The Core: The Dark Enemy

38. The Mold That Ate The Light

"Hey! Aren't you going to do something?" I shouted at the all-observing eye in the distance, using the same connection that I felt when I spoke to its creations before. I pointed the tip of the massive blade in my right hand in the direction of the eye, letting my anger show as it observed my struggles and impending doom. The Skism was hovering off in the distance, just waiting for its chance to seal me away forever.

For a second, its massive pupil dilated wide before it shrank down to a pinpoint.

It stared right at me.

"Negative. Your actions have doomed both this dimension and the next. Actions will be taken to seal off this end branch from the rest of the Tree."

"What? How?"

"Kevin! I am free!" I heard Meditati's strained voice yell at me from the direction of the Solar Citadel. The mass of the growing creature had reached it, and off to the side, there was a tiny amount of my swarm making off with Meditati like a bandit expecting to get shot in the back. It felt like most of my swarm had lost their lives getting her out of whatever was happening over there.

The Solar Citadel was swamped and was quickly completely engulfed by the growing monster. Something was changing about it; its growth wasn't random anymore, it was quickly solidifying and becoming something recognizable.

The spider creature from my nightmares. Somehow, a spread of its kind had made its way here, and its cells were winning in the battle for growth.

"Your actions, and others, have sealed these dimensions' fates. The unique alien orb that you just destroyed no longer supplies power to the remaining five life conduits within the neighboring dimension. Soon, the energy reserves they contain will run dry and no longer be fed to the barrier containing what you call the Void."

"Five? There were Six!" I shouted as the voice simply spoke over me, already knowing my coming questions.

"The Hive Mother has been slain by this being." It said as a portion of space lit up in the distance, revealing a massive armada of more tubelike ships speeding towards the remnants of the Solar Citadel. One of the tube ships was highlighted in red, as though it had a colossal arrow pointing down at it from the heavens. The ship of note, having instantly detected the target placed on its back, suddenly changed direction and was heading away from the battle. Whoever it was was quick to preserve its own life.

"It is time to recoup what can be taken from these places and to leave them to their earned demise." It said as the gigantic bone structure within arm's reach of me simply vanished. For a second, I could almost feel what had happened to it, like a giant hand had taken it and lifted it from our tiny sandbox.

The Skism vanished from its current location and appeared below the eye, close as though it had been moved there like a chess piece, just waiting for a final Checkmate. For a few seconds, the eye spasmed and swiveled rapidly in place. I could feel it doing something and guessed that it was robbing our dimension of anything it considered its own or too valuable to leave behind.

"Desiccators of our design will not be allowed to run from this doom." The eye said as the tiny marked ship was halted in its movements away from the battle. It suddenly learned that it could move, just not in any direction away from the growing mass of flesh. Whoever they were, they were doomed to fight to the death.

We were all doomed.

---

Kevin's swarm was doing its best to get Meditati to safety. Even though Nurse was no longer around to micromanage and oversee the complex operations of managing a swarm, it didn't mean that Kevin's swarm was out of the picture. As a whole, it was Kevin, just a separate entity that was not concerned with the self-preservation of its individual units and lacking a soul. It understood much of the bigger picture that Kevin wasn't focused on and was working its hardest to combat it, just in its own way.