Singularity

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Damn it all."

"Twilight will begin to shroud Polaris, clearing the skies for the Moon's Light! He told us that, you know! Just days ago! But- oh! Never would I have thought the truth to be so sweet. The irony is richer than the most aged of wines. To think, the Devil the humans of Polaris were so slighted by possess the very light which they covet. Oh! I've awaited this day for centuries."

The crackling sounds of thunder in the not-too-far distance forced another burst of laughter from my lungs. But just I could not help it. The truth was now out in the air and its taste was pure ecstasy.

We were scrying when Doyle asked the most important question last night and we all heard Amun's answer. We all slept on it and arose to listen to Amun's lesson on the radiant energies. We all observed his demonstration of combining and fusing light and darkness. We all witnessed him blessing his party with his Moonlight.

Even Doyle Wolfgang was blessed.

And the humans were furious.

Most of them anyway. Though they all were present, minus the biggest child of all, of course. But even the brightest light had blessed us with his presence. His fingernails had long since turned blue and remained on the verge of spilling blood around his precious throne ever since. Though his face remained still with the mastery one gained from centuries of political courting.

Those unaffiliated with Polaris, however, were as overjoyed as I.

Though they dared not show it behind meek snickers, whispers, and smirks.

I made it a point to position myself where I could study each of them and the event in question passively. But now, I just couldn't contain myself. For those spineless humans, I would press on. "How folly must your insight be; to bare your teeth at God?"

"Bah!" A human from who-cared-where spat out. "He may have light but he is not divinity! He has no divine energies!"

"That's where you're wrong, child!" I laughed. "The Champion was born a God, graced by the Creator himself. But divine energy is born from faith. How many would you say have faith in Amun? God or otherwise. Look at the members of his party and tell me yourself."

I followed his eyes across the screens. First to the butte where Baker Party and, in particular, Lance was stationed. In that party alone were a slew of Maruleans who undoubtedly believed Amun could conquer Ulai and close off the portals to his realm.

If the elves could do it, Telin's Champion was no exception.

His eyes then fell to the second butte, holding Alpha Party. A group that had fewer Maruleans, but with nearly just as many people devoted to the elfling as the other parties.

Except for his own, of course.

Many of them were still basking in the gentle light. Those that weren't were silently melding into the darkness like Amun or a drow would.

The students on the first screen, however, were cowering from the overbearing light of the Morningstar child. Even as he ascended above the clouds and drifted above the plains, they were seen hiding behind trees and rock alike.

Like the polar opposites they were, they drifted high above the clouds to suffuse the environment with their arcane magic.

From the scrying point, far away but magnified and stretched to the limits of perception, I could see Lance drawing a bow of radiant light. But Amun just smiled tauntingly until Lance fired.

Even with scrying that could keep pace with light, Amun's reaction was a blur. His arm faded from reality, reappearing across his side as if he were reaching into a pouch. Then the perspective switched to show the arrow of light trailing away at a downward angle, directly in the tower column of rock that housed Alpha Party.

A massive chunk of stone blew away from the explosive impact, but the pillar remained standing nevertheless. Seen as an angry maw gorging itself on the endless grasses around it.

Its peak, however, responded at once with flashes of fire and lightning aimed at Baker Party. Meanwhile, Lance was backing away, his eyes wide and a film of sweat reflecting the auburn glow of the coming dawn.

And Amun, the harbinger of chaos, was laughing as boisterously as I.

His laughs seemed to stir Lance from his stupor, as he scowled and began emptying his Well into a massive ball of light overhead. But again, Amun just smiled and waited.

Even as Zeke Silva raced up to meet them, Amun kept his amiable gaze on Lance and cast a spatial domain with but a flick of the finger. Encompassing him and Lance in an enclosed space of unthinkable volumes.

On the outside, Silva and Ash, and Toril along with several others seemed as if they were suspended in mid-air, yet they continued accelerating under the force of their magic until perpetuity. Giving them a first-hand view of the Champion infusing the purple mana that was gravitational energy into his voice and shouting a single word just as the sun itself rain down on him.

"Quasar!"

The energy poured from his voice and condensed in the infinite space between him and Lance in an instant and the Mortal Plane itself seemed to react. Like the legendary Tarrasque had awoken or like a finger was pushed through parchment, the ground swelled upward before shattering into colossal plates and boulders that were then pulled upwards towards an indomitable mass of horrendously screeching darkness.

It looked similar in appearance to the void. But the space around it seemed to distort as if the light was… bending around it. Revolving in an ever-accelerating disk shape around the magic just like the tons and hundreds of tons of rubble torn from the ground below.

And Lance's star as well.

Just like the debris, the miniature sun Lance threw was drawn into a funnel and pulled into a violent spin around the mass of darkness at an ever-increasing rate. Each revolution brought it closer and closer to the edge of darkness, spun it faster and faster, made the energy glow hotter and hotter until it dipped over the horizon, and annihilation flashed before our eyes.

The screens were bright enough to make even the brightest light shield his eyes and turn back as quickly as possible. And like all of us, what he saw shook him to his core.

Twin jets of the brightest radiant energy one could conceive were ejecting from the poles. One towards the ground an infinite distance below and the other towards the never-ending sky at an off-angle. And like fleas on a dog, Amun and Lance were somewhere on either side of the massive concentration of material and energy. One shying away with horror while the other was spread eagle, cackling madly and screaming to the heavens.

"Charge!"

Like the tentacles of an abyssal sea creature, the plumes reacted to the dull-gray ripples sent out by Amun's voice and turned inwards on their caster to flow into him like rivers leading to the Feywild.

The abundant energy seemed to disappear as it flowed into his body. Though I could all but see the energy making its way through the Ki paths to sustain and enrich his body to a point far beyond its limits.

When the plumes faded, the abyssal void and the domains Amun had created thus far disappeared with it. With its absence, the force that had been keeping the light and material in a dance around the void was no more. It shout out like an omnidirectional wave of light that swept across the impossible distance in instant to erase everything but the blue sky itself.

Including Lance Morningstar.

Through the scrying pinned to his clothes, all we saw was him rocketing away from Amun before the safeties in his clothes kicked in and darkness consumed the screen. From elsewhere, however, we saw a glint of light before Baker Party's butte shattered from the inside out.

The damage done was far more extensive than what was done to Alpha party, but neither were they spared. A glint of light came from the ground before their pillar undulated just as Baker Party's had done.

Just from him flying into it, Amun bored a hole straight through the butte. Forming a pit on the cliff face that ejected solid sheets of stone across the ground before the entire thing collapsed into a wave of bedrock and boulders and cocooned bodies.

All that was left was a mix of Alpha and Baker Party members that equated to twenty-one humanoids, all staring back in horror at their destroyed territories. Many of them were the Maruleans from Amun's home country, along with a few lucky ones who were saved by others like the halfling from Baker Party.

Meanwhile, the fifteen blessed members of Cooke Party still had yet to be seen. And wouldn't be seen still. Not until Amun shouted a final time.

"New Moon!"

The spell came down from above as if it were a song chorused by a god.

Not as if. It was.

Spoken by Amun himself, the mix of light and darkness he called Pale Light rained down from above to summon the glowing globe he called the Moon up to him.

As it ascended, so too did the tons and tons of rubble that both pillars had been reduced to. In a never-ending stream of rock, the debris accelerated toward the globe, now high above the clouds.

Eventually, the several cocoon-wrapped casualties of Alpha and Baker Party that were caught in the pull were later pried away by another force, leaving hanging in the air around Amun like dust while still, the rocks ascended.

The stream accelerated constantly until the boulders either announced contact with a dull thud or zipped past the Moon in a blur and was sent on another go around or perhaps another before impacting at last. Growing the orb bit by bit until the benevolent, featureless eye of god was seen staring down on the Mortal Plane.

Only then did Amun clasp his hands before him as if in prayer. The radiant energy coursing through him faded soon after; or rather, was closed off. Permitting his sonorous voice to be heard among the zealous screams of his comrades.

"Receive the blessing of the Blood-Soaked Moon."

While the wrapped victims drifted slowly to the ground, everyone's gaze outside of Amun's Party lifted to see the impossibly round rock take on a dull crimson hue.

Its light poured down on the scattered motes of light that was Amun's party, roaring, screaming, and lashing out with as much fervor as his undead.

They were without despair. Their enemy was without hope. They were accompanied by platoons of undead lingering in the shadows, striking from the darkness and loosing arrows and flinging spells and lashing out with swords and spears alike in tandem with the blessed classmates of their sovereign.

And what a blessing it was.

They were faster. Stronger. More resilient and durable. So much so that the human fighters, Samson and Winston, were fighting on par with the strength of Amethyst and Zarzok. The others were dropping their opponents like flies. First by ones. Then by twos. Then in groups when the living and dead pounced on whoever was left without mercy.

And all the while, Amun was just standing there. Waiting. Grinning. Watching through the Light of the Moon.

"Change is here!" I gushed with joy. "And oh, what a glorious change it is! Rejoice!" I stood from my chair to begin prancing through the room like a zealous preacher- like me in the days of old. Before I made my departure from the tunnels far below. "A glorious future awaits us! How blessed are we, to witness the birth of the Champion? Immensely!

"How cursed are you?" I wheeled around and paused in between the gaze of Dende Morningstar and the empty screen that represented his incapacitated son and laughed at the flexing jaws, the creased wrinkles, and the screaming eyes. "To have invoked the ire of the creator's Champion, the God of the Moon, and Twilight? Oh." I giggled. "I so hope he is without mercy when he comes to judge you. You humans of the light have stepped on the inhuman born in the dark for far too long.

"But now." I smiled. "Our God is here to free us all."