Chapter 132: The World Devourer

The shadow carved deep into the temple walls remained motionless. Its enormous silhouette stretched across the ruined, cracked planet depicted in the records.

Even after the tremors subsided, nobody dared to speak. The quiet hung over the stone chamber, thick with sudden dread.

Raviah stared at the mural image, remembering the colossal darkness she had glimpsed during her earlier vision of distant worlds. Back then, she had wondered whether it was merely a remnant of a destroyed civilization.

Now, she understood that the darkness had a name.

The World Devourer.

“Elyndra,” Raviah said, breaking the suffocating silence. “I want every surviving record concerning this creature. If it has ended previous planetary cycles, we need to understand how it operates before we can prepare for its arrival.”

The Keeper of Memories nodded gravely.

“Our ancestors preserved what they could, but the oldest records are incomplete,” Elyndra explained. “Some were destroyed during the previous collapse. Others remain inaccessible, even to our most experienced keepers.”

“Then show us everything that remains,” Raviah demanded, her voice firm.

Elyndra stepped forward and pressed her pale palm flat against the central pillar.

For several moments, nothing happened, and the silence stretched tight. Then faint silver lines appeared beneath the smooth black surface, spreading outward until the seven surrounding monoliths illuminated the chamber once more.

A new light projection emerged in the center of the room.

Unlike the previous bright images of flourishing civilizations, this projection depicted a vast darkness suspended far beyond a planet’s atmosphere.

Its shape resembled neither a conventional organism nor a recognizable machine. Countless luminous fragments surrounded its central mass, forming a shifting structure that obscured the stars behind it.

Elias stepped up to the light, leaning closer to inspect the projection.

“Is that its actual appearance?” Elias asked, staring at the shifting mass.

“We cannot be certain,” Elyndra answered, her voice echoing off the stone walls. “The records were created by civilizations that observed it from a distance. None of our surviving accounts describes a successful direct examination.”

The projection flickered and changed scenes.

A brilliant network of energy veins spread across the surface of the planet below. Mountains glowed from within, oceans shimmered with pure elemental power, and enormous crystalline formations rose straight from the continents.

“The Primordial Source,” Raviah murmured, her eyes wide as she watched the display.

“Yes,” Elyndra confirmed. “According to the oldest records, the World Devourer does not approach a planet at the beginning of its transformation. It appears when the Source reaches full activation.”

Rhyder folded his arms across his chest, his jaw set.

“Define full activation,” Rhyder said, watching the glowing veins on the projected globe.

“The point at which the planet’s elemental networks have become sufficiently developed to sustain the final stage of the cycle,” Elyndra explained smoothly.

“The Source spreads through the crust, oceans, atmosphere, and living organisms. Its energy becomes concentrated across the entire world.”

The image shifted dramatically as the monstrous darkness began descending toward the world.

A blinding ring of light expanded around the planet’s orbit.

Then the surface began to disappear entirely.

The destruction happened not through explosions or ordinary fire, but through a rapidly spreading, hollow absence.

Crystalline forests vanished into nothingness. Mountains lost their luminous veins, oceans dimmed instantly, and the planet’s elaborate energy network collapsed into scattered, dying points of light.

Raviah felt her stomach tighten into a hard knot. She instinctively brushed her fingers against the dimensional spatial ring on her hand, drawing comfort from the vast, hidden sanctuary nestled safely within her spatial dimension.

“It consumes the energy itself,” Raviah whispered, watching the world turn to ash.

“That is what our ancestors believed,” Elyndra replied, her tone solemn. “The World Devourer appears to absorb the accumulated energy of a fully awakened planet. The resulting collapse destroys the existing ecological and energetic structure.”

“And the intelligent species?” Elias asked, stepping back from the dying sphere.

The Keeper lowered her eyes to the cold floor.

“Most perish,” Elyndra said. “Some attempt to flee into the black. Others fight until their civilizations are erased.”

The projection displayed a final, horrifying scene: a dead, grey world drifting beneath a pitch-black sky, its surface stripped bare of every crystalline structure that had once covered it.

Rhyder’s expression hardened into stone.

“If Earth follows the same pattern, we need to know how much time remains before the Source reaches full activation,” Rhyder stated.

“That is precisely what our records cannot establish,” Elyndra admitted, shaking her head slowly. “Every cycle differs. Some civilizations endured for generations after the first awakening. Others collapsed much sooner.”

Raviah looked away from the fading projection, her mind racing through the chaos Earth had already endured.

The planet’s chaotic transformation had already produced powerful Elementals, ravenous Zerg swarms, mutated beasts, the newly awakened Aera, and the extraordinary, thriving ecosystem expanding inside her private spatial dimension.

The facility had confirmed that the current cycle was well underway, while the crystalline networks deep beneath the earth continued to wake up.

How close was Earth to reaching its final stage?

And if the World Devourer consumed the Primordial Source’s accumulated energy, what would happen to all the living lifeforms that depended on it?

Before she could ask her question aloud, a sudden, violent pulse passed straight through the temple.

Every single crystalline vein running along the stone walls brightened to a blinding glare.

Raviah’s internal core responded, pulsing with heat, and her root reached out instinctively toward the surrounding energy network. For a fraction of a second, an overwhelming shockwave hit her mind as she sensed an immense, terrifying presence far beyond the atmosphere.

Then, the familiar, gentle resonance of the celestial visitor swept softly through her consciousness.

A glowing silver projection formed directly above the central pillar.

The enormous being hovered against the empty darkness of space, its translucent membranes glowing with pale silver light. However, its radiant image flickered violently, distorted by a strange, unfamiliar interference.

Rhyder immediately took a swift step closer, shifting his broad frame in front of Raviah.

“Is it communicating with us?” Rhyder asked, his hand dropping toward his weapon.

“Yes,” Raviah whispered, instantly recognizing the same ancient presence that had first descended above Sol Haven.

The celestial visitor transmitted a rapid sequence of vivid images directly into her mind: Earth spinning in space, the luminous energy network pulsing deep beneath its surface, and a distant, pitch-black region of space where an enormous shadow moved between the stars.

The approaching shadow was larger than the celestial being itself.

Its massive central core swallowed the surrounding starlight as it advanced, leaving only a hollow void of absolute darkness in its wake.

Raviah’s blood ran ice-cold in her veins.

The visitor’s telepathic message entered her consciousness with intensity, carrying a desperate urgency she had never felt from it before.

“The World Devourer has detected your source,” the entity broadcasted.

The visual projection shifted violently above them.

The colossal cosmic shadow accelerated, tearing through space and crossing the vast distance between the star systems with terrifying speed.

Then the visitor delivered its final, ominous warning.

“It is already moving toward Earth.”

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