Shattered

The Stars Align - 1

Nasca was burning.

That was the thought running around within Michael's head as he watched the sheer destruction being caused to his capital.

The culprits were the woman they'd fought and the unknown true dragon in the sky. Both had taken their fights to the sky shortly after the dragon attacked first by firing off a spell similar to disintegration at the woman.

Common sense would say the dragon would be at a disadvantage, being much larger and therefore less agile than his opponent. Unfortunately, common sense started to fall apart when it came to true demon lords and anything stronger.

The dragon was equal - if not slightly greater - to the woman in terms of agility. Still, it had fought defensively, opting to keep the woman at a far enough distance while it dished out long range spells continuously.

The silver lining was that neither seemed interested in fighting Michael and Feldway.

The woman in particular underwent a drastic transformation. It was... difficult to put into words. An Armor? A shell of sorts? Michael found it difficult to form words to describe it. If he were to interpret it as a sort of Armor, it would be as if the woman was covered in a thick, opaque, abyssal black armor that exposed no inch of the body underneath.

It wasn't just a piece of equipment, however. The "armor" could flow like mist, even changing form and forming weapons or reinforcing certain areas when they were about to take a hit.

Could it be.... Solid null energy?

Michael watched as a chunk of the "armor" separated from the woman's back as she jerked in mid air - avoiding a lance of pure light her adversary had thrown - before it gathered in the middle of her hands. The woman applied pressure, condensing the mass of potentially semi solid null energy before throwing it at the dragon.

The ball of void travelled fast, but her enemy was simply too far for it to be that easy. The dragon easily avoided it. What shocked Michael was what came next.

The ball of void fell downwards and hit a relatively undamaged district of the capital before obliterating it all with the force of a 21st century tactical nuke. Not that Michael knew anything about nuclear bombs, of course.

Still, that didn't take away the pure destructive power of the ball. Michael pondered how much spare energy the woman had left as another ball hit a faraway forest and lit it all on fire.

Michael and Feldway were relatively unoccupied, given breathing room due to the ongoing clash. Michael spoke through [Thought Communication], "Could you make anything of the Voice of the World's announcement?"

"Thinking." Came the straightforward reply, and the conversation ended at that.

Michael was doing so as well and coming up blank. He could only make out that it had to be something similar to a Harvest Festival - a species exclusive version though - except with fine tuned conditions instead of a soul collection requirment. It felt ridiculous to even classify it as plausible - Michael had not known nor thought of such a thing to exist.

Then again, 24 hours ago he was not aware of the existence of two additional true dragons. Anything seemed to be probable, now.

Anything....

That's when he noticed something in the sky. The stars seemed to be moving...oddly.

What!?

His eyes widened in sudden realization. Oh no.

***

At a distance that was so far from the Cardinal World it could only be measured in light years, a star went slightly faster for no observable reason. Another star too, as if guided by an invisible thread joining it to the Cardinal World, underwent a sudden yet tiny shift in velocity. It was a minute change, and even if a powerful entity was waiting for such an event, it would still be very easy to miss it.