A crimson line split the sky in half. Bolts of supercharged lightning multifarious and prismatic struck the ground. Chunks of rock levitating, pulled towards the gargantuan spatial rend that dominated the inky sky. The ambient temperature rising sharply despite being near the sea.

The Xeral tore his eyes off of the apocalyptic scene and gazed warily at the hooded being,

It had its hand raised in the air as though praying to some Old god who lived beyond the red-tinged expanse. The Xeral saw his chance and took it. Fiery Aum exploded under his feet as he blasted towards the hood, hammer raised in preparation.

" Tut-tut" admonished the hood, as he stepped back into a portal of black just as the Leonid swung, the hammer mere finger-lengths away.

The mound exploded as dirt and clumps of grass rained from above.

"Tsk" muttered Rex.

Looking around warily, his Energy sense crippled, the same as his Mind-speak. Rituals targetting them were forbidden in the Empire. Yet here he found himself in one. This was not an enemy to be taken lightly.

Tentacles the width of human torsos sprung from beneath the ground too fast to react to, coiling around the Xeral, grunting as he was brought to his knees.

" Now stay still as your betters do their work" spat the voices as the hood materialized some distance away.

A large portal opened and from it poured figures dressed as the hood itself, but seemed somehow lesser, wisps of black wafting from their cloth robes.

" Thralls," thought the Xeral. As the new figures got to work, retrieving barrels of reagents from personal warped spaces. No time was lost as they burnt swathes of grassland in preparation for their eldritch ritual. The tentacles contracting to bring him lower.

" I have to ask" spoke the voices. " How did you kill Raz'ghul, when you stumbled upon his demesne",

Rex looked up " You mean the cult head in Immorilla?" Lost in thought he replied, " I burnt him".

" I find that highly unlikely, Kitten. You can hardly shake off the grasp of a Silt-Walker, I don't think you could have hurt an Elder Priest by your lonesome" mused the voices overseeing the complex script work. Now more than a house in width and rapidly filling up.

" No, just me" replied the Leonid calmly, even as though tentacles the size of young trees were constricting his entire body.

Discreetly, he retreived an amulet from his vambrace and crushed it, the red stone cracking instantly.

"Signal stones are useless here, if Mind-speak is barred within my barrier how well do you think your little trinket will fare" spoke the voices, without the hood turning around.

The etching seemingly finished, the thralls all 64 of them stood in a fractal within the spell-work. The hood retrieving a tarnished mirror and placing it in the center.

The voices started chanting.

" Itsukh, Malmein, Gorgoth, nakveen hisrutha neelan Ikvar!!!"

The thralls retrieved bone daggers from their robes and in a single moment plunged them into their chests. Falling down in grotesque synchronicity, blood in streams and rivulets escaped the fallen and rose to trace themselves toward the mirror, now pitch black and crackling with umbral energy. A door in black appeared. Made of rotting wood and broken bones lined with cursed runes, it swung open. A giant stepped out of it. easily twice the size of the hood. Clad from head to toe in bone armor. The bleached bone shone an eerie red as it caught the light of the red gash above. The earth shook with each step the giant took. Purple swirls of energy visible from the eye slits in the serpentine helm.

The Xeral's breath caught in his chest, " An Augur of ROT" he thought in horror " If this thing reaches civilization, we would lose thousands". His mind whirring, I need to buy some time he decided

The Augur, turned to look at him, then it turned to the hood, " When is the Voyager due?". Its voice shaking the Leonid's very soul, inhuman and murderous.

The hood on its knees since the Augur had arrived spoke in exaggerated deference " The time is upon us O' great Augur, the Star corridor is almost at its zenith, anytime now the Prophet of our Lords shall grace us"

"Good" rumbled the incarnation of genocide.

The tentacles started to smoke.