The flood of shouts and panic had very abruptly disappeared, replaced with a stunned, eery silence that almost made no sense. The atmosphere, what little there was, glowed bright orange, flames flickering across its edge. But the source of those flames was completely immobile, held in place by sheer will alone.
“Uh… a little help, please?”
Directly beneath the small moon was a very small Decay Lord, their armoured arms extended upwards, back towards the moon. Only just visible to the normal light spectrum, plumes of dark, glimmering energy were radiating upwards, providing shadowy lift, keeping the moon mostly motionless. The difference in size was mind blowing, akin to a grain of rice holding up a large beach ball.
At first, the various beings around Arkay didn’t move. They seemed to be awestruck by both Arkay’s presence and his power. Waves of fear were still washing over the crowd and these strong emotions were heavily messing with Arkay’s concentration. Stray thoughts, asking what was going on, why a small moon was present and who this powerful being was, all fluttered across Arkay’s mind, distracting him from channelling his strength.
“CAN YOU HELP ME PLEASE?”
Arkay had to repeat himself to get a proper response. At the very least, others were moving. Most of the crowd had moved away, but several were now offering their own energy, helping Arkay keep the moon aloft. It wasn’t much, but at the very least the extra pressure meant Arkay could start pushing the moon backwards, and allow for him to use some energy to slap away the encroaching flames.
But just as Arkay was gathering enough strength to push the moon back completely, he felt the weight vanish into nothingness. Glancing upwards, both Arkay and the couple of assisting Decay Lords all realised that the moon was… being lifted by something else. And, even more curiously, it was shrinking.
“What the…”
The moon continued to shrink, until it was barely visible, a speck in the distance. The speck then began to get bigger again. Not because it was expanding, but towards it was falling. This speck turned out to be a kitchen-sink-sized lump of molten stone, that inelegantly landed a couple of meters ahead of Arkay. A couple of plumes of magma briefly erupted outwards, but the moon itself quickly cooled into an inert rock.
Arkay stared at the rock, not sure what he was looking at. He continued staring at it right up until someone patted him on the back.
“Good job, mate.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Should’a known that we needed to better repair our repellers.”
Arkay tutted, closing his eyes and wiping his head. He was suddenly very exhausted, as if all the stress and excitement had boiled away. Multiple beings were now congratulating him, but Arkay’s eyesight was too blurry to focus on them.
“We’ll take it from ‘ere, mate. You go get yourself fixed up.”
“Yep, go get some rest. We gotta start preparing for a Voidborn aggression.”
Shocked and confused, Arkay opened his eyes, to find that pretty much everyone else as going away and sorting themselves out. Whoever they were, they had disappeared as quickly as they’d arrived.
“Great…” Arkay sighed, shaking his head. “More Voidborn problems…”