All that was left was to wait. Mistress Regina stood like a statue, unmoving. She had taken all the necessary steps to ensure a smooth ride through the void. How she was even able to render still remained a mystery, but regardless, she knew that this was going to be tough. The next few monts would require her full concentration. Their lives depended on it. She looked towards the new additions to their journey— recruits who had sohow survived the whole ordeal and made it all the way here. They looked worn and beaten, but hopeful. The fact that a Grand Commander was here with them lifted their spirits greatly. A lot of them had just pushed on, blindly hoping for the best when they found no trace of the beacon earlier, and when they finally got to the edges of what was supposed to be the do, seeing the blank, featureless land that lay before them, sterilized of all life, they spiralled into despair.
It wasn’t until they noticed so figures in the distance that they realized there might still be so hope.
It turned out Zephyr’s group wasn’t the first to arrive. Another group of twelve led by Cedric was there before them. It had been a tearful reunion for so—Helga included. She cried in joy when she spotted Anna, running up to her as they embraced each other and cried together. Zephyr was relieved to see them, joking with Cedric despite the tense situation. Even Jet had a smirk playing on his lips, his competitive side starting to co out now that Cedric was here again.
The crux of the matter was that they made it here. They were safe... For the ti being.
The Grand Commander—Mistress Regina, had not provided much information, only congratulating them for making it here and briefly assuring them that they were now her responsibility. She ordered them to stay put without making any noise or excess movents, but they wouldn’t have even if she didn’t. The visage of annihilation that lay before them was enough to make them silent. They all watched as the void drew ever closer, turning the earth to dust, slowly erasing everything from existence. It closed in from all directions, even the sky was being devoured.
"Where are all the beasts? I don’t see any of them running here..." Mistress Alyra asked weakly, still trying to recover from the aftereffects of her superior spell and over-clocked state.
"They’re right below us." Grand Commander Regina replied. "Whenever a world dies, it’s inhabitants feel a compelling urge to die along with it. They head for the core of the planet and basically... incinerate themselves. The effects are stronger on creatures of low level worlds like this. They can’t resist the call of the world."
A lot of heads turned right towards Jamie as the recruits also heard her explanation. He cleared his throat lightly, shifting on his feet before shooting a glare at them, though thankful now that he’d chosen to stick with the group. Their exchange of glances was cut short by the voice of the Grand Commander announcing that she wasn’t going to hold on for any potential survivor still making their way here after a few minutes. The void was pressing ever closer.
A few survivors had joined them within the last few minutes, taking their total number up to thirty-nine.
She waited for a few minutes, priming herself after setting everything up. Smiling Devil had been bound by a contraption designed for holding prisoners.
An anchoring tool ant for the origin crystal to slot into had been embedded into the ground. All that was left was for her to place the crystal there, harness it’s energy and start up a render.
"Alright. I think everyone who’s still alive is probably here, and if not, well tough luck." She nodded, placing the condensed origin crystal into the socket. It clicked into place and thrumd softly, glowing brighter by the second. She imdiately shut her eye tightly as exquisite glyph lines started to crawl up her body, the intense energy filling up her body like a battery.
She needed to release it. Instantly, her eyes snapped open with a glowing blue light as she overclocked her mana core. The recruits huddled closer together as the world around them started to change with little pixel-like blocks spreading outward rapidly from where the General Commander stood. They watched the render unfold before their eyes, without the slightest clue what was happening. The environnt that slowly ca into being was a grand hall with a white and golden décor. Large statues reminiscent of Grand Masters of old lined both sides of the walls. A red carpet ran all the way to the mighty throne flanked by ten less mighty but also magnificent seats so steps below.
A large, seamless, one-piece glass window took up the whole opposite end of the hall, giving the occupants a wide and clear view of the outside world still in chaos.
They recruits stood rooted in shock. Afraid to move just in case they triggered anything. This went beyond anything they could have ever thought of. Only a few could even begin to think up a logical reason for what they had just witnessed— mainly those who had been exposed to so information growing up, but still, everyone was utterly dumbstruck.
Alyra looked up to her sister seated on the throne with a look of familiarity and softness in her eyes— This render modelled the Ryvelin Grand Hall to near perfection. Mistress Regina felt the gaze and carefully looked towards her sister to give her a look of reassurance before she refocused back on the spell at hand. What happened next required her full attention.
’Aegis, any idea what I’m looking at here?’ Zephyr, breathing rapidly, asked inwardly, trying to wrap his head around the absurdity of the spell he just witnessed.
From my analysis based on all that was witnessed, this seems to be so sort of superimposed reality. The laws and chanics guiding its creation remains a mystery, but operational similarities can be drawn between this and virtual or advanced 3d environnts, though the sensory feedback from this is on another level, bordering on actual reality.
’Wait, what? Virtual environnts? 3D environnts?’ Zephyr asked in shock as the aning translated in his mind. His eyes narrowed sharply as he sent a thought with as much urgency as he could. ’Aegis, when all this is over, I’m gonna need a clear and full breakdown of every information my Level 1 privilege allows !’ With everything going on, he’d been pushing it forward over and over. Who knew what information Aegis had that could’ve been of help to him at a vital mont.
Murmurs of panic jarred him out of his thoughts as the void crossed the previous boundary of the do, only so ten miles within reach. This up close, the suffocating feeling of the void made everyone weak in their knees, with so even dropping to the ground. Even the Grand Commander had a strained look on her face as she held the spell in place. The void had already been pressing against the ceiling of the render she created for a while as it tightened around the core of the rift world.
She burned through the consolidated origin in the crystal as the void tried to dismantle the construct. She could feel it challenging the existence of her render. Without the origin crystal to provide so semblance of solidity, they’d all have been devoured.
Tensions began to rise slowly as the void drew closer, now taking up the whole view the window provided. Eventually there was nothing left between the void and the render, as it devoured the last of the rift world’s core and enveloped them like a blanket.
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