Sovereign of the Karmic System

As the Warlord observed the portal close, leaving behind the elementals' angered army, he predicted the future that awaited him and his people. He did not believe that the clash between the two groups was a lone incident, but the beginning of a long and bloody conflict.. Of that, he was sure.

The elemental ancestors of the spatial, dark and light essence were the ones who had framed his people, as shown by their intentions in either silencing them, or using the infighting to gather authority among the elemental army's leaders.

Knowing this, he could imagine what kind of conversations were being had among their enemy's ranks. Voices that twisted obscure lies just enough for them to sound like convenient truths, painting them as the invaders who, just like all cultivators before them, desired to treat the peaceful elemental race not as a community with whom they needed to coexist, but as a bountiful crop awaiting harvesting.

At this point, the possibility of conflict was a guarantee.

----

What followed the first interaction between the two armies was in line with what the Warlord had predicted. Several years of bloody conflicts which, fueled by the rumors the two groups had created, fueled itself into entering a never ending cycle.

These stories told tales of terrible exploitations of war prisoners, pure discrimination, and terrible fates reserved for the party that would ultimately lose. The most shared stories, however, were the ones that spoke on the two main players of this game of chess. The Lord of Elementals, and the Warlord of the Immortal Armada.

The latter was portrayed as the epitome of the deranged cultivator. A mortal who spilled the blood of countless enemies while threading a path of conquest and domination, and who now used his corruption to gain even more power in an attempt to steer clear of his one and only fear.. A mortal's natural yet inevitable enemy.. Death.

His current goal, as shown by the many cultivators spotted traveling the void in search of treasures of spatial nature, was that of taking over this universe by stepping over the corpse of the elemental race. A theory that, by being neither confirmed nor denied by the leadership of the Elemental army, had taken root in the minds of the bulk of its people.

Among the mortals that inhabited the capital ships of the Immortal Armada, on the other hand, different stories were shared. Stories that portrayed the entirety of the Elemental army as a corrupted and invasive force of nature, whose goal was the complete annihilation of any sapient creature.

Official scouts' reports were not needed to cement this idea in the cultivator's minds. After all, most of the Immortal Armada had personally witnessed the first contact between the two species. They remembered the day an infinitely long list of names had reached their ship, notifying anyone with a relative or friend present in the ships that had been hit, that their loved ones had died.

To add to this idea, were the movements the cultivators had observed, which mostly consisted in the elemental army expanding its territory, colonizing the most hazardous planets as if they were as homely as the mortals' home planets. A task they completed with no effort.. After all, what danger did a gas giant pose on a wind elemental? What did light and fire elementals have to fear from the blinding power of a star?

Elementals did not need to feed or breathe. Their power grew faster the more intense the essence they were born from was. In a way, they were not unlike an invasive species that, in absence of cultivators, their natural predators, were free to grow to new heights. Heights their species had long forgotten.

In an universe that offered them this opportunity, a cultivator's mind would not allow them to believe the elementals to be willing to coexist, for the simple fact that, had they been in the same position, would they?.

As time passed, each group's view of the other worsened, to a point where the idea of reconciliation often proposed by the two leaders by their respective people had been poorly received to say the least.

----

SCIA Zion, Product Testing department.

The response to the beginning of hostilities between the Immortal Armada and the Elemental Army was not equal across the board. Just like in the Elemental Army there were groups that were kept away from war, and were instead tasked to focus on colonization, the Immortal Armada had more than one goal.

More specifically, the sealing of the interdimensional portal. A task that once comprised the majority of the Armada's attention, but that now had been forced to split with the army's military effort.. Causing for the development of their most promising project to be delayed indefinitely.

Abandoned in their goal of gathering spatial treasures, after years of constant searching, the scavenging team of the Immortal Armada had finally delivered their second to last bulk of treasures, bringing the theoretical completion of the project to ninety percent.

"How is the search going? Have you been struggling?" An old woman with short white hair, amiable facial features, and pink colored eyes asked while fiddling with a pair of bottleneck glasses. As she spoke, her eyes wandered on top of the several piles of essence treasures placed in front of her, which to a common human, would appear as a pile of glass shards and oddly colored gems.

The person this old woman was talking to was also a woman, human in appearance, yet as unique as the old woman's eye color.

With skin of a light brown color, scarlett colored hair gathered into thick dreadlocks that reached all the way to the bottom of her shapely figure, and eyes that matched magma in both color and brilliance, this woman was leaning against the metallic wall. Her attention seemed to be aimed at a short tribalistic knife, whose point she used to clean her nails off of what appeared to be dried greenish blood.

"Finding more isn't an issue." the red-haired woman said without moving an inch. Her dark red, almost black lips did not move, as her words were spoken through threads of sound essence, and not through her vocal cords. "The real problem is the squids."

"The what?" The old woman asked, unable to hide the entirety of the worry she was feeling.

Once again, the red-haired woman's mellow voice resounded into the other's ears. "The champions of Conclusion. The tentacle monsters that break apart universes." She explained. "Almost had one of the big ones crossing into one of our portals.. We lost a few of ours to kill it."

The old lady lowered her shoulders, and her face showed signs of sadness and worry. It was only after she noticed that the red-haired woman did not share her state of mind, that she said, "Your job is almost over.. At this rate you should be done within a couple of months. Just, be careful."

For the first time the red-haired woman showed interest in the conversation. Her expression softened. Used to working alone for hundreds of years, she had gotten used to not having anyone who would worry about her. Now, however, because of her mission, she had had the chance of meeting the old lady plenty of times, giving her a chance to develop some affection.

"I will." She muttered to herself as her attention returned to the task at hand.

Relieved by this small progress, the old lady showed a warm smile that soon morphed into an enthusiastic one. "But tomorrow. Today, I have another mission for you." she said, once again catching the attention of the red-haired woman.

"Now that we almost have enough materials to charge the formation, we only need to test the formation itself. I have created a simplified version of it." She then added before opening one of her desk's drawers, from which she hastily pulled a large scrolls she then laid on the table.

On this scroll was a depiction of the interdimensional portal, as well as the area of stabilized space which surrounded it, a drawing both had seen more than once before. But that was not all..

Drawn in red lines over the portal's depiction was the skeleton of the formation, next to which were written the words Amber Stone in the same color. Similar was a second set of green lines, much smaller, and that only covered a fraction of the surface of the interdimensional portal.

The purpose of the small formation became clear the moment the red-haired woman looked at it. It was a miniature version of the original formation which, instead of being used to seal the entire portal, only sealed enough to allow the scientific team to confirm their theory before installing the original formation.

"What do you need my help for?" the red-haired woman asked, confused by why the most senior of the scavenger team would be required for such a trivial matter.

The old woman smiled once again, "I thought I could keep you out of trouble for a day." She said right before reaching for the watch she was wearing on her right arm, and pressing a metallic button present on its side.

As she pressed this button, the watch reacted.. From underneath it, a layer of liquid expanded, traveling over the old lady's skin and covering it completely. Her right arm, her chest, her waist, then the rest of her body.. All covered in a liquid-like suit that separated her from her surroundings. Once complete, a handful of minuscule pearls had appeared on the woman's watch, each an elemental sphere aimed at sustaining either one of the suit's inner functions. An breathable atmosphere, a tolerable temperature, and proper durability.

"So you are fine with using an elemental astrosuit, but using a computer to log your experiments' results is too much?" the red-haired woman asked while shaking her head in feigned disappointment.

"Hehe. Come on Kiara, let's go. I don't want to drift into space for the little bit of life I have left." said the old lady before approaching the red-haired woman, who shook her head once again as she quietly juggled with her knife. As the knife landed on her palm, she gripped it tightly, and used it to slash downwards, creating a small portal that led just outside the stable field that surrounded the interdimensional portal.

Together, the two traveled to the lake-like surface of the interdimensional portal, stopping only inches away from its surface.

As the two came to a halt, the old lady took a handful of spatial spheres from within her spatial ring, which soon began to drift around after hitting one another. "Here, place them in this position." She told the scavenger since, of the two, she was the only cultivator.

Kiara followed the instructions, and soon placed each spatial sphere in the right position, forming a circular formation that, layered over the portal's surface, only covered a small fraction. "Here goes nothing.." The now nervous scavenger muttered before finally connecting the spheres together.

In an instant, the focal points of the formation connected. Each adapting to the specific type of power the core sphere emanated. Specifically, the concept of solid space. Each additional connection exponentially increased the power of the formation, until finally, all one hundred of them were connected.

As the formation was activated, Kiara immediately noticed a change. The surface covered by the formation, once as fluid as a mirror of water, had suddenly come to a complete halt, rendering that small part of the interdimensional portal completely unusable.

The old lady revealed a deep smile. A smile of satisfaction, achievement, and relief. Amber Stone was her project, and learning that the faith of her people had been placed on her work, had caused her to feel an immense amount of pressure. However, that pressure was now gone. Her formation worked.. Her theory was valid, and her people would be safe thanks to her. As her emotions surged, she forgot that she was wearing a suit, and instinctively tried to clear the tears that had started running down her cheeks with the back of her wrist.

"You did it." Said the red-haired woman to the old lady, who quickly turned around to face her.

Before the eyes of the two could meet, however, the old lady's attention was caught elsewhere. A few dozen feet to her left, where a monstrous humanoid creature with gray and oily skin had just appeared. The eyes of the two met, and just as the creature decided to showcase his two rows of long sharp teeth, the old lady felt a pain in her chest.

As she looked down, she noticed the lower part of her body float away, separated from her torso.