The Ooze filled Astral’s veins as tiny fibrous threads plunged through her blood, taking a deep drink. The power of a magi, God Slayer, Demon Hunter, and Vessel would fuel this demon’s ascension, rivalling the Fallen One himself. Wrath seared her flesh as greed burrowed throughout her small body. Hunger wound its way around her muscles, tearing at each section of meat like a fine delicacy, savoring each morsel but craving the next bite. Vanity and lust caressed her soft white bones and wound their embrace around her skull.

She drowned in the black liquid hate, unable to cry out her agony, frozen in the malignant pride as the Ooze tore her apart searching for the taste it craved. It played her pain like an instrument designed to marinade her body. She would suffer for as long as she could withstand death.

For but a moment, eternity stretched out before her. In her panic, she had failed to control her Hunter’s Pulse and called out to anyone or anything that would heed her desperate call. With the shadow entity nearby, she dreaded the response. ‘Anyone but that thing!’

Multiple versions of herself gathered in the eternal twilight of her mind. The twilight was mirrored in the calm pools of her soul. Past and future selves gathered in reunion, each cradling a glowing star in the palm of their hands.

There were hundreds of her, thousands, maybe, standing near and far, but granting her space. She had the freedom and dignity to call them at will, individually, to draw on knowledge and memories at her own pace, in her own time. Through their growing psychic link, she grew aware of the gifts cupped in their hands. Each offering the knowledge of possibilities, events to come, and probable inevitabilities. Thousands of lifetimes lived.

As desperate as they were to complete their mission, to solve the challenge that ruined them in every cycle, they did well to say nothing to impart their plea. They would not break her mind with everything they knew. The memories would permeate her being and haunt her dreams. With time, she’ll not be able to distinguish her life from any of the others.

Still and silent as statues, they held out their hands and let the star they held join the eternal twilight of her spiritual realm.

In that eternal moment, Astral realized Omega had come for her. Her time defending life on this planet was ending. As Astral observed the statuesque heroes before her, she wondered why their silent plea didn’t ask for salvation from Omega, something she was sure they all feared. Instead, as though whispering a memory into her consciousness, the moment they chose, the moment she remembered with vivid accuracy, a moment shared by all of them in exactly the same way, trump the ascendance of the dark god.

In her confusion, the eternal moment shattered.

The Ooze drank deeply. It shuddered with pleasure, pressing itself against her body, wanting all of itself to touch her.

She felt nothing. Not warmth or pain. She feared nothing. Especially not death at this moment. Omega had designs for her. In her resentment, Astral drank deeply, drinking in the putrid, vile essence of death and malice, tasting the souls it had consumed. Tasting the demon as it had to so many living things before her.

It fled from her, sections of its body hardening and breaking free with the jolt of movement shattering against the concrete floor. Shocked. Repulsed. Terrified. She couldn’t tell as she wiped the remnants of ooze from her lips with the back of her hand. An older version of Astral stood where the child had been, filled with knowledge of this fight and others like it, a memory of what she had been in the ancient world’s promise of what she would become again. This creature was beneath her skill. But since she was the only one here, she might as well reap justice for the lives lost today.

Astral’s naked skin glistened under the moonlight as the congregation souls worked to mend her body, reshaping her from child to adult. The souls hardened into dark armor, darkening only because she willed it to be so. She did not need to attract the legion to her just yet. She needed to be sure she was stable and sure of this body. She needed to learn its limitations. She knew her control was finite and time was precious before the child would have to resume control. She had to resume control. She had a life to live. Experience to harness. Options to explore. Weaknesses to exploit.

The Ooze drew back, giving her a wide berth as she stepped toward it, testing her new presence. Astral smirked at the demon, her pale eyes gleaming in a haunting pale blue, betraying her unnatural origins. Disdain curled on her lips and brief hiss of frustration escaped her mouth. “Is that all you got?” Her words barely a whisper. The demon didn’t need words to feel her threat, to embody her taunt.

The Ooze recoiled as she stepped toward it again. It slithered to a full run, leaving a trail of broken fading remains in its wake. It didn’t get far before melting into a heap of black ash. Her poisonous soul had done its job.

She regarded the ash with passive indifference. Around her, the shelter was stripped bare of the human remains. The glutenous Ooze had swallowed everything, even the debris.

Howls as deep as insanity, long and mournful, filled the broken community center. Astral flexed her hands against her soul armor, testing her strength against its rigidity, training it to learn her needs, to expect her movements.

There were demons out there in need of slaying. The fragile pact between Heaven and Hell had been broken, and now she was about to return to duty. She could manage that much at least before she completed her transcendence into Omega. The Destroyer. The Devourer.