The complete removal of a landmark didn’t suddenly cause either dragon to magically forget the sub-realm’s layout, that’d be insanity, and they flew over to the region immediately. Akevorax purposely slowed down to keep in pace with Adret, his thoughts far more occupied with the messages covering most of his vision at the moment.

[Challenge Results: Satisfactory completion of outlined task. All penalties followed with 0 rule breaks, granting reward as placed]

[Challenge Rewards: 3 Authority points. Full explanation on natural phenomena. Refinement of the will-driven natural cycle into a suitable form. ‘Congratulations’ already given]

[Explanation will be given on request]

[Refined tool description: While formed primarily from a pair of tier 7 energy sources, the resultant ‘cloud-mountain’ equipment uses the user’s power to form a connection to the Lightning Source. Its capabilities include forming annihilating strikes, or blank crystal shells responsive to various elements. These are one intrinsic properties of each part, but after refinement into a Rune tool it possesses far more. Ask for more specific details]

That was the shortened form… Sounded about right given what happened. He kept silent and dismissed the boxes in exchange for the sight below him.

Where the Nexus uprooted the mountain was merely a smooth layer of grey stone, so sharply removed that it appeared polished and even reflected his face. The same said for the formerly hyperactive clouds above. While dark like in any dense storm, they lost that menacing near-black accumulation that stirred worry in anything nearby.

All of that vanished into the sight laid before him.

From that imposing mountain a few kilometres wide and somewhat taller, it shrunk all the way till it hardly exceeded his head in size! All its char-coating vanished to fully reveal a conical chunk of polished sky blue crystal. Furthermore, the especially dark clouds still hung above the little mountain like a perpetual threat to its existence. Not that either side could act in any way at this point. He couldn’t understand what the Nexus did, but somehow it applied a form of shrinking magic which maintained the object’s original mass without any physical collapses. Then it also managed to gather the clouds responsible for this feud and left out all others in the refinement process…

“I’m mostly sure it’s stronger than everything in Alkuthuzen’s lab. It can connect to the Lightning Source when required, and then too many things for me to read…” Akevorax skimmed the pages of documentation provided by the Nexus to merely understand the unnamed tool’s functions, but most importantly left its actual name up to him. With his indecisiveness that already vanished to the back of his thoughts.

Bored of his silence, Adret asked, “You going to test it then?”

“I’d like to, but my Spirit spent the past minute shouting ‘Don’t’ into my Mind. I’ll take its word for now, anyway, it’s time to leave!” Akevorax mocked himself for receiving an unusable gift before shifting the conversation away.

He didn’t just spend the last 7 days focused on this mystery! That’d be irresponsible and a real waste of time…

Not too far outside the sub-realm, he once again set up a small series of arrays which pointed towards the main universe and scanned for further planar entities in that direction. This was the method he used to first discover this place, from which the Nexus hinted something. Naturally, with a list of almost 30 more options, all in the right direction and a fair distance closer, they asked it to pick again!

[We don’t exist to hunt down treasures for you, this was a special case because finding such suitable materials is rare. It would be a complete waste if some foolish tier 8 happened across it and butchered the mountain]

He fell silent as the lack of retorts gave full advantage to the other side here. It was rather rude for him to assert this. But even so, he still spoke up after a glance towards his side, “Surely there’s something suitable for her at least too?”

[There are no lunar or psychic items like that on your entire journey back, unless you count the lunar realm itself]

With an unhappy sigh, he concluded, “If there’s really nothing then–”

[Your 14th option is a Dark Sun realm. They will not intentionally attack you, but after entering you’ll be facing an army of challengers. We already informed her of this message]

His face stiffened without any clue of her incoming response, and the complete poker face left him more concerned. It did not take long for a strong grin to settle and her eyes gained a hint of madness, something more like a desire for battle, but he chose to ignore that. She didn’t even need to say a word as Akevorax recalled all the arrays and began the classic process of preparing the sceptre’s limiter.

The new tool disappeared into his dimensional storage, but as the mountain vanished, the weight about his neck increased hundreds of times over. That weight only increased too! By the time it settled the original ring, an unbelievably high-level tool, became a fifty tonne block around his neck. An impossibly hard object to casually hold. Divinity only made movement somewhat bearable, and he realised that the documentation likely hid some sort of proper storage method which avoided this hellish penalty.

Beneath him, the array reached its conclusion, and once they envisioned their target, it was a straight shot to the next sub-realm.

…

To ensure Adret didn’t break all her bones this time round, they opted to use 2 slower launches instead. The first of which gave Akevorax enough time to read the full manual for his ridiculously powerful Rune tool and properly store it. Unintuitively, when coated in psychic elements, the mountain and cloud shrunk rapidly and could phase through an object.

This allowed it to enter his mental space… Something that’s not usually supposed to happen. But when it came to anything at these levels, specific quirks always appeared. Didn’t that planar shard ‘thing’ occupy the centre of his Soul?

He didn’t question how these things worked, for now. When he was qualified, he’d likely find an answer.

Their first jump left them in a relatively plain sub-realm filled with wildlife. This was one of the countless planes across the blank space which met the first condition to upgrade but simply failed to meet the second. Obviously, they completely formed all their laws and could even birth new creatures with Souls, as seen by the living creatures in such places. Their flaws all lay in their planar wills; a lack of them, specifically.

Akevorax couldn’t help but laugh at that notion when he first arrived. His haughty and mocking tone carried throughout the jungled, humid landscape, but the mere sight of Adret’s crown scared off everything. To think an exhausted crystal and petty cloud forged simplistic wills before an entire plane condensed their own… He couldn’t say how much harder it was for such entities though.

After a few hours of rest, they already set off to the Dark Sun realm, the pair in fragile silence as both prepared offensively. While he knew far too little about such creatures, Adret found confidence from some idea, it seemed. They could run away fast enough to ignore most threats.

However, still almost a minute out from their target, the pair massively slowed down from a brisk 100 kilometres per second to the single digits. Overwhelming force surrounded the pair of dragons, and Akevorax did his best to repulse it with the Auric Spirit and True Will merged into one. Adret’s crown seemed to do nothing but bolster the oppressive might on her body.

A voice both of them expected instantly boomed in their heads, “Why dare you come to my realm? Did your firefly not teach you properly?”

Akevorax squinted in slight pain and mumbled, “Seriously, we’re still two hours away. Are you that lonely?” He snorted gently and the headache passed, but clearly the planar will heard his words. Thankfully, it wasn’t petty enough to make a fuss.

“Controller of this eclipsed realm, we were informed by the Nexus that this realm was encroached by the Dark Sun. Will you really take offence to a short practice session?” Adret took the conversation’s lead, while mostly respectful, her views also revealed necessary disdain. Such existence tainted the world and no amount of self-control removed those thoughts. This mentality was a huge reason he stayed away from lunar bloodlines long ago, Adret’s passive state encouraged that decision further, but looking at things now showed it far better than he accredited.

“Practise? What possible skills could a weakling child teach or learn?! Your dragon’s blood means naught, I can see that broken rock’s youth.”

“Okay, I’m bored!” Finding the standoff an annoying matter, Akevorax’s exasperated tone cut through the tense atmosphere brought by two eternal foes. One side– Both sides clearly resented him for this, but he cut them off further by saying, “I need 3 days, 72 hours in the Nexus time standard, to scan for our next possible destinations before we leave. She’ll be fighting tier 5 Dark Sun creatures in the meantime. Send a tier 6 creature if you’re worried any of them will die. I’ll protect her.”

With his words complete, space around them eased once more as he flapped both wings to propel forward. With every flap, the mana coating gripped space and pushed him forward, much like swimming, and in the process stunning both. He understood Adret’s uncomfortable state… But why was the extremely old planar will also silent?

“What does a minor dragon think of himself to involve in this matter!? Know your place or be struck down! Insignificant thing of… Ice cream? How interesting– And with such talent as well!” Its voice changed from anger, to confusion, and ended with an almost childlike joy, an unbelievable treasure seemed to appear in its grasp. Without any indication, Akevorax froze in space once more, but with a horrendous psychic power encapsulating his body, it restrained him entirely.

Divinity sprouted up and the psychic force failed. Its grip remained, but felt more like hands reaching out without a tight hold. Adret quickly followed, as he already moved several kilometres ahead, and in the endless darkness, it was easy to lose track of others.

Nothing worked to impede her movement, thankfully, but the psychic force around him vanished with a headache onset. Not one formed from an outside power, but simply how he felt about the situation. This time, rich psychic elements flooded the space around him and tightly bound his body, some of them tried to force their way in and scan his innards for a better look, but were either consumed or destroyed by the mass of runes still within. Not that this problem lasted long, as the appearance of his True Will destroyed the power entirely, as well as the connection holding it stable.

His movement forth continued, but this time with the arrogant draconic spirit whose glare deepened into the distance. Similarly annoyed, he spoke into the empty space, “Stop trying to act impressive, you two foes never attack those below tier 7. I will not join your war either, we can go elsewhere if they reject the situation.”

He spoke of the creatures within the realm, as this process of training depended on them maintaining a fair structure. If it devolved into a mad rush to slaughter both, or a supreme tier arrived… Well, he didn’t really have to explain how things ended.

Those aligned with the Dark Sun generally performed such tactics on battlefields too, it was all too common and effective, but these things also had strong pride. And who across the eight worlds wouldn’t take pride in slaying or beating a dragon in equal combat?

Unwilling but without means, the planar will curiously replied, “Fine. A 7 year old with manifested will and quarter-way godhood, just where did you come from? The only other dragons nearby are those of the eight worlds.”

Immediately, he raised an eye and replied, “You’ve seen other dragons from the main universe?” No answer came though, so Akevorax first answered, “We’re from the eight worlds, temporarily separated due to an accident.” It was ideal to use a background of the Dragonlands in most cases, most the realms near their home knew just how isolated the nearest planets were to others in the universe. These planes in the blank space summed up pretty much all the outside contact ever received. And the demons of course… Not that anyone liked those freaks knocking on their doors.

Adret’s eyes filled with hostility alone explained why he did the talking here. As they neared the realm, her senses surged up to 11 and instinctively displayed hatred towards the surroundings. The end of their journey continued with sparse questions thrown between him and the planar will, but it clearly lost interest after he refused to join. He never even found out which other dragons it happened to meet.

After five hours of travel, they reached the planar boundary. A vastly different form when compared to the sub-realms, those boundaries felt like little pin pricks he enlarged to create a passage.

These planes truly deserved that name, as he watched how the boundaries of two fluids touched intimately, but simply could not merge. The spatial and field lines warped and bent constantly, aggressively at some times, but never once strayed apart. A tightly-interlocked boundary he just burrowed through for access.

A wave of heat blasted him as they entered the dark tunnel, and so the second stop on their way home appeared.

In front of both dragons sat a vast chain of mountains, some peaked far above the current position they appeared in, while other valleys dipped below to incredible depths. Outside this mountain range lay grounds littered with stones and gravel, practically useless to farm, and slightly more verdant pastures elsewhere. However, one noticed that farming became excessively tough in the pervasive darkness.

Instead of a sun, what shone in the sky was merely a corona peeking out around the edge of a black sphere. Its beauty perfectly captured what infatuated and terrified so many at the presence of every eclipse, the consuming celestial body which blocked out light, but no moons existed in this world.

The Dark Sun.

Rather than a true celestial object like stars or planets, it existed as a ‘concept’ in the eyes of many. Once accepted and nurtured, its deepened hold never relaxed, only ready to spread chaos and fear to all limits.

Terrify, destroy, consume; in time, all light would be extinguished.

If only the Gentle Moon never existed, a dichotomy made it the perfect counterattack.

So, when a drop of lunar power appeared in the mountain range… It wasn’t an understatement to say the roars and screams of thousands sounded out with rage. Adret roared back, the mana behind it enough to scare off the truly weak things, but Akevorax only sighed. Exhausted greatly of the days to come.