CHAPTER 127: PSYCHIC INVASION

The psychic quake slammed into Salissic Vein with the ferocity of a cosmic wound torn open, unleashing a hellish screech that reverberated through the bastion like the wails of a million damned souls clawing free from an infernal abyss.

The sound was not merely noise—it was a living force, a tidal wave of anguish that burrowed into minds, conjuring visions of writhing shadows and endless chasms where light drowned in despair.

Each note of the howling crescendo pulsed with visceral dread, as if the gates of some ancient hell had shattered, releasing a tsunami of sinning souls that swept over the bastion, drowning its concentric walls in a suffocating aura of torment.

The ground shuddered violently, stones cracking with sharp snaps, while the Eulanite alloy wards flared in erratic bursts, their glow fracturing into jagged pulses of light.

"This is certainly what I had in mind when I heard ’psychic quake’," Kivas wryly chuckled.

Colors bled chaotically—blues twisting into sickly greens, reds splintering into pixelated shards—the entire landscape glitching like a corrupted matrix, buildings flickering in and out of existence, their outlines warping as if reality itself were a failing hologram.

The sky churned into a vortex of unnatural hues—violet streaked with crimson, gold dissolving into ash-gray—pressing down with a palpable weight that thickened the air, making every breath feel like inhaling liquid shadow.

In Vaingall’s hallowed sanctuary, Yoiglah’s colossal form loomed serene, his crystalline shell refracting the divine holographic screens’ light into prismatic arcs across the stone plaza.

Kivas, Samael, Oizys, Karen, and Azulus stood insulated from the quake’s sensory assault faraway from where Vaingall was, the sanctuary’s wards cocooning them in calm.

Yet the screens conveyed the chaos in vivid detail of what happened there.

The bastion’s walls trembling as if alive, their surfaces rippling like disturbed water, colors desynchronizing into a kaleidoscope of glitches—streets pulsing with inverted shades, shadows stretching impossibly long before snapping back.

The horizon bent unnaturally, folding inward like a collapsing canvas, while the screeching howl manifested visually as faint, spectral figures clawing at the air, only to dissolve into static.

The group watched, transfixed, their faces bathed in the screens’ flickering glow, the distant horror a spectacle they could analyze without its mind-rending touch, a stark contrast to the bastion’s engulfed reality.

The 201 Divine Constructs, scattered across Salissic Vein’s defense points—battlements, chokepoints, and reinforced gates—endured the quake’s onslaught with stoic resilience, their void-essence forms quivering as the howling battered their metaphysical cores.

The 200 Limbo Tiers, their pale flame eyes dimming briefly, felt the screech as nothing more than disorienting pulse, the glitchy distortions warping their perceptions—stone beneath their feet seeming to melt and reform, air shimmering with fractured hues, yet they stay afloat right above the ground with firm willpower.

Samael, safe in Vaingall, had preemptively isolated their sensory inputs, routing the quake’s overwhelming force into a muffled echo that stung but didn’t shatter.

The Constructs maintained formation, their automated functions kicking in to stabilize their positions, limbs adjusting with precise twitches to counter the vibrating ground.

The Lust Tier, stationed near Morgina on the central platform, braced itself, its amalgamated wings flaring briefly to deflect the auditory assault, its needle-like legs sinking slightly into the stone for balance, radiating a calm defiance against the chaos.

Salissic Vein’s inhabitants, however, buckled under the quake’s weight.

Soldiers dropped their weapons, clutching their skulls as the howling conjured personal nightmares—visions of burning homes, lost comrades, or accusing specters from their past.

Civilians huddled in doorways, eyes wide with terror, some weeping as the glitchy colors painted their world in surreal horror.

The diviners, perched atop the walls, fought back with desperate fervor, their chants rising into a frenzied chorus that wove threads of clarity through the chaos.

Their hands danced in intricate patterns, fingers trembling as they channeled soothing auras—small pockets of stability where colors realigned, the screech dulled to a low hum, and the air lightened enough for gasping breaths.

Sweat streaked their faces, robes clinging to their forms as they poured energy into warding spells, lessening the quake’s impact for those nearby, though the effort left them swaying, their voices hoarse but unyielding.

In the lower districts, where diviner’s influence waned, screams pierced the air, residents caught in fleeting visions of abyssal voids before the spells pulled them back, ragged but alive.

"To think that the Salissic Vein bastion had experienced this numerous times for the past few days," Oizys pointed out. "I find it more weird that the bastion still remains after all of that."

Kivas snickered. "It is either that the current psychic quake is much severe than the last, or the bastion had their own share of secrets on how to maintain the sanity of their inhabitants after every quake and illusory bombardment."

As the quake’s intensity crested, a second wave surged—a sky-high wall of phantoms rising from the horizon like a tidal wave of writhing shadows, their forms a grotesque tapestry of skeletal limbs, hollow eyes, and gaping maws that whispered despair.

"This one must be from Hollow Aequor," Kivas uttered.

Moving at blinding speed, this was no mere mass illusion but a psychic deluge of apocalyptic scale, crashing over the bastion with relentless force.

Every soul within Salissic Vein—soldier, diviner, civilian—was forced to receive its torment, the phantoms weaving realities so vivid they blurred the line between truth and deception, enveloping the bastion in a suffocating embrace of false worlds.

In Vaingall, the divine screens plunged into darkness, the connection severed by the illusion’s ferocity, leaving the group in a breathless pause.

Yoiglah’s amber eyes narrowed, his massive claw shifting subtly as light seeped back into the feeds, faint at first, like embers in a dying fire.

The tortoise deity adjusted the POVs, cycling rapidly through the Constructs’ perspectives, adding more holographic screens that bloomed like luminescent petals, their edges shimmering with divine essence.

The expanded array multiplied the viewpoints, ensuring that every detail was harnessed and showcased to Kivas and everyone.

Eventually, light and color seeped into the screen once again, seeing through the Salissis Vein through the eyes of the Divine Constructs.

Some Constructs saw an intact Salissic Vein, the diviners’ chants holding firm, the sky merely overcast, colors stable, and the howling a distant murmur.

These Limbo Tiers, positioned near diviners, benefited from their protective spells, their duties uninterrupted as they scanned for physical threats, their movements fluid yet precise, like dancers in a storm.

Others however, were not as kind.

They were plunged into nightmarish illusions that twisted Fathomi’s chaotic nature into surreal extremes.

One Limbo Tier stood in a drowned Salissic Vein, black water rising to its chest, the air thick with unseen gazes—eyes glinting from submerged ruins, whispers slithering from below, urging surrender.

Another found itself in a desolate bastion under a pitch-black sky, no inhabitants in sight, only eerie silence punctuated by mocking laughter from invisible sources.

Many were displaced entirely, some in barren wastelands under blood-red suns, others in labyrinths of pulsating flesh-walls, or on crumbling islands floating in a starless void.

Yet, the diviners’ influence began to pierce these illusions, edges softening as colors realigned, sounds stabilizing, and Constructs slowly returned to reality.

Karen, her fingers twisting nervously at the hem of her lab coat, spun toward Samael, her gray eyes wide with urgency behind her decorative glasses.

Her voice carried a sharp edge of concern, barely masking her awe at the unfolding chaos. "Samael, are you alright? That illusion hit like a tidal wave, like all of your Divine Constructs simultaneously..."

Samael lounged against a stone pillar, her posture deceptively at ease, one hand resting lightly on her hip as a sly, knowing smile curved her lips, "It is coming from afar, I’ve already prepared for it." she said, her tone warm yet laced with the weight of centuries-old cunning. "I’ve got the affected Constructs in detached hive mode—watching over them, not riding their senses. They’re running on their own steam to put it simply, self-automated like how they started. This cuts my processing power and direct control, sure, but it keeps me clear-headed. Barely a hiccup."

"Told you that polishing this trick will be very useful, didn’t I?" Kivas said, her voice rich with familiarity, a nod to their shared history. "Ever since I saw you late-sync with the Lust Tier in that dreamscape, I knew you could let them network independently—share data, update you when the storm clears. A very powerful tool to maintain stability."

"Huh, maybe I should learn that as well when I finally got my Divine Constructs," Oizys said as she placed an index finger on her cheek.

"It will be inevitable, so don’t worry about it too much," Kivas consoled.

The group’s attention snapped back to the screens, where the illusions held many Constructs in their grip, their feeds flickering with signs of recovery yet tainted by something sinister.

Those still trapped saw abyssal sights slithering at the edges of their false worlds—shadowy tendrils coiling like smoke in the corners of their vision, their forms pulsing with a malevolent rhythm, as if alive.

Glowing eyes, cold and predatory, blinked from unseen depths, their stares boring into the Constructs’ consciousness with a weight that whispered of eternal voids.

Faint, guttural murmurs echoed in their minds, not words but impressions of hunger and oblivion, brushing against their automated functions like a chill wind through a cracked window.

Some Limbo Tiers, stranded in drowned bastions or desolate voids, froze momentarily, their pale flames stuttering as these lurking presences grew bolder, watching from the shadows, their intent unclear but unmistakably menacing.

They were here.

Whether it was an illusion or reality, there was no point at trying to differentiate the two.

The maddening presences were here.