Moon stopped pacing at her words. Feeling the decreasing energy and frowning. “What’s happening? Why is the energy being drawn away so quickly?” About to say more he paused as another slight rumble and vibration made itself known. “What is that?” he said turning to Essence. Thread also looked to Essence, a bit of worry creeping its way into her mind. Essence slowly turned in a circle. His dark brown eyes scanning the horizon of the ritual space that had been created by the summoning. He felt the draw increase again, and mentally added some of his own qi to monitor the situation. His qi was sucked into the ritual and he followed the essence into the world the vagrant had come from. There he felt it split into several threads all centered around the lingering potential of the old man. He could feel the tied up loose ends for the old man but instead of finishing the process and easing the way for the Heavens to fix the fates of those the vagrant would have affected. The energy was instead unraveling Threads work and trying to reestablish the old mans fate to his old world. As to why this was, he wasn’t sure. It seemed as if just tying up the old man’s fate wasn’t enough. The way his qi had spread out into multiple strands at the end, seemed to indicate more than one person. How that could be, however was the question. Clearly they were all attached to the vagrant, you couldn’t have multiple strands of fate off the same person. Well, you could but, not like this. It was as if this one old man had multiple… Essences eyes rounded as a realization hit him like a bolt of lightning. Lightning that was slowly rumbling in the distance and getting closer. “He is a nexus of the Heavens!!” he cried. “More than the old man before us reside in that mortal shell… Several more. Use all the remaining resources, and even your own qi, and cultivation if needed!!!”
A flash of blue and white lightning streaks across the now shaking ritual space. Fear shows for the first time on Essences face. They have made a grave mistake, accidental to be sure. Still the Heavens cares not for Accidental, only actions. He could not escape from this unscathed. None of them could. They had taken a Nexus, a person mostly lost and forgotten even to themselves. A person the old worlds heavens has fractured in mind and spirit. Allowing one person to effectively be more then one and shore up its designs and purpose. Almost never good for the nexus themselves, leading to poor health and worse living situations, this person could affect a great many people before they were used up and discarded by the Heavens. Judging by the ever growing pressure and greater amounts of Heavenly Lightning, the person or one of his fractured pieces still had something major to do in his old world. So now the Old world, Earth it was called, was demanding recompense for what they have taken and forced to change. Their world was also demanding from them, a price for what they have wrought. It would take from them what it could, before being forced to pay enough of itself, to settle the debt and close the ritual. All of this passed through his mind in just a few seconds. His two other companions looked at him with dawning realization and horror. Then as if practiced, all three burnt through all their remaining resources, and began to push their qi into the ritual.
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How could it be enough? How could what ever resources spent and their near boundless qi ever be enough to sate the hunger and rage of not one, but two worlds. How could the power of three beings, which in any other world, would be likened to GODS. Their will and power enough to shape worlds and destroy whole swaths of galaxies. How could it ever be enough, when to preform a Ritual of Summoning, not only went against one Heaven, but two! Powerful they were, strong and cunning. Mighty and cruel, divine and beautiful each in the own terrible way. Yet regardless of all that, there was always something above, always another layer to reach, another peak to climb. As most often the case, reaching the pinnacle of power in one place, is just the barest first step into another even greater path. So as the three godlike cultivators strove, with all their ability to sate the rage of Heavens. How could it be enough? As they fought against the Heavens with now the cultivation bases themselves. Loosing hundreds of thousands of years in a blink of an eye, losing full ranks and realms of cultivation. The first bolt of divine thunder, wider than the great yellow river itself, struck.
Tribulation…