Meanwhile, somewhere near the center of the Void dimension before Fen exited from the Task.
"Hmm?" The handsome face of a well-built man suddenly perked up after feeling something that they hadn't felt in decades.
This man was Deion, his real body and not one of his many manifestations. His appearance was very similar to what Fen thought he looked like; Tall, with dark hair and black eyes that looked like they could devour the universe. His dark features were perfectly matched with his extremely pale skin from the lack of natural sunlight within the Void, giving him the aura matching the Void's overlord.
The Void God was currently sitting inside of a structure floating inside the Void. It closely resembled a lighthouse, but Deion's godly energy replaced the light inside the lighthouse. Around the structure were hundreds of thousands of smaller facilities with millions of people bustling in and out, floating inside the Void and performing all the tasks he assigned to them.
This was the Void Wall. Personally run by Deion, it was the barrier restricting the Void Primordial from ever running rampant. Before Deion gained his Godhood, she was the creator and previous overlord of this dimension. Right now however, he was forced to restrict her using the Void Wall and his own abilities.
Compared to the other Primordials, her existence was closer to that of a God and not a Primordial. The only difference between them was that she had her immense power the moment she was born in the universe, making her the only natural born Primordial. Maybe it was because there were no other Void Primordial in existence in any other universe, but she had her own personality, wishes, and interests; back when Deion was still just a Vitul with a little bit of power from being Empowered she gifted him half of her power after making an agreement with him to destroy Heaven.
The pair shared an amazing relationship for many centuries before her hatred for Heaven drew her into leaving the Void dimension and fighting the Creation God. It was around that same time that Deion withdrew all his actions in the known universes to restrain her. Even if it made her hate him, Deion couldn't bare to watch her die from such a suicidal decision.
The vibration his senses picked up was something that shouldn't be possible with her restrained; somewhere in the Void, a swarm of Void Spawn was gathering together near one of his manifestations. Without the usage of his or Tamasa's Void energy as bait to control them this shouldn't be possible, but he certainly didn't order something like this, and she was still restrained.
"What are you trying to do, Tamasa?" The Void God mumbled to himself before standing up and flying towards a massive orb of dark energy. Even though she was restrained, her powers as the Void Primordial couldn't be entirely sealed; though Deion had half of her abilities, she was a Primordial, and her strength greatly outmatched his own under the same circumstances. It was through her will that this dimension regularly created Void Spawn to devour any hapless ship or person that entered the dimension, but it still shouldn't be possible for her to gather so many of the creatures without her full power.
Based on the observations of his nearby manifestation, the swarm included more than three hundred million of these creatures, including several Leader Archetypes and even some Destroyers. While such a number would never be capable of causing damage to the Void Wall, it was more than enough to completely wipe out the facilities of the Foundation spread across the Void.
And it just so happened that the manifestation nearest to the swarm was the one watching over Fen.
'Could she be trying to destroy the Program? But why? There's been thousands of intruders in the Void, some of which have even been organizations on a much larger scale than a puny Surface Grade organization like them, but she never- no way. Could she be targeting Fen?' All of a sudden the sudden changes in her behavior made much more sense. After he restrained her and placed her inside the sphere of dark energy, she'd always treated him hatefully, sometimes not even bothering to talk to him at all.
She didn't understand that he was trying to keep her alive, and could only see him as her captor.
But for the past month or so, she'd be much calmer. Almost happy. But Deion always had a bad feeling whenever he saw the joyful look in her eye, and his Godly instincts were very rarely wrong. He knew what she looked like when she was genuinly feeling happy, and this wasn't that.
Suddenly a lot more anxious, Deion increased his flight speed and quickly reached the entrance of the dark sphere.
When he entered, a beautiful woman was alone in the sphere lying on her bed, quickly sitting up after sensing his presence.
[Oh? Why're you here? Don't you have other things to do?] Tamasa asked, failing to hide the smirk that tugged at her lips.
"Cut the shit, you know I always have to be nearby to strengthen the sphere." Unlike with one of his manifestations, his true voice sounded much more human because he didn't reinforce it with his energy.
[You mean you have to be here to keep me in my prison.]
Deion's eyes creased at her words. Yes, he kept her restricted, but this dark sphere was the farthest thing from a prison as possible, he made sure of it, and it's sometimes gloomy appearance was just because of the lack of resources he had access to inside the Void.
Even if she hated him now he still treated her like the close friend she used to be, and he didn't want to see her suffering.
In contrast to the bleakness of her dimension, the space inside the dark sphere was filled with ornate decorations, books written by the most famous authors in existence, comfortable furniture, and food prepared by the best chefs Deion could find. (Though as a Higher existence, Tamasa didn't really feel the need to eat so it was more a symbolic gesture than anything else.)
"Why is there a horde of Void Spawn gathering?"
A smile spread across her beautiful pale skin as she said, [Ah, so it's finally time? And I set that directive up decades ago... looks like the Void still obeys it's true overlord.]
Deion grinded his teeth while he listened to her avoid the question.
"What directive Tamasa? This is serious, you know the damage a swarm that size could do to a force with no Gods present. People will get hurt."
Tamasa exploded off the bed and pushed her face inches in front of his own as a snarl deformed her beautiful features. [I made that directive to hurt you just like you hurt me, Void God.] She pronounced his title the same way she would talk about the lowliest of scum. [You betrayed me after centuries of trust and love, and you thought I wouldn't do anything about it? This is MY dimension. You just happen to control a small portion of it.]
"...You know I'm doing this to save you. It's too early to oppose the Creation God." Now it was Deion's turn to push his finger in her face with a deadly quiet voice, "it was you who couldn't wait a few more years."
[Gah, it's always the same thing with you. Do you know how long I've waited to tear his civilization down? That bastard murdered my friends! You were there, you watched as he-]
"Do you even know what you might have done?"
Tamasa stopped talking after seeing the serious expression on his face. Her eyes opened wide with surprise before she started speaking again.
[Why do you care so much? It's just one more Vitul dead. Even a race like yours wouldn't care so much about their own kind like this. What's the big deal?] She scoffed.
Smash!
The dark orb of energy shivered like it was about to explode from the massive impact reverberating throughout the God-made structure. Tamasa looked at Deion's fist imbedded deep into her prison, never even seeing him move from in front of her. It seemed that the God had achieved some growth of his own while she was kept in this prison.
Before the structure even stopped shaking Deion withdrew his energy and quietly pulled his fist out of the dark crater he created.
He took a deep breath to calm his raging emotions. "I loved you, more than anything. But right now, I can't look at you."
Tamasa was stunned at his words and a sliver of worry imbedded itself in her heart. She had done a lot of things while she was imprisoned, things like attempting to break out, spawning a swarm of Void Spawn inside the structure of dark energy, and even injuring several of the personnel working in the Void Wall, and that wasn't even mentioning the horrible things she said to him while restricted... But none of those actions elicited a response like this.
'Did I push him too far? But even a Vitul doesn't love every member of their race, no matter how close they are to extinction...' She worried.
[Dey? Where are you going. Come back!] But her words had no affect on the retreating Void God who continued to walk out. [Fine! Be like that! You know where to find me after you calm down.]
But her instincts told her that something was different this time. She made something inside Dey snap, and their relationship wouldn't be the same afterwards.
Just before Deion left, he said a single sentence. "Goodbye Tamasa."
He couldn't be calm, not now when Fen could possibly be in danger because of Tamasa's ignorance. If it was any other Vitul he wouldn't be so angry, but this involved his son.
With a sense of urgency, Deion controlled the closest manifestation to exterminate as many of the Void Spawn as possible to reduce the strain on the Foundation's forces. He sent a message to Raisen at the same time so the Stage seven Knight could help him with his own power.
****
Present time.
"What the hell?" Fen frowned as he looked at the state of the Task room. While he didn't know what to expect when he returned, a room filled with cracks and dents in the walls was definitely not something within his expectations. The only exit of the room was completely sealed off too with a metal door.
He didn't even know that it was possible to damage the walls. Whenever he tried, the energy veins imbedded within them either withstood his attacks without a scratch or quickly regenerated the damage. Even now, as he watched, the energy inside the walls pooled into dark patches of material and healed the damage at a slow pace.
Pulling his attention from the damaged walls, Fen noticed that there was the faint but acrid smell of iron that he could taste, a clear sign of blood. There must be a lot for Fen to be able to smell it before he could even sense it with his enhanced senses, but he couldn't even see it.
If he focused his senses, he could feel very faint vibrations in the soles of his feet, like there was a happening nearby.
'Seriously, what the hell is going on?' Fen's questions wouldn't be answered by staying put however and staying inside the Task room was pointless so he quickly armed himself with his short sword and dagger- which had fortunately survived the explosion of Vital energy and teleported back with him to the Task room- and started gathering Vital energy into his arms. If he wanted to exit, he'd have to break through the metal door.
With his newly enhanced strength and fully recovered energy it wasn't a problem to pierce a small hole in the metal with his reinforced fist and then flood the material with Vital energy, making it shatter.
After recovering the spent energy he used to break through the exit, Fen peered around the corridors and started dashing through them, following the vibrations that he felt in the air and ground.
Shards of metal and pieces of armor littered the hallway but there were no bodies; the only biological evidence that a battle had happened was the blood covering the floor. Unlike Fen's blood which bubbled before quickly evaporating, human blood remained until someone either cleaned it or removed any traces. Though it was disgusting, it made following the unknown battle a lot easier.
Alongside the human blood was a strange black substance that looked like goop. Frowning, Fen sent a sliver of Vital energy into it and sensed a faint trace of living energy within the substance along with, shockingly enough, Void energy.
Whatever the substance was, it used to be alive.
'Could it be a monster from the Void?' That explanation would make sense given the dimension they were in, but he'd find out soon enough anyways so he put the thought away and continued to run through the corridors.
Eventually, Fen came close enough to the battle that he didn't need his enhanced senses to hear them fighting. By manipulating his Vitality and enhancing his perception he could even hear human voices and metallic clanging. However, Fen wasn't naïve enough to just join the fight without even knowing who was fighting so he first peeked around the corner to get a grasp of what was happening, but after he saw who was fighting he froze in place, almost forgetting to breath from what he was seeing.
There were four Executioners with damaged armor and weapons madly slashing at a group of monsters with practiced zeal. Fen had no idea how to describe the monsters, some of the creatures looked like large dogs, others like birds, and there were even some that looked like fish. All of them shared the same leathery and ghastly white skin that stuck close to their bodies and revealed their rippling muscles, with bone spikes piercing through their bodies to form fins and serrated edges on their appendages. The monsters fought against the Executioners with their long and sharp claws, using them to pierce through whatever flesh the Executioners exposed.
None of them had eyes. Fen didn't know how they fought, but whatever they were using, it was effective as hell. He had never seen an Executioner get pushed back like that before, forced to use large rays of red, green, and blue energy just to keep themselves from being overrun.
From the looks of it, there was a single Knight in the group of Executioners alongside two Warriors and a Mage, with none of them below the Stage three standard; that amazing combat standard made the strange beasts even more horrifying as some of them were even capable of fighting with the Executioners one on one.
The only reason why the Empowered weren't being overrun yet was because of the narrow corridors which prevented the monsters from swarming the small group of Executioners.
But even then, it was still a difficult fight. One of the Executioners yelled out, "We need to get out of here! Raisen's just on the other side of the facility, if we can reach him we can group up with the Archons and the others!"
"We don't know that! For all we know, that side's already lost, there's nobody to organize the interface while all this chaos is happening!"
"But what else can we do?!" The Executioner who proposed moving to the others cried out in desperation.
Fen recognized some of the Executioners as his escort from before by their voices. Seeing the danger that they were about to be in, he hurriedly roused his Vitality and leaped into battle, slamming his sword through the arm (Leg?) of one of the monsters after injecting as much living energy as possible into the Class three weapon.
Even after dealing a blow packed full of his energy, his weapon barely pierced through an inch of the monster's flesh. It's fish-like head turned around and roared in his face after feeling some of it's flesh burn from the energy running rampant inside it, and immediately raised it's claws up to slash down across his body,
Gritting his teeth, Fen used his dagger to cut his sword free and immediately jumped backwards before it's claws could reach him. The rest of the monsters realized his entrance and tried to crush him, but Fen took advantage of their initial surprise to retreat back into the small group of Executioners.
His attack alleviated some of the pressure from the small group of Executioners and allowed them to take advantage of his surprise appearance to recover from some of their wounds. The Warriors used their Auras to accelerate the regeneration of their cells while the Mage used healing spellworks to regenerate along with the Knight, who was practically running dry on Vitality.
Fen noticed it during their fight, but it seemed like the sole Knight in the group wasn't a close-range fighter like him but instead acted as the healer of the group, manipulating and simplifying their Vitality to gently activate the other Executioners' cells and regenerate their wounds. This enabled the other Empowered to focus entirely on dealing more damage by depending on her to heal their wounds. The only consequence of that was the considerable drain on her Vitality.
"Fen! How the hell did you survive against- y'know what, I can always just ask you later. Great to have another Empowered on our side." The Mage, Yasmin, gasped with surprise. Although all of them were shocked to see him alive and well, there was simply no time to ask questions.
Fen quickly asked them about the situation, "What are these things? How'd they get into the facility?"
"They're Void Spawn, monsters from deep within the Void. There's no single species or group, but they all share the same disgusting looks. As for how they got in... I don't know. If the guards were doing their jobs properly and the Void Spawn behaved normally then this should never have happened." Clark, a Warrior in the small group answered his questions. "We're basically just as clueless as you are about this."
'Well clearly not, I didn't even know what these things were...' But it was too late to be angry about the lack of information the Foundation shared with them.
"I overheard what you were saying earlier; do you think we can really find others if we go to Raisen?"
The Executioners glanced at each other before blasting a Void Spawn that got too close with energy.
"Well, that's what we think, but we weren't sure if we could get through to them with just the four of us. With you though..." They looked hopeful at the idea of a Knight who could fight and win against two Chosen fighting alongside them.
Fen smirked. "Then lead the way, and I'll follow." Without saying anything else he conjured his seven Vital Spears before deciding to manifest three more and test the limits of his control with his transformed Vitul physique.
'Ten... sounds a lot better than seven. It'll deal a lot more damage too, and this is the perfect situation to practice my control.' Fear was an unfamiliar sensation to the group of apex predators within the Void, but for a second that strange new emotions crept into their bodies as Fen's cold gaze swept across them.