My eyes went wide as I caught sight of the shark-like cloud moving through the skies of Earth. Naturally, I was able to easily connect it to the very same water-controlling void entity that I had spotted previously. I had been worried that this thing would cause tidal waves to swallow up cities, but I never imagined that it would simply be able to take control of large enough storm clouds…
Zooming out, I saw that there were five such storms currently roaming the planet’s surface. Just as I was beginning to feel relieved that none of them had passed over a populated area, I noticed something wrong. One of the storms had in fact passed over a small village, and only just recently.
This village was too small of a population center to trigger my alarms, so I had to play back the events of what happened in order to get a clearer picture. All I could tell right now was that the village no longer existed…
When the shark-shaped cloud first appeared, the residents of the village immediately realized that something was wrong. Those that were not required for the village’s defenses were instructed to hide inside, while any druids and mages were asked to aid in the defense of the village. At first, they believed this to be a simple monster taking the shape of a storm cloud, and formulated their defenses around that.
The first layer of defense would be the mages, who were tasked with maintaining a barrier around the village. This barrier, although hastily constructed, was a simple modification to the standard wards present on every settlement. In addition to warding away monsters, it was meant to form a solid barrier against water as well.
Naturally, such a barrier would be unsuitable for long-term use, but they only needed it to weather the coming storm. The second layer of defense would be the druids, who would attempt to use the power of nature to disrupt the storm itself, and prevent any water from breaching the barrier. According to their plan, this would be more than enough to protect their village, even if the monster in the cloud was a high level threat.
Just to be safe, however, a messenger was dispatched to a nearby city to alert them of the potential danger. If the monster lingered long enough to wear down their defenses, this messenger would be responsible for bringing back emergency assistance.
Once the storm rolled in, it did not immediately seem as though anything was wrong. The water stuck to the barrier, initially rolling off of it as one would expect. The druids did their best to push this water away from the village while ensuring that none of it touched them, for fear that it may contain hazardous properties. These trained combatants were no stranger to the unpredictable nature of monsters.
Soon, though, the rain stopped rolling off the barrier. It adhered to the surface, splattering against it and sticking like a layer of translucent tar. This further alarmed the druids, who did their best to clear the water. Unfortunately, at this point, it was already too late.
The cloud was merely using this reaction to find the size and shape of the barrier, each raindrop feeding back information to it. Once it knew the size, shape, and location of the barrier, the entire cloud sprang into action.
There was a brief lull in the rain, the druids frantically struggling to catch up and remove the water sticking to the barrier. One druid, one that had been trying to interfere directly with the cloud, stopped with eyes wide in a silent scream. When one of his friends noticed this, and followed his gaze, his face went pale with fright.
The entire cloud itself had moved, the shark-like face falling towards them from above. The village darkened, lit only by the lightning crackling in its mouth and eyes as it descended. Its lightning jaws opened wide, completely enveloping the town as it crashed into the ground.
When it flew back into the sky, it had lost roughly half of its size from the impact with the ground. The village, however, was nowhere to be seen. All that was left was a massive crater with jagged edges, and a deep puddle forming at its center.
I shuddered as I watched that scene unfold. “Leowynn… we can’t wait for your Fallen Gods to advance. That thing needs to be destroyed before it can do any more damage.” As much as I preferred not to interfere when possible, that was no longer an option. Those storms could devour entire cities in a single bite, and I did not dare to think of what one could do if it was formed in a hurricane.
Not to mention the fact that these were not simply on the planet Earth right now. Every world within that dimension was dealing with this threat, and the void monster was growing more difficult to deal with as time passed. It had to be destroyed now, before it turned every source of water into a dangerous threat.
Leowynn nodded her head, her eyes sharp. “I’ll take care of it, dad.” She said in a firm tone, taking a deep breath. Suddenly, the screen flickered, showing a location within the void.
Leowynn looked out at the shining sphere that represented Earth, as well as the numerous figures swirling around it. Most were weak, simple void creatures that amounted to no more than pranks or haunted houses. Few would become as dangerous as their current foe.
Her eyes scanned over the group of monsters, finding one that seemed to swim within the void energy. Its link with Earth was far thicker than the others, showing that it had properly anchored itself to this dimension. Through the fog of the void that had formed around it, she could even vaguely make out that the creature appeared as a blue shark.
Unlike normal sharks, though, this one was composed entirely of water, much as the phenomena that it created in the world. What was worse was that Leowynn could feel an almost constant feedback from the connection it had to the dimension, energy being supplied in a steady stream. Every life it claimed with its power gave it a boost, and those boosts were rapidly adding up.
Leowynn lifted her hand, holding it flat like a blade before slashing down. The first thing that she did was to cut the link that the creature had with Earth, preventing it from being able to use that link to reinforce itself further. Naturally, this enraged the shark, which turned to face her with a burning gaze.
As it began to swim towards her in the void, Leowynn focused, summoning her power. She had sensed its strength from the moment she saw it, and knew that it would take a great deal of energy to destroy something like this. More energy than she was comfortable spending, given the possibility of another threat emerging of a similar level before they were ready.
Thus, if she could not defeat the creature while playing by the normal rules, she would write rules of her own. Is that not what the void was so good at? When her eyes opened, her hands began moving in a blur, summoning page after page before her. Each page was written on and scattered into the void while the shark drew closer, but Leowynn did not allow it to disturb her.
She did not stop her writing even as it slammed into her chest, biting at her torso. Although she gave a wince of pain, her hands continued to move. “You want to be the big fish? Guess what, this is my playground!” She shouted, suddenly clapping her hands down on the shark.
Although her hands passed into the liquid body of the shark, Leowynn’s eyes gleamed. “Every creature in the void is nothing but a body of information, a set of rules given shape. Rule number one, this entity is connected to any and all bodies of water within the target dimension.”
Her hands began to shake, the jaws of the shark twisting and thrashing in an attempt to tear through her. “Rule number two, anything controlled by this entity may manifest an embodiment of this entity along its surfaces. Rule number three, the embodiments of this entity will hunt out any form of animal life.”
Gashes began to form in her long, black dress as the watery teeth sank into her body. “Rule number four, anything fully contained within the entity’s jaws will be consumed and transferred back to become sustenance for the entity. By my power as the Goddess of the Void, I erase this rule.”
Her grin was wild as black light began to radiate from her hands, which were still embedded in the shark’s body. At the same time, the papers that she had discarded began flying back, swirling together behind the body of the shark itself. To its credit, the shark was still twisting, trying to bite through the super-dense body of divinity that the Goddess before it possessed.
“Now it’s my turn. Rule number one, this entity does not form a connection with a specific dimension, but can attach to any dimension it encounters. Rule number two, this entity does not exert any power within the dimension that it forms a connection with.” At this point, her skin had long since been broken, a trace of golden light leaking out from her sides as the mouth of the shark closed tighter.
“Rule number three, this entity becomes stronger with the overall increase in positive karma within the dimensions it has connected to. Rule number four!” She let out a dark chuckle, her hands forming claws within the shark. “This entity’s strength will only exert itself within the void, and only against void entities with rules that would cause harm to dimensions it has formed connections with.”
“And finally… Rule number five, the strength of void entities that it destroys is converted into a defensive shield surrounding the dimensions that it has connected to, with these shields offering a layer of defense against hostile void effects.” As Leowynn finished saying that, her hands ripped outwards, pulling chunks out of the body of the water shark.
Due to her removing one of its core rules, and accumulating energy in her hands, she was able to deal real, lasting damage to the monster. However, this was far from enough to kill it, only making it briefly release its hold while it swam back to attack again. This time, Leowynn was confident enough not to move, a smile playing over her lips. Although her stomach was bared from the previous attack chewing through her dress, she showed her willingness in facing the beast again.
She had put a great deal of effort in defining those rules, making sure to write them out as concrete as possible. Each rule took up numerous pages, Leowynn unwilling to leave any wiggle room for them to be taken advantage of. The result? A blade of white light flashed through the void, cutting the liquid body of the shark in half.
This attack barely slowed the shark’s charge, but the attack itself was far from over. Its originator was a golden, angelic figure that stood at the center of the pages Leowynn had thrown out before. Every time a page sank into its body, the glow it produced became more and more exuberant.
With the blade it sent out having been rendered ineffective, the angelic figure extended its palm towards the shark. A white glow began building, dimming the light around its body before shooting forward and completely enveloping the shark. Although Leowynn could not see within the beam of light, she could see the golden threads emerging, wrapping around the sphere which represented Earth to form a thin net.
“Thank you.” Leowynn offered a sincere bow to the void creature that she had created. “In accordance with your third law, I would like to introduce you to other worlds, allowing your power to further grow.” She spoke in a respectful tone, partly because she knew the creature’s power, but also because she knew that it was created to be an ally.
As the last of the papers sank into its body, the angelic figure cast its eyes on the sphere of Earth’s dimension once again, before looking back at Leowynn with a nod. Leowynn smiled, guiding the figure towards the other worlds under the Keeper’s control. However, she did offer a warning to it along the way that it would want to avoid a certain world, pointing to Fyor. There was something there that either destroyed or drove off void influences, and she did not want the creature she had painstakingly made to be crushed by the inhabitants of Fyor’s upper layers.
Leowynn knew that this was not a perfect, long-term defense against void monsters. However, this would serve as a stopgap measure, protecting them for the moment while the proper people were trained to deal with the future threats.
