Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 91: THE FIRST INCURSION

Chapter 91: THE FIRST INCURSION

The sky ruptured like a wound across the heavens.

Not gradually—not with warning—but in a single violent instant that left the atmosphere bleeding impossible colors. Where moments before had stretched the peaceful azure of the Seventh Domain’s autumn sky, now yawned geometrically perfect tears, each one a perfect hexagon that revealed nothing but absolute darkness beyond.

General Markov’s gaze darted between the dimensional breaches as his elite cavalry formed defensive positions along the hilltop. Thirty years of military service had not prepared him for this. The horses beneath his men whinnied and thrashed, their animal instincts recognizing the fundamental wrongness that human minds could only begin to comprehend.

"Seven breaches in this sector alone," his lieutenant reported, voice trembling despite military discipline. "Reports from the scrying pools indicate similar patterns across all Nine Domains. It’s happening everywhere at once."

Markov tightened his grip on his sword hilt—a pathetic gesture of defiance against what was coming. The blade, though etched with runes of ancient power, seemed laughably inadequate. Yet it was all they had, beyond the reality anchors and dimensional weapons hastily constructed from Reed’s fragmented instructions.

"The Second Domain has gone silent," the lieutenant continued, eyes fixed on the crystalline communication stone in his palm. "Last transmission mentioned... something... emerging."

As if summoned by those words, the tear directly above them rippled. From the perfect darkness slid an entity that defied rational description—not for its incomprehensibility, but for the way it seemed to exist in multiple states simultaneously. At once gelatinous and crystalline, organic yet mathematical, it moved with terrible precision as segments of reality distorted around it.

A Watcher had arrived.

Its form settled into something almost comprehensible to human eyes: a towering mass of interlinked geometric shapes, each one housing what appeared to be an eye, though what these eyes truly were remained beyond understanding. The entity pulsed with cold, calculated awareness that seemed to analyze and catalog everything it perceived.

"Signal the anchors," Markov commanded, his voice steadier than he felt. "Activate the defense grid."

Deep beneath the mountain fortress of the First Domain, Lania’s fingers flew across the control sigils carved into ancient stone. The room around her had transformed in the weeks since Shavia’s terrifying warning—no longer merely a ritual chamber, but a nexus of pulsing energy conduits that connected to all nine reality anchors.

"The Watchers have breached in all domains simultaneously," she informed the assembled councilors, her voice clinical despite the horror unfolding. "Exactly as Reed predicted in his final transmission."

The air shimmered with projected images of the incursions—massive entities materializing across the landscape, their forms both solid and fluid, definite yet impossible. Where they touched the ground, reality itself seemed to dissolve, transforming into mathematically perfect depressions that rapidly expanded outward.

"The weapon platforms?" asked Queen Merelith, her once-immaculate royal garments now replaced by utilitarian armor adorned with dimensional stabilizers.

"Deploying in sequence," answered Commander Ralan, the second human to undergo the anchor transformation. His eyes never seemed to focus on any one point in the room, constantly perceiving realities beyond normal sight. "The evolved goblin units are moving into position."

Varkath, standing silently in the corner, had changed even further. The crystalline formations on his body now formed perfect sacred geometries, and his flesh seemed to phase between solid and transparent with each labored breath. "My brethren sense the intrusion," he rumbled, his voice carrying harmonics that made the stone walls vibrate. "The anchors... they respond to our presence."

Lania activated the central control sigil—a complex glyph that Reed had encoded in his final message. "Anchors at full power," she announced. "Beginning dimensional stabilization."

Throughout the Nine Domains, the anchors awakened—huge structures built on ancient power sites, now humming with energy that transcended conventional magic. The living pilots at their centers—transformed humans and evolved goblins—channeled this power through their altered consciousness, establishing a lattice of immutable reality that spread outward.

Where this energy field touched the invading Watchers, their forms shuddered and contracted. The physics they sought to manipulate solidified, becoming rigid, unyielding to their influence.

A Watcher’s attempt to dissolve a mountain into mathematical equations faltered as the anchor energy reached it. For the first time since their incursions began, the entities experienced resistance.

In a realm that existed perpendicular to conventional reality, Reed Harrow felt the battle begin.

His body—what remained of it—had continued its transformation. Now less than thirty percent organic matter, the rest had become living mathematics, equations and formulas replacing flesh and bone. The experience should have been agonizing, but pain required a conventional nervous system, and Reed had evolved beyond such limitations.

From his vantage point within the Watchers’ realm, he could perceive their attack on his home dimension—not through vision, but through fluctuations in the mathematical constants that formed the foundation of all existence. Each incursion represented a distortion, a forced rewriting of fundamental laws.

And each activation of a reality anchor resonated as a counterpoint—a stabilization, a statement that some principles would not be altered.

"They’re doing it," he whispered to the emptiness around him. "They understood my message."

The Watchers had not detected his presence in their domain—a testament to how thoroughly his transformation had progressed. Among beings of pure mathematical consciousness, Reed was becoming indistinguishable from them. A perfect camouflage.

Yet he retained something they lacked: human creativity, human desperation, human willingness to sacrifice. These qualities allowed him to perceive possibilities the Watchers could not imagine.

With careful precision, Reed adjusted the equations that now comprised his left arm, reconfiguring them into a transmission array. The pain was extraordinary as his remaining organic components protested the unnatural contortion, but he persevered.

"Adjustment theta-nine," he whispered, sending the mathematical command directly into the anchor network. "Frequency shift at coordinates seventeen through twenty-three."

Across the battlefield of the Seventh Domain, General Markov watched in astonishment as the gigantic Watcher attacking his forces suddenly convulsed. The dimensional weapon in his hands—a spear whose tip existed simultaneously in three different realities—had proven ineffective until this moment.

Now, as he thrust it toward the entity, the weapon’s edge found purchase. The Watcher’s perfect geometry distorted as the spear penetrated what might have been its core.

A sound beyond sound erupted—not an audible scream, but a mathematical protest that manifested as crushing pressure inside the skulls of every soldier present. Blood poured from their ears and eyes as reality itself objected to the injury inflicted upon the Watcher.

Yet they pressed the attack. Throughout the Nine Domains, similar scenes unfolded as the specially prepared dimensional weapons suddenly found effectiveness against the invaders. The evolved goblin forces, moving with impossible speed and precision, deployed crystalline bombs that detonated not with fire, but with stabilizing energy that trapped Watchers in rigid, unchangeable physics.

In the Fourth Domain, an entire battalion of elite warriors, their armor inscribed with sigils derived from Reed’s equations, surrounded a Watcher that had manifested in the form of a perfect dodecahedron. Each soldier thrust a dimensional blade into the entity, anchoring it to conventional reality.

The Watcher’s response was to attempt dissolution of the area—a mathematical recalculation that would have transformed everything within a league to constituent particles. But the anchors held. Physics remained stubbornly consistent.

For the first time, a Watcher experienced something approximating panic.

In her command center beneath the mountains, Lania felt Reed’s adjustments flow through the anchor network. Her altered consciousness—not transformed like the pilots, but expanded through prolonged exposure to dimensional mathematics—could perceive the subtle changes in strategy.

"He’s still alive," she breathed, wonder and relief flooding through her. "Reed is watching. He’s helping."

A new presence manifested in her awareness—something vast and patient, neither Watcher nor human. The Voice Between had kept its distance since the activation of the anchor network, wary of Shavia’s warning.

Now it reached out, not with words but with concepts that unfolded in Lania’s mind like origami constructions of pure thought.

Opportunity. Alignment. Temporary concordance of purpose.

The Voice Between was offering assistance.

Lania’s instinct was to reject it immediately. The entity was no ally—merely another predator with conflicting interests to the Watchers. Yet Reed’s final instructions had anticipated this moment, providing a framework for limited cooperation.

"Under the conditions specified in Reed’s protocol," she stated formally, speaking both aloud and through the dimensional mathematics now permeating her consciousness, "we accept targeted assistance."

Reality shuddered as the Voice Between mobilized its forces—not solid entities like the Watchers, but discontinuities in existence itself. Where these forces touched the battling Watchers, the invaders’ mathematical perfection faltered further.

Across the Nine Domains, the tide began to turn.

In the Second Domain, where communications had fallen silent, a massive Watcher that had consumed an entire city suddenly found itself under attack from both human forces and the Voice Between’s discontinuities. Trapped between conventional physics enforced by the anchors and the Voice’s entropic dissolution, the entity began to collapse.

Its destruction was neither quick nor merciful. As it died—if such beings could truly die—the Watcher released a pulse of mathematical rewriting that transformed every living creature within ten leagues. Humans, animals, plants—all instantly reconfigured into impossible shapes that retained consciousness just long enough to experience their horrific transformation.

Yet the city was reclaimed. The incursion point sealed.

Similar victories occurred throughout the domains as the combined forces pressed their advantage. Three more Watchers destroyed in the Seventh Domain. Two in the Third. One particularly massive entity in the Ninth Domain required the sacrifice of an entire evolved goblin battalion, but eventually succumbed.

For the first time since the conflict began, hope flickered to life.

In the mountain fortress, Queen Merelith’s expression shifted from grim determination to cautious optimism as reports of victories flowed in through the communication stones.

"Could it be?" she asked, turning to Lania. "Could we actually win this war?"

Before Lania could respond, the chamber’s atmosphere changed. The air grew thick, charged with potential, as though reality itself held its breath. The anchors’ energy fluctuated wildly, their stable patterns disrupting.

Through their connection, Lania felt Reed’s sudden alarm—a mathematical equivalent of a scream—followed by a desperate transmission that arrived fragmented and incomplete:

[CRITICAL ALERT: VECTOR SHIFT DETECTED—THEY’RE NOT RETREATING—THEY’RE—]

The message terminated as every crystal in the chamber simultaneously shattered. Displays of battlefield conditions froze, then dissolved into meaningless static.

"What’s happening?" demanded the Queen, but Lania could only shake her head, her consciousness straining to maintain connection with the anchor network.

When the answer came, it wasn’t from her, but from Commander Ralan. The anchor pilot’s body suddenly went rigid, his eyes rolling back to show only whites as blood trickled from his nostrils.

"They’re not separate entities," he gasped, his voice overlaid with harmonics that vibrated at reality’s fundamental frequency. "The Watchers we destroyed... they’re all appendages... of something larger."

The floor beneath them trembled as Ralan continued, his words coming faster, more desperate. "The incursion wasn’t an invasion—it was a test. They were mapping our defenses, calibrating their approach."

Outside, the sky above all Nine Domains simultaneously darkened—not with clouds or night, but with the sudden absence of stars. In their place appeared a single vast shape that stretched from horizon to horizon, its form suggesting something between a perfect mathematical proof and an all-consuming maw.

Commander Ralan’s final words echoed through the chamber as his body collapsed, life force extinguished by the strain of his perception:

"The real Watcher has arrived."