“What a mess.” Zachariah grimaced, forcing a thin smile upon his lips when he looked up again. “But thanks for taking care of me. Saying this out loud probably makes me look stupid, but I was certain I died. And… for a moment, I wondered if someone played a trick on me. Or if I regressed again.”

David listened in silence.

“I shouldn’t have survived this. This vessel is not yet strong enough to contain that much power, no matter how short it was. Not that I expected I’d need to unseal part of my Divinity in the first place. The encounter with the Voi... the wolfish creature — that was outside my expectations…”

That much was apparent, but it wasn’t like Zachariah had been good at predicting… anything, really. David may believe Zachariah to be some sort of Regressor, but his knowledge and experience were far less helpful than they should have been. Especially for someone who claimed to have ascended to godhood.

Not that I don’t believe him. The power he released while fighting the Voidre was beyond anything a mortal could handle. And if it was truly only a portion of his Divinity, Zachariah was most definitely a god.

David believed Zachariah, but that didn’t make things easier. Being friends with a Regressor should have been a lot more beneficial than it was. If anything, it felt like Zachariah relied more on David than the other way around.

“Whatever. You’re alive.” He shrugged, which earned him a rare smile.

Zachariah nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. I guess so. Thanks for healing me.”

David responded with a thumbs up. “Tending to you helped me progress a lot.”

“Either way.” He continued, not waiting until the Regressor would point out the elephant in the room, “How about you tell me about that black Rift? Their power — highly condensed and much stronger than I felt from any Fragment, or even the Wolf — was within the Rift.”

The Rift was clearly an abomination. An irregularity that shouldn’t exist.

However, it did not look like Zachariah could help him a lot. A downcast expression distorted the Regressor’s thin smile, and a conflicted look crossed his features.

“I don’t want to lie to you, but I doubt you will like what I have to say,” Zachariah started, and David could tell right away that things were about to go downhill.

“I… don’t really know what that was. I have never seen anything like the Black Rift. It’s something that wasn’t there last time.”

David could only frown at that. Was Zachariah actually clueless about the Rift? How could that be?

“What’s so special about the capital? I have never seen that many Saplings and Fragments huddled together before. Even if we ignore the Rift… there were too many of them in one place, weren’t there?” he asked with the intention to change the topic, but a single look in the Regressor’s eyes was enough to tell that Zachariah was clueless.

What does he know in the first place?! He didn’t strike me as a brawn with no brain before. David cursed inwardly, all control of his emotions slipping away. Why did he spend several weeks taking care of Zachariah when that guy had no idea what was going on either?

Calm down. I’ve grown a lot in the last few weeks.

“I can only share my guesses with you. Both about the Rift and the capital’s importance,” Zachariah sighed but continued, “First, I think They were able to alter a Rift by infusing enough of their power. While I don’t know the specifics, let alone where the Black Rift leads to, I am fairly confident in my assessment; creating beings with the same power as the Wolf had is… difficult, to say the least. I only fought a few of them in the past, and they were always — always — the product of an aberrant Fragment destroying entire nations.”

David frowned deeply at that. Several smaller nations across the Earthen Union may have fallen victim to the integration’s dangers, and the schemes of godly entities like the Poisonous Beast God, but they would have heard if entire nations had been annihilated by the Void… right?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I’m suspicious of that as well. However, what confuses me the most are the monster corpses the Fragments and the Wolf carried through the Black Rift. They were clearly Variant Bosses at the Platinum Rank. My calculations may have been wrong in the past, but I am certain Platinum Ranked creatures cannot step into the Earthen Union just yet. Especially not Variant Bosses.”

Zachariah radiated raw confidence. Clearly, he did not think the Variant Bosses were mutants who’d risen through the ranks in the Earthen Union, since that would mean they’d surpass the Regressor’s growth. David was also confident in Zachariah’s growth rate. He couldn’t imagine anyone growing faster than a god of the past.

But it was not like he was all-knowing.

“So what do you think?” he asked, waiting for Zachariah to clarify what he was hinting at.

“One, I think they used the capital as a breeding ground for Fragments. While I do not have any hard proof, the situation we were pulled into points in that direction.” The Regressor lifted a finger, and a second joined a moment later as he continued, “Second, I think the Black Rift leads to a place far away from the Earthen Union. Probably a large, isolated dimension of a Fallen, or a world in a disputed sector nobody pays much attention to.”

Zachariah hesitated for a moment. His expression soured, and the vigor in his eyes dimmed a little.

“I think our enemies are aware of the regression. They remember, just like the Pantheon, Pandemonium, and everyone else remembers. There is no way to prove that point, but my gut is telling me that they remember. And that they knew about it beforehand.”

“So they prepared for the regression,” David completed.

Some of the things Zachariah had said aligned with the things David had seen and concluded. The Black Rift’s appearance had already been weird, but there had been several spots that could be considered feeding stations. The Sapling he found feasting on bones in the hospital was one of them.

However, what had confused him the most was not the existence of the stronger bipedal Fragments or the Voidre. He didn’t know enough about either to judge the logic of their existence or how they came to be, given that the Earthen Union restricted others. But the massive corpses the Voidlings had carried had attracted his interest. Clearly, they had been stronger than the Mythical Electra had been when they fought.

Electra disagreed vehemently, flooding him with images and emotions, trying to show him that it had been much stronger in its prime. But that was not what David had been focused on. He never compared the Variant Bosses’ corpses with the Mythical Electra’s prowess at its peak.

“So, to summarize, you think they found a way to prepare for the regression. They found a way to bypass the Earthen Union’s restrictions and can bring beings like the Wolf and nutritious meals such as the Variant Bosses to the Earthen Union without anyone noticing.” David tried to stay calm, but his heart was beating wildly as the words escaped his lips.

“But if that were to be the case, why wouldn’t they bring more beings like the Wolf to the Earthen Union to annihilate us—you, to be precise—before anyone can accumulate enough power to stop them?”

Zachariah’s lips parted, but they sealed shut after a few seconds.

A minute of silence filled the atmosphere with tension until the Regressor shrugged.

“I have no idea. Maybe they have to sacrifice too much energy to stay in the Earthen Union for prolonged periods.”

It was a possibility. One way or another, there was no way to tell the truth. At least, David wasn’t able to tell.

Something told him the future held all the answers. And even if it didn’t… so be it. As long as the Voidre didn’t roam the Earthen Union in the dozens, he would be fine. But to achieve that, they would either have to find the Black Rift and close it—he would have to leave the “how” for Zachariah to solve—and ensure the Void’s breeding places would be destroyed as soon as possible.

“Whatever.” Zachariah clapped his hands, forcing a smile. “We survived without any losses.”

“And we are stronger than ever,” David agreed.

“Of course.” Zachariah’s forced smile transformed into what appeared to be a genuine grin as tension left his body.

“On another note.” He turned to look at David. “You burned the Fragments’ bodies and made sure they—”

Before the Regressor could finish the sentence, David intercepted. He didn’t think twice as he said, “I destroyed everything.”

Zachariah might be a Regressor. He might have been a god as well. David no longer doubted that. However, it was also a hard fact that Zachariah was no longer a god and that he had failed miserably in the last Cycle. The exact details were still unclear, but it was apparent that Zachariah, the Pantheon, and many other divine beings had a lot of time preparing for the final Cycle. And they had failed to predict so many things.

Relying on Zachariah and the Pantheon would have been great and all, but was that really what would bring peace to the Earthen Union and the cosmos?

David started to doubt that the longer he researched the Maelstrom and the power it could provide in the fight against the Fissure and its creations.