Chapter 226: Cloven Hoofs

Year 227

There are times when nothing seems to happen, and I generally enjoy these periods of time. It’s not to say nothing happened, but it’s more that the events that happened were largely small to me. 

On Treehome, my roots and vines finally crossed all the necessary oceans, and we’ve reached all the continents. I was now able to spy on everyone in the world. 

But there was nothing worth spying on. 

The temples did not hold secrets of communicating with the ancient gods, or if they did, it was lost to time. The kingdoms were embroiled in endless politicking and jostling for power, what little power they had. The common folk, well, there’s really not much to gain from spying on them. 

Again, it comes back to my two main objectives. The first main objective for expansion is the gathering mana and resources, which does not require my direct control of the land. My subsidiary trees are able to hide, and camouflage, such that most people don’t notice them, and they, connected to the rest of the trees, generate mana. 

The second was talent. There was a valid argument for the expansion of my cities into the other continents, to have a wider pool to gather talent. It is also true, just as Raph correctly noted, that my reluctance to control these other lands meant they were lawless, and many of these young, potentially talented children would encounter a demise before their time. 

On this aspect, my spy networks in the other continents help serve as my talent hunters. 

Talent is an ephemeral quality. It emerges in some, and doesn’t in others. I’ve known this through my decades, almost century old training program. Some people bloom early, some people bloom late, some never bloom at all. 

Some thrive in a structured, safe environment of the Central Continent, some thrive in the lawlessness of the kingdom’s fringes. I tried to recreate similar chaos by letting go of the kingdoms of the central continent. I allowed them to fight each other. 

Chaos. Conflict. It’s all natural. Order is stifling, and worse still, the frustration created by order eventually causes the general populace to turn on the force that applies that order. Every few years, my Valthorns had to step in and quell some smaller actual rebellions, some small pockets of dissatisfaction that somehow turned on us.  

We catch most of them before they turn into larger rebellions. My minds keep tabs of their general mood, and try to ensure that their frustrations are aimed at each other, rather than us. Sometimes, my spymasters accelerate the collapse of certain incompetent kingdoms, just to ensure that the frustrations are focused on them, than us. We step in when they do something. 

It is a slippery, slippery slope. 

Lumoof said to Raph that we are wardens. That is my goal. But in practice, there are flaws to this ideal as well. 

If the lion were to hunt the last surviving gazelle, would we not intervene?  We would, because in the interest of diversity, I should retain these rare species. Yet, the natural way is to let it collapse. The strong survive, that is nature. 

When are we wardens, and when are we zookeepers and conservationists? 

Nature’s diversity is hinged upon every species finding their niche. A species that does not find their niche thus dies. 

Is that how we do things? Is that how I want to do things?

The cities of Treehome have grown larger, the sheer concentration of our power meant resources, infrastructure and facilities have made the Six Ports, Freshka, and the many directly administered cities of the Valthorns into large, sprawling city-monstrosities. 

The decades of peace have created a huge accumulation of people in these large centers of economic activity. It also made it easier to find talent, because there was bound to be talent in a larger pool of people. 

Like it or not, the Central Continent’s incredible prosperity is an outcome of decades of Order. By my artificial mind’s measures, the Central Continent’s population has increased by a factor of ten since a century ago, all because of significantly higher food availability, and significantly lower death rates. 

The resurgence of the lizardfolk, Centaur and treefolk populations were also a big factor, and it was all possible because of our presence, to create order, and to protect those I saw as worth protecting.

But it is not fair. The Valthorns have our inbuilt biases. 

If the lizardfolk or treefolk were inferior, by the order of things they should be extinguished. So, though we claim to be wardens, we are not very good wardens. We step in. 

We made changes. We elevated some lizardfolks and treefolks beyond their natural state and made them into wardens. But the very fact that we made it possible, informs the others of the height that they could achieve. 

We protected some, and encouraged certain populations to grow faster. 

Honestly, we’re hypocrites. 

We apply order, and intentionally create chaos. We impose our rules. Our rules were drafted with a significant bias for choice, for self-determination. 

It’s hypocritical, because if we really wanted to be wardens, the nature of Treehome should be a state of anarchy. The kingdoms should be able to fight each other to the death if they wanted. 

But we don’t allow them to. In the interest of saving the innocent, and sparing the continent from the fallout.

The philosophical difference between myself, and Raph, was actually really just on the spectrum of our intervention. We advocate a light touch, yet we occasionally intervene, sometimes heavily, thus we suffer the consequences. 

Raph would, by the sheer nature of his philosophy, need to consistently intervene. That, to me, was an untenable position. I did not like that. 

Initially, my framework for intervention generally considered whether there was an extinction event (such as the last gazelle example), large scale unnecessary death, a unique or special resource, or if the intervention could significantly alter the direction of the world for the better. 

It occurs to me that the framework was structured so wide that it is effectively useless as a framework. What is ‘significant’? If one subscribes to Chaos Theory, that small events have large ripples, everything is accordingly significant, and thus, like Raph, I must always intervene. 

That is not where I want to be. 

I want to end the cycle, and these days, any intervention is filtered through whether it could lead us further along that path.

Again, still very vague, and not exactly useful. How would you know that a person could someday be the future savior of the world?

It was something that still stumped me, and so, for now, I’m going with my gut. Which is mostly, my roots. 

 

***

 

“Managed to get the crystal computers to work?” Kei looked at the flashing crystals with great interest. 

“They work, but all this computational power is not very useful.” Alka was frustrated. We now had the equivalent of computer chips, and Alka is now literally a walking chip foundry. The issue was making that computational power do something useful. What was the world’s greatest supercomputer, if there was nothing that required that sort of computational power?

Creating a language and operating system for the supercomputer was a challenge in itself, though they were not entirely working from scratch. 

It was fairly easy to adapt runes and runic carvings into supercomputers, and that was their first instinct. There was a ‘language’ already native to crystals. Runes.

However, it was soon clear that runes were not appropriate. The human-heroes, of course, had some ideas of their own thanks to their earthly origins, but Alka wasn’t convinced. The crystals had the ability to comprehend certain ‘queries’ or statements without having to resolve them through a series of Yes-No questions. 

If the crystals could inherently maintain and process statements directly, Alka’s first idea was that they were essentially artificial minds, but in crystal form. So, we combined them with my suit of living wooden armor, to augment our Valthorns in combat. 

This was actually the first useful application, since the supercomputer-crystals could function as the home of the artificial minds. We then combined the artificial minds, the supercomputer-crystals, and the demon king’s core. Stella referred to it as the Void Chamber, and it was our first full scale attempt at supporting Stella’s attempt to look further and deeper into the demon’s map.

It worked better than expected. She didn’t have a nosebleed or her eyes didn’t hurt, and she could begin to manipulate the map, and convert them into something useful. 

Coordinates. Directions. 

Stella needed the Void Chamber, because the demon king’s core was not designed for the regular mind. The Chamber helped to interpret and convert the signals and signs and inputs into something more usable, and allowed her to take it all in. 

“I need a bit of demonic mana.” Stella said, after a few days of experimenting with the demon king’s core. “There are some segments locked behind a key of demonic mana. Certain carved paths within the core that need to be powered by demonic energy.”

“Got it.” 

A small army of void mages watched, as a demonic-hybrid tree appeared nearby, and a small trickle of demonic energy pierced the demon king’s core. 

It hummed strangely, and Stella manipulated the demonic energy into the path. 

She froze as she felt the presence of an unusual blend of divine energy leaking, that then transformed, decayed into something else.

“Aeon. I’m not sure if I’m reading this right, but from what I’m seeing... There’s a dead thing in the prison. It leaks divine energy, similar to that ancient log, but it’s very faint and I think- I think it’s getting twisted into some kind of demonic energy..”

“A... god?” 

“Yes. That blob is like a prison or an extraction device of some kind, and each demon king is a piece of that fallen thing, which perhaps is a god. that has been corrupted.”

“We’re actually going to fight a god.” I cursed. This was going to be a lot more traditional than I expected. Oh great. 

“There’s also- shit.” Stella cursed. “Heroes. The spirits of captured heroes in that prison. That thing contains both heroes and a dead divine creature. The demon king is essentially a fusion of three parts, the body of the planets, the will and spirit of this... Fallen God, and the blood and energy of the demons. That blob contains the will, and the blood is passed on with each demon king.”

“Okay.”

“So. When you corrupt the anti-magic demon king’s body, it messes with the ‘blood and energy’ of the demon, as well as the body of the world, which was why it didn’t work as well when it landed.”

Stella paused.

“But this doesn’t help. It doesn’t tell us how to get to it. The distance between us and the blob is huge. I’d have to gain at least a hundred levels just to get enough void mana to get close.” 

“Can we hop there?” 

The Void Chamber hummed, as I felt the demon king’s core light up. “Yes. We’ll have to capture at least forty worlds along the way. But here’s the thing. The closer we are to the Blob, the more demon kings they can throw at us.” 

“Wait. Why?” 

“They technically have no limit on how many demon kings they can aim at one world. It is just it’s default setting to aim one world at a time, to maximize growth. It’s... It’s transmitting a command.” 

Stella had already started to read the ‘command’. 

“It can essentially be summarized as a matrix between the nearest world, highest daemolite concentration and special weightage which is normally zero. So, it pretty much tries to invade the world with the highest weighted score, the nearest world on it’s starmap. It’s also receiving a pulse from the other demon worlds, every unknown number of years, which helps update that star map. If a world was already targeted by another demon king, there’s a negative modifier applied.”

“Wait. Can you tamper with that pulse?”

“I will, but we have to play listening mode for a bit, to see what that pulse is like. If I know what’s being transmitted, I’ll try to modify and mimic it. I’ll need your help to construct a listening facility of some kind on the Lavaworld, and the other demonic worlds.”

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“And you know what we are looking for?”

“Yes.” Stella grinned. “I just figured out exactly what we need to look for.” 

Stella and her void mages soon spent months constructing hundreds of little daemolite-gems filled with a special inscription, meant to mimic the exact ‘energy receiving formation’ within the demon king’s core. 

These devices were then scattered on all the worlds, particularly places like the Lavaworld, and Snek’s world. They would function as recording devices, to see what’s transmitted and communicated by the demon ‘mothers’, demon kings and the blob. 

Now, we wait.

 

***

 

We didn’t bother Raph and the rest of the Angelworld, nor was it in our interest to keep interacting with them. We had other things to focus on.

We needed to train new domain holders, and the more my domain holders played a role in the battle, the harder it was for the rest of them to gain a level. It was just a fact that there was limited contribution to go around. 

That was pretty much the rule of thumb.

The easier the battle, the smaller their role, the less experience they got. 

On the Threeworlds, it was time we made contact with the Sandpeople and the Centaurs, despite the Crystal King’s earlier reservations. 

For this purpose, we had our own centaurs on the Central Continent, and trained a group of them to function as spies.

Lumoof would play a more observatory role. 

The lead Centaur spymaster, Eudoxus, initiated the contact after months of surveillance. A lesson from the angelworld, or lawyerworld, we clearly could not presume good faith in our contact, and like aliens dealing with other aliens, we must first understand who we were dealing with, before attempting to make any contact. 

We also needed to ‘infiltrate’ our targets and know more about them, before any proper engagement with the authority figures. I also needed to do it more discreetly, unlike Lumoof’s rather high profile buying spree in the Crystal Mountain. 

It’s common sense, in hindsight. 

But clearly I lacked it, as I’ve suffered for it over the years. Something about trees lacking common sense. 

The centaurs of the Threeworlds had a communal hierarchy organized around their large special land. A special relic controlled their ‘Great Vanishing Country’, which protected their kind for centuries. Those who gained control of the relic were ultimately the joint leaders of their land. 

But what had happened? 

Arjan, one of my long-serving centaurs, was soon able to coax the story from a few of the centaur-locals. 

The locals of Threeworlds, like the angelworld, did not presume the presence of alien centaurs, or centaurs outside of their immediate control.

“The Great patriarch and matriarch couldn’t fully control the relics of Gayaar! Could you believe that?” The local centaur chief of the pack cursed over some heavily spiked alcohol. “In our centuries of history, the relic has never failed us. It is their incompetence!”

“The story of the Whisperers claims that the relic had lost power. That our ancestors had overused it! Even with the centaur-hero’s energies, the relic is incomplete!” Another centaur chief of the outskirts was quick to share the tales from the grapevine. The centaurs were strangely very, very gossipy, though we did eventually realize there was quite a bit of horse shit. 

Arjan and Eudoxus, both played the role of traveling centaurs from a faraway village, nodded. “I hear there is demonic corruption in the vast steppes.”

The spy-group consisted of six centaurs, all from Treehome, and they melded seamlessly with the centaurs of the fringe. 

“Yes!” The centaur chief looked upset. “That has never happened in our history! The Great Patriarch and Matriarch must let go of their position for their failure!” 

Arjan prodded. “Is that something that would be offensive to say?”

“Eh. If that’s offensive, the Patriarch will not be able to hold his place.” The villagers responded, half drunk on some kind of fermented milk-alcohol.

“Soon, the great vote will be upon us.” The centaur chief said. “And the Patriarch will be challenged to defend his position.”

“And would you challenge him?” Arjan asked. 

“No. But I hear of those who will.” The local chiefs shared names of at least six who have thrown themselves into the ring. It all sounded foreign.

***

Back home, we had a discussion on what we’ve discovered.  

“There are lands not owned by any faction.” Roon said. These lands were located in the far south, near the edges of the deserts of the Sandpeople, and the edges of the land held by the humans and the Crystal King. 

The only reason they were not owned by anyone, was because these were unproductive lands. They were a littering of overly cold barren deserts and a smidge of uninhabited canyons. There was no food, and the weather was too darn cold. 

There were also no animals, and the place had atrocious weather. 

“We could take this, if just to claim territory.” Lumoof had surveyed the land earlier, and didn’t like it. Ideally, getting somewhere with a magical ley line was best. But given my ability to spread trees anywhere, it doesn’t actually matter.

“Or we could come in at the invitation of the other factions.” 

“Or just place our trees and spread invisibly?” Roon countered. “With Aeon’s [camouflage] abilities, how hard is it to hide?” 

It was a strange thing to even consider, whether a tree had the right to place itself and grow anywhere it wanted. Having rights to land in itself was a great advantage, since it meant no one could take it away from us, but in reality, they couldn’t enforce the claim.

In fact, once I had my seed planted on this world, I would be spreading my trees everywhere without any care for legal rules. I didn’t care for legal rules back on Treehome, why should I care here? 

Maybe I shouldn’t care all that much, and just look for someone far away from the three, just to avoid conflict, and spread my trees anyway. 

But at least one of them had a domain, which meant they might be able to sense my presence. 

It was a risk. Was it worth it? 

In my mind, yes. But I’ll do so after contacting the other two factions. There had to be one faction willing, or at least, is a bit more cooperative than the rest. 

***

Arjan and Eudoxus arrived at one of the largest centaur gatherings, in their largest city, Hoofhall. They had somehow convinced some centaur merchants to take them along, and the group of six centaur spies had established themselves as merchant bodyguards. 

Centaurs raided each other, and raiding was a fairly common affair in their society. As a result, they’ve developed some norms, in order to prevent loss of life. Centaur raiding leaders would often battle it out with the head of the bodyguards or the local militia, and if the bodyguard or militia lost, they would surrender their wares, but usually, no one was killed. If they won, the raiders would leave. 

Towns and cities even had their own raiding parties who did the same to the other cities. Brutality was generally frowned upon, despite the sheer machismo that centaur war leaders had to display in combat. 

Arjan was a level 136 [Spear Saint], and so in combat, there really was no contest. So, usually it was Eudoxus who took the role of the ‘head’, as Eudoxus was a level 87 [Spymaster] and level 50 or so [Hardened Warrior]. It was easy for him to fake his strength as a spymaster.

As they rode through Hoofhall’s gates, they immediately noticed the strange markings on the land, and Lumoof, hidden and camouflaged in the wagon, saw the lines of magic immediately. 

The entire city was overflowing with a kind of magic not unlike the shamans or the lizardfolk’s magics. A blend of runic power and centaur’s folk magic. 

Folk magic was a milder blend of soul energy and their own energy. Like how shamans and witch doctors could somehow use a limited array of soul-linked magics, like how the rituals of priests could also touch the soul. The folk-magicians and spiritualists of the centaurs were developed in such similar concepts. 

The centaur-guards shuffled them in after reviewing some documentation. It was fairly easy to forge, but they didn’t need to. The centaur chiefs of the outskirt villages were more than happy to issue them new papers. 

The guards instinctively stepped away from Arjan, he was the strongest of the Centaurs present, and his presence still rippled through the system, even if he tried his best to hide it. 

“The challenges will begin soon.” Eudoxus quickly shuffled away to get information of what’s next. 

 “Challenge?” Arjan asked.

“The challengers challenge the Patriarch for the title?” Eudoxus explained. 

“Should we?” Arjan would defeat the Patriarch if it was a straight combat. 

“We don’t know anyone, it’s best we lay low and build our network.” I’ve given them a decade or two to build a realistic faction within the Centaurs, with the goal of lobbying the Centaurs for friendly terms. With our power, it wasn’t impossible. 

We were the equivalent of an extraterrestrial power funding and influencing a faction, and meddling with Centaur politics. When I put it that way, what I’m planning to do really sounds distasteful. 

I need the mana, because I don’t know what the future holds. If I could get it on favorable terms, which mostly just involved non-interference, that would be sufficient. 

Eh. 

I wonder why I care. 

I should just plant my tree clone and be done with it. Fuck whatever these people say. Roon clearly agreed with that approach. 

But legitimacy would smooth a lot of issues. Argh. I am just reminded that I despise politics. 

“It would be easier that way, in the short run. But all it’ll do is sow the seeds of conflict over the long run. If any of these domain-tier or relic holders can be swayed our way, that will save us a lot of bloodshed in the future.”

We are aiming for the demon’s heart, and we best have our foundations safe. It would not do to face nibbles from unfriendly natives at our roots. 

 

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