Deep space, as known by pretty much everyone, was a vast and nigh endless expanse. One could begin exploring from one corner—if they could even find it—and die a thousand times over before they reached the middle section of it.

  Nobody, no one except the Lord of the Territory itself, The Celestial of Space, knew the full widths and breadths of the domain.

  It was well speculated that Space held the secrets of the cosmos, the story of its beginning, as well as the prophecy of its end. It was an expanse cherished by treasure hunters because of the endless bountiful treasures within its bosom, all hidden in many corners of space, hidden so well that even the most piercing eyes couldn't easily find them.

  This was also the reason it was used for secret meetings.

  Unlike a planet, one could not be easily spied on in space, given how vast it was. It could take a few seconds or countless years to find someone who didn't want to be found.

  Kairen Kord hovered in one such place, a dark corner on the far reaches of the Lese domains, or even their nearest allies.

  She had picked this place not because she wanted to hide from the Sovereigns of those domains, but because of the single indwelling visitor they now had.

  There was a soft rip and then a line of golden light appeared a short distance from her, drawing down vertically. It tore open into a great hole in space, lined with swirling sparks of gold.

  Kairen knew the only reason she'd sensed it was because she'd been allowed to.

  A man stepped through. He had grandfather features, with blond hair that was tied into a short ponytail. He was wearing a white robe lined with gold, and his hands were regally folded behind his back.

  When he smiled, his short cropped beard shifted, seemingly expanding, and the smile lines on the side of his eyes stretched, giving way for light golden eyes that glittered with inner light.

  She bowed. “My apologies for calling you on such short notice, Supreme Tosal. I know you must have much more important things that request your attention.”

  “Kairen, is it? Child, you have nothing to apologize for. And you're wrong, I have no business as important as this. Raise your head.” He turned his gaze into the distance, at this empty patch of space. “Tell me, what have you discovered?”

  “I hoped it was nothing, Herald. The implication of this was nothing I could have predicted, nor could I contain if everything comes to light.”

  Her superior simply waited.

  She took a deep breath. “Before I begin, I believe a need for context is needed.” Normally, she would have left the explanation for her minder to give, but this wasn't any ordinary Ascendant. Under the light of the cosmos, there was no Ascendant more greater than him.

  She launched into an explanation of her initial visit to this galaxy, and the subsequent discoveries and investigations that came after. When asked, she listed the names of the Ascendants she'd called to question about the sudden disappearance of an entire system, a system that had been composed of three Ascendant Realm World Spirits.

  “Leceia Ren? I don't recall that name,” Adjudicator Tosal said.

  “She's a Herald of Life.”

  The other man's eyes turned distant for a second and then he nodded. “Ahh, her. What does she have to do with all this?”

  “I at first assumed she was the cause of all—”

  “Ren has not the power to accomplish such deeds, or does she, Tal?”

  A Minder appeared on his shoulder, hovering over his right shoulder just as hers did. “No she does not.”

  Kairen nodded. “Yes, I realize that now. Which was what set me back on my investigation. My next theory had been that a Transcendent had taken action, but that was too far-fetched. We would have been let known—”

  “And then you settled for a Supreme Primarch? A peer of mine, I assume?” Tosal arched an eyebrow. “You think Merak did this?”

  Kairen quickly backpedalled. “I wouldn't dare lay such accusations, Herald. Harbinger Merak is an upstanding—”

  “Upstanding?” he snorted. “This shows how little you know of my peers, Merak especially. Yes, I believe you. Merak did this.”

  “You, yo—you’re sure?”

  “Why not?” He waved his hands and a cloud of golden dust dispersed from his robes. They travelled visibly into the former system, and wherever they passed, colorful strings immediately became visible—Cut strings. “Only Oblivion has the power to completely sever the strings of Karma without leaving any trace.”

  “But the Karmic debt? The people of those worlds were not little. Surely, even a Supreme Primarch would be wary of incurring such negative Karmic debt.”

  Ascendant Tosal raised an eyebrow and smiled. “And who says he killed them? I understand why the lack of planetary shards could be misconstrued as evidence of total annihilation. No, I believe that my dear friend Merak has taken them. For what? I do not know. I will find out, though.”

  Kairen couldn't grasp it. “He—he stole a planet?”

  “I might be wrong, but I believe so. When it comes to Merak, do not believe anything is as it seems.”

  ***

  Dried branches cracked and broke as feet stepped over them, and leaves rustled as many hands pushed them aside. Tension stretched, birthing fearful silence that was broken only by the whispers of those who hoped they were alone in the forest.

  The whispering forest was eerily quiet, the ivory trees within its demesne swaying gently against a still wind.

  The birds and land critters that made this place their auditorium were silent, having either fled or burrowed into their homes, waiting for whatever calamity was about to happen to pass.

  An elven man, with blond hair and dead blue eyes, wearing a light green leather armor with multiple daggers strapped around his waist, hopped between the purple leaf branches of the ivory trees. He dropped in front of a dwarven woman, who wore heavy metallic armor, with a hammer strapped across her back.

  She stared at his groin as he rose to his full height.

  “Report.”

  A hand across his chest, the elf bowed. “We found a cave a short while away from here, Commander. We can confirm he was here at some point, though we conclude that might not be the case any longer.”

  The dwarf sniffed. “He's here. Keep searching.”

  “Forgive me, commander, but may I ask why you think so?”

  Finally, the dwarven woman stared up at the elf, meeting his dead blue eyes with hers. “Have you met him? I mean face to face?”

  A head shake.

  “I have,” she said. “I stared into those golden eyes of his and what I saw there was no prey. Our fugitive is not a man who likes to be hunted. Rather, he'll hunt us.”

  Pure silence choked the atmosphere as everyone shivered, having heard what the commander had just said. She didn't bother reassuring them.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Wits up and blades ready! If you mess up, believe me, fear will kill you faster than I will!”

  They found the cave about two miles away from their previous location. It was located on the side of a hill covered in dense purple vegetation. A huge oak tree grew at the entrance, covering the opening with its trunk. It was flanked by two large, thick bushes that completely blocked all visual sight of the entrance.

  Coupled with the dense spider webs growing all over the place, then it wasn't a wonder that many teams had walked past this place and simply assumed that it was untouched.

  Their quarry had many abilities, but phasing through solid matter was not one of them.

  Her hammer came up in a flash, whipping into the tree trunk barring her path. It shattered into many pieces, spraying the air with wooden splinters.

  “Commander, traps!” Her scout cautioned.

  She snorted. “Our quarry doesn't use such tools.”

  And true to her words, there were no traps. The cave opening yawned before her, paving the way into a dark interior.

  “Light.” She barked, and one of her subordinates lit up, fiery energy bathing him like a mini sun and lighting the room in a red glow.

  Gharushk stalked into the cave, her hammer gripped tightly in her hands.

  The cave was largely empty, with a low ceiling just enough for an adult human to walk in with their full height. There was an ashy mound in the middle of the cave, and a little bit of shifting around revealed burnt wood within.

  “Our quarry was here, alright,” She muttered. “Where's he now?”

  “Commander, you have to see this!” A voice called, and Gharushk moved towards its location.

  Her lips thinned when she finally saw what her attention had been drawn to: Bones. Piles and piles of them, all in different sizes, all stacked together. Worse, some looked to have been chewed on, with saliva dripping from some of the ones on top.

  “I guess we now know where the other teams vanished to,” her scout said. “I did not think our quarry fed on other sentient creatures…”

  “Me neither,” Gharushk said. “But given the seclusion and the rarity of livestock he's used to, I'd understand if he stooped to feeding on the only source of nutrients he's familiar with: us, or more precisely, our vessels.”

  They began making their way out of the cave.

  “I have to give it to him, commander. He's smart, too smart, but at the same time he's too cold for my liking.”

  Gharushk grunted in agreement.

  A chuckle echoed through the forest and everyone instantly raised their weapons.

  “Such high opinion of me. Did you perchance say all that so I could spare your life?”

  The commander turned around to meet the speaker, a human male in his second decade, if he was even human at all. She'd encountered many enough humans to know that the wild gray hair that matted his head was a symbol of old age for their race, and here it was on the head of a… child.

  Was he truly a human? What was he?

  “Hey,” finger snapping brought her attention back to him. “My eyes are up here, you know? Quit staring down there.”

  The commander bristled but calmed herself. Anger wouldn't serve her here. Rather it could be what spelled her demise. For all his young and inexperienced look, this… human was not to be underestimated.

  “Surrender, human. You're outnumbered twenty to one. We could easily crush you if we wanted, but you have a higher calling. Do not resist.”

  She stared at his dimly glowing golden eyes and instantly got the feeling that he was amused. She frowned. Was the human head blocked? Could he not see that he was far outnumbered, a far number than greater talents than he could handle?

  His expression shifted immediately, his smile died and a disdainful expression took its place.

  “I tire of this. Come, I have other places to be.”

  She felt his mind open up, a clear invitation. She smirked. If he was going to be so stupidly arrogant, then she would gladly oblige.

  In her years of experience, Gharushk had seen many mindscapes and even conquered many a dozen. But where she appeared was a scape she hadn't witnessed before. And for many reasons.

  Mindscapes weren't supposed to be this defined, especially for Spirit lords. A piece of land, and that should have been it, but instead, what greeted her was a shattered land of deathly grey, surrounded by a thrashing gray ocean.

  Fossils of long-dead creatures littered the land, some already turned to mounds of ashes. The sky churned with the sign of a brewing storm, with black lightning striking against dark grey clouds.

  Craters littered the land, stretching wide and far until the place looked like a war-devastated region.

  She narrowed her eyes in suspicion; only one demon clan could cause destruction on such a scale, and there were many territories between them and where they'd found this man.

  Was this man a rogue demon, split from his clan and eager for violence? No, that couldn't be it.

  Something caught her attention in the distance, and Gharushk leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. There, in the distance, mighty chains descended from the heavens, thick with each chinks the size of her torso. Four of them pierced into the earth, bypassing it into the land beneath; the soul space.

  Gharushk wasn't intrigued about the chains, she was intrigued about the feeling they gave off. These were—

  “Ahh, welcome, welcome.”

  She snapped her head down, meeting her quarry.

  Unlike them, he remained unchanged; clothed in tattered rags and hair that looked divorced from maintenance a thousand years ago.

  How did this man manage to end a dozen squads?

  She watched him pan his gaze disdainfully across the number of her subordinates that moved to surround him.

  “Well… here we are, again.”

  “Again?”

  “Did you think you were the only ones to see this place… or the first?” he smirked, arching an eyebrow.

  Gharushk was honestly tired of his brazen arrogance. She wanted to beat him to a pulp, lock him in a cage, and watch as the terror dawned on him when his body was eventually handed over to the lord of this territory. But she forced herself to consider what he'd said, or insinuated.

  The Mind Demons were masters of the psyche and anything to do with it. No one could equal the Yxil Demons in Mental conquest, not even the other Demon races.

  If what this man said was true, then it immediately brought to light the mystery surrounding the deaths of the many harvester squads sent to capture him.

  But that was impossible. The sheer number of foes he stood against was enough to bring down even galactic-level talents. Gharushk was very certain this man was not one of them.

  She tried to consider it differently. He'd said they weren't the first ones, he hadn't clarified that they weren't the first demons. What if those who appeared here before her were his fellow humans, or some other race?

  But… if that was the case, then what happened to the other squads sent after him? He couldn't possibly have taken all of them in single combat all on his own, could he?. That was astronomically preposterous. What even?—

  Gharushk paused. Ahh, so that was it; mind games. A human was actually playing her at her own game, with such brazen confidence that she almost fell for it.

  “I will make your capture a very painful one, human,” she growled and gestured to her subordinates. “Take him.”

  Twenty demons acted all at once, bladed tentacled limbs blurring into shredding fans that whipped for their quarry.

  The human's lips stretched, that insufferable smirk of his. Gharushk intended to wipe it off his face.

  He engaged her soldiers in the middle of a shattered land, littered with mounds of ashes and bones that surrounded them like arena seats.

  Thunder sounded in the stormy sky as one of her soldiers met him in a fury of bladed limbs. Two tentacles shot for his eyes, each limb tipped with short deadly blades.

  The man caught both limbs in his hands, a smile touching his lips just as a golden glow reached his eyes.

  The world slowed to a crawl for Gharushk as the subordinate caught in his grip screamed, a raw guttural sound that emerged from a face without a mouth.

  The attack paused, and even a few of her subordinates backpedalled rapidly.

  “Impossible,” somebody said.

  Gharushk couldn't disagree. Of all the demon races, only one possessed a soul. The Mind Clan was not that one.

  “Wielding an aspect within a mindscape… this should not be.”

  Her quarry tutted, a finger raised in a stalling gesture. “For a race that claims Dominion over the Aspect of the Mind, you know awfully little about it. Haven't you heard the saying: “the eyes are a window to the soul”?” He arched an eyebrow. “What other aspect of being connects to the soul? All I had to do was leave the door wide open.”

  Gharushk instantly grasped for her power… only to find herself blocked by a wall, a wall not of her own making.

  “Ahh, you just tried to call your powers, didn't you? In my soul,” he chuckled. “When making a visit, do you take your entire house with you? No, you go with your body. This is my house, you can't summon your house within it… Well, not unless you're some titan hiding their identity, which I highly doubt you are.”

  Realization sank in then. This battle had been lost right from the start. No wonder the human had been awfully arrogant. He'd led them directly into his trap, and Gharushk followed eagerly like prey with food in sight.

  She turned to her scout. “Find us a way out.”

  He nodded and dashed for a different direction.

  “You came in here at my invitation. Only by my Will will you leave this place alive. But oh well, you can always try. I do love seeing the hope die in your eyes when your plan fails. For now, I will content myself with taking what I want from you all.”

  And this time he didn't wait for them to come to him, he came himself.

  The human was like a blur, another outstanding deed, though not as prominent as the previous deeds. Mastering the space within the mind came with the benefits of reducing the concept of space to nothing. To a master of the mind, distance, Here and there, were the same thing.

  This human was not a master, but he was getting there.

  Gharushk watched with hollowness in her heart as the human cruelly and efficiently dispatched her subordinates. He moved like he was blessed by the wind, and killed cruelly like a being cursed by death.

  In the blink of an eye, they were down half their number. Gharushk tried brainstorming an idea on how to stop him but she came up with nothing. They'd fallen into this trap happily, forgetting that they weren't the only ones who could twist the rules of the mind to their advantage.

  Their chances dwindled as he killed, butchering subordinates one by one until at last he got to her.

  Her battle with him lasted much longer than those with her subordinates, but eventually Gharushk found herself beaten and broken, a limbless body on the shattered landscape of this gray desolate world. She realized what had changed a bit too late.

  “We're food,” she whispered.

  Her quarry stared down at her, his glowing eyes now a burning gold to her sight. “Yes, yes you are.”

  Gharushk died.