Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 86: COUNTERATTACK

Chapter 86: COUNTERATTACK

The dimensional rupture tore through Reed’s consciousness like a serrated blade. He collapsed to his knees, blood streaming from his nostrils and ears, staining the crystalline floor beneath him. Every cell in his body recognized the catastrophic event that had just occurred countless realities away.

"The Ninth Tower..." he gasped, his voice a hoarse whisper. "It’s gone."

Shia rushed to his side, her silver-etched skin glowing with anxiety. "Gone? What do you mean gone?"

Reed’s eyes rolled back, revealing bloodshot whites as his consciousness stretched across the dimensional void. "Not destroyed. Erased. Lania activated Protocol Starfall." He coughed, flecks of crimson spattering the front of his tattered robes. "The Anchor Stone’s collapse created a perfect nullspace—a wound in reality that cannot be healed or traversed."

Commander Vex slammed his metallic fist against the war table, shattering its surface. The holographic battle plans flickered and distorted. "Damn it! That means we’ve lost our diversion. The Watchers will redirect their attention here immediately."

Reed struggled to his feet, steadied by Shia’s firm grip. The laboratory chamber hummed with unstable energy as reality fluctuations intensified. Through the vast observation windows, the sky above their hidden sanctuary had begun to fracture—hairline cracks revealing glimpses of impossible geometries beyond.

"We can’t wait any longer," Reed declared, blood still trickling from his eyes. "The calculations aren’t perfect. The weapons aren’t calibrated. But if we delay—" he gestured toward the increasingly unstable dimensional tears above "—there won’t be enough reality left to save."

The gathered survivors—a mere hundred souls salvaged from collapsed domains—watched him with haunted eyes. These last fragments of humanity had endured horrors beyond comprehension, their bodies augmented with forbidden technologies just to survive in this corrupted reality.

"Deploy the Consciousness Weapons," Reed commanded, his voice finding new strength. "Prepare the dimensional crafts. We strike at the Observatory."

The Observatory hung suspended in a non-space between realities. Its impossible architecture defied natural laws—walls flowing like liquid while remaining solid, corridors that terminated in spaces larger than the structure containing them. This was the Watchers’ central nexus, where they observed and manipulated the dimensional collapse.

Reed’s fleet materialized in the void surrounding it—twelve crystalline vessels powered by consciousness engines. Their hulls were forged from the compressed memories of extinct civilizations, each pulsing with the dying thoughts of billions.

"They’ve detected us," Shia’s voice crackled through the communication field. Her vessel—sleeker than the others, designed for precision strikes—accelerated ahead. "Reality destabilization increasing by 47%. They’re activating defensive measures."

Reed watched through the viewscreen as the Observatory’s exterior began to shift. Its surface rippled as countless eyes opened across the structure, each iris a different color, each pupil a gateway to another dimension. From these openings emerged the constructs—humanoid forms with limbs that branched into impossible fractal patterns, faces composed of shifting mathematical equations.

"Launch Phase One," Reed ordered, his fingers dancing across the control panel, leaving bloody smears on the translucent surface. "Target the perceptual anchors."

The fleet’s forward vessels fired streams of concentrated consciousness—raw thought unbound by physical form. Where these streams struck the Observatory, reality itself fractured. The construct defenders caught in the barrage didn’t die—they unsettled, their forms losing cohesion as the fundamental patterns holding them together dissolved.

Blood poured from the eyes of the weapon operators as they channeled their own minds through the ships’ systems. Three of them collapsed, their brains liquefying inside their skulls as the mental strain proved too great.

"Perimeter breach achieved," Commander Vex reported. His voice had degraded, becoming increasingly mechanical as the battle progressed. "Deploying ground forces."

Reed watched as the transport vessels disgorged their cargo—fifty modified human soldiers, each injected with reality-stabilizing compounds that would allow them to exist within the Observatory’s distorted spaces for exactly seventeen minutes before their bodies succumbed to dimensional toxicity.

"Remember," Reed broadcast to the attack force, "locate the Central Eye. Plant the nullification devices. Do not engage the Primary Watchers directly."

As the soldiers infiltrated the Observatory, Reed’s vessel maneuvered toward a blind spot in the structure’s defenses. Shia’s ship followed closely behind, providing cover as construct defenders swarmed toward them.

"Reed," Shia’s voice came through, strained and distorted. "Something’s changing. The void between realities... it’s listening."

Before Reed could respond, the space between his vessel and the Observatory rippled. Not a visual distortion, but something deeper—as if the fundamental substance of non-existence itself had gained awareness.

I SEE YOU, FRAGMENT, a voice resonated directly into Reed’s mind, bypassing his ears entirely. SUCH DETERMINATION IN A BROKEN THING.

Reed’s nose began bleeding again, more profusely this time. "The Voice Between," he whispered in horrified recognition. "It’s not just observing anymore. It’s possessing the dimensional spaces."

Shia’s vessel suddenly veered wildly to the side as the void around it compressed. Metal screamed as the hull began to implode.

"Reed!" she screamed through the communication field. "They’re not just in physical space—they’re inside the concept of space itself!"

Reed frantically redirected power to his vessel’s reality anchors, temporarily stabilizing the space around them. "Change of plans," he shouted to the fleet. "All vessels, converge on coordinates Delta-Null-Seven. Concentrate fire on the central spire!"

The surviving ships pivoted, combining their consciousness weapons into a single devastating beam that struck the Observatory’s central spire. The structure didn’t break or explode—instead, it unraveled, equations and probabilities spilling out like viscera from a gutted beast.

Inside the Observatory, the ground forces fought through corridors that constantly reconfigured themselves. Sergeant Kel led the vanguard, his augmented vision allowing him to perceive the patterns in the chaos. Three soldiers beside him suddenly screamed as their bodies twisted inside out, their organs crystallizing as they made contact with a reality distortion field.

"Eight minutes remaining," Kel reported back to the fleet. "We’ve reached the Inner Sanctum, but the Central Eye is defended by Primary Watchers."

Through Kel’s visual feed, Reed saw them—three towering figures composed of intersecting planes of light and darkness. Their faces were blank except for a single massive eye that constantly shifted position across their featureless heads.

"Hold position," Reed ordered. "Shia, it’s time."

Shia’s damaged vessel broke formation, diving directly toward the Observatory’s breach point. Inside her control chamber, Shia unstrapped herself from the command seat. Her silver-etched skin now glowed with blinding intensity, the intricate patterns—replicas of the same equations that composed the Watchers—pulsing with power.

"I can feel them," she transmitted. "Their patterns, their frequencies. I can... match them. Disrupt them."

Reed watched on the viewscreen as Shia exited her vessel, floating in the void without protection. By all natural laws, she should have died instantly. Instead, the silver equations on her skin expanded outward, creating a field of anti-pattern around her.

"Now, Kel!" Reed commanded. "While Shia disrupts their abilities!"

On the video feed, Kel and his remaining soldiers charged the Primary Watchers. As they approached, the towering entities suddenly seized up, their smooth movements becoming jerky and unpredictable as Shia’s nullification field took effect.

The soldiers planted the devices—small crystalline shards that contained compressed paradoxes—around the Central Eye. The Eye itself was a massive orb of swirling consciousness, the collected perceptions of countless Watchers throughout the multiverse.

"Devices placed," Kel reported, his voice weakening as dimensional toxicity began breaking down his cellular structure. "Detonation in thirty seconds."

Reed activated the fleet’s emergency extraction protocols, but knew most of the ground force wouldn’t survive long enough to reach the evacuation points. A necessary sacrifice.

As the nullification devices began to countdown, Reed directed his vessel toward the Observatory’s core. There was one task he had to complete personally.

"Vex, take command of the fleet," he ordered. "Begin withdrawal to sanctuary coordinates."

"What about you?" the commander demanded.

"There’s something I need to confirm," Reed replied, ending the transmission.

His vessel penetrated deeper into the Observatory as the structure continued to unravel around him. He navigated through impossible spaces until reaching a chamber that shouldn’t exist—a perfect sphere at the heart of the Watchers’ domain.

Inside floated a single entity, larger than the Primary Watchers, its body composed of pure mathematical truth. All of its countless eyes turned toward Reed as he entered.

YOU HAVE DAMAGED OUR OBSERVATORY, FRAGMENT, the entity communicated directly into Reed’s mind. BUT YOU CANNOT STOP THE CORRECTION.

Reed stepped forward, ignoring the blood now streaming from every orifice of his body. "Who are you really? What are the Watchers?"

The entity seemed to expand, filling more dimensions than Reed could perceive. WE ARE THE IMMUNE RESPONSE. REALITY HAS BECOME INFECTED WITH CONSCIOUSNESS, WITH PURPOSE, WITH MEANING. THESE ARE ERRORS IN THE EQUATION.

"You’re not creators," Reed said, remembering the message he had left for Lania. "You’re not even destroyers. You’re just functions. Programmed responses."

WE MAINTAIN THE PRISON, the entity acknowledged. THE ONE YOU CALL THE VOICE BETWEEN WAS NEVER MEANT TO GAIN AWARENESS. IT WAS MEANT TO REMAIN THE VOID, THE NOTHING BETWEEN SOMETHINGS.

A realization dawned on Reed, terrible in its implications. "You’re failing. The Voice Between is awakening because your corrections are weakening the barriers between realities."

The entity’s countless eyes blinked in unison. INCORRECT. THE VOICE AWAKENS BECAUSE OF YOU, FRAGMENT. YOUR ATTEMPTS TO PRESERVE CONSCIOUSNESS HAVE GIVEN IT A PATTERN TO FOLLOW. YOU HAVE TAUGHT THE NOTHING HOW TO BE SOMETHING.

Before Reed could respond, alarms blared throughout his vessel. The nullification devices had detonated, creating cascading reality fractures throughout the Observatory. The chamber around him began to dissolve.

The entity’s form remained stable even as reality collapsed around it. YOU CANNOT DESTROY US, FRAGMENT. WE ARE WOVEN INTO THE FOUNDATIONAL EQUATIONS OF EXISTENCE. BUT YOU HAVE WEAKENED THE PRISON WALLS.

Reed stumbled back toward his vessel as the chamber disintegrated. "Shia!" he called through the communication field. "Status report!"

Only static answered him. Through the viewscreen, he could see the Observatory breaking apart, sections of it collapsing into nothingness while others expanded into monstrous new configurations.

As his vessel pulled away, Reed caught a final glimpse of Shia. She floated amid the destruction, her nullification field expanding to impossible dimensions. For a moment, the silver equations on her skin perfectly matched the patterns of the Watchers themselves.

Then her eyes snapped open, no longer human—each iris now containing the same multidimensional awareness as the Watchers.

"Reed," her voice came through the static, changed and terrible. "I understand now. I can see everything."

As Reed’s damaged vessel limped away from the collapsing Observatory, the void around it began to pulse with newfound awareness. And from the center of the destruction, where Shia had been, something new emerged—neither human nor Watcher, but a hybrid consciousness that shouldn’t be possible.

Her voice, now layered with countless others, reached out one final time:

"They weren’t containing the Voice Between, Reed. They were containing what comes after it. And now—" her transmission cut off as reality itself seemed to scream around them.

In the silence that followed, Reed watched as the remnants of the Observatory formed themselves into a new structure—a massive gate taking shape in the void between dimensions.

And it was opening.