For ten billion years, the Void Broodmother Nihil-Kraken had been the consumer, never the burned up.
It had devoured stars as if they were falling sparks, swallowed world-size rings like sugar necklaces. Then they dissolved the great realms of three hundred galaxies into stomach ash. In its ancient, alien mind, the universe was divided strictly into two categories: the void that hungers, and the matter that satisfies that hunger.
Now, having watched its ultimate world-size total wipeout beam absorbed and digested like a cup of warm chocolate fudge, the cosmic first-born was forced to confront a third category. A hunting beast whose appetite made its own look like a child’s afternoon tea.
“RETREAT!”
The Broodmother’s psychic shriek cracked across the solar system, wild and shrill. The ancient beast engaged every leftover negative-energy thruster along its twelve-thousand-half-mile flank, expelling huge plumes of cold empty pocket and black static in a desperate bid to drag its massive body backward through the space-folding tear. It clawed at the empty fabric of space, attempting to slip back into the dark safety of the outer-void deep pit.
Lin Xiao, however, had no intention of letting the main course walk out of the dining hall.
“Leaving so soon?” Lin Xiao called out cheerfully, his pleasant voice cutting through the spatial howling like a silver chime. “Madam Kraken, you haven’t even had dessert! And where I come from, leaving food on the table is the highest form of culinary disrespect!”
