Tree of Aeons

359

Year 339

Once every two weeks, the old Temple of the Erasian Studies played host to a sermon by the Descendants. According to Gorkun's records, the ancient temple was once a place of worship, where great magicians and researchers of Eras were exalted with an audience with Eras himself.

Somewhere over the past few thousand years, the Temple was renovated and changed into the Temple of the Reviver.

A horrific sculpture of the monstrous Reviver now stood around the temple as if it was a monster that would soon devour the temple's contents.

Descendant Kha-ha was one of the thousands of non-domain holders in their ranks, and he stood at the center of the stage surrounded by a crowd of ten thousand believers. They came to worship the Reviver and pray for their salvation when the Reviver returns to the world.

Seva crawled, surprised that somehow the ventilation shafts could support his weight.

The location was ideal. The auditorium and stage was built above one of the many ancient tunnels, and there was a way for the heretics to get in position, and escape quickly, if needed. So far, the Department of Descendant Affairs did not anticipate an attack on the heretics, but this was escalation.

So far, the heretics were on the defensive. Not once had the heretics mounted an attack on the DoDA or the Descendants.

The dwarven warrior got into position. The Descendent Kha-ha roared as his passionate speech shook the room.

Seva hated how good many of the Descendents were at riling up the crowd and inspiring their passions.

"When the Reviver returns, we shall drive the false gods away from the promised lands, and turn us all into the Reviver's chosen people!" Kha-ha spoke with a screechy voice. Kha-ha was a monstrous being, half humanoid, half covered in rotten tentacles and blackish horns. The twisted faith claims that their grotesque forms are a sign of their burdens, a proof of the foul curse they bore on behalf of their god.

The crowd listened, somehow enraptured. Even the guards looked like they were entranced.

Right now, somewhere down below, Gorkun must have started. Seva tapped his little magical crystal. It emitted a small magical resonance that other magically entangled crystals detected, and when it did so, it glowed.

It was once a plaything, a curiosity about the unusual behaviors of 'entangled' crystals.

But these days, it was a common tool for Erasian forces to coordinate timing.

The floor exploded. The stone and rock debris flew upwards, and the mesmerized guards snapped out of their dream. The captain was quick.

"Protect Lord Kha-ha!" The guards rushed, their axes glowed, as they formed a protective perimeter around the Descendant, as the rocks slammed into their steel shields.

Zarkun emerged from the newly created hole, and taunted the Descendant. "Descendant! Your lies have gone far enough! Your twisted words end today!"

The guard leader raised his axe, as he activated [Guard Formation], a skill common amongst [Guards]. "Heretic Golem! Attack!"

But their axes met divinely enchanted steel. Zarkun, the Erasian Sentinel, blocked their strike. Then, the golem's divine armaments activated. He pushed, and a powerful magical pulse radiated outwards. The magic flung the guards back.

Kha-ha's own protective equipment activated.

"Foolish heretics! You think I am weaker than mere hunks of steel?" Kha-ha's barrier withstood Zarkun's attack easily.

The Descendant's tentacles glowed with a sheen of black, and exploded outwards like spears. It slammed into Zarkun's shield, and the magical shield wobbled under the strike. Seva gulped, as he watched the attack from above. 𝐑áℕօ𝐛Ɛs̈

He couldn't believe that he was doing this, and he reached for his own axe.

But, the attack was so furious it didn't even leave an opening for Zarkun to counterattack.

"Just one hunk of old steel and you think you can match our strength?" Kha-ha taunted the golem as the Descendant's tentacle-covered head shone briefly. The tentacles flared up like hair swept about by strong winds, as if they were the snake-heads of Medusa. The black steel-like tentacles jabbed the shield hundreds of times and gradually pushed Zarkun backward.

The golem somehow grinned, its metallic face twisted in glee. "Oh? What makes you think it is just me?"

The floor behind Kha-ha exploded as one more Sentinel emerged unannounced. Gorkun's steel fist slammed into the Descendant's body, and the creature flew right through one of the hard stone walls. "There's two!"

Gorkun smiled. "Two?"

Zarkun landed right next to the Descendant and started to pummel the usurper. It merely slammed into a wall of tentacles. As it was preoccupied at protecting itself, a small hidden root snuck through the pile of debris and then touched the Descendant only briefly. It was then, a flash of light later. Kha-ha vanished through a forced teleportation.

***

Kha-ha looked around and attempted to use void mana, but found his magical energy had somehow vanished. Drained. Strange roots tangled and wrapped around him, and he struggled.

He screamed in the darkness, unsure where he was. He tried to remember what happened. "What is this?!"

He flailed. He screamed.

It made no sense. How was something able to suck so much of his mana out? He was a Descendant, and the Descendants all had tremendous levels of mana.

His tentacles whipped and flailed about, and yet, whatever this place was, it didn't budge. He tried to access his abilities, and then, he turned to his void vision.

"Where in the world am I?" The creature said in fear. It saw a map of the void sea that it did not recognise. It was so far away from where he came from that it looked foreign. Alien. "Who- how did they do this?"

It was then that he felt magic flow into his body. Magic that was not his own.

"Wait! Stop!" The tentacles hardened. Kha-ha activated all the abilities he could, yet somehow, his attacks did nothing. The roots absorbed his attacks as if they were nothing more than the caress of a harmless creature.

***

"Well, I believe this incident will set the entire DoDA and the Descendants on fire." Edna watched as the golems and the rest of the dwarves retreated deep into the depths of the ancient tunnels.

Already, the DoDA was in absolute crisis mode. Multiple descendants appeared within the DoDA demanding that the heretics be dealt with urgently.

"What is being done about this? Whatever you are doing, it is not enough." One of the Descendants, identified as Lord Krena-Ra and also a Level 145 Warlock, held the dwarven man's shirt. It was a threat, and the man gulped.

"Yes, Lord Krena-Ra! We are doing our best to locate the heretic golems! Our eyewitnesses all claim that there were at least two golems and multiple other corrupted dwarves working for the heretics. We will get them!"

Krena-Ra stared, and he hissed in anger. "You say and assure the Descendant's Council with those words every damn time, and what did we have? Two of my fellow brethren are gone."

The Descendant's aura was dark, and the various tentacles around its gigantic head each seemed to independently stare at the dwarven officer. The dwarf paled and had no words.

The compound, fly-like eyes of the Descendant all glowed. "I suppose I should not expect too much from your ilk. Where were they last found?"

The officer blinked. "What do you mean, Lord Krena-Ra?"

"These two heretic golems. Do you have a lead? What was their last location?"

"Not at the moment. We suspect they made use of the ancient tunnels from the Enersh era to escape."

"And?" Krena-Ra interrogated. "Surely there is more?"

"Our agents are trying to retrace and explore the ancient tunnels, but they are extremely complex."

Krena-Ra's tentacles wobbled, a sign of its annoyance. "Never mind, I should have known."

***

At the same time, my node tree spread more trees and tiny roots throughout the cities, and we began to infiltrate areas closer to the Descendants. The reports provided by the DoDA were fairly comprehensive, and I was able to conclude that the Descendants' overall sensing and detection abilities were fairly weak, though I remained careful of the ten or so domain holders.

A few of my roots approached one of their massive 'forbidden cities'. The Descendants constructed many Descendant enclaves, for those amongst them that did not want to live among the dwarves. Even here, there were still many dwarven servants and minions. Fortifications and defenses here were exceptional as they were designed for protection against powerful magical spells, weapons, and there were easily a few thousand guards at any one point.

But just like the DoDA, they did not prepare countermeasures against spying trees, vines, and roots. There were, however, anti-summon and anti-artifact types of magical enchantments around the dwellings. Perhaps, they have just not considered that even plants could be spies.

So, there were tiny gaps within their magical formations and patterns that could easily accommodate a small viney root.

I wondered whether the dwarven societies developed druids. Or perhaps for such craft-focused people, communion with plants was such a wild concept that they had not considered it likely.

It was in our interest that our ability to view through vines and roots to be a secret.

My roots crawled and snuck into their private compounds, and inside, I noticed that they were fond of demon-like fauna.

A good thing, since I had adapted to demonic plants and could even make demonic hybrid plants of my own.

So, through my node, I planted a few sneaky little demonic plants. Just a little spire-like demonstone grass or a thorny charred cactus.

My little eyes and ears.

Two descendants walked past, and they were just level 120s and 130s, identified within the DoDA records as Shumma-Ra and Zhara-ra, both were also some kind of void and elemental mage. The Descendants were quite mage-heavy, many of them possessed a wide range of magical abilities, though combat-focused [Battlemages] with strong physical abilities were also common.

Here, in the perceived safety of their compound, I could observe their conduct and behavior in their natural state, and I found them incredibly human-like in the range of emotions and thoughts, even if we felt an intense, foul presence from within their souls.

"The Governing Oracle is pissed." Shumma-Ra said, and it seemed that the shape of their heads, the number and forms of their tentacles, and the colors of their half-humanoid-half-mutant jellyfish features were also how they identified each other. "He states that we will need to sign up for more training for the rest of us on the Bestiary."

Zhara-ra's tentacles wobbled, DoDA records claim that was usually a sign of frustration. "Will that actually do any good? The Bestiary's fleshbeasts from the outer worlds have been slowing. There seems to be unusual incidents that destroyed a few worlds."

"Strange. Privately, do you believe that we are under attack?" Shumma-Ra asked his compatriot.

"From who?" Zhara-ra countered. "The Ancient Void Barrier stands, and as long as that is there, who can intrude into our realm? It must only be those from within."

"Then the only conclusion is that the Erasian Sentinels must have found some ancient way to move to the Fleshworlds." Shumma-Ra countered. "That they have access to some old relic explains their recent courage and attacks on our kind."

"That old foolish god hides so many ancient artifacts in these worlds that it would not surprise me." Zhara-ra said. "Some of these Sentinels may still retain ancient maps and records of secret warchests. Unlocking them may give them the tools needed to challenge us, especially if they have a way to locate all the lost Sentinels."

"Only us, but not those who stepped above." Shumma-Ra's tentacles wobbled again, its movement swirled. It is supposed to be a sign of sadness. "It seems these heretics think they could pick us off from the fringes."

"I would do so as well, if I were them." Zhara-ra said. "Why risk a confrontation with the Governing Oracle?"

"Then, why not set a trap?" Shumma-Ra countered. "They clearly believe that taking out our preachers would weaken our cause."

"This was only one attack. Do you think they would dare to do more?" Zhara-ra did not agree.

"I do not believe that they would only attack us once. What sort of escalation would that be?"

***

The ancient tunnels were constructed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years ago. Many had collapsed, but many more did not. Krena-Ra came along, as he landed on the deepest floor of the tunnels. There were deeper layers, but they were not directly accessible from the Temple of the Erasian Studies.

There were a few other local guards watching, and about two hundred dwarven warriors marching into the various tunnels. They moved in squads of twenty, a unit known within the DoDA as a strike force.

The ancient tunnels were not actually tunnels.

Thousands of years ago, these were actual streets, with buildings and constructions, and as such, the paths branched out in many ways. Eras merely created a layer on top of the existing construction, and when they did so, sometimes they collapsed, sometimes, they didn't.

Because of its origins and nature, there were many places to hide. Some of the 'tunnel walls' are actually ancient buildings with just a layer of dirt covering them. It was fairly easy for any half-decent dwarven geomancer to restore a wall of dirt, and mask the ancient buildings from easy detection.

The huge web of ancient roads and streets also meant there were many places these heretics could've gone.

"Lord Krena-Ra, we were not expecting you." The search leader and three other dwarven warriors introduced themselves to the Descendant. Krena-Ra did the Descendant-equivalent of the eye-roll, which was when his spider-like red compound eyes all looked away in different directions.

"Do not bother me. I have my own methods." Krena-Ra said as he shoo-ed the dwarven security officers away. They were more than happy to.

Krena-Ra moved to one of the clearings, and picked up some of the debris left behind from the battle between the golems and the vanished Kha-ha.

"[Summon : Daemon Hunters]."

A massive magical formation appeared around Krena-Ra's feet, and then, three monstrous one-eyed hounds appeared from the ground. They were magical in nature, had the strength equivalent to a level 90, and sniffed the little stones and debris left behind.

"Look for these." Krena-Ra commanded. "[Hunt] them."

The one-eyed hounds charged into the tunnels, and Krena-Ra followed closely behind. The DoDA agents, even though not commanded to, tried to follow the Descendant's hunting dogs. They followed the trail, the magical hounds seemed to trace some kind of magical residue.

It actually accurately retraced the path taken by Seva and a few of the other heretics, and led them into a far deeper layer.

Krena-Ra stopped and looked around. The hounds themselves stopped, because this was where Stella activated a magical portal and sent them to another place. "It ends here. Impossible."

The DoDA agents caught up, and they had mages with them.

Krena-Ra sniffed, and its eyes wide. "There's a void mage. I feel the presence of a void portal."

The captains were shocked. "Impossible."

Krena-Ra stood. None of the dwarves were able to use void mana, for the simple reason that it was cursed for them. However, the Descendants were related to the Wadrans, and the Wadrans were innately able to use void mana. "There is a traitor amongst the Descendants!"

Spaizzer