Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 88: Domains United

Chapter 88: Domains United

Lord Commander Vaelis Ironheart stood atop the broken ramparts of Azurehaven, his armor stained with the silvery ichor of dimensional aberrations. Below him stretched the ruins of what had once been the jewel of the Eastern Domain—now a fractured landscape where reality folded upon itself like crumpled parchment. Buildings stood inverted, defying gravity. Streets twisted into Möbius strips. Citizens walked sideways along vertical walls, unaware that their perception of "down" had been fundamentally altered.

The sky above had not been blue for seventeen days. Instead, it rippled with aurora-like tears, revealing glimpses of impossible geometries and occasionally disgorging fresh horrors into their world.

"Another breach," reported Sentinel Myra, her once-beautiful face now half-covered with metallic growths—the result of exposure to dimensional flux during the Battle of Crimson Fields. "Southwestern quadrant. The anomaly signature matches those from the Fourth Domain incursion."

Vaelis tightened his grip on his warspear—a weapon now augmented with crystalline matrices salvaged from dead constructs. "How many this time?"

"Unknown, but the distortion field spans two kilometers. Bigger than yesterday’s."

He turned to regard the assembled forces on the plains below the city. Ten thousand soldiers bearing the standards of all Nine Domains—rivals and enemies for centuries, now united by desperation. Their armor incorporated technologies from each domain: Arcane amplifiers from the High Domain, phase-shift plating from the Deep Domain, consciousness stabilizers from the Void Domain. Equipment that would have been zealously guarded as state secrets mere months ago was now freely shared.

"Signal Duke Ravencrest," Vaelis commanded. "Tell him to deploy the Goblin Seekers to the breach point. We need early detection of whatever’s coming through."

Myra nodded and pressed her fingers to the communication rune embedded in her throat—another technological adaptation born of necessity. The modified goblins had proven unexpectedly valuable in recent weeks. Their primitive minds, once considered their weakness, made them uniquely resistant to dimensional corruption. Where human scouts went mad from exposure to altered physics, the goblins simply accepted the impossibilities they witnessed, their perceptions unconstrained by rigid understanding of natural laws.

"He reports they’re already moving," Myra said after receiving the telepathic response. "They sensed the breach before our instruments detected it."

Vaelis grimaced. "Evolution accelerating again. Just like the Progenitor texts warned."

Five kilometers away, Duke Harren Ravencrest rode alongside his most unusual regiment. The three hundred goblins loping beside his mechanized steed bore little resemblance to their ancestors. Months of exposure to dimensional anomalies had transformed them—elongated limbs, additional sensory organs pulsing along their spines, skin that shifted colors in response to reality fluctuations. Most significantly, their tribal hostility had been replaced with an eerie, collective intelligence.

Their leader, designated Alpha-17, communicated through a translator device grafted to its throat. "The tear grows. It hungers differently than the others."

"Explain," demanded Ravencrest, adjusting the shield generator on his left gauntlet.

"Previous tears were... precise. Surgical. This one consumes." The goblin’s newly developed secondary eyes—vertical slits above its primary ones—dilated rapidly. "It seeks patterns."

Ravencrest activated his communication rune. "Lord Commander, the goblins report this breach has different characteristics. Consumption rather than incursion. Requesting reinforcement from the Fifth Domain’s Null Casters."

Static crackled before Vaelis’s voice returned: "Granted. Duchess Lysandra is redirecting her casters to your position. Hold the perimeter until they arrive."

As they crested the final hill, Ravencrest’s blood ran cold. The breach wasn’t merely a tear in reality—it was a churning vortex of mathematical equations made visible, consuming the landscape and reformulating it according to alien parameters. Trees stretched into fractal patterns before dissolving entirely. The ground itself flowed like liquid, occasionally solidifying into perfect geometric shapes before shattering into component molecules.

At the vortex’s center floated a construct unlike any they had encountered—a twelve-meter tall humanoid figure composed entirely of interlocking eyes, each blinking independently, each observing from a different dimensional perspective.

"Watcher enforcer," whispered Alpha-17, its voice trembling with instinctual fear. "Pattern-eater."

Ravencrest had faced many horrors since the dimensional incursions began, but something about this entity triggered primal terror. "Fifth Domain forces are eight minutes out," he informed his troops. "We hold the line. Deployment pattern Obsidian Shield."

His soldiers moved with practiced precision, arranging themselves in concentric circles around the anomaly. Engineers deployed reality anchors—miniaturized versions of the technology once used in the fallen Ninth Tower—creating a containment field that temporarily stabilized the physics within their perimeter.

The enforcer turned its myriad eyes toward them, its attention palpable as physical pressure.

"INSUFFICIENT PATTERN," it stated, its voice somehow bypassing their ears and materializing directly in their minds. "THIS DOMAIN FRAGMENT LACKS REQUIRED DENSITY."

Ravencrest raised his phase-blade, its edge glowing with equations designed to sever dimensional connections. "By authority of the United Domains, I command you to withdraw from this reality."

The enforcer’s response was to extend a limb that simultaneously existed in five contradictory positions. Where it touched the ground, soldiers screamed as their bodies reconfigured—bones erupting through skin, organs migrating outside their torsos, blood crystallizing mid-flow.

"Fifth Domain! Where are our damned casters?" Ravencrest roared into his communication rune.

Deep beneath the ancient mountains separating the Western and Central Domains, Arch-Sorceress Lysithea descended into darkness. The expedition team behind her carried light-crystals that illuminated walls covered with equations—not carved or painted, but growing from the stone itself like mathematical lichen.

"The Progenitor bunker extends for another two kilometers," reported her chief archaeologist, consulting a three-dimensional map projected from his modified eye socket. "The dimensional shielding becomes stronger the deeper we go."

Lysithea nodded, her attention fixed on deciphering the equations surrounding them. Three months ago, these would have been incomprehensible. Now, after countless encounters with Watcher technology, patterns were becoming recognizable.

"This confirms our theory," she said, excitement overcoming her usual stoicism. "The Progenitors weren’t our ancestors—they were survivors from a previous iteration. They knew the Watchers would eventually return."

Her second-in-command, Lord Castellan Darius, examined a series of crystalline nodes embedded in the ceiling. "These match the technology in the artifacts we’ve recovered. But they’re... purer somehow. Undistorted."

"Because they weren’t created by the Watchers," Lysithea explained. "They were created to hide from them."

The passage opened into a vast chamber that stole the breath from their lungs. Suspended in the center was a perfect representation of their world—all Nine Domains mapped in glowing detail, with pulsing red indicators marking current dimensional breaches. Below this map stood nine crystalline sarcophagi, each bearing the symbol of a different domain.

"By the Void," whispered Darius. "The original lords?"

Lysithea approached the nearest sarcophagus, wiping away millennia of dust to reveal the preserved form inside—a woman in ancient armor, her body interwoven with technological enhancements far beyond even their current capabilities.

"Not lords," Lysithea corrected. "Guardians. Deployed from the previous cycle to preserve knowledge. To prepare us."

She pressed her palm against the crystal surface, and the chamber responded. The map expanded, showing not just their world but layers of reality surrounding it. Equations flowed through the air, forming into legible text before their astonished eyes.

"PROJECT RECURSION," Lysithea read aloud. "CONTINGENCY PROTOCOL FOR PATTERN PRESERVATION IN EVENT OF TOTAL CONSUMPTION."

Darius stepped back as the sarcophagi began to hum with awakening energy. "What have you done?"

"What was intended," Lysithea replied calmly. "They weren’t dead. They were waiting for the specific dimensional frequency that would indicate the Watchers’ return."

Her communication rune suddenly flared with urgent messages—dozens of commanders reporting simultaneous breaches across all Nine Domains. The dimensional incursions had escalated from isolated incidents to coordinated assault.

"We need to get this knowledge to the United Command," Darius urged. "Duke Ravencrest reports a new type of enforcer already penetrating our strongest containment fields."

Lysithea’s eyes remained fixed on the awakening sarcophagi. "We don’t need to go anywhere. Look."

The map above them shifted, focusing on a specific location in the Fifth Domain where Ravencrest’s forces fought desperately against the pattern-eating enforcer. One of the sarcophagi—bearing the Fifth Domain’s symbol—began to pulse more intensely.

"They’re responding to the threat," Lysithea whispered. "After ten thousand years."

The sarcophagus cracked open, releasing not fluid but concentrated equations that swirled like mist. From within emerged a figure that was neither human nor machine, but something transcendent—a woman whose body was composed partly of flesh, partly of technology, and partly of pure mathematical concept.

Her eyes opened, revealing irises filled with the same multidimensional awareness they had observed in the Watchers.

"Designation: Guardian Quintus," she announced, her voice resonating with harmonic overtones. "Pattern preservation protocol activated. Dimensional incursion detected."

She turned to regard Lysithea with ancient eyes. "You have questions, descendant. I have existed ten thousand years anticipating them."

On the battlefield, Ravencrest’s forces had collapsed to a final defensive ring. Half his soldiers were dead or transformed beyond recognition. The reality anchors flickered weakly, overwhelmed by the enforcer’s power. The goblin seekers huddled together, their evolved minds linked in desperate calculation.

"One minute to total containment failure," reported his lieutenant, blood streaming from the man’s eyes as his brain struggled to process the dimensional distortions.

The enforcer advanced, its body now incorporating fragments of the consumed soldiers—limbs and faces visible within its swirling mass of eyes. "THIS FRAGMENT WILL BE CATALOGUED AND PROCESSED," it declared. "RESISTANCE IS MATHEMATICALLY IRRELEVANT."

Ravencrest raised his blade for what he knew would be a final, futile stand. "For the Domains United," he declared.

The sky above them suddenly fractured—not from another breach, but from within their own reality. A perfect circle of equations descended around the enforcer, forming a counter-pattern to its existence. Within this circle appeared a woman unlike anything Ravencrest had ever seen, her body a harmony of flesh and concept.

"Enforcer designation recognized," she stated, raising a hand composed of interlocking mathematical formulas. "Pattern consumption unauthorized. This domain is under recursion protection."

The enforcer’s myriad eyes all blinked simultaneously—the closest thing to surprise such an entity could express. "GUARDIAN DETECTED. CLASSIFICATION: ANOMALY. ORIGIN: PREVIOUS CYCLE."

"Not anomaly," the woman corrected. "Contingency."

She thrust her hand forward, and reality bent around the enforcer, equations canceling equations, patterns unraveling patterns. The Watcher construct began to destabilize, its component eyes trying to separate and escape individually.

Ravencrest watched in awe as this impossible savior systematically dismantled the enforcer with perfect mathematical precision. His communication rune buzzed with reports of similar manifestations across all Nine Domains—ancient guardians awakening to counter the incursion.

As the enforcer collapsed into component equations, the woman turned to Ravencrest. "Duke Harren Ravencrest. Your resistance is noted and valuable. But insufficient."

"Who are you?" he demanded. "What are you?"

"I am Guardian Quintus, seeded from the 972nd iteration to preserve pattern continuity in the 973rd." Her gaze shifted to the horizon, where new breaches were already forming. "These are merely enforcers. Proxies. The true threat approaches."

"The Watchers?"

"No." Her expression remained impassive, but something like dread entered her voice. "What comes after them. What they failed to contain with their endless consumption."

She raised her hand, and the fallen soldiers around them began to transform—not healing, but reconfiguring into something new. Flesh, metal, and equation merging into hybrid forms.

"The Nine Domains must become one pattern," Guardian Quintus declared. "Only unified consciousness can resist what approaches."

Above them, the sky parted to reveal not stars but an impossible void where something massive was taking shape—a hand larger than mountains, reaching down toward their world.

"What is that?" Ravencrest whispered, his courage finally failing.

"The original owner," Guardian Quintus replied, "coming to reclaim what was stolen."