The hole in the firmament of the Beast Plane was about ten miles across. It wasn’t a hole so much as ‘created space’: the existing space had been pushed aside, forming a gap the denizens of the Netherworld could march out of, their own Realm pushed into this one, neither replacing nor subsuming it.
That Breach was now under mounting dimensional pressure. The Weight of the Veil had increased tremendously all around it, and was increasingly concentrated and centralized now. The more pressure came from the Dark Realm, the more the edges of the conflict burned happily, and the vivus grew thicker.
The place was thick with clouds of shadow and inky darkness, and wailing flocks of countless sheet-winged Phantoms, drifting Spectres, Ghosts, Wraiths of all kinds, Shadows, and other incorporeal spirits chained to the will of the netherworlds. Flying over it or getting too close was naturally impossible, but that was fine, because the wildmists of the White Wall were here, and they were eating everything.
The nature of the Dark Realm had naturally Tainted everything, and so equally naturally vivus was burning it all with massive clouds of hungry mist in all directions. Streams of dark winds were contesting with the Air controllers herding the vivus ever-forward, and the conflict of the streams was sending sheets of vivus burning hundreds of feet into the air in devouring vortexes.
The Veil was getting heavier and heavier, and the ground the Breach could hold was shrinking literally by the second, slowly being eaten up as unwhite flames burned in all directions, caging, collapsing, and coming for them.
With good eyes and altitude, you could see the Netherworld forces withdrawing into the darkness of the Breach, plainly unable to fight against the incoming apocalypse, like trying to war against gravity, or a hurricane. It just wasn’t happening.
And then the darkness ahead parted.
I dove down and buried my head behind Winkle, deep into his fur, getting out of line of sight. The Great Commander Seven-Tailed Silver Fox’s legs buckled as an almighty Aura swept outwards, one far more powerful than anything I had ever felt before, even Flowing Silver in proximity.
Realm Lord!
Winkle quavered for barely a second before another Aura, equally as vast, but far more primal and less sinister, washed past in the other direction and literally brought him hopping to his feet in support. Yet none of the numberless Beasts about dared turn about to behold the source of it, and I just kept my head down in his fur and let passive magical Awareness do its thing.
“Well-played,” an amused not-voice murmured through the air, feeling like it was right next to my ear, trying to dredge into my thoughts and pull up all sorts of bad memories. “This misty white fire was a complete surprise to us, and a good lesson. We’ll play it through to the end, of course, so you’ll still have to shut this down, but compliments upon a good game.”
The voice that thundered by in response was ancient and truly powerful, thrumming in the bones. While the first voice tried to drag forth doubts and weakness and make you submit by forcing you to acknowledge them, this one simply held great strength, and since it was for you, not against you, it rallied the will in passing. “This was never a game, Shadowed King. Depart, or stay and watch your servants burn, and then yourself. It is all one.”
I could feel the smile more than see it, the true delight of an immortal being who had found something to banish his ennui. “Until next time, then,” he murmured, and the subtle clash of Auras trembling the blood and breath of every living thing to the horizon vanished as the Shadow Realm’s Lord retreated behind his darkness.
“So glad he didn’t see me,” I murmured into Winkle’s fur.
Astral Ward was up on Zeben for exactly this reason. It completely foiled any Divination effects directed my way which were the equivalent of VI or less. That naturally would not stop the more powerful Beasts who knew me or went looking for me, and I was close enough that they could just use their Awareness to find me, it was just not an easy thing.
Their Awareness was basically a III Clairvoyance effect, just boosted massively in range as they grew more powerful. Given how few counters and defenses there were against such things, any ability to foil the senses-transcending Awareness of more powerful creatures was basically treated as an assassination effect.
It was also a good defense against assassination, as killers couldn’t locate me so easily, either, and had to rely on mundane scouting. Even if the incorporeal denizens of the Netherworld were really good at that, it was much less efficient, and meant they had to be exposed when going hunting themselves.
I had not, of course, informed any of them of my Divinatory spells, which were very different from the spiritual Awareness of the Beasts. Too bad, so sad, let me pick you out of there...
“Elder Winkle, get a message to Flowing Silver Emperor to shuffle up to the Beast Lord. Tell Him to NOT close the Breach. He needs to gather vivic flames and set them right on top of the Breach. That will set up a draw on the Netherworld’s power that will feed right into the Beast Plane’s core strength, effectively reclaiming what has been taken away, and, if the Realm Lord on the other side doesn’t spend the strength to close it, sap away at their power. The flow of power directly from the Underworld will sustain the vivus indefinitely.
Stolen novel; please report.
“With the vivus effectively creating an incoming current to the Beast Realm from the Netherworld, closing the gap will not be easy. It may not reclaim everything that was taken, but if the Shadowed King there isn’t paying attention or doesn’t act, this whole fight could actually end up pretty good for the Beast Realm in the long run.
“The Beast Lord should focus on keeping the Breach open as long as possible once the vivus is in place. Now that He’s on top, make them pay and do the work. A vivic conduit from the Netherworld is a powerful natural recycling event, and the burning vivus will reinforce the conduit to that extent. The longer it lasts, the harder it will be for the other side to take down!”
Winkle trembled slightly, tongue lolling grandly. “Oh, that sounds like so much fun at their level. That arrogant Realm Lord is going to find his little trick turned back on Him, yes? Will He be laughing at the outcome?”
“It depends on how quickly He understands and reacts to what is going on. He did not give me the impression of being particularly intelligent. I think by the time He does realize what is going on, it’s going to take some serious effort to break down the link, and if He doesn’t, the Beast Realm can siphon away the power He’s stealing from others right away from Him, forever.”
My grim satisfaction didn’t escape the Fox as he turned his head, and Psychic power thrummed in the air.
About a minute later, a very subtle wave passed us by, and I knew I’d just been acknowledged by the Beast Lord.
“Every Netherworlder we kill and burn en vivus before they flee is more power for the Beast Realm,” I whispered. “We should be slaughtering as many as we can before they go, Winkle.”
His Burning Eternal Light fangs were bared. “Well, shall we join them below, then? They are running away, and that is always the best time to kill...”
“That sounds like a plan to me,” I agreed. “This isn’t about vengeance, this is about harvesting them on behalf of the Realm of Beasts and the Beast Lord. If they fight along with me, I will Heal who I can as we go.”
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And thus began the final battle of the Breach. Except it wasn’t a battle, it was a harvest. The objective of the Beasts was to kill as many of the netherworlders who were still there as possible, not drive the vivus forward and collapse the Breach.
The slowing of the surrounding inferno definitely confused the Netherworlders, moreso when Beasts came out of it with burning, glowing fangs and claws to kill them and set them alight.
Whether they realized they were now crops to be harvested or not didn’t really matter. There weren’t any reinforcements coming, so if they couldn’t run away, they were just going to die.
Now it was they who were outnumbered and seemingly at the mercy of their enemies. Great Beasts brought the vivus, new fires raged around the Breach, and slowly but surely, all the Netherworlders who could not flee in time were slaughtered and fed the inferno which slowly followed behind, waiting for them all to die.
I made a lot of Soul Crystals of all sizes while both Healing and blasting away as Winkle ran here and there to help the fighting along, and I was quite happy with my results. Phantoms and their ilk were chased flaming from the skies, white streaks began to burn amid the clouds of ink and jet, and after two final days of fighting, the vivus of the White Wall finally closed in and claimed everything.
------
The gathered Great Beasts watched as the vivus crawled up the sides of the Breach. It gradually closed in over the rich meal the Breach represented, ate through the thickly shadowed air, and swept it clean. It ate up along the columnar existence of the Breach, wearing it down, down, and down, folding it to a cone, then flattening it to a dome, and finally to a great flat plain, roiling with unwhite flame and constant mists boiling off it, easily still a mile across. It was gouting here and there from surges of the Netherworld energies below coming through.
And that was as far as it closed.
The ground was completely obscured by the heavy vivic mists as it continued to burn, and the mile-wide circle of purloined space was, instead of collapsing faster, starting to solidify in that format.
From below, Netherworld energies were being drawn forth by the vivus, sustaining the flames here, and in doing so forming a connection and conduit of recycling energies, burning as they cycled through death and back to the world of the living to engender new life.
It was a completely natural effect, part of the cycle that should be happening here, and likely had been cut off by the Dark Realm Lords as a waste of their accumulations of power. They drained energy and souls, and did not give anything back that did not contribute to that paradigm.
Alas, Nature didn’t care about their wills, and now that the Breach was open, it was going to get harder to close by the second, reinforced by vivus burning the power and solidifying its own ‘fuel source’ as it did so.
To all things, there was an ending, and that included death. This was how the universe was supposed to work, going from life to death to life once more, only these Dark Lords had broken the cycle to accumulate power.
It remained to see how much they lost before they realized it was going to be damn difficult to break this at all, especially seeing the fountains and surges coming forth as the energies of death yearned to be Burned and return to the cycle properly...
It was a Good Thing to see, by many measures. If many of the Beasts just didn’t care for the particulars, just telling them to think of it as water coming back to run down the mountains, only this was for the Beast Realm, was enough to get them to appreciate what was going on.
Which left me to begin Stage Two of my big projects.
Location, at least, was no longer an issue. I had a massive huge convenient power source intimately tied to Healing and renewal and empowerment and vitality and all the good stuff Right There, so where else was I going to work?
Accordingly, I requested that I be allowed to make my Pyramid and Healing Circle here, upon the Breach and the confluence of the territory of the five Emperor Beasts, and after little debate, the Emperors agreed to it.
And so, once again I got to work!