When Kai tried to move, he was wracked with a sharp, stuttering pain that lanced out from somewhere deep within him.

Turning to Syl, he saw that she was clearly feeling something similar.

Talious tsked, "To think it would end like this. Is the portal back to the Hope still open at your little house?"

He nodded as he watched the eye above them blink, a clear milky lid coming in from either side of the eye in slow motion, Kai realising that they were currently in a time dilation or whatever had broken into the domain was working on a different scale.

"Good, I will get the others out," Talious said as she looked at the eggs.

Talious seemed so calm, but there was also a flash of uncertainty in her eyes.

"What about the kitsuné?" Kai asked, as he did his best to sit up. Something hot running down to his lips as he moved, the taste of bitter iron filling his mouth as he spoke.

"They're doing what they can." Talious looked up. "But this is beyond even them. They have already asked me to secure their children. Honourable fools."

"How are you so calm?" Syl asked as she came up to Kai's side. The waves of pressure from the two eggs before them were diminishing by the second.

"I'm not, but panicking in situations like these rarely improves the outcome," Talious said as she stepped closer to the eggs. "Seems you're bonded now and their forms are consolidating with the energy that remains." Talious grumbled something as she reached out to hold a hand over the eggs. "We can't move them."

Looking back over at the eggs, Kai saw that things had changed as something within each egg now glowed through the shells.

"I will wait here, it's not like leaving the domain will do us any good," Syl said through pained gasps, "I'm dead if this place is destroyed… Kai's physical body might recover. Oh gods, the new bonds… Kai, what have we done?" Syl gasped.

More like what had he done, Kai thought. He was the one that pushed things, used the system energy to create the bond. The one who had just pulled Gift and Alicia into a deeper connection that would injure them should anyone of them be removed.

There was a pulse of pain from within him, but when it passed, something was different.

He looked up again.

The eye was gone.

The crack in the domain had snapped shut, the light of the aurora that usually ringed the distant mountains encapsulating the outer edge of the domain was now flashing across the sky to hem the fracture that remained in streaks of light.

"What's happening?"

"That is our domain repairing the breach," Syl said with a distant look on her face.

Kai let out a pained breath. "Well, panic over?"

"No, Kai… it came inside," Syl said softly.

"Apparently its curiosity was greater than its hunger. It's not ideal, but I believe it is much better than the thing, whatever it is, consuming your domain outright. With it on the inside, you have a chance now. But don't underestimate the thing. Your domain is damaged and your suppression will only go so far. As I am now, I'll only be a hinderance. Will one of you please send me to the main residence? I actually have no idea where in the domain I am," Talious said as she retracted her hand to ball them into tense fists at her sides.

"It's a blind spot… that is why I chose it." Syl stood up on shaky legs to lay a hand on Talious's shoulder, "Thank you, Talious. Make sure everyone's safe and don't let anyone back through, especially Alicia and Gift."

Before Talious could reply, she was gone, and Syl was turning, her hand reaching out to Kai.

"I'm staying," Kai said sharply. There was no way he was leaving Syl here alone.

"I know. I'm just helping you get to your feet."

"Oh…" his defiance died.

"I would prefer you were outside of the domain, especially your physical body. But with the domain damaged and the harm you did to yourself, making the bonds," Syl took his hand, "But I know you wouldn't leave me. Just don't do anything stupid, or I will throw you through the portal myself. Don't think I can't."

"So what do we do?" Kai groaned as Syl helped him to stand up.

Syl looked over her shoulder at the eggs and tapped her lip with a finger as she thought. A minute later she said, "We greet our guest and improvise. It's all we can do."

"You're the expert," Kai said as he opened himself up to the domain to locate the intruder and travel to them. But another piercing pain shot through him, spots and sparkles appearing in his vision.

"Leave the domain manipulation to me. You have already bled from your nose and ears. We don't want to add your eyes to that."

Kai blinked and dabbed at his nose. Sure enough, the tip of his finger came away covered in blood.

"Good thing your regeneration kicked in. You would have been covered in blood. Not a good look when greeting our unwanted guest."

"Is the suppression thing really not going to tip the scales in our favour? I thought anyone that came in here was at our mercy," Kai said as he tried to figure out why he was worse for wear when Syl was standing there in significantly better condition than him.

"We can suppress anyone who is at or near our tier. If something of a significantly higher tier comes in, or anything near divinity, the suppression can only do so much," Syl said as she looked at the eggs again.

The eggs seemed to have settled now, no sign of the pressure they had exuded before, the glow that they were now emitting pulsing like a steady heartbeat.

When Syl turned back to him, she had a fire in her eyes as they glowed with an intensity he had never seen before.

"You look like you have a plan."

She shook her head. "Just determination. Now, let's go, I can feel this thing crawling around and I don't like it."

The space around them shifted and the next thing Kai knew, they were both standing in front of something Kai could only describe as sickly and unnatural.

Roiling purple mist boiled off a floating, black, mottled orb that was about as round as Kai was tall.

Two figures struggling sprawled out on the ground before it.

"Hoshi, Tsuki, you've done enough," Syl said as they disappeared.

The orb turned slowly to look at them, the mist as it emanated, following slowly it as it moved. A series of hollow green eyes placed haphazardly around what Kai could only assume was its face blinked one after another as tentacles unfurled from its round body to writhe in their direction.

"Hmm, humans? That explains why the proud Kitsuné had taken such forms. But again, you two are too weak to be such a vast domain master… I tire of dealing with pets and illusions."

It surged towards them.

Things shifted again as Syl moved them both to the opposite side of the thing. Syl positioning them perfectly at the edge of where the once lush purple grass had blackened and died.

"I'm afraid this is, in fact, our domain. And you, soul reaver, are trespassing. Correct me if I am not mistaken. Your kind is not supposed to come after the living."

"I know, the damn kitsuné informed me…" the thing said as it undulated and moved again, this time much faster, as it seemed to blink from where it was to the position they stood.

At least the position they were standing in, Syl had already moved them to a nearby hill the moment she decided it was about to move again.

"You shouldn't be here," Syl said, her voice firm and commanding.

Kai didn't have a clue what was happening, only that every time he tried to help by trying to lock the thing down in a pocket of slow time caused him excruciating pain. Even when he tried to figure out what the thing really was, he was overcome with pain when he tried to examine it, a series of erroneous results serving only to confuse matters more than pressure built in his head until he dismissed the information..

Just what had he done to himself? At first, he thought he was just injured from the domain being forced open, but something else was clearly going on here. Perhaps the act of binding so many at once had done something to him he didn't understand.

"I go where I want," the thing rattled its tentacles as it slowly spun to look at them from its new spot. "Tell me how such a place that reeks of the void also smells like the two of you," It said. The mist falling from its form to spread out, blackening the grass below it as it crept out in every direction, consuming everything it touched.

"As I told you, we are this domain, and it is us."

"Impossible. This place is too old, too developed. You are too young, too weak," It hissed as the mist it made thickened and swirled around it angrily.

"Can everything change form?" Kai sighed quietly as the thing slipped out of the mist, slithering along on tentacles that writhed and flicked out of the bottom of a long, worn, dull grey robe.

Its face was hidden in the shadows of a heavy hood, shifting green specks, the only sign that something lay within.

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"Spirits don't often have a set physical form. Like the things you find in the void, they use what suits them," Syl whispered.

"You speak from a place of authority," the thing rasped.

Syl shrugged, "I know what I know. Your kind are everywhere if you know where to look. But you're scavengers, you seek out the dead and dying. You ignore the living."

"Yes, we clear away the refuse. It is thanks to my kind that you have space to thrive. Space in the spirit realm is more finite than your kind think," It said as a series of dull green points blinked at them from within the shadows of its heavy hood.

"I know, so I ask, why are you here?"

"I was awoken…"

"Well, you have our apologies. Now, if you would leave quietly instead of the way you entered, that would be most appreciated."

The soul reaver looked around, then disappeared to reappear in front of them within the same moment.

"A spectral being, their soul grafted to another, another that is inverted, somehow here in their physical form… and the power I felt. It was flavoured with divinity, and something old, lost," the thing hissed to itself contemplatively .

Syl took Kai's hand and squeezed, "We used an artefact to bond our team members."

The reaver form twisted back to give it a better look up at the constellation of cores now hovering in the sky.

"If what you say is true, it was a foolish use of such a powerful item, such weak and pitiful souls to bind your fate. I know of many beings, old and powerful, within this realm and those beyond that would happily bond any that are willing."

"Any that are willing to subjugate themselves," Syl scoffed

It hissed in agitation as Syl moved them to another spot further away.

Kai felt a pulse of something putrid burst within him as he watched the area around the thing blackened, curled, and turned to sludge. The land seeping down to form a pool of fetid tar at the lowest point.

Clutching at his chest, Kai looked to Syl and asked, "What was that?!"

"It took a bite."

Kai grimaced as the reaver shifted to appear before them again.

"I think I like the taste of this place. It's fresh, and yet the taste is… more mature than I would expect."

"I am sure we would taste better once we've actually matured," Syl said as she continued reasoning with it.

"And yet some fruit sours with age," it said with a snap of its tentacles.

"You're old enough that a meal such as us would fail to even whet your appetite. Leave us, let us grow, then consume us when we are ripe."

"That is true, and yet you woke me with the scent of something I have not tasted…" the form shifted and shook, its wet tentacles somehow rattling against each other as it seemed to think. "Something I have not tasted since your meager ancestors first rose to the stars to find nothing but the raw, unbridled power of the cosmos and chose to tame it with that thing you call the system," it hissed in disgust.

Syl moved them back again, this time leaping so far away the thing was but a sickly black speck in the distance. The area surrounding it sleuthing away to form another dank festering sore on the landscape.

"If I kill you, I can consume you without consequence, then I will know for sure what woke me." It cackled dryly as it appeared before them again.

"And here I thought your kind was bound," Syl said as she moved them again.

It rattled and roared where they had left it.

"Are you trying to piss the thing off?" Kai asked he watched the thing take another bite.

"It has set its mind. I'm hoping it will be so pissed off that it fails to notice."

"Notice what?"

The thing disappeared to appear again, only this time having travelled part of the way to get to them,. Its form rapidly slowing as it hovered in the air.

Syl let out a relieved breath as she sank into Kai's side.

"You tricked it into a pocket of slowed time!" Kai said with a grin.

Kai went to take a step, but Syl tightened her grip.

"We can't move. If it see's us move unpredictably, it will figure out something is up. Remember, from its perspective, we will be moving faster than it will think is possible."

"What even is a soul reaver? I couldn't examine it."

"Ageless spirits that have existed since the first things with a soul started to pass on."

"So a reaper?"

"Not as you think of them. Kai listen, when those things are young, they're mindless scavengers feasting on anything that will not resist them."

"The dead," Kai said, following Syl's explanation to its conclusion.

She nodded, "They are a literal example of you are what you eat. The fact that thing there can think and communicate tells me it is old. Clearly, it has consumed the remnants of countless sentient beings. But the fact that it was sleeping, and we woke it… That tells me it is ancient, having no choice but to hibernate for something significant to pass on so that can actually sate its appetite."

"So what do we do?"

"We stall…" Syl said, tapping her lip. "I wanted to keep it talking, but it's clearly corrupted. Their kind are usually benevolent, patient beings, especially when they have been allowed to live this long. This one has clearly consumed far too many corrupt sickly domains, taking on less desirable traits in the process."

"You said it shouldn't even be here?"

"It shouldn't. They have their own laws and control their own population. When there are too many of their kind, they starve and go feral. They learned long ago it was better to leave the living be. They agreed to never interfere with the living so long as they were free to consume the remnants of the dead…" Syl trailed off as she watched the thing.

Its tentacles writhing violently now as it moved through the slower pocket of time.

"So they consume souls? Anything else I should know?"

"They don't actually consume souls. They recover and consume what is left when someone dies in the physical realm and the spirit moves on… you can think of it as the true soul moving on to the next stage... things kind of get complicated at that point. I'm sorry, Kai, I don't know more than that. It didn't come up often in the tutorial. The older ones usually act as farmers, protecting souls, so that those souls have time to grow to the point there is something worth consuming."

"So, we are stalling… Why? Sounds like we're fucked."

The soul reaver was moving faster now as it approached the horizon of the time dilation it was travelling through.

"I'm hoping what Talious said is true… Kai, you can't let that thing touch you," Syl said a moment before a thick riving tentacle swept through the space there were once standing in.

"Just give up," the thing called from the spot they had vacated.

Kai tried to think about what Talious had said, what there could be their salvation. It was actually obvious when he spared the mental energy.

"You're hoping Atheos can do something."

Syl nodded as once again the thing disappeared, only to be caught as it travelled back through the same distortion it had just passed through.

"I had hoped this dilation was more dense…"

"Can we not take it elsewhere, if seen pockets rimmed with those horned rabbits, the distortion in time so strong it captures anything foolish enough to go near it?"

"Too risky. You felt what it did to us. We need to keep it isolated, and this is the only slow spot in the area."

"I can make one,"

"No Kai, you can't, not right now anyway. I can feel it. I know you have been trying to help. But you're underestimating the damage you did to yourself."

Kai rubbed at his nose, his finger now coming away with flakes of dry blood.

"I didn't even do anything. How come I'm all beat up and you're still moving us about with ease?"

"I'm not, trust me. If I could do more, I would." She tilted her head up slightly to the still glowing fracture in the sky. "That is draining the domain more than you know. And as far as you're concerned, you touched too much power too quickly and used it to do something you shouldn't be able to do."

They moved again to the sound of unearthly fury in the distance.

Kai didn't understand. All he had done was use his store of system energy to have the system facilitate the creation of some bonds. He had used system energy numerous times before accepting the system prompts when it suited him and dismissing them when it didn't.

"I don't understand. How is what I did with the system energy any different from when I used it in the past? I took the energy and accepted the prompt, that's all."

Sill was silent for a long moment, "Kai… did you get the system prompt, or create the prompt?"

It was Kai's turn to be silent as he tried to remember what had actually happened.

"Do you even know how to create a lasting bond? Do you have the skill?"

"I… don't."

"What you did was impossible. The system shouldn't have even acknowledged it."

"But you said it should work."

"I was thinking you would use the system energy to guide what the dragons were doing… even enhance or empower the faint connection they had to gift and Alicia to encourage them to bond them with all the extra juice."

"Isn't that what I did?"

Syl shook her head as they appeared on another hill.

The soul reaver cackling madly as it appeared to consume the spot they once stood.

"No, Kai, you accessed the system, told it what you wanted... and it obeyed."

Kai watched as the soul reaver moved again, this time taking an indirect route to reach them. Luckily the time distortion still caught it, unluckily it was only the outer edge and the time it delayed the thing was minimal.

"And that's bad?" Kai asked.

"You did it without a connection to the system and without any system authority. You didn't even touch what authority I have, as little as that is."

"So that's why I feel like shit right now."

Syl nodded again, as she refused to take her eyes off the thing that approached them.

"Think of it this way, Kai. You're a wire, a thin one, and you just got hit by lightning as the system pushed both information and power through you to achieve what you wanted… no transformer or no fuse. When I realised what was happening, I tried to stop it, but it was too late."

"The cry I heard?"

Syl pointed up as she kept her eyes locked on their attacker.

"The bonds you made, Kai… well, they aren't exactly what we have, and they won't pull Alicia's tiny domain into ours. But they are still significant. Then there is the way you set things up…"

"Synergistic," Kai said with a pained grin.

"I saw the trait change. And then there is what you did to Gif-" Syl's sentence was cut off as she jumped them from one spot to another in rapid succession.

Each time she moved them, the soul reaver would appear before them. A maw opened in its hood, the green glow that came from within, lighting row upon row of writhing teeth as it curled into what Kai could only assume was a smile.

"I know what you are doing." The sound of its dry raspy voice came, its mouth unmoving as it ignored the typical conventions of speech, "Why delay the inevitable? I am beyond time, even with this pitiful suppression. Even within your own domain, I am beyond you. You can not win. The more you run, the more I consume, the weaker you get."

"What's your name?" Kai asked suddenly as he felt Syl's hold on his hand loosen slightly as she slumped into him for support. The rapid series of movement proving to be too much.

"And please don't say Cathulu, I recognise the tenticles, but I saw real eldritch horrors within the void," Kai continued.

"Yes, I taste the void-"

"Name?" Kai said dryly. "Its only polite."

The jaw snapped shut, and the eyes blinked in succession.

"And I think Raziel is taken."

"I don-"

"And what actually woke you up? Couldn't have been us. I know the energy we were putting out using that artefact was a lot. But a being such as yourself couldn't have been awoken by something below the first tier."

"The amount was inconsequential, it was the taste… it was familiar," it hissed.

"That doesn't tell me much. If you let me know more, maybe I can do it again. If you like it so much, maybe I can produce much more if ypu leave us alive and wait for us to mature," Kai said, hoping to pickup what Syl had tried to do earlier.

"It was something…" the eyes blinked again. "Why do you delay? You know you cannot defeat me."

Kai nodded as Syl stood up straighter. "I know. That's why we aren't fighting you. We're not fools."

"Then why do you delay so much? Death is inevitable. It is the next step. Even the divine take the same step, eventually. It is not to be feared."

Kai grinned as he stepped forward, the creature actually slinking back slightly in confusion.

"Because it's not our time. Name?" Kai said before asking again.

The soul reaver hissed as its tentacles stretched out below it. "I have no name."

"That's a shame."

"Why does it even matter?"

"Because," boomed a feminine voice from all around them.

Kai looked up at the bright sky above them where a sun flared in the distance. A sun so warm and bright its proximity was enough to block out every other spec of light beyond their constellation of cores.

Kai pointed. "Because it's hard to introduce you to my divine friend without a name."

"A god cannot enter, your system prevents it-"

"Normally you would be right," Syl interrupted. "But this god is our friend and we both carry her blessing."

The soul reaver shifted forward. "I am ancient, I fear no god."

"What if that god was within a friendly domain while you were not…" Syl said, letting the statement trail off to give the soul reaver time for the implication to sink in.

The soul reaver shifted back and disappeared, only to reappear in the same spot.

"Let me out!" The mist it was creating roiled angrily. "My kind, they will-"

"Abandon you," Atheos boomed as a dragon of gold scales that flashed green near the tips, twice the size of Trengor, appeared to stand in the blackened ground of the domain. Sprouts of green and purple blooming everywhere her body touched the dead ground.

"They would never, I am-"

"You have intruded on a living domain and forfeited the protection of your kind," Atheos said as the light she emitted from her being caused the soul reaver to writhe and wither before her majesty.

Syl sank to her knees.

"Shit, Atheos, you smote that thing in seconds."

"Sorry I'm late. My abilities don't extend to the spirit realm, not that kind of god. I had to call in a few divine favours to get here in time. To think a System Authority would guide me the last few steps."

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