Under a veil of white cloud lay a god born anew. All was mist and steam. Wisps rose from bubbling waters and danced around colourless shapes. A great ghost rested in the waters, barely a silhouette in the sunlit fog. The Cancer breathed, and the veil was blown away. Noonday rays glanced upon the simmering body, and the clouds fled outwards, collapsing into a ring of grey. All was still but for the patter of gentle rain. A million layers of torn iron lay upon a twisted body, a shell of metal bone ripped apart and healed again. Her canyons were like demon maws. Her mountains were like barbs. Between the shining grey, dominating the chaos all around, great portals yawned into eternal darkness. They were no more than holes, great circular pores edged with knives, filled with a bottomless nothing. What Logos had destroyed lay fallow- A deep layer of negative growth ripped into All-Beauty, empty space without a pattern. Jvan sighed. Reality fizzed. [b][color=9e0b0f]"[s]Hear Ringing from the Strangled Mines, and Chimes; look beyond and Fall, still Striking, into Treasures of the Chasmal Bells.[/s]"[/color][/b] The shadows blinked into light. A million scenes flickered over the void in the space of a second, and [center][hider=we saw souls that leap from castles broken] [img]https://img04.deviantart.net/3a13/i/2015/201/f/4/fractal_intruder_causing_turmoil_by_janhein-d921b88.jpg[/img] [/hider] [hider=we saw spirits locked to liquid plains] [img]https://img00.deviantart.net/feba/i/2016/077/9/2/captured_by_janhein-d9vinx3.jpg[/img] [/hider] [hider=we saw the lords of worlds unspoken] [img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/2e4f/th/pre/i/2017/218/d/0/silicon_based_life_form_by_janhein-dbj1h5b.jpg[/img] [/hider] [hider=we saw tangles o'er a thornlike rain] [img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/8d76/th/pre/i/2017/225/7/9/flying_in_bad_wheather_by_janhein-dbjvpaj.jpg[/img] [/hider][/center] Things not seen before or since passed through the dark in the blink of an eye. Worlds confined to the deepest depths of All-Beauty now played just under its surface. The endless plunge at the core of Jvan had been dredged, just a little, enough that something strange should drift through the voids and perhaps show its flowers where their bubbles touched the sun. The flickered worlds faded to static, then came to a halt, showing a place, perhaps, where [center] [hider=spindled imps could sprout from carven cliffs] [img]https://img00.deviantart.net/d1d2/i/2015/172/a/1/paradigm_shift_by_janhein-d8y5ci2.jpg[/img] [/hider] [/center] One by one the other great open portals of Jvan filled in with worlds. Their sea level matched hers. The gravity interlocked. With nothing more than a few crackles of distortion, the Jvanic Heartlands showed their face on Galbar. [color=9e0b0f][i]This is what they came to destroy,[/i][/color] thought Jvan. The worlds blinked out, leaving only an echo in an empty shell. [color=9e0b0f][i]So let them come.[/i][/color] Jvan tuned into the worlds once more, knowing that the infinite pit was still warping, still morphing, deep enough to absorb a universe and then some. A carmine mist seeped through the iron and crackled over the sea. [color=9e0b0f]"...It's good to be back,"[/color] said the Horrorsome Engineer.