageable than an area of effect type.
The lion type still had an edge on them, being an expert in chi based abilities, but that dragonoid could easily pose a threat to anyone without innate durability if they got careless.
The key to dealing with unknown species was simple, act nicely and try not to make them panic.
He addressed the dragonoid, "Excuse me miss, can you put the gentleman down please?"
"No."
She sounded shaken. That didn't happen often with her type. The dragonoid was crying out of fear! Since when did deathworlders fear dying to this extent?
"Why are you holding that man? Can you please tell me?"
She sniffled, "I don't want to look. It told me not to."
"Who told you not to? The monster?"
"Yes." She paused for a second. "It said don't look and people looked and now-" She started sniffling again.
"Can you sit down maybe? We can talk about this please."
"I can't sit and I was told I need to keep him here and watch him."
Ah, so there was an easy solution, he called in. "Squad five, squad one needs your magiceater. Call into support squad and patch us in." He turned, "Get a door open and dump the wounded into the medevac area."
The radio clicked, "Squad One this is HQ, state your call. Over."
"HQ this is squad one, unknown species present, possible reason for mass danger. Negotiator requested, Over."
"Squad one more information requested, is the current species capable of mass destruction? Over."
"Negative HQ, surface investigation shows he has no ability to control or summon said creature. Over."
"Understood, support in route. Over."
He slipped the radio back into its pouch, "Magiceater, remove the curse on the dragonoid and then move them out into the hall, away from the..." He looked at the mass of blood on the ground,
"...Contaminants. What is the status on the medevac gate?"
"Twelve seconds, survivors are a go."
He grabbed his radio. "Hunker down, await relief. Squad three and four, investigate the hostages and perform medical service only if they are critical. If not, await trained personnel. Squad five take control of the two civilians we move into the hall, over."
"Roger, out."