While Keon was busy building the defense, the situation in each universe changed completely.
Some were excited to invade, while others were anxious in defense, countless fell in despair. Slowly, the atmosphere of chaos and destruction engulfed the multiverse.
[Universe 333008]
The air in Vorm's domain was perpetually cold and heavy, a constant twilight under a thick purple mist.
Vorm, Level 28 and a figure of polished black bone and shifting shadows, stood on a high, rock-hard plateau. His skeletal hand rested on a staff topped with a crystal that glowed a sickly, soul-pulsing green.
Below him, his army of hundred million strong was a silent, endless river of death: shuffling undead, hideous re animated jungle creatures, and enormous, slow-moving bone golems.
"Master Vorm," rasped a recently re-animated Lich, its blue-flamed eyes burning with dark eagerness. "The Scrying Pool shows a flicker. A break in the universal barrier, three days away. The energy signatures of a foreign Mana are growing."
Vorm's shadow deepened, absorbing the weak purple light. He processed the information with a cold, strategic hunger. Enslavement isn't about destroying; it's about taking and owning. He saw the approaching civilization not as an enemy but as raw, usable material.
"Gather the Colossi. Position the Bone Catapults… load them with the Plague Skulls. We won't fight them, Lich. We will draft them for eternal duty."
A billion dry, rattling breaths echoed across the plateau, a terrifying sound of absolute readiness. The Lord of the Dead was preparing a welcome that would never end.
[Universe 220220]
In a hidden, sun-dappled valley where every tree grew into a perfect geometric shape, Sylvia pressed a hand into the rich, dark soil. Level 30, her skin shimmering moss-green, she absorbed the land's raw life-force.
"A Necromancer's mana signature. Black, cold, and immensely powerful," Her Dryad servant whispered.
"A Necromancer, they use death as a tool.'
Sylva felt a quiet, absolute disgust. She couldn't fight his horde of captured souls directly.
'Counterattack must mean turning his own resources against him.'
Suddenly she thought of an idea and stood up, and the grass around her instantly obeyed, growing ten feet high and weaving itself into a labyrinth of green, sharp fibers.
"We won't hide, let his skeleton army enter the valley. Reshaping life is my specialty. The dead may be his soldiers, but this land is my body. I will show him the superiority of life over death."
The huge field of grass began to twist and turn, forming an inescapable, living maze designed to immediately transform the Necromancer's soldiers. The silent, green counterattack had begun.
…
[Universe 900001]
Aboard a horrifying, flying siege fortress... a sprawling castle made of magical stone and iron etched with runes.
Zylos, the metal scourge, let out a high-pitched, metallic shriek that sounded like stone grinding. The Level 27 golem, made of solid rock and covered in a multi-limbed iron and basalt shell, punched the boulder, cracking it up.
"Primitive?" Zylos's voice, which sounded like grinding earth and stone, thundered. "Good. I won't waste ten years. I'll crush them in ten days. This game is really a feast, and I crave the pure essence of the world."
His target, U-600004, was a standard habitable world. The immense, cobbled-together fortress shrieked as it was activated.
"Open the sky landing gears. We'll drop right onto the planet's main surface. Deploy the magma bombardment cannons first. I want the surface melted and ready for resource extraction before the attack machines land."
The massive army of stone and metal golems tore through the portal, speeding toward its unsuspecting prey with murderous intent.
[Universe 600004]
On a small, constantly shaking piece of land, Lira, a humanoid figure born as an organic life, fell to her knees. She is just Level 26, her only strength was in controlling soft, organic matter... She had no army or powerful weapons.
The sight of a hole in the sky was a physical shock: a visible, expanding vortex of violent, crackling energy... a sign of a powerful enemy invasion.
"It's really an interplanetary invasion! Such a large amount of energy output!" Her small, floating heart screamed with warning, based on the scientific knowledge from her previous life. She tried her best in this life, but couldn't do better.
Lira pulled a shimmering cloak of naturally grown kelp over her head, her mind filled with panic and a frantic need for a strategy. Counterattack...
'I have to survive the first wave. I need to make them think this world isn't worth their trouble.'
She made the bio-luminescent moss across her dome fade to a dull, dead gray, hiding her small base among the barren rocks.
Crack!!!
Suddenly the portal opened with a deafening, reality-tearing sound, and a massive, ugly golem dropped into the atmosphere and landed with heavy mass. The first shockwave hit her small base destroying it, which was woven from lichen.
"Prepare the Dispersion Spores," she whispered to her last option in despair. "If I die, they won't get to feast on this land."
…
[Universe 700007]
The air on Ignis's world was like a furnace, the land constantly dark from volcanic heat.
He is a level Level 27, a being of living flame covered in cooling magma, standing on the peak of a mountain with a molten core, watching his armies of Fire Elementals and winged Salamanders.
"A world full of ice. Designated U-400004." the towering Inferno boomed.
Ignis clenched a fist of blazing rock, sending a tremor down the mountainside. 'The system wants me to destroy, not conquer.' He saw the ice world as the perfect opposite source.
"Open the planar bridge. Deploy the chaotic flame soldier first. I want their ice to vaporize before we land. No subtlety. Complete, immediate control of the atmosphere. We will turn their moderate paradise into a new elemental forge for my Level 30 ascent."
A roar of flames erupted from the army, and the first portal to the unsuspecting, blue world tore open in front of them.
[Universe 400004]
High up on a freezing black cliff, Kaelen, the frozen dragon, stood perfectly still.
Level 27, a being of frost, his eyes were glowing blue slits, and his breath came out as diamond-like dust. Below him, across the empty plains, a shimmering heat haze began to form into a huge gate of golden, violent light.
"The flame based race," Kaelen murmured, recognizing the distinct, volatile energy signature. "Another one trying to melt what they can't defeat."
He raised his front claw toward the portal below, 'Defense is all about being ready ahead of time. Their heat-based energy will break the ice, but the ice is endless. I need to find their main point of attack.'
On the sharp nails of pure frost-mana, a flicker of blue ice appeared, crackling with devastating power.
Ignoring the thousands of flame figures marching through the expanding portal, Kaelen took aim.
"I will not let this world become molten."
After speaking, he waved and a five claw shape arcs flew with a silent, blinding flash, passing through the soldiers, toward the shimmering center of the portal itself.
The whole ice terrain below shifted, indicating the defense had begun.
…
[Universe 171717]
In a realm of pure, crystallized light. Aliana, the light fairy, felt the tremors. Level 30, a tiny being with wings made of starlight, she was the operating mind of her planet's defense network. The incoming threat was a brute, destructive, chaotic energy signature.
"The break is opening near the outer border, Aliana. A massive, primal energy signature is detected from the other side." A hummingbird sized fairy chirped.
Aliana gave off a soft, deceptive warmth.
'Don't worry about the defense. The raw strength of a creature made of primal energy has its weaknesses. I will make them choke on a pure, unfocused energy supply.'
She aimed her thin arm of crystallized shimmer toward the portal on the other side of the light barrier.
"Energy Flow Inversion! I will redirect all of the planet's light into their path… I will blind and choke them at once."
The celestial garden world of light vanished in a pulse of blinding, defensive light.
[Universe 999999]
High above a planet transformed into a hard, twisting nest.
Genova, sat on her throne of spines revealing her curvaceous dark figure. She is a Level 30 being of terrifying, alien greatness. Looking at the colossal portal in the universal barrier growing near the edge of this broken planet's atmosphere.
The blinding, foreign light emitting from the portal was the only thing that didn't belong to the black and red landscape.
'Such pure light energy, this meal will be delicious.' She licked her red lips ready to strike.
The entire Hive behind her was ready.
Genova extended a delicate hand, her long fingers tipped with dark nails tracing a line in the air toward the portal. Her voice, a soft, whispering melody with an undertone of primal, ancient hunger, finally broke the planet-wide silence.
"Unleash the Swarm."
The continuous, dark cloud of biological terror that filled the sky... Instantly moved, a single, unified living thing, a biological wave of darkness rushing toward the expanding portal.
...