Despite his sitting position and the way he presented the activity, Seth wasn't actually meditating. It was true that sitting like this was more comfortable and helped relax him, but that was it.

Even with a thousand hands at work, it didn't take too much concentration. Especially once he got himself into the rhythm of it all, it became as easy as breathing. At first he had to devote himself entirely to it, but now it only required roughly 50% of his concentration. Kind of like learning to play the piano.

At first he was clumsy and had to watch his hands or he would play the wrong note, but after a few months of practice his hands could glide across the keys and play a most wonderful rendition of 'Chopsticks'.

If he really wanted he could do this in the middle of a battlefield, although that would be a terrible idea for a multitude of reasons. Not that he was planning to. But he could if he wanted to.

No, instead as he set it to a background process in his mind, Seth felt himself relaxing in his Abyss. Truly sinking into the meditation as he took it as a moment of true serenity, a moment to reflect on everything that had happened and to simply rela-

{Father, there is an issue that needs your immediate attention.}

All of the hands paused for a second as a message from Bob appeared in Seth's mind, shattering the peaceful silence that had descended across his consciousness. The content smile drained from his face and he let out a soft sigh. Of course there was.

Starting up the process once more, Seth quickly got his rhythm back before focusing the rest of his mind onto his avatar that was over seeing the final cities conquest.

Conquest was a bit of a strong word, but it was certainly appropriate. He blinked softly, taking a moment to adjust himself to the Avatars vision, before looking around in confusion.

His army of puppets, controlled mostly by [Spirit Animals] and his boys, were filling the streets of the destitute city. Although they had tried to drop as little bodies as possible, there were still some deaths.

But the bodies had been cleaned up, there was no blood and carnage in the streets. There wasn't even another shattering event going on and as far as he could see, the space stabilising obelisk was being constructed as planned.

There were half destroyed houses, some fires that were in the middle of being put out and a few ugly buildings. But that wasn't to be unexpected.

From what he had heard from Bob, this final city was ruled by a selfish leader, like many of them. It was a classic tale. The powerful let the power go to their heads, the powerless bent the knee in order to gain protection. But the protection they got was lacking as the powerful rarely wanted to get their hands dirty.

Feudalism, poverty, power differences blah blah blah. It honestly got a bit repetative after the 15th time he saw it. People really were simple creatures that fell back onto the same habits.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That isn't to say that it was the only thing he saw, there was the naked hippies of course as well as a few different, more well managed and civilised communities. It was just that this option was more common.

His own kingdom of Ravenkeep was not actually that different in terms of power structure. Just the fact that he didn't treat his people like crap and wanted basic equality amongst them. It was strange to think that was an uncommon mindset.

Regardless, From his position atop the ramshackle, half destroyed walls of the city's previous dreadful defences, he couldn't see anything wrong. So why had Bob called him here so urgently?

Before he could mentally message Bob to ask him that very question, it was answered for him in the form of a colourful explosion in the distance.

Pulling a wooden board into his web of puppets, Seth hopped on board and surfed his way into the sky, shooting towards the sound of the explosions as more of them rang out.

They weren't too far from the city. Just far enough away that the devastation of whatever battle was going on wouldn't spill over onto the city.

As Seth flew he sorted through the massive amount of puppets that occupied his mind. If his mind was a hotel, and each room was a puppets view point. Then Seth was currently running through a mental hotel that was taller than the empire state building, rapidly opening and closing the doors of the hundred rooms that occupied every floor.

Most of what he saw was useless, but the parts of the battle he did witness left him utterly baffled.

Nearly half of his army was there. It was already a massive army of puppets he had sent, mainly as a show of force. But not only were so many of them in some kind of battle, from what he could tell they were losing.

But losing to what? He truly had no idea. The brief glimpses of the battle he got left him with more questions than answers. His army was being completely gutted, their numbers decimated at an alarming rate.

Yet all he managed to see of the attackers was black blurs of hate and fury. The blurs would appear, then one of his puppets would be destroyed. Not just killed, but utterly destroyed and ripped to shreds in a second.

However despite having attacks rained down onto them, the enemy seemed to be uncaring. Weaving expertly between them, somehow, and still raining devastation down onto them.

Whatever this was, whoever it was, had to be something terrifyingly powerful and with true cunning to lure them here like this. Using the city's fall as the perfect ambush.

Bob was waiting for him in the air when he finally arrived the strange battle. Bob has lost his dirt brown appearance, as he was no longer made of dirt. Instead now his body was completely black as he was formed out of a swarm of Nano-machines, that had assimilated into his body that day on the ship.

The fact he was now a swarm didn't bother Bob all that much. In his mind, it was perfectly natural. After all his Father controlled and existed across thousands of puppets at once, which Bob also shared the control of.

If that was not also a swarm, then what else would it be? He had been a part of a swarm from the very beginning. Now he was simply in charge of one.

His lower body had morphed, removing his legs and replacing them instead with a burning rocket that allowed him to hover in the air. Meanwhile his arms had shifted also, losing his hands and turning themselves into long hollow tubes that were lined with different runes.

From these tubes, blasts of weaponized mana were launched in the form of purple baseball sized spheres. It was these balls that were creating the magnificent, colourful explosions that had attracted Seth in the first place.

Now that he was on the scene, Seth took a quick look around and realised that there was more going on than he first believed. On the other side of the field this puppet massacre was taking place in, stood a veritable horde of over a hundred beasts.

There were dozens of species. Ranging from mutated dogs, cats and even a flying fish to animals that were definitely not supposed to be in this country such as Lions, Elephants and bears.

He even thought for a second that he saw a human sized chicken that was performing karate against one of his puppets. But he was mistaken. It was actually doing kung fu.

As varied and terrifying as the species within this horde of beasts, they were currently being culled and controlled by half of the forces that were gathered here. Even the mighty kung fu chicken was being suppressed by Carnifex.

The fact that half the gathered forces could take care of the horde of hundreds of beasts made it even more concerning how the other half were being brutally massacred by a single blur of rage and hatred.

"What's going on Bobby? Is it an ambush? A third tier beast?"

"I... I do not know Father. Beasts came, as they often do, attracted by the blood of the conquest. But this thing... whatever it is, accompanied them. No matter what we do, it cannot be stopped."

As if to prove his point, Bob pointed his arm cannon towards the black blur of death and let loose another blast of weaponized mana. The purple ball streaked through the air, hitting the black blur dead on before erupting into another colourful explosion that shook the earth and trembled the air around them.

Yet before the explosion had time to clear, or even shift away from its usual rainbow colouration to normal fire, the black blur leapt from the blast and dove straight onto another puppet.

However, the flash of light from Bob's explosion outlined the blurs figure and, through the eyes of the puppet it was diving through the chest of, Seth finally saw the true form of what was responsible for this massacre.

"Is that... a badger?"

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