{Rei, it connected! Looks like you were right, he was still alive!}

  I knew it. The Tengu is far too cunning to die off, and the news still showed his Lords attacking Viktor before I left to make my first base. I doubt they'd be doing that if their God's life was at risk or if he was already dead.

  I was sitting on one of the Leviathan's cannons again, absentmindedly watching my army hard at work arming itself. Asmodeous' portal still needed a few days, which was about the amount of time I'd need as well, so the lull before the final battle was coming to an end soon.

  The second I entered my soul realm, I felt the Tengu's energy emerge inside of me. I had planned on pinging the connection to attract his attention, but it appeared that the unblocked connection had already drawn his attention.

  After he materialized, he used his aura to look through my eyes, and it felt like he froze for a moment when he saw where I was.

  {... HOW VERY BIZARRE... DEMONS, PLANTOID INSECT ELDRITCH, ELVEN MACHINERY, SKELETONS... ALL IN SPACE... WHERE ARE YOU...?}

  "The darklands west of Arcadia. We're about to attack this."

  I changed the scenery to that of what my Scout saw on the other side of the portal. The Tengu immediately pointed at the Machine God.

  {... THIS ONE... KILLED SEVERAL OF MY CHILDREN... THEIR SOULS DID NOT RETURN... GONE FOREVER...}

  "So it's either obliterating or absorbing the souls of whatever it kills? I'll warn the others then, but that pretty much only matters for me and the Archdemon in this group."

  The Tengu focused the scenery onto a pack of the Velashar.

  {... FAMILIAR... YES... ELVEN MACHINERY...?}

  "Most of what the Elves made was reverse engineered from those creatures. Or at least that's what the logs said, I think."

  Surely the Shin'dorai had their own technology too since they were also from outer space? I didn't see the logs pointing out any distinctions between the two though.

  "Tengu, assuming I survive this battle, I'm planning on trying to kill Viktor... Again. Do you know where he usually stays, and whether any of your Lords can help me?"

  {... I KNOW WHERE HE PREDOMINANTLY LIVES NOW... BUT ASSIST YOU... WE CANNOT... WE ARE LEAVING FOR GAIA... FOR NOW...}

  "For now? And why are you suddenly taking all of your Lords and leaving?"

  The Tengu stared off at Mother in the sky.

  {THE SCENARIO I FEARED THE WORST... HAS COME TRUE... WAR WAS NECESSARY... NOW ONLY COMPLIANCE REMAINS...}

  He conjured up a scene depicting one of Viktor's cities.

  {THE XEL'NETHRA ARE ALLIED WITH MEIZA'THUL... MORE LIKE SERVANTS... THEY FEED HER SOULS... PLANNING TO SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE... THEY WILL MAKE HER FAR TOO POWERFUL... EVEN GAIA WILL NOT BE SPARED...}

  "Then why are you fleeing to Gaia?"

  {A CHILD OF MINE HAS FOUND AN ENTITY THAT MAY ASSIST ME... 'REALM EATERS' THEY ARE KNOWN AS IN GAIA... THEY SERVE NOTHING BUT THEMSELVES... VERY SIMILAR TO XERATH... BUT DO NOT CORRUPT THE ETHER... THEY WILL BE PERFECT... I WILL PROPAGATE THEM AND HAVE THEM DEVOUR ALL LIFE IN THIS UNIVERSE... IT'S THE ONLY WAY...}

  That's one hell of a plan... I never thought I'd hear someone or something casually say they planned on eradicating the universe.

  "You should reach out to those Velashar then. From what I can tell, that's all they do is go around eradicating life everywhere. I'm not sure why though, or if there even is a grander vision for them. They might simply enjoy going around killing everything."

  The Tengu looked at the Velashar for a long while before responding.

  {... PERHAPS... WE WILL SEE...}

  I talked with the Tengu for a little while longer, explaining what had happened in Caedrus. And for his part, he warned me to stay away from the Abyss. Apparently, the God's hands were reaching up into the sky again, just like they were in the logs, and it wasn't just for show. Viktor and the Eldritch had already started assaulting the underground city, but they have yet to actually reach the city because of the Abyssal God.

  The Tengu described the God's magic as 'Civilization ending' in terms of power, which also included mind control, so the 'Assault' wasn't advancing much, if at all yet. Still though, Mother and Viktor were hellbent on destroying the Abyss, so they weren't going to stop until the Abyss was dead or had retreated to somewhere far away from this part of the universe.

  {I'm sorry, Rei...} Luna said as I exited my soul realm.

  Don't be sad, my cute little Fairy. This just means I'll have to figure out how to kill Viktor alone.

  {Alone? But what about Malafir and all of your units now? And Arcadia! Plus uh, Asmodeous too maybe!}

  Pfft, if Asmodeous helps me I'll be beyond shocked... But no, I have a feeling these guys aren't going to be all that interested in going to war with the Xel'nethra and Mother after everything they've gone through to get to this point.

  The mass amount of currency I've gained means nothing now that Asmodeous basically controls these people. I do own Arcadia, and I could easily throw my weight around thanks to that and my individual power, but would that really be a good idea in a battle against Viktor? Demons are too unpredictable, and Asmodeous is especially hard to get a read on, so if he decides at the onset of the battle to turn against me then that's it for me... No, I'm better off doing this alone. The Tengu told me where Viktor is staying, and it's very close to his new portal network. I already have a plan forming in my mind, and I think it might actually work.

  I looked over at Malafir. He was 'Loading' skeletons into one of Belfos' Lords. The area under its wings that were normally occupied by the Mantis spawn, were now loaded with Skeleton Soldiers. The Mantis proved too difficult to keep alive without an atmosphere, so we decided to fill his Lords with Skeletons instead. The plan was to have all of his Lords (and Belfos himself) swing far around the battlefield and attack the Velashar's ship from behind.

  Shizue said there was a good chance any ranged attacks on their ship would be deflected, shot down, or easily blocked, so the only option was to attack it directly. Would an army of Skeletons and seven of Belfos' Lords fare any better? None of us knew, but it was better than doing nothing. Even if the A-2W's did kill the Machine God, or even everything outside of their ship, we still needed to destroy as much of the ship's weaponry as we could.

  And I really don't want to put all of my faith in the A-2W's. Things rarely go to plan, and I'm far more worried about Atraxu getting away. Once the bombs explode I'm going to need to find and kill him as soon as possible.

  {Assuming you can, Mother.} Malafir said.

  Hopefully... You know, I've been watching them check every different type of weapon to see how they work over here, but I've yet to see the weapon I shot at Atraxu in the Abyss. Why is that?

  I stood up and entered the Leviathan through a nearby hatch, making my way toward the cockpit. I was about halfway there when I ran into Shizue sitting in a lounge area by herself. She noticed me before I could say anything.

  "Rei...? Need something?" She said with a tired smile.

  "Yeah, um, in my memories do you know what gun I used to shoot Atraxu in the Abyss?"

  She tapped the side of her coffee mug for a moment, "It's uh, the... Hang on, trying to remember the name. I only saw them in the area where I was born. They were a prototype that my masters really didn't like."

  "Oh, so there isn't any on the Leviathan... Figures."

  "Probably not? Why? You wanted to use it against Atraxu again? I don't think they were seen as a very valuable gun though... The charge time is a bit too long and it drains the user's mana."

  "Wait, hang on. It's been a while but I swear there was a display with an ammo counter on it."

  Shizue put her coffee down and entered her soul realm, but thanks to the time dilation her eyes weren't even closed for a second before she opened them again and looked at me quizzically. "T-That's weird... The ones I saw in the past used your own mana. They were meant as a backup on missions if you ran out of power cores before making it back to somewhere safe, like a fort."

  "Not all that weird, they probably changed them while you were in sleep mode, and the more I think about it, I remember seeing them when I was a kid. My family was using them on our trip to Urza." I continued, "All of that aside, can you check to see if there are any on the Leviathan? I've seen all of the weapons you guys plan on using, and I also intend on using one of those heat-blades, but for a ranged weapon I want one of those. And tell me their name while you're at it."

  Shizue looked at the TV on the wall and it immediately turned on. She wasn't typing or doing anything at all, and yet the menus kept changing as she went through all sorts of different lists.

  That is so weird looking... I know she can connect to Elven tech, but this is my first time seeing it directly without her touching anything.

  "There." She selected something and accessed it, changing the display to that of a large sleek weapon.

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  "'Blue Radiant - Core ver.', huh? It did shoot blue beams, and it required cores. I remember it draining a massive amount each shot too, so even if the ones that run on mana are there, don't bother. I can't take any more stress on my mana as it is."

  It's already going to be difficult enough on the other side. I had to build several ether generators on the Leviathan, but we're not even sure if they're going to work when we go through the portal. Shizue showed me in the logs where it said that the Velashar have multiple buildings that drain the area's ether much in the same way mine do, so I'll have to pray that my building somehow outperforms theirs.

  "Okay, I told them to bring a crate of them here. Apparently they're way in the back of the mostly unused storerooms, so it'll take a bit." Shizue said.

  From there I waited several hours with Shizue before two people in APA's pulled a moving cart up to us. They stopped next to me and nodded at the two of us before hurrying back to whatever else they had to do.

  I began to crack open the crate when Shizue said, "Oh! I heard that Malafir 'Ascended', but nobody really knows what that means. We've been waiting for you to tell us, silly."

  "I haven't told you guys yet? Well, basically it means he's his own person now. He no longer requires my mana or my existence to survive. He gets ether from the environment and transforms it into mana all on his own. I guess you could say he has his own soul now too... I really wasn't expecting that, but it's going to help me a lot on the other side if my generators aren't able to function properly."

  Shizue didn't say anything in response. All she did was scrunch her face up, as if she had just eaten something really sour.

  Heh, I know what she wants to say but she isn't sure if Malafir can hear us... Which is smart of her, because he can. It took me forever to figure out how to think inside my own head without him hearing it. Although, I could cut my connection to him now if I really wanted to block him out, but that would be an unbelievably stupid thing to do right now.

  She was probably thinking 'Is that safe...?', because now a rather unknown (and kind of terrifying-looking) entity is no longer shackled to me. And the truth is, I had no idea if it was going to blow up in my face at some point. All I knew, is that I was certain he didn't plan on betraying me in the upcoming battle.

  Although if he does... Eh, I'll figure it out if it happens. There's really no way to plan for that without it affecting everything else, so here's hoping he doesn't do anything that stupid while we're fighting the most powerful force I've ever seen.

  I opened the top of the crate and smiled, "Oh yeah, these are definitely it. And look at how polished they are! The one I used was---" Just then, I realized something. "You know, Shizue... If the 'Collector', the first entity I ran into in the Abyss, had one of the prototype versions of this gun, that means the Abyss had access to the area you were held in. Did you guys not realize that after seeing my memories?"

  Shizue's eyes went wide, "Ah... No, it didn't even occur to me! Ugh, my lab was in a place kind of close to Arcadia too, so we could have checked it if we realized beforehand..."

  Hmm, I don't think it would've changed much, but it is interesting knowing that we had proof the Abyss was here in Arcadia long before I showed up. And it's not entirely on her either. It's something I should've realized a while ago as well. Although, that does leave the question of why Atraxu waited so long to meddle in Arcadia's affairs, but all we could do with that at this point is speculate, so I'll leave that for another time. I have something else I need to do right now.

  I said goodbye to Shizue and took the crate of weapons outside, placing it on the ground far away from the Leviathan. I then ordered twelve Soldiers to attend to me. When they arrived, I handed them eleven of the twelve guns in the crate, and picked the last one up for myself before aiming it at a large rock far away from us. The gun shook just like I had remembered, and about five seconds later a large blue beam shot out of it, but unlike most of the energy weapons I had seen people testing, this one didn't dissipate until it was at least a mile away.

  I ordered the Soldiers to obliterate the rock with their guns, and while they did that, I typed to Shizue my findings. She was happily surprised, and said after a quick discussion with the others that they would be outfitting as many people with them as possible, but sadly there were only about two hundred Blue Radiants.

  The console blinked, telling me there was a message from someone else. I checked it and saw it was my Uncle. He and Bertram were working in the Titan, although Bertram had only joined him after the ambush where the A-2W's were used. Bertram decided he was too old for shit like that and took up an engineering role inside the Titan, while my Uncle worked one of the main support units. He was part of the group that warped people around the battlefield while replenishing any barriers as needed.

  'You ready for this?', the message read.

  'Yeah, I am... How about you and Bertram?' I sent back. I had to delete half the message before I sent it though. Everyone was on edge the past week, and at this point it looked like they were all about to either explode or pass out.

  I'd seen people in super stressful situations plenty of times over my life, but this one topped them all, and not even the Succubi were able to help them. Asmodeous appeared to be worried over the state of of our forces, and he seemed to be a little relieved when Clover suggested drugging everyone with a stimulant that the Elves only use in life and death situations, but no one seemed all that interested in taking the injection. It was meant for literally life and death, like you're moments away from dying, because the backlash is so bad it damages your soul (which takes a long time to fix even with assistance). So in the end, they left it where it was, which was that Clover would automatically inject anyone who was about to die.

  'Most of the people in the Titan are on edge, but nowhere near as bad as the others... Have you seen them? They're walking around robotically like the Machines do.' He sent another message before I responded, 'But hey, it'll be fine. I've been on some really bad missions since you and your parents disappeared, I'll tell you about them sometime, but my point is that we always pulled through. Even if they're all going to shit themselves the moment they step through that portal, it'll be fine in the end. So don't worry about it and just do what you need to do. And then we'll all have a celebratory party back at the bar, yeah?'

  I was typing a response to my Uncle when I noticed something strange out of the corner of my eye. Among the Soldiers still training with the Blue Radiants, there was someone in a suit of Power Armor, except this one looked completely different from the others. It was much larger (eight feet tall), and while all of the Power Armor I had seen up until now had a different aesthetic to them, none of them looked particularly 'Evil'. It never even occurred to me to prescribe good or evil to the suits, but this one was clearly designed with the intent of looking dreadful and scary.

  Wait, this ether... Malafir?

  {Yes, it is I. After your allies - Jasper and the others - learned that I would be able to expand my size with the Crematory after ascending, they brought me onto the ship and gifted me this armor. That was a little before we reached the bridge. It was designed for Atraxu when he ordered Arcadia to make Power Armor for his Xerath, although it appears they never gave it to him in the end.}

  While this was a massive boon for the coming battle, it was just one more thing to worry about for after the fight, but for now I decided not to think about it. One battle at a time, Rei...

  {Can it do anything the other suits can't?!}

  {An excellent question, Little Fairy. And it is true that this Armor is quite different from the others. It works off ether, not mana, which means that I and Mother's other Liches are the only creatures here that would be able to use this Armor. Of course, that's if we exclude the Demons, who have - much to my surprise - yet to ask for anything from their new pets.}

  That is surprising, isn't it? Asmodeous could use his influence to take weapons or Power Armor from the Elves, and yet he hasn't done that yet. Not even once.

  {What else??}

  {It repairs itself with Ether. It's good that the Humans and Shin'dorai never gave this Armor to Atraxu, but they were mad for even creating it to begin with. And I understand that they were ordered to make one, but still, why make it so powerful? There's nothing in the logs explaining this... It's maddening. Shizue had to search deep through many hidden files to even figure out where this Armor came from after they found it ALSO HIDDEN inside an illusory wall in the Captain's quarters on the Leviathan.}

  Odds are we'll never know what happened there, but I'm glad they never gave it to Atraxu. It's already going to be difficult enough to kill him as it is.

  Even if we weren't in this dead space with no atmosphere, the scene in front of me would have been just as silent and still.

  It was finally time. The only thing we were waiting on now was for the Imps to finish maxing out the frontal barriers on the Harbingers.

  The Harbingers were at the front with the Leviathan, while the Titan was behind the left-side Harbinger. Most living beings are full-body warped through a portal the second they touch it even with a fingertip, but large non-soul objects like the Leviathan go in one inch at a time. Apparently, the portal made sure any living souls inside those objects would end up in the exact same spot they were in as the object progressed forward, which was news to me, and it had me wondering if there was some sort of sentience to the portals.

  Several minutes later the Imps on all four Harbingers sent up flares, and no more than five seconds later the Leviathan began to move forward.

  And here we go...

  I could feel Luna freeze up inside my soul, however, I chose not to say anything to her. It was probably because of how I grew up, even though that obviously wasn't by choice, but I felt it'd be better if she learned to push through situations like this all on her own. I didn't plan on taking her with me to kill Viktor, so whatever growth she could get from this battle was going to be necessary for her going forward.

  I stood up and flew toward the portal. I couldn't go through just yet, as was proven by the fact that none of my Scouts had returned ever since that first trip over (we even tried again a few hours ago), so the plan was for me to fly through and flee as fast as possible on the other end, but only after part of the Leviathan and the Harbingers made it through. Whatever was waiting on the other end was killing my Scouts, and nobody wanted to risk losing me right away, me included, so this was the only option really.

  The front of the Leviathan pierced the portal, followed by two of the Harbingers (and the hundreds of Imps on them). Alright, get ready, Luna!

  I flew into the portal at max speed and immediately pivoted toward the sky when I reached the other side. On the way I looked around, and immediately realized why my Scouts were dying. I hadn't noticed because of how fast I was going and the portal's aftereffects that hit you as you pass through one, but there was nine large Velashar vehicles (tanks?) firing a massive stream of green flame onto the portal.

  That's one way of making sure nothing beyond the powerful makes it through... My Scouts were probably melted in less than a second.

  The Imps were forced to expand their barriers (it was expected this might happen, but Asmodeous was hoping it wouldn't be necessary), so the Harbingers were fine for now, and they were already attacking the green-flame tanks in the front, while the other two Harbingers that had just arrived were stomping on the tanks to their sides.

  The Leviathan was taking care of the others. The green-flame tanks had powerful armor apparently, as they were taking lots of hits while the Harbingers, despite their overwhelming mass, were struggling to crush them, but whatever they were doing was still halting the attacks from those tanks. They were trying to pull away but they were unable to thanks to how heavy the Harbingers were.

  With their feet planted firmly on the tanks, the Harbingers threw their mallets over the walls in front of them.

  In the time between my Scouts retrieving images of this planet for us and now, it appeared that the Velashar had erected large walls all around the portal. The Leviathan was plowing through the front-side, shattering whatever blackened rock it was made out of, and the moment it breached the other side it was hit with an ungodly amount of attacks of all different types.

  But it wasn't my job to help them. Until the call for me to hide the A-2W's came out, I had another job, and two sub-jobs in case the first one didn't work out.

  Before that though, do you see him, Luna?

  {L-Looking! There's just so much here now and too many bright lights!}

  Time slowed down as I scanned the Velashar's base. The technological portal, the massive spaceship, and the hundreds of thousands of troops getting into position. I was looking for a single individual, but I was struggling to find him.

  There's his unit of Xerath in Power Armor... They're guarding the portal, huh? I thought he'd be with them, but apparently not.

  I was supposed to find Atraxu before attempting to destroy the portal, but no matter where I looked, he wasn't there.

  He has to be in one of these buildings then. Or maybe the spaceship...?

  {Wait, I think I sense him!! His ether signature is near one that's like yours.} A bright light appeared far off in the horizon, {That way!}

  'Like mine'... It must be Naza'shier's tower that I found her corpse in. Why the hell is he over there?

  With that out of the way, I looked in the portal's direction, checking to see where the power for it was coming from.

  There... That has to be it. Get ready, Luna. We're going in the second the Titan appears!