Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 90: REALITY ANCHORS

Chapter 90: REALITY ANCHORS

The ancient library’s air hung thick with the scent of burning incense and decaying parchment. Lania’s slender fingers trembled as she traced the fractured symbols etched across Reed’s message—geometric patterns that seemed to shift and writhe beneath her touch. Blood had dried in the corners of her eyes from the strain of deciphering the multidimensional equations. Twenty hours without rest, and still the truth eluded her.

"These aren’t just coordinates," she whispered, her voice cracking. "They’re... fragments of Reed himself."

Behind her, General Varkath’s massive frame cast a long shadow across the stone floor. The goblin commander’s flesh had continued its unsettling evolution; crystalline structures now protruded from his shoulders, catching the candlelight in prismatic bursts that mirrored the equations on the table.

"The High Council grows impatient," he rumbled, the words resonating at frequencies that made the nearby glass vessels vibrate. "Six more settlements disappeared in the night. Nothing remains but perfect geometric depressions in the earth, as though reality itself was... extracted."

Lania closed her eyes, forcing back the tears that threatened to spill. The dimensional math that Reed had transmitted burned behind her eyelids—not instructions, as they’d first believed, but warnings coded in the language of reality itself.

"We’ve been interpreting it wrong," she said, suddenly straightening. "Reed isn’t telling us how to fight the Watchers—he’s showing us how to become invisible to them."

Her fingers flew across the papers, rearranging equations with newfound clarity. "The Watchers don’t just consume realities; they digest them into their own structure. And the Voice Between harvests what remains. But Reed found a third path—neither resistance nor surrender."

She held up a parchment where the ink seemed to float above the surface. "Anchors. We need to create reality anchors."

The Obsidian Throne Room of the Fourth Domain echoed with the heated debates of the Nine Rulers. Sunlight filtered through stained glass, casting blood-red patterns across marble floors that had been pristine when the meeting began three days ago. Now they were stained with the aftermath of several "demonstrations" of the evolving goblin abilities.

Queen Merelith of the Seventh Domain retched violently as one of Varkath’s elite guards phased his arm through solid matter, emerging with a still-beating heart extracted from a condemned prisoner without breaking the skin. The goblin’s eyes—now entirely composed of swirling mathematical symbols—betrayed no emotion as the prisoner collapsed, his chest unmarked despite the fatal extraction.

"Abominations," hissed King Dorn, his weathered hand tightening around his scepter. "We fight monsters by becoming monsters?"

Lania stepped forward, her robes stiff with dried sweat and alchemical residues. "The goblins aren’t becoming monsters, Your Majesty. They’re evolving to perceive and manipulate dimensional boundaries. What looks like horrific magic is actually advanced science—exactly what Reed’s equations predicted."

She gestured to the map spread across the central table, where dozens of locations had been marked with obsidian pins. "These are the natural dimensional nexus points that have always existed in our world. Ancient civilizations built temples and monuments on these spots without understanding why they felt significant."

Varkath’s massive form lumbered forward, the crystalline growths on his body now forming complex geometric patterns that pulsed with inner light. "My scouts report that the goblin tribes near these nexus points are evolving faster than others. Their bodies are responding to something bleeding through from... elsewhere."

The rulers exchanged uneasy glances as Lania continued, "Reed’s plan requires us to build massive runic arrays at each nexus point—structures capable of anchoring our reality against outside influence. But the arrays alone aren’t enough."

Her voice dropped, heavy with the weight of what came next. "They require... pilots. Living anchors to guide them."

Blood-flecked foam sprayed from Commander Elric’s mouth as his body convulsed against the restraints. The runic array beneath him—carved into the living stone of the ancient temple—pulsed with sickly green light that seemed to penetrate his flesh, revealing the skeletal structure beneath in momentary flashes.

"Hold him!" Lania shouted, her hands pressed against the commander’s chest as mathematical formulas spilled from her lips. The twelve acolytes surrounding them chanted in unison, their voices creating harmonic patterns that manifested as visible waves in the air.

Outside the temple, thousands of workers labored under the watchful eyes of evolved goblin overseers, constructing a massive geometric structure that mirrored the constellations above. Similar constructions were underway at all nine nexus points throughout the united domains—a metaphysical defense grid based precisely on Reed’s specifications.

Elric’s screams suddenly ceased as his body went rigid. His eyes flew open, but what stared back at Lania was not human awareness—it was something vast and calculating, as though the commander now perceived reality through fundamentally different senses.

"The anchor is set," he said, his voice simultaneously emanating from his mouth and from the stone beneath them. "I can... see them now. The Watchers. They’re not eyes... they’re mouths."

Lania felt a chill crawl up her spine as Elric continued, his words becoming increasingly disjointed.

"They don’t just observe. They... consume. Digest. Incorporate. And the Voice Between... it isn’t just one entity. It’s a... collective consciousness formed from fragments of all consumed realities. A desperate... last... defense."

Blood trickled from Elric’s ears as his perception extended beyond the boundaries of their reality. "The anchors will work, but not as we thought. We aren’t hiding from the Watchers—we’re tethering our reality to make it... indigestible."

Around them, the runic array began to shift of its own accord, the symbols rearranging into configurations Lania had never seen—as though the mathematics themselves were evolving.

"Like bone splinters in the throat of a predator," Elric whispered, a grotesque smile spreading across his face.

Three weeks later, eight of the nine anchor sites hummed with power, each one controlled by a volunteer who had undergone the agonizing transformation into a living anchor. The ninth and final site—located at the convergence of three mountain ranges in the First Domain—had been prepared, but no anchor had yet been connected.

Lania stood at the edge of the massive runic array, watching as clouds gathered unnaturally above the structure. The air smelled of ozone and something else—something that reminded her of the metallic tang of fresh blood.

"The grid remains unstable without the final anchor," said Queen Merelith, who had insisted on witnessing the completion of the project personally. Her once-immaculate robes were now stained with the red dust that seemed to fall constantly near the anchor sites—microscopic particles that some claimed were fragments of other realities bleeding through.

"The volunteer arrives shortly," Lania replied, though her voice lacked conviction. The previous anchors had been chosen from among hardened warriors and condemned criminals—individuals whose minds could withstand the traumatic expansion of consciousness required. For the central anchor, however, they needed someone stronger.

The sound of approaching horses drew their attention. A small procession wound its way up the mountain path, led by a figure in white robes.

"Is that...?" Queen Merelith squinted against the unnatural light emanating from the array.

"High Priestess Shavia," Lania confirmed, her heart sinking. "She volunteered herself."

The priestess dismounted gracefully, her ageless face betraying no fear as she approached. For centuries, she had served as the spiritual leader of all Nine Domains, her wisdom guiding rulers through countless crises. Now, she would sacrifice herself to become the linchpin of Reed’s desperate gambit.

"The preparations are complete?" Shavia asked, her melodic voice at odds with the ominous rumbling from the array.

Lania nodded, unable to meet the priestess’s eyes. "Once you’re connected, the entire grid will activate. If Reed’s calculations are correct, our reality will become—"

"Anchored," Shavia finished. "Not hidden, not protected, but fixed in place. Immovable." She placed a comforting hand on Lania’s shoulder. "I’ve seen the truth in meditation, child. This is not just about survival—it’s about becoming something new."

Without further ceremony, Shavia walked to the center of the array and lay down upon the stone altar. The evolved goblins took their positions at key points, their crystalline growths pulsing in unison.

As the ritual began, the sky above darkened further, unnatural clouds swirling in geometric patterns. Shavia’s body arched as the first connections were established, but no sound escaped her lips. Instead, her consciousness expanded outward, touching each of the other eight anchors, forming a network of awareness that spanned the entire kingdom.

And then, something went wrong.

The priestess’s eyes snapped open, but instead of the expected transformation, they revealed pure terror. "It’s here!" she screamed, her voice distorted by forces beyond comprehension. "It found us—through the anchors themselves!"

Lania rushed forward, but an invisible barrier repelled her. The array’s runes were changing, shifting into configurations she had never seen in Reed’s equations.

"What’s happening?" shouted Queen Merelith as the ground beneath them began to tremble.

Through the barrier, Shavia’s body contorted impossibly, her flesh stretching and retracting as though being pulled by unseen hands. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as her consciousness was forcibly expanded beyond the boundaries Reed had calculated.

"Something’s using our anchors," Lania whispered in horror. "Using them to pull itself in rather than keep others out."

Above the central array, reality itself began to tear—not the chaotic rupture caused by Watcher incursions, but a precise, surgical opening. Through this perfect circular breach, something began to emerge: neither Watcher nor Voice Between, but something else entirely.

As consciousness fled the priestess’s body, her final words echoed not through air but directly into the minds of all present:

"The Primordial doesn’t want to destroy us... it wants to wear us."

The tear widened, and in the absolute darkness beyond, countless points of light appeared—like stars in a night sky, but moving with deliberate, intelligent purpose.

Watching.

Waiting.

Hungry.

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