Hanya and Geoff stood before the gate summoned by the Keeper. After ten years of training, it was finally time for them to complete the mission that they had set for themselves. Their hands went down, grasping each other before starting to walk forward and into the abyss within the gate.

They passed through the abyss, and appeared within a flowery meadow. All around them were beautiful plants with colorful patterns. Geoff kept his eyes focused, wary of attackers while Hanya gasped out in shock. “Get us out of here.” She said quickly, her hand squeezing his own more tightly.

The line that she had set up to warn her about infections was sounding like a siren. Every flower, even the grass itself seemed to carry powerful diseases. She had to focus her full attention on developing countermeasures to each disease, and couldn’t even spare the effort to open a void portal.

Hearing the urgency in her tone, Geoff quickly tore open a portal to the void, pulling Hanya with him and leaving the accursed world that they had found themselves in. Once in the void, Hanya’s brows furrowed for several long moments, before finally relaxing. “We’re safe.” She whispered quietly, causing Geoff to nod, his eyes gazing through the surroundings.

The void was much like the one that they were used to, but felt… almost sickening. As if the very essence of creation had been contaminated. He looked at various void beasts, and could see the attributes associated with disease and plague, rotting pustules forming over their skin. He kept Hanya close, worried that he might draw the ire of these beasts, but they seemed content to feed on the worlds that they had attached themselves to.

At the same time, there were numerous fallen gods, far more than he had been expecting from what he heard of this world. Thankfully, these Fallen Gods did not currently seem to have any desire to interfere with the two of them, or perhaps they didn’t even register the presence of the newcomers. These Fallen Gods all had rather monstrous forms, which seemed to confirm the fact that this Keeper reared monsters more than people.

“Let’s go.” He whispered back to Hanya, holding her arm and pulling her off away from the nearby worlds. Surprisingly, there were less worlds here than he had expected, with eight ‘primary’ worlds and what seemed like only tens of secondary worlds, though the secondary worlds all showed signs of degradation, as if they were on the verge of collapse.

Hanya nodded her head, allowing herself to be pulled along, away from the crowding beasts and fallen gods. Once they reached a safe distance from the other worlds, Hanya focused on summoning her sanctuary. As part of their training, they had been told that there was no guarantee that they would be able to maintain their sanctuary between voids. It may even be necessary to create an entirely new sanctuary from nothing.

Thankfully, Hanya’s sanctuary responded to her call, manifesting in the void around her and Geoff. Before she allowed herself to be excited, she applied the immunity to perception across her entire sanctuary. This would be their safe haven during their mission, and she couldn’t risk the possibility that void beasts or other fallen would be able to find them.

Only after all of this did she let out a long sigh of relief. “Okay… I’ve blocked off all the infections that we had so far. Are you feeling any discomfort anywhere?” Hanya asked, looking over at Geoff, who shook his head.

“No, I haven’t felt anything unusual since our arrival, aside from the eeriness of this void.” He answered, to which she smiled.

“Agreed. In that case, are you ready to get started?” Although they had just arrived, they had a very time-sensitive mission. If there was any chance that the monsters roaming the void could find their location, they had to move quickly.

Geoff gave a firm nod at that, and the pair left the sanctuary. They did their best to stay out of sight, wary that Hanya’s perception immunity might not be enough, and made their way to the nearest world. Once there, Geoff scanned through the large sphere before him, looking at the nebulous dots of light slowly swirling within. After a few moments, a portal opened and consumed them, bringing them to the surface of a large star.

“So, how do you need to do this?” Hanya asked, as Geoff was the only one that had received the script necessary to create these ‘death stars’. Geoff hesitated, deciding to show the method through action rather than words.

Reaching out, he placed his bare hand on the pulsing surface of the star, closing his eyes and focusing. “Activating the Starlight Principle.” He muttered to himself, black threads beginning to extend from his arm to penetrate into the star. “Initiating death star sequence.” The sphere that Chel had given him contained everything that he needed to turn the memetic power into a line, a void power that he could activate on command.

It was clear the skill and care that had gone into preparing them, not willing to leave the smallest detail to chance. Geoff felt the power of the void pulsing through him, spreading as a black mass over the surface of the star. Once he had ‘infected’ this star, he pulled his hand back, nodding towards Hanya.

The elven woman recognized the signal, focusing and warping both of them to her sanctuary. With the power spreading, she didn’t want to risk being there when it was ready to launch. As such, they appeared back in Hanya’s sanctuary, looking out into the distant void with a complicated expression. “Do we go on to the next one right away?”

Geoff thought about it briefly, before shaking his head. “Let’s give it three days. According to the information Chelsea gave me, I need to monitor the stars of that world to ensure that there is nothing wrong with the use of memetic effects on this end. And, on the off chance that the Keeper can be defeated in these three days, we may not need to destroy the other worlds.”

The way that Geoff spoke, it sounded to Hanya as if he already considered the universe that they had just visited to be a lost cause. “Is it really that volatile?”

Geoff didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t know how he could explain the effects of what he just did. “...Just wait three days, and you’ll see.”

Three days came and went, and the monsters within the void didn’t find the sanctuary. However, those that had been feasting on the world that they had previously attacked became angry, lashing out at any beasts or fallen gods around them. It had become a full battle by the time the pair finally emerged again, trying to find a way through the chaos without being found.

Although they were blocked from the perceptions of others, those beings would still recognize if their attacks hit something that they couldn’t see, or if something brushed against them. As such, the pair flew around the brawl, circling the world on all sides to find a safe way to get close.

Unfortunately, no safe way had presented itself, so they could only observe from afar. This was a far slower method, but one that they had been trained in. Their eyes narrowed, the world in their view growing larger and larger. Hanya let out a silent gasp when she saw that half of the swirling lights within this universe had become black dots. “Are those… black holes?”

Denying her question, Geoff shook his head. “No, those are the death stars. Everything in that area has already died…” Even as he spoke, he could see more and more stars becoming infected with every passing moment. Looking further in, he could see that the vast majority of black stars no longer had any planets near them, as if they had been completely destroyed by the infectious light.

Clearly, the plan had worked. Anything surviving in that world would cease to exist in a matter of days. He closed his eyes, clenching his free hand into a fist. There were no doubt many sentient races within the areas he destroyed, but this was something that he had to do. Doom one realm to save another. His only consolation was that this realm seemed designed to torture such races to begin with. Perhaps death was a mercy to them…

“Let’s go to the next one…” He whispered to Hanya, who nodded and helped him make his way to the next closest world. Once again, they entered and did the deed, waiting another three days to confirm the effects in this world. If the script worked a second time, they would no longer need the waiting period.

Unfortunately, it would also cause the remaining void monsters to begin lashing out at everyone. When two out of the eight worlds fell, the others would grow increasingly defensive. It was certain that they wouldn’t have the same level of freedom after that point.

And, as predicted, that is exactly what happened. After the first world was completely devoid of life, and the second starting to show the same infection, the monsters within the void became far more paranoid. They began releasing their abilities at random intervals, trying to find the cause of the destruction.

These abilities posed a heavy risk for the pair, as they contained virulent properties of their own. Hanya in particular was caught off guard when these auras of disease struck, needing to act quickly to neutralize the powers on both of them. However, the fact that the aura connected alerted the fallen god that released it, causing it to let out a fierce roar. It began thrashing about with its barbed tail and claws, trying to find whatever it had hit.

Seeing this, other monsters began to swarm over, having noticed the commotion. Geoff quickly pulled Hanya back out of the aura, fleeing away from the hordes of monsters. They couldn’t afford to get in a battle with so many monsters, as neither of the two were specialized in combat. While they did have their training, that training was mostly about self-preservation, focusing on the ability to avoid fights in the first place.

After they left the field of monsters, Hanya was breathing heavily, her face strained. On the way out of the mob of monsters, she had been struck by over a dozen poisonous auras, and had to immunize herself and Geoff to every single one of them quickly. “W-Well… good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

“Is the bad news that we’re going to have to do that a lot more now?” Geoff asked, his face scrunching up. Even he could feel the infections in his energy, meaning that at least some of the powers that struck them had been able to target fallen like themselves.

“That would be the bad news.” She nodded, applying her new immunities to Geoff to clear away his infections. “The good news is that we don’t have to worry about the auras that I’ve built immunities for. Next time, we just have to aim for the same path that monster is guarding, and we should be able to get to the next world.”

Geoff hesitated for a moment, before nodding his head. That meant that they’d be able to make progress, at least. However, they would need to cause such a riot at least once for every new world that they went to infect. If any of those powers were able to erase their perception immunity, or overcome Hanya’s powers in general… it was a gamble every time they went out. Unfortunately, it was a gamble that they had to take.