POV: Gefre-Shur the Veiled.

The Golden Cruelty dodged the blast. Her legs a blur as she scrambled up the building. One second, she had been in the middle section of a space-port. The colossal wall standing twice as tall as any mountain on the world. The next, she was leaping from the summit. Her charge punching through the hull of a fleeing cargo ship as if the thing were made of paper.

The wall where she had been mere moments ago was now little more than crumbling ash. My Enhancer senses making it so that each half-disintegrated brick and beam of metal looked as if they were being held up by strings, before they then slowly floated downwards.

As for the people still trapped within the space-port… well. Golden Cruelty had been the one to flee here, to this crowded place, after slaying Frigid Bloodline and those others. Letting her escape or waiting for another chance was never going to be an option. These deaths would be on her, though I suspected she cared little.

'She's trying to escape again.' Prolofor spoke in my mind. Through the connection he and Master Grefed Mar Gosha had established among us. 'She's trying to open up another portal.'

I grunted in frustration. Only to then reel back with surprise that I had lost so much of my own self-control.

My whispers flicked in anticipation, the hairs sensing the movements of the Enhancer Savant as she rushed through all the walls in the ship even as the hulking structure began to lose speed. The anti-gravity generators sputtering out under the weight of the assault.

'Sssshe'ssss trying again.' Defruto hissed. The enunciations of her serpentine tongue audible even through Telepathy. Somehow.

'Uselesssss.' She thought-hissed again. 'Sssshe hassss already tried over three hundred timessss. What a wasssste of Pssssy.'

I did not conceal my thoughts from the rising star. Allowing her to fully appreciate the depth of stupidity she had been plunging into.

'You are not on the 10th Tier. Defruto.' Master Grefed Mar Gosha projected in my stead. 'Your greatest asset lies with you Projector powers, but even then, you are only on the 8th. Yes, she has tried again and again, and failed. But each attempt brings her closer to success. The distortions we create in space do less and less to break her portals every time. She is growing at an unprecedented rate. At a rate that should not have been possible. Do not let your guard down.'

There was silence throughout the connection then. All the others being in agreement.

As an Enhancer Savant, I had no idea what it was that they were speaking about of course, but I trusted the Master enough to take her word for it.

'I am on guard.' The serpentine Master hissed back. 'Enough sssso that I wassss not killed like the presssstigioussss and mighty Frigid Bloodline. Nor like the two Massssterssss the Cruelty picked off after the fact.'

'She did not kill you because you were halfway across the planet. Much as you are right now.' I countered.

'And I do not believe you should let your guard down even then. She has Telepath as a third Type, I am told. Keep your mental defences up and keep draining her Psy through constant attacks.'

Thinking at her, rather than speaking through the connection was awkward. Like speaking underwater.

I could only hope that my message was understood.

'I keep trying.' She hissed back. 'Her Enhancer sssside hassss turned her mind into a fortressss. It feelsss like picking at the sssside of a mountain with wet tisssssuessss.'

'Cease these excuses.' Prolofor snapped. 'The great one and the clan must be avenged! Join yourself to my own psychic attacks then! Feed me through our connection!'

All he got in reply was a hiss.

Understandable, since as far as I understood it, she was the main Master of her own species and the only shot at a Divine they were ever likely to get.

A fact that Prolofor did not seem to understand.

While his clan members might be more than happy to sacrifice themselves in a suicidal gambit to overboost a single attack, the Espers of other species would be queasy about such prospects. Yet this fact of life eluded him. Even after so many years of life.

'I should not be so harsh on him though.' I mused. 'Frigid Bloodline had never internalized this fact either.'

I shrugged off the protests and the bickering from the others who were connected to the group. Instead focusing my senses on all the people scrambling on the streets below.

Or rather, all the corpses.

What had been the general population of Asfarar minutes before now resembled a waist-high river of red jelly. Smeared all over the once busy streets.

The lucky ones had still been mere Tier 1 civilians when we cornered the Golden Cruelty for the second time. So that their organs ruptured inside their bodies after the first shockwave. When she first blocked my strike.

The unlucky ones would have been Tier 2 or 3 and they would have survived long enough for one of the buildings or spaceships to fall on them. Or to be caught up in one of our energy bombardments.

The likes of her might have shrugged off a current of lightning as thick as a tower and as hot as a miniature sun, but the commons caught up in all this would not have been so fortunate.

'Though a lucky few might have survived in the periphery. If the outlying backlash was all they had to deal with and not the real attack.'

Indeed, I could make out spots below where a few figures were swimming through the offal. Scales or feathers of fur having burned clean off their bodies, exposing layers of muscle that were trying to [Regenerate]. Fighting against the heat still lingering in the air.

'Regrettable.' I thought to myself, not caring if the others heard. 'So much life, for nothing.'

I turned my head towards the ship as it crashed down. The reactor finally reaching critical mass and exploding outwards.

The force of the shockwave more or less disintegrated the building where I'd been hanging from my claws and I was left to fall. Blown backwards and away from my target by the burst.

My Symbiote did not even flinch of course. We had weathered worse together.

Neither did my whiskers burn or my eyes moisten with tears.

Instead, I landed a minute later. Sundering the ashes beneath me as a second and third explosions echoed where the space-port had been. The reactors of other ships blowing as their own hulls crumbled from the original blast.

My eyes searched through the blinding light for her. For the Golden Cruelty.

I found her mid-leap. Caught up on her own flight and racing for another space-port in the distance. Why she would do such a thing was beyond me. Not like any captain on the planet would give her safe harbor knowing we were in pursuit. Not like any captain hadn't already been influenced by us to leave regardless.

'She is making sure there are as many casualties as possible!' Prolofor sneered through all our minds. 'I caught a glimpse of her thoughts! She wants to make sure we kill as many as possible so she may rally other masses and her own followers to her cause! Claiming she was attacked for no reason! She no longer wants to remain neutral! She means to turn to the Tyrant's cause completely!'

I felt a shiver as the dots finally connected.

'Of course.' I realized. 'The masses. That was it. The Tyrant was thinking this far ahead.'

'What do you mean?' The scaly Projector asked. Seemingly confused. 'The commonssss do not matter. Not in the leasssst. Asss for her followersssss. Ssssshe had them regardlesssss.'

'Think again.' I rebutted. 'The Tyrant can use his combined ability to turn any of the commons into a formidable enemy overnight. Perhaps not in terms of skill, but in terms of raw power.'

The more I thought of it, the more the stars aligned and the more I discovered about the sinister implications of the Tyrant's planning.

'Savants aside, normal Masters take hundreds of thousands of years to reach higher Tiers. If they reach them at all. Because of this, they have enough time to become embedded in the political structures of their species. They become people of import and of responsibility. They become valued and indispensable to their people, hence why so many of them are hesitant to begin fights with equals. Why so many of them form communities with fellow Masters and the odd Savant. Those that do not follow this pattern either become stuck due to the lack of help, or burn out quickly like dying stars. This is why when fights do happen, they are usually settled out of sight, in small teams or in single combat. But with the Tyrant…'

'A horde of no-name commoners may become strong enough to corner a Master. Whether they be on the 6th, 7th, 8th, or even the 9th Tier.' Grefed Mar Gosha noted. 'I am confident in destroying such a horde when cornered ten to one. But there is no telling what limits that power may have. He may very well be getting ready to send a few million disposable pawns to kill each of us when we're alone.'

And that was assuming we managed to kill Golden Cruelty here and now. And that we managed to destroy all the Savants that the Tyrant had turned to his side.

If not…

'She will come back stronger, with other Savants as backup. Harrowing Wail and Silent Stillness. Crushing Void and Benevolent Mercy. Any one of those attached to her and to a troop of suicidal younglings barely a century old could become a big enough threat to kill Hazimon himself, if he were alone. Not to mention the Seeking Drake, wherever it was, would not sit out on such an opportunity.'

'Agreed.' All the others echoed at once.

'They must be hunted down. One by one. While they are still not gathered up in strength. They must be crushed decisively and without mercy.' Grefed Mar Gosha declared. 'Regardless of how many must die in the process.'

She was right of course. We had all known that before striking out like this. But the way it all seemed to fall into that Tyrant's hands irked me.

'Perhaps he planned for us to react this way?' I mused. 'Perhaps he planned for us to attack Cruelty? An act that would bring both her and her connections to his cause?'

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

And there it was.

The more I thought about it, the more likely that prospect seemed.

We'd been trying to set an example by striking down Golden Cruelty and all we accomplished was the death of one of our strongest and the bolstering of the Tyrant's own forces at an exponential level.

The Tyrant had won another victory without even being present or risking his own neck. Not only had he removed the Dragon, not only had he twisted so many to his side, not only had he slain the Moving Mountain and the Frigid Bloodline, but now he had turned an elder Savant like the Golden Cruelty completely to his side.

Adding her to his forces merely as a consequence as us failing to strike her down.

'We should have left her alone and moved directly against the Telepath Savants and the Projector Savants on the Tyrant's side.' I mused. Immediately feeling the tension rising in the other parts of the connection.

'Stop thinking about that.' Grefed Mar Gosha snapped. 'More of our allies are coming through portals. There are no less than 15 of us now and our Veiled Princes will tire her out. Each one is fueled by a different combined ability and a different Title. We'll manage to stop her here. Those lives were not spent in vain. We can still win this.'

I frowned to myself and cursed softly. Blocking off my own thoughts from hers momentarily. Ignoring the newcomers even as I saw portals manifesting. Pink or blue or red dots rupturing the air far out in the distance with potent wells of Psy exiting out.

15 became 20. Became 30. Became 40.

Not all of them were anywhere near the 10th or even the 9th Tier, but it was still a significant show of force. Indeed, it would not have been a lie to say that the vast majority of our strength was gathered here now. All to destroy the Cruelty before she could escape and join her new conspirators.

And I still could not shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong with this whole picture.

'All this folly has earned us is more death. We were trying to set an example to others without enough loyalty and good sense, and all we've done is hand the Tyrant more victories. I can't help but feel he is some manner of evil genius.' I thought.

Now opening my mind again.

'I can't help but feel as though he planned this whole thing out and all we've done is unknowingly play right into his evil hands.'

'That isss not likely.' The scaly Master hissed again. 'None of us have been able to predict much of…'

'It is not about prediction. Not about powers.' I snapped back. 'It's about intelligence. Predicting what is happening by knowing the actors on the stage and figuring out what they might do. Yes, this being must be some kind of evil genius to predict all of this without even having met us.'

I was rushing after the Golden Cruelty even then. Any thought of diplomacy having long-since fled.

'I must stop her here. I must kill her here, or this conflict will only expand more and more. I must not let these lives go to waste. I must not let the corruption spread. I must end it no…'

I reeled in pain due to the connection. A scream resounding through my mind as one of the Masters assisting in the subjugation began experiencing an agony that flayed the very spirit.

'What's happening!?' Grefed Mar Gosha asked through the link. 'Are we under attack? Focus! Tell me what you see!'

There was silence for a full second. An eternity in and of itself to the likes of us.

'Wait, my Veiled Prince was just struck down.' Grefed Mar Gosha informed us all. 'The combined ability is triggering… yes. I can see a few seconds into…RUN!!!'

The link snapped shut, just as I began to notice the buzzing in the air. The purple crackling lightning in the sky.

And then… silence.

POV: The Golden Cruelty.

"What manner of Grokshit is this!?" I roared as I skittered through the city. The few pieces of jewelry I had left clanking against each other.

They were the only sounds in the now silent world.

"What the fuck did you do!?"

I turned to the Intruder. Unable to keep myself from shaking. Unable to keep the hairs in my body from standing up in alarm.

"Grefed Mar Gosha was Tier 10! 10! On more than one Type! How is she fucking dead!"

I whirled my legs about.

"How is everyone fucking dead!"

The Intruder chuckled to itself. That shaved, monkey-like face that was too fat for its build rippling about as if each fat roll was a serpentine bug covered in grease. Struggling to escape a net of webbing.

"Forgive me my lady. But I would not dare to divulge my dear lord's secrets so openly. Huhuhuhu." It tittered to itself in a self-depreciating way. One that only served to annoy me further.

Though that mounting irritation was soon replaced by a fear born of caution.

"Suffice it to say, that my dear Master reigns supreme. As always. Mehuhuhu."

He waved to the four-headed thing to his side. The eight white wings hanging off its back still as stone as the thing floated in place.

"This vessel is a Veiled Prince my lady. In case you are curious, it can use any ability that my Master has."

He made a face that I could not discern. Despite my best efforts.

"It would seem that the Tall Man saw fit to save your life, my lady." The fat-faced Intruder informed me. Before tittering some more.

"Yes. I do believe he found this dimension a tad bit noisy for his liking. Perhaps, he thought it fit to bring a little peace and quiet to all the heathens scrambling about like roaches underfoot." He made a scowled face.

"Ugh and can you blame him my lady? So many filthy heretics moving to and fro. Spreading their vile smell and all that noise, Noise, NOISE! Bothering my poor, poor Master as he goes about his business of making this multiverse a better place. Truly, I say, the silence is an improvement. And not a small one."

I looked around some more.

Poking the Master, the near Divine Grefed Mar Gosha with the tip of a leg.

She did not so much as twitch.

"He killed them." I spoke.

"Yes my lady. That does seem to be an accurate statement."

"He killed them all." I spoke again.

"Yes my lady. Once more, your powers of observation are as bountiful as your prodigious intellect."

"How many?" I asked. "What was the range? How many died?"

"All within this dimension, I think." He spoke casually. "Though you should not be worried my good lady. As I said, you are clearly valued by the Master. Those who walk in his good light shall never be led astray."

"And by that, you mean that his Veiled Prince specifically chose to ignore me and only me. Out of the entire dimension." I clarified.

"Yes, I did think that was self-evident my lady." The fat bastard assured me.

I did not answer for a few seconds. Wondering how to proceed.

Under the laws and traditions of my people, this was a victory. Not a straightforward one, but a victory nonetheless.

Tradition demanded that I swiftly move on and devour my attackers. Before then moving on to lead my own war party, or in this case submitting to the obviously stronger leader as he lead his war party, away from here and on to the following battle.

I pulled on Grefed Mar Gosha's body once more. Admiring how the dead prodigy's shelled exterior was filled with gems. Obviously the result of her own bodily modifications, as her Symbiote was little more than a puddle of dead goo.

I then turned my attention to her six limbs and the green scales beneath.

"A Jargra." I said aloud. "That was what she was. The strongest of them."

"Was she?" The Intruder mused out loud. "Looks like a turtle to me. But what do I know? I am nowhere near as resplendent as you my dear lady. Nor as important to my dear, beloved Master's plans."

I nodded and looked over the dead world one last time.

'Well that's deeply disturbing. Though it could always be worse I suppose. Looks like I picked the right side at least. If you can't beat them…'

I lifted Grefed Mar Gosha's stiffening corpse and brought her closer to my mandibles.

Taking the first ceremonial bite.

POV: Gefre-Shur the Veiled.

There was a void where the waking world had been. A blackness that seemed to stretch on forever. With no light or sound or feeling that could penetrate it.

I breathed and the feedback of the movements startled me. I was unsure as to who or what had made the sounds until I realized that it had indeed been my snout.

I awoke at once. Properly and fully. My eyes searching for some distant light. My nerves imagining that someone, some thing, was beating on my chest. My arms twitching. Not responding to my commands for the first time in eons.

I tried to move them again and despaired at how agonizing the pain was.

'Pain.' I realized. 'I'm feeling pain. Again. How…how long has it been? Since I felt pain?'

I closed my eyes to try and make sense of it all, but it was impossible to recall.

Even going back to some of my earliest memories, I could not clearly remember being in pain. Though I must have experienced it at some point.

I heard the sounds of water droplets hitting a puddle to my right. Yet I was unable to fully puzzle out where exactly the puddle was or where the droplets were falling from. I tried to focus and the world around me swirled. My head throbbing as memories surged forward.

'When was it?'

'I could recall…being struck. The training field for children in our village.'

Another droplet fell.

'I could recall the explanations about the System, the city, worlds being lost.'

Two more droplets fell at once.

'I could recall my first master, Befru-Gren and his shouts. His shouts telling us to train harder. To fight harder.'

Four more droplets, now falling to my left as well as my right.

I winced as old memories came unbidden.

The ships from above. Floating through the ashen skies. Towers of ebony and blackened steel turned on their sides.

I remembered being in awe of how they looked. I remembered wondering how something as big as all the houses in our village put together stayed up in the air.

Then, the missile.

The feeling of flying, of floating, of falling.

Then, the nothingness.

The lack of feeling even as I stood. The lack of gravity as the upended dust appeared as if it was frozen in place.

The System window coming alive and showing the rise in levels. The new abilities. The combinations and the titles.

I re-lived standing there, upon the heap of debris and watching down at the opening portals. The gnomes and the bodies they dragged out to the holes in reality.

'I felt strong then. Powerful. Light on my paws. I felt as if my fur was iron and my claws steel. I could feel no fear, just the knowledge that I had something to do. I knew I had to act. Like the heroes in the stories of the Tutorial and the champions of our species. I moved and the air did not move with me. Nothing moved with me.'

More droplets. Less this time around. But spread out further around me.

I remembered rushing down. The world slow around me.

I remembered one of my claws entering the head gnome. I remembered moving before he showed a reaction.

Throughout it all, there had been no pain. Hardly any feeling at all in fact.

No, I did not feel anything when the representatives from the city came and threw all the survivors into a life of luxury.

My brothers and mothers felt joy and relief. We could live here. We could survive here, without worrying about slavers or crop failures. We could live while getting anything we wanted.

So long as I trained and got stronger.

Years then. Trials. System events and sections of the Labyrinth.

I did not feel pain when we advanced on the brass gates at the end of a tunnel. I did not feel pain when I kicked the thick doors open or when the mechanical monsters rushed at me. I did not feel pain as I slapped then aside. Each swipe more or less causing a shockwave so ferocious it sent the men behind me tumbling to the ground. Sending the monsters against the distant walls and flattening them at once.

I recalled the feats that followed. More or less. I'd been so small and so young, but I could still make out the smiling faces of my brothers and both my mothers and the trainers and all the servants. They were all feeling joy. They were happy.

Whereas I could barely feel anything at all.

'Yes.' I told myself. 'I do not feel pain. This must be new. Something terrible must have happened.'

'Or something great.' Another voice whispered. 'Pain means vulnerability. A fight with an equal. Pain means challenge. Pain means new things to learn and master. Pain means growth.'

I recalled that those had been the Dragon's words, uttered once upon a time. Then my mind began connecting the dots. Struggling to awaken fully and shrug off the veil of numbness currently enveloping me.

'What was I doing?'

My fur felt matted and slick with something.

My fur. That is, the exposed layer of hair and not my Symbiote.

I focused more on my eyes and only then realized that I'd been wrong. The issue wasn't that I'd been surrounded by darkness. It was that I had no eyes.

I tried moving my paws to my face then, but none of my limbs moved as they normally would have.

I tried to marshal my Psy, but found it swirling about in a chaotic mess. My inner energies flaring up like bonfires instead of the single, solid gemstone my inner Psy often formed.

'What is going on?' I thought to myself. 'Why is my Psy acting like this? Why am I acting like this? What happened to me? To… me?'

I stopped. My breath catching in my throat.

'The others! What happened to the others!?'

Frigid Bloodline was dead. I knew that much.

The traitor Golden Cruelty had done something none of us had expected and erased him and all his clones at once. None of them had any kind of chance to deflect or resist the attack. None of our Telepaths saw it coming. None of our Projectors felt any kind of energy surge.

He was simply here one moment and he was dust in the next one.

'But Grefed Mar Gosha was still around after that. She was in the 10th Tier. In two Types. She was a Master nearing Ascencion. Though she only had two Tier 10 abilities. She was there and she tried to give chase to the Golden Cruelty. She was in the 10th Tier in both Projector and Telepath. She was there. She was there and she should have held off the traitor's escape. Then how?'

More droplets fell and I felt my limbs twitching some more. Psy flowing back slowly to my cells and empowering my recovery. Not as a Shifter, but as an Enhancer.

It was a slow process, but I was able to fight through the pain in an hour or so.

I stood then and lurched forwards. Each step sending needles into what was left of my fur.

'What happened?' I wondered again. 'How am I alive?'

No, that last one wasn't a question. I knew. There was that hole in the ceiling. I could feel a draft despite not having much left in the way of fur or skin. Wind was coming from there, meaning I was in a cave and I had crashed through the hole.

I knew that was how it had happened.

Especially now that I sent Psy into my insides.

One of my Titles…. That one in particular, was inactive.

The one that had never been used until now.

'Blast it.' I thought. As speaking was still too painful. 'I died. Something killed me. The Title brought me back but…'

But the combination was gone. All the combinations were gone.

I had died after all. This was a new person being helped out by a new System window.

Only the System was gone and that combination could not be remade. Not as it was.

'I need to get out.' I thought with mounting alarm. 'I need to keep moving. I need to figure out what happened. I need to see who else survived.'

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.