Chapter 245: 240. A Tree Reaches for the Sun

Year 242

I had a fairly good impression of Emperor Erranuel. He seemed level headed, if a little misguided and uninformed of what could exist beyond his sphere of knowledge. Once educated, he wasn’t stupid and commanded his Empire behaved accordingly. 

War was still brutal as hell.

The merchant kings were far more calculative about things, and they did have a tendency of measuring territories in terms of how much money they made. But, the existential threat was super effective. 

Since that visit, we maintained contact, much to the displeasure of the priests around the Emperor. He had questions, and a curiosity for the greater war beyond Treehome, but alas, we are from different factions. 

It was rare to find nobles and administrators interested in the greater war playing out. There were some, of course, and those that did, we would rope them to assist with the greater battle. There was always a need for people to grow our fortifications on our other worlds, such as Branchhold and Tropicsworld. 

Branchhold remains one of the locations where we maintained just that one patch of land, legally. But since every nation respected us, and we sent our missionaries, spies and traders everywhere, we were respected as the one true neutral nation in the entirety of Branchhold.

We also spoke of other worlds more openly. This intrigued the nobles and wealthy of Mountainworld, and, my tour people had more work to do.

At some point, we would have to allow for more open travel between the worlds, right now the movement of individuals was artificially limited. There were medical concerns, such as the introduction of unusual diseases. 

This factor was negligible with my Valthorns since they had the blessings of my familiars and various abilities, but for civilians with none of that, we were concerned they’d kill themselves without knowing it. 

Even those who went on officially sanctioned trips, we maintained a small team of healers just to make sure they don’t suddenly keel over. It’s unlikely, but not a good look for us if those that went on trips didn’t return. 

***

On the Barrierworld, my domain holders and the small group of Valthorns were still at work.

“It would be better if Aeon could deploy a seed here.” Lumoof actually suggested, since, with it’s unusual location, it was hard to ship anything over or back. 

“We’ll need it for the Sun-Rings itself.” Stella countered. We settled on the term ‘Sun-Rings’ to refer to the two rings around the sun. The Valthorns built a large base essentially overnight, and shifted to constructing an array of magical bombardment tools meant to break or weaken the magical shielding around the two sun-rings. 

There was a group of mages that studied those rings, and they claim it to be some kind of dyson-ring, harvesting sun energy. I thought that was pretty obvious, but I guess we have to establish foundations, however obvious they are, before we can make more meaningful conclusions.

The main issue with the bombardment tools was essentially range. 

We were the equivalent of some guys on Earth, trying to shoot something towards the Sun. The distances involved were massive, and even with the void mages’ portal magic which significantly reduced the actual projectile travel time, it still involved a lot of coordination. Teleporting bombs right onto the magical shields was also quite costly. Mana-wise.

One of the great things, however, was the presence of daemolite, and it was quite easy to ‘recharge’ void mana. This world was filled with it, those two rings created so much void mana that some of them inevitably diffused to the environment around them. 

So, for Stella, it was just ‘picking’ up those excess void mana. 

Alka, naturally, decided it was best if he went to this barrierworld, and so he, escorted by a second contingent of about twenty volunteers, also made the journey to this world. Their journey would take at least a year, because even Stella took a while to get to the barrierworld.

They estimated it’ll take another year or two to create sufficient tools to bombard the place. 

***

On Threehome, as the specter of war against the demons was behind us, my issue now shifted to war with the Crystal King. He has essentially declared war on Zhaanpu, and the rest of us by proxy. What this meant, was harassment, since, despite his claim of total war, he didn’t dare actually mount open war. 

None of his vassals were keen on facing a seemingly limitless beetle army, but they postured. It was all smoke and mirrors, all show and no actual action. It was pointless open hostility, but they still did it anyway. 

Zhaanpu claimed it was just pride, and frankly, Zhaanpu poured oil on the fire by goading the messenger, claiming he was not afraid of war. 

I naturally realized Zhaanpu was a bit of a warmonger himself, and loved to use the excuse of my presence to fight wars. Strange, because he claimed he was weary of the war and the stalemate. Yet, he was more than happy, hell, it felt like he was looking for any excuse to have a war. 

In his own words, “I do not shy away from war. If it is war that Crystal King wants, it is war he shall get. I have scimitars that skill desire blood. I have raiders eager to hack at their kingdoms.”

The war between the Sandpeople and the fortified humans were essentially rough, and there were no observations of any war conventions. There was rape, there was pillaging, there was war in its most brutal form. The Sandpeople did not share my values, even if we were nominally allies. 

I decided, after speaking to my own folks, to stay out of their shit. 

There were centuries if not thousands of years of bad blood between the three factions. Everyone wronged everyone, and I didn’t want to get into it. 

Zhaanpu didn’t really mind that I didn't give assistance. He was a domain holder, and just like the Crystal King, he had an ego and pride. He wouldn’t take things from me, unless it was something he didn’t want to deal with. Like Khefri.

He made himself clear. “I will fight this war myself. There is no need for you to get involved. In fact, I’d prefer it if you don’t meddle.” 

My spies eventually realized it’s because he had to still maintain the semblance that he was the main boss of the Sandpeople, and thus, it didn’t reflect well on Zhaanpu, if I fought wars for him. 

If his power was not necessary to win the war, the nations of Sand would lose their loyalty, and that was not what he desired. 

The Centaurs, however, didn’t have a choice. They were too weak. They were more than happy to sit out this war between the Sandpeople and the Humans. They were the weakest of the three after their recent problems with the previous demon king, and thus, they also needed to rebuild. 

My diplomat naturally wanted to support the Centaurs in their reconstruction, since supporting the three-party state seemed like a good idea. This was a complicated process since we essentially needed to use portals extensively to deliver goods to the centaur lands after teleporting them in through my clone tree in the far north. 

I didn’t want to ship goods through the Sandpeople’s land, since we weren’t exactly short on teleportation spells, and it just wasn’t a good political look to ship goods to another nation, when we did not give that same support to Zhaanpu’s sandpeople.

My diplomats recruited talented Centaurs to join our cause. My centaurs, as odd as it sounded, recommended me to ‘throw them into the pool and watch them swim’, as these talented centaurs from all over the centaur lands was shipped to Lavaworld, where they found demons until they were exhausted, gave up, or found it to be what they wanted to do. 

They were a martial kind, after all, and war was a calling 

The prospect of a war where they could go all out for long periods of time, without having to adhere to any ethics, since demons were pretty much monsters, excited some of them. It was even therapeutic, to dance in war with a foe that is truly inhuman.

But it worked, and we recruited about a thousand centaurs to join us. Warmongers, really. These centaurs loved war, and our mental analysis soon revealed that as long as we gave them the tools to wage war against the demons, they’d be loyal. 

It was a drug, and hell, I’ll use it. 

Centaurs like Arjan and many others were deployed to the Centaur-lands, to help them with reconstruction and reclamation of the tainted lands. This was an easy political win for us, and made us friends with the tribes that used to own these tainted lands. 

It was a dangerous game, of course. Just as Zhaanpu saw the potential for civil war if he allowed my influence to set in, the same would happen with the Centaurs. 

Each act that benefits us pulled some of the native centaur tribes away from Hoofhall. At some point, they would perceive us as a rival state, rather than friends, and the centaur tribes may even descend into civil war. 

It was a future problem, since, right now, they were in no condition to do so. 

Along the same lines, my diplomats tried their best to get closer to the powers within Hoofhall. 

Even till today, I knew little about the magical creature or item that claims to rule over the Centaurs. Zhaanpu himself was vague and elusive about the nature of Centaur’s guardian. Referring to it in passing as ‘them’. 

One day. 

***

Year 243

“How many bombs do you think it’ll take to break that down?” Lumoof asked.  Alka arrived just a few weeks back, and got straight to the task of battering down the magical shielding around the Sun-Rings.

We did test detonations, where we sent smaller bombs towards the barrier, and they worked fairly well. The shields held, of course.

“I’m guessing, something a hundred times bigger, if we go the normal way.” Alka said with a big laugh. “It’s a blended shield with demonic and void mana, all we gotta do is dump star mana on it and it should go crazy.”

The demons had some kind of defense mechanism, of course, where we detected the Sun-Rings emit a distress beacon. The same one that came from the Demon Mother. 

“It’ll just drive the demons nuts.” Lumoof looked. “Sure that’s a good idea?”

“Well. We have company.” Edna complained, as she went out to deal with the champions that spawned out of the demon’s core. Nothing we couldn’t handle. Not yet, anyway. It’ll take the demon mother itself for us to actually plan something serious. 

The Barrierworld itself was astral neighbors with two other worlds, but Stella was too busy trying to crack the magical shield to travel there. One of those astral neighbors was inaccessible anyway, somehow located behind and on the other side of the barrier, despite clearly visible to us. 

“I think we could dig a hole, though.” Alka said. “Rather than blow up the shield, may be easier to just go with an offsetting magical signature to neutralize the effects of the shield, creating a small path for us to go through.”

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“You do realize if whatever we use to create that hole collapses, we’ll have no way out.”

“Just make more. We’re not exactly limited by resources.”

“We are.” 

“Oh. Then, Stella, travel back to Treehome to fetch our stuff and back.”

“Hey! The void mages can do that!” Stella whined as she did her own things. “Besides, you need me to offset that void magic element in that shield.” 

“But you’re a lot faster.” 

“Next time Aeon gets more clone seeds, we should recommend he keep two in reserve. We’d have a much easier time if we could place one here as a base of operations.” Lumoof said. Not all items could be sent back and forth with my ability, and for larger items, the void mages essentially have to be magical couriers and delivery. 

“That starts us down the path of eventually asking Aeon to keep a hundred clones in reserve.” Alka laughed. 

“If Aeon had a thousand clones, we’d have an amazing time. Imagine the number we can field across such a world.”

“If that happens, Aeon’s new job will be a full time email server manager.” Stella joked. 

“I didn’t get that.”

“Imagine someone whose job is to tell [messages] where they need to go, from world to world.”

“Oh. That sounds mundane as hell. Aeon would just offload it to an [artificial mind].” Alka laughed. “By the way, I read the studies about Void Magic as a mechanism to flatten a limited aspect of dimensional space, it’s intriguing.”

Lumoof and Edna’s mind promptly shutoff the conversation.

“It is, right! The concept of void magic as an anti-dimensional mana seems to be linked to this barrier. By pushing this ability to the extreme, they’ve somehow created a null-dimensional space, the demons essentially created an impassable barrier.”

“You could reverse it, or offset the effects of the barrier.”

“On a smaller scale I could. At least, my smaller tests suggest I could do it, but the power at place here is orders of magnitude higher. I’ll need something much more powerful to break it, and we need to get a sustainable opening, if we want to look behind the veil.” 

Alka looked up at the Sun-Rings. Stella nodded. 

“The demon sun is clearly able to release a portion of it’s energies to support the demon kings on their invasion, you think those rings also serve as a form of funnel?”

“I would think so. The ‘rhythm’ of invasions may be somewhat linked to these rings.”

“Didn’t seem like something the demons would do, to restrict their own expansion that way.” Lumoof butted in. 

“That’s true, unless this was a defense mechanism against the gods.”

“The gods can’t reach them. Or, maybe they used to.” Lumoof thought. “When the multiverse was smaller.” The concept of a multidimensional expansion was probably weird. 

“Maybe they don’t know that.” Stella said. “Over the eons it's likely this barrier itself will collapse, as they run out of the mana needed to maintain it.”

If space constantly expanded, and mana consumption thus increased with space, it was only logical that eventually this barrier will consume more mana than can be produced, and thus collapse on itself. This ‘null-space’ barrier was very very tiny, as it turned out. The demons were spreading it thin. 

It worked both ways, of course. If I could create this null-space barrier, it should break the demon’s ability to invade as well. Permanently, at that.

It was likely Alka had a point. The demons had a way of getting things out, despite the presence of the barriers. These Sun-Rings likely served as ‘gates’ into the protected area. Anything going in or out of the ‘demon-space’ was through those Rings. 

“So, even if we get onto that thing, do we destroy it, or capture it? Both works, but capturing it would let us tap this massive void mana generation device.” Alka said. “If we break it, and somehow cancel this barrier, we’d have free access to the demon realm.”

“You’re saying as if it’s a done deal.” My void archmage stretched. “We don’t even know what happens if we destroy the Sun-Rings.”

“Over a long period of time, it is.” Alka laughed. “Haven’t you spent the most time with Aeon to know that everything is ultimately inevitable? I prefer to capture them. Access to large quantities of Void mana, and ability to study the magical concepts behind them would greatly push our comprehension. This is an actual magical structure that could ultimately redesign our future.”

“If you put it that way-” Stella looked up. “There is incredible potential for the ability to manipulate space.” 

“Why can’t we use it as a weapon?”

“Souls reject void mana, remember. There’s a reason we go through that toxic void-mana ordeal in order to become void mages. Also, these dimensional spaces are inherently unstable and will collapse.” 

“Doesn’t seem that unstable to me.” Alka laughed in jest. “But I get it.”

***

One of the Ularans back on Treehome finally reached level 70, and with the right equipment, the Ularan Earth Mage could technically take on a demon champion on its own. Once they were better prepared, I would intend to send them to Lavaworld where they can fight with the demon champions. 

Snek, of course, was excited to see one from his world get stronger. There was still more to go.

But his partner was getting older, and increasingly, Snek grew worried.

“Ken, are you sure you don’t want some kind of magic treatment?” His level plateaued. It was true that level made them live longer, but Ken’s age was now closing in on the late 70s to 80s. 

The magical snake didn’t age. But Ken did, and Ken resisted all attempts to de-age or extend his longevity more than necessary. 

Even the heroes were increasingly touchy about it, especially Chung.

“Bro.” Chung met him for lunch back in Freshka. “I know it’s hypocritical of me to ask this, but, please, reconsider your choice. We’ve been friends for decades now, and I can’t see you go.”

Ken laughed. It was true that Ken looked like a man in his sixties, while Chung looked no more than a man in his late thirties, looking in great, amazing shape. “If you know me that well, then shut it.”

“I can’t, bro. We’ve been friends for decades, and frankly, there’s that few of us. If Aeon offers you a deal, please, take it.”

“Fuck that.” Ken said as he sipped on his anti-oxidizing tea. Health ‘fads’ were very real, in this world, since magical teas do exist.

“You don’t intend to see Aeon reach the goal of defeating the demons for good?”

Snek, who took the form of the tiny lizard, agreed with Chung. “Chung has a point. Aeon needs guidance.”

“All I provide is trope advice. And these days, everyone has heard my tropes a dozen times over. I’d like to age gracefully, and die in my sleep as I originally envisioned. Let me die, brother.”

Chung didn’t seem happy, and decided to approach me directly. For a deal.

“Aeon, we’ve fought together many times. Can you go against Ken’s will, and let him live longer? I can’t bear to see a friend of mine die. I’ve seen so many of mine die back during the early days in this world, and the idea or thought of seeing Ken die-”

“He is healthy and well. He still has a few decades in him. There is no need for this conversation.” 

“But he looks so old, and he-”

“He reminds you of his mortality.”

Chung sighed. “Yeah. Looking at him, his skin wrinkled, his hair white. I can’t help but really feel how fragile his life is. Like all it takes is just a snuff.”

I feel that way with everyone, actually. Everyone ages and dies. “If it makes him happy, I won’t go against his wishes.”

“I’m a hero, he’s not. Do something, and I know I’ve been a bit of a rebellious bastard, but make a deal with me. Don’t let him die.”

“You seem confident that you will live longer than him. He doesn’t serve the front line, you do. Perhaps you should care about your own life, more than his.” 

It’s still early for any of them to die, actually. 

***