Chapter 9-291: Of Shrouds and Death (1/2)

Their jaws were dropping, and then dropped further as I said that, while behind me arose a derivation of the solar system, with Earth in it... and a Shroud came down and swept us away, leaving the orbit blank behind me.

“The reason for that is, of course, the Curse of the Dawn.”

That got them going down another train of thought, while the dawn broke behind me over an illusionary horde of undead who all burned away, and the image was replaced by that pattern of colored spheres charting the advance path of the Shroud across many worlds.

“I have more information that may shock you, and yet should be totally believable. It seems that the assault on the Earth by the Shroud was a bit of a test run.”

They all blinked as the view on the globe zoomed in, and the blue world of Earth linked backwards to a green world before us.

“This is Pentara, a world with no humans, elves, or dwarves, populated by creatures we would consider alien. Skeletons seen in the Russian Shroudzone are largely made of the native creatures of Pentara.” I brought up images of them, and filled them in, resulting in images that were humanoid, bipedal, but clearly different... and not obviously even mammalian. “The vast majority of the souls brought here to form the initial Shroud were from Pentara.”

“Ahhh...” some of them murmured in understanding.

“Pentara is now free of the Shroud.”

They all blinked, as a new scene came up behind them.

An assault of vivus, thousands of men and women in armor and robes, hurling forth amounts of magic and profound forms that froze those watching in awe and horror at the power they were wielding.

Undead armies that covered hundreds of square miles were blown through like chaff, and behind them they left an ever-increasing circle of white... and opened the Shroud to the sky and the sun beyond, cleansing the dead land that the world never should have been.

They saw undead Land Spirits force themselves out of the ground, and they saw massive spells detonate on them and send them falling like skyscrapers. Numbers of undead meant nothing, fed into a relentless, furious advance as endless statues to the glory of Death were Animated and then pounded to rubble.

This scene of relentless fury, total domination, and expertly wielded power continued, marching across the entire planet, bringing down stronghold after stronghold, volcanoes igniting, vivus pouring into the land, and the undead masters of Pentara were brought low.

The scene of the final fortress, an entire lonely grand mountain turned into a maze and trap designed to chew up intruders, appeared before them, as did the scene of the strike force that went around the maze, Shaping a tunnel from the peak of the mountain all the way down inside it. There they confronted the creature that had been Dark Hierophant of an entire world, a black skull as tall as a human with teeth of glittering gemstones, and they watched it die.

Outside, the last of the Shroud on Pentara vanished, and everyone there gasped in awe and shock as reflected sunlight filled the whole room, and green began to return to the world.

The image split into six, and the victorious mood sobered instantly as the great black arches were split and reflected behind me... except there were only five. The sixth one was collapsed and in ruins.

That one was zoomed in on, and there it stayed. The link from the blue shell back to the green came up behind it.

“That is how they came to Earth!” the Archmage of the Magi blurted out, rising to his feet.

“Yes. Something on our end shattered that Deathgate and its link, breaking the full power of the Shroud.” That image shrank and set off to the side, and another Deathgate rose. It was a familiar one, one they’d seen in the early fighting vids, where the first army of undead had perished to the attackers.

The green world glowed, but oddly enough, this time it pierced backwards, down through the layers, which peeled aside and grew as the red at the center rose...

The green pushed past it to the world below that knot of red and yellow and orange, which peeled open to reveal a world very familiar to all those there, albeit one now in the orbit of a great and massive red world, yet with moons still of its own, one of which was the twelve-fold nexus of that great sphere of the Shrouds.

“A-Another Earth?” blurted out the Master of the Alchemists, eyes blazing. “There are alternate Earths in other dimensions?” he repeated for confirmation.

“Yes,” I indeed confirmed. “It seems that we were a test run to link into the existence of those alternate Earths. Rather than trying to randomly locate worlds out in Creation that they couldn’t see, they managed to find this Earth, and using it as a basis, branched off to locate other alternate timelines to assault as well.

“But, it seems, they chose their next Earth poorly.” The vivisized world of Pentara rose behind them. “As you can see, that Earth is also not where it is supposed to be, and its situation is very different from our own. It is now a moon of a greater world that seems to be about the size of Jupiter, yet retains moons of its own. And one of those moons... is the original homeworld of the Shroud.”

The black dot that was Shoul was zoomed in on, and those watching swore as the deathly still landscape, bereft of any motion but the decaying mad dreams of departed souls, rolled past.

Twelve Deathgates rose from that world: still, silent, and empty.

“Here is where the Shroud came to be, concealing a world of undead from the eyes of the Divine. They, in turn, wrought the Deathgates, one by one, and the first Dark Hierophants marched out with their armies of millions of undead, and took twelve worlds.” From the red, twelve lines reached out to the orange. “Those worlds in turn died, built up undead armies, formed their own Deathgates, and went forth to conquer. This cycle repeated.”