Royal Guardsman Piers of the Horush Family fidgeted inside his Power Armor, running another diagnostics again to make sure his helmet was set properly. He was in space and although he was a second circle Dominator and could survive in the void with no problems, this particular section of space was not normal.

This was the area of space where billions had perished and notwithstanding that such a horrifying act happening here that would cause many unnatural side effects in the area, whatever powers that were used to commit this atrocity had left a mark in this area of space that felt utterly disgusting to the senses.

A red haze occupied an area of space stretching for hundreds of light years, and his job alongside many others was to patrol outside it, making sure there was no change in the area and keeping anything that may exist inside contained until higher powers came to check out the situation here.

After every Dominator below the second circle went insane and killed themselves when they approached this area, it was deemed a forbidden zone and elite Guardsmen were posted to the region, yet the second circle Dominators were not safe from whatever forces were inside this place and they had to be rotated every eight hours else their demise was next, most likely due to self injury.

This entire area, unless thoroughly purged by the family heads, would have to be registered as a restricted region, the likes that only third circle Dominators would be able to roam this space, but it would result in great losses for the Empire.

This area of space was a busy route for space travel and linked to more than thirty Empire owned planets, the effects of this area being restricted were destabilizing the entire region, for valuable imports and commercial activities had halted and for numerous worlds who needed these Spatial routes to avoid the high cost of Teleportation, going long without certain goods would lead to civil unrest and many other serious consequences Royal Guardsman Piers would rather not imagine.

As a Guardsman of the Horush Family, his power armor resembled an avian beast that was fitting his personal Incarnation and he had about three more hours before he would need to swap with another Guardsman. It was three hours too long in his opinion.

The time went by in a few blinks of his eye and his rotation appeared, he frowned and scratched his helmet wishing he could push through it and dig his fingers into his eyes, as over the hours the temptation to kill himself had been growing and if he was here any longer, he would summon his Natal Beast to devour him.

A frightening part of his psyche knew he would enjoy that experience, for his death would be the most pleasurable thing he would ever experience in his lifetime, and the temptation to kill himself had never seemed sweeter. What was the use for life when one could experience such a pleasure? Death would be a fair price.

He could not be happier that his replacement came.

This distraction made him not take notice of discrepancies in the features of the Guardsman that should replace him, he just weakly acknowledged his presence and zoomed off to escape the area of influence, while he had a faint premonition that if this area was not cleansed soon, this would be the place he was going to die.

If he was in his full mental capacity, he would have immediately noticed the Guardsman who came to replace him was from the Volgim Family when it was supposed to be a Tiberius family Guardsman.

All the Noble family had contributed a quota of their elite Guardsmen to patrol the area, and there was a specific rotation that was to be followed.

This Volgim family Guardsman seemed to scrutinize his surroundings and instead of patrolling around the Periphery, he went deeper into the forbidden zone.

This “Guardsman” was Suriel, and although he hated the sensation of possessing the flesh of mortal beings, this task was especially important and could not be left in lesser hands.

He could feel the feeble strand of essence his creator had left inside the item he hid and left behind and he moved in the opposite direction, this was the final confirmation of its position.

He took his time to refine and triangulate the position of the item until he had an accurate grasp of its location with no margin of error. When he was sure he had accurately grasped the location, he finally began the operation after all the time he had spent preparing for it.

There was a high chance that this location was being watched by many invisible eyes, especially the nemesis of his Creator, in the larger scheme of things, this place might seem unimportant, just a location where deities had battled, yet it might be the key to victory for his Creator.

For something as important as this, Suriel would leave no stone unturned in making sure he achieved his objectives.

The Lady of Shadows and Frost made sure everything went smoothly as she repeatedly refined the plan over and over again. Suriel appreciated the effort placed into the little details, it was the least that was expected for the Creator’s wish.

This undertaking was to be made sometime in the future, but the current trends of the Empire had necessitated the need to make this happen immediately before any unknown factor destabilized the situation.

Keeping his mind focused on the task, Suriel glanced around him constantly. With the direction he was moving, he should be exiting the forbidden area soon enough, that was enough time for the trap he planted to trigger, which was related to his movement path that was being tracked by devices on his armor, as this was all a scheme to provide the necessary distractions when he needed it.

He began going along his normal patrol route, and generally acting as he was supposed to.

Today was the chosen moment to make his move, so Suriel had taken the risk to enter deeply into the forbidden zone after scrutinizing the best candidate that should be distracted enough to not check his movements patterns or if he was the correct replacement.

Piers was the right target, since he was the Dominator with the weakest Spirit in the whole Armada.

Above the forbidden zone were four Empire Class Battleships that served as a command headquarters for the Dominators assigned to patrolling this area, and Suriel was able to easily infiltrate one of the ships a few weeks ago.