Chapter 246: 241. Burning Sunflower

Year 244

“Alright. Shield-piercer deployed.” Alka said with relief, as the portal closed. The magical artifact floated into location, right above the shield around the Sun-Rings. “Activating.”

The shield-piercer was a ring-shaped object, about the size of a Rift-Gate. It was large, about three stories tall, and meant to essentially create a ‘hole’ within the shield by creating an offsetting magical energy. 

It was a work of incredible craftsmanship, made by level 100 craftsmen who had to travel to the Barrierworld to see it made. 

The Shieldpiercer whirled to life, and my void mages grinned. “Yep. It works. Ready for our invasion?”

“What’s the freaking plan?” Lumoof cursed. “Go in, deploy Aeon’s seed and conquer? What if the seed doesn’t work on the rings? It’s not a planet, you know. You can’t grow plants on steel.” 

“It doesn’t look like steel.” 

Stella looked at the rest. “Well, I think the four of us should go first. If the coast seems clear, then the rest of the team comes in.”

One of the Level 140 Valthorn nodded. “We’ll cover the base here, if you need a place to retreat.”

“Got it.” 

“We don’t really know what we are dealing with.” Lumoof said.

“My bet is more demons.” Alka laughed. “But you know what, the four of us can go with minimal risk. All we waste is time.” 

“Aeon, should we go?” Lumoof asked for my opinion. Stella and Alka both advocated going, the prospect of learning something new was worth it. Edna was neutral. Lumoof was the only one feeling a little cautious. “I feel like- given the size and importance of the Sun-Rings, it’s defenders are likely more powerful than what we’ve seen before.”

“Agreed. But we need to do this. We can’t figure out how to deal with the demons without some risks.”

Alka had a point, and I couldn’t just wait here. We’ll have to risk it. “Four of you go. If it seems clear, then call the rest of the team in to investigate.”

Lumoof nodded. “As you command.”

The void domain holder weaved her void magic through the Shieldpiercer, and then the portal whirled into existence. She frowned. “Not very stable, there’s some disruptive elements coming from the surface of the Sun-Rings. Possible anti-magic presence.”

Alka looked around. “We go first. The rest stay behind.” 

“Alright.” 

The four moved through the portal, and landed, possibly, as the first mortals on the Sun-Rings.

[Title awarded: Invaders of the Ring]

“Snarky system.” Stella cursed, as we landed on what was super, super close to the sun. At this distance, there was a perpetual searing heat that threatened to bake anything that faced the sun. A protective shield emerged above, and even that was cooked. 

As we looked around, we were pretty much on the inner side of a Ring World. On this side, it was just a sheen of gold, the surface was cooked. But we saw some crystalline formation itself, collecting the sun’s incredibly intense mana.

That heat was laced with mana. 

I was star mana, yet, it didn’t feel like star mana of the heroes. Instead, it felt like a raw form of star mana. Untouched by the divine energies of the gods. Very much like those produced by my little star-mana producing leaves, but in a slightly different form.  

Even star mana has variants within them. 

“Stella, I thought the prevailing theory was that suns don’t produce star mana.” At least, our tests didn’t indicate that to be the case. We were unable to replicate the conditions of the Cometworld, but our tests on Treehome, Mountainworld and Threeworld did not find any star mana from their suns. 

“Clearly that theory was wrong.” Stella answered. “Some of them still do.”

Alka countered. “Maybe it’s just the star’s age. Ken once told me that a star goes through a life cycle of growth, and gradual death. This is a sun in its dying days. Like the Cometworld. It takes the dying moments of the sun to produce it, and this is a really large sun, so-”

“Has a long time to go from when it starts producing star mana to its dying moments.”

There was nothing here. Not on the inner side. 

“Let’s move to the other side of the ring.” Stella said. “Bad news is, we’ll have to walk. At this distance from the star, I’m feeling quite a strong drain on my magic.”

“Fine with me, actually.” 

The walk was uneventful, and for four domain holders with all sorts of augmented abilities, they moved quickly. Lumoof’s blessings and enchantments meant they moved through the strangely steel and glass like structure of the Sun-Rings.

Then we reached the dark side of the Sun-Rings and were greeted with demons. The demons were slender, and looked quite like those cool demon knights we’ve seen long ago. They all had swords.

“Company.” Edna said, and her weapons shredded them easily.

Here, on the dark side, the weather and temperature took an abrupt turn, turning incredibly cold instead. We also had a better look at the materials beneath us.

Crystals and glass, with bits of steel and rock. The unusual magical formations seen on the rift gates were seen here once more, but in different words and different patterns.

The demons had their own runic language. One that we didn’t understand, though we tried to copy. 

The defenses were cleared fairly easily. At least, we managed to remove those that we found with not much trouble.

“Think it’s safe to call the rest of the team here?” Stella asked. 

Alka nodded, he squatted and touched the floor. It was beautiful when it wasn’t burning hot. “Yeah. I want people looking into these glass materials beneath us right now. They are incredible.”

Edna looked around the cold, dark side of the Sun-Rings. “I’ll look for somewhere to set up a base. It’s likely we won’t have any, if this whole place is built for purpose, so we’ll have to just set up camp on top of this.”

“That’ll have to do, I suppose.”

Stella nodded as she did her thing, a portal whirled into existence. “I’m still feeling the mild magical interference, and I think it’s coming from beneath us.”

“Ambient interference from the sun?”

“Possible, but you think the glass has some anti-magical qualities?”

“We’ll have to look at it.” Alka said. “Can’t say for sure, even with my identification abilities.”

Lumoof spread out his own senses, and mine. I felt like I was floating in the air, despite the presence of a solid surface. This whole thing was artificial. It wasn’t earth. Except certain parts. My senses abhorred most of the surface, but it’s likely the Sun-Rings was built by joining asteroids or planetoids together to form an underlying structure.

There are parts where I wanted to be. Parts where there was an asteroid still hidden underneath all the glass-and-crystals. 

Lumoof repeated our observations, and the rest of the team stepped through. 

“Should we approach the holes?” 

There was a part of the Sun-Rings where the star mana of the sun was pulled and pushed through a set of unusual gigantic holes on the Sun Rings. That was where the star mana was somehow transformed into void mana. It certainly invalidated the idea that a superdimensional mana could somehow be converted into an anti-dimensional mana. Or at least, there was a way to extra the ‘super’ part and replace it with ‘anti’? 

Or there was a way these two facts could exist while still being true?

Stella shook her head. “I think we’re not ready. Let’s just do some more research. We find out what we can, then once we’re mostly done, we push through to those places.”

“Why? Because of defenders?” Alka countered. “We could get more research done there.”

“Well, yes.” Stella said. “If that place is important, it’s likely to have stronger defenders. We have a good base of operations here, we ought to just stay here and take what we have.”

Edna nodded in agreement.

“Very well. But we will be spending time. Valuable time.”

Nothing much occurred for the next two months, as the demons ignored our small base of operations in that quiet corner of the Sun-Rings. The samples of the Sun-Ring’s materials was extremely interesting, being made of some kind of fusion of crystals, anti-mana glass and some weird type of steel-alloy not found on our worlds. 

That steel-alloy felt like one of those rare minerals only found on selected worlds, a world we clearly need to capture for our own.

“So, we’re ready to go?” Alka was excited, as were the rest of the team. We packed up, and we began to journey to what we referred to as the ‘Furnace’.

The journey there was littered with demons, and we slaughtered them as they came. There were no spawning pools here, so we had no idea where they came from. 

Then after a month of walking through the magically disruptive dark side of the Sun-Rings, we arrived at the Furnace. Along the surface of that circular Ring that guided the jet of void mana, were strange statues. 

It was massive, looking across the furnace was quite like looking at the moon. The distances were probably similar, or more, since this was pretty much a solar-scale superstructure. The Circular Rings were made with even more unusual materials, and the magical energies here was extremely powerful. The void mana generated and sent into the null-dimensional Void Barrier and beyond felt like an intense pulsar. 

A very intense pulsar that even my domain holders couldn’t get near.

This was akin to approaching the sun itself. We’d be baked alive. For the level 130 and 140 Valthorns, this was a sight they’d probably never forget. 

If they survived this trip. 

“You know, the idea that the demons are some kind of self-replicating machine are starting to make sense.” Alka said. “This is the kind of thing I’m pretty sure Ken would say to be the work of a robotic creature.”

“Demon-golems.” Edna shrugged. She spent enough time with Kei and the heroes to be familiar with the terms. 

Lumoof looked at Stella. “Well, from our earlier observation, we know that capturing this structure is impossible. We’d only be able to capture the rock-remnants still within certain parts of the Sun-Rings.”

“That only leaves destroying it.” Alka said.

“Can we even destroy something this massive?” One of the Valthorns interjected. 

“We’ll have to-”

At that point, we noticed the statues around the Circular Furnace activated. A distress signal? Stella immediately cursed. 

“Prepare for battle. We have company.”

The aura we sensed was immediate, as a rift opened right in front of us. A demon king emerged. It was a massive creature the size of a building, it had two glowing axes the size of cars, and armor. Around it were those slender demons, but with more power than before.

[Demon King (Defender) ???? arrived on ????] 

“Now’s not a good time to be funny, system.” Lumoof cursed-

The entire Sun-Ring vibrated, and then a pulse. The glass-crystal structure underneath our feet glowed, the symbols and runes flashed. 

My mages immediately cursed. “Shit. A strong anti-magic suppression field!” 

It was so strong that it would disrupt most normal magic, and Stella’s portal ability. 

Edna looked back at the demon king, and smiled. “Well, it seems I’ll have to hold the demon king back. Lumoof, Stella, Alka, get everyone back to safety.”

You are reading story Tree of Aeons (an Isekai Story) at novel35.com

“Safety?” Lumoof cursed. “Not everyone has teleporting familiars. Aeon can’t recall all of us back with it.”

There were about eighty level 100s with us. About ten of them were in the level 130s. I wasn’t going to lose them. They served me for decades. 

They were prepared to die. I wasn’t planning on letting them die.

Edna’s magical shield appeared and parried the demon king’s axe. “Figure it out, Lumoof.”

Lumoof looked around. With the anti-mana present, it meant most magical forms of teleportation to safety would be out of the window. Stella’s own void mana was somehow nullified. Normally, it wouldn’t affect her, but there was just way too much anti-magical suppression on the Sun-Rings that it overcame her domain-tier abilities. 

The demon king roared, and I felt it use some kind of anti-magic ability too. 

Edna cursed as the ability bounced off her shields. 

The level 130s were not ready for this fight. 

“Lumoof.” Alka said, somehow turning back to join Edna. “Use Aeon’s clone somewhere. The domain abilities should circumvent the anti-magical prevents. We’ll waste Aeon’s ten years. But it’s better than losing our people. Go. Take Stella.”

Lumoof and Stella both nodded. “All of you, with me. We need to get to a location on the Ringworld that has an asteroid underneath or within it. That’s our key out of this, or we’ll be killed by the demon king.”

Lumoof activated one of his strongest blessings. A priest’s abilities were mixed, some spell-based, some system-based, and it immediately empowered the entire group.

Edna attacked the demon king relentlessly, doing her best to attract the demon king’s aggro. 

But it was not the only demon. Demons emerged from everywhere, as more rift gates opened. The demonic knights poured out of them. 

“How do the demons do it?” Stella cursed, as she had to rely on conventional weapons. The level 100s and 140s could deal with the regular demons, and with Lumoof’s blessing, they could flee. But there was nothing that could really take down a demon king, and attempting to fight it now was a stupid idea. 

Thus, the only solution was to retreat.  

The win condition was to stall the demon king, and Edna had to occupy it before it reached any of our non-domain holders.

“Lady Edna. May I join you? I hope you [Duty] is already active.” Alka leapt to join the battlefield. My researcher had rarely seen battle, but he had seen enough from afar that it didn’t scare him.

“Of course. But I hope it’s not a death wish.” Edna laughed, as she parried a few more furious, earth shattering strikes from the demon king. The attacks left huge gashes in the glass-crystal platform beneath them. “You have a plan?”

“Just one, really.” 

Alka looked back. Lumoof, Stella and the rest was speeding through the Sun-Rings. They’d likely reach somewhere safe soon enough.

Edna parried more attacks, and Alka threw some bombs to shake off the smaller demons. “You don’t really need to help, you know. Aeon could just pull me back once you get to safety.”

Alka laughed. “Actually, I’m just buying time.”

He looked back again, as more time passed. He was protected by a wide variety of skills and abilities, but they wouldn’t hold against the demon king. 

So, for now, he was just nearby. Waiting for the moment, and watched Edna harass the demon king as an undying knight. Her sword of anti-demons was like a golden flame, and it left some clear cuts on the demon king.

But this demon king was at full strength, not yet weakened by bombs or traps. She may be strong, but she is not yet enough to beat a demon king on her own. 

Yet, the demon king was gaining ground, and pushing them back. Edna’s range of attacks was also running out, and it was increasingly clear that the demon king began to realize he could ignore Edna.

Alka looked back at Lumoof some more. It felt like they were far away. 

***

Lumoof and Stella reached a particular segment of the Sun-Rings. With the antimagical aura present throughout the Sun-Rings, void mana teleportation was impossible. 

“Here. Aeon, can we use the seed?”

“Yes.” It was a difficult choice. I’d give up the flexibility and insurance of one clone seed for the next ten years. But I had to. 

I wouldn’t let these people die. Not when they were so close to the domain level. 

Lumoof pulled out the clone seed from his pocket space, and with a punch with his entire strength, punched the platform. It left a crack.

It wasn’t necessary. My seed pierced through the platform like it wasn’t there, and zoomed towards the rocky portion hidden underneath all the glass and crystal. My ability to seek out soil is uncanny, and a clone emerged. 

My tree cracked through the platform and the turbulent magics, and I felt the magical power of the Sun-Rings interact with my own.

It was strong, and felt like burning lava. This Sun-RIng produced more mana than I had, a few times over. 

The Valthorns looked relieved, as they rushed to the clone. 

“Alright. Let’s send you guys back.” 

“What about those on the surface?” There were some of them still on the world’s surface, not on the Sun-Ring.

“They’ll have to wait. Stella will have to come back and pick them up.”

They touched my tree, and I sent them home.

Lumoof and Stella didn’t go through. They waited. 

“Should we go help Edna and Alka?”

***

The demon king naturally felt the presence of my clone, and immediately assessed me to be its greatest threat. It wanted to move-

Edna pulled out a harpoon and attempted to shackle it to the ground. She wasn’t strong enough to hold the demon king down.

Alka smiled. “Edna. I’m coming.”

Alka ran towards the demon king, as he consumed some non-magical potions. His speed wasn’t impressive, but it was enough to dodge some of the demon king’s magical attacks and get close enough.

The demon king saw him coming, and the axe almost landed.

“I always wanted to do this.”

Alka grinned.

“[Always a bomb].” 

Alka’s body flashed, and at that sudden moment, the entirety of the Sun-Rings shook. It was an explosion so large that it was equal to any of the traps we left for the demon king. Alka had somehow tricked his ability into accepting the traps as a single superstructure?

A sudden burst of light was so bright it briefly outshone everything in the world, and could even be seen on the World’s surface. The explosion ripped through a portion of the Sun-Ring’s platform, and charred the demon king.

But this was no ordinary demon king. It was a Defender, and it’s toughness was incredible. The explosion merely revealed an inner self that was thoroughly unharmed. Slimmer. Smaller. But still just as powerful. 

It had a sword of liquid blood that came down with the fury of an angry god.

Alka cursed. “Oh-fuck.”

I pulled my [domain holder] back home, using my [Court of the Deitree]. 

The attack wrecked the already wrecked platform. The Sun-Ring shook, as a segment of the sun-ring cracked and shattered. 

Edna laughed. “Oh dear. Aeon, I think we’re done here.”

“Agreed.” Lumoof and Stella answered. 

I pulled all of my three remaining domainholders home. 

My clone was the only thing left on the dark side of the Sun-Ring. I had never fought a demon king head on. This was perhaps my only chance. In truth, there was nothing more to achieve here. 

The demon king instead turned to my clone tree, and charged at it. Furious. Angry, it’s attack was incredible. It met my wooden shields, and my shields shattered. But it did not hurt my clone.

It attacked again. And my shields shattered some more. But it’s blades or claws didn’t reach my body. I countered with my roots. 

I was stronger. I was no longer an ant trying to bite an elephant. I was just a small cat. 

But my defenses were leagues above my offensive ability, and I blocked every attack the demon king threw my way. Shields were shattered, but I could make more than it could shatter. This exchange of none of us hurting each other lasted for hours.

Then it stopped, and then called for help.

Another distress signal, I sensed a twisting in space. A rift opened. 

[Demon King (Defender 2) ???? arrived on ????] 

“Oh shit.” I cursed, as I watched a different type of demon king emerge. 

Realizing that I was fucked, I decided to not let it have the luxury of killing my clone. I pulled my clone back, and unmade it.

***

“That was a disaster.” 

“No one died. I don’t call that a disaster.” Stella said. Luckily, the void archmage on the surface world quickly ordered everyone to retreat once they saw that bright light coming from the Sun-Rings. They were far enough not to be affected by the anti magical properties, and could still teleported away.

“But the barrier is still there.”

“That is true. But it is weaker. Fainter. I can see deeper into it.”

“Well, we could do so again?”

“When Aeon’s clone recharged in another 10 years.” Stella said. “We know Alka’s bomb ability worked. We can bomb that shit out of existence.” 

“So, what now?”

Stella looked at the barrier from the safety of Treehome. “We have a Comet to deal with.”