Meanwhile, Meg had problems of her own with the pink Nebula enemies. The ground-based Predictors and Evolution Beasts were fairly easy to take down, and the Brain Sucklers were numerous but bearable. One managed to hit her at one point, clamping itself completely over her head such that she couldn't see, but she quickly shredded it by firing her Razorpine at it.

It was mostly the teleporting Nebula Floaters that were difficult. She could hit them, but each time they teleported they would immediately unleash a laser, and she just wasn't always quick enough to anticipate which direction she'd need to move in to avoid it, or which direction she'd need to fire in to actually hit them. She soon got overwhelmed, and ended up taking a fall and landed on some grass.

A Brain Suckler landed on her head at that same moment. She blindly fired her Razorblade Typhoon in all directions, trying to get it off, but it refused to let go.

Until it did.

When she looked up, she saw a blue mushroom man standing over her.

"Hello there," Porcini said.

She'd somehow completely forgotten about the mushroom biome near the Dungeon.

"Hi," she said, then got up and flew upwards. To her relief she saw the pink Nebula Pillar, hovering directly over the roof of the Dungeon, have its shield drop at that moment, erupting outwards and dissipating in a massive but harmless shockwave. She turned her weapons on it, including summoning two rainclouds above it with her Nimbus Rod to rain constant damage onto it. The pillar soon cracked open and disintegrated. The pink sky faded back to its normal blue, and the remaining enemies around all fled the scene.

She'd done it, but she was overwhelmed with pain.

She flew in and picked up the pink items that the pillar had dropped. Nebula Fragments.

Better return to Sid.

***

"So Meg's dealing with another pillar that spawned up at the Dungeon," Sid said, addressing the group of citizens. They had gathered in the Hallowed Village. The Nurse was currently patching up everyone who'd gotten injured, including James the Clothier, who'd lost an arm on his real body after Skeletron had had it disintegrated by the Martian Saucer. Fortunately, this world allowed cellular regeneration or something, because the Nurse was able to get his arm back on.

"She might need help. Those who are able to fight, should –"

"No need," Meg said as she emerged from the Hallowed Pylon.

"Meg!"

He was so glad to see she had survived that he couldn't resist throwing his arms around her spectre-armoured form.

"Yes, I made it, doofus. Stop worrying about me."

He laughed. "So I take it your pillar is down too?"

"Yup."

"Where is William?" Durim asked. "I must thank him for the weapon he gave me. It allowed me to get 234 kills in that whole battle."

"I thought you'd stopped counting," Tony said.

"Only with my mouth. How many did you get?"

The Arms Dealer closed his mouth tight. "I lost count," he mumbled.

"I saw William catch Robyn into a teleporter and then he went through himself," Sid said. "Never saw him come back, though."

"That means they'll have ended up in the Desert," Whitney the Steampunker spoke up.

That was when the Hallowed Pylon vibrated again, and Sid saw Robyn step through.

No longer cursed. Her eyes had returned to their normal brown.

But had William managed to survive long enough against her before it had been lifted by Sid defeating the Lunatic Cultist?

Yes! William was the next to step through.

"You made it!" Sid exclaimed. "You both made it!"

The citizens all cheered, who were especially happy to see Robyn's curse had been lifted. The Princess stepped forward and introduced herself, curtseying and shaking Robyn's hand while holding the hand of a very embarrassed-looking Angler with the other.

Then James, having been freshly healed by the Nurse, made his way through the crowd.

"Robyn..." he said. "I never thought I'd see you again. I feared you'd been... doomed, like I once was."

Robyn gave him a huge smile and a quick hug.

"I'm glad to be back," she said.

"So William," Sid said. "Did you and Robyn see any pillars around?"

"We did," William said. "The Vortex Pillar. There were a bunch of aliens around it, but we took it down. It dropped these." He held out some teal-coloured fragments that looked to be shaped like... a vortex, appropriately.

"I got some like that too," Sid said, showing him his blue Stardust Fragments.

"Same," Meg added. "What do we do with them?"

"Well, when the Lunatic Cultist died, he dropped this." Sid pulled out an item and placed it on the ground. It was a large object built from a silvery, alien metal. Some veins ran through it to a large core in the centre that flashed in multiple colours.

"Its label says it can be used to craft items with the Lunar Fragments," he said. "Now, at the time he dropped it, I had no idea what that meant, but it makes sense now."

They all spent some time checking what they could craft. Meg crafted a pink gauntlet named the Nebula Blaze, which could fire blasts of pink energy. William found his Vortex Fragments could turn into a bow named the Phantasm, which he gave to Robyn. Sid crafted his Stardust Fragments into a Stardust Dragon Staff, which instead of summoning multiple minions, summoned one dragon that grew longer and more powerful each time he used the staff until his armour's minion capacity had been reached.

Around when they'd finished crafting, the Dryad emerged from the Pylon.

"There's one more pillar," she said. "An orange one. It's hovering over the Jungle Village."

William had been wondering if there were more pillars.

"Okay," he said. "Citizens, all of you stay either here or in the Forest Village where it's safe. The four of us will deal with this last pillar."

Saying that, it suddenly struck him that this would be the first time the four of them would enter battle together ever since the Wall of Flesh.

The Lunatic Cultist had said, through Robyn, that they were destined to become the new Guardians, and that Cthulhu intended to wrest their position as Guardians away from them. He wondered how the pillars were related to Cthulhu.

I suppose we will soon see, he thought.

***

They entered the Jungle Village through the pylon network. Upon glancing at the sky William could see it was indeed bright orange. He spotted the orange Solar Pillar almost immediately – it was shooting fireballs high into the sky like a volcano, which rained down.

He saw a large worm enemy – a Crawltipede – snaking through the sky. It had a segmented body, two glowing orange horns on either side of its head, and a large sac at the end of its tail. On the ground appeared to be numerous fiery enemies in the form of sentient meteorites, as well as some humanoid enemies wielding a variety of weapons.

"Well, you know what to do, folks," Sid said. "Kill as many enemies as you can, then when the pillar's shields fall, take it down." He blasted off with his jetpack, but was hit in mid-air when the Crawltipede charged straight at him, and then again as it snaked at him, seeming to have a death wish for him.

Meg flew up and began firing at it with her Razorpine, only to find most of her projectiles pass harmlessly through the worm. It turned around and rammed through her as well, sending her falling down to the grassy ground.

The Crawltipede flew back at Sid, who was falling down to the ground to refresh his jetpack's flight time. However, as soon as he landed the Crawltipede seemed to lose interest and flew back into the sky.

"That thing attacked both of them as soon as they flew up off the ground," Robyn said. "But it stopped attacking them when they landed."

"Are you saying we shouldn't fly?" Meg asked.

She nodded.

"That's a load of musket balls," Sid groaned.

William realised that, with their flight ability taken away from them, they were going to have a much tougher time facing off against this pillar than the others, especially when the other enemies caught sight of them and charged. None of them shot any projectiles, all opting to rush at them head-on and deal contact damage, but when a flying Corite slammed into him, he realised these things hit hard!

He saw Robyn shooting her new Phantasm bow at a humanoid holding a large orange spear that was riding a creature named a Drakomire. Sid directed his Stardust Dragon at some rolling Srollers. Meg was firing her Nebula Blaze to try to hit the Selenians, which were humanoids that wore glowing helmets and held twin orange daggers. However, when they curled into a ball to charge forward, she found they reflected the energy blasts she shot, so she fired her Razorblade Typhoon instead, which thankfully couldn't be deflected and decimated them quickly.

The enemies proved to be relentless, being very resistant to knockback and having a high amount of health. The fact that they couldn't fly at risk of being attacked by a Crawltipede sometimes made it difficult to combat them, but thankfully with the four of them all standing together and facing one of four directions, they were able to largely repel most of them.

Before too long the shield around the Solar Pillar dissipated, expanding outwards in a shockwave just like all the other pillars had done. The combined firepower of the four of them shredded the pillar, and it crackled and disintegrated.

William heard an ethereal voice speaking into his ear. One he hadn't heard for some time, but which he knew well.

"Impending doom approaches..."

The Solar Pillar had left some glowing orange fragments in mid-air. Checking first to see that no more Crawltipedes were around, William flew up and collected them.

"Quickly, see what you can make with them," Sid said. He placed down his Ancient Manipulator, having brought it with him.

William landed next to it. He saw the fragments could be crafted into two melee weapons – the Daybreak, which was a spear like what the Drakanians had used, and the Solar Eruption. He quickly crafted them both and tested them out. The Daybreak let him throw glowing orange spears rapid-fire a long distance, while the Solar Eruption snapped out like a whip, radiating with fiery solar energy.

"Something's happening," Meg said.

William had noticed that the world around them seemed to be vibrating, their vision of the bright afternoon sky slowly darkening for a few seconds before going back to semi-normalcy.

"Impending doom approaches..." Robyn murmured, repeating what the voice had said.

"Do you think it's... him?" Sid asked, avoiding the name as though merely uttering it would invoke him.

"Everyone be ready," Meg said.

That was when a blinding flash lit up the sky.

The sky was now pitch-black, only one thing visible, staring down at them.

It could only be one thing.

Cthulhu, Lord of the Moon.