Despite all the shielding from Krahinn, I could feel all the vibrations as the world seemed to kneel before the I just created. That cannot be a good thing for me when this is all over. My eyes felt as warm as the surrounding inferno while something was on my face other than the just beneath my eyes, which was chilling my blood a bit. I reached up, feeling my face seeing a mix of crimson and black on my hand. My body felt wrong now, a completely different kind of wrong from when it was under False Immortal’s Serum as it was creaking while I felt each and every I possessed. Please do not be as awful as I think it is going to be. Krahinn kept me shielded for a solid forty-five seconds before he unfolded his as was now raining from the sky like black rain. Thankfully, Krahinn kept the above our head to act as an umbrella from the falling down. The buildings looked relatively fine at a quick, blurred glance. I could feel Krahinn rapidly rebuilding my body as he was coughing a bit from the strain as well. Not ominous. It is not ominous.

  That was more than I imagined. Krahinn chuckled as I was barely standing.

  I did not even properly form that, why did it work? I checked, sounding exhausted even speaking mentally. It was a bit surprising it worked so effortlessly which likely caused the immense .

  You formed it well enough for your with my to make it reality. I never imagined that would work so effortlessly. Krahinn laughed as my body felt like it was shutting down.

  I think I need Mom. I informed him, which was fairly obvious. Please be the end. I did not want to see what the follow up was.

  I am aware; I am making sure I am fine because there is Nyx’s final barb to still worry about. Krahinn told me. I did not imagine my would be that damaging. The follow up couldn’t be that bad, right?

  How do we imagine what Nyx is following up an army with? I inquired as my body was shaking a bit. Only a bit? It was hard to tell.

  I’m starting to doubt the Ryker plan was her main idea. That was too easy for Nyx. Krahinn warned me. I tried not to whimper at that.

  What do you mean, too easy? I challenged because I was barely standing. Was Krahinn just being paranoid?

  Nyx is not one to give up so easily; she is unlikely to come up with a plan so easily defeated. There is no way she underestimated your this much. She would scrap a plan before going for something resolved in an hour. Krahinn explained. I could feel his anxiety seeping through which was unsettling.

  We did have that last minute power training session. I grumbled at him. That felt so pathetic to vocalize.

  I am trying to figure out what she is plotting; I might just be paranoid but this is a better safe than sorry type of situation. Nyx is malicious, duplicitous, and manipulative but she is not an idiot. This seems way too straightforward for her. Krahinn clarified for me. I really wanted him to stop talking because each word was making it worse.

  Let’s just regroup and see what’s next. I suggested to him. My body felt so off at the moment and I just wanted to see my family was okay.

  We will. Just in a little bit. Krahinn informed me while I dreaded what was next.

  After another thirty-three seconds of inspecting us, Krahinn took flight with me while searching for wherever my mom was with various probes. Krahinn kept a massive amount of around us with several plates of and strands of ready at a moment’s notice to be safe. It took Krahinn a few moments to detect her while kept raining from the sky. How did the get so high into the sky? Do you think that was going to gently destroy them? No, I am just curious as it is raining . My body was feeling worse as something was settling deep in my bones; something felt horribly, horribly wrong with my body. Mom looked at me with a mix of shock and horror as she rushed over to us, immediately trying to heal me. Was there a final barb from Nyx? What would the sign be? I knew False Immortal’s Serum was the only thing that kept me from howling in absolute agony, which only made me dread when it wore off in a little bit. Just how brutal was the aftermath going to be? Mom’s healing was returning me to the blissful numbness I was in before. I shouldn’t enjoy this hollow sensation; I’m just terrified of what will replace it.

  “Nil, what happened?! What did you cast?” Mom pressed immediately as she began healing me.

  “Tried something new with the .” I gasped, realizing how bad my voice sounded despite what I was currently reinforced with; another thing to add to the list of things I was currently dreading.

  “Krahinn! How could you let him do something so reckless!” Mom chided him as I felt her making what little feeling I had vanish. That was wildly unsettling and comforting at the same time.

  “It deleted all the copies of Ryker; I underestimated the it would create, but the fact the idea could eliminate all the Rykers in one unceremonious swoop which I felt outweighed the negatives.” Krahinn explained. It was nice that it could so succinctly deal with that particular threat.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Is it over?” Mom checked as my body was now just numb again.

  “Doubt it. Nyx is hopefully fuming before she shows off her final demonstration of cruelty.” Krahinn warned us. He clearly suspected there was more to this than just the army of Ryker.

  Nearby, I heard a heavy impact from someone landing. I could make out the shape of Nautilus who was bleeding profusely as she had scales manifested on most of her body that she was steadily undoing while she healed. Nautilus was looking at me furiously, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. Wait, how did she originally die? Oh, thank the Lords she didn’t die from that . That was an oversight on your part. I didn’t realize she would count! Krahinn was doing an odd laugh cough as he thought about the unintentionally extending to Nautilus who thankfully was relatively untouched. Was I that delirious, or did Nautilus possess green blood? I must have been out of it if her blood looked such an odd color. Wait, did everything have red blood on Tenebrae? I shook my head as I knew I needed better thoughts; I was just glad she was fine. I hoped my didn’t cause her any harm.

  “Imma slug ya bir’ in a fe’ days. Ya bette’ no’ dodge.” Nautilus snapped at us. She sounded immensely irritated at the moment, meaning the at least went in her direction.

  “How much damage did the do?” Krahinn checked, for once actually sounding guilty.

  “T’ me? Nothin’. M’ ship? Ya owe me a new one.” Nautilus growled in irritation. That was a bit good; highly unfortunate for the Excalbrius. At this point, most of my family rallied together to see what shape everyone was in, seeing everyone seemed roughed up and covered in , but mostly okay. I felt relieved everyone was alive and somewhat well.

  “What a relief.” Uncle Nez sighed as he realized we were all alive with all our limbs intact. At least I didn’t see any missing limbs. Several scuffs, cuts, burns, and wounds but nothing serious.

  “Do not relax yet.” Krahinn warned everyone sounding tired.

  “What more can there be?” Uncle Nox challenged, clearly not wanting the fight to continue.

  As if to spite him, the sky instantly turned black which garnered everyone giving him a glare. When I describe the sky as black, it wasn’t like clouds suddenly blacked out the sun. The sun, clouds, and sky simply were now solid black. The air took a crimson hue as the ichor and corpses of Ryker floated up lifelessly into two balls as they began compressing, and compressing, slowly turning into two bright balls that were getting difficult to look at. What was this? I felt Krahinn panic as he instantly tried using some to shove the balls away, but a spear of did some slicing motion, instantly shattering it. Uncle Nez launched his own at the ball, which was almost intercepted by another nearly instantaneous lance that Krahinn dealt with. Some slammed it out of the way as the balls took the form of two silhouettes that began slowly floating down. The that was beginning to emit from them felt like it was approaching the level of Hoggdin or maybe even Krahinn as all of Umbra shook in terror from whatever the two figures were.

  That is what a perfect copy construct looks like. Krahinn snapped at me with palpable dread in his voice.

  Who is that a copy of? Ryker didn’t know . I asked back as I was struggling to see the figures.

  “Rejoice, mortals. I never imagined you would so efficiently be able to deal with the army of Ryker. I guess a is still a at the end of the day.” Nyx’s voice emanated from one of the figures, sounding much happier than I would have preferred.

  “What, Ryker was not good enough for the job?” Krahinn taunted, which only made Nyx laugh coldly in response.

  “I suspected Ryker may not be up to the task as he was such a failure, but I did make some copies that were better and different than the rest.” Nyx retorted with a hollow laugh as the figures she was puppeteering got closer.

  One of the figures got closer as I felt my jaw go slack. Her hair was beautiful white, shimmering down to her shoulders. Two stunning, pine green eyes shined in the black sky, looking down at us. She wore simple armor with reinforced gauntlets, not wearing the helmet which showed off her elegant, elk-like horns. Her slate skin was hard to distinguish from the blacked-out sky if not for the snow-white hair, but unmistakably there was only one demon that could be. That was what she grew up to look like? Wait, why was I staring at an adult body of Luna? That shouldn’t have been possible. Krahinn’s dread was palpable as his nine eyes were focused on the other silhouette that was in the sky. Hold on, hold on, who else did Nyx copy? I kept looking at adult Luna, trying to form a coherent thought. I felt Krahinn’s ire as he mentally slapped me for staring at her.

  “Focus you moron! That may be adult Luna, but that is not mentally her! The more important part is the other one!” Krahinn snarled at me outloud. My vision was kind of focusing slowly back into being sharp as my Mom started healing me faster.

  “I am… trying to.” I muttered weakly. Wow, Luna was seriously stunning.

  “Wait, is that Luna?!” Duke Dawnsfield probed while she was cocking her head side to side like when she was figuring out what to do.

  “Yes, but she is not the most terrifying thing in that sky.” Krahinn informed him as a massive blade of slammed into the ground in front of us.

  “What do you mean by that?” Mom inquired. Maybe adult Luna would not be as terrifying as I thought. I doubted it, but I was grasping at straws.

  “Look higher.” Papa quipped as I could hear the absolute dread in his voice.

  “Might not be that bad.” Nez sighed as he threw a at the second figure.

  Or more accurately, attempted to cast a at the second figure, but the simply fizzled out of existence. The other silhouette slowly descended as I could now see two bright, amber eyes glaring at us. The demon had bone white skin which greatly contrasted their black hair, with two obsidian dragon horns sharply poked out. They kind of resembled Dad and Mom as they slowly got closer to us. Adult Luna had a massive amount of , but the second figure kept radiated more and more as they casually landed on the sword of , wearing black armor that covered everything other than their head, holding a sword that resembled mine but did not seem to be made of . Wait. Wait. I then realized two very familiar amber eyes with the eyes being black instead of white staring at us. Oh no. Oh no. No no no no no no no. How the ever-living forl did Nyx make a copy of me?!