The Shadows of Nature

9. Escape to Silent Chaos

There was no noise, no sight of horror, no repugnant smell, none of it. It was a deafening and destructive silence that beat its way into the minds of Shadows, looking for vulnerability and sentiments to aid itself. It began to tear out all positivity, devouring on the thinnest shred of anger, fear and hatred.

In an instant Mildred spread out her energy, protecting the minds of all Shadows from that horrifying power. Her zeal was no match for the entity but her friends - Brier, Isaac, Joha and the rest of the five - helped her as much as their will allowed them to.

Nevertheless, the being successfully penetrated their fragile leaf of protection, further attenuating it. With the sudden surge of an enormous wave, the being brought the souls of all Shadow Beings across the Seven Lands of Quintessence. If dug and broke through many layers of simple complexity to the point where they could lose all senses. The being struck with an unbiased motive but never touched Mildred's mind.

The leader was furious.

"Sousconic's... rage?"

Zoey's tone was laden with fear, her thought trembling by the instability of her emotions.

"No. This is All's rage," Thet replied, the Shadow of Oblivion finding himself in utter shock for the first time in his life.

"No. This is Vlad's rage. This is Vlad."

Ethelred was horrified even as he said that, but he was the Shadow of Chaos. He was to name the new Demon Lord, whether that may be consciously or subconsciously.

Although, he felt an odd sympathy for Vlad. Perhaps it was because of his connection with the land through the Shadow Dimension, but he simply felt for the demon.

After all, in these moments of being in the dimension, knew that they were both six of the Shadows of nature, and six members of the Shadow Council. They'd fulfil every responsibility.

"You are correct, Shadow."

Such terror.

"This is now the soul of a being. You shall decide how I use my zeal."

Zindel knew that the entity felt nothing. He knew that that being was lying because it wasn't the soul of a being. It never could be a soul because they were actually a mixture of two souls. Triyeal would never leave Sousconic alone. It sent its children for the entity of emotions. The fact that Ethelred named the being confirmed that only the Demonic entity was with Sousconic.

Zindel wanted to stay and defend all Shadows with all his strength, but he knew that his duty was to be maintained elsewhere. Contracting with utmost patience he looked for the entity's particles to gain the information needed.

He should've known better. Of course there were no such particles.

Zindel did not have enough practice with the other stage of his Yuran, but often strengths were unlocked in the most dire situations.

Gripping on Vlad's enigmatic aura, Zindel attempted to bring out the two entity's world line from when they first descended on the Seven Lands. Needless to say he succeeded but unlike normal situations, he felt no pride.

Oh, how perfectly they coincide.

They're trajectory through spacetime was one and yet if they were to make the world line a part of the Shadow Dimension, it would be so different.

Even though Zindel move as subtly as he could, he knew that Vlad was aware of what he did. However if Vlad shifted his focus on Zindel, Mildred would immediately take all Shadow Beings to safety. She was capable of it, after all. She was the only Shadow who could navigate through the Shadow Dimension.

Zindel now processed the information and upon interpreting its meaning was afraid.

He was actually afraid of failure. But all those thoughts went away in an instant. He would only succeed.

He then shifted his focus to the fabric of the dimension, looking for a way out. Looking for a single point amidst the many timelines from the many universes seemed impossible, but Zindel was a patient one. Once he found his universe, looking for a point would be easy.

No. No wait.

Oh. He was so wrong.

The Seven Lands of Quintessence. Of course. All the worlds, the not so many worlds and the Seven Lands.

Things couldn't have been easier for him. He didn't need to go to a universe. He thought that universes were within worlds.

The universes were defined by the worlds. The Seven Lands.

Zindel pictured the fragment of the seven stars, immediately reaching Chaos's point in the dimension. All of its information was available to him and thus it was easy for the man to pick out that single point, going back to the concrete world.

Zindel's eyes opened wide, haste in his eyes. He approached the box with a contemplative look, reviewing the current information he had.

As time passed Vlad became more and more like a being till he really became Vlad. In order to protect everything in 'existence', all thoughts and emotions and their materialistic forms, Triyeal sent her children to withhold rage. Rage had escaped from the dimension through the tear caused in its fabric due to increasing entropy. Since rage stemmed from sentiments, rage settled within Sousconic. It didn't need to fight against Sousconic because the entity was of all emotions and rage was an emotion. Sousconic couldn't tear it, destroy it and certainly not embed it into the dimension before healing it. Nature was stubborn and would only let the dimension heal naturally; when entropy decreased. Such a phenomenon was unheard of in all of spacetime, but Sousconic could do it.

Overtime rage began to develop its own mind but Sousconic could still deny its control. However because of rage's influence it took the rash decision of destroying the Wind Phoenexias.

The tear was small and no other emotion escaped. But with an emotion becoming a being...

Vlad could literally change everything. Create and destroy - anything.

The sphere in superposition had its two states - darkness and the spectrum. Darkness would allow Vlad to exercise his power as an entity; infinite power. It could potentially destroy the Shadow Dimension. It could do anything, just anything.

However, while the spectrum would allow the entity to be a proper being in the concrete world and exercise its power, it would reduce Vlad's power by an order of 34 and make him unable to go to the Shadow Dimension, making him minutely sentient.

It was obvious which sphere he needed to be the result. Once the sphere was out and the outcome was decided, it would remain fixed.

However, the other container was in the Land of Oblivion and that was where Vlad was. This sphere wasn't in the actual superposition state. The moment a container opened on one side, it would open on the other side to and the outcome would be opposite to that on the initial side.

He wished he could be at two places at the same time, but that was impossible. He had to be extremely careful to let the outcome of the container on chaos be darkness so that he could destroy it instantly and then take the spectrum from oblivion.

No. No, it was hopeless. He couldn't allow Vlad to get his hands on the spectrum at that point of time. No one was prepared and there would be a disastrous outcome. Not only that, Zindel's ability and Yuran were non-destructive and he had no hope of destroying such a powerful sphere.

He didn't know what to do. He remained still in silence, his thoughts desperately looking for a solution.

"Zindel. You managed to come back."

Brier's soft sound was music to Zindel.