“I hoped you would show more remorse.” Suriel didn’t have the same rage as the other Judges—she understood Ozriel, at least to some degree—but she couldn’t say she wasn’t angry.
He could be forgiven for trying to solve an impossible situation, but he had tried to solve it in the same way he always did. By himself.
“It’s hard to hear about this level of destruction and not be grieved,” Ozriel said. “The difference between us and the other six is that we were grieving before.”
The Way shuddered around them as they crashed through a barrier. It shattered before them and didn’t even slow them down, but the barrier wasn’t designed to keep them out.
“That was made to detect Judges,” Suriel said. “They’re ready for us.”
Ozriel tipped backward as though letting himself fall into a pool of water. “No, they’re not.”
Effortlessly, he splashed into the closest Iteration.
Iteration 074: Spawn
Gerravon of the Silverlords remembered Ozriel.
The Reaper had been the most feared enemy of their organization for millennia, and hearing that Ozriel was back had caused many Silverlords to pull out of Abidan worlds permanently. But the Mad King insisted that the Reaper was not what he once was.
So Gerravon plundered Spawn, an Iteration rife with unique life-forms. His people gathered creatures from all over the central three planets, transporting biological samples into Void-striding transport ships the size of countries.
His core power was known as the Hundred Hands of Terra Mara, and his will manifested a giant hand that scooped up an entire section of rainforest. The Hand vanished, reappearing inside a transport, where it would transplant the rainforest into a biological containment chamber without Gerravon’s conscious intervention.
A dozen more of his Hands clashed against Abidan all over the Sector, but those battles had faded quickly. Now the Abidan were either fleeing or devoting all their power to protecting themselves, leaving this treasure trove of a world unguarded.
Then the boundary alarm the Silverlords had placed around the Sector broke, and he felt two Judges heading his way.
Everyone in the Sector heard the alarm at the same time, and Gerravon abandoned his prizes. He recalled all his Hands, and all over Iteration Zero-Seven-Four, the other Silverlords prepared themselves as well.
Void portals opened and transports ran through, traveling to one of the Vroshir homeworlds.
His heart sped up and his eyes sharpened as he searched space for any intrusions. They were using a classic Judge trap, designed around the fact that the Judges could only focus their full power on one world at a time. While the Vroshir in one Iteration stalled the Judge, the others could escape. And since Abidan prioritized stabilizing worlds over eliminating the enemy, the stalling group could often get away as well.
They were executing this plan over half a dozen different Sectors, but it looked like Gerravon and his group were the unlucky ones who would have to put it to the test.
They would see if this trap would hold against Ozriel. To see if he was really weakened, as the Mad King claimed.
Gerravon had knowingly taken the risk for the potential rewards, but he had very much hoped the Reaper wouldn’t show up at all.
The entire Iteration shook as Death entered.
Seals triggered around Ozriel, the black-armored figure that floated above Spawn’s central planets. He was surrounded by symbols formed from a dozen different energy systems, all calling on the Void or the power of strange worlds to imprison him.
A Class Two Fiend erupted from the Void like a twisted mutant serpent large enough to take bites out of planets. It swallowed Ozriel whole, but Gerravon wasn’t going to wait around to see the results.
He ran. One of his Hands grabbed him, and when it opened a second later, he was on the bridge of one of the transport ships. A swirling portal into the dark Void opened in front of them.
Gerravon felt the trembling pulses of power throughout the universe and, in spite of himself, he cast his awareness behind.
The seals and the Fiend were gone. Just gone.
His Presence alerted him that, of the sixteen transports, now only fifteen remained. There was no cause that he could sense; nothing had changed except the number of transports.
Then it changed again. Fourteen.
As the oldest Silverlord in this operation and the one with the most experience, Gerravon was the first to pull out his trump card. Several of his Hands moved throughout the three planets and triggered weapons. Cascade bombs.
In seconds, the central planets would crack and die, weakening the Iteration’s connection to the Way. If Ozriel stopped the bombs, that was attention he couldn’t pay to the Vroshir.