I saw the High Queen moving her hand, to push all the smoke obscuring the view of the bottom of the crater, just as I landed on the ground, very close to the edge of the hole.
I have to confess, that I briefly looked to check what was there, and I noticed a dark shape. It was pitch black, laying directly on the rocky surface. It reacted to the disturbance picking itself up, slowly. It was more or less human-sized but had very thin limbs. Moreover, it seemed to be very slow, like it had all the time in the world.
This view made me stop. I know that in the middle of a battle such behavior should be called reprehensible, but I wasn't the only one who put a hold on taking any action. Ixa did the same, which surprised me very much.
She watched as the creature slowly turned around, and opened its eyes to look at her.
There were no eyeballs, just empty holes, even darker than darkness itself. They seemed to be pulling you in, and as I looked directly at them, I felt something very alien to me - fear.
The same smoke, which got pushed away, but still was present in the air, although not so heavily, came out of those eyes, like inside was something burning.
Then the creature opened its mouth, end even more of it came out, completely obscuring most of its head. There were no lips. It looked more like a poor drawing of an entity. But the mouth still turned into a smile. A smile so big, that it reached from ear to ear, bringing an impression of complete madness to my mind, as I saw it.
It's hard to call it 'speed' or use words such as 'fast', but the creature suddenly appeared right in front of Ixa, like it just chose to be there, and much slower, extended its hand to grab her. She panicked and launched herself to the space above.
The pressure of her power shattered the ground, forcing me to get away from there, but the being didn't seem to be affected at all. It again appeared right in front of The High Queen, like it chose to be there, in the air. Standing, as if it was something completely natural to just ignore the laws of physics.
In the same way, it did before, the creature attempted to grab Ixa, but she was much faster and attacked to prevent it. I have to put a disclaimer here, that I'm not certainly sure what happened, but I will be describing things as I thought everything was transpiring, so please be aware it might be different from the actual reality.
For me, it looked like she tried to grasp the creature with her powers, and tear it apart, as she once did to Peter. The outcome was a bit unexpected. Although the being stopped its hand midway, then tilted its head to the side, it all seemed to be a completely voluntary action, like The High Queen's powers were fully ignored by it, and her action only caused genuine confusion in the creature's mind.
Noticing that there was no effect, she flew away to escape once again.
Meanwhile, I saw that The Great One closed the distance, probably lured by the sudden silence and lack of movement. He landed next to me a moment later. Then we both saw the strange being extend its hand, the same one that got frozen midway and opened it, spreading the fingers wide.
What happened after, was very strange, and I'm unsure if my skills will allow me to paint the picture properly, but nevertheless, I will try my best.
There was a burst of blackness from the hand of the creature, followed by a sudden, almost perfect, silence. Like all the sounds in the world suddenly were forced to be quiet. The High Queen avoided this attack, but it still was spectacular. It covered half of the sky, and the aftermath was also amazing. The area it briefly obscured became completely empty, like the atmosphere vanished, revealing the stars on the dark background of the space itself.
We then felt as if all the air got sucked that way, and the pressure suddenly became weaker.
A failure clearly enraged the being, as it let out a high-pitched scream, that pierced my eardrums, making me go completely deaf. Then it vanished. My eyes immediately moved to the place where I could see Ixa, just a moment before. Now she became just a very easy-to-miss spot, blending perfectly with all the void essence present in the air.
I noticed a movement there with my keen eyes, but I couldn't hear anything. AlthoughI still was able to see the burst of air, mixed with the thick dark smoke, which clearly indicated an attack. A very powerful attack, because the veil created by it was enormous.
Then the ground shook, and a wave of rubble mixed with the void essence suddenly rose from the ground, all the way to as high as I was able to see, and it was going our way. Very, very fast.
The speed was too much for my body. Even in perfect shape, there was no way I could escape. My friend, next to me, was in an even worse situation, as he was slower, but he had a different possibility. He lifted us both from the ground, and launched straight up, to attempt and avoid the danger by going over it.
We ended up in a position that allowed us to not only avoid the wave but also to observe everything from a very high place. A very big chunk of the planet was destroyed completely, and the fragments were leaving the atmosphere and flying to space, thrown away by that powerful attack. Moreover, almost half of the entire astronomical body was also devastated, but, I presume, that was an effect of the whole battle.
I was unable to observe for too long, as the creature suddenly appeared in front of us. It twisted its head as it looked at us, and then extended a hand like it wanted to grab us, but it paused midway and then retracted it. The maniacal smile changed. Like the being became upset for some reason, then it shook its head like it was denying something.
We watched confused, and also quite helpless, as we already saw the capabilities of that very strange being.
It grabbed its head and took a step back, then suddenly all the darkness started to peal off it, like a crumbling outer shell. Those black fragments were disintegrating, disappearing in the space around it.
The face that got revealed was Peter's, but it was covered not only in blood but also seemed to be drained of life itself.
He fell down like a rock, unable to keep himself up, as he did before. The Great One reacted, grabbing him with his telekinetic powers, and then he pulled the body to us. I saw a little bit of blood coming out of the empty eyesockets, ears, mouth, and nose. The convulsion shook the muscles so violently that they were tearing them apart, and were breaking the bones.
I was unable to hear the snapping, but I noticed it.
The Great One then moved us back to the strange underground jade city, and flew all the way to the mysterious object called by many 'The Three' or 'The Device'.
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