-TERRARIA-

The moon shines over a landscape that was now littered with various craters. A result of the destroyed Sky Island’s remains having rained down destruction and shattering the land below.

Both the Storm King and Siranul were now in the process of approaching Catastrophe as a noticeable series of black lanterns--five of them--was now surrounding the entity. These lanterns were formed at the exact same moment when Signus invoked their curse upon Cataclysm. It was unknown what exactly was the true purpose of these lanterns of blue flames, but much like the Water Candles of The Dungeon that were once used by Greed, they affected spirits in a very particular fashion. Or in this case, souls.

……….

“Whoa… the hell’d you do to ‘em?” Storm King questions as Catastrophe struggles in place.

“We have bound their souls to these lanterns, and so long as the blue flames remain lit, these entities shall be rendered immobile,” Signus responds, hovering Cataclysm’s form behind them, “The blue flames of the spiritual world, or the realm between life and death, can have two effects depending on how you refine them. Anubis was a fool to create these blue flames and release them upon Terraria ages ago.”

Siranul nods, “Spirits can also create the flames themselves. I’ve heard of stories where a vengeful spirit, or a large collective of said spirits, could create Water Candles. Causing all manner of undead to become aggravated.”

The two captured forms of Cataclysm and Catastrophe were now hovering side by side, ten lanterns surrounding their forms in total. Signus was about to perform an action, but the booming, echoing words of Calamitas shouts:

“No! Leave my brothers alone!”

A powerful red aura makes itself known, followed by the angered brimstone witch as the force of her sudden appearance blows away both the Storm King and Siranul, sending them aloft. Signus digs their tentacles into the earth below them to resist, but Calamitas aims her right hand towards Spike’s abomination and exclaims:

“I said: Leave them alone!” She unleashes a relentless barrage of crimson energy balls, each one making contact with Signus’s form, “Or you’ll die right here and now, abomination!”

What looked like bullet holes are now etched into Signus’s form as even their tentacles were minced in the process. Because of this, Signus lost any support that held them in place and was now sent flying away from the witch’s barrage. Specifically, the force that accompanied her assault.

Calamitas splits her form in two as a clone made entirely of brimstone magic is born in the process. This clone continues to assault Signus, Storm King, and Siranul, all of whom raise their arms and defend themselves, while the real witch tends to her brothers. She began to approach the lanterns that held her siblings in place with a determined expression, but a sudden spiral of flames descended from the lunar skies and cut off her advance.

She jumps back in response, “No!” The witch shouts with concern drenched in her voice.

“I haven’t harmed your brothers, Calamitas,” A familiar voice comments with the sound of powerful-flapping wings, “I abide by a code, you know this.”

The witch looks upward to the source of the voice, and takes in the form of a large red dragon, “Yharon…”

“My fire was merely meant to cut you off,” The dragon said, looking behind the witch afterward, “Only your clone was destroyed by my flames.”

As was revealed, a scorch mark was now present where Calamitas’s clone once stood. All the while, Yharon’s allies were seen nearby in various craters, recovering from the witch’s clone’s bombardment.

While the original brimstone witch takes in what has happened, their gaze turned behind them, Yharon says:

“I recommend you take your brothers and leave, Calamitas. Before things get ugly and unnecessary steps are taken.”

The witch turns back to Yharon and seemingly ponders on his offer. However, a mischievous cackle escapes her as she stares at the dragon hovering just above.

“I’ve got a better idea,” She said, aiming her left hand towards the dragon, “Nothing personal, Yharon…”

[REEEAWWWWGH]

The dragon roars out in pain as his large frame comes crashing into the earth below. A crater is formed as a result while Yharon struggles painfully within, a red aura seemingly surrounding his form. Calamitas approaches with her left arm extended towards the dragon, but her hands seem to be grasping onto something as she comments:

“I actually didn’t want to involve you in all of this, Yharon. But now that you’re here, I can shatter Yharim’s heart… by literally crushing yours.”

As Yharon continued to grunt and screech painfully, Signus, Storm King, and Siranul were just seconds from recovering fully. Noticing this, Calamitas aims her right arm backwards and shouts:

“Don’t even think about it, boys!”

Each and every one of the trio were forced back down into the earth as if being crushed by gravity itself. As Signus and Siranul grunt in an effort, Storm King strugglingly shouts:

“Y-you, B-bitch!”

Calamitas chuckles, then turns back to Yharon and his suffering, “I truly am sorry, dragon. But like I was saying before your friends back there interrupted me, you have the unfortunate circumstance of being Yharim’s brother. One of the few things he loves,” She narrows her eyes, “For that… you die.”

A torturous screech is let loose by the dragon as he thrashes about in the crater, “Calamitas… n-no…” He strugglingly said.

“If you dare take my brother from me... I will butcher both of yours, puppet,” The haunting and echoing voice of the Jungle Tyrant responds. “And the rest of the world shall pay the price for your actions.”

A lavender aura surrounds the witch’s form as she starts to choke, her hands raised as if trying to pull the invisible force off of her neck, “W-wha… h-how…?” She managed to say. This action causes Yharon’s suffering to cease while the force of gravity that held down Signus, Siranul, and Storm King disappears.

The tyrant himself appears in a flashing light of lavender, his cape fluttering in the wind, but Yharim’s helmet was unequipped as his face was bare, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. Yet. The truth is… you still have some use to me,” He looks towards both Catastrophe and Cataclysm, “But for the sin of harming my brother, for trying to take one of the last two things that anchor me to this world… Say ‘goodbye’ to yours,” He raises his right hand and prepares to snap his fingers, “Both of them.”

Calamitas’s eyes widened in horror as she took notice of a portal made entirely of a black void being conjured behind her brothers: The Ceaseless Void

“N-no! Please, no, I’m so sorry! I was wrong to do that to your brother! Forgive me!” She pleads.

With a mere flick of his wrist, Yharim forces the witch into the ground via the lavender energy that surrounds her form, “Why don’t you lie down, my dear. The show is about to begin.”

Tears were now streaming down the witch’s face, “Please! I’ll do anything! I submit to you completely! Please...” She sobs, “Don’t take the last of my family awa-”

“Shhhh...” Yharim interjects with a raised finger before his mouth, “Don’t you know that it’s rude to talk while a movie is in progress? Besides, you tried to take my family away… only right that I take yours.”

Suddenly, a duo of ghastly-blue eyes peers from the anomaly. But what was most interesting was that this wasn’t the eyes of the Devourer, no, it was another entity entirely. One that was similar, but still all too different. A serpentine, or worm-like being breaches from the portal as it stares hungrily at the two siblings of Calamitas. Its large mandibles click with its insatiable hunger.

Both the Storm King and Siranul were noticeably shocked by the now fully released form of the worm, its elongated body circling around Catastrophe and Cataclysm. The ten black lanterns are still holding them in place, a helpless prey to a vicious predator.

“What is that thing?” Siranul questions.

“Is that The Devourer I heard so much about? I thought it’d be bigger...” Storm King comments.

“The final Sentinel to our mistress, Twilight,” Signus answers. “Starlight Glimmer, the Storm Weaver.”

The Storm King’s eyes widened, then he grunts annoyingly before shouting:

“Hey! What is this copyright bullshit?! I mean, seriously, Storm Weaver?!” He crosses his arms and mumbles something in a jealous fashion:

“Although it does sound cooler than ‘Storm King’…”

Siranul facepalms in response, “Idiot…”

……….

Yharon recovers from his torment and takes notice of this event. He extends a claw towards Yharim and says:

“B-brother… please, forgive her. I hold no ill will towards her… I forgive her… please, don’t do this to them.”

The Jungle Tyrant seems to ignore the dragon’s words, Calamitas still begging for mercy all the while.

“Brother! You can not do this to them!” Yharon raises his voice as he crawls out of the crater, “Please! Don’t do this!”

“Starlight Glimmer!” Yharim shouts with his arms spread apart, “I offer you these two souls to devour! Feast on them to your heart’s content!”

“NO!!” Both Yharon and Calamitas shout in unison, but their words fall on deaf ears as the horrible event takes place.

The head of the Storm Weaver rears up as its body coils around Calamitas’s siblings. Starlight lets loose a frightening screech before rapidly retreating into the black void, the portal she had exited from; dragging both of Calamitas’s siblings into the anomaly afterward.

Calamitas could only watch on helplessly as she was still held against the ground by Yharim’s prowess, tears still streaming down her features. What made it all the more tortuous for her was that the black anomaly didn’t close, but everyone could hear the sounds of flesh being pulled apart and bones snapping within. All the while, the painful screeches of her brothers echoes out, until… everything went silent. And a pair of blue orbs stared back out of the black void.

With a satisfied sigh, Yharim closes the anomaly as the black void floats towards them. It now takes on a scrying mirror-like surface.

“Nooooo *sob* oooo!” Calamitas shouts in absolute sorrow. “They were all *sob* I had left… y-you took e-everything from me…”

Yharim chuckles, “Not yet. There’s still one more thing that I shall rip away from you,” He aims his right arm towards her downed, sad form, “Your freedom.”

A powerful stomp makes itself known, “Brother!” Yharon shouts with anger in his tone. “That wasn’t necessary!” He points a claw towards Calamitas’s form, “THIS isn’t necessary!”

Yharim seemingly ignores the dragon once again as Calamitas screams out in pain, writhing on the ground with her hands clenched against her chest. All the while, Storm King, Siranul, Signus, and the Ceaseless Void all approached the event.

“I bestow upon you my curse, Calamitas. With it, you shall endure terrible pain unlike any other you’ve ever felt before,” Yharim said, followed by a smirk, “I’ll happily dull the excruciating pain you no doubt are feeling right now... For a price,” He seems to ponder on this mockingly, then shrugs, “On second thought, nah, I’m enjoying this too much.”

Calamitas was unable to respond properly as her screams of torment echoed across the landscape. Signus, Siranul, and the Ceaseless Void looked on, while the Storm King crossed his arms with a smirk. However, only one present felt pity and sorrow for the witch: Yharon.

“STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!” The dragon shouts. “Can’t you see how wrong this is, brother?! Don’t you get it?! Are you that blind?!”

“She tried to kill you, Yharon,” Yharim finally responds while the witch screams in agony, “This is what she deserve-”

“No!” Yharon interjects. “I said I forgave her! Especially since I know how cruelly you’d retaliate against her!”

“Shut your mouth, brother, and be silent.”

The dragon was thrown off in disbelief by those words “Be silent?” He questions, then growls, “Be silent?! My silence is why you have become so monstrous, brother!” An earth-shaking stomp is let loose as the red dragon displays his wings in their full glory, “So many atrocities could have been avoided had I just said something! Let alone stand up to you!”

“YOU INSOLENT WYRM!” Yharim shouts in response, Calamitas’s suffering seemingly stops as a result, “Who do you think you are to stand up against me?!”

“I’m your brother!”

“Brother?! You’re my TOOL!”

Absolute silence overtakes Yharon, accompanied by pain and heartbreak as the dragon lowers its head with closed eyes. Yharim seemingly gasps in response to his own words as he comments:

“Y-Yharon… I…”

“Very well, master,” Yharon responds venomously. “That’s what I should call you now, right? Seeing as I’m not a brother to you… but a tool.”

“No,” Yharim responds while approaching his ‘tool’ and extending his left arm towards the dragon, “I didn’t mean it.”

In a shocking display, the dragon bats away the Jungle Tyrant’s arm while saying:

“I need some time to myself,” He turns away and prepares to fly by spreading his wings apart to their full length. However, Yharon looks over his left shoulder, “You are no longer the brother I knew. In fact, you remind me of another… Yharik. The monster who took everything from us both.”

With those final words, the dragon kicks off into the air as the force of the wind that was let loose by Yharon’s departure flutters Yharim’s cape and hair. A sense of absolute guilt overtakes the Jungle Tyrant as he looks sorrowfully at the dragon’s form, becoming ever more distant as they fly away.

Yharim falls to his knees as he brings his hands to his face, “Brother… I’m so sorry…”

All of Yharim’s allies now stood behind him, Calamitas now rendered unconscious, as Signus floats forward and says:

“Master, we have received confirmation by Draedon that Crystal Moonbeam has successfully arrived in your backup domain.”

Yharim remains silent, Signus continues:

“Master? We-”

“I fucking heard you,” Yharim responds before raising his left arm, “All of you are dismissed. Head to my new domain, our invasion of Camelot is hereby canceled until further notice. And take the witch with you. My curse is still in effect… but her pain is numbed for now.”

Signus, Siranul, and Storm King all nod in response as Spike’s abomination lifts the witch. Ceaseless Void opens a portal as a new underground domain lies just beyond the breach. They all start to enter, but the Storm King narrows his eyes and glances towards Yharim, who was still on his knees, saying internally:

-If this guy could do that to his own brother, maybe Calamitas was onto something.-

……….

Only the Jungle Tyrant remained, drowned in his sorrows and guilt. At least that was before a certain void floats towards him from behind as a very particular voice says:

“Yharim, my friend, I assure you that all will be made right.”

The Jungle Tyrant looks back over his right shoulder, “Lord Xeroc…”

“I know that things seem bad right now, but there’s a reason that this has happened. And there is indeed someone to blame.”

“If Terra has truly caused this, then my cause is even more-”

“No, Yharim,” Xerox interjects. “This was the fault of someone else. A certain dark-pink mare who caused everything to go wrong the moment you forced her... Cooperation.”

Then, as if the gears in Yharim’s head were greased, his eyes widened in realization, “Of course…” He quickly gets back onto his feet, “Of course! It all makes sense now. Everything was going well before she came along,” Yharim flutters his cape, “Originally, I intended to corrupt her, to turn her into another abomination for my own use… but now…”

“Yes, Yharim?” Xeroc questions with gleeful curiosity.

“She will face a Tyrant’s Wrath,” Yharim answers scornfully. “I shall tear apart everything she loves, just as she tore Yharon away from me. I will kill everything before her very eyes and make her watch as I dance on the ashes of her happiness,” He smirks as he comes to a content decision, “There’s also Pinkie Pie’s life-” His eyes widen as he finally takes notice of the fruits from a successful heist: The party pony’s very essence… was gone. No longer within his inventory.

Absolute fury and frustration consume Yharim’s form as he clasps his hands so hard that blood is drawn in the process. He looks up to the night sky and shouts with all his anger:

“MEEENAAA! I SWEAR FROM THIS NIGHT FORTH, I WILL BUTCHER YOU WITH MY OWN HANDS! I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE!”

As Yharim unleashes his pent up rage, the Ceaseless Void, or Xeroc, seemingly looks on in wonder as he comments internally:

-Now I can kill two birds with one stone, as they say. You, Yharim, shall inflict unimaginable pain to both Terra… and Oblivion.-

-TERRARIA, CAMELOT OUTSKIRTS-

Beneath the night sky a large battalion of guardsmen, and even adventurers from the various guilds, surrounds the form of Sweetie Bell Gluttonia, who has her hands raised up in surrender.

“Begone from our kingdom, demon!”

“We don’t want the daughter of Greed here!”

“Freak!”

“Abomination!”

As they continue to berate the Demi-Ancient, she could only grit her teeth as she says internally:

-If only they knew that my sister literally sells them clothes every day. Not to mention the demons I sense building up in The Underworld. Beneath the Capitol.-

“I recommend you all listen to what I have to say,” Sweetie Gluttonia comments outwardly. “I have someone here who-”

“We don’t care what you have to say, wench!” A guard interjects. “You’re just trying to trick us! Just like your demon of a father!”

“Why are we even entertaining her? Let’s just kill her!” An adventurer exclaims while others continue to spew hatred towards the Demi-Ancient.

“What is going on here?!” A sudden, but familiar voice calls out from behind Sweetie Belle Gluttonia as The Princess reveals herself on a dirt road, followed closely by Statis, Braelor, and Tirek who were pulling a cart with a large covering over it.

Cadence immediately stands at the Demi-Ancient’s side, “Why are you all trying to harm her?!”

The shocked expressions of the guards and adventurers became all too apparent as some comment:

“It’s The Princess!”

“She’s ok!”

“Wait, what if that demon is mind controlling her?!”

“Guards, prepare to save her highness!”

Princess Cadence couldn’t believe what she was hearing as she turned to Sweetie Gluttonia, who looked on neutrally and unfazed, and back to the denizens of Camelot. The Princess grits her teeth as she takes a few steps forth, to which Sweetie Belle comments:

“It’s fine, I’m used to-”

“How dare you all treat her this way!” The Princess shouts with tears forming in her eyes. “So she’s the daughter of Greed, big deal! That doesn’t make her a monster just because of that fact!”

“But, Princess, she can’t be-”

“Silence!” Cadence interjects with a pointed finger, “She’s the sweetest person I’ve ever met, none of you even understand how she just saved not only my life, but everyone else in Camelot! Even all of Terraria!” Her tears continue to flow like a river, “It makes me sick to know that people with mindsets like yours even live in Camelot, a place that was always meant to be peaceful and welcoming by the decree of King Arthur himself!”

Sweetie Gluttonia’s features were reddened by Cadence’s actions, and beams a smile as she rests her right hand onto The Princess, saying:

“It’s ok, your highness. And… Thank you. For standing up for me as you did.”

Cadence wipes her tears and pumps out her chest, “Of course! I enforce all of my great ancestor’s teachings,” She raises a finger, “Children should never be punished for the sins of their parents. Greed might be your father, but that doesn’t make you who you are, Sweetie Gluttonia. Nor should you face any hardships because of it.”

“The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are,” Braelor comments as it’s revealed that he, Tirek, and Statis had reached the commotion with the cart just behind them. “Twilight would always say that, back in the day.”

The Princess’s eyes widened as she turned towards Braelor, “Wait a second! Twilight Sparkle?! As in THE Ancient of the Dusk and Dawn?!”

“And the creator of The Wizard station, or pillar,” Braelor responds.

Sweetie chuckles, “You and the others were still in the arena when everything in Draedon’s lab happened.”

Braelor nods as he then walks forth and stands before the guards and adventurers. He takes a breath and shouts:

“My name is Braelor, son of Baldur and Nanna, grandson of Odin, the Ancient of Time!”

……….

As Braelor continues to speak, Statis and Tirek were positioned near the cart as the ninja lifts the covering by just a few inches, and whispers:

“You okay in there, Callie?”

“I… a-am… g-good.” She responds, albeit strugglingly.

“Oh, hey! She managed to say almost a complete sente-”

“Shhhh!” Statis interjects as he places his hand onto Tirek’s mouth, “Don’t say that out loud.”

“Oops,” Tirek responds, then shrugs, “My bad.”

Unbeknownst to them, Sweetie Gluttonia looks back over her shoulders and focuses her gaze upon Tirek. Something seemed to take her interest as she comments:

“I didn’t realize it until now, but this energy… isn’t that…”

My apologies for the delay in chapters, but for those who are unaware, I'll give the TLDR version:

Work got very complicated, even have to changes jobs for a time. Everything is good now, though the new job will effect uploads. However, I'll say that this book will see its end.

That said, yes, that cliffhanger ending was intentional. Now then, let's return to the 'main cast' and get this demon invasion going, shall we?