Tree of Aeons

347

Year 321

Peripheral worlds. I sometimes wondered what happened there, because my vision in these worlds was limited. I could see bits and pieces through some of the familiars, through my avatar, and through my clones and nodes. I also could see bits in dreams and in images carried by dying souls, a feature of my presence as a Soul Tree.

But for the vast majority of these peripheral worlds, they were still coated in a fog-of-war. But whenever we visited, it surprised me how quickly these worlds changed.

My knowledge of these worlds were snapshots in time, refreshed whenever my avatar reached them and took a new snapshot. 

They were big changes. A year of peace meant huge reconstructions, larger populations, and more farmland and orchards. 

Orchards and farmland were a fairly ubiquitous feature across so many worlds. Some elven populations on the Neiran peripheral survived on large fruit-growing plants, an unusual symbiotic adaptation between the elves and their orchards. 

Most of the time, what I paid attention to were small things. Plantations and unusual plant adaptations. New types of monsters were collected and collated by my druids for study. 

My domain holders and the Order tore through the demons that infested the peripheral worlds like a firestorm. A purifying flame that burned through these worlds like a wildfire whipped by a storm.

But eventually, the demon's rot would return, and we didn't have enough void mages to wage a counterattack on their linked demon worlds. Lausanne, owing to her experience on these peripheral worlds, set up a new project for the Order. The Frontier 500. A goal of raising 5 level 100 from 100 different worlds, to form the frontiers foremost champions and guardians. An army of the abandoned, for the abandoned. 

She chose one of the most politically fragile worlds on the Neiran periphery, a world named by their people as Makhana, though the main reason was its central location at the heart of the Neiran peripheral worlds. It was two hops away from most of the peripheral worlds and three hops from a few others. Makhana was populated by a mixture of humans, elves, and lizardfolk. So, it was also very familiar to her and the Order.

It also happened to be at the verge of self-destruction as somehow, even though they'd slain the demons that plagued the peripheral worlds, the local races decided it was apt to slaughter each other next. 

Lausanne didn't want to let that happen, and so with the beetle carrier Dionaea, a force of mages and the order, the leadership of these three races were rounded up and sent to the Lavaworld for some solitary time, quiet contemplation, and reflection. 

It was not hard to stop wars, but Hoyia warned her that it did not make the peace permanent. 

"It is perhaps presumptuous, but we are like parents? These people are our children squabbling with each other. It is tempting for us to step in each time when they fight with each other. When they have conflicts. We send them to ’the naughty corner’ for them to reflect on their decisions; and then there is the generational trauma to unpack from these races. You can stop this war now, and you can stop the war the next few times it happens if you are here. But you need to fix the root causes."

Lausanne cursed, of course. A part of her felt terrible that she repeated the mistake on Magisar, where she shocked them with power. The prisoners would be similarly spooked by their time on Lavaworld. 

Perspective was often painful, and miserable.

But, she viewed it differently. "Generational trauma persists when no one tackles it. Fighting it out and slaughtering each other is not a good way to relieve that ancient trauma. As much as I hate it, it is on us to do what they cannot do themselves."

For gods to come in, and force ancient squabbling parties to play nice. It reminded me of our own expansion on Threeworlds. 

Was this her attempt to make her mark on the world? That each domain holder sought out a world that they could carve in their own imagination and ideals?

On Makhana, she ordered the survivors to build a city together and named it Rezura, after a local term for resurrection. There, she commanded that all disputes between the three races would now be mediated by the Order's panel of judges. 

She envisioned a peacekeeping panel across worlds with impartial judges from entirely different worlds to sit on matters and the use of Patreeck's limited form of mind-reading to reveal the truth in more extreme cases. 

It was an unusual use case for spies and diplomats to now step into the role of racial arbitrators. Even on Treehome, this growing need meant we needed to build a curriculum, experience, and educational material to reliably train new judges.  ṜаΝ𝔬ᛒΕŞ

In cases where the right or wrong were not so clear cut and the odds are fairly equal, she set up a combat arena for trials by combat, where each cause elected their own racial champions to fight on their behalf. 

It was interesting that Lausanne's plan somewhat paralleled the angels of Angelworld, but in the wider multiverse where there were so many might-worshipping worlds, where the system itself encouraged violence, constrained, limited violence was the best of the worst outcomes. 

***

Year 322

"How many years left?" Lumoof looked at Aiva's apparition. The [Realm Egg] was perhaps one of the few things I wanted to have, before we cracked the void barrier.

Even if Stella could take us through to the other side, a large part of me knew I needed more power and I needed the levels. So, I had to.

Destroying the barrier, even if it was with Hawa's weapon, should net us a big level up. 

"Another 8 years. Just hang in there! You're doing great!" Aiva gave an unnaturally cheery reaction, and we felt as if we were speaking to a child. Thus, we decided not to bother him more and returned to our usual exploration

***

Stella, Edna and Lumoof didn't find another god. What we found were just more populated worlds that worshiped the usual gods. 

From the last Sun-Rings, it was just more and more peripheral-like worlds. More worlds for Lausanne and the roaming Order to free from the demons and re-establish some kind of structure. 

We did notice that there were now more dwarven, lizardfolk, treefolk worlds, and even more unusual races. There was a world that resembled the snake-people of Ulara, and there was another where the 'cities' were just masses of walking corals on low-tide seas. Then there was another that was filled with tortoise-shelled warriors. 

But no sign of another god that we had not met, even if the denizens of these worlds clearly worshipped the usual few. 

These worlds were further away from the demons, and the frequency of the demon king attacks showed. They faced invasions at less regular intervals. 30, 50, some even 200 years. Demons, to them, were alien and horrific, not a daily reality. 

Here, the heroes still arrived in time to save them from the demons, and the sheer rarity of the event meant they were thus respected as heroes. 

It felt thoroughly familiar.

They were still relatively stable and safe, and here, the Order didn't have much to do. Lausanne and the rest of the domain holders would establish a smaller operation here focused solely on recruiting the elites, but outside of that, there was no need for us to maintain an overwhelming presence when it is not needed. 

***

Year 323

Lausanne stood at the edges of the fortress, there were about three hundred warriors collected from the many worlds behind her.

"Welcome to lavaworld. Here, we fight demons. In the old days, every few years, the Order used to cull these demons to keep their population manageable. These days, we use them as practice." 

There were several noticeable gulps, but many of these warriors were survivors of the demonic war on their respective worlds. They were familiar with fighting demons. 

They would fight. They would fight hard and get pushed until they could not go any further. 

Then they would rest. They would be graded by a panel of observing Order veterans for their judgment, for their actions in battle, and for how well they utilized their abilities. It was subjective, but combat was subjective. 

Of the three hundred, only about a hundred passed.

Many were reckless. Many were too cowardly. Many fought and relied on instinct. Many didn't work well with others. 

They would be returned home.

And more would be recruited to take their place.

***

"How was your recruitment?" Hoyia smiled as the two met once more, a few weeks after the Lavaworld tour, but this time, in a city hidden deep underground.

Dungeonworld was ready for training, and the Order's elites were now preparing for the dungeon delve. Both domain holders did not need to be here, but they still came partly out of curiosity and partly to get away from whatever they were doing. 

It was a fairly cold and clammy environment, even though Dungeonworld was innately a cold realm. The world's magical core did not radiate much natural heat or magical energies that drove certain geological activities. On many worlds, ley lines indirectly act as lines that stimulated volcanic activity, mountain formation, and all that.

"Decent." Lausanne said. 

"Decent? That's all you have to say about them?" Hoyia grinned as she sat on the really simple but very well built chair. Everything in this small but definitely growing underground city was imported, shipped from Treehome. They had water, though for Hoyia, she could touch water and it would turn into tea. 

She didn't even have to touch the water, all she needed was for her finger to touch a cup.

It was a minor ability named [Spirituality begins with Tea], but endlessly amusing to heroes and many others. 

It could also be made into horribly bitter tea, something Hoyia used offensively when she wanted to annoy someone. 

Lausanne sighed as she looked at a few of her peers passing through the doors. Alka, Kafa, and Ezar came and sat with the two. 

"Well, been a while since I saw you three. What've you been up to?"

"Gaining levels." Kafa and Ezar chorused. "Have to keep up with you blazing through the outer Neiran worlds." 

Lausanne found it amusing and noticed Hoyia gently touch Ezar's cup of water. It didn't change color, but Ezar noticed.

"Thanks for the tea." 

"You shouldn't thank her until you drink it." Kafa commented. 

The domainholders had split the regions among themselves, Alka, Kafa, and Ezar took hold of the outer Gayan peripheral worlds and also the Darkgard-linked dwarven worlds. Roon and Johann took the Aivan worlds, while Lausanne and Ebon provided coverage to the Neiran worlds. 

Hoyia, given her skillset, took a more backseat approach, providing support to the recovering Hawan periphery, though she did pop in to help with battles where she could.

Stella, Lumoof, and Edna were still far away, deep into the faraway worlds of the Sun-Rings VI, though they still occasionally teleported back to Treehome or any of the clone worlds to meet with friends and attend important events. It was much easier to move when Stella could place [Void Explorers] as 'anchors', so she didn't have to retrace her steps. 

They had seven years. 

Internally, we had a timer. Once we had the realm egg, we were going to crack the demon's void barrier. So, the domain holders had been exceptionally busy, visiting more and more peripheral worlds.

They were soon joined by a few void archmages. They were all quite high leveled, in their level 140s. Such as the void archmage Veter, one of the earliest void archmages. They were fairly familiar with combat, though they often played a supporting role. But dungeoneering and facing powerful creatures were necessary for them to be full domain holders. 

Each group of domain holders worked with void mages closely, because they heavily relied on the void mages to move around. 

The [Aivan Worldstone] did mean that Roon and Johann had a little more flexibility with the use of void mages, but ultimately, we still needed the void mages for the demigods to reach into the demon worlds and attack the demon mothers. 

We hoped that the next domain holder would be a void archmage, so that we'd have a few more options and flexibility when moving around. 

***

Stella, Lumoof and Edna eventually decided to take a break from exploring even more worlds and redirected their attention to the giant, now vulnerable wall. They stood at the outer side of the Sun-Rings, and the demon's void barrier covered the entire sky.

They looked the same to me. They looked the same to Edna and Lumoof.

"Let's go."

The three were wrapped in multiple thick layers of void energy, and then, they vanished from the surface of the Sun Rings.

Inside the cocoon for three, we felt the layers constantly churn. We knew we were getting close to the barrier, as we felt a shift, a tremor throughout the many layers. 

Stella winced slightly, but her magic was already at work. The layers churned to match the barrier's magical signatures, adjusting them and folding them. Momentarily, our ability to see beyond the small sphere that protected us vanished. It was just a sea of endless churning darkness. 

The void inheritor' powers swirled and the barrier itself seemed to flow in strange, unusual ways. It was once a constant flow of mana that pushed us away, pushed us out. 

But now, no more. 

We were floating within a ball, and now, we were sinking into the ocean. The ocean presumed the ball to be one of them and accepted us in. We sank through the demon's barrier, in a move Stella described not dissimilar to the adjustments needed to align to the magical resonances of the riftgates.

Then, we were through. 

[ New Title Awarded : First Into The New Demon's Realm ]

It was as if we emerged from a dark, dingy tunnel, and now we could see once more.

Hundreds and thousands of worlds emerged in our view, hidden away from our usual view. Hundreds of demon's comets, all moving slowly through space. 

We could see blots of strange, void clouds that seemed like space itself was torn apart and other structures floating throughout the space. Planet-sized fortresses and worlds that looked like they were cut apart.

There were many destroyed worlds here that were still somehow not yet consumed by the void. 

Then, most importantly, at the center of it all. 

A giant black sun, accompanied by the prison. There was a second layer of defenses. A layer of magical shielding that resembled conventional magical protections, only on the scale of an entire realm.

There were six worlds close to and around that black sun. Together they formed the six points of an octahedron, each emitting such a powerful magical signature that we could feel it even this far away. 

At the heart of the shape was that black sun and the accompanying prison.

A prison and our target.