Mira looked at the hamr in her hand for a few seconds and then threw it away.
The hamr flashed with light and turned back into Isabelle. The woman landed on her chair and looked back at Mira with a smile, "Co on, don't say you didn't like it. I could feel your hands, too rough and coarse. I know a hardworking carpenter when I see them."
Mira didn't reply. She just glared at Isabelle for a long while and sighed. That made Isabelle shrug, "Not the best of starts, but at least it's not the worst." She turned to Arad, "Don't you think so?"
He looked at Aella, "I'll leave this matter to you and everyone else." Arad could just decide if Isabelle can stay or leave. His wives won't disagree with what he wants. But to him, at least, that is unfair to them. That is why he leaves decisions like this to their collective vote.
And since he left the decision to them, he now has ti for another important matter, one that he was waiting for the whole day. So quality ti with the woman standing behind Kali, Diana.
****
Arad and Diana were sitting alone in a tiny room that was linked to the throne room. Usually, this room was used to entertain guests while they waited for other people to finish their eting with Lucifer.
That whole room now belonged to Arad and Diana.
"So you wanted to tell you about the war?" She looked at the fresh and warm tea on the table. "What I want to know is where did you pull that tea from?"
"I've got many things hidden in my stomach." He took a sip of his tea and looked at her, "But that doesn't matter now. The war, what is happening out there."
"Should I start from the ground? Or do you have so understanding?" The outer war was simple to understand and impossible to fathom, a strange war between creatures with enough power to erase worlds with a breath.
"Start from the ground." Arad wanted to know everything. The war, how it started, who is winning, why is the other side losing, and how everything relates to the void dragons.
"First, Nyar. He is the core of this whole conflict. He usually appears as a man in a yellow cloak, but that is rely his avatar, not his real body." She looked at the sky, "Nyar is similar to the pale night, the mother of all demons if you know her. Considering you're marrying Kali, you should be familiar with the being birthing billions of demons each second."
Arad nodded, "So you're saying that Nyar is a writhing mass of flesh that constantly gives birth to abominations?"
Diana nodded, "No one fully understands Nyar's biology, but that is what is believed to be true. Yog, Shib, and the one who kicked Nyar, Zaleria, all agree on that idea." She frowned, "But Yog said that it's mostly true. That ans that notion has a flaw sowhere."
"She knows more than anyone else." Arad leaned back, his eyes flashing purple, "And I guess she didn't explain, like always."
"Yes. But that takes us to the goal of the war. To reach Nyar's true body and destroy it. That is our goal." She took a sip of her tea, and Arad finished speaking after her. "And their goal is to reach the universe in full force."
"No, their goal is to snatch the current overgod alive so the universe won't collapse when they arrive." She looked at the door, "Kali would destroy the world if the abomination managed to achieve that. She is the world's self-destruction bottom, the last stand against the abominations."
"What about the gods?"
"Have you ever played chess? The gods are the powerful pieces, like the castle, king, and queen. The pawns are us, the soldiers of the war." She waved her hand and summoned a dal, "I was the general of the ninth battalion of the destroyers. My job was mass destruction, to do the sa thing you did while chasing Vorvadoss around." She put one leg on another, "To kill any abomination that gets past a set point or line, I don't care about the who or what. If it moves, it dies."
"What if it's just a colony with no military outpost? That can be used for sothing instead of outright destroyed?"
She smiled, "I don't care. There is no in-between here. They get past the line. They die, no talk, no calling command first, and no wasting ti." She sighed, "That was my job, the regular one, at least. We sotis have missions that take us deep into the abominations' territory."
"I guess the abominations are just as ruthless, seeing that they managed to slip all the way here more than once." Arad smiled, and Diana frowned, looking a bit upset, feeling like he was throwing shade at her job.
"That is why we kill everyone. All the abominations are an extension of Nyar. He sacrifices abominations to create vessels. A colony of a few thousand abominations can turn into one vessel in hours." She stood and approached Arad.
"Co on, I'll show you sothing." She touched his head, and fragnts of her mories few into his mind.
Arad suddenly was alone in the silent, empty void, looking down on a stray teor. Inside that teor, he could see a thriving abomination colony thriving. They looked like termites infesting the galactic boulder, sailing through the darkness unaware of the destroyer standing above them.
He felt hot, weird, happy, and excited. It was strange, and Arad got confused for a second. Those weren't his feelings. They belonged to Diana. She was enjoying it, the wait before she would slaughter the whole colony. While the woman he saw and talked with looked poised and calm, the one on the battlefield was a battle-crazed, bloodthirsty maniac who got off murder and slaughter.
Sadly, before she could satisfy herself and rip them all to shreds, sothing harrowing happened. All of the abominations just exploded into a cloud of black blood and gore. From their remains, an ancient horror erged a Vessel of Nyar.
To create a vessel, Nyar must sacrifice thousands of abominations. Their collective power is the power that the vessel will be able to display. Before Diana could do anything, the vessel flashed away and disappeared, heading deeper into the world and outside her domain.
It was inevitable, but Diana saw it differently. That failure was recent. That vessel was the sa one Gojo faced with Cain and Kayden before.
That failure is the reason she was sent here, the reason she was pulled from the frontlines. That is what Diana believes.
Diana pulled her hand away from Arad's forehead. "As you can see, one slip almost led to the universe collapsing. It's safe to say both sides are at a stalemate. Anything can shift the scales."
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