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between Worlds was entirely unheard of. There were no references to Felarya in artifacts and records of ancient dimension-hoppers, and while this was originally thought to be because of a lack of interest, further examination suggests that the mistake was in the interpretation of those materials.

While there are no references to Felarya from 5-12kya, except from within Felarya, there are references to its locations. Geographical records from the lost Arshadas^[12] mention "A jungle of red", and its maps and fauna records match suspiciously with the Jungle of Perils^[13]. There are no references to said jungle dating after the destruction of Arshadas, though the locations in the interuniversal encyclopedia have been matched to six other locations in Felarya^[2].

It is suspected that Felarya was gradually formed after the destruction of Arshadas. The Hyper-Empire had been notoriously reckless with its dimensional shift technology, which may have attracted the attention of the Correctors. The Arshadan-Corrector war is currently a great mystery, but what is known for sure is that the Correctors struck again 12kya, while the existence of Arshadas had to be gleaned from its rubble.

Examination of the Arshadan war-records suggest a sudden shift in the observed Corrector tactics near the end of their empire^[14]. While the Correctors initially intended to wipe out Arshadas, they changed their tactics to concentrating the war on their outposts and trade lines, forcing as much extradimensional maneuvering into use as possible. There are no records of a Corrector victory at any point, or even attempts to contact them; the Empire never regarded the Correctors as a threat. Our consensus is that the Correctors changed tactics to stall the spread of Arshadas and precipitate their summoning of the Outer Ones: their inevitable arrival would thus cause as little damage as possible.

The fall of Arshadas matched up with the sudden dearth of references to several worlds. No matter how much they were investigated, no other civilization has been able to find more than a fistful of worlds referenced in their records, and contact with those was lost almost immediately^[9]. Currently, there's a theory that those worlds were lost to the Outer Ones at some point, but some zones of theirs may have remained, and then coalesced together to form present-day Felarya.

The dimensional instability, aside from being responsible for stitching those worlds together, may have also had a hand in the creation of the Guardians^[1]. And until 12kya, the Correctors may have considered Felarya to be controllable simply by plugging the leaks in every world it was connected to: for whatever reason, it started connecting to other worlds at the time, and that was what precipitated their decision to destroy it. Given the Guardians would know both of the shift and the Correctors' attitudes, they had no reason to be surprised when the Correctors attacked.

The Correctors had attempted a diplomatic solution at first. There was no need for loss of life, on either side: while a mass exodus for all living things would've involved a volume of dimensional travel they were not willing to handle, they offered a chance to leave Felarya to every possible threat, including some of the guardians. This did not work as intended; it is assumed that's because dimensional instability, while granting the Guardians their abilities, also locked most of them in Felarya, in fact, made them what needed to be eliminated to reduce the risk^[19]. The Correctors would have been fighting a war of genocide against the most powerful race in their time.

It is to the Correctors' credit that they almost succeeded. Of all the guardian-level creatures that were at the time, there are only records of five nowadays; nonetheless, Felarya's own dimensional instability had been magnified to such levels during the fighting, so many portals had formed, that it became simply not an option to allow the Outer Ones to devour it. Unlike Arshadas, Felarya was a single world, connected to too many, rather than too many worlds, each connected to a few: damage control would've been impossible. The portals could not be plugged directly from Felarya, due to Guardian intervention, and it was impracticable to contain the ever-swelling throng of portals at the other end. The Correctors were, thus, forced into a compromise, or else the Outer Ones would once more devour Felarya and every world it made vulnerable. Furthermore, even if that damage was acceptable, the Correctors would then have to face whatever formed afterwards- Felarya had been formed from a bare handful of worlds devoured by the Outer Ones. Thousands upon thousands of worlds could've caused unacceptable damage. It has been scavenged^[19] that the Correctors theorized that Felarya's creation may be part of the life cycle of the Outer Ones, intended to create favorable circumstances for another breach to occur. The importance of our universe in the Outer Ones' life cycle is still ineffable, for obvious reasons.

Thus they chose to "negotiate". The correctors' terms were, actually, more akin to an ultimatum according to^[15], best summed up in five words: "Handle it or