It didn’t take long before Dana began to grow numb to the feeling of creating monsters to be slaughtered. Whether a ten-meter long snake or an armored whale, she created them one after the other while remaining within her world of shadows. And each time she did so, she would immediately kill them to claim their cards.

Granted, the whale took some effort, as even Dana had to fortify her body with numerous different spells and abilities before she was able to withstand that level of pressure. However, in the process of doing so, she began to understand the power of her energy more and more.

The cards that she created could be seen as a special variant of synthetic cards. The primary differences were that she was the only one producing them, and that they could not be combined with standard cards. However, they had the same general effects as a standard card, only that they operated with the energy of the World’s Shadow.

Dana had expected this to mean that every spell would have a shadowy theme, but found that that was not the case. When she cast a fireball, it was not a ball of black flame, but rather the standard red of a normal spell. This led Dana to another experiment.

Withdrawing her mana-producing scepter, she laid it on the ground before her. “Are you able to copy this?” If it was something similar to the way that the cards were reproduced, she expected to receive a scepter that continually produced her newfound energy.

However, when the energy probed at the scepter, the thoughts it sent back caused Dana to let out a faint sigh. She could not copy a world within a world. While she could reproduce the physical form of the scepter, it would not have the special enchantment that she had placed on it. If she wanted a scepter of that sort, she would need to make one herself.

She was… certainly willing to try doing so. But at the same time, she was hesitant. There was a stark contrast between creating a scepter filled with the World’s Shadow, and creating one filled with her World’s Shadow. The latter meant that it would be connected to her on an intrinsic level, and the intelligence within would still listen to her. However, if she were to go with the former, it was very likely that the spiritual consciousness of the World’s Shadow would no longer choose to obey her.

That was not something that Dana was willing to risk. Creating a world of theoretically infinite energy, with that energy itself having its own mind and not willing to obey commands… she was eccentric, not stupid.

As such, she had to give up on that idea for now. At least, until she figured out how to create such a thing with the power of her own energy. For the time being, she would have to make do with condensing the power of shadows into cards, turning them into her personal arsenal.

While she was thinking about that, she felt a mental tick, a slight notification that one of her shadow people had finished their most recent trial. When she focused to see who it was, it turned out to be the mage, Hollevin. She had him studying second tier magic in a grand library created from her imagination, and it seemed as if he had just reached the end of it.

The next step… Dana grinned playfully, closing her eyes in focus. She erected the scenario of a large field, numerous monsters within that would push the limits of his newfound magic. As long as he successfully passed this trial, he would be ready to start learning magic of the third tier. That was when he would really start to spike in power, along with the other classes that Dana had prepared for him.

As for him dying in the exercise… Dana wasn’t really worried about that. Maybe she would have to take the risk into consideration when Hollevin was training his own students later, but such a thing did not apply when she was personally crafting the training exercises. Instead, whenever the shadow died while training, the training program would reset. They would be stuck within this cycle until they managed to overcome the challenge that Dana had imposed on them.

Looking in on the other training fields, Dana found that Sanct was steadily progressing. His path was one of extreme defense, his purpose being to ensure that no enemy was able to pass his shield to harm the one he was meant to protect. He was a warrior, knight, templar, hero, and martial artist. That last one was a result of his own studies, developing a systematic style of defense that eventually qualified as a martial art.

Despir, on the other had, appeared to be trapped within his simulation. His mission was to infiltrate an underground bunker defended by numerous warding spells and technological alarms, steal a set of documents, and escape. When Dana found him, he was trapped in a hole after triggering one of the wards defending the bunker.

Did I make his challenges too difficult? She asked inwardly, before shaking her head. If it was Tsubaki or herself, she knew that they would be able to sneak in and out without getting caught. Despir simply needed to learn from his errors until he devised techniques that would let him get around these types of traps.

Tsubaki sat impatiently within the Metong ship, waiting for James to finish acquiring this new energy that he and the High Mother had previously spoken of. While she was able to guess that it would be far from a simple matter, it still frustrated her that they were unable to do anything about such a large threat until he had finished.

Lady Accalia, I truly do not wish to trouble you, but I feel we may be requiring your help soon. She lowered her head, resolving herself to ask for help from the Greater Pantheon. Even if she did not have them participate in battle, they could be called upon to help track their quarry.

It’s fine, Tsubaki. We really don’t mind you asking for help. Just tell me what it is that you need, and I’ll be more than happy to do what I can.

Tsubaki gave a hesitant nod, before explaining the situation. After learning her lesson from speaking with James, she did not omit any details, regardless of how small they appeared to her. From the very first notification she received, down to the most detailed reproduction of the timeline, as well as the conclusion that James had drawn from the evidence gathered.

Ahh… I see. That really is troubling. Give me just a moment, and I’ll see what I can find. After Accalia heard what was happening, she fell silent for several long moments to activate her divine power.

When she responded again, she had a somewhat exasperated tone to her. Well, James was partially right, at least. I have to give him that much credit.

Only partially? Hearing that some of James’s conjectures were not on the mark, Tsubaki held a glimmer of hope that things were not as bad as they appeared.

Right. Individually, these creatures aren’t as powerful as he expected. But… it’ll be best to see for yourself, he’s just finishing up now.

After Accalia sent that message, she fell silent, and Tsubaki saw James’s body beginning to stir next to her. Clearly, his main body had indeed just finished creating the new energy. When his eyes opened, he gave a nod to Tsubaki, signalling that he was ready before holding his hand out for her. “Shall we go back and see what we’re dealing with?”

Tsubaki nodded her head in response, taking his hand in her own as the two vanished from the Metong vessel. When they arrived, Tsubaki could recognize the shattered star that she had witnessed from the more recently-destroyed solar system. Next to her, James was rapidly growing once again in order to reach his full size, having let go of her hand the moment that they arrived.

It will be easier to look through time and see what happened if we choose the most recent scenes. As he said that, he held his hand out, palm facing forward. A look of intense concentration appeared on his face as the space before him rippled.

Under Tsubaki’s gaze, the space became similar to a window, spreading outwards before the two of them. Only once the window was fully formed and stabilized did she see the recreated scene. A solar system with four planets orbiting a yellow star. No doubt, this was the scene from before the attack.

As Tsubaki looked around, trying to identify an anomaly, she suddenly jumped to the side. However, she was not quite fast enough as streams of light poured next to her, and even through her. It was only at that moment that her mind caught up with her reflexes, and she remembered that this was nothing more than a projection.

James clenched his fists, and the image paused. However, even in that brief moment between Tsubaki dodging to the side and his reaction, the front of the light stream had almost reached the star. Clearly, the stream was capable of exceeding the speed of light through some special methods.

Now that the image was paused, Tsubaki was able to take a closer look at the stream, realizing that it was made of countless smaller figures. Each figure was no larger than her hand, and shaped similar to a small squid. A squid made entirely of fire and light.

Why did it have to be an elemental swarm… James muttered with a mental groan, Tsubaki looking up at him in response. If it were just fifty big monsters, that wouldn’t be a problem. No matter how strong they were, they shouldn’t be stronger than me. The laws of this world wouldn’t allow a monster stronger than me to be born right now, after all.

But an elemental swarm is a different story. Each creature is individually weak, probably weaker than a normal high-level fighter. But they operate with one mind, and there appear to be billions of them in this single cluster. More importantly, they use cosmic fire to project themselves forward, and have a natural faster-than-light speed.

This new information seemed to worry James considerably, while Tsubaki fell into deep thought. If there wasn’t some big monster, she had more confidence in dealing with a smaller swarm. Most of the magic she knew had an area of effect to some degree or another. Granted, none of her spells would include such a large area that could cover the entire stream, but why would it have to?

If she could create a spell that jumped from one target to another in close proximity, then it could destroy the entire swarm, so long as she had the mana to maintain it. And with her scepter, mana capacity was the one thing she was never worried about. But, if the creatures were this small, certainly they could not have consumed an entire planet for digestion like you speculated earlier.

Realizing that a hole had been poked in one of his theories, James cleared his throat awkwardly. Okay, so I can’t accurately guess everything with just a glance, alright? With them being this small… it’s more likely that the parent swarms cleared out the planets in order to create a safe nest for their young. Still, the problem is that a swarm this size is difficult to deal with, let alone the fact that there could be over fifty of them out in the galaxy as we speak.

Lady Accalia? Tsubaki prayed again briefly, hoping to get the Goddess’s confirmation on this round of speculations.

He’s right, this time. When the creatures are breeding within a star, its density increases, leading to a large increase in its gravitational pull. As an instinctive desire to prevent the planets from crashing into the nest, the parent swarms swept away all celestial bodies within the gravity well of the local star.

Tsubaki gave a small nod at that, before speaking again. Can you help us track them? I do not believe we will have any luck keeping up with their speed on our own, if this swarm is anything to go by.

Naturally, I’m on it! Thankfully, they mostly drift idle whenever they are outside of a solar system’s influence. Most of the time, they appear to be wandering clouds of flaming energy, which has caused a few ships to avoid them out of a desire not to be extra crispy. Nobody realized just what they were before. Even the Metong avoided them as a dangerous stellar phenomena, not seeing the study of such a thing as worth the risk involved.

It’s only when they enter a large gravity well that they turn active, rushing to the nearby star like they did here to feast.