Surprised to see another person here, Jhiah examined them. They were a sligthly transparent man that emitted a faint light, will several small mushrooms on their head, which appeared to simply be part of their body. Identifying him, Jhiah immediately prepared to run.
--Kalnün - Voidrian - High Priest of Nothingness - 10,491--
"Hmm... So Radiant is dead?" Kalnün smiled. "Such a weak replacement will be trivial to kill. Ancient of Void, I call you to manifest!"
Behind the High Priest, a void appeared, with no air, no light, no energy allowed inside. It quickly took a semihumanoid form and solidified. It stood on mostly human-like legs, although much larger and glowing with a powerful light blue energy. Its torso had a massive hole in the middle, where sharp ribs could be seen at the edges of, and no light was within save for that emmitted by a blue heart that appeared to be incredibly distant and could barely be seen. Its right arm was akin to the legs in simalarity to a human's, but on the left, it split into three tentacle-like appendages tipped in sharp bone. The head was simply an area where nothing was, save for a terrifying light-blue light in the center that seemed to be an eye.
--Ancient of Void--
A deep, bellowing voice emanated from the monstrosity, terrifying Jhiah even further. "Radiant has been replaced? How dissatisfying... I would have preferred to end him myself." The heart suddenly burst free of its chest, still connected to blue blood vessels in several places, and began to devour the existence around it, charging the energy of the Void. "We'll see how well you live up to the mantle of an Ancient, Jhiah." And the heart released its stored energy, firing a blast of power that destroyed everything around it and visibly dimmed the area before striking Jhiah directly in the chest and throwing him backwards.
-Shield: 139,441/267,000-
Just that single, barely charged attack had broke through almost half of Jhiah's Shield despite his resistances. Fortunatey, he was still slightly capable of thinking rationally in this situation, and so cast Radiant Warp.
Instead of teleporting him, the spell drained several thousand Essence trying to break past the Void energy in the area. He hastily stopped it, but ithad already drained a large amount of Essence. Desperate, he released Radiant Call, and a hundred bright duplicates of him manifested around him before immediately casting various spells on the Ancient of Void, who simply took the hits completely unharmed and smiled - or rather, Jhiah had the impression he was smiling, as the headless abomination lacked a mouth.
"Can you really only make this pitiful clones? I expected you to be much stronger. Even your Capabilities are this weak!" From the heart of the Ancient several tendrils of nothingness emerged and shot forward, instantly obliterating all of the Avatars of Light before approaching Jhiah. "I had hoped this would be at least part of a battle, but your light is just a candle... All it takes is a gust of wind to snuff you out."
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The tendrils of Void tore through Jhiah's Shield in an instant before vanishing. The Ancient of Void strode towards Jhiah and lashed out with his left appendages, and although Jhiah attempted to avoid the attacks, one still pierced into his gut and then slammed him into the ground. "Ah, but at long last, the light that has stood in my way will die!"
Looming over Jhiah's broken form, Void's single eye gleamed with maniacal joy. Preparing to deal the killing blow, he retracted his heart - and was immediately blasted aside by a burst of light, and Jhiah's wounds healed themselves. Surprised, he turned his head and saw a human. A single human had thrown Void like an unwanted toy.
--Axvuril Jukran, He Who Bears the Source and Hollow Champion--
Remembering something, he checked the description of Essence again.
-Essence is the energy used by Ancients, gods, and most Champions. It is far stronger and much more refined than lesser types, and gives all of your spells a bonus feature or a small increase to overall power.-
Supposedly, this was one of the "Champions" mentioned in the description. Jhiah seized the opportunity to cast Holy Plague on the High Priest of Nothingness, who immediately collapsed, paralyzed.
"That's even stronger than I thought..." Jhiah sighed, but didn't complain about his newfound power.
Axvuril spoke. "Ah, congrats on not dying, by the way. How convenient that I happened to arrive at the right place and the right time to save you?" His voice was befitting of his appearance, as the Champion appeared to be in his mid-twenties. "Well, that aside, what say you on the matter of leaving?"
"Yeah, sure..." Jhiah looked at the incapacitated Ancient, knowing Void was not dead.
"Great!" A massive amalgamation of brightly-glowing golden polygons and lines appeared infront of Axvuril before flaring, leaving spots in Jhiah's eyes and teleporting them to a field unfamiliar to Jhiah.
"Thanks, Axvuril. I'll be sure to remember you in the future whenever I need help."
The Hollow Champion grinned, responding: "Hah! Don't count on me being there! Oh, and call me Axvu, by the way. Mind telling me a bit about your civilization, Jhiah? I'm not a native to your world, so a bit of knowledge would be helpful."
Jhiah raised an eyebrow at that, but decided to play along, explaining a few things about the Volceln Empire, their current host, and its allies and enemies.
"Thanks. I'll remember your help when I find the other Champions." Axvuril transformed into a massive golden-scaled dragon before taking off and and rocketing off into the distance.
"Well." And Jhiah suddenly began cackling, laughing at the absurdity of the recent events.