The mammalian swarm flew through the empty space, breaking into the solar system and rushing towards Priscilla. With her eyes closed, she began to activate the divine abilities that she had received from the Keeper.
Observation, Optimization, Speed, Battle, Sword, Performance, Hero, Strength, and Defense. With a thought, Priscilla activated nine domain powers, the maximum that she was willing to attempt. Even if these weren’t true domains, she wasn’t willing to push her luck by exceeding the natural limit.
With the powers activated, the world seemed to slow down around Priscilla. Her eyes remained closed, but she could observe everything happening in real time. The swarm was still moving quickly, but no longer too quickly for her to counter.
Knight of Death, form the Impassable Line! She commanded, and one of the knights flew to the back of the formation, where a white line was carved into space. This line began to spread out, forming a wall that separated Halvar Three from the incoming swarm. The only ones behind the line were Thessa and Theon, and Priscilla sent them a clear warning.
If anyone crosses that line before the Knight of Death perishes, they will die. She said firmly, before leaning forward and accelerating towards the swarm. Her twin blades carved a golden line through the air, slicing apart the first two monsters that came towards her.
In that brief moment, Priscilla realized that the monsters were largely hollow in their torsos, likely due to the large, vertical mouth covering their bodies. Their vital organs all appeared to be located in their lower extremities.
Noting this, she planned to slice the next monster down the middle, only for its vertical mouth to open at the last instant to grab her hand. Her brow knit together in alarm, and she discarded that hand without hesitation, together with the sword it was holding.
Before the connection to her hand was lost, she could feel it being swallowed by some form of energy in the creature’s mouth. Thankfully, as one who had transcended her physical body, she was able to immediately regrow her hand, though the sword would not return as easily.
All around her, hundreds of knights had engaged in combat with the monsters, throwing out concentrated attacks to eliminate them in droves. Priscilla watched as more than a dozen monsters tackled the Knight of Wood at once, forcing it into one of their mouths. She felt a sense of triumph emerging from the swarm, before that feeling was replaced with confusion.
According to the Keeper’s information, they can obtain power by devouring living creatures. Since the knights are not truly alive, but act as divine golems, perhaps they can’t be eaten. That thought flashed through her mind, before she took advantage of the momentary confusion by cleaving through the clustered group of monsters.
Unfortunately for her, the monsters quickly noticed this problem as well after attempting to devour another of the knights. She could feel the moment when she became the sole focus of the swarm, the only ‘living’ creature that they were fighting against.
Substitute the Sword domain for the Stars domain. She thought quickly, before lifting a hand. She snapped her fingers, and a ball of intense heat began to swell above her, swirling in place. She pointed her finger forward, and that ball shot towards the swarm rushing towards her.
In their brief clash, she had learned that these monsters possessed organic bodies, but had unique organs that allowed them to produce a special energy that she couldn’t identify. As long as they were organic, the heat of a star should have been able to annihilate them.
And sure enough, the first wave of monsters evaporated as the miniature star approached them, still growing as it traveled. This enraged the swarm, causing them to send hundreds, thousands of their own at the star, smothering it in their sheer mass. Priscilla hesitated when she saw this, realizing that the swarm had as little fear of death as her own knights.
At that moment, the Keeper’s voice rang out in her mind. Priscilla! No matter what you do, you cannot allow those monsters to eat you! If they eat a creature, they can become that creature, and share that ability with the rest of their hive!
Priscilla’s body stiffened at that information, realizing that they weren’t just growing from devouring others. That was why they had been so smug after eating one knight, because they believed that every monster in the swarm would soon gain its abilities.
I understand, my lord. Priscilla said, before taking a step back. Because of the boundary set up by the Knight of Death, there was no way for her to retreat. She could use one of the domain abilities to hide, but that would just cause the battle to return to its former stalemate. With more and more monsters being produced by the hive, that was not a battle that they would win.
Substitute Defense, Strength, Performance, and Battle for Fire, Ice, Gravity, and Darkness. She focused, taking a step forward. All knights shall immediately retreat to the line.
The Holy Knights did not question her command, falling back to the Knight of Death and leaving Priscilla alone on the battlefield with the swarm. They seemed surprised that she would offer herself so willingly, but weren’t going to pass up a free meal. As they rushed towards her, Priscilla rapidly created the linked ability that she wanted, finishing it in an instant with the power of the Optimization and Speed skill she used.
She snapped her fingers again, creating a series of miniature stars that flew out towards the swarm, just as they had before. Rather than avoid these miniature stars and risk them going for the hive, or detonating behind their lines, they did the same thing that they did before. They threw bodies at the problem to make it go away.
Thousands of monsters were sacrificed, flying directly into the stars in an attempt to destroy them, but Priscilla simply smiled. This attack would only work so well once, so she needed to make this count.
Soon, the first star showed signs of going critical. However, rather than being snuffed out, it seemed to rippled, collapsing in on itself and becoming a black dot of distorted light. This dot then began to suck in the monsters that were still approaching, its reach extending even to those waiting to charge after the stars had been destroyed.
Don’t underestimate someone that has studied the Greater Pantheon as closely as I have. She thought to herself, recalling one of the first recorded feats of the Greater Pantheon after the Keeper had revealed himself. The Goddess Ryone had created a controlled black hole to destroy a giant space monster that was going to destroy the Earth. Now, thousands of years later, Priscilla was recreating this achievement.
Every star that collapsed turned into a black hole, pulling the swarm closer and closer. Worse, they were even acting on each other, pulling the other black holes together, as well as the stars that had yet to collapse. As they merged, the resulting black hole grew exponentially, and Priscilla sent it forward with a flick of a finger.
Priscilla was controlling the gravity released by the black hole, preventing it from reaching back towards her or the planet she was protecting. She did not want to be the one to destroy the planet she had been tasked with saving, after all.
The smaller monsters were unable to escape the pull of the black hole, falling towards it. However, the main body of the hive was another matter. It began to pull back, showing the speed and force which had allowed it to cross light years in a matter of hours.
Oh, no you don’t. Priscilla thought to herself, tapping the Speed domain to accelerate the movement of the black hole. A black line seemed to carve through space, followed by a wave of distorted light, before the black hole had entered inside of the hive. Priscilla could feel the hive emanating an intense fear and pain as it began to collapse in on itself. Soon, the hive was gone, and all that was left was the black hole.
Substitute Darkness for Light. She thought, creating a new power. With one last snap, the black hole erupted into a blinding light, spewing out all of the matter and energy that it had absorbed in an instant. Thankfully, this eruption happened far away from the planet, as the hive had been in the midst of its retreat when the black hole caught it.
My lord, the swarm has been eliminated. Priscilla reported, though there wasn’t any pride in her tone for having destroyed the enemy. This was just one swarm, which had been created as a byproduct of a wandering monster. There could be tens, even thousands of similar swarms out there.
If just one swarm managed to consume a god, that entire swarm would essentially become gods with that domain. Of course, there was the morbid possibility that feeding ten different domains to a single swarm would lead to annihilation, but that was not an option that Priscilla wanted to focus on.
Tower sat in his office, his crystalline body in deep contemplation. Due to all of the cosmic threats roaming about, the entire population of his planet had been moved into one of his many instances. While this wouldn’t protect them in the event that he was killed, it would stop them from being killed from the mere energy releases such a fight could cause.
After a moment, his gem-like head tilted upwards, sensing a vast monster that was flying towards his location. Its body was… quite simply, enormous, with claws that could pluck stars out of the sky and a glowing, armored hide. Its mouth was open wide, a green light visible from the depths of its throat. Tower could sense countless other monsters along its surface, scurrying about.
At this rate, it will be here in… five minutes? Wait, no… huh… well then. He thought to himself, before lowering his head. Pietra, Atraxi, a giant monster is on its way to try to eat your planet. He warned, sensing that the path of the monster was just slightly off from his own world. Clearly, it had designated the world quite literally made of living matter to be its meal.
Are you serious? Atraxi responded back, almost amused. Something wants to eat us?
Indeed. Tower nodded his head. Given the size of this monster, he had briefly entertained the thought of taking it in as his new final boss. It seemed even more powerful than the Dragon God of the End, which the Keeper had taken from it ages back. However, he had been warned prior to this invasion of monstrously large foes that these enemies were not able to be kept or tamed. Do you require any assistance?
How long until it gets here? Atraxi asked curiously, and Tower glanced up again.
Four minutes. It is incredibly fast. He answered. After that, neither Atraxi nor Pietra asked for any aid, likely taking their own precautions.
Right on cue, the massive creature flew past Tower’s planet with enough force that it threw the planet out of its normal orbit. By the time he was able to even register the shift in orbit, it had already swallowed the slime homeworld.
The monster suddenly stopped before it could leave the solar system, as if attempting to digest the meal that it had just consumed. Tower simply shook his head, working to correct the orbit of his planet as the body of the monster began to bloat, before its skin split open. Blue and green ooze seeped out of its skin, washing over its body to devour the monsters living along its surface.
It was a long, and surely painful process, before the ooze had completely covered the monster, starting to shrink down and devour its mass. When it was done, the slime homeworld was several times its original size, causing Tower to send another message. You’ll need to split into multiple planets now, or you’ll throw off the orbits of every planet you pass.
Oh, sorry! How many do you think we’ll need to split into? Atraxi asked, as if his entire world hadn’t just been devoured by a giant monster.
At that size… maybe twenty? Try to spread them out over the solar system, so they don’t get in the way of anything.
Atraxi quickly responded to that. Thanks. Are there any more of these? They have a pretty interesting ability. Pietra managed to make a new breed of mimic slime out of its essence, before it was completely consumed.
Tower thought about it, before nodding. There should still be many more. However, it is up to fate if they are to come to us.
