Reality parted as Divine King Ra'poth stepped into the Sceleris system, nine others with him. As an Aveanii of the owl species, he was very adept at the shadow element, a birthright of their species. So he wasn't worried the detection constructs on this system, especially ones as subpar and less encompassing, could have any chance at detecting their intrusion.

And truly, he was proven right. Their intrusion went undetected, and slowly, they crept forward, moving alongside the thousands of other vehicles approaching the planet.

Their task, to recapture the escapees of the ruined outpost, had been a go right from the moment of the Verille King's abrupt disappearance, which was strange, but he put no thought to it. Xirou was an abnormality even amongst Divine kings.

"We're approaching the outward domain of the World Spirit, Divine King," one of his subordinates, Sa'keth, Informed him.

Ra'poth nodded and then signaled. Hiis entire squad understood, and they pierced back into the unreal.

Diving into the unreal was still a strange occurrence to him, even though he'd been doing it for millennials now. They weren't truly in the unreal. No, not even Ascendants were capable of doing that. What they stepped into was the small border between reality and unreality, a small divide between them, easy to pierce through but hard to navigate. Within it, he could barely see through the curtain that was between him and reality, a thick, hazy cloud of something blocking his view, which made piercing out a hard thing to accomplish since their crossing would have to be pinpointed, or else they risked finding themselves in another system. The laws of time and space were very tricky here.

That was what made navigation a hurdle, as, in essence, they had to push through the unruliness of the unreal and establish a minimum amount of Space-Time law to help with movement and timing.

Had their intrusion been done in actual reality, the world spirit would have easily detected them. That was a given; it was an Ascendant and they were not. But piercing through unreality drastically lowered any chance of that happening.

For one, the world Spirit's essence was that of dream, which held little sway in an area so close to the unreal, making it vastly difficult to trace any undocumented mind.

Another was the fact that the owls were very adept at infiltration, wielding the element of shadow, a subset of darkness. The dark was their natural domain, a playing field rigged entirely to their favor. And in a location where light held no sway, darkness ruled.

Their trip back into reality went uneventful, which satisfied Ra'poth. Although it was rare, the border outside of reality was sometimes stated to hold wandering creatures... Creatures whose existence were antithetical to reality while also hungering for it. Had they encountered any one of those, he wasn't ashamed to say that their chances of survival would have, at best, been very low.

Stepping back into reality, right over the moon occupied by their escaped prisoners, Ra'poth flared his shadow crafted wings. It was time.

His entire squad was shrouded in the essence of shadow, which muffled anything that tried to get in and out of their stealth field. Still, Ra'poth took things to the next level, swiftly employing his intent to coerce the ever-expanding darkness of space into aiding in their concealment.

Now, Ra'poth had to admit, there were a dozen other layers of concealment techniques he could have added, but the trick to them staying concealed was knowing when something became too much. Sometimes, too much stealth could be revealing.

Safely hidden, he slowly let his domain spread over the skies of the moon, blending it in with the natural darkness of space, all the while making sure not to trigger the world Spirit of their presence.

His domain-wrought soldiers weren't summoned— they wouldn't be needed for this, which left him free to focus solely on perception. Where there was light, shadow existed, so Ra'poth made use of that. There was no being on the system who was powerful enough to contest his authority over the shadow element, so he let it lose, wrapping his will around every shadow down on the moon. He left the ones on the planet untouched. That was a territory, and even though his will could touch the shadows there, it was completely certain the world Spirit would detect the intrusion.

His first warning came almost an instant later when his will slammed onto a wall. Reeling from the shock but making sure to keep their stealth working, Ra'poth slowly — with his metaphysical sense — took in the wall, working his way down its shadowy base and up its unbreakable structure.

That was when he realized: this wasn't a wall. This was a will, a greater one than his.

His spirit screamed just as a great weight crashed down on him, piercing through his stealth techniques like it non-existent.

"The audacity," a voice said, coming from everywhere. And Ra'poth instantly recognized it as female. "Your kind has become too daring. A lesson needs to be taught."

His techniques were shredded, and a deeper shadow blotted the moon's sky.

Ra'poth only had a split second to warn his subordinates when light bloomed, clearing out and leaving him with one less Spirit King.

Feeling the aura before he saw it, Ra'poth looked upwards, an had to step back at the freezing gaze or of the system guardian.

It looked humanoid, except for the frosting parts that were its limbs. Where its head was supposed to be was a burning flame, an ice burning flame.

"THEY'RE MINE!" The voice from before demanded, just as another being appeared.

The moment she came in full view, Ra'poth recognized her. The dark shadowy hair. The crimson bloodline eyes. And even the maniacal look.

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Narkyra Verrille. Mistress of madness.

The Sun Spirit, no doubt recognizing the authority of the one who had spoken and who she was descended from, didn't fight her claim over them, and with another flare of light, it returned back to its previous location.

Slowly, the woman turned towards them. "You—" she began.

Ra'poth didn't let her finish, he attacked.

He poured out his domain like a river, swiftly encompassing and taking over a vast amount of space. With his intent, he pressed down on the concept of space, suffocating it and depriving it of its characteristics. Satisfied that his blockade had worked, he summoned his armies.

From the sea of shadow surrounding him, figures made of the same element rose, pulled out of the domain with invisible strings.

On either of his sides, the other Spirit Kings also moved, summoning their armies, until the area for more than a thousand miles became filled with legions upon legions of shadow soldiers.

On her part, the daughter of the duchess simply looked at them, watching their display with a faint amusement.

Insulted, Ra'poth flared his wings. Ascendant or not, an Aveanii tolerated no disrespect, especially from one of the lessers.

With a flap of his shadowy wings, he disappeared, melting into the shadows along with a majority of his more powerful summons.

Ra'poth would have preferred to let the legions batter at her defenses, draining some of its power. He knew the legions couldn't accomplish much, but every little they could do was one step closer to warding her off. He knew how unfeasible that would be.

He di—

"How stupid could you be, to fight a Shadow Ascendant with shadows?" The woman said, and to Ra'poth's sheer terror, her voice came from everywhere, including the tunnel of space he was now using to teleport.

Acting fast, he stepped out of the shadow tunnel just before he felt it implode, its reaction spreading both within and without.

Ra'poth reeled, staggering backwards as he felt his grip on the shadows beyond his domain torn off, the backlash hitting him both mentally and physically.

Splitting out a few essence-created blood, Ra'poth pulled out his bow, a huge curved monstrosity with a cloud of shadows streaming off of it. He had crafted this from the bones of a Divine King Darkness creature and the captured essence from a shadow elemental.

Entire continents had been plunged into eternal darkness from the arrows generated from the bow, an it had also suffocated twice that with the element-laced arrows.

Taking a back step while his subordinates rained cataclysmic destruction over the head of the Ascendant, Ra'poth pulled the bow's strings.

The moment his hands touched it, reality quivered, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. While Narkyra was busy deflecting a shadow weapon capable of slipping through any defenses, he sensed it as a majority of her attention snapped back onto him, piercing with intense focus.

Ra'poth's wings twitched in anticipation. Good, now she knew not to underestimate them.

A ripple visibly spread through space as an arrow formed, manifesting into reality from the darkness essence, a grand element.

Ra'poth recognized that darkness was not as powerful as the more esoteric grand elements like soul, space, time, and karma, but there was one undisputed fact: it was a grand element.

Ra'poth's anger flared as in a bid to counter his offensive, the woman ripped off the wings of one of his subordinates. The head followed an instant later.

Down to eight, his remaining subordinates didn't waste time, acting like they'd already read his mind.

In a snap instant, they all surrounded the woman, deploying half a dozen techniques to injure and restrict the woman.

Taking the chance given, Ra'poth let loose.

There wasn't so much as a whistle as the arrow flew, crossing the already suppressed space in an instant.

The Ascendant, already tied down dealing with the other techniques falling in, failed to counter.

The dark cloud that rose from the impact turned space into a darker shade of black, blotting out both his physical and spiritual senses, and when it finally dispersed, Ra'poth's eyes widened as the woman came out looking mostly unharmed, except for the darkened patch of skin which ran from her hand down to her elbow, the hand which held the arrow right by the middle, an inch or so from her skull.

Shifting the arrow away from her face, Narkyra eyed Ra'poth, seemingly taking him in for the first time.

"That hurt," she said, her eyes trailing him and unto the weapon in his hands. "Your weapon... I like it. It'll make a good present for someone."

Eyes widening, Ra'poth flared up his domain just as the woman sped forward, his eyes just barely tracking her movements.

With a casual wave of her hands, millions of daggers, black as night with white streaks down their jagged edges, rained down on his armies, wiping out a huge swath of them in seconds.

He wasn't the only one who suffered her attacks. As from behind her, out of a hole in reality, two jagged daggers, reminiscent of the ones previously summoned, landed in her hands.

Feeling the aura from those weapons, Ra'poth's entire being shivered in true terror. Hurriedly, he contracted his domain, de-summoning the many soldiers who would just be fodder for her. He left the powerful ones though, as without them his chances of survival were nigh non-existent.

Seeing his reaction to the summoned weapon, Narkyra smiled. "Good, you know of this." She said and gave a casual swipe, eviscerating another Spirit King without even looking in their direction. "I could use it against you, but what would that say about me? Wielding swords against children." She finished with thick derision.

Dematerializing into dark smokes, the weapons disappeared. "I don't need those to unmake you."

Ra'poth took the opportunity, firing off half a dozen arrows in a split instant, while also lacing the technique into his domain, which soon began spitting out millions of arrows every second.

He knew he couldn't continue for long, as his energy well would soon run dry with the level of techniques he was using, but he didn't care. What was a full well if he wasn't alive to use it.

Accompanied by his summons, Ra'poth decided to get bolder.

He slipped through his domain, appearing at the edge in an eye blink. He fired two arrows just as another technique from his subordinates landed, catching the woman in a devastating explosion, which spread so far it wiped out a good number of the fleeing vehicles in the distance.

Good, he thought. They could win this. He immediately switched his mentality from surviving and escape into pushing the woman into fleeing.

"I think, it's time for the rest of you to go," a voice came forth, thick and otherworldly. Not unlike the woman who had been standing right before them. "I only need the Divine King. So the rest of you can DIE!"

Right before his eyes, Ra'poth watched as the essence that constructed the physical layer of his subordinates unraveled, peeling away into nothingness. Their Spirits went next, shredding into tiny pieces. And when their souls were laid bare, the deepest part of their existence, reality contorted, warping them into monstrosities that didn't last long before they exploded, an explosion which didn't get a chance to spread far as they were all soon swallowed up by a huge shadowy maw.

Last man remaining, Ra'poth looked on with terror as the woman stepped out, looking completely unharmed from all the attacks taken. Her eyes, which had been a dulled down thing, now shone bright and menacing. Her lustrous black hair now roiled like it had been caught in a storm.

"You, Divine King Ra'poth, are going to tell me what you want with my son."

Ra'poth flared his wings, triggering the technique laced within in. Reality warped and space heaved as a portal began to form. Ra'poth forced down his will and used his domain as a sledgehammer to break open space. He didn't look back as he stepped through...

... And landed right before the feet of the woman.

"Your intent over the essence of shadow has been rescinded." Ra'poth looked up at the amused voice before him, meeting the eyes of Narkyra Verrille. Mistress of madness and daughter of the Desolate Duchess.