370. Supply Run

Tree of Aeons

370

My clone of the Library of Eras felt the skies above distort. The death of the Five Divine Lords caused the skies to warp. It was as if the sky was a large sheet of stretchable material, and now, it was pulled and pushed in different directions.

It was almost like looking like a pregnant woman's belly, with large kicks and pushes coming from whatever was within.

The death ray burst was over, and now, I felt magic.

The demon's prison twisted and wobbled like an unstable balloon sloshing about. It wobbled constantly, as the black demon's prison looked like it was struggling to contain something within.

The gigantic planetary worm moved.

[The Leviathan Reviver is starting to awaken!]

[The Leviathan Reviver's Resurrection is incomplete! Awakening time is extended.]

"Incomplete." I repeated. "That's a good sign."

Now, we could see leviathan's form. It had four heads, two on each end, and there were smaller appendages and worm-like tentacles out of its incredibly long body.

"I don't think we should read too much into the form of the creature." Lumoof said. "It is a beast god, I believe it takes whatever form it wants."

That made sense. Maybe this was just its temporary form.

Now though, I still felt the skies above brimming with magic. Almost as if it was about to burst.

I had a feeling that whatever happened next, the Five Core worlds wouldn't survive it.

"How's the evacuation?" I asked the rest of my domain holders.

"Not great. More than half of the dwarves are dead." Alka said. "The wobbling of the void sea is also making it hard to teleport out any survivors through the void mages. The only safe way to get them out is your ability."

"Curses."

It began flailing about. When a creature like the planetary worm began to move, its movement made gigantic ripples of void energy that slammed into the Five worlds, and for worlds like the Store of Eras, those ripples shook the entire planet.

The Store of Eras was already partially damaged from the multiple conical earthmelting blasts, so these attacks only shook them even more.

"Let's get everyone out. I believe we are now in the final rounds. What're our weapons like?"

I could sense Patreeck, Hoyia, and Alka going through last minute checks on our armory and the state of our troops. Many were injured, mainly from debris and collapsing floors while trying to rescue the dwarves.

Many more needed time to recover, mainly from mental anguish. Some saw dwarves crushed alive as the buildings and tunnels collapsed. Many more saw others burn from the death ray.

The battle with the Descendants' domain holders was now over, and all of them were dead. It had cost resources.

The Order's mid-tier were also in full swing, trying to fulfill the many needs of these displaced Erasian dwarves.

From the five worlds, we rescued hundreds of millions. These hundreds of millions needed food, medical attention, shelter, space, and to find their own families and friends that survived. Medical attention, unlike my homeworld, was the least of our problems. We had powerful mages and clerics who could use [mass healing], and my trees emitted powerful [healing auras] that meant most of these dwarves were physically in decent shape.

But it was still a logistical nightmare, and would take months of bureaucracy to reorganize and sort such large groups of people. Food had to be created by magic or imported in large quantities from the other worlds.

"Well, now what?"

"We wait. We get everyone out before we strike."

"Got it."

I felt the wobbling skies above, and I kept track of Stella's voidlings. The days that followed, we focused on getting more and more of the surviving dwarves out.

Luckily, there wasn't much dwarven stubbornness to contend with. The Erasian Dwarves witnessed the immense destruction caused by the death ray burst, they've seen the molten city districts. They've seen their own friends and family suffer from the intense destruction over the past few days and weeks.

***

Alka's workshop was not big enough. Nothing was big enough. He wished there was more space. But that was secondary. A small matter.

What mattered were the computations. The designs. There were so many variations and differences. Many different ways of optimization.

The dwarven master of explosions relooked and screamed, and those on the other side screamed back. Allana shouted. "Your model doesn't make sense."

It was an exaggeration. The model worked wonderfully. But there were flaws. Tiny flaws that somehow were magnified by the stress. But the dwarves took it proudly. They were in the zone, and the roughness of the language did not matter.

There were at least a hundred of them huddled over the various schematics.

Alka relooked. And looked again. "Then modify it rather than scream at me!"

"I am! Just telling you!" Allana said, but her eyes never left the sprawling papers, or the magically projected multidimensional blueprint of the bomb. She had a notebook, and she made amendments to a magical template in her hand.

Alka ran to the other side. The place buzzed. Dwarves ran. Many didn't eat or sleep, relying on Aeon's familiar for magical sustenance and regulating their physical wellbeing. There was a group of priests and druids nearby that sustained an array of helpful auras for the group.

This was crunch time, and they needed every waking moment.

Alka looked at another set of workings. The Cometworld's team was similar.

A less complicated and much bigger bomb, loaded with magical energies. It had all the structure needed for multiple stages of magical amplification. The Cometworld's renovations were not complete, but they rushed the key parts.

It was a multi-decade project in the best of times, and now, they could only work out the key parts.

At the very least, the Cometworld would still be a decent sized bomb.

"Thanks to Lady Stella's very helpful voidlings, we managed to reposition the Cometworld to the edge of the demonic realms. At full speed, it can travel across the entire space in about three weeks." An advisor said, rattling off a list of status updates.

Navigation, unfortunately, relied on voidlings, and changing the trajectory of such a massive object required rather careful adjustments.

The domain holder's attention then focused on the power outputs.

"What's our expected damage?"

"Currently, a tenth of the creature. A well placed hit should take out the creature's head. One of them. Even with the amplified defensive assumptions."

"Really?" Alka relooked at the numbers again. "Did anyone fudge with this?"

"No. I've had the archmages doublecheck."

"Good." Alka said. "Have them check again and see whether we can add some more things."

"We're already cramming as much as we can, lord Alka. We have eight more additional amplification chambers that are still under construction. We're still testing if they work well before adding new ones as this comet could be fired at any moment."

Unlike Allana's more condensed bomb, the Cometworld's primary advantage was size. And it was a very big advantage when the opponent happened to be planetary sized as well.

Both Stella and Lausanne donated a decent chunk of their souls, which were now housed in a magical container.

In very simplified form, the Cometworld's design was an accelerator that collided both Stella and Lausanne's soul fragments at each other, after many rounds of large-scale magical amplification and enhancement.

Meanwhile, Allana's group designed their bomb to be smaller and could be theoretically stored within a spatial box. The box could be teleported by either Lumoof or Aeon. This size meant they had to supplement the power with the use of the systemic strands' frame and required extensive power.

While it was far more mobile and could therefore be used to hit from within the massive creature, its power was projected to be still below the overall damage of the Cometworld.

The sheer size of the Cometworld meant there could be massive arrays of star mana crystals and void mana crystals that supplemented the destructive power of the colliding souls.

But the leviathan was so massive that even with a bomb so big, getting to its vulnerable points was going to be challenging. So, if Lumoof or Edna or Stella could sneak into the leviathan's massive body and detonate the bomb from within, it would theoretically still do massive damage.

The domain holders' souls recovered fairly quickly, especially when augmented with Hoyia and Lumoof's various healing powers, so Alka knew that they had enough spiritual raw materials for a few more, but constructing two bombs of this size at once was already straining the core worlds for resources. If the Order had twenty more worlds with the output of Treehome, it would be possible to triple or quadruple the production of bombs, but that was a few hundred years of development the Order didn't have.

Alka looked around and knew there was only one more alternative.

"Hoyia, what are the odds that the Old Gods can make a few more Hawa's bombs?"

***

Hoyia did not hesitate to get down to business, and she was soon in Hawa's inner worlds. At least, where Hawa was willing to receive us.

"I had expected you to come." Hawa said. "I knew once I sensed the old one's return. That creature's foul presence spreads throughout the peripheral and even some of my middle worlds."

"Would you help us?" Hoyia said. Between gods, there really was no use having long convoluted conversations. In the end, it was either a yes, or a no.

Hawa held out a small object. "This is what I have for you. A few stored blasts of divine magic, but use it after you have exhausted the creature's shields and broke through its anti-divine defenses. My chosen ones fought these new demons, and its effectiveness will be limited when its defenses are strong."

"Can you create something not of the divine?"

"Our godly touch is what it is, it is not easy to make something less of what is naturally more."

Hawa examined the object. Once more, Hawa seemed to have a thing for spherical objects, and made it into a golden ball. At a glance it appears almost similar to the earlier bomb, but there were a few different markings that identified them.

[Hawa's Condensed Blast Ball. Releases a divine burst of energy].

Hoyia looked at the magical representation of the god, and asked. "What are your preparations for the creature?"

"I gather and store my powers. The divine powers are constrained by space, and I believe it will try to gnaw at us from the periphery where it costs the old gods too much to intervene. With its enhanced resistance to divine powers, it can likely attack even my middle worlds without fearing total destruction. Then, from there, by weakening our faith energies, it can force us into a long battle of attrition."

"You don't trust that we can beat it." Hoyia cut in.

"I hope for the best. But I must prepare for the eventuality that the creature comes for me and my core worlds. So I must strike decisively, and with the element of surprise. If you fail, and I hope you do not, there is only one shot. If my first strike fails, the creature will grow stronger and then it will be much harder to kill for all of us."

Hoyia nodded. "Very well, we all do what we must."

The enhanced defenses of the leviathan meant even if Hawa used all his faith points, the distance penalty for even the middle worlds was high enough that he wouldn't be able to kill it. That functionally meant the leviathan could consume the middle worlds and enhance its own strength.

And because it was still a creature of the [system], if the leviathan survived Hawa's full powered strike, it would likely gain levels and grow in strength.

It was a frustrating realization, and we wondered whether if the creature survived our attack, it would grow stronger.

"Sounds like we should delay our own attack." Hoyia suggested.

"You and your patron are lesser beings gnawing at a greater creature. It will benefit less from your attacks. It is far away, and even if your strike does not kill it, it should weaken it enough to buy the rest of us an extra few years." Hawa said. "Even if divine, a creature of that strength is not easy to reconstruct itself, especially if heavily wounded."

"How so? Domain holders can recover from almost lethal damage. Why is it different?"

"Because it is from the bloodline of the primal beast god. A being made for endless, greedy consumption. It can heal quickly, but only when it consumes something else. If it has nothing to consume, it is not inherently a creature of creation, restoration and healing, unlike those with humanoid origins or your patron's plant origins."

"Ah. Then we should empty out the inner worlds?"

"That would be wise. It would likely attempt to consume the nearby planetary cores as its first move."

****

Our conversation with Aiva was also insightful.

"I've seen through the avatars, and I believe you must evacuate everyone. If it consumes to enhance its own strength, then you must remove all life, and the core. Spirits and souls are the world's most powerful sources of energies, and the world core can be said to be the realm's spirit equivalent. Without them, the leviathan will consume physical objects, but their effects are minimal."

Aiva then gave us a different object.

"Unlike Hawa, I am not much of a fighting god. But once the inner worlds collapse, it will be exceptionally hard for you to do battle with the creature with the thick void sea. This will make it easier for you."

Aiva gave us a golden anchor. Decorated with little golden feathers.

[Aivan Divine Spatial Anchor. Temporarily creates a gigantic spatial realm filled with asteroids and platforms.]

"This should allow your comrades to fight more effectively against the leviathan."

"Are you preparing just like Hawa?"

"Me and my people will not fight outright. My powers are in space and movement, and I warp my core worlds and some of my middle worlds far away."

"Will that work?" Hoyia frowned. "This creature should be able to chase after you."

"Not for long. It would take a few decades for the creature to find me again, but then I can warp again."

"Won't you sacrifice the worlds that remain?"

"A few will die so that more may live."

***

Gaya refused to see us. His high priest merely sent us away, and told us to just focus on our own affairs.

So, Hoyia headed to meet the dragon Neira.

The dragon merely laughed, and his laughter made the entire blue realm multiple shades lighter.

"When a tree fights with an animal, who wins?"

"Is that a trick question?" Hoyia stared, and looked around. It was not strange to see how the realm shifted to their master's mood. Instead, Hoyia realized how it was eerily similar to how the trees and flowers bloomed when Aeon was in a cheerful mood.

"Not at all. In a world without magic, usually the animal."

"That is not a good sign."

"How do farmers protect their crops? How do plants prevent their prized fruits from being eaten by the wrong creature? What do the sheep herders do when wolves come for their flock?"

Hoyia remained silent. The dragon was talking, and Hoyia thought he almost sounded like he was in a good mood.

"They call for help, and I can sense that both Hawa and Aiva gave you something, I feel their divine nature swirling around you, even if it could not stain your presence. Here's two more of my scales. My claws and fangs work best when the beast is wounded. And here is one of my horns. Use this to crack the creature's skin. "

"Will this be enough?"

"Probably not." The dragon laughed. "But I think your patron has more cards hidden in some hole somewhere than he lets on."

"Really?"

"Maybe he just does not realize what he has."