What happened to failed Conquest Seeds? It was not a question most beings know to ask, most who knew about Conquest Seeds either saw them as a nebulous threat or were dealing with the active struggles against one that has sprouted in their world. And the few beings who knew to ask that question? Well, they shuddered when considering the possibility of what happened to them.
How could a Conquest Seed fail? In many ways, they could fail in their preprogrammed mission after sprouting in a world, but at that point, they had transcended their state as a seed and become something else so one could argue that these cases did not count. Certainly, the corpse of the Plague of Stone lay somewhere in Eria, as proof that even an apocalypse could be stopped.
Sometimes, Urmalaratyk grew bored or dissatisfied with the seed he had forged and cast it into Oblivion to be (hopefully) obliterated and become nothingness. Other times the seed was flawed in some way and couldn't handle the transition into the Ethereal Space and was overwhelmed by the magic there, or it was simply unfortunate and was caught by other forces like the Soul Leviathan or an outpost by the Wardens of Oblivion.
And a rare few times these days, a seed simply failed to penetrate the dimensional membrane and was sent packing by the natural defense mechanisms inherent to most realities. Most of the time it would mean the destruction of the seed as their power would be mostly exhausted in the attempt or the defenders would harm the seed enough that it would "die" in the Ethereal Space.
However, sometimes, they didn't perish and that left the seed...changed. These abominations had few names, mostly because they didn't stick around in one place long enough to be given one, but the most common one was Tearmakers. Because where these beings crawled, reality would cry in their presence.
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The Dimensional Membrane surrounding Eria was weakened of late, not only had two Conquest Seeds penetrated it in the last ten thousand years, but recently another child of Urmalaratyk had been sent through an artificial gap made in the membrane. A Demon Lord or some such, and it had drawn more than one being closer to Eria.
Flkarblik had been the one brave enough to crawl through the weakened membrane. Reality defenders had tried to swarm over him, but he had evaded them deftly after millennia of practice and dug through where the most recent Conquest Seed had entered. His fellow Tearmakers had not dared enter with the Soul Leviathan getting close and the potential of having to confront a sprouted seed, but Flkarblik didn't care.
He was starving and certainly, this reality would have enough magic and such in it to sustain him for a while?
When he penetrated the membrane the former Conquest Seed sighed in relief as he felt air on his "skin" and the sense of matter around him once more. He felt his guardian pixie Estiella wake up and separate from his presently metallic form and flap her wings languidly.
"Good morning my love, we have found another one."
The crimson-skinned pixie glanced around and her yellowing teeth were shown in a wicked grin as she looked at the sun before she replied.
"Mmmm already? My my aren't you a ravenous one Master, shall we have some fun before we eat?"
Her voice made his heart tingle and he sent a mental vibration through their bond, she was the last remnants of his Soul Guidance System and while warped she could still aid him well. Flkarbliks disguise as a Conquest Seed fell apart as his magenta-colored slime extended out and began forming itself into a myriad of different wings and eyes.
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It was a form he had taken many times and after manifesting his form as a 17-winged creature with 500 eyes he began to crawl through the sky. Stabbing his wings into reality itself and scuttling along the skyline like an insect crawling along a tree branch.
Estiella flapped her butterfly wings and dove down to begin her scouting through the area. Flkarblik on his end began crawling away from where he presumed the Conquest Seed had landed. He was not interested in confronting a sprouted seed on its turf, especially when he had not consumed any forms of native energies first.
Where he crawled rain fell down from the sky, sometimes through the clouds and other times just straight down from the open air. The Tearmaker had long since learned to ignore but not discount the effects his presence had on the worlds he entered.
"I found a spring! It seems to contain some form of magical energy"
If he could have smiled then Flkarblik would have grinned with all of his 30 mouths as he let go of the sky and dove down towards the ground. Estiella had once again been diligent and found him something before he could, hopefully, it would be far enough away that the sprouted seed would not have noticed his arrival.
He descended down towards the earth fast enough to put an eagle to shame as his multifaceted wings beat/clawed their way through the air and towards the soil. It was intoxicating to feel the rushing of air around his limbs and entering his systems again, sadly the ambient magic in this reality was too thin that he could simply filtrate it through breathing alone. Flkarblik had once chanced upon such a reality with his cadre of Tearmakers, they had lived like kings before they had to flee.
The Tearmaker landed in a forested clearing that vaguely reminded him of the homeland he had come from once before his transformation in the fires of the Soulforge. A natural spring had sprung out here in the woods and the glittering water made him drool orange slime onto the grass at which point the grass screamed and withered. He stretched out his mouths and began to suck up the water and the tiny trickles of magical energy along with it.
A would-be Naiad died in torment as the water was sucked up into the Tearmaker while "rain" fell from the air around him and in place of where the spring had once been. His enjoyment of the feast was interrupted as his side was kissed by the horns of a ram as it along with every animal in the vicinity rushed to attack him.
Reality screamed at them to fight and the beasts of the world would always be the quickest to answer. The timidest rabbit kit rushed as bravely as the most fearsome of monster into the confrontation with that-which-should-not-be. Even a few trees began to slowly unearth themselves and "walk" towards Flkarblik as he tried to enjoy the water he had just consumed.
His eyes landed balefully on the creatures that had interrupted him and his 17 wings started lashing out to cut, grapple, and rend the animals attacking his form. Fish and other organisms that had lived in the spring were gnawing at his insides only to discover that in the plasmic ooze that constituted his flesh, there were things that lived as well and they were also hungry.
All told it was a quick battle and the Tearmaker licked the air in satisfaction and felt reality shudder at the violation. He was happy to discover that this was one of the worlds where there was some innate power in blood as he began to suck up the blood of all the slain animals before taking to the sky again. He was still hungry, after all.