105 Bad News

While Takara was lying on the ground feeling sorry for himself. Isha contacted Jayde and asked her to return to the Pavilion. Summoning Yinxin and Reiko back into her pet space, Jayde teleported herself to the Pavilion's main hall.

Isha and Green were waiting for her.

"Jayde, wonderful to see you again," said Green walking over to Jayde, smiling she gave Jayde a quick hug.

Hugging her back, Jayde said: "Master Green long time no see."

"Come sit," Isha said indicating to a couch for Jayde to take a seat, "we have a lot to discuss."

After Jayde took a seat, Green and Isha sat opposite her.

"Jayde, firstly we want to tell you is that the team managed to find out what the black mass is — it's a parasitic worm," Isha said seriously, "they are known as Demonic Nematomorpha."

Bending forward, with his elbow resting on his knees, Isha intertwined his fingers.

"They were discovered eons ago by the Protoss, who after discovering their parasitic nature, supposedly eradicated them," Isha explained.

"We only found a small reference to them in one of the ancient texts left by the Protoss," said Green.

Frowning Jayde asked: "If they were all eradicated, then how come these worms are here on Doha?"

Isha smiled grimly at Jayde question.

"We not sure, but we have a hypothesis. The number of worms in that mass numbers in the thousands, and we don't believe that someone could have infected Doha with so many at the same time. We believe that a single breeding pair was released on Doha," said Isha.

Green conjured a scroll and handed it over to Jayde.

"Isha and I believe that these worms were planted during the last Zartonesh invasion."

Opening up the scroll, Jayde saw that the scroll contained an analysis of the breeding pattern of theDemonic Nematomorpha, as well as a projected forecast of how many worms could have breed during the last 9900 years. The figures were horrifying.

"Isha if these figures are correct, then there should be millions of these worms on Doha, but you just said that there are only a couple of thousand in that mass?"

"Jayde, the mass you and Yinxin discovered is just a small breeding colony, we think that there must hundreds if not thousands of these breeding colonies on Doha," Isha stated.

An uncontrollable shudder swept through Jayde whole body as her stomach hardened with dread just thinking of thousands of those filthy spheres of black mass all over Doha.

Taking a deep breath Jayde tried to regain control of her emotions.

"Bloody hell. You can't be serious?" Jayde asked seeking confirmation.

"Afraid so," confirmed Isha.

Running her hands through her hair, Jayde was confused as to why they believed that these disgusting worms had been placed on Doha during the last invasion.

"Why do you think it happened during the last Zartonesh invasion?" Jayde asked with a gloomy sigh.

"It could have been someone else who placed those things on Doha years later."

Isha laughed grimly. "The Protoss don't make mistakes. If they said they eradicated those things, then they definitely killed them all. The only way those creatures could have escaped the Protoss scrutiny is if there were placed in a dimension where the Protoss couldn't travel too — and there are only two domains that the Protoss were banned from entering. The Devil Domain and the Soul Domain."

Listening to Isha explanation, Jayde had to agree with his assessment. She knew that the Soul Domain was a domain where souls were sent to wait to be reincarnated. Only the dead were allowed to enter. The Devil domain was where the Zartonesh planet was located.

"Okay Isha, I agree then that you are correct that the Zartonesh placed those worms on Doha, but what I don't understand is why would they want to destroy Doha, isn't Doha the only planet that has the dimensional gate that allows them to leave the Devil domain?"

Looking at Jayde with a deadly serious expression Isha said: "We are not quite sure for their reasons, but Jayde you need to understand just how important Doha is to this dimension."

Isha then explained about anchor planets, and how they stabilized a dimension, and what the repercussions would be if Doha was destroyed.

"F*cking hell!" Jayde blurted out.

"Are you f*cking telling me that if Doha is destroyed that this whole f*cking dimension will unravel?"

Isha and Green nodded.

Jayde sat there dumbstruck at the thunderous bombshell Isha had just dropped onto her lap. Falling back onto the back pillows of the couch, Jayde stomach rolled as she stared up at the ceiling, trying to digest the news.

The pure thought that trillions of lifeforms now rested on her shoulders was a little much for her to handle right now.

Seeing the look of dismay on Jayde's face, Isha lowered his eyes, he felt guilty that he had to place this horrendous burden on her shoulders.

He debated with himself whether he should tell Jayde about what would happen if the Overseer or the Custodians found out that the Demonic Nematomorpha were loose on Doha. The Protoss had deemed these parasitic worms one of the greatest threats to the universe.

If they found out, they would destroy this dimension just to ensure the safety of the rest of the universe.

Thinking about it, he decided to keep that information to himself, right now Jayde had enough to worry about without him adding more burdens for her to bear.

"They could have found another way out," Jayde mumbled.

"Huh? Who?" Isha asked confused.

Jayde hadn't realized that she had voiced her thought out loud.

"The Zartonesh, they could have found another way out of their dimension. Its the only thing that makes sense. They spent over a hundred thousand years trying to conquer Doha, just so they could establish a foothold in this dimension. Why would they destroy it now?"

Shaking her head Jayde carried on.

"Either that, or they don't need a habitable planet to live on, and they want these worms to destroy all life on Doha before their next invasion. You said that Doha is an anchor to this dimension, does it have to be M-Class planet?"

"M-Class planet?" Green asked confused with Jayde terminology.

"Sorry," Jayde had forgotten that Isha and Green were not from her original dimension, "an M-Class planet is a planet that can support life."

Isha and Green looked at each other not understanding what Jayde was getting at.

"We not sure, the ancient texts just mentioned that Doha was an anchor planet, and should an anchor planet be destroyed it would ultimately lead to the destruction of the entire dimension."

Jayde looked up sharply. "See there is the problem. The text says if the planet is destroyed not if the life on the planet is destroyed."

Smiling bitterly Jayde said: "Its the celestial body itself that is the anchor, not the life on the planet."

Isha inhaled sharply while his hand flew to his chest in surprise. Green left hand covered her mouth as she let out a small gasp.

It had never once crossed their minds that the planet didn't need life to act as an anchor, but Jayde assessment made sense. Nowhere did it mention that a planet must have life on it to act as an anchor.

"Even if the planet changed to a K-Class or L-Class, the Zartonesh could still survive here long enough to find another M-Class planet to move to."

Seeing Isha and Green's confused looks, Jayde explained.

"K-Class planets need a protective dome for people to live, whereas L-Class planets will still have a breathable atmosphere but no animal lifeforms."

Jayde released a heavy sigh. "It's a brilliant strategy really. Kill off all the people on Doha, so you don't have to waste resources taking the planet."

Jayde sat up, straightened her shoulders, lifting her chin, her eyes flashing with steely determination. Now was not the time to display any weakness, what they needed to do was to come up with a battle plan.

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Quote of the day

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." -Nelson Mandela