Chapter 64: Volcano Defense

Year 82 Month 3

Silence is eerie. Without the communication networks to inform one’s decisions, most travellers decided to stay put and wait. Only those truly desperate, or daring, make the journey. 

Throughout my network of trees, demons appeared more frequently, and in larger numbers. Given my now-smaller effective range due to the interference of the demon king, it’s also harder to move my beetles from one place to another as they have to travel close to my chain of [subsidiary trees].

“When is the damn messages going to get through?” Merchants, some of them have started drinking extensively. It seemed they are in a limbo. Some of them started to band together and just try to make the trip to the next town. A small minority just sold all their inventory and decided to just stay put. 

“I’m not going anywhere. This town can defend itself against a demon walker, I’ll just stay. It’s a risk to go out there, you might not know if a demon walker is nearby!”

“We are merchants! We do not sit still in a place. We need to sell to make money!”

Anyway, back to the beetles, the attacks throughout my network increased, and so, with Trevor and Dimitree’s advice, I’ve split my beetle force into six squads, of 1,500 each, all stationed in a different part of my network, the rest of them in New Freeka. I can’t move the beetles as quickly as before, because of the longer route they now have to take, and with lesser ‘visibility’, I have lesser amount of time to ‘plan’ and ‘respond’ to any incursion. 

In a way, this is a hub-and-spoke strategy, mini-bases for my beetles. 

Frankly, I didn’t see this coming. I thought demon kings were just overpowered, and have high destructive abilities. Utility or passive abilities wasn’t something I expected. It really feels like there is a mind behind the demon.

“Would you think it’s a reincarnator? A hero from your world?” 

Alexis paused. “That... would be terrible, isn’t it? If they brought someone from my world...”

“There’s really no reason why the demon kings would change tactics this time. There has to be a trigger point. When you fought the demon king, what did you think?”

Alexis waited, and then she responded, off tangent, but very relevant. “...I wonder whether the demons accessed my memories.” 

“Huh?”

“When I was trapped as a fire-demon. Whether... whether the demons looked into my mind, just like how I saw their homeworld.”

“You... you saw their homeworld?” 

“I think so. I’m not sure whether it’s a dream or it’s their home world, but after the demon walker, it brought back memories. It’s a massive desert with large spires, similar to the ones on the demon walker's back, but many, many times bigger, and more.”

“Okay, now we have two suspects. One, the demons somehow brought a reincarnator or offworlder. Two, the demons took a look at your mind and decided to copy some tactics. Or possibly both are true. Or you may have let the demons in on where you are from, and therefore they can now summon their own version of heroes.”

Alexis’s spirit body rotated and twirled in the air. She looked horrified. “That... I hope not. We need to warn everyone if we are potentially dealing with an enemy reincarnator. All the nations must treat the demons as intelligent!”

“Hmm... let’s not panic yet.” I do suspect that this generation’s demons are possibly intelligent, or have some kind of thought process to their tactics, but the fact that they only have a small variety of units, seem to imply that there is some kind of ‘migration-limit’ on what they can bring to this world. Maybe the reincarnator himself isn’t here in this world. 

“We need countermeasures. We need to do something!” Alexis spinned. I think her spiritual body is changing color. “Meeelaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

Meela was happily in her inn. Now that the merchants aren’t going anywhere, they need a place to stay, so her inn is full house. And many merchants are drinking their worries away. 

“Busy, Alexis. I’ve got a full house to manage.” Meela waved her off.

“This is important Meela, IMPORTANT!!!”

“After I’m done with my customers... which is like, really, really much later. Later, okay?”

“Meelaaaaa!” Alexis pouted. 

In the meantime, I called Jura and Madeus to discuss the possibility of an ‘intelligent’ demon king.

“Demon kings are somewhat monster-like, at least in history. They seek out places with large populations, and have an ability to sense the presence of heroes. Their instincts seem to drive them towards the heroes. They have some primitive intelligence, according to statements from past heroes, but in combat, and once provoked, they are like... monsters.”

“So, how bad is it, if the demon king is intelligent, say... like an average human.”

“On the bigger scale of things, it’s probably the demonic equivalent of a very very nasty undead necromancer.”

“Is that bad? It sounds bad.” I asked.

Jura shook his head. His knowledge about such things are quite... shallow. Madeus has a better understanding on historical outbreaks. 

Madeus nodded. “Hmmm... if the heroes can work with the kingdoms, should still be possible to defeat the demon king. After all, the demons can’t level, and the lower level demons, demon walkers don’t display the kind of intelligence that I would associate with ‘sentience’. So... it’s likely that only the demon king is ‘fully’ intelligent.”

"I agree with that theory." Indeed, the demon walker or the demon general did not appear to be 'intelligent', even if they have some tactical sense. Else, they would not have walked in a straight line towards the source of the Hexbombs. If so, all the thinking must be done by the demon king, and that is inherently a weakness. 

Jura and Madeus looked at the map. There's nothing on it, now that we have no data on the demons. 

Jura shrugged. "Nothing actually changed, isn't it? The heroes still have a demon king to slay, it just meant the process is harder for them. For the rest of us, the demon king will continue to wreak havoc. Our preparations just need to continue."

"True." 

Alexis on the other hand. "We need to send letters to all the kingdoms. The threat of the demons should be higher."

"That achieves nothing. For kingdoms already fighting for their survival, such as those in the Southern Continents, the demons are already their number one threat. For those currently safe, all of them are preparing. By now, no one is treating the demon king lightly. I believe many other strategists and kings must have come to the same conclusion as we did, that this demon king is sentient and intelligent."

Alexis pouted.

"Our best course of action is hunker down and prepare for war. And pray the demon king isn't on our continent. As for you, what have you got from all your research? Can you research how to counteract or offset this demonic interference, so that we can restore the communication with all our neighbours?"

"...I will get started."

-

Lausanne came back at the end of the month. They have been forced into hiding, to avoid the roaming demons. With the beetles 'asleep', they do not have the numbers to take the demons in a fight, so their progress home was super slow. 

Laufen was delighted to see her daughter again, and gave her a big hug. 

"Happy to see you too, mom." Laufen was worried sick, even if she put on a strong face in front of others. 

"We need to stick closer to the trees from now on." Jura was relieved, of course. Lausanne wasn't alone, her squad had twenty others. Luckily, none of them died. Avoiding battle is a good choice. 

Year 82 Month 4

"When will the heroes be summoned?"

"Usually 6 months to a year after the demon king." Maybe less? I hope it's less.

If the demon king is smart, he should expand as fast as he could and crush all the allied kingdoms. That way, the heroes have less support, the kingdoms stand no chance against a creature like the demon king. If he is truly intelligent, he will use this head start to cement his position. 

"Aeon! A demon army in the distance!" I spotted it too, they seem to employ a scorched earth strategy and are headed for the volcano. New Freeka won't deploy itself, but I will have to defend the volcano. 

After the demon walker battle, I have 15,000 subsidiary trees, about a third of which are beetle-nests. Each tree, with Horn's upgrades, is home to 5 beetles, so I have a total beetle force of 25,000. I am literally a one-tree beetle army, but I have to spread this force throughout my network. 

7,000 is at home, in the valley as its defensive force, and I lost about 4,000 beetles is various smaller skirmishes in the past months. That leaves 14,000, of which spread into the six 1,500 squads, give or take a few hundred.

20,000 demons. There are already 1,500 beetles stationed in that segment of my tree network. The rest of my beetles, the 7,000 stationed at home will take about five days to get there. It's a battle away from my main tree. Not my ideal battleground.

"They... they are headed for the volcanic area??" The Order captains are surprised, of course. They presumed they would head here. 

"The volcano is a natural mana source. A difficult one to work with, but a mana source. We must defend it, else we will have a demon factory as our neighbour." I told the Order, and Jura relayed the message to a clearly spooked New Freekan council. 

The councillors are afraid, so the councillors all summon their local supporters for views. Some of them want to participate, they see why it should be defended. Some prefer to wait and hold a defensive line here, in the Valley. 

So, the choice is given to the councillors, and they gather support. Either send an army to fight a force near the volcano, or tolerate a demon base next to New Freeka and die eventually, anyway. 

In a way, it is an easier battle since it is just a large army of regular demonoids. There are no giant walkers. BUT, the flipside is my ability to intervene  slightly weakened by the distance. 

"Jura and Yvon, I need both of you at that battle."

Lausanne tapped herself. "Me too." Well, I planned on including her anyway.

"And you." Laufen gave her daughter a hug. "And the Valthorns. I need every high level person I have at that battlefield. Go, and go quickly. The beetles there may not be able to hold the line for more than three days. And the demons are only two days away."

In a way, this could have been prevented had I created an outer perimeter of subsidiary trees, but even that would only give me one extra day's advance warning. Still, I made a note to further fortify the Southern forest and [ThreeTree of Mana]. Clearly that magic ley line would be a juicy target for the demons, should they discover it. 

To delay the demonic force while the rest of the forces get into position, I activated [rooting field] and [poison field] multiple times. Sadly, poison doesn't work on demons, but the roots did manage to delay them. 

The battle began as expected, five days later on the edges of the volcanic area. I have increased the amount of [subsidiary trees] I have, so that I can keep control over the beetles, and with new [subsidiary trees], the present beetle force stood at 2,500. My 7,000 beetles are a day away, and the New Freekan army of 4,000 soldiers are two days away. 

The demons? 21,000 or so. The demons themselves are increasing. The demons charged, led by humanoid demons, riding on demon hounds, wielding long halberds and spears.

"Fucking hell, they have cavalry." They had demon knights that rode hellhounds some time ago, a small 'elite' brainwashed humans that chased the heroes, but this is my first time witnessing pure-demonoid cavalry as combat force.

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Actually, how did the demons brainwashed those humans? Could they be the source of this change in tactics too?

Something isn't right. If demon knights, brainwashed by the demons exist, that means the demon kings had always been sentient. Because you need a certain measure of intelligence to utilise 'demonic-corrupted human knights'. And the previous demon king had manticores and wyverns too. 

Ah, I need to come back to this thought later. Now I need to focus on the fight to defend the volcano. 

The demonoid riders smacked into my beetles, we are fighting defensively, using the trees as a kind of makeshift wall. Beetles can fight even when they are partly-crawling on trees, the demonoids less so. I need to delay them as long as I can, until the rest of my 7,000 beetles arrive.  

Utilising the beetles ability to burrow, the beetles dug numerous trenches throughout the battlefield, all meant to delay the demons. 

A kind of treench warfare, but these are mixed in between the layers of trees.

Some of my [subsidiary trees] are [carnivorous plants], and they chomp on one or two demonoids before they needed time to recharge. 

Here, at this distance, the effect of my [lesser demonic suppression aura] is slightly reduced, and a defensive battle meant my beetles can still benefit from my [healing aura].

But these things merely serve to delay the inevitable. 

The number disadvantage was too massive, and they killed 1,500 beetles within the first few hours of skirmish. The remaining 1,000 retreated back to the last line of trees. On the positive side, half of the demonoid cavalry have been killed, and the demon army is now about 19,000 strong. 

"Jura, Lausanne, Yvon. Situation isn't good. We are likely to have to fight the demons after they breached the tree-line. There are a few demon knights in the force." Indeed, the demon knights, with their various short-range weapons, made the trenches unfavorable to the beetles. 

A mistake, on hindsight. Silly me, thinking my beetles are the only ones who have an advantage in the trenches. 

The 7,000 beetles are still half a day away. 

The demons continued their charge, and the fighting continued into the night. 

"Master. Bad news, another 20,000 has been spotted in the north corridor. They are headed to the former dungeon, the naga-hole." Trevor flagged the news. In fact, by the time we spotted the demons, they were already at the dungeon's doorsteps. 

"There's nothing there?" How did the demons spawn so many demons? Don't they need bases for this? 

With another battle ongoing at the volcano, I had to concede the former naga dungeon. I didn't have enough beetles to fight two battles at the same time, so the beetles in that area retreated. 

Back at the volcano, my defensive line broke really quickly. There really was no way I could stop an army of 19,000 demons with only 1,000 beetle, even if I kept using my skills to thin their numbers. 

I had to make a call then, I retreated with the 500 surviving beetles, and joined them up with the 7,000 that arrived a little too late. The demons had breached the tree-line and entered the volcano area.

"The demons are in the volcanic area."

"Should we continue, then?"

"Yes. We must defeat the demons before they establish a base in the volcano. We cannot let them tap into the volcano's mana source."

"The men are not keen." One of the captains said. Some of the men didn't see why they should risk their lives protecting a volcano. 

"Then die when the demons come along." It really wasn't a lie. A demonic base next to us? They could spawn more demons, more than the beetles I can field.

Still, keen or not, we had to fight. I was not planning on letting the demons get too far into the volcanic area, and already I see the demons fight the native magma golems. 

The native magma monsters didn't mount any extra defense, after all, they didn't even know an army was headed their way, but the giant magma golems were more than a match for conventional demonoids. 

But the demons were focused. While some demonoids kept the magma golems occupied, they charged for the caldera. And I didn't plan on letting them get there and establish a foothold.

I spawned subsidiary trees, even in this hostile terrain, the army of beetles and New Freekans chased after the demons. They have one day's head start, and the army passed by more casualties by the wayside. Some soldiers took this chance to collect any loot that the golems dropped, since the demons were not interested.

As the beetles and soldiers headed up, I felt it. 

A surge in mana, a shiver in the magma and earth below. "Shit." I told myself, they might have already started. Demonic energy is starting to corrupt the volcano's energies, and all the trees in the area can feel the incursion. 

An hour of climbing up the volcano with this army, we saw the demon's fortress. Past a field of crushed golems and the half-skewered demonoids, right at the edge of the volcanic caldera, a fortress in the making. It’s growing slowly, but it already has the shape of spires, similar to the spires of the demon walker. There it was, at the center of the under-construction fortress, a banner-like reddish object, the so called demon-rod as told by the merchant guilds.

"This.... this is a terraforming army." Alexis muttered. "They plan to turn the world into the factories of their homeworld?" We could see the demonic energy leaking from the rod into the ground, and it’s trying to take control of the land beneath it. But the volcano would not be tamed so easily. 

This scene somehow reminded me of a game I played, where the four factions used little magical rods to conquer the land, and with it, convert the neutral land into the four types of racial terrains, hell, blight, frost or bloom. 

"No time to waste. The fortress is not ready, and we must destroy it now." Or actually, destroy the rod first. If the rod is the source of the corruption, there's really no need to focus on the army.

In fact, I thought of cheating, so I created a few subsidiary trees as close as I could to the fortress and started unleashing [root strikes] at the rod. 

But it all met a barrier of some kind. And that barrier prevented my roots from approaching, and it also blocked my subsidiary tree. 

There were 3 demonoids standing around the rod, in a mini-circular formation. They seemed to be channel the energy from within the rod to create the fortress and the barrier protecting the rod. I need to stop them, or by tomorrow they would start to spawn demons. The barrier blocked the roots attacking the 3 demons too. Ugh.

"Jura, need you to take those 3 demonoids down." 

"What, where?" I forgot they can't see past walls, unlike my top-down visual through all my subsidiary trees. The demonic army form up around the fortress, and now we have a better sense of what we were up against. The demonoid army had suffered losses to get to this part, a section so close to the top of the volcano. 

No matter. 16,000 demons noticed our presence, and they fought hard to hold back our 7,500 beetles and 4,000 soldiers. And once again, another larger scale battle.

Without a demon walker to focus on, my role in this battle is to prevent unnecessary deaths. This meant, observing the soldiers, and interfering when they are in trouble. At the same time, I also clear a path for Jura and Yvon that leads to the three channeling demons, so that they can quickly end the rod's corrupting magics. 

They are my best combatants, and since there is a magical barrier, I hope they can still physically pass through the barrier. 

Jura quickly cut through tens of demon knights, Lausanne, Yvon and some of the captains take out a few as well. The battle lasted three hours, and the beetles finally managed to punch through the wall of demons. A path is open, Jura, Yvon and some soldiers charge in. The barrier does in let them through.  

Yvon rushed ahead, and with a quick slash, she slashed through the three demonic channelers. 

The rod was almost completed enveloped it some kind of demonic energy, and when the three demonic channelers evaporated into demon-dust, it just levitated in mid-air, un-moving. 

“Is it done?” Jura asked, I sensed the corrupting influence of the demonic rod slowly subsiding. 

“I think we need to hit it.” Another soldier looked and said. Apparently other countries have destroyed such rods before. 

"Uh..." Jura looked at it, it is surrounded by a black flame. "I am not touching that. Madeus?"

"Guard it. Don't let any of the other demons continue channeling the rod." The beetles and Order soldiers fight off the rest of the demonoids. We should not stay long, I saw a giant magma golem starting to form in the distance. The native monsters are trying to fight back, and they see both us and the demons as intruders.

"TreeTree, can you move it, or knock it out? The channelers are gone, so the barrier should be down." Jura asked, Madeus was busy blasting some demons. Jura continued to cut through demonoids. The captains reorganised the men into defensive formations, the beetles doing the bulk of the fighting. 

I launched a few more [root strikes], and there's no barrier blocking it. It hits through the demonic flame, my roots just lightly scathed by the black flame, and the massive banner-rod falls down. But even as it collapsed, cracked, I could sense residual demonic energies from it. 

The rod fell to the ground, dark energies jumped out like an arc lightning, and it tried to create more demonoids. This rod is the ‘spawner’ of the demonic hordes, isn't it?  

"Destroy it!" Jura shouted. "It's trying to spawn more demons." That’s obvious enough. The demonic fortress and the spires around the soldiers started to vibrate, shake, and chunks started to collapse. By now, the demonoids have been defeated. We're only left with the rod.

But no, I don't plan to destroy it, just yet. "Take the rod." I asked Jura, but then I realised it’s massive. 

"What? No way. It's still emitting that black demonflame. You need to knock it out a bit more."

Ugh. That meant I am the only one that can manipulate it? A beetle approached and the flames burned the beetle. 

I briefly considered leaving it here, but that meant the rod will spawn more demons, and that defeats the purpose of this incursion. 

I decided to weaken the rod a bit more, so with some [Root strikes,] the demonic energy dissipated, and the rod itself cracked. Still, I could sense some remaining demonic energy, and that's what I wanted. Good, I feel it would be better for me to hold onto it and subject it to some research, see what I can learn from it. If this demon king is ‘intelligent’ as I predict it is, then I need to know how I can counter him, whether I can use the energies from such rods against it.

No one wants to touch the demon rod surrounded by the residual black flames, and only I had the necessary resistances.  

I used a bit of my vines and the black flames are unable to hurt the vines much, and I moved the rod. It takes a bit of effort to play pass-the-baton with my vines, tossing the rod from one subsidiary tree to another, all the way down from the volcano, back to New Freeka. This baton-pass took two days, for the rod to arrive back at the valley.

Must look rather silly, trees passing a cracked rod, swinging it from tree to tree. It took a lot of effort to get the rod to move correctly. 

Wait. Why does that sound wrong? 

"Okay, let's retreat before the golems respawn. There is no need to fight the natives." Meanwhile, Jura ordered the army to retreat home. I would rebuild my defenses around the volcano after this. 

[You gained a level. Level 138]

[New Skill learned : Vine-Ropeway Network. Vine-Ropeway networks allows you to move things and people from place to place, like a cable-car or aerial gondola system. Must be part of the same connected network of vines.]

[Star mana-variant : Consumes 150 star mana : Creates a star-mana vine-network that temporarily folds space and time, and open a portal between any two subsidiary trees or your main body. Allows movement of any one person, animal or thing instantaneously from any subsidiary tree to any other subsidiary. Need not be connected.]

(TreeTree presently has 300 star mana, and generates 30 star mana per month)

Uh. Wait. 

This is like that story Jura, or was it Casshern, said so long ago, of the twinned tree spirits that have a steady portal between one another. Like paired stargates.  

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