"I could buy entire universes’ worth of real estate with what I’d get for selling even the smallest piece of information on your location..."
From within the trees, a humanoid figure appeared. It was a fair-skinned man, a little over 6 feet tall, with hair dark as night and eyes of violet swirling with spatial power.
"...but I’m pretty sure no one on the Cosmic Stage would believe if I told them your inactivity was because you were busy having a tryst with a mortal man."
He stepped fully into view, the light from the stars reflecting on the lake’s surface illuminating his face, and upon recognising it, she narrowed her eyes.
"Why are you here?" she demanded.
"Didn’t I just say so? Information about your current whereabouts is a pretty hot commodity on the Cosmic Stage right now. You did cause quite a ss in the Dark Multiverse.
I an...you nearly put the Aggressor of Dreams into eternal sleep."
The man responded while shaking his head, a sigh escaping his lips as he recalled the uproar she caused with that action—the fallout from one of her failed attempts to rid herself of Chaos’ ntal encroachnt in her dreams.
"It’s only natural that everyone would be curious if you suddenly went silent," he continued. "And we Drifters pride ourselves on having the Cosmos’ greatest information network, so it’s only natural that Lord Nash dispatched so of us Ancient-Breeds to try and find you.
I simply happen to be the first to succeed."
The man perford a formal bow, introducing himself with a smile.
"You may have already heard of , but this is our first interaction. My na is Larry. So have taken to calling ’The Ubiquitous’. Pleasure to et you, ’Witch of Chaos’, Angela."
Angela didn’t pay his introduction any mind, her brows furrowing as her cosmic energy stirred.
"I care not who you are, but if you dare to reveal anything..."
"Oh, please. Stay your hand," Larry said with a laugh. "I’ve no intention to tussle with soone who nearly put an Aggressor six feet under.
It’s an established fact that only those wielding Cosmic Conceptual Authorities can kill others who possess similar Authority, and yet you could pose a mortal threat to one of them despite not being one yourself. I don’t wish to incur your ire.
The only reason I still ca here is because I have a bit of a ssage to pass on."
"ssage?" Angela echoed, and Larry nodded.
"Yes. While others were simply checking places you could be in their quest to find you, I decided to start from your roots. Like your ho planet, your fami—!!"
The man didn’t even complete the word as Angela’s cosmic energy erupted with full force, the lake instantly vaporising as several phenona materialised in a split second.
His feet sank knee-deep into his shadow, an external force pulling him into so dark dinsion through it, spears of destruction energy burst from the ground and pierced toward his vitals, an imnse force bore down on him, trying to force him to his knees, and several creation-law blades, brimming with so much cosmic power they crackled like lightning that distorted reality, shot toward his head and heart.
The man erupted with cosmic energy of his own, expanding the space around him to create distance between himself and the incoming attacks, while conjuring multi-layered barriers to block them and pulling himself out of the dinsion his shadow had been turned into a gate of.
"Hear out first! I just wanted to pass on a ssage from the—!"
Larry froze mid-speech, his eyes widening as he stared at the space behind Angela.
"Oh...my...Lord Progenitor."
"?"
Angela looked confused, but her confusion vanished the mont she turned around and saw the rift in reality tearing open, and realisation dawned on her imdiately.
She quickly got to her feet, all her hostility instantly redirected toward the rift, along with the imnse anger and hatred she held for the thing trying to erge from it.
Two long, slimy appendages with grotesque suckers that had jaws within them grabbed onto the edges of the rift and pulled it apart like soone parting a curtain, revealing more of the entity they were attached to as cosmic energy instantly flooded the area.
The planet cried out in pain from the influx of energy into its atmosphere, but the creature paid no attention as it threw one of its tentacles out of the rift, slamming it onto the ground and splitting the earth.
The rest of its body resembled a shadow, pitch black with crimson lines running across it in irregular patterns, and tiny jaws scattered all over its surface.
In the centre of its head was sothing that resembled an eye, a single circle with concentric crimson rings of light, and that eye looked right at Angela.
Just as she activated her Cosmic Authorities that had remained dormant for years, the creature’s head—or whatever the part with its eye-like structure was—lowered, and a grating voice echoed.
||YoU...cAlLeD...ChOsEn...OnE...||
The shocking words made both Angela and Larry freeze where they stood, and as they stayed in battle-ready stances, the creature turned toward Larry, and its voice echoed again.
||Is...thAt...ThE...TaRgEt...oF...YoUr...AnGeR...||
"!!"
Larry felt cold sweat run down his back as he was hit by the full force of an imnse hostility, the bloodlust alone making his body tremble.
At the sa ti, his mind raced at full speed, trying to understand how to survive this situation, and he quickly figured out the reason behind the creature’s hostility.
’Her anger toward ... she was angry at , and one of these things responded to that anger...!’
The fact that a Cosmic Horror had appeared when Angela directed rage at him, bowed to her, addressed her as the ’Chosen One,’ and then displayed hostility toward the target of her anger was all he needed to confirm his conclusion.
An uncontrollable spawn of the Void god, whose only purpose in the Cosmos had been to spread Chaos’ influence, had set that purpose aside to respond to the anger of an Envoy?
’Crazy! Ridiculous!’
Larry turned toward the equally shocked Angela, a trace of fear in his gaze as he realised the implication of what had just happened.
’She doesn’t seem aware this could even happen... but if she ever learns how to control these things consciously...!’
He didn’t even want to imagine the result.
Larry quickly steeled himself for a battle to the death in case Angela decided to sic the creature on him, but he had no idea how much distaste she held for the Cosmic Force of Chaos, so her reaction was far different from what he expected.
"...get...out..."
She gritted her teeth hard, barely holding herself back as she shouted.
|GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!!|
Her True Voice echoed across the galaxy, and the Cosmic Horror, unable to comprehend her fury but recognising her desire for its absence, simply bowed and withdrew beyond the rift in silence.
Angela had never heard of any Envoy of a Cosmic Force being able to control a Cosmic Horror, so this situation was as unexpected for her as it was for Larry, but she also knew better than anyone that Chaos favoured her more than it did the other Envoys, so the chance of her being a special case was far from zero.
Seeing her command the creature to leave, Larry laughed dryly, shaking his head as he muttered, "Whoever first called you ’Witch of Chaos’ had no idea how right they were..."
At that, Angela’s gaze snapped toward him, and he instantly raised his hands in surrender.
"Wait! I don’t have any hostile intentions. Not toward you or your family. I an, do you think I’m that stupid?
I just watched you control a Cosmic Horror. Why would I ever want to be hostile with you after that?"
He shook his head and clicked his tongue, clear irritation in his tone as he spat, "I just ca to deliver a ssage from your family, that’s all."
With those words, he tossed a mory gem toward her, and when she caught it with telekinesis, he added, "You should take the ti to visit them. They’re really worried."
After saying that, he turned around, cosmic spatial energy erupting from his body as he prepared to leave, but he paused mid-teleportation, glancing back at Angela as he spoke in a more serious tone.
"It seems there’s a lot more behind you becoming an Envoy of Chaos than is known, but if I were you, I’d learn to control those things so they don’t appear when you don’t want them to. But..." he trailed off, eyes drifting from the still-damaged fabric of reality back to her as he finished, "you already know that’s the best option anyway."
"..."
Angela didn’t argue. She couldn’t.
If Cosmic Horrors were going to appear to act on her emotions every ti she experienced an intense spike, it would cause her more trouble than it would ever help.
Those creatures didn’t comprehend the minds of the Cosmos’ sentient races, and they would likely try to fulfil what they believed were her ’wishes’ in a ’Chaotic’ way, which would certainly make things worse.
So Angela had to learn how to stop them from responding to her, and if it beca necessary, learn how to willingly summon them to serve her...—that was what Larry had ant.
After saying that, the man resud his teleportation, and as his body began to fade, he glanced at Angela one last ti, a chuckle escaping him as the current state of the rcury Galaxy crossed his thoughts.
’It’ll be sothing to see her reaction when she returns and finds her ho Galaxy entrenched in ’Order’.’
Perhaps as a bit of payback for her earlier attack, he chose not to ntion that crucial detail to her.
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