Tree of Aeons

290

Sixth World - The Great Steppes

Edna and Stella landed together on a field. Vast, and the fields of green and gold seemed to go on forever, over the rolling hills to the horizon. 

“This is quite the view.” Stella smiled, and stretched. It reminded her of the farmlands back home, or the great open plains where horses and wild bulls used to roam. She took in the air. It was windy. The grass was colorful, and on closer observation, it is as if someone made a field of grass and added a palette of colors just for variety. There were spots of red, pink, and even purple grasses. “I wouldn’t say I dislike this.” 

They were likely slightly magical, but at this point, all the void holder wanted to do was take the view in and appreciate a rare moment of peace. The wind blew, and the blades of grass rustled. It was pleasant.

Edna tapped the woman on her shoulder. “A nice welcome, and I believe this world has potential to be a tourist spot some day.”

Stella shook her head, she probably imagined beetlebuses of tourists, shuffled from viewing point to viewing point. “The tourists would probably ruin it.”

Edna laughed. Stella once warned extensively on the problems of overtourism, though none of her fears actually played out in the Central Continent. For now, tourism remained largely the realm of the wealthy, and even though middle income folks could afford to travel regionally, it was still not in large enough numbers that places experienced overtourism. 

It helped Aeon’s natural energies meant damage to nature was fairly easy to mend. It didn’t take hundreds of years to restore a damaged forest.

They found a group of traveling centaurs a relatively large distance away. 

***

“Greetings.” Both Edna and Stella arrived and the centaurs immediately kneeled once they arrived in front of them. 

“Oh the holy ones blessed us! The two-legged heroes have arrived!” Stella from a few decades ago would have blushed, but she was now quite comfortable in her position of authority that she didn’t flinch. Up close, they noticed the sheen of natural armor around the centaurs chest, as if they were some blend of a suit of armor and a horse, rather than the usual centaur form of a man and a horse. 

Edna and Stella looked at each other and regretted their approach. Stella pinged Edna through magic. “Did we just fuck it up?”

“I think we did. We should know better. Remind me to use invisibility and spy on the natives before we even attempt to talk to them. I suppose we should exploit this opportunity to learn what we can. After all, if they think we are heroes, we should be able to get information.”  

Edna nodded at the centaurs. “Hello. Can you tell us about this world?”

The centaurs rose from their awkward kneeling position. Centaurs were not really designed for kneeling, their four legs more suited for running. “Certainly, blessed ones. We will guide you to the nearest encampment.”

***

The world was known as the Great Steppes, and is a land filled with mostly rolling hills and vast grasslands. The Great Steppes didn’t have much vegetation beyond bushes and grasses, and large trees were almost altogether non-existent. 

Still, Great Steppes was mainly populated by two types of ‘centaurs’, that are so different that they might as well be entirely different races. One was the Armored Centaurs, and they are referred to as the Armataurs. These were centaurs with naturally built armor and helmets. Their bodies somehow ‘created’ hard plates over their chest, arms, shoulders, and body,. 

The other centaur race are the Lancias. They are centaurs, but with natural weapons and retractable spears, lances and spikes throughout their body. Despite an ancient tradition where both of the two centaur races lived apart, the two centaurian races were generally cordial with each other, and frequently cooperated with each other for special occasions. 

The Armataurs worshiped Hawa, while the Lancias worshiped a god called Zulfa. 

The demons were the usual fire breathing demons wielding a flaming weapon of some kind, and their elites were a variant of the demon knights. The demon king were slain about eleven years ago, and the previous hero died with it. The new demon king just arrived not long ago, and seemed to be waiting for the hero’s arrival. 

It was a world that seemed relatively stable now. In the vast grasslands and shrublands of the Great Steppes, there were now areas that were regularly known as the Demonic Highlands.

For Edna and Stella, the contact went fairly standard. The two centaurian subspecies waited for the blessed ones, and the blessed ones would slay the demon king. 

With enough data collected, it was time to get moving.

***

Aeon

Roon, Johann and Ezar returned home briefly, and then they were off again to visit the Seventh World. In the meantime, I was given their collected samples from the world of Capra.

“Drakefruit.” The plants went into my biolabs, and I immediately unlocked the ability to replicate the drakefruits at scale. I noticed that they were also surprisingly compatible with my existing class seeds and skill seeds, and in short, it would be possible to fuse the drakefruit with my skill seeds and class seeds, to create skill fruits for drakes. 

This was a fascinating thing, and I didn’t know why it never occurred to me to create powerful skills for various pets and mounts. 

I watched, and from my central vantage point, Landas had mostly stabilized. 

Landas was the first world where I truly tested what were the limits of the Node Tree. 

My node tree didn’t have my aura, and although I could still spawn subsidiary trees through my node trees, trees that were linked through my node trees did not share my higher tier abilities.

So, node trees had some constraints. One, I couldn’t use my giant attendant trees through them. 

Everything that was connected through the Node Tree was restricted. I could see through them, but only at a basic level, not my full breath of spiritual sight. Even my listening and observational abilities were severely limited. The mana output and extraction at each of these worlds were also a fraction of my tree. 

Node trees also didn’t share any of my auras, and the subsidiary trees of Landas were the ‘basic’ version. This meant the number of beetles they could host per subsidiary tree was three beetles per subsidiary tree, and the beetles were inferior to those spawned by subsidiary trees linked through my clones or main body. 

Still, the teleportation ability of the Node Tree meant it was possible to ‘send’ my titans like Hytreerion to Landas. 

Stella, while traveling through Landas and then later to the Sarlpi, began hammering on the need to use my titans, especially given my new expanded limits.

I could deploy up to ten additional titans, and each of these Titans would be a strong supporting force in any of these peripheral worlds, or even Delvegard.

Or I could use them to augment my resource restrictions back home. 

In many ways, my high level 100s were a ‘limited’ resource. Especially when distributed over the planned 15 worlds. So, they needed a force multiplier, and titans should be that sort of force multiplier. 

“Let’s see what sort of Titan choices I have now.” With my clone’s new ability to support titans, I could now support up to 15 titans, and a total of 13 additional. I currently have 2 active titans in service. Hytreerion and Patreeck’s presence in Threeworlds was likely to be unnecessary soon, and I would like to redeploy him to one of the other worlds soon. 

So as my domain holders gathered data on the peripheral worlds, I began to consider the tools I had at our disposal to enhance my Valthorn’s performance in these peripheral worlds. 

Ever since my [Greater Titans] upgrade, my choices changed. They started with a base power level of about Level 125, a decent increase from their prior level 70 to 90 power levels.

[The Great Storm Bird- A greater storm titan that takes the form of a flying thunderbird, and has the ability to summon up to 3,000 flying eagles of relatively strong combat power. Has shared vision and senses, and many lesser abilities.]

[Carapace Demonhunter Worm - A greater variant of the depth worm, with immense earth abilities and very high resistance to demonic damage. Has the ability to summon 2,000 worms with similar resistances and abilities. Can significantly improve ground fertility and plant yields, and also undo demonic corruption for earth]

[The Greater Leveling Dungeon - Dungeon with higher levels and more rewards. Will cause it’s surroundings to be tainted by pollution and magical miasma, and the spawn rate of high level monsters outside of the dungeon’s vicinity will be significantly increased. Certain blessings and auras will be nullified in the Greater Leveling Dungeon’s presence, but experience gain will be significantly increased. Skills gained below Level 149 will likely be of a stronger variant.]

[Fusion with any Court of the Deitree - The Treant King. Significantly improve the host's abilities and endurance. Host will no longer age, and will be immune to non-divine sickness and poisons. Host will also now enjoy [domain]-level mental protections, and will be able to resist divine laws. Also grants the ability to summon and control up to 300 treants.]

[Gantreethor Beetle Carrier - A flying beetle commander transformed into a Greater Titan. Each Gantreethor functions as a mobile command center for beetles, allowing all beetles to operate significantly further from an existing subsidiary tree. Each Gantreethor also carries within it’s spatial body an army of 8,000 greater beetles. Each greater beetle is around level 30 to 35, and possesses flight abilities. Each Gantreethor can also self-destruct to deal explosive damage]

[The Void Treant - Fusion with a familiar granted to a void-attuned treefolk - A treant meant to thrive in the void layers. Resistant to void turbulence and can move about. Can use void mana, use void magic and also open void portals.] 

[Fusion with Treechikomas - The Gigantic Spidertree - A Giant Walking Laboratory and Hospital with the ability to deploy smaller about 1,000 treechikomas, treants and beetles. Provides a strong mobile blessing aura and healing presence to restore friendly parties. Living beings in it’s presence will not grow hungry or thirsty.]

[Fusion with hamadryad body (only one available) - The Primordial Elemental - A significantly powerful dryad mage specializing in elemental spells of around Level 140. Can regenerate even after destruction, and is able to summon 500 fire, water or earth elementals.]

[Fusion with Underground Living Crystal Labs - The Primordial Foundry - A tree that attached itself to a ley line and converts magical energy into crystals or metals. Produces a large quantity of crystals or metals based on a system-defined ratio.]

“That’s a fairly good selection.” Lumoof commented while he was elsewhere. A world away, but we were always together. That was life as an avatar. “But I think what you need is utility in these peripheral worlds. The ability to provide low level suppressing force while the Valthorns deal with any stronger threats.”

“We could pick one of each and send them-” Edna commented, also in a different world. “But I suppose there is a matching problem, since not all titans are designed for each of the worlds.”

But I thought about the titans as a second-best choice, for worlds without my clone. I have three clones, one on cooldown after I used one on Hawa’s world of Satrya, but ultimately I was only prepared to deploy two clones. 

I’d like to keep one, or perhaps two in reserve, if we do stumble on more worlds.

The peripheral worlds are not the only worlds. Beyond these fifteen worlds there will be many more worlds that need our help, and so, to artificially limit my choices to these fifteen worlds because of Hawa’s request would be silly. 

I did not make a choice. Not yet. I thought it’d be fairer to optimize once the domain holders came back with the detailed reports. There were still a few more worlds to go. 

***

The Fifth World, Magisar

“Eighteen surviving magical academies, all conveniently located in levitating cities.” Lumoof said as he surveyed the documents stolen from one of the mages. Unlike the mages of Magisar who did not stray far from their homes, Lumoof and Kafa found the world no threat at all, and so they camped in the wilderness, in a cocoon of roots. 

Despite the initially impressive veneer of the levitating cities, what they saw did not impress them. The levitating cities of Magisar were pretty much something copied out of a despotic magical universe, with the tower masters ruling as oppressive kings, while the lower classes were all just nothing more than flesh that was thrown away once they were not useful. 

Because the tower masters controlled the levitating cities, everyone else were pretty much at their mercy. 

There were a few fortresses on land that were made by those who didn’t want to endure the Tower Master’s oppression, but these fortresses did not have better living conditions. In fact, because of the lack of generational resources and legacy magical items, these fortresses are often at a subsistence level, and their rulers are also pretty much dictatorial, if for no reason beyond maintaining order.

It is hard to be happy and well behaved when everyone is perpetually underfed and in a terrible living environment.

“I must say this doesn’t seem to be the worst world.” Kafa said. “They still have functional governments, even if it’s teetering on collapse.” 

“Really?” Lumoof asked. “I would’ve thought this is one of the worst ones.”  

“Worst than Landas that is holed up in their artifact cities with much smaller populations?” Kafa countered. “Or the world of Sarlpi where almost nine out of ten lavapeople have died? Or the deadworld with no one left?”

Lumoof looked back at the map. “Well, I suppose on a sheer numerical survivor basis- this is pretty decent.”

“It is.” Kafa repeated. “I would rank this in a similar capacity to the world of Capra-Terban.” 

“Would you save them?”

“Yes. That doesn’t need to be asked.” Kafa said. “It is our duty.”

Lumoof chuckled at the term ‘duty’. Some of them viewed helping these worlds as a duty of those with strength. As wardens, we were here to reset the damage caused by an extraordinary force. Something outside of the normal nature of these worlds.

Should a warden also engage in repopulation? Ecosystem restoration? Is there a line between restoration, and meddling with natural selection? It was a thought I entertained briefly. It’s a dangerous loop to go down, and I decided to prioritize life. Save lives, and deal with balancing issues later. 

It was a good thing to do, politically. It enhanced our reputation, it gave reason and purpose to maintain a large Valthorn army and infrastructure, and the Valthorns often truly believed in it.

Only Lumoof felt my own inner conflict, with the duty of safeguarding the world’s natural state, and whether we would go too far, and believe in ourselves as ‘saviors’. A ‘savior’ complex would be troublesome, and that made me uncomfortable.

Then, Lumoof looked at Kafa. “From what you’ve seen of the mage-societies, would you want to bring them into the fold?”

That was a tough one. I didn’t have the answer for it either. A magically proficient species would be a great help to offset our magical needs, but we would have to significantly usurp the ruling mages in order to gain access to the talent we need. 

“I would rank them the best of the worlds we’ve seen so far, in terms of potential contribution to the coming days.” Kafa said.

Lumoof smiled. “Fair. But let’s keep it aside, because it’s time to go. We have more worlds to see. Let’s leave the demons for now, we’ll leave it to the Valthorns to come in and sweep.”

The demon king of Magisar appeared to be some kind of demonic golem, and even now, more demons appeared through the demonic rifts overhead. One of the key problems faced by Magisar was the demonic corruption. The demon champions of this world were similar to the corrupting demons of Sabnoc. They were gigantic demonic walkers that planted themselves near sources of magic such as leylines, and then used that demonic energy to spawn more demonic golems. 

In the process of doing so, they corrupt their environment and also cause the demon’s energies to spread into the world around them. This created the demonic hybrids that we saw across the terrain, and incredibly, the demonic hybrids themselves carried demonic spores that spread even more demonic corruption. 

What we learned of the demon’s methods did not really surprise it. It was just some variation of existing demon tactics, and should be fairly easy to deal with. 

***

We later deployed a small batch of Valthorns on Magisar, mainly to support the information gathering once Lumoof and Kafa ensured that there was minimal divine-level meddling, and my Valthorns began scouring the terrain looking for refugees and those not living in the giant towers. 

There were more than we expected. We rescued a few groups of small refugees fleeing their land based encampments, and it explained most of their unusual behavior

One, they did not have iron tools or hard metals in large quantities. Instead, all their people primarily used variants of some kind of copper or tin element, or in the more powerful mages, gold or silver. 

Iron was truly a rarity, and it reflected in the nature of the humans themselves. They resemble humans in many ways, but their blood is made of a different elemental metal altogether. Unlike our knowledge of humans that had iron in our blood, the humans of Magisar instead had something else that we have not encountered in the rest of the peripheral worlds. 

A quasi-iron, and it was something I would like to examine in greater detail. It was likely Magisar humans could not interbreed with regular humans due to blood-incompatibility. 

The blood samples and biological samples we collected through aiding some of the refugees suggested that this elemental difference in their blood resulted in Magisarian Humans being biased to magic, as their bodies did not ‘bulk’ and did not gain much muscle. 

Overall, we did have a relatively high rating for the world of Magisar, but we needed more time to shape the form of our contact. We have not yet decided on how to engage with these magical towers, whether we would take over, or whether we would be a little more diplomatic. Outside of the natural magical talents of the natives, the world itself was of no use, and I wondered whether we could offer a choice to the locals, and then relocate the natives to a safer world, once we verified that their physique could survive on otherworld foods. 

A massive breeding program could offset our challenges in training wizards and mages. 

With a high level understanding of the world of Magisar, it was time to move to the next world.

***

Seventh World

“Now this is something.” Lumoof sat as he watched the winds blow from top to bottom, and there was no horizon. Instead. The horizon curved upwards, as if the world was looped. “Another ringworld, but not one of the demons.”

“Mayhaps the inspiration source of the demon’s Sun-Rings?” Kafa looked in another direction, and then up into the sky to see two gigantic rings that rotated around the sun. That ment there were a total of three rings, and they were on the outermost ring. “There seems to be multiple rings.”

Lumoof nodded, and noticed this world was physically quite big. “I do wonder, where is the ‘Core’ of a ringworld?” 

“Core?” Kafa laughed and pointed into the skies. The layered rings around the surprisingly small sun seemed strange. “Maybe that moon? That’s the only thing that resembles a core from this distance.” 

The avatar shrugged as his eyes traced the demonic rifts above them. Strangely enough, this world had two active demonic rift paths. Kafa couldn’t see it, but the news made Stella curious, and so both Stella and Edna left the Great Steppes to join them in the Layered Ringworlds.

There were three rings surrounding their small sun, and the innermost ring was the smallest and thinnest. The middle ring was a bit wider, while the furthest ring was the widest. Closest to the sun was a strange glowing purple moon that overlooked all of the three rings. 

The three rings orbited around the sun like the three axes of a gyroscope, each moving in its own direction. 

The demonic rift paths through the void sea were then each connected to outermost and middle layers. 

“Well, we have evidence 101 that the demons can actually attack with two demon kings at the same time.” Stella said as she studied the demonic rifts. “There’s no actual rule against it, merely a convenience from the way the demons arrange their attack pattern.”

“Two demon kings doesn’t mean we have to face both of them together.” Edna shrugged. “Some operational difficulties, but if the two don’t stick together, it isn’t that different.”

“Agreed, but it does lend credence to Hawa’s claim that the demons have measures we don’t see yet.”

Lumoof then looked around. “Maybe we should ask Hawa about this world. Make use of that artifact he gave us.”

“First, we should find the natives?” Stella countered. So far in the few days they were busy studying the magical energies of the world that they have not located any natives. 

It was not hard to find them once the four started to look. They were hibernating humans living in underground caves, and it seemed the world experienced what was called, the regular weeks of ‘darkness’.

There was no concept of a day-night cycle in this world, because the sun was always overhead in a ringworld. Instead, they had a period when the sun dimmed significantly, for two weeks at a stretch.

The ‘purple darkness’. 

The domainholders were on the surface when the darkness happened. The sun abruptly transformed and changed color. As if the bright yellow sun itself was turned into a dim, dark blue sun.

The light vanished. The sun in the sky was still there, but was difficult to see with regular sight, because now the dominant object was the purple moon. Everything turned purple, and then the monsters appeared. 

They were no threat. 

But the monsters were powerful. Level 60 to 80 monsters, seemingly empowered by the purple moon. 

It was this world’s natural defenses, and the domain holders saw these monsters slaying the demonic beasts as well. Only the demon champions could hold 

“Huh.” Lumoof realized. “Who do they need heroes if the native beasts are so powerful?” 

“Let’s ask the natives.”

***

The native humans were few, but they created entire societies underground. Their underground tunnels were fortifications, layers of layers of walls, and none of them wanted to be outside during the Purple Darkness. They were very good at constructing defenses, simply because the monsters were all really powerful, and so they concentrated their resources on building multiple layers of walls. 

The domain holders continued to spy on the natives for a bit, using invisibility to sneak through their defenses and into their underground societies. 

There, we saw the natives living fairly decent lives. They grew crops under the glow of unique light emitting metals, and we watched their society operate.

There were two main activities for their society, the Wall Builders, and the Planters.  The Wall Builders were just the overarching title given to those who constructed their fortifications, and structures. They dug new rooms underground. There were a subgroup, called the venturers, that traveled along the surface to find new places to build a home. 

Each of these labyrinthian homes were called a ‘Chamber.’ This one was called the White Ringed Chamber. Each of these chambers could be home to 5,000 to 20,000 people, and throughout the Three Rings, there were at least thousands of these chambers. 

Each of the rings, in terms of actual surface area, was likely much, much bigger than the surface area of the Threeworlds or Treehome.

In some ways, these three rings potentially had the highest population potential. If the threat of the Purple Darkness was nullified, and the demons solved, each of these three rings could house 10 billion, maybe even 20 billion for the outer rings due to the sheer size of the surface area. 

So, after two to three weeks of observation, we finally made the move to contact the natives.The humans were surprised to see us, but ultimately they were all very welcoming of guests. 

Because in this world, all humans fought against the demons and the monsters outside. The surface of the ringworlds was a dangerous place at the wrong place and the wrong time, and the odds of surviving in the Purple Darkness was thoroughly low. 

So, the world developed a norm to house guests in their outer rooms. For venturers who ventured too far. For harvesters and herbal collectors that lost their way. 

“You come from the world of the heroes? Those summoned by the Three Ringed God’s will?” Lumoof, Kafa, Stella and Edna stood as they approached one of these native fortifications. They only exited their fortifications once the Purple Darkness came to an end. 

Still, as a wary kind, they created special holding zones near the entrances of their underground societies. Their fortifications were similar to the lairs of an evil mastermind, and comprised layers and layers of doors, each fortified to keep unwanted people out. 

“I can’t help but wonder how this society even developed.” Kafa said, as the humans escorted Lumoof and Kafa to their guest zones. “How did a society come from nothing to this?”

Luckily, the natives were more than happy to explain their own origin story. It seemed to be a story that each child learns when they turn two or three years old.

“We were created by the three ringed gods.” The human’s spiritual leader explained. “Each of the rings are the bodies of our god, the Three Ringed God, and the god fought against the devourer of the sun. The battle ended in a stalemate, with both sides dying. The evil god became the remnant moon, while the Three Ringed God became the rings that we live on.”

Lumoof and Kafa looked at each other and knew their creation myths were probably wrong, but they didn’t want to correct them. It would be highly improper to correct their hosts. It was not yet the time. Such things had to be handled gently. 

“We came to this world as refugees, brought over by the Three Ringed God from an older world. The Three Ringed God’s voice sent us into the underground homes, and gave us talents to thrive in this world.”

The native spiritual leader then demonstrated the ability. The seemingly normal humans then created fists made of steel, as if their flesh had the ability to transform into steel. We’ve seen it in operation, but still we feigned surprise. 

Internally, the Valthorns classified these humans as the Steelblooded. They were naturally tougher and more resistant, but even that wasn’t enough.  

“We use our gifts to build these steel walls, form our homes out of the body of the Three Ringed Gods, and manipulate the Ringsteel into these fortified doors. They keep the demons out.”

“I see.” Lumoof answered. “Your Three Ringed God is wise.”

“Kind.” The native human answered. At this point, they were not really ‘native’ humans, but some of us wanted to call them the ‘Ringmen’. 

“Are the strongest among you able to defeat the monsters during the Purple Darkness?” Kafa asked. 

“A few of us, yes.” The Ring-leader answered. “But there are more beasts out in the purple darkness than we ever could. Only those blessed by the Three Ringed God can walk under the Purple Darkness and face the darkness.”

The interactions and discussions over the next few weeks with the natives went fairly well. We learned that the locals were not the type to battle the demons or the monsters of the purple darkness. They only engaged and hunted monsters during the Months of Sun, as they needed their flesh and parts for tools. Under the influence of the Purple Moon, they avoided contact and focused on hiding in their bunkers.

The domain holders learned what they could, but there were no true bombshells. Things that the rest of the Valthorns can gather, in due time.

So, Stella’s attention turned skywards. 

They all looked at the thing that floated so close to the sun. A massive celestial object that was the true master of this realm. 

“Let’s go to the purple moon.” 

[I'm taking a break next week]

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