In a brief moment, a speck of time worthless to someone capable of living millions of years, a connection was cut.
The space that surrounded Kiara darkened as the voice of the person she was closest to continued to echo in her ears, making her deaf to the events that took place around her. Her world, lonely and dark already, had lost one of the few lights left. Covered behind droplets of dark red blood that, after lingering in the surroundings for a few moments, finally landed on her skin.
Only her friend had died, yet both their hearts had stopped.
Around her, hundreds of monstrous beings marked with the distinctive power of an aspect of existence made their way through the interdimensional portal, filling the surrounding space with an obnoxiously pungent and oddly sweet scent.
While these champions had noticed Kiara’s presence, they had decided against attacking her.. And for a grisly reason. Their power was that of Horror, an aspect which fed the creature they followed, and that in turn, empowered them. The sight of the horror the red-haired cultivator was feeling at the sight of her dead friend was much more enticing to them than the pleasure of killing her, hence why they chose to enjoy the view instead.
It had become somewhat of a game for the champions of Horror. To be the first one to place an offering of power to Horror, as the swarm finally entered a new universe.
In this particular universe, this grim pleasure had fallen on a hideous humanoid cultivator. A creature that belonged to the race that, in the past, had contributed most to the birth of the existence that now led them, traveling the multiverse while leaving its mark of atrocity and repulsiveness everywhere it went.
While second to enter the portal, this creature had been the first to take a life. A victory which he relished in while his snail-like tongue brushed over his palate. But, alas, he was not satisfied yet. With the taste of human flesh still fresh in his mind, he slowly approached the lifeless remains of the old woman while saying, “I want the heart.. Moist and chewy.”
As his oily dark gray fingers inched for the corpse’s upper body, however, he suddenly stopped. His fishy eyes opened wide, affected by the impending sense of doom that had emerged in the monster’s heart.
Alongside the rest of his companions, the monster slowly turned around, where the shocked cultivator had been standing in complete silence.
Kiara’s appearance had begun to change. The ties that kept her hair together had come undone, causing it to float freely into the vacuum while resembling a living flame.. Her eyes, naturally red, now shone with a much higher intensity, releasing a heat that burnt the thin dust present in the surroundings. At the same time, on her scarred brown skin had appeared lines of incandescent metal.
The champions of Horror could hardly react before her demonic figure flashed out of place.
—-
AFSIA Titan, a few seconds earlier.
Even when not in time of war, the most busy ships within the Immortal Armada were the admiralty’s flagships.
Gargantuan in size, these heavily armored ships housed the bulk of the armada’s military power.. Each controlled by one of the few people who had a say in the important matters the Armada faced.. The admirals.
Because of the war effort, the fleet’s flagships had left the colony ships behind to form a safe perimeter. One that, in case the Elemental army decided to attack the same way they had years before, would allow them to stop the threat before any civilian casualty. However, that was not the case for all of them.
As a last line of defense against any attack able to breach the perimeter, the AFSIA Titan had been left behind.. Causing it to have to take over the responsibility of protecting the hundreds of millions of civilians and low level cultivators, as well as solving any menial task, like policing, permits and so on.
This immane increase in responsibilities had, eventually, taken a toll on Titan’s crew, which had now spent years with their noses buried into reports and documents of all kinds.
The one who had it worse, however, was its captain. Admiral Okka, once commander of one of the armada’s military divisions, but who now had been promoted to the rank of admiral thanks to his merits in the war with the Elementals army. Yet, what at the time Okka believed to be a promotion, he had now come to see it as a punishment.
As the least experienced admiral, he had been pulled away from the battlefield, and forced to serve from within the safety of the Armada’s flotilla. The thought of his people fighting while he buried his nose into a mountain of paperwork had haunted him for years now, and today was not different.
“Air filtration.. Already read this. Alien virus mortal to Kortarians.. Sent to the scientific department. Food shortage in capital ships Novera and Shi Shi.. mhh” He muttered to himself as a thin old man in formal attire waited by the desk, quietly twirling his thick mustache. “Remind me again why we can’t carry mortals in spatial rings?”
The elegant old man was caught by surprise. “Hum, well.. The shattered universe connected to this one is close to collapsing.. If that happened, our people would-“
“I know why, it was a rhetorical question.” Okka said without moving his head away from the pile of documents. Suddenly, his boredom was relieved, as a particular document appeared in his hands. At the top of the first page, were two words he had seen before, Amber Stone.
He was the one who had picked that project when the universe they occupied was still safe. When a hostile elemental army was not trying to wipe them away, and when they had plenty of time for trial and error left.
Curious about the progress of the project, he leaned back onto his chair and began to read.
The document gave an extensive description of how, after his orders to focus on project Amber Stone rather than waste time on the other two, the scientific team had progressed. From what he remembered, the project was way beyond concept development, and was already in the testing stages. The only thing missing was the immense amount of rare resources which, according to what was written on the document, had been almost completely collected.
“What’s the report for, then?..” he once again muttered to himself while flipping to the last page-A different type of document stapled to the project’s information.
——-
Small scale field testing scheduled for within 24 hours of the most recent delivery.
Researcher: Iris Krom (SCIA Zion)
Adjutant: Kiara Cern (Head of Scavenger Team 4)
——-
After reading the last part of the report, Okka glanced past the old man, and towards a small steel watch that hung above the large steel door. “The scavenger team returned two hours ago.. If I go now, I might be able to see the field test myself.” He said enthusiastically. Naturally, he did not require to witness the test personally.. Yet, in his mind, this was the best chance he would ever get of leaving his office, and get some fresh air.
The old man immediately saw through Okka’s intentions, but before he could say anything, the admiral placed both hands on his shoulders. “Don’t. Being cooped up here all day makes me want to kill someone, and you’re the only one here.” He said before letting go, and giving the man’s shoulders a light pat.
The old man could not help but smile. He knew the admiral was just joking.. And even more, he knew how diligent Okka had been since receiving his promotion. Throughout the years he had taken far less breaks than most in his position would have.. Hence why the words he was going to speak were of encouragement rather than reprimand.
Amused by the Admiral’s sense of humor, the old man turned around to remind him to be back as soon as possible, yet, as his eyes landed on him, he noticed a completely changed attitude. On the rugged face that just moments ago was marked by excitement, was now a serious expression. A state of mind which matched the Admiral’s combative posture, and closed fists.
Then, right in front of his eyes, the Admiral disappeared, leaving him secretary alone.
—-
The place the admiral had just teleported to was a patch of empty space.
Behind him, lay the millions of ships that formed the Immortal Armada, and in front of him, an immense ocean-like portal covered by a natural formation of stable space. Surrounding him were the figure of thousands more cultivators who, after feeling the same disturbance he had felt, had come to see what was happening.
The group of powerful cultivators stood at the edge of the stabilized space, for it was naturally too stable for cultivators to rip it open when attempting to create a rift. Nevertheless, regardless of the distance from the portal, they could all tell that a battle had taken place.
“Prepare for battle!” Okka said before advancing alongside the other cultivators who, after recognizing him, immediately followed in line. At their speed, it only took a few seconds for them to approach the portal’s surface, and finally see what was going on.
The place that was once clear, was now filled with death. A swarm of body parts shredded in small pieces by what they could only believe to be a very angry creature. Body parts that, at first sight, one could tell did not belong to any race of the Immortal Armada.
The smell these bodies emanated reminded the cultivators of rotten corpses, which was odd, since these creatures had clearly just died. In fact, some of the monstrous victims were still exhaling their last breath, or were unlucky enough to be left to burn alive instead of being given a quick death like the rest had.
“These are.. Champions of Horror..” one of the cultivators said with shock.
The surrounding cultivators gasped. They knew very well who the champions of Horror were. The warriors of the domain the Immortal Armada was hiding from, trying to take this universe out of their path of destruction. In their minds, the thought of Horror’s domain only came up when they thought of their previous encounters, or when planning how to escape in case the Armada failed to seal the universe.
Of fighting them, the Immortal Armada had absolutely no intention.. After all, while they had the Warlord, the monstrous cultivators had an aspect of existence. Two powers of different dimensions.
While most of the cultivators were focused on the bodies of the champions of Horror, Okka’s attention was directed somewhere else. To the figure of a red-haired woman that quietly floated while embracing something.
The Admiral approached slowly, aware that she was likely to be the one that had committed such a massacre, and as he came to just a few feet of distance, he finally understood. While he did not know the red-haired woman, he had recognized the face of the body she was holding in her arms. Researcher Iris Krom, of the SCIA Zion.
Instead of bothering her, Okka signed for the cultivators to recover the woman, as well as the remains of the researcher. Then, he dived straight into the large portal.
Soon the admiral found himself in a white universe. Around him uncountable portals, each with a surface identical to the one Okka had just emerged from, or either sealed or immobile, signs that they respectively contained a universe not yet open to the rest of the multiverse, or a collapsed space.
This place was, of course, the trigate. The channel that united every universe in existence.. A space in which, because of their migratory nature, the Immortal Armada had spent centuries traveling.
Alone in front of his universe’s portal, Okka turned around, trying to regain his bearings.. And only stopping as he familiarized with the unique pattern formed by the portal. Once familiar, he hastily turned to his left.. Direction from which the domain of Horror was advancing.. What he saw made his blood freeze.
Predicted to be centuries away from reaching their universe, Okka spotted a swarm of Horror’s champions standing guard outside of the portal just next to his own. “They are already here..” he muttered in shock.
