"Eh, why’s nothing happening? System, is there an issue somewhere?" The cluster seemed to have stopped spreading, and it appeared that all the beasts had been contained, but it was supposed to be barrier compression, not containment
"System?"
"..."
"System!"
"Stupid thing, I’ll go check it out myself" With that thought, I focused my omnipresence skill, as my line of sight shifted, and I found myself on the mortal plane.
I materialised soundlessly in the mortal plane; my form bore the shape of a man; yes, I’m a man, I know, but it was no longer flesh. My skin carried a faint translucence, as though my physical form had been replaced by something woven from light and the thinnest veil of reality. My hair drifted weightlessly around my face, silver-white strands catching on a light that seemed to originate from within. My golden eyes, though, remained the most solid part of me, bright enough to make my ethereal body feel almost secondary.
I’d activated this skill before, but then it was to test how the skill worked; I had never paid attention to my appearance. It’s odd how omniperception works: you can see basically everything at once, but you can’t see anything until your attention is on it.
But now, my attention had to be on what was happening with these beasts.
I moved to another location, my now opaquely golden eyes skimming over the entrapped beasts and their current condition.
’Wait... is that me?’ Looking over where I was previously, I was there.
No, I don’t mean I was standing there; I mean I was still standing there, the same white hair, the same figure. An eerily replicated manifestation. I tried moving to its, the figure’s, my? Location, and I did, but across from me in the same spot I just stood, there I still was.
’It must be another aspect of the omnipresence skill; I’m not moving, I’m omnipresent, so I’m just... taking up the space I am supposed already in, because I’m already in the space..." The thought I landed on didn’t make an infinitesimal amount of sense to me, but it was the only plausible explanation.
’No, how does this work? There are two of me? Wait, that’s not right; I’m in two places at once. Yes, that somehow makes more sense. But I’m only seeing through one pair of eyes; what’s the point of omnipresence if I’m present everywhere but can’t perceive everything?’
And that’s when it clicked.
’Omniperception is a skill of its own for a reason, and so is omnipresence; I could be everywhere at once, but not perceive everything at once, because the issue isn’t my presence; it’s my perception, I’m so used to my focused perception that I took the skill as a whole for granted’ It was simple answer, almost stupidly so, but yet it was a much needed epiphany.
And so, for the first time in my time as a God, I did it, or at least I tried to; Focusing on my omniperception skill was like being thrown into a tsunami, the influx hit me with a sensation that I could describe as having your ears taped to the side of a revving jet engine while your eyes were glued to a movie screen with the luminosity of a prison searchlight, as for the olfactory aspect of it all...I’m just glad that Gods don’t need to eat, so technically we can’t just throw up, or else.
Eventually, dialling down the skill felt like grabbing onto a lifeline that was in my hands all along.
"Geez, someone remind me to never do that again?" The sensory assault left a lingering ache behind my eyes, causing me to groan softly as I rubbed my temples, but a suddenly approaching golden glow derailed my train of thought from that matter
’Oh, it appears the Shelter has already expanded to here’
’Wait... It’s moving too fast to be the barrier, and it’s too small, and it’s hurtling straight at me’ Counting off its details, it grew nearer and nearer; before I could react, it was already right in front of me. I braced for impact, but it just phased through me.
’Oh right, Astral form’, a deprecating chuckle escaped my lips as I turned, watching as the unidentified flying object flew1 into the distance.
But right above my head, more of these glowing lights zipped past me towards the same position as the first one. Amidst this, the barriers around me that contained the feral beasts began to vibrate with an abrupt, high-pitched resonance as they took off with startling speed, launching into the sky, then shooting towards the same spot as the other objects.
’Wait! The unidentified flying objects are barrier-contained curse beasts! But... Why are they converging?’
My line of sight shifted in a breath’s moment to the point of convergence; a burning yellow glow bathed my ethereal form as my consciousness settled into another one of my presences there. Looking up, I was met with a terrifyingly breathtaking sight, as golden lights zipped across the sky like meteors, converging into what I could only describe as a blazing sun, a sun that held thousands of frenzied beasts, and if that sun shattered...the result would be catastrophic, especially to the other territories that lacked a protection as absolute as mine.
But, as always, reality never waited for anyone, not even a God; the feverish yellow glow that once bathed me began to recede, not because the sphere was losing its glow, but because the source of that glow was shrinking in on the beasts within it.
What followed wasn’t the cry of animals in agony, or the agitation of a creature on their last straw. It was a frenzy, one so wild, one so feral, one so uncharacteristically rabid even for beasts of their nature, that I took a step back, the scratching of claws against the slowly enclosing sphere, the sound of flesh ripping as they tore each other apart, the squelching of internal parts compressing on each other, and the tar like blood that pooled more and more with each passing moment, the sound of crunching bones, a series of crisp, chilling echoes that grew louder with each passing moment until finally...
Silence.
The massive orb was gone, but on the ground right below where it hovered sat a red-grey marble.
Unassuming in its innocence, horrific in its origin.
The marble was almost beautiful; the reds gleamed in the sunlight the blacks absorbed.
The tremor in my hand was unmistakable as I folded forward to pick it up, rolling it between my fingers slowly. Meanwhile, I felt a presence pass through my Astral form; it was soothing in its familiarity, a comfortable sensation that made me unconsciously close my eyes and lean into it.
"Finally", the words left my lips in a whisper as the Shelter had expanded to that point and was still stretching outward.
Pun intended