Ebony's Fable

Ebony didn't know what to expect, but it certainly slipped his mind that perhaps his wife was invited too.

Or the fact that she could literally use divination now…or maybe her foresight just brought her feet ahead of him.

He flickered towards Lacuna Expanse and saw his wife tapping her feet with her arms crossed. Clearly waiting for him, with a smug smile on her face. Showing off that being faster doesn't matter if she was ahead of him either way.

'Dusk clearly said she was with her disciple…' He even had the recent memory that Dusk transferred him to prove it.

It was impossible if she ran. It was also impossible for her hoverbike, with or without his gravity tunnel.

He scanned the area for a masked space mage, finding none.

Lacuna Expanse was a long distance east of Tidal. It was closer to the sea than it was to Tidal.

Not exactly on the Eastern edge of the Continent, but it was an area largely untouched by civilisation. Before the Guardian Knights took guard, the World Dungeon had been a huge unknown anomaly.

It was the first location of a natural Emperor-ranked monster showing up thousands of years ago. Back when Emperor-evolutionary rank wasn't even known to exist to the general public.

The Elves were aware, and they spread the knowledge amongst the nobles, so World Dungeons were no longer as scary. And also scarier than before.

It is connected to unknown Worldcores. Chances were, stronger than they were.

Fortunately, they were also unknown to others. Since it was basically another world within the Dungeon, Elcra's portal location was not widely known to other connected worlds. The Elves acted fast to cast a spell to hide their portal gate.

However, all nobles or civilians who thought their path beyond King shouldn't end travels to Lacuna Expanse in search for greater challenges or greater worlds with better skills and technology.

Sooner or later, their portal location would not be hidden.

That was when the Guardian Knights that Oplot founded took charge and defended it. This was relatively recent, about a hundred years ago. Before that, they had already begun receiving 'otherworlders' as visitors. These 'otherworlders' mostly feared the Elves for what they were capable of. It then extended to Oplot.

Hence, there has been zero historical full-blown invasion of the Ancient Worldcore's resources.

It was not Ebony's first time here.

His Numbers had been here during their expansion of their Will Relay Buffer network. They'd even entered the World Dungeon. Sadly, it was mostly safe beyond the portal with nothing interesting to hunt.

World Dungeon's monsters were not spawned creatures. They were true, living creatures. It was legitimately like a massive planet without a Worldcore and weird natural laws.

Gravity was one.

If Elcra was weird with large discrepancies of gravity depending on where you were, one could literally find gravity lakes in World Dungeons.

Ebony would love to find one of these lakes, but it was exceedingly rare and not all World Dungeons had them.

Lacuna Expanse was not fully explored; it was unknown how many Worldcores it connected to, but it was not limitless, and it did not connect to every Worldcore, so it was not nearly as encompassing as the Spirit Realm, for example.

The likely chance was that it connected within Hex…maybe even just within their Sector and not the entire Region, but there was no hard and fast rule in terms of spatial distance. It was wholly possible to connect to a different spatial region.

As the Portal for Lacuna Expanse could be identified by a high-Tier Identify, it was unlikely. This was an Ancient-ranked World Dungeon. Statistically, it was unlikely that it was connected to any Legendary Worldcores. Within the Hex Region, no Legendary Worldcore had a civilisation that tames or controls all Worldcores connected to a World Dungeon.

No one, including Ebony worried about Lacuna Expanse being connected to a higher power. If there were, they would've already come and taken whatever they wanted.

'Except a literal religious symbol…' Ebony was pretty sure they were still a long way from Lacuna Expanse. To stay out of sight of the invader's base around the portal.

This operation had no reason to have anyone around but the best.

Ebony spotted Oplot, Navin, Duke Truewater, Painter of Animation, Entras.

The Dwarves didn't seem to have a representative.

More curiously, was Koawe's presence. The Grandmaster Frost Elf had as little reason to be here as his wife. Perhaps he had combined curse spells with Navin as they were both students of a great curse mage who died of…cursing too much.

Either way, they should've at least sent proper combat Kings. Vent being here would be a huge reassurance against a statue of a higher being. But he wasn't around.

'Huh…Navin was also just back in Tidal.'

Was his perception tricked?

Did the Empire have a space mage he didn't know about?

'I see…' Mana Discern got him answers.

The Painter of Animation got them here.

'She can paint a meteor into existence. She can paint a tornado or a lightning storm. I bet she can paint a warp portal.' He was confident he was not too far off the mark. That was what the mana in the surroundings led him to believe.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

This Elven representative was quite an unusual threat. What else were they hiding within that forest Domain of theirs?

It was his first time seeing Duke Truewater face-to-face.

They tetted as an Elcrian greeting. Both holding their dominant hand out.

It turned into a palm strike. Mutual.

Ebony didn't react but Duke Truewater's brows raised.

Neither of them pushed each other back.

'Interesting, he placed Water Mana Manipulation as a Core Skill, and got it to Tier 5 or 6 equivalent. No other way he got through my magic body, even if he touched me.' Ebony had frozen the blood in his body but the moment their palms struck, Duke Truewater's mental control had actually reached inside his body.

That was unheard of. He wasn't a Journeyman. He was a King just like Duke Truewater.

To have his magic body slightly overridden, within his body?

Call him impressed.

It had to have multiple Fortications, and many skills working at the same time to have done something so specifically dastardly.

'I imagine he doesn't even need physical contact to drain the water content from another King.' Ebony was quite happy, he wasn't wrong about rating Duke Truewater's strength so high in the past.

And it seemed it wasn't just artillery magic. This man had pure skill behind his powerful spells and wide-ranging control over a battlefield.

Ebony replied to the rough greeting with one of his own and Mana Discerned the man.

[Sceptre of Deep Lvl 750 | Abyssal Surface Dweller Lvl 750 | Aqua Savant 750]

'750? Is he already preparing for Emperor evolution?' According to what he knew, Duke Truewater was over 600 years old. Younger than Entras but of a senior age for humans.

However, he was nowhere close to level 750. He shouldn't have been.

The Tetramyth must have changed things. Duke Truewater was likely the one with the greatest kill count of Tetramyth by a factor compared to anyone else.

There was another person, looking unknown, but Ebony knew exactly who he was. The Elven man, Sylvarith Dawnweave. Current Tower Head of the Mage Association of the Empire.

The moment he was Ebony's senses, Ebony noticed that this man had One's presence stuck onto him. He was the Elf who artificially kept One alive outside of Dusk's connection.

Ebony moved on for a greeting tet and kept contact as long as possible. Injecting as large a flood of mana and Sequester as he could, as fast as he could. The panic he felt from the Tower Head's mana was immediate but it didn't show on the man's face but slightest shiver in the muscles of the Elven fingers told Ebony everything he needed to know. The calm Tower Head smiled in greeting and Ebony smiled in return.

His wife definitely felt the Elf panic better than he could.

"Nice to meet you, but I'm sure you're already familiar with me." Ebony nodded.

"I've heard plenty of your feats." Dawnweave kept his calm.

"We'll see if I can show you another soon." Ebony tried to ignore the looks his wife was giving him. She looked like a proud mother.

He'd notice she wasn't in battle mode; it seemed like there would not be a battle. Unfortunately.

He listened to their briefing. Despite the importance of this portal, their opponents didn't guard it that well. Ignoring the statue of a higher being, there wasn't even a single Emperor. They believed it was more than sufficient when Elcra had limited amount of Kings and the average one were those that evolved as they were dying of old age.

Their real base of operations was within the World Dungeon itself. Ecstacy Lord's base was found by Medina, the Archduchess of Foxmen and also a Seer.

No Ecstasy Lord. No armoured trespasser. No sign of Apa's soul or body.

Ebony lost interest in the briefing, with his wife being an indicator that there was no battle. He zoned out and internally hoped Koawe or Navin could curse him now so that he could learn how their curse-buff works for him to complete his new runic formulation for himself and his Apparitions.

"We'll be depending on Madam Painter of Animation to keep as many alive as possible. Please try to hold back as much as possible Duke Truewater." Navin added.

"Is that all?" Xin voiced out to the Tower Head's absolute disgust. She flipped a coin onto her palm, completely ignoring the looks the Elf was giving her. "Doesn't seem like there's going to be a battle on any scale. Let's save some time if you want them alive, I—my husband will deal with it."

His translator seemed to catch his drift. This briefing was a waste of time if there wasn't going to be a battle. Since they wanted as many alive as possible, Ebony's skill set was as suitable as it gets. It should at least be better than people who weren't even confident of leaving a few people alive.

"One question, about that statue and budding domain. How much influence can She extend?" Ebony asked the Painter of Animation and Oplot, similarly ignoring the other Elf.

The old lady faced Oplot. She seemed to defer to the Monk, who had more experience with higher beings, as the son of one himself.

"We have identified this to be the figure of The whispering soul beyond stars. An Angel for the Pale Light, a God. They are not known to have far-reaching faith. From the offerings presented, it is unlikely that Her influence can come through in but the faintest silver."

"Summarize," Xin uttered.

"She is very strong, but these people are not, and their offerings…our people's souls, are weak. The extent of her extended Domain is to strengthen her believers and weaken all those deemed as heretics in the form of soul attack. Masters and below might have their souls completely extinguished upon entry, but we will be fine. That is as far as it goes, as an Angel…it is unlikely that she cares about a few dead believers or a single pathetically newborn extended Domain. It probably happens all the time for her if she is constantly extending her Domain."

"Understood. Leave the portal to me, they will all be alive." This was the most efficient way to get to his targets at the moment, not because he was in a helpful mood.

Ebony passed the invisible power source he was hugging in front of him to his wife. There was nowhere else to push his overflowing mana towards. These people should be able to handle it….for some time.

Anyway, he Flickered into Lacuna Expanse's portal's sight. Not having Entity Evansence, every single person looked at him appearing amidst their group. To their credit, he even saw a few of their eyes were able to catch him mid-Flicker, following his path and not just when he appeared all of a sudden. They were not weak Kings that evolved because of a limited lifespan that one could find on Elcra.

Anyway, they didn't attack him on sight and neither did he. His overflowing wisdom suppressed every single one of theirs combined but it wasn't the be-all and end-all.

"The pristine soul. Delivering yourself to us as expected."

"Nice to meet you," Ebony replied.

These people did not tet like the Elcrians, they knew what a proper handshake was.

Most couldn't react when he Flickered in front of them, patting their shoulders and shaking their hands.

Those who reacted fast enough, with enough caution not to touch him jumped back when he Flickered to them. Ebony saw that reaction and still managed to cover the distance while they drew their weapon. He would have his hands on their wrist, stopping them from drawing their blade and forcing them into a handshake.

'Almost all have Tier 5 Mastery.' Ebony took in their confusion before he stood before the statue with a circle of people kneeling before it. Tier 5 Mastery of any type was not bad, it required proper training and understanding of that specific type of mastery.

'I can't sense any strong Wills. They are just feeding her energy and only a glimpse of her Will can reach? Still, Will can reach across Regions…maybe even Superclusters? I have to up my game with Will range, I can barely connect to Aegis Sectors away.'