Chapter 276: 266. Twined Serpents

Year 264

The first of the Earth Mages from Ulara reached Level 70 two decades ago. Now, the first of them, that same Earth Mage, reached Level 90.

The limits of their soul. Anything beyond here, would require the [Soul Strengthening Seed]. 

Ularans, despite their tinier size, seemed to have a far higher level limit than humans who capped at around level 80-85. I suspect it was the nature of their souls. 

Level 90. 

I offered the not-so-young Ulara, Kapakulartajam, or Kobra, as his Valthorn classmates referred to him, a Soul Strengthening Seed. He accepted, but requested for a return to Ulara before he took it. 

With my new abilities, there wasn’t much to think about. I could easily place a [node tree] on Ulara, while keeping my clone trees for more strategic locations. Still, I tried to wrangle some benefits out of Snek. 

“So- that [hero] class. Will you trade it for a [node tree]?” I offered, in plain and simple terms. There was no need to overcomplicate it. If he accepted, I will place the node. If not, I wouldn’t. 

Snek paused, thinking it seriously.

There was some movement of Ularans between Treehome and Ulara, facilitated by the rift gate, but there were times when the rift gates were inoperational, due to unknown reasons. The void mages call them ‘void storms’. 

It doesn’t do much, other than make teleportation impossible, and frankly quite predictable. The vibrations tend to start small, and slowly grow in intensity over a few months, before coming down again. 

Snek, initially, hoped to consult with those on Ulara, whether he had the right to give it away. After all, his mission was performed at the instruction of the old lords of the dens. But centuries later, most of the Ularans refused to even consider it theirs. 

It made him feel a little abandoned, and a little bitter towards the whole [hero] class. All that sacrifice, for nothing.

“At this point, it’s your choice.” I said frankly. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with the [hero] class, either. If you want, you could use it yourself.” 

It was an idea Snek opposed. “I’m not worthy.”

“Then no one is.” I answered. Snek sacrificed his physical body to save his world, endured the void sea, and succeeded when many others failed. If he wasn’t worthy of the class, who is? Even the kids who received the [hero] class were not the kind that would sacrifice themselves for the cause. It’s only because of the [hero] class’s intervention that warped their minds into this demon killing machine. 

He couldn’t decide. Not yet.

But, through one of the Rift Gates, we sent one of the Ularans back anyway. Snek and Lumoof followed along. 

“The first of our offspring to return to Ulara as a warrior.” Ularsawabesars, or Snek, watched, as the first of the Ularan children, taken from their home decades ago. 

Lumoof smiled. “Do you feel proud?”

The little Snek nodded. “A little. But our world is not free. My hope is by fostering contact with the wider network of worlds, my people would once again regain the pride that they lost. I want to remind them that they were once surface dwellers, that we once built our dens under the sun, instead of the depths.”

“There is pride in enduring even the harshest of oppression.” Lumoof countered.

“For my people, it is not enduring oppression. It is accepting their place, and that is just sad.”

Kobra looked at Snek, “Old one, what do you think our people will think of me?” He had spent a long time on Treehome. 

“They would not know what to think. But once you show them that we can stand up to our demon dragon occupiers, I like to believe their minds will begin to change.”

The party of three returned, and first thing was for Kobra to visit his old family.

Unlike Snek, Kobra went with them as a child about four decades ago. When he returned, his family, still living in dens, were shocked to see him. 

But Ularans had something in common with Lizardfolks in terms of biology. Their scales correlated to their power. Powerful lizardfolks have shiny, healthy scales, and the same applies to the Ularans. 

Ularan scales manifested the elements of their class, which meant that Ularans pretty much announced the type of class they had on their scales, by color and shape. An Earth Mage like Kobra had shiny, brown and bronze scales that flickered with magic. 

Snek and Lumoof allowed Kobra his space, but eventually, the den lord approached Snek.

“Old one.”

“Den Lord Ularlicintenduk.” Snek answered. 

“I’ll cut to the chase. What happened to the rest of them?”

“Still not ready to return. But they will.”

“Kapakulartajam says some of them are not doing well.”

“Not all were as talented as I hoped.” Snek countered. “The world on the other side is-”

“Highly advanced.” The Den Lord answered. 

Snek nodded. “I’d like to invite more to travel over, if I may.” 

“And return them like Kapakulartajam? Glistening with power?”

At that point, Kobra joined the two. He greeted the Den Lord in the Ularan way, which was some kind of strange hiss of their forked tongues. “Den Lord. Old one.”

The Den Lord looked at Kobra. “Would you choose to stay permanently in Ulara, or with these- travelers?”

Kobra paused, and then answered honestly. “I would like to stay with them. If I may, I’d like to request permission to bring my entire family over.”

The Den Lord stared. “-what.”

“Den Lord, I do not mean to challenge your authority.” Kobra answered. “And, unlike the Old One, who still hopes of reclaiming our homeland from the demons, I believe I’d like to give my siblings and future offsprings the opportunity I received outside of Ulara.”

Snek stared at Kobra, feeling betrayed. “Kapakulartajam!”

“Those who chose the old ways can stay, Old One. Why create conflict? Why upset the balance?” Kobra countered. “It is better to just move. The protection, security, opportunities and facilities are just so far ahead, and having lived there for the past three decades and some, I cannot imagine coming back to Ulara.”

Snek wanted his people to return as heroes. As liberators. “You! We are supposed to rebuild Ulara!”

“There is nothing left for us here, old one. Not when we’ve seen what’s back there. My friends, they feel the same way. Having tasted the fruit of prosperity, how could we ever return to the harsh life of the tunnels?”

The little snake spirit felt heartbroken.

Yet, it was the exact answer the Den Lord wanted to hear. “I see. I happen to have a list of individuals I’d rather get rid of. Feel free to take them.” 

Snek stared at the Den Lord, equally furious. Was he using this facility as a means of removing people opposed to his rule? 

To some extent, we treated the Ularans with kid gloves, especially much earlier on. There was always a Valthorn on standby, to step in if things ever got too dangerous. Snek said we could not afford to lose any of the Ularans.

I thought one or two deaths were expected, especially after all these years. After all, livespans, and accidents are a thing. So, kid gloves. Valthorns watched them like hawks, but as time went on, the Valthorn presence was just insurance. 

The once young Ularans adapted well, though they are still an incredible rarity on Treehome. After all, there’s less than a hundred of them on Treehome. 

We would like a permanent settlement for them, somewhere. Not Treehome, because it’s way too crowded and too high risk. 

If there were large scale Ularan migrations, it would be to Tropicworld. 

It remains the single, safest place of all. With no demons.

The only downside was generally weaker ambient mana, but that was a problem that I could fix with my new [Subdomain] ability. 

I was now nourishing the world’s health. A healer of worlds, literally. 

***

Kobra and Snek exchanged some rather unpleasant words, but ultimately, Snek couldn’t force them to do what he wanted. 

“This was what you wanted.” I reminded him.

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“Not at the price of abandoning Ulara. And not splitting our society into two.” Snek answered. “I did not envision this. I hoped to restore Ulara to a single united Ulara of the past, with the aid of knowledge, technology and weapons of the wider world.”

The little Snek went through much. “Your people have minds of their own.” 

He sighed, in a way a little snake creature could. By flapping his head about. “I spoke about my dreams, but it seemed my fellow Ularans have their own.”

“They didn’t see how they could change their world.” I answered. “I believe this could be a good thing. If there is an alternative Ularan society, the original Ulara could be convinced to change. This is just like training Ularans, but at a larger scale. Build an Ularan nation far bigger, far more prosperous, with far more population. Then, let them retake Ulara.”

Snek paused. “That would take decades or centuries- time that I’m not sure my world has.”

“I think it does.” I answered, as Lumoof spread my roots through the Ularan dirt. I’ve gotten better at sensing a world’s health, and I was fairly certain Ularan would last at least four to five centuries. 

A planetary core wasn’t a weak thing that would crumble so easily. It’s a node, a key to the wider system. The right to vote. 

Now that I know what roles the world played in the bigger picture, it made sense that demons would prefer to ‘occupy’ than ‘destroy’. They just needed the core, everything on the surface was ultimately expendable. It was for this reason they didn’t hesitate to destroy us, because we’re useless to them. 

But, as long as they don’t destroy the core, the core could be healed, and then, the world rebuilt through the powers only a Planet Core has. 

Lumoof turned to face the little Snek head on. “We will assign [Administrators], [Builders]. Take the Ularans to Tropicworld. Rebuild the old society of Ulara from those willing to follow. There is no other way.”

“There is.”

“None that would work, not in the short term. Play the long game, just like you used to.”

Snek paused, and realized Lumoof had a point. “Very well.”

***

Snek’s announcement of his intentions to the not-so-young pioneers like Kobra and his peers, actually won support. Most of them were a lot more optimistic than the idea of retaking their old world from the demons, and so, the pioneer Ularans agreed to be Snek’s messenger. To take the message back to Ulara, and collect those willing to go.

It was true that the den lords had Ularans they didn’t like anyway, but ultimately, there was little risk. With the Valtrian Order ultimately underwriting their security and providing the basic infrastructure, they would not have to start from scratch.

And so, about fifteen thousand Ularans, from the various dens throughout Ulara, went to Tropicworld and set up their first city and nation, from unclaimed lands of the Tropicworld.

They named their fledgling nation New Ulara, and their first city, Newden.

I hope they made something better, and don’t constrain themselves to what Snek had in mind. What their old society used to be like, should be a reference point, but not it is not dogma. 

***

“We should be taking out these demon mothers as much as we can.” Stella’s next focus was to reclaim the demon worlds. Each demon world ultimately supported the demon’s ‘voting bloc’ in the system. 

“There is no need to act hastily.” I countered. “The system moves slowly, changes happen over decades. Let’s take worlds that we can hold.”

We had to take stock of where we were. After my clone vanished on the demon’s comet, it now sits in my reset timer. I’d have that clone back by Year 271. 

Where are we now?

I took a moment with my artificial minds to review the status of everything that’s in play. 

We faced a wave of meteors, and there were already large scale constructions throughout Treehome. The void mages have restarted the moon base, without my Clone, but they didn’t need it. It was good for them to practice setting up a base of operations without my involvement, even if that meant they were totally away from my observation area. 

Once the moon base was operational, they would start construction of the ‘space-mounted’ weapon arrays, and the plan was to move those weapon arrays into location from the moon. 

Mountainworld is doing fine, and would face a new demon king much later, only by Year 268. That’s another 4 or 5 years to go. My spies and agents are actively working the message into the general populace that we will not tolerate another Dwarven King-like incident. 

We were still recruiting well, so luckily, the incident didn’t really dent how we were received. 

Threeworlds recently had their demon king, and they wouldn’t need to deal with one up until year 278. With the Crystal King imprisoned, my forces quickly began to set up shop in Maelga, effectively claiming it as my own. 

It was surprising that a [Giant Attendant Tree] could hold the domain holder, but then again, all I did was destroying it’s outer shells and attempts to regenerate its limbs. I left it’s core untouched. I was fairly certain it had magical ways of communicating, which I could not block. 

But a message was sent, and the world was a mess. One thing was clear, I was going to make changes, changes that the insular Crystal King didn’t like.

First, I wanted trade, and so I commanded that the war with the Sandpeople to cease immediately, and next, that new trade routes opened. The sandpeople had robust trade networks within their own cities, and the same applied to the humans and centaurs. But trade between the three was tense and dangerous, and so it didn’t occur all that often. There were, as always, those who tread those sensitive lines, but they were clever enough to stay out of the limelight, and never transact in anything too high risk. 

After all, when it came to demigods like the Three Hegemons, no argument would ever really pass muster. 

Zhaanpu was both relieved and worried, and I could tell. Open trade and communication between the three races of Threeworld had never occurred in the recent centuries. The last time it happened was many, many millennia ago, in a time when the gods’ touch was strong.

The Centaurs couldn’t even muster a response, as their own centaur leaders scrambled meeting after meeting whether to oppose us, out of respect for the old pact, or to side with us. But trade was something they accepted. They were still recovering from the consequences of earlier demon king attacks, and they needed all the advantage they could get to restore their land. 

Then, there’s Tropicworld.

This was the brave new world, the world restored. Canari, humans, and dwarves claimed most of the land, but there was more than enough land for me to carve out a large area for the new Ularan Nation. 

The Canari reacted to their presence generally well. These dog-people had enough land, more than enough that the Canari lands fractured into four nations about five years ago. Still, not much fighting broke out, since everyone was busy building up their own level of strength. The fact that Tropicworld’s terrain continued to change, as the Core’s strength recovered, meant most of these settlers have enough environmental issues to deal with. 

I thought of sending them to the Houndworld. Canari, after all, seemed like a natural fit for that sort of core. But I chose not to reveal it’s existence just yet. From my experience with the Canari, who are generally territorial, they would likely demand the Houndworld entirely for themselves. They may even view it as their promised land. Or perhaps I could dangle it as a reward, position myself as some kind of guide to their promised land. Would that win their loyalty? 

Regardless, the new generation of Canari were friendly, and in time, once we were ready to properly repopulate the Houndworld, I would allow them first cut.

Then, there’s Lavaworld, my ‘Hell’, and also where I conduct my demonic experimentations. A land now filled with demonic trees. Other than the now improved mana situation, I wasn’t sure what to do with this world. 

I could attempt to free it from the hands of the demons, by mounting an offensive to the core. With my stronger forces, it shouldn’t be much of a risk. 

Still, for now we hold this world as it is. 

Cometworld remains traveling into the far distance.

***

“I think I’ve gotten my trajectory wrong.” Stella said. 

“What do you mean?” I asked my void holder.

“I should’ve thought about it, but when we arrived at that Beastworld, where the native deity claimed that they are out of range of both the gods and demons?”

“Yeah.”

“I shouldn’t have missed that datapoint. I think that I should be sending my [void explorers] in the other direction instead. Looking at the data I have now heavily suggests that the gods are on the other side of the demon sun.”

“-shit. Can you get there?” I had hoped that reaching the gods would be the equivalent of getting the cavalry. If they are on the other side-

“I mean, I’m going to start redirecting two of my new void explorers in that direction. It’s also likely not all gods are in that direction anyway-”

“There might be some that we can reach.” I said. “There’s nothing to do but try.”

Stella nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. But the one that’s still going, I’ll let it keep going?”

“Yup.” We probably need to plan how to use my node trees. I can fire my node trees like little seeds, but we’ll have to find a suitable place. If the gods a really are on the other side, I could fire my nodes in that direction-

Oh wait. I can’t. They’ll slam into the demon’s barrier and burn. I’ll have to hop around the barrier to reach the other side.  

“As for the void archmages close to a domain, it’s time they start doing more risky stuff, along with our new domain holders. Kafa and Ezar can help explore our new worlds.”

“Got it.” 

***

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