Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (37)

His core power was known as the Hundred Hands of Terra Mara, and his will manifested a giant hand that scooped up an entire section of rainforest. The Hand vanished, reappearing inside a transport, where it would transplant the rainforest into a biological containment chamber without Gerravon’s conscious intervention.

A dozen more of his Hands clashed against Abidan all over the Sector, but those battles had faded quickly. Now the Abidan were either fleeing or devoting all their power to protecting themselves, leaving this treasure trove of a world unguarded.

Then the boundary alarm the Silverlords had placed around the Sector broke, and he felt two Judges heading his way.

Everyone in the Sector heard the alarm at the same time, and Gerravon abandoned his prizes. He recalled all his Hands, and all over Iteration Zero-Seven-Four, the other Silverlords prepared themselves as well.

Void portals opened and transports ran through, traveling to one of the Vroshir homeworlds.

His heart sped up and his eyes sharpened as he searched space for any intrusions. They were using a classic Judge trap, designed around the fact that the Judges could only focus their full power on one world at a time. While the Vroshir in one Iteration stalled the Judge, the others could escape. And since Abidan prioritized stabilizing worlds over eliminating the enemy, the stalling group could often get away as well.

They were executing this plan over half a dozen different Sectors, but it looked like Gerravon and his group were the unlucky ones who would have to put it to the test.

They would see if this trap would hold against Ozriel. To see if he was really weakened, as the Mad King claimed.

Gerravon had knowingly taken the risk for the potential rewards, but he had very much hoped the Reaper wouldn’t show up at all.

The entire Iteration shook as Death entered.

Seals triggered around Ozriel, the black-armored figure that floated above Spawn’s central planets. He was surrounded by symbols formed from a dozen different energy systems, all calling on the Void or the power of strange worlds to imprison him.

A Class Two Fiend erupted from the Void like a twisted mutant serpent large enough to take bites out of planets. It swallowed Ozriel whole, but Gerravon wasn’t going to wait around to see the results.

He ran. One of his Hands grabbed him, and when it opened a second later, he was on the bridge of one of the transport ships. A swirling portal into the dark Void opened in front of them.

Gerravon felt the trembling pulses of power throughout the universe and, in spite of himself, he cast his awareness behind.

The seals and the Fiend were gone. Just gone.

His Presence alerted him that, of the sixteen transports, now only fifteen remained. There was no cause that he could sense; nothing had changed except the number of transports.

Then it changed again. Fourteen.

As the oldest Silverlord in this operation and the one with the most experience, Gerravon was the first to pull out his trump card. Several of his Hands moved throughout the three planets and triggered weapons. Cascade bombs.

In seconds, the central planets would crack and die, weakening the Iteration’s connection to the Way. If Ozriel stopped the bombs, that was attention he couldn’t pay to the Vroshir.

There was only one problem.

Gerravon’s three Hands disappeared from his awareness the moment he gave them the order. No explosions occurred on the planets.

Now there were only ten transports left.

Another Vroshir—a longtime partner to the Silverlords—had bound the force of ten billion spirits, an entire doomed world, inside herself. She had been drawing on them for power for centuries, but now she sacrificed her own life to release that power. Billions of ghosts erupted into space, seeking vengeance, seeking an enemy…

They were wiped out in an instant. Scrubbed clean. Erased, as though they had never been.

“Deploy all shrouds and veils,” Gerravon commanded. He was sweating like a mortal.

Every individual Silverlord had unique powers and their own ways of hiding themselves. Even some of the transports were fitted with irreplaceable artifacts or equipment that would help them hide from Abidan eyes.

As one, thousands of different mechanisms triggered stealth. They created decoys of divergent futures, manipulated probability to make themselves less prone to chance discovery, wiped themselves from minds and awareness, dispersed energy signatures…they employed every method to hide and disguise themselves.

And, against Gerravon’s expectations, their transport made it through the Void portal.

He let out a breath of relief, and someone clapped him on the shoulder. He assumed it was one of the bridge crew until, with a chill, he realized his Presence hadn’t detected anyone next to him.

Slowly, the old Silverlord turned his head to the right.

Ozriel stood next to him in black armor, white hair flowing behind him, a satisfied smile on his face. “So Daruman told you I was weak, did he?”

Gerravon closed his eyes and remembered his life.

“Weaker,” the Reaper said. “He should have said weaker.”

“Would you spare me if I asked?”

“Would you rather face trial for plundering worlds and leaving them to die?”

Gerravon considered that. Then he condensed all his Hundred Hands into a single strike that would obliterate this transport, his entire fleet, and most of Spawn to hopefully leave a crack in that pristine black armor.

Instead, he felt his power dissolving along with the very origin of his existence.