(Day 180) Aprilis 24th, 12th year of the Dragon, Age of Enlightenment

I quickly walked into the dining room and set the parameters of nanites I left there to scan and record any items of food that came into the room. This would allow me to create a database of common foods for Primore. Next, I opened a portal into the dining room and flooded the room with more nanites, limiting them to only this room. Then I thought about it and went into the kitchen and larder. I entered the larder and opened another portal. I had the nanites scan and analyze all the food there and then saturated this room as well. This time though, I set the nanites to recreate and replace any items that were used. That should take care of my food problem, though I’d have to transfer more nanites into the room as they were used up to recreate the items taken. Easy enough, I had Thor add checking on the larders nanite levels and replenishing them to a daily task. Eventually, I’d figure out exactly how many nanites needed to be added weekly. That is until I saturated the entire tower. When I did that all that would be required was to add a permanent portal connection that would allow the nanites to replenish themselves throughout the tower automatically.

Satisfied that at least that concern was handled. I made my way back to the entryway and took a seat to meditate. Relaxing my mind and body I activated my ability ‘Commune with Divine’ to speak to my Goddess Serena.

The Goddess Serena, however, was not available for a long conversation at that moment. “Adamantadine, you feel so far away. We must speak, but I must finish what I’m doing at the moment. Please remain as you are and I will contact you as soon as I’m done here.” Serena was pleased to note his agreement and turned back to her present conversation.

“And exactly why should I care if something is going to destroy the very fabric of this Universe? God of Destruction here, my purpose.” The God Feazure stated with a hint of mirth in his voice.

“The reason you should be concerned is that when I say Universe, I mean this Universe to include each realm, pocket dimension, and pocket Universe within this Universe. All the hells, all the heavens. Every single aspect of this Universe will be destroyed, including the divines that reside here, unless you can survive in the realm of pure chaos without protection of course, or you flee.”

Feazure turned to Michael who was standing next to Serena, “Is what she states true, will we all cease to exist?”

Michael looked to Feazure then stated, “Of all the divines, The Goddess Serena is the Goddess of Knowledge and Learning. It is her purpose to share knowledge. To pass any knowledge on to anyone falsely would go against her purpose. If you must have an endorsement to believe her, it is given. Should any of the divines fail to prepare or meet the threat of the Ancient Enemy you will be utterly and permanently destroyed.”

“Again, that still serves my purpose,” Feazure said.

“In this instance, your purpose is to promote destruction whenever possible. This does not mean that you must allow yourself to be destroyed.” Michael replied.

“I see,” Feazure stated, though he really didn’t understand the distinction.

“I have shared the knowledge I had to give,” Serena said. She turned to Michael, “Thank you for coming to help me share this knowledge. I must attend to our friend.”

“By friend, do you mean that mortal Adam? Just so you know I really like that guy. His presence, anywhere, serves my purpose” Feazure said before he nodded to Michael and vanished.

“I do not think he believes you, nor will he without proof, “Michael said.

“True, but hopefully our friend will find a way to do something beings infinitely more powerful than he have been unable to do since the Ancient Enemy resurfaced six thousand years ago,” Serena said.

“Attend to your cleric, perhaps he will find a way,” Michael said as a golden portal appeared behind him and he stepped back through.

Serena teleported to her portion of the Heavens and stood before her Orb of Knowledge as she focused her attention on Adam. As she suspected, Adam was no longer in her primary Universe, nor was he in his Universe. As she focused her perception she realized he was not even in the Multi-verse…”

“Enough! There are some things you do not need to know…yet,” an older and more powerful divine than anyone she had ever encountered before said into her mind.

Shaken to the core of her being, Serena merely conveyed her acquiescence to the command as she withdrew her perception from Adam’s surroundings and focused on him as she formed a ghostly image of herself in his mind and spoke, “Cleric Adamantadine?”

“Yes Goddess, I hear and see you.”

“While we communicate like this you may refer to me as Serena and I will refer to you as Adam. It will make what I need to tell you easier. First, you have done well thus far. Your friend Adaline has warmed your heart, which I was afraid had been shrouded by your intellect.” Serena noted that his mind questioned this claim as she continued, “I have spoken with both Arch-Angel Michael and Raphael and reviewed what you have done in your Universe as well as on Primore. I am not judging your choices. I merely wish for you to ask yourself, could you have gone a different route? Could you have tried another way? in your Universe I believe your actions were sound and ultimately serve good though the free will of others is hampered. For your Universe though, your choices were the best choices you could have possibly made at the time. I will come back to that point in a moment. I will end this first point by saying that Adaline has reminded you of the value of individuals, as you move forward please try to remember that.

I explored my feelings about the criticism of my actions. I realized that Serena was correct. I had begun to devalue individuals and started to look at people as things. I would have to work harder at preventing myself from doing so in the future.

Serena had paused for a moment to let me think about what she said then continued, “Second, As you make your way to Crownport then Andidreas, the true seat of the Council, I would like you to remember my first point. I would, however, like to make myself clear that I am not asking you not to kill or destroy anyone. I would just like you to remember that the people of The Kingdom of Crimson Blood are not all evil, nor do they wish to be so. Some will be too far gone, but most could be shown another path. How you chose to handle the situation is of course up to you.”

Serena turned away from me in his my mind's eye and waved her hand. In front of her an image of the tower as it had been appeared, “Which brings me to my third topic. This is what happened to your tower’s location on Primore,” Serena said as the image in front of her showed someone landing on the top of his tower, casting a runic circle and then another spell as he teleported back to a red dragon and turned south before the tower and surrounding mountain were devastated by an implosion which then exploded outward. The image froze and Serena turned back to me, “As you can see a mage destroyed your tower, the mountain, and an area radiating out to five miles with secondary damage farther still. What you cannot tell from these images is that the spell in question is restricted. What do I mean by restricted? Restricted, as in no one is supposed to use, let alone know of, spell in question.”

“What did it do?” I asked.

“The spell punched a hole in the Universe.”

“I detected that,” I said excitedly before she could continue, “One of my nanites is even now in the place the hole leads to surrounding by a hyper viscous fluid type substance it cannot quantify or define as it is constantly changing.”

“That ‘hyper viscous fluid’ that you can't quantify or define is pure chaos Adam,” Serena said.

“Pure chaos? As in the substance that all the Universes are supposedly floating around in?” I asked.

“Yes, as I said the spell punched a hole in the Universe at the nexus of eight primal ley lines.”

My mouth opened as if to say “oh” then shut before I asked, “I take it that’s not good?” I asked.

“No, that is not good. Before I continue I will let you know that as far as we can determine the mage tried to use a shield based on time to protect himself from the chaos he released. He is currently in the distant future, unable to return, where he will probably remain for the rest of his life. The dragon survived and returned to the south.

“How fare into the future?”

“Let me see if I can use some of your scientific jargon correctly, ‘A number of years that would almost certainly be better expressed in scientific notation.’ Did I convey the amount of time correctly?”

“Yes, you did. Is there any way for him to get back?”

“This was not to be my fourth point but since you brought up the subject let's talk about traveling through time. There are a couple of rules that cannot be broken. One, Time moves in a linear direction from the past through the present to the future. Magic allows for time travel. Even so, there are limits. You may travel back in time, you may even change the past and create a paradox. As you have discovered by gaining the ability ‘I have always been, I will always be’ individuals that travel through time could accidentally create a paradox that removes them, or someone important, from existence. If the time traveler doesn't screw up their past then they can easily return to their present and even continue on into the future. This is where it gets interesting though. If you were to travel one day into the future and a time nexus formed 12 hours from now. You would only be able to travel into the past to just after that time nexus. The chances that a time nexus would form in a single day are very low, but it could happen. The reason the mage can’t return from the future he was thrust into is because a time nexus has undoubtedly formed between now and that future point.

I thought I understood but the confusion on my face must have shown because Serena continued, “Let’s try another example. Let’s say you traveled one hundred years into the future. One second after you arrived there is a chance that a time nexus formed at any time in that one hundred years. For simplicity's sake, let's assume that there is a .005% chance that a time nexus will develop each day. In one hundred years there are 36,000 days in this universe. That means that in a single year 1.8 time nexus could have formed. In 100 years a total of 180 time nexus could have formed every second. Simply, the longer a time traveler remains in the future after they arrive the less likely it becomes that they will be able to return to the past.

“But that doesn’t seem right. If a time nexus prevents time travelers from going into the past how does anyone ever travel into the past?” I asked.

“A very good question. Everyone that has never traveled through time can make one initial jump into the past. Why, because every time nexus before they try to travel through time was already part of their history. As they did not affect the traveler's history they do not hinder their ability to travel through time. Once a being travels through time any new time nexus that are formed in their perceptive past will thwart their ability to travel further into the past beyond that point. As I said at the beginning any traveler can travel forward. Does this make sense?” Serena asked.

“Yes, do not travel through time until I’m absolutely sure I need to. I do have one question, I mean I understand that a time nexus limits the ability to travel into the past but I’m wondering, what exactly is a time nexus?” I asked.

“Another good question. A time nexus is a point on the timeline that would change the time travelers past. Another concept that needs explaining. Using a simple example, I’m sure you can figure out the more complicated aspects of the example you are about to hear on your own. As a time traveler, you travel 24 hours into the future. A minute later you travel another 24 hours into the future. A different time traveler travels to just before your first stop and conjures a solid column of stone where you appeared. This creates a paradox as you could not have appeared at that location, yet you did. If you were to travel back in time you might be able to travel forward and cause another paradox by changing your past again. Time, while a sphere of power also seems to be somewhat sentient and does not like its linear progression tampered with or changed. Nor does it like the paradoxes that could be created when one traveler tries to affect another traveler over and over.”

“Sentient?” I asked.

“We, the younger divines, believe that time creates these time nexus as a way to keep the number of paradoxes any single time traveler creates headed in one direction, towards the future. Take the example I just shared. The second traveler has now created a time nexus that they cannot go further into the past beyond. Both must continue into the future.”

“Was it always like this,” I asked.

“I’m not sure, time seems to allow travelers to affect time in such a way that ends their life. Also, Travelers can end a non-travelers life. A time nexus is created in both examples. Does this make sense?” she asked

“Your explanation was better than some I’ve heard in some of the fiction I’ve come across. It sounds like time is one of those spheres of power mages should be really careful using.” I said.

“Absolutely, in fact, another sphere of power that any mage should probably never use is chaos which brings me to my fourth subject. The spell that was used on your tower was of the sphere of chaos. That school of power is restricted because no one, not even the divines, can predict what will happen when it’s used. The spell that the mage used could have just as easily transformed the tower into a monster of the Labyrinth as destroyed it. That is one of the reasons the use of chaos magic is severely restricted. The other reason is that some creatures that are formed in chaos are almost impossible to destroy. Remember when I said that the actions in your Universe ultimately served good? Approximately 6,000 years ago a creature of chaos reappeared. Not many of the divines can even look into chaos, I can not. But some of the eldest of the divines I know of shared that this creature had been seen long ago. When last it came forth, it destroyed countless Universes. Then one day it was gone. None know why it left. When it reappeared some divines tried to fight it with no success.

One divine, however, came up with a plan which appeared to have worked. First, he took a soul at random from one of his followers and fed it to the creature. A hesitation was noticed but the creature once again began to come towards his Universe. The divine kept feeding souls to the creature until it stopped moving. As far as the other divines that watched could determine only when a significant number of souls were fed to it did it stop moving. A plan was quickly devised. The Universe the creature had been heading toward was chosen. The rules for that Universe were changed so that divinity became much harder to achieve. They needed souls after all. Even so, that rule was incorporated into all the universes. Even the Labyrinths adopted the new leveling criteria. As you have witnessed there are still those that have found a way to reach the new, much higher, level required to become a divine. Before the Universe was to be cut off from all other Universes the other divines residing there as well as the creatures of heavens and hells migrated to another Universe of their choosing. Some came to this Universe but not all. Only one Arch-Angel remained behind to help the divine. Once all the divines had departed and the heavens and hells were empty the divine severed all junctions from his universe. The Arch-Angel and he could travel freely between the Universes but no other being could. Then he reoriented his Universes ‘Eye’ for souls to a terminus just in front of what we now call our ancient in the ancient enemy.”

A look of shocked realization changed into outright disbelief, “Why…How,” I started to say then broke off. I knew why, I knew how. Sacrifice one to save the many. I understood but didn’t like it. Calming himself I asked, “What happened to the souls that were fed to it?”

“No one knows, though most divines, including me, believe they are permanently destroyed,” she answered.

“My Universe? I asked as I also whispered, “That’s monstrous.”

“Yes, your Universe. We all know it was a monstrous decision. Some of us believe that when last it appeared when so many Universes were destroyed the number of souls it devoured was far worse than now. The decision was made to sacrifice one Universe to try to save many more,” Serena said a little defensively.

“I understand the logic of the decision. I don’t doubt I’d have made the same one. I was simply responding as I thought about all of my ancestors whose souls may not even exist anymore. If I am to look at everyone as an individual and appreciate the beauty of each of their souls, then the creature, not the divines response, is truly monstrous.” I said softly.

“Yes,” Serena agreed.

I was quiet for a moment as I went through all the possibilities of what I’d just been told. Serena allowed me that moment and waited until I finally said, “Obviously, something the mage did, has changed something, what do I need to know?”

“As astute as ever,” Serena said before she went on, “When the mage created that hole in this Universe on a nexus of ley lines for all eight of the primal powers a leak formed. It is a small leak and would eventually close itself as the boundaries of Universes are quite sturdy. This does not seem to matter though. The ancient enemy has turned away from your Universe and is headed towards Primore’s Universe.”

“How long?”

“How long until it gets here, approximately three years, more likely two. It could be more or less. Right now it’s taking its time. It could move faster or slower. One thing that we have learned is that it doesn’t just eat souls. Currently, the leak is of the eight primal energies. I think it may have grown tired of just one type of meal. I also believe that it consumed all those other universes long ago because it consumes all types of energy,” she said.

“That seems reasonable. How can I help?”

“I have been charged with preparing this Universe for evacuation. As you know there is no way even a small percentage of the inhabitants of this Universe could be saved, but I will try. I am charging you with the task of trying to find a way to stop this creature once and for all, destroy it if you can. While every individual should be cherished there are occasions when some ‘things’ just need to be destroyed. That is all I have for you now. Do you have any questions?” Serena asked.

“No, I will endeavor to accomplish the task you have laid out before me,” I said as I ended my talk with the Goddess Serena.