2.1
A quick geography lesson. My main base of operations was a fairly large island off the coast of one of the largest continents of this planet. The core of the island held a rather massive volcano, which was mostly dormant. The island was mostly mountainous rocks and cliff, as well as most artificial. I had nine Entity-selves spread through the island, three in the center with the volcano, where I harvested the magma and lava flows for energy, and the other six spread out around the island in a rough hexagon in order to guard it, while also harvesting the significantly lower but still worthwhile amounts of energy at the edges.
Sanctuary is located... roughly in the vicinity of the southern part of the island. It's fairly large, but it's built deep more than it's built wide.
Now, some history. This island had been a vacation resort, with lush vegetation and a carefully monitored and curated ecosystem that made it wonderfully pleasant to all visitors.
Had, being the operative word. The ones who built it had long since passed into the Bright Night.
Now, a quick lesson on the Warp. The Warp was a realm that existed alongside the real world. It was a place of madness, chaos and emotion, as the Warp was basically a realm consisting of an infinite amount of psychic energies, and shaped by all life in the galaxy.
The galaxy was a steaming shithole, an awful place to live for pretty much everybody. Therefore, so was the Warp. This was made worse by the fact that the barrier between realspace and the Warp could vary, and were frequently rather thin.
Occasionally, this barrier would rupture, and the result was called a Warp Storm, where raw psychic energy flooded into realspace, making entire sections of the galaxy into a twisted psychedelic hellscape. Star systems could vanish completely, to awful results. Planets would be corrupted, twisted by the raw power into something called 'Daemon Worlds'. See, the Warp itself might not have been so bad, but there were also things that lived there, bundles of energy, emotion, and concepts that took on life of its own. Such creatures were called Daemons. Also Warpspawn, Warp Entities, Neverborn, and a variety of other names that all implied their hideous nature.
Most of the galaxy had good cause to fear Daemons. I, to re-establish, really liked to eat them, because I ate energy and to me, Daemons were food with attitude. In turn, Daemons really hated me, because while they were quite eager in eating the souls of others, they were a bunch of hypocrites that didn't like having their own souls eaten. Or, not souls, but essence-
Where am I going with this?
Well, it's simple.
This planet was stuck in a Warp Storm.
Normally, that would be an utter death sentence to the planet and everything on it. Normally.
This planet had the dubious fortune of a certain factor. Namely, it's smack dab in the center of the Warp Storm, and therefore pretty much in the eye of the hurricane. It's in a small bit of calm reality where Warp Energy is flooding around it, but not quite reaching it.
There's... actually a pretty generous amount of give, to be honest. This planet has a moon, and that thing is basically on the edge of the eye.
That's the reason why there isn't a Daemon for every remaining blade of grass. Even for them, it takes quite a bit of power to punch through the calm, and manifest on the planet itself. They used to be very active, back when the Warp Storm had just started up and there were a few billion people on the planet. There were incursions every day, all across the world, and people would die and vanish into the Warp by the tens of thousands.
It was a huge mess. Nobody is ever truly prepared for a full scale invasion by space-hell, see. A lot of people died... There was a lot of fighting...
But enough with the history lesson. People were also what had attracted the attention of so many Daemons to begin with. As more died, the Daemons started getting less and less active, probably going on to darker prospects where they could spread more misery. So, things calmed down more as the population dropped. Went from billions to maybe a few tens of millions across the entire world.
Eventually, it got to the point where Daemons only invaded when the barrier was especially weak. It was a fairly cyclical event...
See, unfortunately, this planet has a moon, and that thing is basically on the edge of the eye. It is super corrupt, more a seething mass of Warp Energy and Daemons than anything else. Despite the fact that there was no sun, and light on this world came from the Warp Storm itself, the moon had a cycle that resembled that of a normal moon. At the beginning of the month, it was dark, and near invisible. Towards the middle, it became brighter, and eventually filled out completely.
When it did... The barriers weakened. And Daemons had a much easier time accessing the planet. This meant, inevitably, that there was an invasion of Daemons every month. The specific time varied, a bit, as time on a world within a Warp Storm was rather loose, but not too much. Usually.
The people of Sanctuary referred to this cycle as the Daemontide. To them, it was an indicator that they should button down the hatches and get ready for a rough few nights. In Sanctuary itself, they were safe, but many of them maintained habits that used to keep them alive before they came here.
To me? It was an indicator to get ready for an all-you-can-eat buffet. Sanctuary, after all, was the largest collection of Humans around, tens of millions strong. Despite the fact that my presence brought Silence with me, I'd been careful to ensure that the Silence hadn't grown too strong. It hid Sanctuary quite easily, but it didn't hide the fact that there were many souls somewhere on this island.
Daemons were foolish creatures, really. Rare was the Daemon who had restraint in the face of gratification. They were not creatures of logic, they were creatures of emotion and concept. To go against the concepts that made them up was... just about impossible.
And so, they invaded, enmasse, onto an island where I had the advantage in every conceivable fashion. They more or less just flung themselves straight into my mouth. I usually ended up so full of energy that I felt almost bloated.
It was great.
Why is all of this relevant?
Because the Daemontide is soon to reach its peak. The invasion will happen... In another night or two.
And I was feeling quite peckish.