Chapter 123: The Color of Sunrise

The General did not hide the fact that he had possessed the body of the soldier, Alec Rhines, he saw no need to. His orders would be obeyed more quickly and efficiently if they knew who he was.

In his extremely weakened state, all of these soldiers were his most precious resources, and in his eyes they were just extra lives, but with each death, his bloodline identity gets more diluted, and he would likely fail his resurrection if he did this one more time.

With the destruction of the Nexus, he became aware after a while that Rowan should have left, else he knew he would be dead by now. Not foolish enough to look the gift horse in the mouth, he proceeded to gather the soldiers and any remnants inside the Nexus, and he came upon a startling find.

At this time, he had finished gathering all the people left inside the Nexus, and was busy examining the remnants of the shedding left behind by Rowan Dragons.

When Rowan came back from the Red Moon World, he had carried all the first Shedding of his Serpents the moment they broke through to the Legendary State, he discarded the rest behind in his room because they were cumbersome to carry around, and they had little importance to him.

Yet, these were diamonds to Augustus, for he had never seen anything like this.

He had moved with everyone away from the core of the collapsed region of the Nexus, until they were just outside the unstable region, there were low rumblings behind them, as the earth settled, and Augustus was still amazed that everyone inside the manor survived without any major injury.

The full scope of the Nexus was revealed. They were on an island that was not surrounded by water, but by a sea of green swirling sand. Occasionally, considerable shapes would break through the sand and fall back into it, as if they were swimming inside the ocean.

Augustus felt a presence sweep over him and everyone else here and nearly cried out in shock when he saw the head of a massive golden centipede that was thousands of feet long, it seemed to look deeply at the island, before it sank back into the sea of green sands.

Everyone else let out the breath they had all been holding, and a few of the townspeople had already fainted, with some of them frothing in the mouth.

"Um... General... Sir...?" One of the soldiers mumbled at Augustus, the presence of the General and the events of the last few days had shaken them, they were low-level Dominators and never expected to be near something of this scale for their entire service life.

"What is it?" Augustus replied, the irritation clear in his tone, as he looked up from examining the shed scales of the Dragons.

"Well... we were wondering... seeing that we're in the middle of nowhere with no communication to the base or to the family, if we could..."

"Transportation would be here shortly, now shut up and return to your position. Keep an eye on these folks, would you? Each one of their heads is worth ten of yours. Okay?"

"Um... yes sir."

"Where is the arrogant bit*h when you need her." Augustus muttered to himself.

"Are you referring to me? You sniveling little sh*t scrape! Oh, I like your new face, by the way, so you have discarded that useless body of yours for something better?" The pleasant voice of a young woman entered his ears.

"Where are you Absomet, hurry, else you may regret if I get killed."

"No Augustus, I would pay good money to watch you get killed. Look behind you."

Augustus frowned and turned around, looking at the horizon, and at first, he saw nothing.

Then a wave of darkness that covered the entire sky began to emerge from the distance.

It was always easy to forget how massive this Rune Ship was, in a few seconds, half the sky was covered by her immensity, and by this time everyone here had become aware of her presence and cries of awe rang out.

Absomet settled overhead and to the observers on the ground, she covered the entire sky. Massive lines of shimmering runes flickered all over her structure, and the most mind breaking aspect about this ship was that, even with her dimension, she was entirely silent.

"Hmm... is this a remnant of a Nexus? With such a scale? Augustus, my dear boy, you have a lot to answer for."

A blue light beamed down and collected everyone on the island, Absomet paused for a while as she scanned the island, another blue light beamed on the island and penetrated deeply into the ground.

When the beam was retracting, it carried a single figure.

Maeve.

Her fingers shook a little.

©

The air over a small mountain rippled, and a purplish line came to be drawn in space, it was a rip in space, and a black scythe was withdrawn from that cut. A hooded figure walked through, and his robes were smoking, inside that cut in space was a scene of devastation.

Another figure came out of the tear in space, it was the Third prince, and he promptly collapsed to the ground, his body was riddled with bone - deep wounds, and he had an extremely weary look on his face.

"Quickly, close the tear before the Bane of Destruction comes through!" The Third prince gasped. Inside that tear, it was possible to see a gigantic figure made of flames and darkness, it had a flaming pitchfork and had seven flaming horns, it was feasting on the collapsing world.

They had underestimated the Origin Treasure used by Augustus, it's sealing capabilities were potent, and they had to thoroughly destroy the Mirage World until its foundation in order to escape it.

They were shocked to discover that, If they had decided to wait it out, it would have taken months for the sealing power to wear off, and casually destroying the Mirage world would hardly weaken the sealing power of the Origin Treasure.

So, they had to destroy the foundation of the Mirage World, a simple enough thing to do, after all, it was not a complete world and its rules were malleable. But this brings about a unique threat that results from the destruction of any plane of existence, no matter how minor the plane turns out to be.

Destruction Banes.

These enigmatic creatures feed on the destructive forces that are produced when a world's foundation is destroyed. They are attracted from the void and are not particularly picky eaters, as they would consume everything in sight before leaving.

Also, they were unlucky to attract a tier one Destruction Bane. These categories of Banes were the major eaters of Major planes or powerful Minor planes during their destruction.

They had to struggle for their life, even as they hurried to escape, and they survived by the skin of their teeth.

The tear in space slowly healed up, shutting out the roars of the Destruction Bane, and the two breathed a sigh of relief. The hooded figure kept his scythe and suddenly violently convulsed.

Multiple cracking sounds came out from his body and his black cloak turned to ash, deep wounds began appearing all over his body, yet he did not seem particularly concerned about that, his eyes appeared glazed over, and he was muttering gibberish.

The Third prince held a peculiar smile on his face as he watched this display, and he took several pills to heal his wounds why he waited, from the scent of those pills, they appeared to be honey flavored. The Third prince ate them with relish, smacking his lips.

The figure who had his cloak shattered to pieces slowly stood up, and his wounds slowly closed up, something had gone really wrong.

He manifested a large Rune stone that was similar to the Rune Stone seized by the General inside the Nexus, and he began bringing various charts and reports out of it, with each report he read through his expression becoming darker.

The shape of his mouth that was set in grim lines, his long blond hair and green eyes that focused in panicked concentration, and the overall features of his face were a splitting copy of Rowan.