TREE OF AEONS 5

- WeÆll see what we can do about it. -

- ThereÆs nothing to see. Get some of your guys here, dig my main body out, and shift me to one of your other worlds. I have no intention of testing out your reincarnation ability. -

Can I blow up big rock? Reefy said as I informed my fellow inanimate object located in the sea. Reefy was grown and regularly sent me images of strange monsters from the deep. Leviathans, krakens, and stuff like that. They were all fairly harmless to me, though, even if the creatures in the deep have the strength of between level of sixty to eighty.

ItÆs a little too big for you, I responded as I tried to share the estimated size of the thing.

Just need lots of exploding fish.

Ah, yes. Reefy had discovered bombs and used them to bomb his enemies. There were merpeople in the water that he didnÆt like every much. I didnÆt interact with them, and these merpeople didnÆt come to the surface, either, so our relationship was one of mutual ignorance.

Some of them did occasionally travel to my shoreline trees and plants, and those kelp forests, but they didnÆt do me any harm. So I was fairly content to leave them be.

Lilies of the Lake took the news with resignation.

The demons come with their death ball of flames. We will hide, as we always have.

Would you help?

We will offer our assistance, but hiding is our preference.

Lilies dug deeper into the ground. I just wasnÆt sure whether that would actually help.

Tropicworld and Mountainworld both expanded their sites for the Valthorns, as part of our diversification efforts.

We needed to duplicate everything we had on Treehome on Tropicworld and also prepare for the possibility of evacuation and, beyond evacuation, a war to reclaim Treehome from the demons after the impact.

The heroes would be part of the invasion and comet destruction team. If I could deploy my clone on the comet, IÆd then send the heroes there to destroy the demonÆs comet planet.

Their tremendous firepower was essential, and based on what weÆd seen on the Sun Rings , we were also expecting defenders at the same level as the demon king.

This buzz of activity was felt by the locals, as they saw my Valthorns gear up for a bigger war.

The question that came soon after was simple.

What were we preparing for?

Should we tell people that they may die in twenty - five years?

Should I tell the larger population about the existence of a demonic comet headed our way? Did we want to scare the people and set off large - scale panic?

What was the right thing to do? If we could prevent the demonic comet from ever hitting us, then there was really no reason to set off a mad rush for safety. But if we told them, and the comet really was still headed our way, their cooperation would make evacuation significantly easier.

- We need about five years to prepare for a total evacuation of Treehome. We can keep this program quiet for twenty years. There is really no reason to alarm the people yet. If we fail during the two invasions of the comet, then we start shouting. LetÆs keep this mainly to those in power, - Lumoof recommended.

It wasnÆt an immediate problem to my people, but twenty years was very short to me.

After much deliberation, there wasnÆt much these nobles could do to help, but if they set off large - scale panic, weÆd need to deploy people to suppress those issues. So informing them was a net - negative.

Most suspected something was up anyway, because we massively hired new members for the Valtorn Order, alchemists, blacksmiths, crafters to hugely ramp up our weapons production, and also bunkers.

For those on the other worlds like Branchhold and Threeworlds, they mainly witnessed the Order purchasing and moving great amounts of crystals and similar materials.

- We need to revive our moon base project. ItÆs likely as the two worlds collide, the space between the worlds will first meet in space, - Stella said. - Imagine each world as a bubble, and the demonÆs comet is a bubble of its own. If we want to interrupt or disrupt the demonÆs comet, there is likely a third opportunity or chance when it gets near to us, if we fail in the first two meeting points. -

Its speed was likely significantly higher once the two different realms collided. Hell, I thought that was probably the point where an evacuation was the only way forward.

I doubted shields would do much against a planetoid - sized projectile.

What else could we do?

That was the question that hung on my mind.

We still had at least a few years before we needed to deal with the demons on Mountainworld and Threeworlds. We could, theoretically, invade the demon worlds and get at the demons in those worlds, but like Lavaworld, there was no connection. Lavaworld was cut off when the demon king was killed.

I ever felt like being pulled in so many directions at once. Well, I always had.

Priorities competed with each other. We always had a time limit, but knowing oneÆs time limit did put a kind of pressure on everyone to get shit together. We needed to prepare for the comet, but at the same time, I also needed my people to get stronger.

For those who had not gotten their domains, they worked harder to get it. They attacked the dungeons with renewed vigor, because with the blessings of the pantheon, they knew they would be able to survive.

The crystal kingÆs golems were getting stronger. The crystal king didnÆt back down after the demon king was destroyed. Instead, he sent golems into ZhaanpuÆs lands.

Zhaanpu responded with golems of his own, creatures that resembled sphinxes made of sandstone.

My spies and informants claimed such prolific use of these old war machines had not occurred for centuries, and that was partly due to the presence of Hytreerion on the battlefield.

They had to shore up domestic support to convince their own political vassals that they were on par. So it made the two domain holders reveal their own gigantic creatures.

Their own spies and people hyped up the strength of their own giant golems, but it was clear they all were nothing much compared HytreerionÆs incredible arsenal. In this big rod - waving contest, I had the biggest, best gun.

Not much to be proud of, and honestly, an old war machine made from a demon walker reduced to military grandstanding was just sad.

There were fragments of the materials from the Sun Rings in my biolabs, things that I needed to study.

I didnÆt know what certain parts of them were. They had a component part that was likely to be the anti - magic sand that had been processed into glass. But the steel was not a type of steel found on any of the worlds so far.

That meant the demons had access to a kind of unique metal we didnÆt have, and if we wanted to compete with the demons on the same level of ability, we needed to have this metal, too.

I called one of the void archmages.

We still only had four, plus Stella, which made five. Stella was already busy, one of them was working on the invasion, one was working on the evacuation plans, one was working on the surveys and listening devices throughout all the demon worlds, and another one was working on the demon comet void - sea manipulation plans.

I needed him to hop worlds and get this metal while the rest of them worked on their tasks. He would go with a small group of protectors.

They were off.

Those that were still here, they continued to study the metals. We were not sure whether they were engineered or alloys, or whether they were natural.

My team worked on it anyway, because it was key to their Sun Ring structure. If we could identify the weaknesses, perhaps some kind of magical frequency, or a specific breakpoint, we could tailor our explosives and magic for maximum impact.

There were multiple Sun Rings to destroy to gain access to the inner worlds.

- WhereÆs your void explorer now? -

- Still headed in the other direction. - Since StellaÆs void explorer left Ulara, she went further in the other direction. The hope was that we could reach some of the God - inhabited worlds, places where the influence of Aiva, Gaya, or whatever was strong. IÆd want to speak to them and then get them to help us in our fight. They were strong. I was fairly certain Aiva in his or her home world would have such incredible power that even a demon king was no threat.

- But nothing? -

- Nope. Not yet. I hope I get somewhere. Soon. -

2

YEAR 246

The comet was still behind the veil. The barrierÆs thickness recovered, which suggested that the demons had reconstruction abilities. They could somehow repair the Sun Rings so quickly even after AlkaÆs ability blew up and shattered a chunk of the Sun Rings .

Yet the transmission the comet emitted was sufficient. ItÆd cross the barrier in a year or two.

WeÆd see it. This was a slow - mo truck crash.

And somehow, I felt nervous.

- Demon Turtleworld. - Roon and Johann arrived at the location, along with the void mages. - What a name. -

- You know LumoofÆs never been one for names. - Roon chuckled and looked at the barren plains. As they explored the place a little more, it soon turned out there were more areas in the world than they initially expected, and some actually had some kind of murky, quasi - acidic pools and seas.

The demonic turtles were resistant to those acids, and we observed them entering the acidic pools and seas.

Johann shrugged as more and more Valthorns arrived. - This is going to be home for a while. - He flicked a finger, and out of nowhere, a small dragon emerged. His dragon finally hatched, and it was a golden dragon with absolutely beautiful scales.

There were already Valthorns who asked to buy any excess scales, something that Johann rejected. He was going to keep all of them and then turn them into armor. Dragonscale armor sounded absolutely amazing.

The golden dragon hatchling breathed a gold flame that was not seen anywhere else, and even the mages wanted to study it. Dragonbreath. True dragonbreath was something lost to time, and everyone wanted to see it.

The little golden dragon wasnÆt big enough to carry Johann yet, but it ate voraciously. We shipped meat over by the truckloads, but honestly, we were not exactly sure what to feed it. In time, I wondered whether Johann would be able to control such a powerful dragon. Even with its current size, I already estimated it to be something in the level eighties or nineties. In its full strength, it might even be able to deal as much damage as the heroes.

- ShouldnÆt we just hit the core of this world just to fuck with the demons? - Roon laughed, his equipment strapped to his back.

- Think we can do that after we deal with the comet. - Johann frowned. - WeÆre building a base in a place with a quasiûdemon king underneath us. -

- ItÆs not very different from Lavaworld. -

- You know the difference. - Johann arched his eyebrows.

Roon laughed. - WeÆre here. ThatÆs sufficient comfort for the guys here. -

Over the next two to three months, the Valthorns discovered that the Demonic Turtleworld experienced regular, large amounts of tremors that shook the ground and moved some of the large barren sands. The tremors came from the core itself, as if something in the core of the planet kept moving.

Our base on the Demonic Turtleworld therefore had to be built with magical securing artifacts that altered the ground around them, such that the forces of such tremors were diverted away.

The turtles themselves were fairly easy foes, and despite being demons, they were surprisingly non - aggressive. They attacked when we got close, but these demons didnÆt seem to take the initiative to launch attacks. They were similar to the anti - magic giant lizards: they had high defenses, strong melee and close - range attacks, and strong magic resistance.

But ultimately, they had certain weak points, such as their underbelly.

The void mages scanned the sky. The Demonic Turtleworld had some smaller - asteroids - around it that floated in space.

They were not immediately obvious, but once we found them, a group of them headed there immediately to set up a second position. The simple reason was that the void mages had stronger power in space, and we were not sure how close or far the demon comet would get when the paths actually crossed.

So the wider our range, the better our chances of actually catching the comet in its path.

My two domain holders fanned out on the demon world and began stealing rift gates, along with the daemolite next to them. We needed large quantities of daemolite to supply the void mana needed to open a portal to the Cometworld as it passed by.

Normally, my potato storage units would be able to store the void mana, even with decay, but I didnÆt have enough clone seeds to deploy a clone on the Demon Turtleworld, and I also needed one clone seed to deploy on the comet itself, if that was possible.

There was a suspicion from my mages that the demons had a way of - controlling - worlds and commanding them to move in the void sea. Just like how the Will of the World said that they could be commanded to do so. If this was the case, my clone would be required to - reclaim - control of this cometÆs will of the world. That would allow us to then override the demons instructions and steer it away from collision.

In the meantime, we worked.

Daemolite. We collected so much daemolite from across the entire Demon Turtleworld and bit by bit moved it to the nearby asteroids. The Valthorns quickly set up a base, complete with all the life - support supplies needed to operate on a rock without breathable air.

We developed powerful earth magic meant to move large amounts of dirt and ground in a short period of time. The idea was that weÆd need the earth magic to dig into the comet; it was likely not to have an open pit that we could just drop into. Powerful earth excavation magic was created and stored on tens of thousands of magical scrolls.

Demonic Turtleworld transformed into a war base by the end of the year, with tens of thousands of bombs and various ordinances.

Magic truly was amazing. Skills, too.

The demons attacked us, but so far, the demon mother refused to leave its pit. So we didnÆt have any reason to enter it.

Not when I only had one clone left, and it was still in cooldown.

AriaÆs avatar was ready. The wooden avatar was linked to her and then transformed into an icy tree resembling an evergreen pine. It had hair in the form of evergreen leaves that meant pins, and she said it was based on her original form.

- I shouldnÆt feel so bad for being born a scorpionoid. - Khefri chuckled as I introduced AriaÆs avatar to the heroes.

- I believe I would rather trade places. - Aria laughed. - Being a block of ice for centuries isnÆt fun. The only reason I have not gone insane is because magic and skills put me through hibernation. -

The scorpion lady had lightened up significantly since a decade ago. Traveling multiple worlds and fighting demons across the worlds gave her confidence, and her new friendship with the fellow heroes gave her life a meaning she once lacked. Even though her relationship with the archer hero Chung was fraught with the usual relationship ups and downs.

Then Prabu dropped the bomb on me one day.

- A/ , I would like to try and have children with Colette. -

Okay. Heroes mating with each other - that was normal, I supposed.

- WeÆve known each other for decades now, and for a while, it felt like fighting demons was our only purpose in this world. But as the classÆs hold on our mind wavers, we - we want to have children. -

- Why now? You didnÆt have the need before this. -

- It - itÆs just something we never thought about. The idea of having children as heroes fighting demons was so wild. I mean, I could imagine other people having children, or non - heroes having children, but having one with Colette. itÆs just different somehow. -

Hero - class mind - fuckery? That was so? -

- Do you think there will be side effects? I mean, right now, the strongest, most powerful healer in the entire multiverse is likely you. -

- I donÆt think itÆll be a problem, but given what weÆve seen of other hero - offspring, thereÆs no special benefits. Hell, you might still be like you now by the time your kids grow up. Is that something you want? -

- WeÆll be like elves, then. -

- Yeah, and IÆm not saying it lightly that itÆs going to be a huge mental block. - Having children was fine. A hero losing their children, that was when shit got crazy. A mad, angry hero was probably going to be way more destructive.

- I know. Harris once said he was surprised how little he actually cared for his offspring. It took his conscious effort and reminder to overcome his innate urge to ignore them, - Prabu said. - IÆm not sure whether a child of two heroes would be different. I feel it might be. -

- If itÆs not clear, the hero class is clearly designed for you heroes to have a light touch on the world with as little attachment as possible. -

- That is fading, clearly, - Prabu repeated. - ItÆs been many, many years, and IÆm more in control of the class. I feel IÆm getting better at spotting the classÆs attempts to mess with my mind. -

- The fact that you can have this conversation is probably a sign that its hold wanes. -

- ThatÆs dangerous, isnÆt it? -

- It is. I cannot afford a runaway hero. Or a hero that is destructive. There is too much at stake. Not when thereÆs a comet headed our way. I donÆt even know if we can deploy a seed or a clone on the comet. If we canÆt, then we really have a limited window to hop on the comet. -

Prabu looked sad. - After the comet, then. IÆd like to move to Tropicworld. Permanently. That world doesnÆt get invaded. -

- For now. -

I wondered briefly what would happen if Treehome fell but the heroes still lived. Would the mental compulsions on the heroes vanish if their home worlds no longer existed? Was there even such a condition in the class? It was a pointless thing. I chucked that thought into the back of my head.

- But yes, after the comet. -

- You want us to wait a few more years. No, maybe two decades. My child could grow up till he or she is seven, or eight, or even in his teens, - Prabu said. - Actually, maybe thereÆs no good time, after all. -

At this point, I realized the heroÆs mind was made. He was going to have a child with Colette, and the best I could do was just support them through it.

- We wonÆt wait, - Prabu said. - We donÆt know if weÆll die or not when we fight all the other demon kings, but we ask that my children be relocated to Tropicworld should the day come. -

The heroes continued to pay me in hero items, and I supposed there was no harm. Not anymore. - Very well. -

- A/ , I need to go on a demon kingûhunting spree, - Alka said.

- Oh? -

- I know IÆve been tasked with that comet stuff, but I was thinking that the best way forward is to amplify my own destructive abilities. I need to obtain some kind of ability that meshes well with my Always a Bomb . If I could get a multiplier effect, I could fundamentally be a mobile land mine to soften any demon king and the comet. -

That was quite true. Alka right now possessed the single strongest destructive ability that wasnÆt restricted by the void mana portals. I couldnÆt send certain types of superweapons through void mana, especially those loaded with way too much star mana.

- Working with StellaÆs portals, I am effectively a nuclear bomb. The goal, therefore, is to make me into a bomb capable of cracking the comet. With our resources soon to be split, we will have a problem. -

The demon king of the Mountainworld would arrive at the same time as when the comet crossed the Demon Turtleworld, both estimated around Year 253.

I believed the heroes could handle it with my support. But it did mean some of the bombs would not go.

- I could front - run that invasion and go to the demon world - Alka started.

- If you die and you have to be resurrected, we wonÆt have you against the comet for a while. We donÆt know how long the respawn mechanism takes. Sure, I can send you against the demon king, but that comes with risk. -

- ItÆs worth it, - Alka insisted. - The size of that thing is monstrous. WeÆre not going to get gains without gaining some levels. -

- If you can get on it, you can use your ability repeatedly to chip off the comet. -

- What if the explosion causes it to change direction in the void sea? -

- ThatÆs the objective achieved, - I answered.

- Fair. But let me go chase some demon mothers in the heart of the demonic planets. We can start with the demonic Houndworld. It seems like a fairly regular place. We have good people in charge of all the departments. We can let them handle it while we try to find and field more firepower. -

I thought for a while and decided he had a point. We didnÆt need my domain holders in charge of the nitty - gritty details and administrative matters. They should be gaining levels and providing direction with their experience.

Just like StellaÆs attempt to search for more resources.

AriaÆs levelûone hundred avatar joined Alka, Lumoof, Edna, and Stella in his quest to gain levels. Sure, Aria was effectively level capped as a levelûone hundred avatar, but they still gained experience from the battle. Also, the avatar being a level one hundred wasnÆt that big a restriction as I thought.

Aria could make really powerful equipment, which could then be wielded by the avatar. This effectively added ten to twenty levels of combat power to the avatar.

Their first destination was the demonic Houndworld, and they headed straight for the pits.

- So we just nuke the demon mother and run? - Lumoof said. - ArenÆt you worried weÆll destroy the core while weÆre at it? -

- ThatÆs why youÆre here. You need to flush it out. I need to gain levels. You chase it out, force it out of the core, and it will come this way. I will nuke it when it gets anywhere near me. That should defeat it. -

- If this works, we could free multiple demon worlds at the same time. -

- But what if there is a growing demon king in there? The demon mother wonÆt leave the growing demon king alone. -

- Then we nuke that, too. -

- But we might blow up the core. ThatÆll piss off the System and make us enemies of the world. -

- That - that doesnÆt sound good. -

- LetÆs just go down there and see what we have. If it doesnÆt work out, we can find another world. That world before the Barrierworld is another good candidate. -

- We shouldÆve done research. -

- No oneÆs going to go into the pits without us domain holders being there. - Lumoof frowned.

- Ah. True. The things we do for the fate of the multiverse. - Alka laughed.

Stella just rolled her eyes. - Oh, come on, Mister Bomberman. WeÆre getting close. -

The core was similar to Parasiteworld. It was a hollow center filled with rocks and just a gigantic sphere of rock that was the planetary core. It was a sphere with tunnels crisscrossing its spherical structure and a gigantic creature with its tentacles everywhere.

The demon mother.

It wasnÆt growing a demon king. Maybe not yet.

- Well? Patriarch Lumoof, please do the honors? - Edna teased.

3

YEAR 246 (CONTINUED)

- Well? What are we waiting for? - Alka said. - We need to gain levels. -

- Are there better ways to do this? - Lumoof looked at the demon mother. - Surely there are alternatives to luring it just to gain levels. -

- The demon mother isnÆt as strong as the demon king. In the scheme of things, we should be capable of taking it on without much assistance, - Alka repeated. - We either go hunt for demon kings to fight or we go for these things. -

In truth, they were venting. They knew this was one of the best ways. The dungeons no longer gave enough experience for domain holders to gain levels. Still, we didnÆt have that much ordnance placed on the surface. Edna and Lumoof shared a glance before both headed for the core of the planet of the Demonic Houndworld.

Lumoof activated his avatar mode, and through it, my vines spread through the core.

I hated how this was becoming a familiar experience. The first time I did this was the anti - magic world, then during the battle to reclaim the Parasiteworld. StellaÆs void mages were on the surface, ready with the void weapons. If the black sun reappeared, we were going to shatter that droplet.

Repetition.

It still felt fresh and different to my domain holders. For Alka, this was his first battle, even if his role was just to nuke himself.

For Lumoof, I could sense he shared my exhaustion. We were just so tired of all this shit, but we had to soldier on.

I was tired.

Exhaustion.

I needed a thousand years of no demon kings to really properly rest, but the demons wouldnÆt let that happen. And it was unfair to the thousands of worlds out there that faced the demon kings. Like the Ularans. Like all the other inhabited worlds.

My vines rushed into all the various holes throughout the planetary core and flooded them. The demon motherÆs energies met my own, and it turned back. It reoiled from contact, and at that moment, I knew quite surely I was stronger than the demon mother.

I would like to capture a demon mother. I imagined the demon mother to just be a supersized version of the demon rod. Its ability to tap into magical ley lines should therefore be superior to most magic, since a demon mother was able to capture a planetÆs core. Could it even capture a sun?

My vines chased after the demon motherÆs body as it darted within. Its tentacles battled my vines, and it lost every exchange. I was just stronger, even through LumoofÆs avatar.

I felt it emit some kind of magical energy.

- Uh, something weird is happening. -

- ItÆs calling for help, - Stella said and immediately barked instructions to the team on the surface. - Surface team, prepare for possible black droplet! -

The team on the surface was armed, but with my vines everywhere, the demonic mother soon found itself with nowhere to go but outside. It tried to escape, but though it still had the tremendous ability of corrupting a planetary core, combat clearly wasnÆt its strongest set of skills.

My vines, guided by Lumoof, smashed into the demonÆs own tentacles and forced it out of the core.

- You know, if A/ could do this to the demon mother, we should be able to start freeing worlds fairly easily, - Stella said but quickly regretted it. - But I spoke too soon. -

Edna cursed as one of her spears slammed into the demon motherÆs tentacles, and she tried to pull the demon mother back. The demon mother was still exceptionally fast, and it shrank dramatically as it realized it was under attack.

It released another warning, something within its body vibrating in a certain way, one that my surface - level team also recorded with their array of magical sensors. My surface team was ready for the arrival of the Black Sun, the - teardrop. -

Alka separated from us and took position along the shaft to the surface. The idea was to detonate once the demon approached, weaken it significantly, and then kill it.

- All right, - Lumoof announced as my vines kept pushing the demon mother toward the shaft. - Alka, get in position? -

- Already am, - Alka said as he floated alone somewhere in the middle of the long pit into the core. We didnÆt want to detonate in the core. The risk of destroying the planet and the negative impacts from the planetary curse was something I didnÆt want to risk.

There were magical bombs along the way.

- Stella, teleport us out. -

- CanÆt. Core interference. - Stella cursed. The turbulent energies within the planetÆs core were common with all the worlds weÆd been through. It made stable portals impossible. It was like trying to build something next to a swirling whirlpool with sand. - WeÆll need to chase after it. Once we get a bit out of range of the core, IÆll teleport you guys out to the surface. -

- Got it! - Roon and Johann nodded, and they all rushed ahead. Lumoof was the slowest of them all, mainly because my vines were all tangled up and had to be withdrawn from the core.

At that moment, I vaguely sensed a slowly rousing presence from the core of the Houndworld. The demon magic from the demon mother wasnÆt gone, though. It was still there, sticking around like oil and dirty grease. It was clogged.

- Lumoof. Stay, - I commanded. - The core is reawakening. But it might take a while. -

Lumoof looked at his compatriots, and Stella, Roon, Johann, and Edna rushed toward the demon mother. The demon mother, as expected, ran up the shaft.

- Alka, - Edna notified as they kept harassing the demon mother with attacks. The demon mother seemed to have eyes on its back, dodging our attacks. Even so, not all missed, as some of Roon and JohannÆs abilities were homing, enemy - chasing projectiles. The demon mother seemed to recoil from every hit.

- You shouldÆve brought your dragon, - Roon teased his fellow bow - wielder.

- ItÆs too small, and I donÆt wanna risk it. -

- It canÆt die! -

Yet the demon mother was a demon king. Somehow, along the way of capturing a world, that energy was lost - or perhaps converted? Or given to the next one as a seed? Or reclaimed, somehow?

I hadnÆt actually seen how a demon king fully conquered a world. Did the demon king actually leave a shadow of itself, which became the demon mother, and it went on to attack other worlds? Or did it just somehow decay into this form?

Theoretical questions that werenÆt worth pondering now, as the rousing senses of the Houndworld connected with my own through LumoofÆs avatar ability. This wouldnÆt be a permanent link, since I didnÆt have a clone here.

Alka felt the demon mother head his way.

- All right, itÆs coming up. IÆm going to explode. -

At that moment, Roon, Johann, Stella, and Edna looked at each other and decided to stop chasing after the demon mother. They didnÆt want to be too near. Stella immediately pinged. - A/ , be ready to pull us back. -

- Yup. -

The demon mother surged toward Alka, unaware of the trap. It was already weakened from our repeated combat.

The surface team began to detect void mana and demonic mana in the air, a sign that the demon sun was coming? -

Then right as the demon mother approached and almost ran past Alka, he exploded. This was the second time he used the ability, and like a nuclear bomb detonated underground, it sent a seismic shock throughout the entire surface, one that I could feel even through my vines in the core.

The entire chamber and shaft from the surface to the core was lit with a flash of light. An explosion. Freedom. The echoes and the vibration was deafening as rocks began to collapse.

In our world, it was impossible to have a chamber that led to the core. There was molten magma and mantle. But in this world, in some worlds, quite a few planets were rock all the way through to the core, and the core itself was more like a magical dynamic than one made of molten rotating liquid iron. Gravity was magical, a form of magic drawn to the core.

The rocks began to fall.

The surface team was puzzled as the void mana in the air dissipated.

- Oh. ItÆs dead. - Alka cursed as the demon mother was vaporized in the explosion. - I was expecting a harder fight. -

It never was stronger than the demon king.

I didnÆt gain a level. But Alka did. Just two levels, and no new skill. He cursed.

I felt the magical grease and oil in the Houndworld suddenly seem less heavy, as if I could push them out. So, through Lumoof, my mana began to flow into the core of the Houndworld.

I had a feeling this would be something I would be doing more often, once the war with the demons moved to another stage. The coreÆs consciousness was like a scattered foam, gradually but surely regrouping.

It would take some time, just as the Tropicworld did. Right now, I did what I could and purged the demonic energies within the core. I drained them through my vines and roots, through Lumoof, and released them into potato storages back on the other worlds.

Lumoof got better at dealing with such mana fluctuations. He practiced extensively and gained some skills over the years that improved his tolerance to magical energies. He still wasnÆt a fantastic spellcaster, but he had acceptable competence.

But he was a domain holder, and expectations were different. It was a sore point, but my priest accepted it. It was nothing more than the demands of our struggle.

In a war against the demons, IÆd be retaking worlds from the demons, and I would need help.

- Stella, no news from your void explorer ? -

- Did you know a space probe took about twelve years to get from Earth to Neptune? - Stella quipped as she rested on the surface of the Houndworld. I supposed she meant to say that space was exceedingly large. - So yes, the void sea is this massive, massive ocean. ItÆs like weÆre in this small paper boat, and weÆre paddling very slowly through it. WeÆre moving, for sure, but there are also fluctuations in this sea. -

- Can you see anything, at least? -

- I could. Other worlds. But IÆm not near enough. - Stella waved her hand, and a magical, three - dimensional projection of the void sea appeared. - This isnÆt accurate, by the way. The void sea clearly exists in more than these dimensional forms, but this is the one IÆm most comfortable with. Using the other types bends my mind, and itÆs hard for me to demonstrate it in a projection. -

She pointed to a glowing red arrow flying at the tip of a long, spear - like part of the projection.

- This is my explorer. As you can see, IÆm going super - super far. Ulara was far, but IÆm now even farther. -

I paused.

- How far do you think the gods are? -

- IÆm pretty sure they are not clumped together. If they were, that would seem to suggest some kind of network effect or perhaps a creation event, - Stella mused. - But I did recall you explaining what Aiva said, that the gods are far away from each other, too. -

If the gods were separated, the demons essentially could pick off one god at a time. I wondered, momentarily, if the demons had slain gods, and if so, how many had they slain? They had one in the demon sun. So each sun contained one god?

- In any case, we can only try our luck, - Stella said. - I hope to reach something. Somewhere. -

- Rather than keep searching with the void explorer, would it be better to stop on one of these worlds and try hopping using conventional astral paths? After all, their paths may be linked to some other worlds. - It was the equivalent of stopping the use of wormholes or warp space and using space - lanes to visit their astral neighbors.

- I thought of that, - Stella said. - IÆm going to stop, then. Maybe thereÆs something IÆm not seeing. -

4

YEAR 247

This was a relatively quiet year, as everyone moved to do their part. Quiet for me, of course, because there were wars raging on every world. On Threeworlds, Zhaanpu and the Sandpeople waged a terrible war against the crystal kingÆs golems.

I had inadvertently caused an escalation in the type of weapons used in the war, as both sides unleashed stronger units against the others. Even the Centaurs of Hoofhall felt this war was the most horrific in recent memories, as the magical golems of the crystal king fought against the sandstone constructs.

On Treehome, the vassal wars continued. The guilds did not stop invading and trying to claim land, and the defenders didnÆt relent or give up. The emperors were strong, and with their enhanced abilities they were able to somewhat offset the technological advantages in areas where the emperorÆs claim was strong.

The royal classes, as strange as it was, were somewhat linked to loyalty. The greater the loyalty of its ruled populace, the stronger the effects of the emperorÆs power. A soldierÆs benefit from its kingÆs blessing was very much linked to the faith, trust, and loyalty that soldier had to its royal institution. Not the king, even if it was often seen interchangeably, but the actual mechanics of it were actually linked to the royalty as an institution. Each member of royaltyÆs actions and abilities fed into a - royal institution - modifier in the System and also the distance of a person to its king and royalty.

This was unlike a general, where the benefit of a generalÆs power was linked to a soldierÆs position in the army controlled by the general. A member of an army benefited from every skill a general had that affected his army.

RoyaltyÆs power is more subtle, wider, more pervasive but also can be resisted.

These findings emerged from decades of observation of the royal families in Treehome, because we noticed there wasnÆt much change even when a king passes on. A kingÆs blessings and powers lingers on after his death.

A kingdom didnÆt collapse immediately, but a timer started ticking in the System, and with each passing day, the dead kingÆs blessings weakened, replaced by the powers of the new king or, if there are no new kings, nothing. Ceremonies affected this sort of timer. A powerful ceremony attended by many members of society affected how quickly a new kingÆs powers and classes rippled through the nation.

Nations that did not have kingdoms instead contributed to a body of rulers regardless. The high council, or parliament, or members of the city - states, membership in that body then gained the powers similar to a king, but one that was collective and shared. The constitution, if there was one, gained quasi - king - like powers, but it did so very slowly.

In a world where justice and rule of law was strictly obeyed, I speculated that their constitution, through decades and centuries of political investment, grew into a demigod of law. That opportunity was curtailed on Treehome, because gods and religion existed. The way faith was so intertwined with the political structure meant a constitution was tied to faith.

It was for this reason that most non - royal institutions didnÆt last that long, and this whole damned world was stuck in the feudal fantasy era.

All this tied into the powers of the vassal wars. Ultimately, with me and the Valthorns cleanly out of the picture, it was a contest between the finances, sociodemographics, and technologies of the trading - guild - nations against the faith - empowered theocratic empires of defending nations. I designated areas where the forces of the four continents were allowed free landing zones on the Central Continent, so that the forces of the theocratic nations could attack the guild - nations at their home.

It was much to the silent annoyance of the guilds and their backing nobility, but the guilds quickly reinforced those locations.

Internally, the Valthorns understood our ambitions were beginning to outgrow the Central Continent. We were becoming a multi - world organization, and we needed to exist above and beyond. We had duty to our home worlds, but we had to shed the shackles that tied us.

Trees were often repotted once they outgrew their pots.

5

YEAR 248

The time ticked. We had five years until the comet intersected with the Demon Turtleworld, and Alka was in a rush to hunt more demon mothers. Alka got a title, but the rest of us didnÆt, simply because it was the same title as the one before when we liberated Tropicworld.

This demonic Houndworld was free.

Lumoof stayed back and made regular trips to this world to get a sense of the worldÆs mind. Each world had a will, and each will was probably slightly unique? -

Woof.

I was flooded with sounds and images of dogs and hounds, and they came from the freed core instead. Dogs. Hounds. All kinds. I saw a field of grass and flowers, and dogs running through them, chasing after larger animals. Sheep. Cows. Animals.

There were just dogs. They were a little like the Canari, but these were not truly sapient. It was just a world with dogs. I felt more images of dogs, and I briefly wondered whether the overwhelming presence of demonic hounds throughout the demonic worlds was due to worlds like this. Surely there were demonic cats as well.

I shouldÆve known that some of these Will of the Worlds had primal, feral minds. Just like how Tropicworld communicated mainly with images and sensations.

On Mountainworld, the local team prepared for the coming demonic invasion. Five years was plenty of time, but with explosive crystals in relative short supply, the forces on Mountainworld had to find local alternatives.

The heroes, in particular, led the charge as they adopted some of our methods and used their hero forges to create star mana explosives. These were functionally unusable via the void portals as they couldnÆt be shipped and delivered as payload to the coming comet due to the void - star mana interactions.

So they deployed and made them on Mountainworld instead, and for now, everything was stored in my clone tree. These were incredibly powerful bombs made of pure star mana, and if I intended for any of my clones to go with a bang, teleporting these star mana bombs through my clones was probably one of the best ways. It was likely to destroy my own clone in the process or severely injure and damage it.

The demon king could be early or late, but for now the star paths through space were still relatively fuzzy. The path still wasnÆt robust enough, but if we wanted, a void archmage could open a path to explore the invaderÆs world.

But void archmages were in short supply. We had four, still only four, and they were all occupied with their own projects.

Despite that, the heroes were confident, and they had every reason to be. Even with our B - team deployed on Mountainworld to support the heroes, they should still have enough weapons at their disposal to weaken whatever came their way.

We should be able to pin down the demon kingÆs location closer to its arrival, perhaps in another four years.

Tropicworld was our primary backup location since it was large and mostly uninhabited. We maintained multiple operation bases back in the days of the war, but since its eventual reclamation, we granted the use of some of these bases to the pioneer migrants.

But, with the coming comet, we had to prepare for evacuation of an entire planet, and a lot of my Valthorns came over and constructed a few cities out of locally available materials. Along with it came everything the cities needed to be self - sufficient.

The pioneers did well, with the few Pioneer Lords and Pioneer Chiefs leading the way, and the relative safety provided by perpetual Valthorn presence meant there were already a few independent cities of their own.

The great thing was that there was effectively an information embargo between Tropicworld and other worlds, because almost no message got through without the void mages or me knowing about it.

Message spells didnÆt work across worlds, though there were some magical abilities that allowed communication across worlds. My Valthorns tested certain communication abilities like mind - link , which allowed two people to maintain a mental link, and it persisted even through other worlds, albeit at a high mana cost per message.

In time, we would probably need to figure out a way to tweak the rift gates such that they functioned as information routers and modems.

Prior to our reclamation of the Tropicworld, there were already multiple large forests due to my presence and the long war against the parasitic demons, and these days, the entire world was pretty much covered with trees, except for the areas where the terrain warped to suit the recovering coreÆs preferences.

The pioneers had to adapt to the new environment, and they did so with quite a bit of success since the beginning of the reclamation projects. But so far, the core somehow knew where we were, and no one had actually died when it did some unusual terrain adjustments.

I estimated the core to be about a third of TreehomeÆs strength since its freedom three decades ago. The rate of recovery over the past three decades appeared to be fairly erratic. I was not sure whether the rate of recovery of Tropicworld would slow down or accelerate.

In any case, at the current strength it should be able to sustain the population of Threehome. If barely.

I did have a tinge of worry whether overloading a world with too much people affected the core.

- Stella, a few decades ago you estimated that there are a certain set of core suns and also the command nodes, - I said to Stella once more. She was on the Demonic Turtleworld, setting up more magical platforms on the asteroids. - Has that changed? Are these Sun Rings these command nodes? -

- It seems to match, - Stella said. For her, it was a theory sheÆd worked on for the last few decades. - We know thereÆs the black sun, and thereÆs also the blob. The core has a single demonic blob that serves as the prison. I also know there are multiple black suns, at least from the core, but the demonic blob is the one with the divine energy. -

But we had only known of one demonic blob so far, at the center of our copy of the demonÆs star map. The demon suns were located further away, and only one was in the star map. In their star map, the demon sun and the demonic blob were not far away.

Why would the demons need multiple demon suns if it was far away? Was there a purpose? Or, perhaps, more demonic prisons at the heart of it all?

I found the demons structure entirely confusing, but in the end, to end the cycle, all of these things must be destroyed.

As a tree, the demons had brought pointless destruction. If they could exist without resorting to blanket destruction and world - draining, it would be much more palatable to tolerate their existence.

Stella suspected it may be easier to destroy the demon sun and severely weaken the demons ability to power their network of rift gates. Doing so would take out the demons ability to invade new worlds and thus turn the tide of battle in our favor. A game of defense where we were the attacking party.

But if the demon suns were linked somehow, then that wouldnÆt do us any good.

- Are we ready for the first pass? - I asked my domain holders.

Alka shook his head. - Based on the sizes estimated by the void mages, we currently donÆt have enough weapons to blow it up from the surface. But if we can somehow access the core of this comet, we can teleport enough bombs into the depths such that this demon comet shatters from within. ItÆs a shame we canÆt use the heroes star - mana bombs without A/ Æs clone, and my ability doesnÆt work with their star - mana bombs. -

A lot of our actions were constrained by this foul void - star mana elimination.

My chief explosive researcher then further explained. - That said, we donÆt really know whether we can use A/ Æs clone. Based on what weÆve seen on the Sun Rings , the clone can only be used if thereÆs an earth - like object. ItÆs not possible to deploy a clone on steel, for example. So depending on the materials of this comet, there is a fairly remote chance that we have to count A/ Æs clone out. -

Stella said, - Remote. -

- I know, but we have to prepare for it. Not being able to use A/ Æs clone will be a significant problem. -

- Can we ram an asteroid with A/ Æs clone into the demonÆs comet? - Roon asked. - Is there a minimum size of asteroid that is needed for A/ Æs clone to work? -

- We donÆt even know if thereÆs an asteroid near this demon comet. The best chance for that is when itÆs nearest to our world, when the bubble of existence of Treehome and this comet are theorized to collide, - Alka answered.

- I mean, can Stella send an asteroid through her void portal? - the ranger repeated and looked at the void archmage. - ThatÆs just a mitigating step if the surface is hostile to A/ Æs clone. -

She frowned. - A small one, probably. Not sure if itÆs big enough for A/ . -

- Work on it? - Alka pushed the void archmage, and she frowned but eventually accepted. Edna chuckled.

- Stella already has a lot of things on her plate. -

- Well, if thereÆs some other alternative to void magic to move shit around, then we better get to it, - Alka said. - If A/ is willing to kidnap some angels, for example. -

I rejected that idea. - No kidnapping. I donÆt want to ruin a potentially sensitive relationship with the angels. They appear to be the kind that remembers such transgressions and petty enough to wage a war over it. -

Alka laughed. - WeÆll have to make some enemies, even with people we like, A/ . We need their angelic powers. If we can breed some of our own? -

Edna stepped in. - Alka, I think thatÆs probably not where we want to go. -

The scientist paused as he realized he probably said too much. - Ah, yes. -

6

YEAR 249

There was nothing much to do beyond watching my folks prepare for the inevitable. My trees and research trees did their best to find ways to dig into the demons planet. It took slightly longer than expected, but the demonÆs comet could now be seen on the demon kingÆs core. Our magical sensors picked up its transmission to each of the demon worlds.

A group of my mages tried to figure out how the demon sent transmissions through the void sea, because if we could replicate that, we could have interworld communication that was not entirely reliant on my network of clones.

My domain holders were busy, but with the Houndworld freed from the demons hold, it was also another potential evacuation spot.

But it was a lot less accessible, because it required my void mages to make multiple hops to reach the Houndworld.

A smaller group went and set up an operating base anyway.

The vassal wars had a small breather this year. Both sides grew weary and tired of the war, and the merchant guilds wanted to consolidate their positions. So in an entirely unplanned moment, most of the guilds and the defenders just stopped launching new offensives, focusing on their own defenses and shoring up their own economy.

They would return to the wars eventually, but the breather gave the general populace a great chance to recover from damage.

Until it all got destroyed all over again.

- Do you feel we are increasingly becoming irrelevant? - Chung asked the other heroes one day when they were on Mountainworld. The preparations were going well, and there was still leisure time.

I didnÆt push the heroes very hard, as long as they fought the demon kings. What they did in their free time I left to them. Like Prabu and ColetteÆs plan to have a child.

- What do you mean? - Prabu said while stuffing himself some more.

- Not really, - Colette answered. - WeÆre still doing what we are meant to be doing. -

- But weÆre increasingly becoming less. less important. -

- Did the hero class suddenly trigger something, Chung? - Prabu looked at his friend with a strange look. TheyÆd been together for decades, and the relationship among heroes could be a little tense because even the smallest things triggered them after so long. Thankfully, they only needed to be together when they prepared for the demon king, and the heroes frequently returned to their own - homes - to decompress.

I was very torn on the nature of the hero class. It certainly had an overwhelming influence on the heroes mindset and guided them toward fighting the demons. The best time to investigate the hero class was when a hero was weak, when they were still growing and not fully matured. But that often involved capturing or letting a hero suffer some kind of injury such that IÆd be in the position to access the hero class and their soul spring.

Just like Harris or Meela.

I remembered being able to remove MeelaÆs class at one point, but with the current generation of heroes, I had never gotten that prompt.

- My void explorer reached a new world. IÆm not sure if itÆs near the gods yet. -

The gods could be hiding, and honestly we didnÆt know how exactly to sense a god. I knew that AivaÆs presence could be keenly felt, but there was no certainty that it was repeated everywhere or whether the other gods transmitted their presences.

Therefore, it fell on Lumoof to explore this new world.

- Is it a good idea to explore when we face the prospect of a demonÆs comet? - Lumoof asked me privately. Alka spent some time fighting more monsters in the dungeon, but since the demon mother only gave a few levels, it wasnÆt really worth it. Freeing an additional world was a risk, especially if it meant that world could be retaken by another invading demon king.

Even the Houndworld, without my clone, I didnÆt have much confidence in my ability to secure that world if we were attacked by demon kings since the heroes wouldnÆt be there to deliver the final blow.

- ThereÆs nothing much we can do, beyond getting stronger, but the prospect of gaining allies from far away is worth it. -

Lumoof shrugged. Alka was busy preparing weapons and checking on all the bombs on Turtleworld. Stella was still working on the void magic platforms on the TurtleworldÆs asteroids. Roon, Edna, and Johann were preparing the invasion force.

There were priests and other patriarchs to do the priestly stuff that Lumoof sometimes did.

- YouÆre my avatar. If not you, then who? -

Lumoof laughed. - I suppose so. -

7

YEAR 249

- Two months, - Lumoof said to himself. We would spend two months in this world, and no more.

Stella shrugged. - DonÆt worry about it. There are enough of us to cover you. Seriously, just go and explore this world and see whatÆs there. ItÆs really far away, and I donÆt know what to expect. -

Lumoof rolled his eyes at the human voidmage. - How strange could it get? -

- Very. Each realm and world is its own little cocoon. -

- Fine, letÆs take bets. IÆm betting weÆll see humans, - Lumoof said.

Stella laughed. - WhatÆs the prize? -

- IÆll take your next assignment to wherever, and youÆll take mine. -

- You know it doesnÆt work like that. But sure, IÆll take the opposing bet. No humans. WeÆll add drinks to that, too, - Stella accepted. - From what I could tell, people seem to be living there. -

- Really? - Lumoof said. - Very well, then. -

- Good luck, old man. Go forth and spread A/ Æs gospel. -

Lumoof choked. - You know I wonÆt do that in a strange new world. -

- I know. - Stella laughed. - Have fun. -

The link through the void explorer faded behind Lumoof; the aberration vanished like it never was.

I could feel LumoofÆs nagging guilt, even though we both knew we had time. Exploration was important for growth, for learning, for allies. We pushed on anyway. At this point, it was up to my team to do their part and for all of us to show up when it mattered.

Lumoof, my priest and avatar, landed in what seemed to be forested land, with patches of greenish grass and pine trees around us. The air had a faint citrusy scent, and as LumoofÆs magical senses expanded, we detected the presence of wolves, rabbits, and foxes. Birds on the branches. Insects.

Lumoof could feel the presence of the ground, and it spoke back to him. Or at least, it gave him a sense of where people were.

- As usual, letÆs just spy on the locals before we make contact, - I repeated, and LumoofÆs magical ring cloaked his presence. Unless one actively tried, magical perception would fail.

Forest. It was strangely calming to be in the presence of the woods, and Lumoof soon found himself taking a leisurely stroll through them. None of the animals approached us, though we could feel their eyes on Lumoof. Instead, they scurried away and ran as soon as we even approached.

We couldnÆt see the presence of the demons usual star paths in the skies of this world. Cautiously, I took it as a sign that this world was not invaded, and that was a good thing. The demons taint had not spread to all worlds.

It took about two hours of casual strolling before we arrived on what appeared to be a road. It was a muddy road, but a quick glance revealed the presence of unusual marks on the road itself: gigantic, claw - shaped marks, and next to them, smaller, human - sized marks. But their feet were not humans. Or may not be humans.

- I might lose this bet. - Lumoof smirked as he examined the dried, muddy road. - Beastmen of some kind? -

- With lizard mounts, - I answered, - or war animals. -

Lumoof followed the path, following the footsteps where they led. As we continued along the path of footsteps, or claw marks, we eventually approached what appeared to be a camp of some kind. An army camp. I knew it was an army because there didnÆt appear to be young children.

It was a group of beastmen, with the heads of either lions or tigers, and they wore heavy armor made of bones and weapons made of magical ivory. Each of the beastmen radiated strength comparable to a soldier around level thirty to level forty, and the leaderÆs presence was someone around level fifty to sixty.

Our first encounter with this worldÆs civilization was a war party, so that was not a good sign. Lumoof nodded. - Let us watch a bit more and see who they fight. -

They didnÆt detect us, and Lumoof followed the lion - tiger beastmen for three days until they were out of the forests. During this time, we listened into their conversation. The lion - tiger beastmen referred to themselves as the Sinmau, while their opponents appeared to be a group of wolf - fox beastmen referred to as the Mugala. They had war mounts that were gigantic lizards with scaled armor, which they referred to as the Cheecaks.

At first, we didnÆt notice it, but Lumoof began to notice something unusual about the Cheecaks. They had a strange strand of magic about them, as if all of them were linked to something far away.

The day of the battle came, and Lumoof watched the Mugala army approach. They were a small clan of similar size, about thirty beastmen with wolf and fox heads, and their strengths were comparable to the Sinmau force.

The leaders of both sides thumped their breastplates and faced each other for a duel.

- Foul cubs, did your ancestors not teach you of stupidity? Your foolish attempts to encroach on the ancestral lands of the Mugala Whitewolf Clan will be the death of you, - the leader of the Mugala war pack shouted to the Sinmau war leader.

Lumoof inwardly groaned. Two months couldnÆt pass fast enough.

The two leaders fought first, and to Lumoof, it was like watching two soldiers in the Valthorn Academy fight to the death. They were all so weak that it really wasnÆt worth it.

- We could capture some of them, - Lumoof suggested, - and use them to tell us more about the world. -

- No. Not yet. Let us watch a little longer. - The battle was frankly pathetic to watch and nothing much of interest, but my fascination with the Cheecaks used by both sides increased as the battle continued. We noticed the unusual strands of magic as if they were bound and tied to something else, really far away.

The battle ended largely with a tie, as both sides were severely injured and retreated. But Lumoof decided to trust our instincts and follow what was interesting to us: the strand of magic that linked their Cheecak mounts.

My priest followed and traced the strands of magic in the air, and we noticed they came from everywhere. Lumoof was cocooned in his own enchantments, and magic moved swiftly across the land.

The terrain of this world was varied and had a high level of diversity and frankly reminded me of our own home world. There were large forested areas, areas where it was just vast grasslands, high, soaring mountains, and large rivers. But our interest in the Cheecaks only increased my suspicion that something was strange with these mounts.

All those strands of magic could be felt like momentary flickers in the air. The presence of a connection, like a message, but more than that. We traced it for a week and arrived at what was a large mountain, the tallest mountain we had ever seen.

It was a mountain that was covered in a kind of red snow, and clouds swirled around the peak. There were more beastmen here, clustered around the four cities around the mountain itself.

We spent a day or two observing the cities from a distance. Each was home to a different type of beastmen: the lion - tigerfolks, the Sinmau; the wolf - fox people, the Mugala; the bird - headed people, the Burung; and the rhino - headed beastmen, the Tanduk. The Cheecaks were used by all four different beast clans.

This mountain was Mount Kina, the holy land of the four clans of beasts.

- WeÆre not here to meddle with their politics. We are here to find allies, if any. If these people are not worth it, we will leave and return when we have the time to make a better stand. Our goal is the powers and anything strong enough to help us against the comet. -

Over a few days, as we continued our observation near that mountain, we realized those magical strands led to the mountain above.

- LetÆs go, - I said, and Lumoof nodded. A mountain was nothing to worry about.

As it turned out, the act of climbing the mountain was an act of pilgrimage. The mountain, which soared into the heavens above, was separated into ten steps, and it was said that a beastmanÆs prestige and rank among his clan was determined by which of those ten steps he reached during one of the great climbs.

Climbing outside of the scheduled - Great Climbs - was frowned upon; there was no blessing in doing so.

It mattered little.

WeÆd roughly settled on the name - Beastmenworld - for the people here, though our spying soon revealed that they referred to their own world as the First Realm. I wondered whether they even knew of the existence of a world beyond theirs.

Lumoof stood at the edges of the mountain and frowned. - I think we can just teleport up there. Ah. Nope. ThereÆs something interrupting the magic. -

If there was anything worthwhile in this world, it was likely to be up there. Even now we could sense the minute strands of wills and thoughts, all from the various Cheecaks all over the world. Since we couldnÆt get up there by spatial magic, it was time to do it the old - fashioned way.

LumoofÆs body charged with blessings and magic, and he jumped. In a single bound, he leaped up to the seventh step, where the mountain touched the misty crown of clouds. There was a weight from above, a presence not unlike the aura of a domain holder. It pressed onto Lumoof, and it bounced off like water on an oily surface.

- Well, a domain holder at the top, - Lumoof mused. Without the weight of that domain holderÆs aura delaying our rise, he leaped up, through the clouds, and then landed on what was the tenth step. There was a large plateau, but it was not the top. It went even further, its presence masked and distorted by the powers of a fellow domain holder.

There were a large group of heavily armed beastfolks on top, with representatives from each of the races, but they didnÆt notice Lumoof behind the veil of magic. But they looked visibly upset and uncertain, their weapons drawn and edgy.

- His Holiness claims there is an intruder on the Mountain! - they shouted, and each of them looked.

There was the presence of another domain holder from the top, and Lumoof paused. - Should we even bother? -

There really was no good way to make contact with another domain holder without seemingly - barging in. - It wasnÆt as if there were agents we could talk to, and those came with a set of risks, too.

I thought it was more effective, and more honest, to just go for the center and be blunt about it. Lumoof asked a question, then. - How would you like to be approached, A/ ? -

It actually stumped me.

An earlier, more vulnerable version of myself would prefer for contact to be made through my Tree of Prayers instead of my real body. Or through any of my subsidiary trees.

More than anything, what more an immovable immortal, I felt vulnerable and compromised when approached. It was likely that any immortal that could not move didnÆt like anyone or anything to get near its main body and would go to great lengths for things to stay that way. Our location, truly, was a sore point. We could not move, and thus our attempts to hide were made harder because anyone who wanted to find us already knew where to look.

Maybe I should first try to respect that boundary and actually try it.

So Lumoof stopped instead of climbing further. - Actually, letÆs catch one of those Cheecaks and use my mana on it. If our suspicions are correct, the Cheecaks are linked to this strange entity at the end. -

- Surely we should first try to talk to these seemingly mindless creatures? -

I supposed that was the equivalent of someone talking to my beetles and expecting me to notice it on my end? -

Wait. I actually would notice it. My artificial minds would notice it, for sure.

Lumoof retreated back down the mountain and left the guards confused. The entire four cities remained fairly tense and on alert as the guards departed from the high mountain down into the cities below.

My priest retreated quickly, his moving speed likely outstripping what the locals could do, and arrived in one of the small towns outside a few days later.

Lumoof managed to find a group of Cheecaks stored in some kind of Cheecak stables. It was more of a mosh pit than anything for these giant lizards to roll around and pretend like they were still tiny lizards.

There were just a few guards, and Lumoof tapped into my avatar powers and quickly put them to sleep. It was easy. Despite their different anatomy and body, the powers of a system still worked, and they all slept like any other.

Logically, a sleep spell designed for humans should not work on someone not a human. But System shenanigans meant a generic sleep spell would work on all creatures, provided their immunities were low. With the Mugala guards all asleep, Lumoof approached one of the Cheecaks.

It looked like a blank, dumb animal.

- Hello, - Lumoof said on my behalf. I knew he felt somewhat silly, but we wanted to see whether we could call on the de facto god of this world.

The Cheecak did not respond.

- I know youÆre there. Somewhere in there. Linked to the mountain high above. -

The large lizard did not respond.

Lumoof placed his hand on the dull giant lizardÆs head, and my mana flooded the lizard. My mana poured into it and searched for that little strand that tied the lizard back to whatever was up on the mountain? -

I felt it.

A strand of energy. It snapped just as quickly as my mana twirled with it.

It felt like a figment, a minor shadow of a soul. It shattered into pieces just as my mana reached into the lizard.

The Cheecak reacted to it badly. It was already dull, but now it looked absolutely blank, as if there was no thought or will behind it at all.

- Failed. - Lumoof cursed. He felt my every move, every twitch and movement of mana. - LetÆs go to the next one. -

I failed to touch that figment in the next three Cheecaks. I tried to be faster, slower, more gentle, with a minor presence. But it didnÆt. Instead, that figment just snapped.

There were still a few more Cheecaks left, and then one of them looked at Lumoof as if it had gained a few extra braincells. Lumoof looked back.

- Hello. Are you there? - Lumoof said.

The Cheecak just looked at Lumoof blankly.

Lumoof sighed. - Or do we have to snap a few more of your fragmented souls to get your attention? -

At that moment, that single Cheecak experienced a convulsion, as if it was in shock. Lumoof felt it, and I did, too. I felt a growing presence within that Cheecak, gathering, and then the Cheecak had a third eye appear in between its existing two, which glowed green.

- YouÆve managed to summon us? -

Domain has blocked attempted inspect.

There was a moment of silence before the giant Cheecak spoke once more. - Who are we speaking to? -

Lumoof smiled. At least our attempts to talk to a dull lizard did actually awaken the actual puppeteer behind it all. - I am Lumoof, avatar of A/ . We are outworlders, not from this world of yours. -

It was a long silence before the Cheecak spoke once more. - From the divine - touched worlds? -

- I do not know what that means. -

Another long pause, and once more our domain blocked a few more spells. - Strange. ItÆs been so long since we had a visitor from the stars. -

I noticed the word - we. - Was this another one of those hive minds, like Lilies? I wondered if theyÆd be friendly, but then again, it mattered little. From what IÆd seen so far, their combat abilities were not fantastic. Potential was there, but I believed there were a dime a dozen other similar worlds out there.

Lumoof sensed it and understood what we wanted. - Greetings. Then who are we speaking to? -

- We are the Great Beast Spirits, and collectively, we are referred to as the Bitu. Why have you called us, outworlder? -

- Where are the divine - touched worlds? - If there was nothing here, might as well ask for directions. - We wish to reach and speak to the gods for their aid in our battle against the great demons. -

There was a long, long silence as the CheecakÆs third eye continued to stare. Lumoof was way too used to talking to domain - tier individuals and was absolutely unbothered.

- The devourers, - Bitu answered. - They still live? -

- They are everywhere, - Lumoof answered. - Except here, somehow. -

- The last weÆve seen them was. I cannot remember how many solar cycles ago. -

- Perhaps your world somehow drifted to safety. Away from their reach. - Lumoof was just speculating.

- That would be sensible. But we do not know where the divine - touched worlds are. The last of the divineÆs messengers came during the age of the devourers and vanished with them. -

Lumoof nodded. - If that is the truth, then we shall be on our way. Our war is not over. -

- And it seems it is not over for us, too. -

8

YEAR 250

Three years till first alignment of the demonÆs comet. We see it bright and clear in the void sea; its transmission to the worlds were picked up by our sensors across all the demon-infested worlds.

It taunted us with its presence. I wondered whether it was intentional or it was just confident that there was nothing we could do to stop a planetary comet barreling our way.

Lumoof returned from the stint on Beastworld, and Stella sent her void explorer further. I wasnÆt sure if weÆd see them again, but what we shared with the CheecakÆs hive mind was a story told a thousand times over.

Instead, my attention was split on our preparations on the Demonic Turtleworld and also Mountainworld, where a demon king should be arriving any time.

My void mages on Mountainworld observed the path of the stars to the demon world grow in strength and form, almost enough for the void mages to activate the rift gates and send our own spies through to the other side.

Preparations on both worlds were fairly intense, but the preparations for the demonÆs comet truly stretched our forces and our resources and caused wild swings in the economies of Treehome and Mountainworld.

We sent resources to our bunkers and bases on Tropicworld in huge batches, enough to build new cities outright. Steel, iron, metals. Stone. We bought so many for the weapons and bases we constructed on Tropicworld and also the Demonic Turtleworld.

To make bombs, we bought so many crystals and materials for runes that we essentially caused a shortage of runic language liquids and ink.

To set up the void platforms and amplifiers, we bought all types of precious gems and rare metals. Our craftsmen and builders were fully booked, some of them working extra hours.

The resource demands to destroy a demonÆs comet were so high that as long as any matching resource or material hit the markets, we would bid for them.

As strange as it sounded, the economic and resource demands for the demonÆs comet essentially drained the fuel and fire out of the vassal wars. Soldiers couldnÆt fight without weapons. Warships couldnÆt be built without runic ink and liquids, formations or steel. Fortifications couldnÆt be built.

Even magical scrolls were in short supply because we kept buying and ordering scrolls.

In order to stockpile food, should we ever need to resort to a large - scale evacuation, we bought seeds and various long - lasting food types for storage on the other worlds.

For merchants and for the kingdoms on the other continents, this wild purchase drove prices up, but to me, money was always just a means of exchange. There was always gold somewhere in some other world where we could easily mine. Some of my subsidiary trees were even specialized resource harvesters, collecting gold and precious metals where they were easily found.

Essentially, money was aplenty, and we could pretty much print as much as needed to pay our suppliers. Resources were not.

Most nations, in the face of our massive buying spree, had to resort to export embargoes and export quotas, preventing merchants from selling too much or only their excess supply. Some resorted to nationalization, where the holy emperor essentially commanded that certain mines were temporarily imperial property in order to continue their war effort.

Ultimately, the strain on their resources placed an uncommon burden on their logistics network.

It was as if two warships sailed at each other, and both of them ran out of fuel.

As the Valtorn Order, the Central Freshland Authority, commonly referred to by the folks as Central, we were the preferred customer for many resource producers simply due to the scale of our orders, the military protection we provided, and the banking networks that we controlled. If we put in an order, most of them would prioritize our orders, simply to avoid offending us.

It was a threat we rarely used, but my spies ensured that the propaganda and words spread out there ensured most merchants knew their place and strongly believed we would. After the whole vassal wars, it was imperative as an organization that we were not seen as a - lame duck - authority. Our threats were real threats and not just statements we didnÆt mean to act on.

I thought about that sometimes. For threats to be real threats, there had to be action. Seen, visible action.

Actions done in my name, actions such as bribery, kidnapping, torture and assassinations. Threats. Actions.

Blood on my hands. Blood on my roots. Blood on every single leaf and tree.

I thought about it and remembered that it must be done.

For the heroes, they were taking things easy. They were well prepared, and there didnÆt seem like any reason for them to panic. They traveled frequently between Mountainworld, Treehome, and Threeworlds.

Colette had a daughter, Rohana. She was perfectly normal, like what a human child was expected to be, and had no unusual or inherited abilities.

Both Prabu and Colette were strangely relieved and asked that she be cared for by us, directly. I wasnÆt comfortable being the trustees and guardians of a heroÆs child, and it reminded me of that time when Roma was growing up.

History sure loved to rhyme, and with enough time, there was always a rhyming pair. Ken naturally understood my position and instead volunteered to arrange for other long - lived persons to play the role. In this case, Ken actually asked Kei, Lozanna , and Edna to play the role of godmothers.

It wasnÆt the first child. Hafiz had many children outside, with his little harem, but Hafiz always kept his harem separate from the rest of the heroes. Chung, prior to his infatuation with Khefri, also had a harem, with some children, too.

But as strange as it was, I was fairly sure the heroes didnÆt consider their children to be one of them. IÆd observed Hafiz with his harem, and I could tell there was some genuine love for his harem. Yet there was always a wall that these children didnÆt get through.

Their children were not part of this little club of earthlings.

Rohana was different. She was the first child born to two heroes IÆd known so far, and it was actually quite difficult for Colette to conceive PrabuÆs child. It was a matter that strained the coupleÆs relationship and was instructive to both Khefri and Chung.

I learned something throughout ColetteÆs challenges, even though I had to play the role of a voyeur after Prabu came to me for assistance.

The hero class was incredibly fertile, and this was why the heroes could have a harem and get so many ladies pregnant. It was why Harris had so many offspring and why every hero seemed to have some descendants scattered all over the world. There were written letters and books passed down by various royal families that recorded that a heroÆs discharge could fertilize and cause a princess to be pregnant even after a month.

Essentially, the class was really a super breeder .

But this benefit did not apply when the other party was another hero. The hero class didnÆt like to give birth to another heroÆs child, and rather than promote it, it actively suppressed their bodies when they were in the act.

But it was something they both wanted, and I had to find ways to augment both their fertility and align their cycles. It wasnÆt difficult to pull a few herbalists, healers, and mages to help out on this project.

The hero classÆs resistance to fellow hero pregnancy wasnÆt extremely difficult to defeat. The class actively discouraged pregnancies to other heroes, but with sufficient fertility boosting stuff, it was eventually a success.

Privately, I wondered what the purpose of such a restriction was. To prevent friction with a hero group? They already suppressed their mating instincts before they killed the hero. Or was the intention really to dilute the heroÆs bloodline with some native?

Why?

And why did the class make them so fertile? Was there a purpose for that level of excessive fertility?

I had no answer, even if there were many theories.

Was there a function of why the heroÆs genes seemed to be designed to mix in the common genetic pool?

A part of me wondered whether this was due to some kind of inherent flaw in the nature of the people. At some point, people must be created by the System.

All these magical races didnÆt emerge out of nowhere. They must be created at some point far in the past, and perhaps the intention of mixing heroÆs genetic data with the offspring of created races was for some kind of genetic resilience?

Again. Many theories, no answers.

The entire Treehome wanted to know what we were up to. Why did we buy so much stuff?

I believed that most economies were self - adjusting, that if prices were high enough, it would be so profitable that more people would do it, and that was true to a certain degree. But rare materials were rare for a reason.

Even if one dumped more people at it, they wouldnÆt be made or found.

My Valthorns thus considered the need to expand beyond the - Clone Worlds, - worlds where I had a clone and set up mining and resource bases in the worlds such as Angelworld, or Beastworld, or many other smaller worlds. Mining and trading outposts, essentially, where we could learn from the locals and buy from them.

Threeworlds, we couldnÆt do much trade, because only the Sandpeople and the Centaurs would trade with us, and with their own war ongoing, Zhaanpu didnÆt authorize any significant movement of materials or resources. The Centaurs followed ZhaanpuÆs decision. The human faction, beholden to their immortal crystal king, refused to interact with us in any substantive manner, even if we knew they were curious.

Their criminal factions were willing to work with us, but only on a surface level. Their suspicions of us as outworlders were surprisingly high, and the crystal king went all - out on the Outworlder propaganda.

To counter this Outworlder narrative, I did what we did elsewhere: tours.

For the Sandpeople and the Centaurs, we invited some of their leaders for a trip to Treehome to see our world and to learn. Over the past few years, there were at least a hundred such trips granted to the people of Threeworlds and Mountainworld.

I hoped to pull these two worlds closer to us; in time, these three worlds should be our local group, where all three could easily support each other.

Despite this, my artificial minds already began to observe the same sort of nativism espoused by the crystal king. Those on Mountainworld would wonder why goods and resources were redirected to other worlds instead of reinvestments.

Even my Valthorns, a significantly large majority of them came from Treehome, and trying to balance the viewpoints of those who came from Branchhold or the other worlds was a problem that would only grow.

Secretly, I thought of creating a voting system where each world could send representatives to Treehome to deliberate on matters pertaining the whole.

After all, the kingdoms and nations of the Central Continent all had representatives in the CentralÆs ruling council.

Right now, although each of these worlds were somewhat self - administered, their position was quite like the Six Ports, where they were direct territories of the Valtorn Orders.

It was a potential for dissatisfaction if the local citizens were not given a means to express some of their views and discontent, even if it was a largely performative role. We were a growing interplanar empire, and thus the political and administrative structure that ruled the empire could not be the same one that ruled the Central Continent.

It didnÆt matter for my military worlds, where the only ones who lived there were my military operators and were primarily a transient population.

My base on Threeworlds, right now, was governed by an appointed governor from Treehome, a Valtorn administrator. Tropicworld was also similarly governed by an appointed governor, but unlike Threeworlds, Tropicworld had a far larger civilian population due to the settlement programs over the past decade. Branchhold, my nation located on Mountainworld, had a large number of refugees who then turned it into their home.

Someday, if Lavaworld or Cometworld had their own populations, it was likely they would ask for some means of self - governance, at least in areas where it was relevant to them.

Each of these worlds were in different levels of economic, political, and structural development. The sizes of their populations were different, so the level of administrative talent was therefore different. The expectations and degree of self - management afforded to each of these locations could not be the same.

There were legitimate and valid concerns about standardization of laws.

Especially if we planned to have a large civilian group traveling between worlds in the future for commercial and social traffic.

In the meantime, my lords suggested the creation of a second representative council, one called only when I desired their views, each with representatives from each of the - Clone Worlds. -

9

YEAR 251

The comet got closer, and my void mages actually tried to reach it from the asteroids of the Demon Turtleworld. It was still too far.

Even Stella couldnÆt go so far.

- CouldnÆt you use your void explorer on the comet? - Edna complained, and it was an idea raised before. But the void explorer actually needed to travel back to Stella. It was not something that could just be - dispelled. - Perhaps someday, Stella would gain levels and unlock multiple void explorers. That would significantly improve our exploration speed.

Still, all of this was not fruitless. We were getting better at detecting, scanning, and figuring out the nature of the demonic world. Just like how scientists of Earth had many tools and scanners to detect the composition of a planet, our magical tools improved over the decades.

Our tools suggested a high likelihood of crystals, and so it was likely to be a rocky planet filled with daemolite.

I could tell there was an undercurrent of worry and anxiety among the Valthorns tasked to prepare for the alignment of the Demonic Turtleworld and Cometworld, especially the void mages.

Everything depended on the void mages actually successfully opening a portal to Cometworld. If there was some kind of core - defense, just like how planetary cores shredded void portals close to their core, then we would be in trouble.

Infiltrate, Manipulate, Redirect, Destroy, Evacuate. If infiltration failed, evacuation was the only way.

On Mountainworld, the Star Path to the demon world solidified. We should be seeing the rifts soon, though so far, there were none spotted.

My void mages on Mountainworld, on average, were less experienced than the team on the Demonic Turtleworld, but they were still led by my experienced void archmage, and Stella still moved between the two worlds to provide some guidance and oversight.

It was in our interest to settle this worldÆs demon king as quickly as possible so that we could redirect manpower to the demon comet.

Alka, after a long and convoluted argument, decided that it was best that he supported the heroes on Mountainworld. He needed the levels, and if he could blow the demon king up or weaken it significantly, he could get stronger and use that strength to hack at the comet.

I didnÆt want to risk it with the demon king. Demon kings could vary wildly in strength, and some had really unusual power sets, so I felt it was an unnecessary risk for Alka.

Despite my disagreements with that approach, we put it to a vote with my domain holders. Edna, Roon, and Johann all supported AlkaÆs attempts to grow stronger. To the three, fighting demon kings was absolutely normal, so they didnÆt think it was a problem.

Lumoof and Stella opposed, preferring the more conservative approach, partly because we didnÆt know how long my respawn process was.

Oh well.

WeÆd just have to deal with the consequences, whatever they were.

10

YEAR 252

One year to go till the first intersection and my void mages tried to cheat. Approach it. Extend their range. Find ways to get there and buy us more time. By my mages estimates, we had a short window when we could deliver people and goods onto the comet. After that window, itÆd move out of range.

It was critical that both Lumoof and Stella get there. My clone seed still had another three years to go, but if we couldnÆt deploy my clone, weÆd have to make do with all the equipment we could deliver during this somewhat short window. How weÆd proceed would depend on what we discovered.

Mountainworld.

The path in the skies above now glowed, and the rifts arrived as predicted. Demonic spiders poured out of the rifts, but the Valthorns on Mountainworld slaughtered these poison - users easily. Their gimmick seemed to be a combination of poison and self - replication; larger demonic spiders exploded into smaller spiders, and smaller spiders exploded into even smaller spiders. The smaller ones were no larger than a basketball, but it meant that every gigantic demon spider was an actual army of spiders.

It reminded me of tower - defense games where mobs had decay or devolution mechanics.

- Spiders. - These demonic spiders differed from their regular spiders by their body composition. The demonic spiders were made of the same kind of rocky, semi - crystalline material seen on other demons, and they had their signature reddish glow through their body.

A few captured samples indicated that underlying it all, their nature was similar to the demonic hounds, and I was able to capture some to study their abilities. If my beetles could replicate that ability, it would significantly enhance my beetles combat powers.

It didnÆt take too long to overwhelm them with my mana, just like the demonic hounds, but once I captured them, they lost that ability to break up into smaller pieces. It was soon clear that the ability came through linked energies, linked to the unborn demon king, just like the parasite - demons with their ties to their own demon king.

Just as I dealt with the strands of faint energies seen in the Cheecak, I had become more aware of the faint threads and links that existed between these creatures and their masters. With the same refinement and finesse, I attempted to tap into these links, to trace the path of these faint lines of magic and control.

To see what was behind it all.

My mana got better at piercing behind the veils, and it followed the roots down to the sources of water.

The demons collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.

Even the giant spiders collapsed and disintegrated rather than resist. All it took was for my root to pierce it and for my mana to begin seeking the source. It was as if I was getting closer to the drone controller, and in panic, just as it always had, its first instinct was to cut off the connection.

I didnÆt know whether it was fear.

- A/ , youÆre making this too easy. - Alka laughed. - If we still want demons to fight, weÆll have to jump to the other side. -

Alka looked more than happy to dive headfirst into the demon world and mess with the attackers. He needed the levels, and killing a lot of demons was one way to get them. Even if it was hardly worth it for him, it took forever for a creature of his strength to level.

The rest of my demigods were on Demonic Turtleworld.

The demon spiders home world was naturally named Spiderworld, because, well, it had to be. When we got to the other side, what we saw was a variant of the Rottedlands.

A vast, towering world filled with huge demonic trees and a lot of webs everywhere. I felt a sense of kinship immediately. These were trees, even if they were demon trees.

I still kept a small amount of demonic trees, in specified orchards, just to continue studying these fascinating hybrid trees. Here, this was essentially a demonic ecosystem, geared to invade other worlds.

The demonic trees were essentially vast spawning pods, each of them containing large numbers of cocoons made of webs. Inside were dormant demon spiders by the hundreds and thousands. Still, they were trees.

The hybrid trees were under my control now. Their links to their foreign masters severed and now mine. They still produced small quantities of demonic mana, mana I used to fiddle with demonic equipment.

The earthlings speculated that the demons were the magical equivalent of self - replicating gray goo. The evidence, despite my skepticism, generally supported this view. They may feign intelligence, even possess it, but ultimately their base instinct was to assimilate everything and turn everything into demonic gray goo.

Lumoof wasnÆt here, so all I could see was sent through AlkaÆs magical communication devices and scrying.

A group of Valthorns accompanied Alka to the other side.

- Well. - Alka looked at his team. - This world has demon trees, and our patron will want to study it. - Each of these Valthorns went through years of training to get here. These were the level eighties to one hundred twenties, and so they knew the drill. Each of their squad leaders went through at least two demon-world raids and knew what to do. - Same stuff as the last time. Capture the rift gates for our void lady, locate the pit, kill the demons that stop us, and report back. -

The team of about three hundred fanned out. The spiders were no match to the well - armed Valthorns, even if they were incredibly persistent.

The entire world was filled with trees, and we soon found water. It wasnÆt regular water, though. It was purple and laced with metals. Poisoned for normal people, but the demon trees of this world adapted to them.

Eventually the Valthorn druids began shipping some of these demon trees, packed inside special containers, through the rift gates back to Mountainworld for my studies. They were adapted to the metals of Spiderworld, and the metals of Spiderworld had surprising self - reconstruction abilities.

They were not very strong, but these metals, when stimulated with small amounts of magic, could - remember - their form and would naturally reform that remembered form. A dose of magic later, the metals could then forget that form, as if it never happened. This metal immediately made me check the captured demon spiders. They were not made with this metal, and yet the demons somehow managed to pass on the qualities of the metal to these spiders, which was why they could explode into smaller quantities.

The demons abilities often feel like borderline bullshit, because there shouldnÆt be a way to have such a wide array of abilities.

The simpler explanation was that the demon king was a kind of adaptive virus that adopted all the abilities of its parent planets, and then all its minions essentially got a weakened version of those adopted abilities.

If this was true, we could conclude that the demons only had a few abilities. The rest was just stolen shit.

The ability to capture, absorb abilities, and then pass it on to minions.

The ability to self - replicate itself in smaller and weaker versions.

The ability to build void portals, structures, and the ability to use void magic.

The ability to create and summon these infesting superminion - controllers, the demon king.

Based on this core set of demonic abilities, the ability to unmake or interfere with any of these abilities individually would stop the demons in their tracks.

Stopping the demons ability to build void portals and void magic would stop the demons ability to travel and reach new victims. Stopping the ability to create demon kings would essentially reduce the threat level of demons to the equivalent of an army of strong natural magical beasts.

This was the medical equivalent of stopping the infection vectors or mutating and turning the demon king into just a slightly strong influenza. Dangerous, but not undefeatable.

Anyway, Alka eventually found the pit of the demon king, but it was so rigged with demonic spiders and webs that it wasnÆt worth the risk.

He wasnÆt a one - man army. He was essentially a glass nuke. The Valthorns captured the rifts, took some more samples of every single strange or unusual thing, rigged the pits with bombs, planted our magical sensor equipment, and then went back to Mountainworld to await further instructions.

My mages were more than happy to have new metal types to play with. The immediate uses were not clear, but with research and magical items, their usefulness often emerged after decades of tweaking, experimentation, and happy little coincidences.

Each small step enabled something further down the line. It was just how it was.

We planted trees today, and only decades later did we know what they looked like. Even if we had druids guiding their path, nature often surprised and took unusual turns.

We captured enough rift gates that the number of rifts on Mountainworld was pretty much cut by two - thirds. There were still some rifts coming through, and the demons likely had even more rift gates in places we didnÆt find, but the number of demons was manageable.

The heroes waited.

The location of the demon kingÆs arrival was getting clearer, and then we realized something absolutely annoying.

The spider demon king would arrive right in the center of one of the Dwarven capitals of Mountainworld.

- This is ridiculous. - The king of the dwarves slammed his table when my envoy from Branchhold arrived with the news.

I didnÆt have the resources to send a strike team to Spiderworld, not with the plan to invade the demon comet, and I didnÆt want to do it anyway. Destroying the demon king on Spiderworld could trigger another demon comet, and that was a risk I didnÆt want to take.

Thus the safest way was to evacuate the capital for a battle with the demon king.

The capital could be rebuilt.

- My ancestors built this capital four thousand years ago. This palace was built three thousand two hundred and eleven years ago. Do you know how many ancient structures remain in this city? -

My envoy was apologetic and tried his best to appeal to the distraught emotions of the dwarf king. But he was stubborn, and his people stood by their king. They were not moving, and looking at the city of the dwarven king, I certainly could see why.

They were prosperous, industrious, and the city well - fortified. There were enough magical weapons and defenses to stop a regular demon attack. The people would lose all they had built, all the resources and time they invested in building this city.

All I saw was how it would burn like paper before the demon king.

I couldnÆt nuke the demon king if it arrived here. Not without killing the locals.

The void mages scrambled to find a solution, whether we could try to meddle with the demon kingÆs path, just like how Lumoof meddled with the anti - magic demon king.

But the answer was no. Unless Lumoof was willing to hitch a ride on the spider demon king again, but the last time we did it, Lumoof was out for weeks.

I needed Lumoof for the comet intersection.

I called the heroes for a briefing, for a message that was going to be hard to swallow.

- The dwarven king refused to cooperate and will not evacuate. The entire city, too. -

The heroes cursed. Ken looked absolutely sad. I knew this day would come one day. The demon king had so far avoided populated areas, but it was by sheer luck and the fact that the wilderness outnumbered cities by a large factor.

There would come a day that the demon king would strike a populated area.

It just sucked that I had another commitment, one that threatened our world.

Adrian and Kelly, the two native heroes of Mountainworld, looked absolutely devastated. Adrian volunteered to talk to the dwarven king again. - HeÆs killing his people. I will try to change his mind. -

The dwarven capital was one of the most prosperous in Mountainworld, and there were screams of jealousy. They said this was a plot to destroy a competitor, despite our track record of predicting and dealing with the past demon king attacks.

The heroes immediately asked to replicate what was done before. - Can Lumoof? -

- No. He canÆt. I need him when the demonÆs comet intersects with the Demon Turtleworld. He cannot be at two places at once, and I am not triggering another demon comet. -

My reasoning was clear.

But the unspoken truth hung in the room.

I would let the dwarven capital die.

If they refused to heed a warning or our assistance, so be it. It was their choice, and their choice had consequences. If the other cities saw the consequences, they would be more cooperative in the future.

As for the heroes, they would have to face the spider demon king without the benefit of a softening blow. I had utmost confidence in their abilities; they were all much higher level than they were before, and my Valthorns would still assist to provide bombardment support.

In fact, I soon pulled Ken for a quiet discussion.

- I intend to rig the dwarven capital with bombs without their assistance or approval. -

- There are people there, - Ken said.

- I will have the void mages teleport out who they can by force. They wonÆt be able to save everyone, but the demon kingÆs arrival is a death sentence to the capital anyway. I am merely accelerating their deaths. -

- Why not act by force? -

- I will make an enemy of the world. -

- Should you care? - Ken asked.

- It would greatly endanger my recruitment efforts if IÆm seen to forcefully take over another world. I can recruit good people because I am still perceived as doing the right thing. This? -

Ken sighed. - This is just all shades of gray. Someone dies, and no one will be happy. -

- I want you to talk to them, tell them donÆt do anything too crazy while we figure out some ways to deal with the dwarves. -

- I - I donÆt think they will, - Ken said with uncertainty. - But I will see what I can do. -

The heroes attempts to persuade the dwarven king failed, and all they got was more curses and mugs flung their way. It was supposedly the highest of dwarven insults to have beer mugs filled with beer thrown at them.

The heroes morale took a dive. They liked what they were doing before this, and to some extent, they had life on easy mode since we were able to spawncamp. Now, the horrors of their assigned duties caught up with them again.

They would fight in a city filled with the dead, people they could not save, and it massively triggered their hero classÆs effects on their minds and thoughts.

Chung took this time to talk to Ken on death. To talk him out of it. - Ken, there will be a time when all of us need you to talk us out of this. More than ever, we need a friend who is with us. -

Ken gave the archer hero the eye. He knew what this was all about. - Chung, letÆs leave that aside and try to figure something out. -

- No. You know how broken we are. We need a guide. A/ isnÆt that guide, but you are. You know us. You were one of us. You see the effects of the gods on us more than ever and can talk us out of our failings. -

Ken felt Chung trying to guilt trip him. Guilt. That he shouldnÆt abandon the cause.

- The heroes from all the worlds need someone to hold it together. We are all these broken, cracked glass cannons, - Chung admitted. - We are all flawed in some way, compelled by this power, this - this curse. This duty. You canÆt just leave us and let us fight this war while you die peacefully of old age. -

Guilt.

Ken sighed and kicked the barrel down the road. - I hear your concerns, old friend, but IÆm not dying. -

- Yet. - Chung didnÆt want to let him go. - Tell A/ to make you immortal like Kei. He can rip your soul out and place you in some other vessel. -

- LetÆs leave that decision to later. -

My pantheon on the Demonic Turtleworld heard the news, and Lumoof took a day to pray for things to go well.

For Mountainworld. For the dwarven capital to be safe.

I found it ironic that he chose to do so, even though he was praying to me.

He was praying to me.

I was his god, and this godÆs hands were tied.

11

YEAR 252 (PART 2)

The decisions of the dwarven rulers were taken badly by the Valthorns and Valtorn Order of Branchhold, and here, those native to Mountainworld wanted a stronger reaction. The response of the Valthorns from Treehome was relatively muted.

They didnÆt really have an emotional attachment to the cities of Mountainworld, but for the natives, some of them were immigrants, and some even had distant relatives in that dwarven city.

Within these Mountainworld natives, there were those that understood why we couldnÆt force the dwarves to evacuate and why they had to bear the burdens and consequences of their choices. There were also those who believed that it was our duty to save them from their stupidity.

Even more extreme were those that believed I wasnÆt doing enough. That Lumoof, my patreearch, should be able to be here and save the dwarven city.

Their argument was that the demon comet didnÆt threaten anyone yet. Not until another eighteen years down the line. There was another chance since Lumoof could intercept the demon comet during its second passthrough near Lavaworld. The dwarves were under a much more present and immediate risk compared to Treehome.

Some supported this view.

This view essentially created a rift between those of Treehome and those of Mountainworld. I predicted this, but facing it for real was a lot more troublesome than I expected.

Lozanna walked back to her table, sipping the already cold tea. She finished her briefing. Her mother and Kei sat on a small table by the side and waited. There were a few more Valthorns nearby as their bodyguards in case anything happened. The crowd was small but consisted of the former heroes, Meela, Alexis, the few other accidental summons, and the senior members of MeelaÆs institution of spies and informants, the Rosewood Hotels.

Folks I did not pay much attention to, because they didnÆt have the intention to participate in whatever schemes I worked on. They were victims of AlexisÆs propaganda, and so we started on the wrong foot.

Suspicion.

Still, Lozanna remembered Meela. Her mother did as well. Friends, at one point in their lives. The truth of their origins was something the elves realized much later.

Lies shrouded their relationship since day one, even if they meant to be friends.

We were the same.

In a different world, where I didnÆt feel insecure, in a different world, where we could all be open and trusting, perhaps we all wouldnÆt have to be like this.

But what was done was done, and I allowed the lament of - what - it - could - have - been - linger briefly before it dissipated away.

- thereÆs time, - Meela said. It was slightly more than seventeen years before the comet threatened to blow this world apart. - Does TreeTree have a plan? -

- Evacuate, - Lozanna answered without revealing too much. The fact that we could travel worlds was fairly well known since our attempts to educate the world of the multiverse.

- Only evacuate? - Meela said. Lozanna was not privy to the full extent of our operations. She may be de - facto royalty, and I still considered her special, as one that IÆd seen grow from a baby since my early days, but her actual role these days was ceremonial and diplomatic in nature.

- There are other worlds that are currently set as shelters. Dwellings and accommodations are under construction. As part of the arrangements with former earthlings, Ken requested that we extend the evacuation offer to you and those under your protection. -

Alexis didnÆt buy it entirely, of course. I knew her well enough. She doubted my intentions, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

All because things didnÆt start properly. Relationships were like that.

I thought about how certain relationships could be salvaged. Like the crystal king. If only there were a way to unite all the domain holders. WeÆd have strength equal to the heroes, or even more.

- This isnÆt all, - Meela answered, saying the truth that was plain to all but still needed to be said.

- Perhaps. I donÆt know the full extent of it, - Lozanna answered frankly.

- When did A/ first know about the presence of the comet? -

Lozanna paused for a moment and sighed. - Eight years ago. -

Alexis slammed the table with her beetle - like arm. It was made of armored carapace and had improved slightly since we last met. But she was not stronger than Lozanna . I could feel it through my prying trees. - Ridiculous! And you choose to tell us now? -

In fact, I even felt like she was weaker.

They had lived in this world for decades and strangely plateaued. They lacked the means to gain more levels, especially with the demon issue mostly sorted. I had taken away their stairways to ascension, gobbled up all the experience for ourselves to feed my little army of Valthorns.

I would do so to all the worlds I established a clone in. Thinking from an experience point of view, I was the invader, muscling in to rob the natives of their experience and future growth.

Lozanna merely nodded. - There is still an estimated fifteen or so years before the demonÆs comet approaches us, so there is plenty of time to decide whether you want to evacuate or stay put. -

- And face certain death? - Meela clarified. - No, knowing TreeTree, there is a plan in motion. Is it linked to the massive resource collection that - No. It has to be linked. Now everything fits. -

- Again, I donÆt know the details, - Lozanna answered, ignoring MeelaÆs attempt to gather more out of her. - I come to offer a chance to migrate to another world, at the behest of Ken, one of your former earthlings. You have ten or so years to decide. -

- Wait. When will this be made public? - Meela asked.

- I was told about six years before impact. The mass migrations will occur then. -

- This isnÆt right. We have front place tickets because we are earthlings? - Meela answered.

Lozanna thought for a moment before she realized Meela had a point. - That. thatÆs frankly a good point. I will bring it up with A/ . -

- Tell us more about this other world? - One of the reincarnated humans was just a tiny lizard. He hardly leveled but remained under the care of Alexis. I wasnÆt sure when and how they managed to find him, but it seemed that the gods did have accidents every now and then.

Lozanna nodded and began to explain about the world that would host them. She had been there a few times.

- Am I wrong? - I asked Lumoof as he waited on Turtleworld. The comet remained stubbornly out of reach. - Should I tell the truth to the whole world? -

The consequences of telling the world that we were aware of an incoming disaster we may not be able to stop. To tell the world that death was coming for them, and the only sure way out was to leave.

My Valthorns did not doubt my decision to keep it a secret. We knew so little about it, so why cause panic in the general population by informing them of this coming disaster? But I realized that was also selfish because we didnÆt want to trigger widespread chaos while we tried to prepare for the comet.

In a world where resources and manpower were no constraint, I should inform the general public of the looming threats, and they should then decide to make their assessment and act accordingly.

No.

There was likely nothing they could do.

The only choice the locals could make was to migrate to Tropicworld, since Lavaworld, Mountainworld, and Threeworlds were not suitable for large - scale migration.

There was no way these two existing worlds could absorb such a large immigrant population without causing even more conflict and fighting, and it would massively wreck the relationship we had with the existing local rulers.

In theory, I could forcefully assume control of Mountainworld, and I did hear folks within the Valthorns who advocated that sort of view. Threeworlds still had the three hegemons that could potentially resist me, and as such, that was not within the picture.

So, for the locals, the only effective choice they had was to migrate or stay. Should I tell the world of their future death, one that they could do nothing about but wait until the time came?

Not just that, the whole reason this comet occurred was because of a sequence of events that we triggered, because we defeated the demon king before it arrived our way.

I couldnÆt help but briefly consider whether this was my fault.

No.

Defeating the demon king on their home world before they could even damage our world was sensible, even if the consequence was retaliation. A planet - sized retaliation. Whether the people living their lives deserved to know? How different was it from an oracle making a prophecy about a coming doom?

No.

Yes.

I wasnÆt sure.

I decided to look at it from the lens of preparing for the comet. Not telling the world would buy us time to make more preparations.

It was not preparations they would desire. It was not what the locals would want.

It even reeked of a nanny state. We would do preparations on their behalf because we didnÆt expect them to be able to do better. It was certainly an elitist thought process, even if it felt true.

No, we knew it was true because of the levels. The system of levels, classes, and skills in this world legitimized feudal behaviors and elitist behaviors. Quantified value, especially so at a later stage. We felt legitimized to act on their behalf because levels and our power told us for a fact that we could do things they could not.

So - coming back to the topic, should I let the general populace know?

No.

I realized Meela may be morally right, but I would not let the world know.

Not with what we needed to do. Not with what was at stake.

If this was a sin, so be it. I accepted it.

The heroes gathered to discuss the coming battle. Their attempts at diplomacy failed. Time was running out, and there were only a few months left to the next year. Even if they agreed to evacuate, it would be an incomplete one.

- LetÆs force the dwarves out, - Adrian said. - They cannot behave like this, not when a demon kingÆs going to land on their heads. -

Ken panicked. - Please, donÆt do something hasty. -

- I donÆt think itÆs hasty, - Adrian, the native Mountainworld hero, insisted. - Our power was granted to us, our class, to defeat demons. We are just getting collateral damage out of the way? -

- Collateral damage, - Ken repeated, and he felt his body ache. Age wore him down, even if he was augmented in many ways. The hero classÆs effects were well documented. We knew they behaved like this when the demons were involved. - Adrian, letÆs think for a moment. -

- We have been thinking since we knew about it. If the damned dwarves donÆt want to move, then weÆll have to move them. Use some earth magic and move the entire city if we have to, - Adrian said.

- Wait, you mean like Superman? - Ken interjected, realizing that Adrian might have a point.

- Well, yeah. Like Superman, - Adrian answered.

Ken paused. - It. It might work. If the reason why the dwarves resist the whole issue is because of the old buildings and history, moving it and relocating it elsewhere. -

- Actually, that might work? - Prabu said. - We could try and move the city a bit. -

- Why didnÆt we think of this shit? - Chung complained. That was superhero - tier stuff, moving entire cities.

There was a long moment before the answer everyone hated. It was Colette who sighed. - Because weÆve gotten lazy. WeÆve been relying on A/ and the Valthorns to solve all these kinds of problems. -

Hafiz, the defender hero, turned to face her and tapped her on the shoulder reassuringly. Colette looked back and smiled. - ItÆll be fine. WeÆll just have to solve this with what limited time we have. -

- Yeah. WeÆll deal with our laziness later. LetÆs think about this strategy. -

Hafiz shrugged and looked back at Ken.

- We have to move them quite far for it to work. - Colette thought about it and then briefly carried Rohana and placed her child on her lap. - ItÆs a huge city, and weÆre dealing with the demon king. We need to move it quite far. A small distance wonÆt be enough to avoid the collateral damage. -

Ken nodded. Chung frowned. - WeÆll have to be selective with what we save - and get the rest to leave. -

- Has A/ announced the details? -

- Mostly. The Valthorns began to spread news of the demon kingÆs projected arrival on the capital. -

The demon kingÆs detonation was usually enough to annihilate a small region. TheyÆd have to move the city quite far just to be safe, which meant this was a far, far larger act. If they resisted, the cost of magic would just increase. If they had a focused earth archmage instead of a general all - rounder like Prabu and Colette, it would be possible with the amount of star mana they had.

Prabu did the calculations and quickly concluded the strategy. - ItÆs possible, but weÆll need a lot of time. WeÆre pretty much forcefully evicting the dwarven nation to another part of their country. -

- We donÆt have enough time, - Ken answered.

- Better than destroying everything. -

- We wonÆt be able to save everything, - Prabu concluded. - It doesnÆt matter, I guess. I think we should do it. -

Ken stared at his friends. He looked so much older than the rest and seemed like the grandpa among the young adults. Forcefully moving the city could be a recipe for disaster. - Do we have enough time? -

Prabu hesitated. - LetÆs just move what the dwarves care about. I think we can come to a compromise if we agree to move it back after the war. -

- How many times do I have to throw all these perfectly good mugs of beer your way until you understand that we are not moving? - the dwarven king stubbornly insisted. But, as it turned out, the dwarven council was a lot more level - headed and understood that the heroes solution of teleporting ancient parts of the city was the best compromise theyÆd ever get.

They stood by the king when there was no good option because they couldnÆt abandon the ancient structures their ancestors blessed and built for them. This was their heritage, and they might as well die with it.

But moving the entire structure via the heroes magic was different.

The council of dwarven elders, in a strange moment of conflict with their king, stood and agreed. The dwarven king stared murderously at his council, but the dwarven society did not grant their king absolute power. There had been too many drunken berserkers and rampages by past kings for them to do so.

The heroes got to work.

They wouldnÆt be able to move everything. But they would be able to preserve some of the old structures and ancient buildings. Each building needed three to four days.

Of the heroes, only Prabu and Colette could move the cities. The rest of them were not mages, so they couldnÆt help much. There were ancient buildings, so they had to be careful. And because there were only two, the amount of structures they could save was limited.

History.

History, which the dwarves actually respected and did a pretty good job of safekeeping.

It was incredibly taxing to move the city just fifty miles from its original location. The void mages triple - checked all the computations and reaffirmed the location of the demon kingÆs arrival.

The dwarves themselves were split into two groups: those that resisted the heroes idea and tried their best to stay put and those that worked with the heroes.

I could see this decision taxed them. Forced to act without the natives approval pit the hero classÆs own internal rules against each other.

The dwarves were not happy about it. Some cursed the heroes, accusing them of bringing calamity to the city. Some of the dwarves tried to sabotage PrabuÆs attempts to move the ancient relics.

There were accusations that the heroes cared more for the powerful than the normal people. After all, they only saved the historical structures owned by the powerful.

For the weak, all they could do was run and lose all they had built.

The heroes tried to ignore the naysayers, ignore the negativity.

The heroes were designed to fight demons and defeat the demon king.

The class, to a much lesser extent, asked them to protect locals. This was a much weaker mental compulsion. Each hero was subtly told not to do too much harm. The gods didnÆt mean for the heroes to cause the worldÆs death.

They were meant to be medicine, not poison that killed both the disease and the patient.

The heroes idea of moving the city away made me ask the same question.

Could we move our world out of the way?

I tried to reach out to the Will of the World of Treehome and felt it rouse from slumber. I sent it my message, and all I got was? -

No.

Rejection. The world wouldnÆt move to preserve itself. Instead, it responded with acceptance.

I didnÆt get it. They cursed the demons, and yet when the demons came their way, they did not act to preserve themselves?

Why?!

Stella had a theory, of course, that the act of deliberately moving through the void sea was an energy - consuming process. The sole data point was Cometworld. Moving through space consumed the coreÆs energies and thus caused the world to collapse.

That was because in this world, the Core and its suns appeared to be a package. Each world didnÆt exist beyond its immediate solar system. Faraway - stars - that we saw - they didnÆt exist or were perhaps reflections from the edges of the void sea.

The worldÆs constellations were artificial. Magic.

We also had not seen - twin - worlds. Worlds where there was more than one habited world. This led to the idea that each - realm - we visited was centered around the planet. The sun thus existed as an extension of the planet, not the other way round. Even the Sun Rings had a single once - habitable planet. Void magic also guided itself to the planet and not the sun as its center.

If people needed to spend mana to travel through the void sea, it was therefore logical to assume that worlds and realms spent mana to move through the void sea.

Cometworld now moved entirely on pure momentum. But even so, looking back to that movement, or the speed of that movement, it was not hard to suspect that its movement was likely detrimental to the core and the sun. That was why it eventually collapsed, leaving the tiny bubble of darkness. It was even possible that if I withdrew my clone, the realm would collapse forever, never to be seen ever again.

Moving either spent energy or accelerated the decay of a coreÆs energy. It was possible that each of these worlds or realms maintained a barrier or bubble of reality, and movement in the void sea eroded this bubble of space. This - resistance - in the void sea was what caused realms to stay clustered together with their astral partners. Moving quickly through the void sea resulted in a realm spending more energy to maintain that barrier, more than what it produced, resulting in these worlds losing its ability to hold their realms together and thus triggering a collapse. Their sun or suns would vanish.

Again, this entire theory hinged on one sample size: Cometworld. We did not know for certain whether moving quickly through the void sea had any such implications. It was also hard to test empirically because we were unable to view the worlds respective moments in the void sea through all frames of reference.

How did this even relate to the demonÆs comet?

Because we wanted to know how it moved and why worlds were reluctant to move.

It was getting closer each day.

If I took Will of the World long ago, that domain choice clearly led to the ability to move the world. Did that set of abilities come without the usual - costs - of moving worlds?

Was there a price to pay normally? How were the demons doing it? I wanted to know. Because moving worlds seemed like the best way of attacking the demon sun on our terms.

On an interplanetary scale, demons were pretty much cancer. Mutant cancer that hijacked each world to self - replicate. Moving through the void sea was how this cancer spread to different regions.

Why were the worlds not defending themselves? Why were they not moving out of the way?

What loopholes were the demons abusing?

No. The fact that the world refused to move out of the way merely made me ask the question that everyone didnÆt want to ask.

Were demons a deliberate design feature of the System?

Because if I wanted to end the demons by destroying the demon sun, in the event we actually succeeded, how did we know it was permanent?

This would lead to the question of how the demons came about in the first place. Were they creations of the System itself? If so, destroying the demon sun merely bought time, and eventually the System would create new demons to replace the old ones.

My hope was that the demons were quirks, bugs, or a virus. Not a feature of the System, a haphazard but persistent anomaly that had somehow found itself as a regular occurrence in the landscape of the multiverse, countered by injected medicine, heroes.

Because there was no happy ending any other way.

12

YEAR 253

The arrival of the demon king of Spiderworld and the moment when the demonÆs comet came within our range were no more than weeks apart.

First was the demon king of the Spiderworld.

The dwarven city was cut up into pieces, and some of the old relics and ancient structures moved away. I was quite surprised at myself for not thinking about moving the city. It only reminded me of how my approach to problems could still be influenced by my old realities instead of my new ones.

Most of the population of the dwarven capital sensibly moved away at the advice of the heroes. Only the dwarven kingÆs loyalists made a fuss.

- IÆm not moving, - the dwarven resistance, the last of them, complained as Prabu looked visibly annoyed. The heroes, from what I observed, tried to minimize their dealings with the locals. Disagreements and politics with the natives grated them. Even those who set up their own little fiefdoms, like Hafiz, Adrian, and Kelly, employed well - paid - managers - to handle the nitty - gritty stuff that they disliked.

It was a good deal for their managers because they were often paid in hero - items, which granted them exceptional financial returns and often a good deal of levels, too.

Even within the Valthorns, there were those who focused and built a career out of dealing with the heroes. Similar roles existed within the temples, too.

Friction, due to cultural differences and the huge chasms in their mindsets. Prabu sighed, and a magical bubble emerged around the segment, along with everyone in it. Frustrated, he just vented, and the dwarves cowered. - Look. IÆm doing this to keep you guys safe. -

And a flicker later, the entire bubble floated into the sky. Most parts of the dwarven city were now empty, houses that could be rebuilt at a later date. I volunteered to pay for my builders and contractors to participate in the reconstruction, since it was a good opportunity for them to gain levels.

Prabu levitated the entire bubble the whole way.

But there were those that remained.

They were first to die.

On the demon Spiderworld, a small group of my Valthorns kept watch over the pits. They would warn the heroes that the demon was on the way, and we planted our magical sensors there to keep watch of the fluctuations in the core. It should give the heroes a day or two of advance warning before the demon king was on the way, for us to give the insane dwarves a last warning and tell them that this was their final chance to keep their lives.

But dwarven stubbornness was well known. The magical readings began to go nuts, and we all knew it was time.

The dwarven resistance last year already cost us a tremendous amount of time, and the preparations to set up the magical bombs and traps were not as robust as weÆd like them to be. The dwarves didnÆt like the idea of trapping what remained of their kingdomÆs city, even if it was mostly abandoned, and they protested the plans despite it.

Some of the dwarves were logical, and they saw the logic in our plans. Another portion were the preservationists, who protested everything that tainted their ancient history.

Fools.

The star path glowed in the same manner as before, and we felt the demon king arrive on Mountainworld.

We waited for two weeks, and annoyingly, the dwarves didnÆt believe us.

Then the demon king was here.

The rift ripped the sky above the dwarven capital apart as if the bluish sky was a piece of cloth, its threads coming undone from the center. What came out of the blackness were two gigantic legs, each of them smashing into the grounds of the dwarven capital and leaving a small crater.

Those who stayed died in that single instant.

What a waste.

- Hold! - the Valthorn commanders yelled. It was not yet time to set the bombs off. The heroes tensed, their magic ready to go. Alka stood next to the heroes and waited. He was a dwarf, and high - speed movement wasnÆt his thing.

He only had one shot to use his ability.

Two more legs emerged.

- Should - should we just blow up the legs? - Khefri asked the question as they pinged the Valthorn commander. Alka looked uncertain, trying to figure out what was for the right time. Unlike the heroes, my dwarven mad scientist was not a war genius. His sense of timing was average at best.

- The bombs should be used on the main body, - Prabu repeated. - DonÆt waste our debuff. -

- How many legs do you think it has? - Chung wondered as the fifth leg emerged. - Eight? -

- ItÆs a demon king. It can have as many as it wants, - Colette said as she rolled her eyes. Her child was safely handled by a group of caretakers back on Treehome, an entire world away. - Come on, letÆs get this over with. -

Hafiz, the defender hero, tapped the two archmages on their shoulders. - Yeah. LetÆs get this over with. ShouldnÆt be that hard to squash a giant spider and get both of you back to your kid. -

Colette smiled at her fellow hero. - WeÆd like that a lot. -

We felt a pulse of magic that came from the rift, and we all knew it was time.

Demon King Rach has arrived.

Gigantic spider - jaws emerged from the rifts, and those multiple mouths released gigantic magical webs that spread out in every direction. I was fairly sure that was anatomically incorrect, but I guessed the demons didnÆt care.

From the jaws of the demon king, in a single explosion of sticky threads and webs, the entire dwarven city, what was left of it, was covered in webs.

Then it rained spiders. From the rifts. From the webs themselves.

- Bombs! - the Valthorns yelled and scrambled to activate the bombs. Before our eyes, the demon kingÆs legs seemingly vanished, and all my Valthorns felt panic.

Was that a demon kingÆs aura?

I felt it brush against my own, and I wasnÆt sure why we were panicking. WeÆd done this many times. But for some of my slightly less experienced forces, this was their first encounter with the demon king.

My forces ignited whatever bombs we managed to install. We worked overtime. The explosions detonated in a burst of light that could be felt miles away. Star mana bombs made by the heroes and my Valthorns vaporized the smaller demonic spiders, but the demon king spider was still invisible.

Then, through my subsidiary trees, I felt the pressure from a high - speed thrust.

Khefri was first to react, and she pushed the rest of the heroes out of the way and dodged the thrusts of the demon kingÆs attacks. - Switch to other forms of vision! ItÆs only invisible to normal sight! - Chung then roared, his eyes glowing with a rangerÆs special vision.

I swapped to spiritual vision and saw the demon king clearly.

I saw the physical outline of the demon king in my spirit vision, along with its partly charred body in the form of jagged outlines. The creature was a gigantic, ten - legged monstrosity, a part of its body already burned from the attack, and of its original ten legs, three were already partially destroyed, leaving just stumps. It was regenerating, but fairly slowly.

The demon kingÆs legs were its principal offensive weapon; each thrust was quick and came at unusual angles.

- Valthorns, retreat! - the commander yelled as more spiders emerged from the rift, and annoyingly, they were invisible as well. Not all of my Valthorns had the ability to use spirit - sight, though some of the archers had heat - sight or magic - sight. Without the ability to see our opponents, we would be sending Valthorns to their deaths, so we ordered them to retreat. At this point, our contribution would be to support from afar.

Alka looked with uncertainty; the chaos of war still unnerved him. He may be a domain holder, but not all of them were suited for war.

- Wait, - I told him. - There will be an opportunity. -

Bombardment turrets and stations from further away blanketed the area. They didnÆt deal much damage against the demon king but helped clear the battlefield of the mobs.

Alka waited, and I could sense his restlessness. For now, it was up to the seven heroes.

The dwarves watched the battle from afar, horrified. The dwarven king himself looked pale, as the council of elders that vetoed his decision found themselves validated. Some of my Valthorns were nearby to provide support and deal with the demonic rifts.

The demon spiders were everywhere; similar to past demon kings, demonic rifts experienced a surge in activity whenever the demon king descended.

Nations throughout Mountainworld battled the demon spiders and their champions, and it was a great relief that the invisibility effect granted by the demon king did not extend to those outside its massive wall of webs.

We would likely face far higher fatality rates if we had to deal with invisible spiders all over Mountainworld.

The dwarven capital turned into a field of craters as each of the spider kingÆs stabs and thrusts left massive craters in the ground.

I decided to give the heroes some backup, as the volley of magic attacks dwindled. My horde of beetles and spider assassins joined the fray to distract the demonic spiders and take some heat off the seven heroes. I spawned multiple giant attendant trees throughout the battlefield to help amplify my skills and spawn my army of spiders and beetles.

I thought it was interesting to have my spiders fight against demon spiders.

But that was a mistake.

The demon spider ejected a blast of goop that smashed into my beetles. I instantly felt my connection to the beetle snap, and then we witnessed the beetle explode and release more spiders.

I cursed, and so did everyone else. The demon spiderÆs goop - blasts could possess other creatures and turn them into spawning pools. That meant I was just giving the demon king more flesh and hosts.

Even my giant trees were more trouble than help, since the trees acted as anchors for the spiders webs, extending the range of the invisibility.

- A/ , pull back your giant trees and just focus on cutting away the webs! - Chung roared as he sent out flying arrows that slashed through the webs. The webs were surprisingly magically resistant and so had to be cut through plain ol physical force.

Then the demon king pulled out another trick. It vanished again; this time, it was even invisible in my spiritual vision. But it could still be sensed through movement, through its heat signature and its magical pulse.

Khefri, of all the seven heroes, had the easiest time with this demon king. She was innately attuned to the shifting movements in the earth as if she could feel every single vibration on the strands of web, every single shift in the dirt. The web, ironically, just made KhefriÆs senses better. As a part scorpionoid, she was exceptionally resistant to poisons, and she survived a hit from the demon spiderÆs poison head - on with very little damage.

She was more physically attuned, and coupled with her wide range of senses, she was the only one able to consistently approach the demon kingÆs vanishing body and land hits. The rest, except for Adrian and Chung, couldnÆt adapt to the demon spiderÆs changing invisibility as quickly. Adrian, as a monk - hero, also had his own set of invisibility detection, but it wasnÆt in the same tier as the scorpionoid. ChungÆs archer skills, luckily, came with some detection abilities.

The webs grew, and that expanded the demon kingÆs hiding spots.

The battle now turned into a game of hide - and - seek and endurance. The heroes needed to constantly figure out where the demon king moved, while trying to cut down its range of movements by destroying its massive wall of web.

The massive web network repaired itself constantly. The demon king itself would intermittently release blasts that expanded the web network; it was supported by the demon champions. Those champions were also able to grow the web network, though at a slower rate.

The demon spider king weakened from the initial blasts and repeated attacks, even after its regeneration. The massive size meant it relied on its invisibility and web network to maintain an edge. The webs also slowed the heroes, and the demon spider king would occasionally catch them in its web.

My artificial minds were able to conclude that the demon kingÆs raw abilities were fairly average, but the variable invisibility was really quite effective against the heroes. Without the invisibility, and in its already weakened state, the demon king would struggle to hold its ground, what more to counterattack so effectively.

Therefore, removing the webs, the key to its invisibility and battlefield control, seemed key.

I recalled the heroes faced an invisible demon king once. Harris died to one. It was an assassin demon king that seemed to be able to turn invisible at will and didnÆt rely on webs as a gimmick.

It was a good thing demon kings never had the combined skill sets of all the demon kings. There likely was a finite amount of abilities that they could sustain at the same time.

Since my trees and my beetles didnÆt help, I diverted to use my spiders, beetles, and roots to cut off the webs or pull them underground while the Valthorns continued to attack only with long - range volleys.

We exhausted most of our supply of magical bombs so they had to use them sparingly on the higher - value targets.

The two archmages area attacks were incredibly helpful in clearing the field of the smaller spiders. Without their magical infernos and energy explosions destroying most of the lesser spider spawns, the melee and mid - ranged focused heroes, Khefri, Hafiz, Adrian, and Kelly, wouldnÆt be able to focus on tracking the invisible demon king.

But really, of these four heroes, only Khefri was landing hits consistently. The rest were playing a guessing game half the time, and by the time they figured out where the demon king was, it would have moved.

Even sticking close to Khefri and attacking where she attacked wasnÆt that great, because they couldnÆt see the attacks from the demon king, which just put them in danger.

- This isnÆt the right strategy! Hafiz, Kelly, both of you pull back and just focus on taking out the spiderÆs webs and the laser mobs. Once we remove the invisibility, Chung and the mages can blow it up! - Khefri said. Kelly was a knight - barbarian, Hafiz was a defense - focused fighter, and this wasnÆt the right matchup for the two.

The two melee heroes split up and went on a cutting spree. The three ranged heroes tried to keep their distance and coated the battlefield with area - of - attack spells.

These attacks hurt the demon king slightly, but nothing like focused attacks.

- I didnÆt hate spiders. But I do now. - Chung cursed. The spiders moved really quickly, but somehow only where there were webs.

His shots kept missing, then he saw a pattern? -

- Hafiz, Kelly, clear the webs strategically. We can selectively use the webbed areas to funnel the demon king into a narrow space where we can attack. The demon king only sticks to the webbed areas to maintain invisibility! -

I looked around the battlefield, trying to align my root strikes and attacks with the heroes. The dwarven city was transformed into a field of craters.

There was not a single pristine building left.

I focused my strikes on cutting down more webs. Cutting down webs was probably the best way to contribute, as my attacks hardly hurt the demon king.

The heroes still had to repeatedly dodge the demon kingÆs attacks, but with both Hafiz and Kelly focused on clearing the webs, the area with webs available to mask the demon spiderÆs presence quickly diminished, and the spider demon kingÆs range of movement shrunk.

Slowly, the tide shifted.

They were hitting it more often, and harder, and I already felt the pulsing from the demon king. Weakness. - ItÆs weakening. Be prepared for any last - minute oddities, - I warned the heroes.

The demonÆs attacks grew more relentless, at times, flailing with its multiple legs repeatedly. Yet it was getting slower. The attacks were not as fast. The thrusts didnÆt hurt as hard.

The spider demon king took three more hits from Khefri, and then that pulse strengthened. The heroes recoiled; they were now familiar with that sensation, and all seven of them jumped backward. The demon king reached its limit.

- Alka! NowÆs a good time to blow it up before it blows us up! - Chung shouted at the top of his lungs while he moved back at the highest speed he could.

Alka nodded, downed a speed - enhancing potion, and zoomed toward the mass of webs where the demon king hid. He zoomed right to the center and then immediately activated his detonation ability.

Thanks to multiple parties clearing the webs, there was only a small area where it could hide.

An explosion ripped through the remains of the capital and melted what was the outer layer of the demon king.

The demon king managed to deliver an attack right when Alka was about to explode. It stabbed Alka and cut off his arm. He screamed, and I recalled my explosive scientist back home for treatment immediately.

His wound was tainted by a demonic curseûfilled strike, not unlike what the demons did to the first few heroes I encountered. An earlier version of myself would not be able to fix it, but even so, Alka still needed at least a week of recuperation.

The explosion triggered the next transformation of the demon king, and each of the legs cracked open. It had four legs left; the rest had been chopped off through the earlier fights. Its main body melted and then turned into dust. From those four legs, four significantly smaller demonic spiders emerged. Each of them was weaker but so much smaller and faster.

They were also no longer invisible.

The four split up, and these smaller spiders all had spear - like legs.

To call them spiders was probably incorrect. They were like human - sized sea urchins that levitated and rolled.

Khefri managed to intercept the one and landed a hit. It stopped in its tracks and turned to face the scorpionoid head - on. The second one fought with Adrian and Kelly and momentarily was on par with the two.

The third one charged at Chung, and he managed to impale the smaller spider with magical arrows before it got close. It didnÆt die, even after all the attacks.

The fourth one headed right at Colette and Prabu. They blasted it with magic, but the demonic spider shrugged it off. These spiders were magically resistant.

Prabu took out a staff made of my enchanted wood and smashed it into the spider.

At that moment, I detected that familiar pulse again. It came from within the four spider - urchins and spoke to the heroes. - Get some distance from the spiders! They are suicide bombers! -

My roots emerged from the ground and tried to grab hold of these spider - urchins and hold them in place. I didnÆt want the spider to chase after the heroes. My roots managed to catch three of them, and my roots immediately got to work and tried to drain the energy out.

The fourth one dodged my roots and went straight for Prabu.

- No, you donÆt. - Hafiz, the defense - oriented knight, slammed into the self - destructing spider, allowing both Prabu and Colette to flee.

My roots emerged as well and tried to protect Hafiz, while simultaneously trying to grab the fourth spider.

The four spiders exploded.

The earlier three spiders detonated weakly; their explosions didnÆt harm anyone. But the fourth one, pinned down by Hafiz, stabbed one of its spears in HafizÆs arm and exploded right in front of the knight. The defender hero was encased in his own protections, but that was no use. Not at this range.

Not with a gap in his protection.

The heroes watched in absolute horror, and I heard their voices yell out in fear. But their screams were for naught.

Hafiz was burned alive in the demonic explosion. Black flames encased his body.

Demon King Rach has been defeated!

Hafiz has died. You received one fragment.

You have 97 fragments!

You gained one level!

You are now level 241!

I checked on the rest of the heroes, but at that moment, I felt something strange coming from Colette. She looked upset as she stewed in the aftermath. The rest of the heroes were upset and cried, too, but ColetteÆs spiritual reaction was unlike anything IÆd seen.

She didnÆt approach HafizÆs burned corpse for hours, even though the lingering demonic flames couldnÆt really harm her. The body was charred black from the flames. His hero - items were black and would disintegrate at a single touch.

But my senses were locked on the hero. This wasnÆt sorrow.

It came from her soul, and I felt as if she was a person torn in two. Prabu walked and placed his hand on her shoulder. She buried her face in his chest and cried.

But the crying did not remove that constant sensation she emitted. I allowed them some time to grieve; they watched as HafizÆs body turned into ash and dust, blown away by the wind and leaving nothing behind.

I waited while my consciousness shifted to Alka. He was stable. Injured, but stable. He had to nurse his injuries from the demonic curse, and I would need some time to regenerate his arm.

I checked back on the heroes. They muttered curses; some said a prayer. It felt like they were ready to talk again.

- All of you, please come to my biolab for healing and a detailed checkup. I just want to make sure everythingÆs fine because I detected something unusual, - I requested, as I still sensed the unusual sensation from Colette.

Ken panicked. - What happened? -

- IÆm not sure. IÆd like to check everyone just to be sure. -

The former hero paused. - I want to be there. -

The heroes returned to Branchhold and straight to my clone body. Ken, along with many others, were there to receive the heroes. Chung walked to Ken and then stabbed his finger in his chest. - You. You couldÆve stopped this. -

Ken stared at Chung, unsure what he was talking about. - What? -

- You. You selfish bastard. You chose to give up your hero class, and here we are now. With one less. He wouldÆve lived if you were? -

Ken glared at Chung. I couldnÆt believe how Chung came to such a conclusion. - Stop, Chung. You know this is bullshit. You donÆt get to blame HafizÆs death on something I did so many years ago. -

Chung wanted to say something, but Colette stopped him. - ChungÆs right. -

KenÆs eyes turned to face Colette.

- You shouldÆve told all of us to give up our hero class. -

Chung stared at Colette. - ThatÆs not? -

- KenÆs right, too. This hero class is a poisoned chalice. WeÆve known since we touched the journal. LetÆs go. A/ awaits us, - Colette said firmly, and she walked ahead of the other heroes. I felt such a strong sensation in her soul that I really wanted to know what happened.

Chung turned to face her partner, Prabu. - What happened to her? -

Prabu sighed. - Someone died. Read the room, Chung. Whatever you want to tell Ken, now is not the time. -

- What? ItÆs me now? -

Prabu ignored the archer and walked past him. Khefri tapped Chung on the shoulder. - I agree with Prabu. Just give it up for today. -

- What! - Chung protested. - We couldÆve used more hands! -

- Not today, - Khefri repeated and ignored her pursuer.

Ken watched the exchange and sighed. He couldnÆt help it. He walked to somewhere quiet and watched the heroes head to the biolabs. He sighed as Snek sat next to him. - A/ , where did we all go wrong? Should we use the hero class weÆve been holding? -

Snek wanted to keep it for Ulara, but I sensed he was also having second thoughts as well.

13

YEAR 253 (PART 2)

- Hafiz died, - Stella said. There would be consequences that I would have to deal with. Already I felt brewing discontent among the heroes, and some went to their heroÆs journal for solace.

Stella got the notification on the fragments, too, and she waited on the Demonic Turtleworld. Her eyes and magical senses were waiting for the comet. It was almost within range. It was so very close.

I had already regenerated AlkaÆs destroyed limb, but he still needed some time to rest. He wasnÆt ready for the attack yet.

Lumoof added a prayer. - May he find peace in his sacrifice. -

Stella nodded. - Peace, and hopefully the gods hold up their bargain. -

The demonÆs comet entered the range of our void mages, and then we were immediately hit with the sensation of something pushing at our minds. - Stella, you feel that? - Lumoof said.

Edna, Roon, and Johann gathered around Stella. It was now within our portal range, and their magical senses got to work. The void mages looked grim.

- WeÆve got to go first, - Stella said. - Ready? -

Lumoof shook his head. - Never, but letÆs go. - I shared the feeling that we wouldnÆt ever be ready for what awaited us, but there was no delaying the inevitable. I could feel our collective resolve to get this shit over with.

Stella nodded. - Well, letÆs see whether our portals can get through. -

They did, and Lumoof was first to go through, entirely encased in magical shields.

Lumoof stepped through the magical portal, and we were immediately assaulted by the overwhelming presence of demonic magic. It was as if the entirety of the Rottedlands was amplified a thousandfold and distilled onto this comet.

The cometÆs surface was filled with reddish spires, filled with spawning pools.

A demon champion attacked us almost instantly, its claws smashing into a wall of wood. - Well, thatÆs the welcoming party I was expecting. - Lumoof smirked as his feet touched the crystalline floor. He scanned the surface to answer our key issue and cursed. - There are places here that A/ canÆt deploy his clone. WeÆll need to look for it. -

Edna, Roon, and Johann joined the fray soon after, only to find ourselves surrounded by more demon champions.

- Well. - Edna looked amused as she eyed the demon champions. - Were we too early? We also come with gifts. -

Her anti - demon spears rained down on the champions, and soon the landing area was cleared of demons.

- ThereÆs strong magic holding this entire place together. - Stella cursed. Her magical senses were the strongest of the domain holders; LumoofÆs senses were instead constantly disturbed by the swirling demonic magic in the comet.

Roon and Johann looked around, only to find more demon champions throughout the place. - Should we call the rest of the team? We need to start bombing this place. -

Stella shook her head as she examined the crystals. - I think bombing this place up from the surface wonÆt work. These things are particularly magic resistant. The effects of magical bombs would be reduced. We need to figure out whatÆs holding it together. -

- Do we need to? - Roon shrugged. - ItÆs definitely a demon king. Or a core. Or both. Fairly sure that if we get to the core and kill the demon king, the comet will then disintegrate. Whatever is keeping this ball of rock and crystals together will break apart. -

- Kinda annoying that we prepped for so much explosions only to find out itÆs not as useful as we like. -

- We can use it on the core, - Roon said. - Portal to the source? -

Stella shook her head. - ThereÆs a core. The central area of this comet has some kind of magical winds shearing away my attempts to form a portal. -

- See? - Roon said smugly, much to the annoyance of the rest of them. - I suppose we should be looking for a way to the core, then? -

- You think there will be a pit, just like the worlds? - Stella could only shrug. She had no answer, and her magical senses couldnÆt? -

There was a pulse of intense magical energy, and all my domain holders recoiled. Stella immediately created a magical shield around herself, and the rest of them were protected by LumoofÆs wooden spherical shield.

It lasted for a good thirty minutes, and it felt like the entire surface was cooked. The dirt below us was so incredibly hot that it was almost burning, and the red crystals glowed like they were a lamp. The core itself released a strong burst of heat and magical energy that burned everything on the surface.

Except demon champions. Even lesser demons were destroyed by the burst of heat.

- That rules out the surface team. - Edna cursed as she observed the heavy burns on the wooden spherical shield.

- Sounds like the demons had experience with people invading their comets, - Roon mused.

Stella didnÆt reply; instead, she seemed thoughtful for a while. - The magical energies came from multiple areas underneath the surface, not really the core. There seems to be certain parts of this comet that contain? -

At that point, their conversation was interrupted. A group of demons emerged, and a quick read of their magical energies revealed they were likely to be formed from the merger of multiple demon champions.

WeÆd known they could merge, just like how the demon walkers merged to form the demon supercannon.

- When did the demons have such powerful creatures? - Roon cursed as the demons attacked.

- What do you mean, when? - Johann countered as the swarm of merged demon champions attacked. He deftly dodged the demonÆs attacks and could easily counterattack.

My domain holders were more than a match for these merged demon champions. Demon champions, on their own, were generally classified as threats around levels eighty to one hundred. If someone had anti - demonic super - blessings, like myself, I could handle them at level sixty. Many of my Valthorns had lesser anti - demonic blessings, and IÆd seen my own Valthorns defeat a demon champion singlehandedly at level sixty - five.

These merged creatures were stronger, around level one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty, but my domain holders were in their level one hundred sixties to one hundred seventies.

It wasnÆt much of a fight. Lumoof stood his ground, and my roots emerged to wrestle with these demon champions. My mana flowed through my avatar and my roots, then attempted to overwhelm these demon champions.

We won easily, the demon champions suffered tremendous damage, and victory was at hand? -

A pulse from the cometÆs core and a sudden surge of demonic mana once more. It was so thick that it felt like I was absorbing demonic mana just by existing. The demon champions devoured the thick demonic mana like a parched man, and their wounds mended.

We cursed as we watched our attacks be regenerated so quickly.

- We need to blow them up in one go or this crazy demonic mana will just regenerate the whole thing! - Roon cursed. He was able to blow up one of the merged demon champions in a single magical shot, but it clearly took a lot of energy.

I recalled that earlier incident with the separated demon king and how their - soul - imprints - served as the foundation of the regeneration. I wanted to search for similar - but then I quickly realized that the demons were not regenerating themselves, but reconstructing themselves.

Just to be sure, I briefly activated spirit vision through my priest and found that these demon champions were just hastily cobbled together, fueled by the abundant demonic mana released by the comet itself.

- If they are indestructible like this, - Edna cursed, - can you imagine demon kings constantly regenerating? -

- ThatÆs a horrible prospect to imagine, - Roon responded while he blew up another of the demon champions, but he wasnÆt thorough enough. A part of it survived and began to quickly reassemble itself from the dirt and crystals around it. - This entire damned comet is just fuel for the demons! -

Lumoof realized this was going nowhere and decided the best way forward was to drain away the demonic mana. Roots and vines expanded everywhere. - IÆm going to drain the demonic mana. Take that window to blow them up completely! -

- Got it. -

He sucked the demonic mana from the air itself and from the ground. It reduced the density of the demonic energies for a brief window, which my champions quickly utilized to crush the demons.

The demon champions couldnÆt regenerate, and for now, we had our victory. They were all destroyed.

Then the pulse happened again.

More demon champions emerged, and they repeated the strategy.

It was exhausting.

- WeÆll have to stay here for the next two years until we can deploy A/ Æs clone. - Roon cursed as they fought through the demon champions. The comet didnÆt have much of an atmosphere, so it was through magic that they could function.

It drained them slightly, but it was a constant drain that detracted from their fighting strength. They leveled slightly after they fought through the tenth batch of demon champions.

They moved and looked for the entrance. But this entire thing was a creation of the demons, and Stella suspected it was built layer by layer. So there was no entrance.

- We have to punch a way to the center, - Edna said as she remembered the various plans they created.

We were prepared for that; in fact, one of the options was to use my Titan slot to create a digging - type Titan, but it was likely weÆd need to provide it support while it dug to the center of this massive thing.

- LetÆs just find a place where A/ can place his clone, secure the location, and wait until the clone is ready, - my avatar reiterated the strategy. - WeÆll just have to endure until then. -

- The question is whether to bring the rest of the team over, - Stella said.

The comet and Turtleworld would share an intersection for only about a year. After that year, weÆd only be able to reach the comet once it intersected with Lavaworld many years later.

Edna, Roon, and Johann looked at each other, then Johann said, - We could use some support. LetÆs bring thirty of the strongest ones to cover us while some of us rest. If weÆre going to be fighting constantly for the next two years, weÆll need rest and rotation. -

- All right, then, - Stella said.

About thirty Valthorns, all ranging around level one hundred twenty - five to one hundred forty - nine, prepared themselves for the move to the comet. They would bring resources and materials with them to prepare for a long war.

Two years of constant harassment by the endless demons before I would be able to deploy my clone.

They brought with them anti - mana weapons made from the same anti - magic sand. It was effective in reducing the mana density of the surroundings, but only up to their absorption limit. This meant they could slow down the rate of the demon championÆs regeneration and increase the damage window available for us to permanently destroy the demons.

Lumoof naturally talked about whether it was possible to push back the demonic mana by converting the ground.

- IÆd use the Forest Rod , - he suggested. - But with the overwhelming demonic mana from the core, it might just get pushed back. -

The core flared again. The Valthorns were all equipped with magical shields and my familiars, and it activated to protect them from the char.

The demonÆs core flared intermittently, at least once a day. Every time it did, the force of five domain holders and thirty Valthorns had to brace for attacks.

- IÆm fine now, - Alka said, and he felt healthy. My checks indicated he mostly recovered from the battle after three weeks of recovery. - I need to join the rest of them. -

My dwarven explosions expert stretched and equipped himself. The news of our discoveries were relayed to the local team, and we probably needed to activate my Titans on the comet.

Utility. That was the function of my titans. They couldnÆt deal the sort of damage needed to hurt demon kings, but their utility was where they excelled. Alka was generally receptive of the idea, a few earth mages together with my future digging Titan should do quite well.

I rechecked my Titan options that I first encountered almost eighty - no, ninety - years ago, back when it was Year 163.

In terms of digging utility, I had three main options. The Depth Worm was likely to be the best at digging since that was its specialization.

Depth Worm - Starts at Level 70. A creature of the subterranean world. Extremely good at digging and making tunnels. Has very good - earth - sense - and is able to detect hidden features in the deep ground. Weak to magical attack. Also produces certain types of minerals and metals.

Fusion with Horns. Starts at level 80. Transforms Horns into a Goliath Kingbeetle thatÆs able to use earth magic and various other protective and offensive abilities. Goliath Kingbeetle can create Royal Warbeetles. Also produces very high - quality beetle - silk. Royal Warbeetles can improve crop output in the area.

Giant Tree Serpent, Nydus. A massive serpent. Able to use earth and wood magic. Starts at level 70. Gains powers to summon all sorts of serpents and poisons. Master of poisons and has the ability to brew multiple types of potent poisons and cures. Able to grant poison immunity.

Although they lagged behind in terms of levels compared to my level one hundred twenty - five to one hundred forty - nine earth mages, Titans were very good at their narrow scope of tasks, just like how Patreeck was incredible at mind reading and computation. So the depth worm or earth magic Titan could be just as competent at moving earth or more.

- Think the depth wormÆs the best choice, - my advisors said. Horn was mostly bored out of his mind, but being an artificial mind, he wasnÆt the type to complain all that much.

I probably could disassemble Titan - souls now since itÆd been a long time since IÆd meddled with them. My comprehension of the souls improved a lot.

Alka landed on the comet and smiled at the rest of the domain holders. He gave the rest of them a hug. The rest of them were taking a rest in between the constant demonic harassment.

- We were wondering when youÆd join us, - Johann said while petting his pet dragon. - Welcome to Hell. I heard you lost a hand. -

- I thought thatÆs Lavaworld. - Alka laughed and flexed his arm. - Nothing A/ couldnÆt fix. -

- ThatÆs just purgatory. - Stella smiled. - This is the first layer of the pits where we face endless evils. -

- Sounds like fun. - Everyone rolled their eyes.

- YouÆll change your mind soon enough. - There was at least one wave of demon attacks per day, often two. - This is like a dungeon that never quite ends. -

- Exactly what weÆve been looking for? - Alka laughed as he eyed the rest of the Valthorns. He recognized the majority of them; most high - level one hundred twenty - fives to one hundred forty - nines were friends of the domain holders and interacted with them a lot. - A place with high - level threats for Valthorns to level! -

For the Valthorns, this was indeed a great leveling opportunity. Yet, after the constant harassment, it did feel tiring.

- I donÆt really see why we need to camp here, - one of the Valthorns said. - CanÆt we just jump in a few days before the window closes? There is a year, after all. -

That was a valid point, but Stella answered frankly. - WeÆre not taking risks with portals. Our portals can be easily shredded by unusual magics, and this comet is filled with surprises. If we are here, letÆs just wait it out. -

- Two years of constantly fighting demons. Man, itÆs like weÆre back to the old era again. - One of the Valthorns sounded nostalgic. - Bet those battle - nuts on Mountainworld would love to be here. -

Alka shrugged as he scanned the horizon of demonic spires. They were camped in a valley - ish area surrounded by more demonic spires, and frankly, there was no safe space here. - Well, I should start using my ability? -

- If you could draw the demons away from us, why not? - Edna smirked. - DonÆt die, all right? -

Stella called him over. - Have a look at our records before you do. -

Alka walked over and picked up a few of the crystals and rocks from the ground while he studied the data. - Damn, these crystals are pretty much designed to absorb magical energies. ItÆs like this whole comet is daemolite. -

Stella nodded. - Yeah. Your bombs are going to be fairly ineffective on the terrain. -

Fairly. It would still destroy it, but it would take more explosions to get to the core.

Of the thirty Valthorns that joined Stella, about six of them worked on various observational equipment. Many were custom - built for this operation.

They scanned the depths of the comet, especially the daily charring pulses, and soon noticed there were eight nodes that released those bursts. Each of those nodes were located fairly deep, but not entirely to the core.

The comet itself was a blend of crystals, earth, and something in the center. It emitted a core - like energy that was heavily mixed with demonic energy but did not provide sufficient data for us to understand what exactly was in there.

- Would A/ survive the pulse? - Alka asked.

- I bet he could, - Stella said. - IÆm more worried about the overwhelming demonic mana and what it means to be planted on the comet. -

IÆd be exposing myself to huge quantities of demonic mana. It could potentially overwhelm my clone. But at this point, risking demonic corruption was a risk IÆd have to take.

14

INTERLUDE SOUL REALM

Death. Colette had seen it a lot in her earlier days, but lately, it felt as if she already forgot what it felt like. Then Hafiz died.

- Why, Hafiz? Why do that for us? - Colette asked. The heroes were gathered in the main tree on Branchhold, in a special part. A really thick vine wrapped each of their bodies.

Hafiz was a glowing ball of light, a soul, and the space around them was filled with stars.

Soul realm .

Colette remembered coming here once, long ago, so long that she didnÆt even remember the time. But this felt familiar. Stars. Flickers. Lights.

All the other souls. It felt bigger now. Wider. And she could see there were strands of light that illuminated the paths that went into other places. Worlds. Each seemingly a link. She struggled to make sense of the space; it felt like the space bent into itself.

- Because what else is there to do? - Hafiz said. - DonÆt make it sound so noble. I already accepted that our lives in this world were just temporary, and it was time. It was damned time. -

- You planned to do it? - Prabu asked.

- Yes. If it ever came to sacrificing one of us, I decided it would be me. I have the least to lose. I donÆt care about anything. IÆm losing the ability to care about anything at all, - Hafiz said, his frustration palpable. Colette had never seen him so animated in years.

Colette looked across their magical - soul space. At Prabu. At Chung. She stopped and then looked at Hafiz again.

- Hafiz. How do you feel? As a soul? -

Hafiz was quiet, his glowing soul hovering and moving a little. Only the five of them were here. Four heroes of Treehome, and one former hero. Ken. Khefri was never that close to Hafiz. Adrian and Kelly were Mountainworld heroes, and their relationship was fairly cordial. In the end, everyone went back to do their own thing.

Even Hafiz. He drifted away a bit. They would meet up once every month or so; heÆd teleport over to Freshka or one of the suburban cities and theyÆd hang out. But the drift was there.

If there was doubt about the long - term success of KenÆs League of Heroes, the lack of personal rapport was part of it.

- Honestly, do you guys really want the answer? - Hafiz asked.

Chung didnÆt say a thing.

Ken nodded. - Yes. -

Colette always thought it was just a sign of maturity. A sign of age. The weight of experience. They were aging, and she thought it was natural that they all began to quiet down. They were not young, and it would tone down their drive. Even Ken calmed down over the years.

- I feel light, - the dead hero answered. - I feel liberated. I feel like I suddenly can remember all the things that I wasnÆt supposed to. -

Ken was the only one that nodded. For him, he always remembered.

- I - I feel like I really want to see my family again, - Hafiz said.

- Will you? - Colette asked. She tried to remember her own family, before all of this. But itÆd been so long, and it felt hazy. She could remember snippets, but she forgot what her motherÆs voice was like.

- I donÆt know. I could feel a power calling me. One thatÆs not A/ . ItÆs waiting for the time. I can linger here, maybe a few months. -

- Six, - Ken answered. - A/ said the waiting time is six months from your death. -

Colette tried to remember her parents. She could hardly remember. Stella once said she took up painting, in her earlier days in this world, to paint her own memories before they faded away. There was no photo here, and the only way she could preserve her memories was to draw them. Paint them.

She wished she did. She wished she commissioned someone to paint a portrait of her family when she could still find the words to describe them. Now, she wasnÆt sure she could even link the image if someone showed her a similar photo.

Prabu sounded confident when they spoke one night about this. That they would certainly know. But she felt from the depth of her guts that theyÆd already lost it.

Hafiz continued, - Six months. I see. Then I mustÆve used up a month. How long has it been? The sense of time in this place is. wonky. -

- One and a half, - Ken answered.

- I remember our lives back home vividly. Images and things I thought I forgot are now clear to me. IÆm afraid some of you will want to remember this. Remember the past. -

Chung abruptly interjected. - Ken. You knew this? Do you remember? -

- Yes. - Colette wondered briefly whether KenÆs memory of tropes was vivid, because he didnÆt have the hero class trying to suppress his past. No, she was now sure it was linked. Not just that, it even felt like Ken talked about this before.

But somehow it never stuck in her mind. As if.

As if.

As if.

The connection should have been clear. Yet what was she trying to link? She looked at Ken and HafizÆs floating soul.

- Hafiz. Repeat it again. -

- Everything in the journal? - Hafiz said. - ItÆs true. -

Colette paused and remembered her daughter. Unlike Khefri, who bore many children with her boy toys and ignored them afterward, she couldnÆt do that to Rohana. There was no one she could pass her to. No one she would pass her to.

Why? Why couldnÆt she think like Khefri?

Was a child made with half the blood of natives worth less? No. That shouldnÆt be the case. Was it because of pain? Suffering?

Rohana was hers. Her child. She was a mother. A motherÆs duty. Suffering. Sacrifice.

A motherÆs duty was first to her.

A heroÆs duty was to slay the demon king.

Colette felt her connection to the Soul Realm waver.

Demon kings.

- What? - She whispered it, as if her mind was splitting apart. As if the words seemed to lose meaning. As if all was pointless.

Sacrifice? What sacrifice?

She raised her head, her spirit transported, A/ Æs bridge to the soul realm. She looked at Hafiz and saw death, at Ken and saw age, at Chung and saw anger, at Prabu and saw her new family.

What did she lose to get here?

TheyÆd done their share. Served their time. Now that she wanted to look back, why did it seem like it was so hard to remember things before all of this?

She looked at Ken.

He seemed to be the only one actually getting what Hafiz was saying.

She felt jealous.

Envy.

She wanted to know, and she felt her soul cracking.

15

YEAR 253 (PART 3)

Unlike Yura or Lovis, I couldnÆt hold onto HafizÆs soul. Not if he didnÆt want me to. A hero was a hero.

Instead, I received a Titan Frame . I could deploy up to three Titans now: KeiÆs, HafizÆs, and one left from the three heroes of the earlier generation. Supporting three more titans or five titans simultaneously wasnÆt a problem for me magically.

Titans. Useful for comet, if I could get them there. I would deal with that later once I got my clone deployed.

The hero, Hafiz, wanted release from his heroic duties. Like all heroes that were no longer shackled by their worldly chains, they sought to return.

He saw something. I could feel it, and so he didnÆt want to be here. I wanted to hold him here with us, but he refused and vanished away. He was a hero, and he slipped through my grasp like a slippery eel and back to nothingness.

Where I hoped the gods fulfilled their promise.

Because back on Treehome, the survivors bore the cost of his sacrifice.

And in Colette, I saw HafizÆs experience. There was a strange disquiet in her, and it manifested in her soul spring. I noticed cracks throughout the entirety of the normally pure white stone around her soul.

Colette stood quietly, alone in the wooden room. The HeroÆs Journal glowed faintly on the table, infused with the will and magic of the heroes from times past.

Here, in a Giant Attendant Tree created solely to house the HeroÆs Journal, she prayed. She wept. She injected memories into the journal, and it certainly felt like there was more unsaid than could ever be said.

Her partner, Prabu, was with their daughter, Rohana.

Mother needed time alone. To mourn and to grieve for the dead. He told her. But even he could see the distance in his partner.

Hafiz and Colette were friends. Colette felt that way, at least. Not close, but friends. I listened to her talk to herself, as if she was talking to him. Things she wished she could say. She thanked him quietly.

Before all of them drifted apart.

That was how their relationships were. They were allies of convenience and circumstances, brought together because they died together. It didnÆt mean much once the demon king died and their different interests pulled them apart.

The hero class did nothing to keep the heroes together beyond a shared purpose to slay the demon king. In the same way, the Valthorns existed as protectors against the demons.

Ken definitely had a point when he asked the question of me, - What if you win? What if it really was the end, no more demons? What happens to all the things and structures that you and the Valthorns built? -

Ken may have come around and accepted the purpose and direction of our role, but his skepticism of what came after never faded.

- What do you do when your purpose is lost? That decides whether you are benevolent or just a dictator. I hope that what I see is true, that you will let go. -

I thought about it, and certainly, my role as a tree was to ensure nature existed. The demons must be removed because there was no coexistence. But without their existential threat, Ken was correct to say we would lose a big part of our purpose.

Colette sat in the room. She was there the whole afternoon, sipping tea, thinking, and then checking the journal again.

And again. And again.

After a long while, she suddenly asked, - Are you able to remove our hero classes? The hero from a previous generation, Mirei, when you disabled her hero class, she suddenly dreamed of home. She dreamed of family. Friends that she had long forgotten. Like Hafiz. -

Life had a way of coming around in cycles. Events rhymed with those of an earlier time. I looked at Colette and saw a weary young mother, trying to remember what life was like before all of this. Before death.

Maybe Mirei would be like her or she was like Mirei. I wasnÆt sure. They blended together sometimes.

I thought about Lilies, about how all the people, all the personalities seemed same - ish after a while. There were only so many combinations of character traits. I remembered why even a hive - mind like Lilies couldnÆt find it in them to latch and get close to individuals, to treat each individuals as unique.

Was it because after enough time, people really did blend together and you noticed how the character traits blended together in slightly different ratios to form a slightly different individual? Just variations of certain base templates.

- Can you do it to me? Not remove it, but just suppress it for a while? Just to see what was there, what was before all of this? - Colette said quietly. It was something Mirei would have said. I could imagine her saying it.

I knew the answer to the question. I thought I could.

To suppress the effects of the hero class for a relatively short moment was certainly not out of the picture with my current strength.

But did I want to?

I had a flashback to Mirei from so many decades ago. She wanted death as a release from her duties as a hero. I looked at the mother of a growing baby girl and wondered whether I could impose this sin on myself.

That feeling reemerged once more. That moment after HafizÆs death when I felt something brewing within ColetteÆs soul.

- Is this something you really want? - I asked.

Colette looked back at the journal, closed her eyes, and seemed lost in thought for a moment. That feeling strengthened. Dissatisfaction. Discontent. Anger. It was as if Colette radiated chaotic energy.

When she opened her eyes, she nodded. I thought I saw her resist some pain, or it was a wince. She quickly picked up the cup of tea and drank everything.

She answered, - Yes. It is. -

- Very well. There will be consequences, consequences that extend beyond yourself, and I will do so only after youÆve discussed this with your partner. -

Colette paused as she digested my words. After a while, she nodded. - I suppose he deserves to know what IÆm thinking. -

It was her choice. But her choice had consequences for the sole offspring of two Earth heroes. Mirei went down a death spiral, and I wasnÆt sure I wanted to facilitate that for Colette. But I understood the need to know, and so I only asked for her family to make that decision with her.

Consequences for her, for her partner, for her child, Rohana. The young child seemed normal so far, her soul spring turbulent and unformed.

I wondered what blessings or curses awaited someone so special.

With a parent like Colette, going through her own challenges, it would not be easy growing up. I looked at the child and thought of Arlisa.

Such wasted potential.

I looked at the parents, Colette and Prabu, and realized that they were going to be just as bad as Lozanna at parenting. Maybe worse. There was no one to humble them. They existed at the very top of society. What was life growing up like that, so detached from everything?

Morbidly, Rohana would likely see her parents die. Her parents were heroes.

Their fate was death. I briefly wondered whether the gods prevented hero - parents just to ensure that every child would likely have one non - hero parent still live.

I doubted the System was so sympathetic.

- Call me a selfish bastard again, - Ken countered, and the relationship between Chung and Ken was tense.

- You are a selfish bastard. I said it once. I will say it again, and I stand by my damned statement. You are a coward. You ran away from our joint duty to defeat the demons, and now you criticize us from the sidelines. Well, do you feel happy? Do you feel smug watching the rest of us toil in misery? - Chung said. - Do you feel validated in your decision? -

I didnÆt understand why Chung vented his frustration on Ken. I suspected helplessness, and so he turned on the - traitor. - They were good friends.

Yet even good friends disagreed on things. Ken was silent before he nodded. - Yes. I wanted no part in the schemes of greater powers. -

- And yet here you are, consorting with the greater powers. Hypocrite. -

Ken sighed. - Yes. I am a hypocrite. But I now know what I really wanted out of. -

- What? -

- I wanted no part in schemes that I have no knowledge and control of. I hated how the gods didnÆt inform us the full scope of our duties, our burdens, the chains that shackle us, both physically and mentally. I hate they treated us as tools, instead of partners that should work together. I hated we didnÆt have choice, Chung. -

- And that hatred of you led to one of us dead. -

- Chung, youÆre making no sense. I have no way of preventing his death. Even if I was a hero, so what? Could I have stopped that last part? -

- We. we. - I realized ChungÆs arguments were just frustrations. A bundle of emotions. Chung just stomped, and his magical stomp radiated through the ground. The floor cracked but wasnÆt destroyed because my roots quickly reinforced the ground.

- Look, my old friend. - Ken tried the soft approach. - WeÆve been through years, decades together. WeÆve been apart, and we pursue different goals to satisfy the emptiness in our hearts. To fulfill what the gods robbed from us. Right now, I think the gods influence is meddling with your mind. You are not thinking about it properly. -

- Then tell me why you want to die while leaving the burden of the living to the rest of us. Leaving us to face the duty of fighting some other personÆs war. If you are my friend, I need you here. I need you alive and well to tell us that all over again. Because you know itÆs meddling with us, and because - Chung took a deep breath before saying it - IÆll only listen to you. -

Ken was stunned to hear it from his friend after so long. He suspected Chung was a little too attached, on that point, a fact I knew for quite a while. But it wasnÆt something to bring up.

Chung sighed, admitting the truth. - IÆm not good with advice. I canÆt take it from the others or A/ or any of my servants. I tried. But I just couldnÆt. Please, friend. Stay and live along with us. Be the common sense we sorely lack. We will suffer from your absence. -

Ken let out one of the longest sighs in his time here. His posture sagged as if he aged ten years after that conversation. - You suffer from my absence. I suffer from my presence here in this world. IÆm weary, Chung. IÆm sick of this game. I didnÆt trust the gods, and I donÆt want to live to see my current faith rot into something else. -

- Selfish bastard, - Chung repeated.

- You know what? I guess I am, - Ken said. - IÆm selfish because I want to die peacefully while the rest of you wonÆt ever have that option. -

ChungÆs fist almost landed on KenÆs face.

But it didnÆt.

Because it would kill him if it did.

- Curse you, - Chung said.

Ken felt his heart skip a beat. A heroÆs attack was still a heroÆs attack, and Ken was just a regular person with a fairly normal class.

The dwarven capitol was wrecked, but the location was not ready for the people.

- This is all that damned treeÆs fault. They must have planned this or are in cahoots with the demons. - The dwarven king wasnÆt quite happy about returning to what was a destroyed landscape. Most of the original dwarven citizens of the capitol cursed as they surveyed what remained of the home.

Foul magic still lurked here. Some of the demon spiders had escaped, perhaps squashed or hidden underneath the rubble, waiting to strike anyone who discovered them. As with all prior demon king deaths, the place was filled with the remains of the demon. Daemolite.

Ruins. There were craters everywhere. Old buildings, all destroyed. The explosion at the end burned and left dark marks in the soil itself.

The people were unhappy, and the king could sense it. Some kings gained skills that gave them an innate sense of how loyal their people were, the rough tones of their populaceÆs emotions.

There was no good outcome when a city was lost.

- Let us help to rebuild. - Some of my Valthorns from Branchhold reached out to offer assistance.

The dwarves themselves got to work. It would be some time before the city would be a city once more. The general populace lived in tents. In temporary housing. Long - term temporary housing, at least for a few years until the city could be properly reconstructed. The wealthier dwarves moved to other cities.

Even if the capital was rebuilt, the people who lived there would have changed, and a lot of their bustling energy and magic would have gone far away.

As for the king, although he seemed glad not to die in the battle with the demon king, the anger of his population meant he had to find a target. Someone to blame.

Conveniently, the target of their frustration was the heroes.

Indirectly, we were caught in the crossfire.

16

YEAR 254

The heroes were trouble I didnÆt want to deal with. Instead, I focused on Lumoof and the demonÆs comet.

Only one more year before my clone was ready, and already, the demonÆs comet drifted out of range of Demon Turtleworld. We didnÆt even ship all the bombs we made, so that was a waste.

My Valthorns relocated the bombs to Lavaworld, a process that would take a few months because we shipped so many. Shipping these bombs without proper storage could accidentally trigger the bombs, and we had some of our crystal bombs exploding during one of the demon cometÆs daily flare - ups.

The next intersection was in six years, by Year 260, and we really needed to make our time on this place count.

- WhatÆd you get? - Stella looked as Alka placed another magical probe on the ground. It would be destroyed if the flares activated, but it was one of the best ways of scanning the cometÆs structure. They all looked exhausted, even if the rotating system meant they all managed to get some rest.

- Those eight nodes - there seems to be a chamber around them. There are rocky parts located throughout the comet. -

- We know that. - Stella clicked her tongue, a little irritated.

- The flares come from the nodes, but because they radiate outward like a fanning wave, these rocky parts are deep enough to be out of range of the nodes. -

- So weÆll just have to dig down the rocks, deploy A/ there? -

- Probably the best chance to get a somewhat safe place. - His probes and scanners still couldnÆt figure out what was at the core. Until we could deploy my clone, I couldnÆt start creating my digging titan.

- ItÆs still pretty damned deep. -

- Not all the way to the core, just a quarter of the way. - Alka thought as he looked at the team. - We should start digging. A tunnel that far down should take us a year. -

- If the comet doesnÆt collapse on us. -

- It wonÆt, - Alka said. - These crystals are pretty damned solid. -

The comet was made from a magically resistant material, so the best way to dig down was to hit it physically with pickaxes and hammers. It was a good thing some of the Valthorns were more physical in their talents.

Dig.

Based on whatever data we had, we built a model of what we thought was the most efficient way to reach the rocky areas beneath the crystalline comet.

WeÆd have a year to dig. One of the plans developed by the Valthorns over the past year of data collection was essentially to dig deep and plant the bombs there, then trigger an explosion from within, disrupt whatever magical bonds that held the comet together.

This should be one of the better ways of destroying the comet without actually destroying the materials of the comet. Once the comet lost its bulk, whatever damage it could deal should be survivable.

Should.

17

YEAR 255

My clone could finally be deployed, and the emotions among my Valthorns was a mixture of excitement and relief. TheyÆd waited two - plus years for this moment.

Some of them just couldnÆt wait to finally head home for a rest. Some just couldnÆt wait to get started.

My Valthorns double - checked their computations and plans. We had one good shot, and if we stretched it, maybe another shot. If the circumstances forced me to, I would withdraw my Lavaworld clone to deploy a second clone.

Based on current projections, itÆd still take fifteen years before it impacted Treehome, so if I withdrew any of the other clones now, I should be able to deploy them a few years before impact.

If that made a difference. I hoped it didnÆt get there.

I felt the clone seed in my soul notify me of its readiness. It was ready for deployment, and through Lumoof, I could summon the clone seed.

It was finally time to nudge this comet out of its path.

- All right! - Lumoof said as my clone seed emerged through the avatar form and sank into the rock. This former asteroid or former planet received my seed easily, and my roots emerged from the rock.

Retaliation came instantly.

A surge of demonic mana gushed in from the surroundings and flooded my growing cloneÆs roots. Luckily I was well prepared for this, and through the mana from the rest of my clones and bodies, I pushed back with mana of my own.

My roots spread through the rocks, weaving through the gaps or forcing through at times. The tree grew upward and outward.

Scientifically it didnÆt make sense for a tree to exist here. There was no sun to guide the treeÆs growth upward, so in space, in an area with nothing but ambient magical light, the tree should just grow randomly in whatever direction it happened to be in.

I wasnÆt sure why I was thinking about such a thing while I was drawing mana from all my clones and pushing that mana against the demonic mana from the cometÆs core.

My tree grew as the flow of mana intensified. The demonic mana was strong, but I was really good at filtering the demonic mana. It was something IÆd done for decades.

Ever since the Rottedlands.

It was as if the comet tried to flood me with this dirty mana, only to find that I could clean it and expel the dirty mana faster than they could throw it at me. It was true that they were still a large ocean of mana, but I didnÆt need to clean all of it at once, just whatever could reach me.

The amount of demonic mana from the cometÆs core was less than a full - grown planet, but it was still more than the smaller, recovering worlds.

My clone tree grew and reached its full size. I felt my branches and vines push against the crevices of the cometÆs rocks.

There was no sun.

A tree shouldnÆt exist here.

Yet, despite the impossibilities, I did have a tree on Cometworld, and now I had another one on the demonÆs comet. I felt like this was too much adventure for a tree. For a tree to boldly go where no Tree had gone before.

I mentally slapped myself at how ridiculous that was and focused on the retaliation from the demons. We detected the presence of demons headed our way.

Parts of the comet itself shook, and the rocks were transformed by the demonic mana. They turned into demonic golems and tried to attack us. Demons made of rock and crystals were cobbled together from whatever was present. It was as if the demonic mana possessed the earth itself to rise up against us.

But this type of resistance was useless. The aura of my demonic suppression field weakened these lesser creatures, my vines and roots stabbed the demons and drained them of their mana, and without their demonic mana, they had no ability to regenerate. The rest of my forces crushed the defenders easily.

The demons foolishly repeated the attacks. The walls around us, those made of crystals and all that, transformed into demons. That was actually quite helpful, because it meant that with each group of golems made from the crystalline walls, it just created more space.

With my clone effectively draining the demonic golems of their mana, Edna and my Valthorns made short work of them.

- The clone is active, - I declared to the Valthorns eagerly waiting news on Treehome, Branchhold, and Lavaworld. The crowd cheered. - ItÆs time to move to the next stage of the plan. -

Titans.

I reached out to the Titan Frames stored in my soul realm and prepared them for use.

- Depth Worm, - I repeated to my Valthorns. My domain holders nodded. While waiting, my Valthorns constructed even more tunnels throughout the demonÆs comet, preparing for the bombs that would be everywhere.

My roots spread.

The demons resisted; their overwhelming quantities of mana put up a good fight and slowed the speed of my spread. I couldnÆt plant subsidiary trees here. They were too easily overwhelmed by the demonic mana and would then die. Instead, only my Giant Attendant Trees could be deployed in this sunless world.

Back home, I abused my teleportation ability to ship truckloads of the cometÆs crystals to Lavaworld, where a huge deployment of research trees and Valthorns worked on developing roots and plants adapted to the crystals. Just as how some plants learned how to grow and climb on concrete structures, I believed I could magically create plants able to work on these crystal structures.

We already shipped some back during that one year overlap as it coasted close to the Demon Turtleworld.

ItÆd still take some time to develop plants adapted to crystals.

My roots spread.

Demonic mana pushed back. Despite the presence of tremendous tranquility, the battle between the demonic mana and mine continued forever. My clone drained the demonic mana and expelled them.

The crown of my clone tree ignited in flames as the demonic mana burned.

I pushed toward the nodes with my Giant Attendant Trees, bit by bit.

All while the demonic golems tried to attack us.

The pace of my expansion was slow.

Slow.

We were too damned slow.

- I need more mana, - I explained the progress to my Valthorns. Right now, the mana generation from all my worlds was used to sustain far too many different projects.

In terms of mana, Cometworld and Lavaworld were both mana - deficient worlds.

Tropicworld had finally approached breakeven, but it hadnÆt started to really generate mana to add to the pool. Treehome, Mountainworld, and Threeworlds were the three mana - generating worlds.