257 Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Seven – Playing Hagmom (1/2)

The ley line fed back towards the Slow Zone's wall, that wall just as massive as ours, and disappeared inside of it... followed by a plunging spear of reinforced reality cracking that temporal barrier and driving onwards inexorably.

It wouldn't run around the formation like a line of detcord. It would burn itself out as ley line after ley line erupted, then go quiet for a short time before the massive flow of energy built up into some key Obelisk once again, and blew that one apart, starting the ignition process all over again.

It was inexorable, because there was a pulse of power coming from the far side too, overcharging the circulating energy, making it so they couldn't shut the flow down or regulate it. It would progress backwards, Reality Shard by Shard, until the Formation, the work of hundreds of millennia, was destroyed.

If Brother Bonescythe had reported correctly, this was the angle that would have located Hagmom right above the ley line when she came out of Linejump... and it was likely that the ley line path was the most used one if she Teleported to zone borders. If she was really quick and had a Contingency up, she could have gotten away in time... but then again, maybe not, it was moving pretty fast, and bringing some magic disruption with it.

I didn't think it could do enough damage to kill her if she was caught in it, given how much Health Qi she probably had. But all those Hags and dragons and elite giants that were with her? I was betting a good chunk of them had died from a killstrike launched hundreds of miles away.

Her first and instant reaction would be to see what had become of her base of operations, which I expected to be fundamentally trashed, as if a nuke had gone off there... and if she connected her palace to it, goodbye to all her hoard of so many years, and probably a good chunk of her Hagdaughters.

Bye, sisters. Too bad, so sad that I never got to know you... Tremble tittered quietly with me in the distance. Yeah, I was hitting her from ALL the angles.

Her Grand Formation was in ruins, the plans of millennia were undone, and the sky was cracking open, Reality was intruding. She'd know that come the dawn outside, this entire Reality Shard was going to collapse, and eventually so would the entire Fifth Ring, the massive world that she had ruled over for uncounted years was now going to vanish to... somewhere, maybe into nothing, far beyond her control and power.

Her plans were ashes. It was likely her strongest minions and daughters were dead.

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She was an Exemplar Annis. While she could be sly and cunning, at heart, she was a butcher and a slaughterer. She was an Empress because she had ruthlessly killed anyone who got in her way, and the size of her ego was obvious after catching an Exemplar Elephant, her deeds dominating those of the other Empresses.

She'd want revenge. But she'd have to find us, and she'd need what help she could find to do it. I was going over the many, many scenarios possible, given a high level of Witchcraft and access to dragons.

I truly didn't know her well enough to make a truly accurate prediction. I could infer from her use of her minions, how they responded, the disposition of forces, and so on, but there was a limit based on the fact that I didn't really know her.

But I had met her before, several times in fact. A copy of her had come across Dream to try and stop me, and failed.

And so, I'd left more bait behind. The monkeys, the Rockborn, the berserkers, and rest of the Ironblood, and the dragons were all still mixing it up in the neighboring zone, which now had no restrictions on movement with the collapse of both Obelisks.

So, she'd want revenge, and Messages were flying back and forth, with scrying to back it up, and would confirm that intruders were still there and fighting.

So, she would have a target. She could quickly confirm that her army had lost us three, and the angels and their helpers had escaped from the undead as fast as they'd come...

The Elephant set down gently next to us, Brother Shadowknife's small figure standing on that noble head.

”Ready for your Mark and opening your Chakras?” I asked patiently, having listened in as Brother Shadowknife chatted him up.

The Elephant blew out a breath of air that was tantamount to be a declaration of war. I held up my black box, levered off his trunk, stepped off a gleaming tusk, and set myself atop his head. ”This will only take a few minutes for the Mark. I'll put you in contact with the other Elders once you hook in. Opening the Chakras will happen after that...”

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The air in front of us was cleft open and aside, forming a temporary Portal to the Astral Plane.

We ducked through it, shifting quickly from physical motion to mental motion.

As the Elephant squeezed through, Brother AA's Helix swirled out and sealed the Veil behind us.

”Hi, Sama!” Tremble said brightly, a glowing Amulet hanging from her guard.

”Heya, Trem!” One second later, there was a swirl of light, and a hundred figures blinked into place around that Amulet, synchronized group Planar Jumps locking on that Amulet and bringing them right here. ”Move!” I pointed, and without hesitation the angelic vohr and their companions flowed through the other Portal sliced open in reality right over there.