He shifted his mind away from the clutter caused by the proliferating forest trying to take over his mind. Something else occupied his mind.
Should I make contact?
For a long time now, he had tried to avoid any contact with members of his species. For all he knew, and given his experience with the most of the worst of the scum pot of his species, who usually wrap their most evil plans behind a fake warm smile, his fellow Elts could pose a greater danger to another member of their species, given the right situation, than members of another species. His first encounter with members of his species in this strange world almost spelled doom for him, as he was almost conscripted into slavery were it not for his quick wit, luck, and possibly some divine-scale intervention.
But a lot had changed between then and now; then he was just a greenhorn with no fang to his snarl. Rather, if the memory flash he previously experienced and his experience during the brief period where his mind was almost taken over were to go by, he was now armed with some of the most useful and deadly tools in this reality.
But...that was still not enough to move him to action.
In his world, there was this saying that resonated greatly with him: no matter how high you go, know that there is someone higher. For all he knew, if he could get tools as powerful as the one he now wielded, who was he, as uninformed as he was about this whole reality he had been thrown into, to think that there was no one out there with a better one? Even if there weren't, given how unskilled he was in wielding the tools available to him and his pitiable personal power relative to what he had glimpsed as standard across the multiverse that was this reality, someone with a not-so-worse tool set than his, an average personal power, and a better understanding of the application of the tools available to him or her, which is, at least, better than his own, could, more likely than not, best him in combat.
And the worst fact was, he had no idea of the personal power and tool set of the parties involved in the conflict or even their competence in handling the tools and resources available to them relative to him.
'What to do, what to do?" He thought as the wheels of brainstorming spun in his brain at the speed of light. After a while, his eyes, which once betrayed the restlessness of his thought process, now conveyed the calm of one who had finally found an answer that had evaded them for a long time. He now knew what to do.
******
Helen looked at the dark sky wryly as those following her trudged on. Crossing the twisting ravine had taken its toll on them all, especially with impending death fast on their heels.
'It seems he was right after all. Sorry, brother, despite your warnings I still made the wrong decisions that brought me on the wrong side of misfortune. I guess I won't live to honor your sacrifice. But don't worry, I will not fall until I claw at least one enemy down and make sure that no one who had come to my leadership will ever get to die to this thing after me."
"Your Imperial Majesty, there are hostiles seventeen kilometers behind us. What are your orders?" a scout left behind to source information said.
"We march forward!" She replied, knowing that despite the difference in distance, her authority as his empress would convey her words to him.
Marching beside her, to her left, was Evelyn, her former best friend and only lover of her now deceased brother.
"So 'seer of doom,'" she said, referring to Evelyn, with a voice that dripped with liquid hostility. "Are we to continue moving forward without any clear aim? For all I know, we will soon be wiped out!" God knew that if her brother had not let her promise to keep her in her care and pay close attention to her visions and insights into fate, she would have ditched her long ago for giving the fated direction that caused her brother's death. When her brother had introduced her to Evelyn after their arrival and stabilization in this world—or whatever it was—she had found her likable. But now, after her vision of a crossroads of fate caused the death of her brother in a clash with seven others induced by, according to her dying brother, one of the foundational laws of the world they were in, she could not help but see nothing likable in the person beside her.
"We are at a balance, a crossroad of fate; one decision shall be the catalyst that tilts the balance." Evelyn muttered beneath her breath.
Helen, no, Empress Helen froze.
"You have the guts to repeat those words!" Those were the very same words spoken by her brother as a warning to her at his death before he asked her and his lover to claim a fragment of each of them at his death, one of the reasons why she could withstand the threat behind her for this long and also the reason why her brother's lover became blind as, according to her, 'a balancing bane wrought by the core principles of this reality to even out her massive potential.' It was also the words he caught her retelling to her brother that made him choose death over life 'for the greater good!'
"I…don't mean to offend you, but that is the only way I can interpret what I sense from the flows of fate." Evelyn replied, flexing her jaws to push back the raw emotions that threatened to spill from her at the memories recalled just by uttering those lines.
"You know, for the kind of women my brother seems to have had a taste for, you are the most insidious, using the ability you gained from the death of my brother to torment me. How ironic." Helen said spitefully. Anyone could tag her as unreasonable or petty, but they could not do so from a moral high ground in this situation for all she cared. Around them, feet shuffled forward as her subjects found ways to keep themselves too busy to pay attention to their quarrelling.
"Helen, believe me…" Evelyn started as she turned to face her as though she still retained her sight, something she still doesn't understand how she always pulls off till today.
"I will never trust you, not once more, Evelyn. The last time we did, what was the end result? Answer me!"
She interrupted, ending her words with an imperial order. Grief, after all, had a way of warping someone's sense of reasoning.
There was no response, which should not be possible given that Evelyn was also her registered subject; her interface brought about by the empire piece she picked up still confirmed it. She did not catch on on time until she noticed that the whole place was dead silent; not even the sound of feet hastily striking the ground, which had characterized their escape until this point, could be heard. They had all stopped at some point and were looking directly ahead with slack jaws.
"It's here," she heard Evelyn mutter. "It is time to make the fateful decision, Helen."
Turning around, from facing her subjects to see what had made them stop, she saw the impossible right where she had been heading; space seemed to have condensed into a plasma-like sphere in-between two of the most twisted and grandest trees in this forest which they found themselves in, except that the sphere had discernible facial features and was surrounded by three concentric rings, one green, one ghostly white, and another colorless but evident. Two feet above it, a crown made up of squirming vines constantly revolved. Even though it was an anomaly in every sense of the word, one that was as spooky as it was weird, she was almost reminded of something comical if not because right then, a deafening cacophony of audio notifications hit her from her immaterial Imperial assistant.
{You have been encapsulated by a higher, activated domain.}
{Due to the domain's influence, all your imperial boons, powers, and derived abilities are now muted.}
{Your imperial authority over your subjects has been overridden and shut down by a higher-level will.}
{Due to the nature of the domain, you are now at the mercy of the will of the wielder of the domain.}
{All impairments can only be retracted by the will of the domain's wielder or when you exit the domain.}
{An anomaly has been detected; you cannot leave the domain except at the will of the wielder. Please note that due to the extremities of this domain's nature, all concepts are in this domain are in the direct control of its wielder. Please thread carefully, ma.}
{Your citizens will gain the status of free men temporarily, and for as long as the will of the wielder of this domain overrides your authority.}
{Your immaterial Imperial assistance will now shut down and will restart on the will of the domain's wielder due to your authority being overridden.}
{Good luck}
A frown found her face as a desperation-inducing thought entered her mind: 'It is at the MA level now, huh?' All her previous anger had flown out of the window at the current level of danger she and her citizens, the very people she just promised her dead brother to protect, were in. Her assistance only called her 'ma'—not your 'imperial majesty,' which was her proper title, or even the lesser 'your imperial highness,' which it used to refer to her as when her authority was the second most potent around and used to refer to an imperial prince or princess—a designation it had only used twice in her entire stay in this place, both times when her authority as an empress as well as all her powers were counted as nothing relative to the elephant that was around then, figuratively speaking, that is.
Before she could figure out what to do to get out of her desperate situation, the sphere of condensed space opened its formerly closed eyes, casting a fear-inducing green radiance all around.
Just as it did, she, as well as everyone who had marched here with her, heard a voice speak:
Welcome, intruders. To what do I owe this visit?
Looking around, she saw that all her people were frozen in fear. Even the calamity that was already catching up seemed as though it was frozen in time, caught in mid-motion. Only her erstwhile best friend managed to give her a small, encouraging nod, which she, ironically, and as much as she hated to admit, found helpful.
Her former best friend, Evelyn, muttered words which, though kind of reassuring, made her squint under the weight of the responsibility it transferred to her shoulders, as well as unspoken truths and secrets hidden from her by the people she once trusted the most.
"Take it up from here; the outcome of it all, all these preparations your brother and I have made, will count on every decision you make here. I will explain everything once you can resolve this knot in fate."