Tree of Aeons

361.0

My vines and roots spread quickly through the Library of Eras. 

Stones were brittle, and gaps emerged over time. Steel and metal rusted. Even bronze and copper shrunk and expanded with the weather. As structures aged and weathered, roots, vines, and crawlers found it easy to infiltrate the gaps. The holes.

I did my best to hide them from the gaze of the Descendants. We appeared as dull as we could, our colors matched those of our environment. If the stones were grey, we would be darker shades of grey. 

It was ridiculously effective, so we tested our boundaries. We encroached on the Descendants’ various public spaces. We followed the Descendants as they did their day to day activities, and slowly, my vines and roots began to stalk the movement of even their domain holders. 

I was wary at first, but bit by bit, the Descendants clearly didn’t notice us. Even when I got a little aggressive, it seemed that the Descendants did not regard invasive plants as anything more than a garden irritation. 

Their response when they detected their homes crawling with plants was nonchalant. “Get the dwarven cleaners to clean up these vines and pests. Is it that season already?” 

They removed the more visible vines, but my roots penetrated the rock and stone walls. The gaps between their steel structures and supporting beams. Bit by bit, we encroached on their living space. We evaded the detection of the Descendant's domain holders. 

I began to feel confident enough to infiltrate the homes and offices of the higher ranked domain holders. Our ultimate target was the head honcho of the Descendants of the Library of Eras.

The one supposedly the Governing Oracle of the Descendants. 

Wa-Libra. 

The supposed master of the void elements and strongest of them all. 

I wanted to know what they were up to, and it was unfortunate that only Wa-Libra and the domain holders would have access to the whole truth. The lesser Descendants had some access to that knowledge, but the Descendants were hierarchical, and the domain holders possessed the most information. 

We had many questions. What were they up to? Who was controlling everything? 

I had many plans, some of them involved deploying my other agents, like Ally. But our preliminary studies into the Descendants’ body suggested they had some innate resistance to parasitism that resisted Ally’s influence. It was like a virus trying to take over another virus. 

A challenge, but not an insurmountable gap. Just one that we needed some time to crack. I was confident that we would solve this problem in a few years. So, while a part of the Order began to research how to properly ‘infiltrate’ and help Ally ‘overwhelm’ the soul of these Descenders, my vines did large scale monitoring and infiltration.

Someone must have been talking and communicating with the Demons' Prison. 

How were the five Erasian Worlds structured? Were each of the Descendants independent, or were they a single united whole with five sub-leaders?

Who were their leaders, and what were the vulnerabilities I could exploit. 

I began to spy on the known domain holders and perhaps, search for those that were hidden. Thankfully, the Descendants were so confident in their hold over the Erasians that they saw no need to hide the demigods in their midst. The publicly known domain holders were all there was and based on historical records, the Descendants organized celebratory festivals for those who ascended to the ranks of demigods.  РÃꞐՕ𝐛Εᶊ

It was a party that involved even the Erasians. 

From my outsider's view, it was both sad and impressive that the Erasians celebrated the rise of those who conquered and warped their minds. Maybe, in the eyes of my own vassals, our domain holders were the same.

The Descendant’s domain holders, to my surprise, didn't meet all that often. Instead, each of the Descendant's leaders headed their own clique within the Descendants, and there were many little disagreements here and there. A lot of what the Department of Descendant Affairs recorded were fairly on point, and the dissatisfaction between the various members was not fabricated. The grievances they had against each other were very real. 

As my vines and roots monitored the Descendants, I began to realize that the Descendants were nothing more than an alliance of convenience. They all hated each other, but just hated everyone else more. They were so inherently confident in their own superiority over the others that all other races were viewed as nothing more than servants. Slaves. 

If they had their way, the Descendants would rather kill all the dwarves. 

However, because of what they needed to do, they were forced by the Domain Holders to treat the Dwarves a little better. So, they treated them as servants. 

It was an uncomfortable fact for the Dwarves tasked to monitor and ensure that the Descendants didn’t create too much chaos. Within the DoDA, most dwarves knew that the Descendants considered them as lessers. So for the inherently proud dwarves, this was a big source of conflict, and many skilled DoDA operatives quit their jobs after a few years or decades of service. 

At the same time, I was rather impressed by how accurately the DoDA captured the main gist of the various Descendant leader’s quirks and personalities. It was quickly clear to me that the Descendants underestimated the observations of the dwarven intelligence services. It was the sheer arrogance of the Descendants that they didn’t consider anything the DoDA produced would be of value, or could be used against them.

Wa-Libra was described as a flighty, ephemeral creature and a master of the void magic. Proud and confident. As the leader of the Descendants of the Library of Eras, he had the unfortunate task of getting the rest of the Descendants to behave cohesively and also ensure that faith in the Reviver grew with each passing year. 

A task Wa-Libra accomplished mainly by force and coercion. Punishment. Torture.

So it was not much of a shock that Wa-Libra extended this punishment not only to the dwarves, but also to their own. When my own roots and vines penetrated the High Lord's compounds, we found Wa-Libra in the act of punishing another defiant Descendant by force. 

A Descendant, held and shackled by enchanted metal chains, struggled as Wa-Libra held a knife with his tentacular limbs. 

“Well. I ordered you to deal with the heretic problem. I ORDERED YOU.” Wa-Libra emphasized, his domain pressed on the shackled Descendant, a creature named Galah-Ga. “What did you do?”

Galah-Ga struggled and whimpered. There were no DoDA records about punishment of Descendants, as the Descendants projected an image of strength outwards. A charade. Any punishment within the Descendants’ ranks were kept only within them, though the DoDA did have second hand accounts, usually Descendants bragging about how other Descendants were punished. 

“You know what you did, don’t you? You asked those useless dwarves to do it.” Wa-Libra said.

“My apologies, Lord Wa-Libra! I didn’t know they were so incompetent!” Galah-Ga shook. His tentacles were sagged, as if they were begging. 

“Now you do. Now you do. But, it irritates me that I ordered you to deal with a problem, and you didn’t. What does that constitute?” Wa-Libra’s eyes looked at his assistants. The assistants flinched, but quickly answered.

“Disobedience, Lord Wa-Libra.” The assistant answered, but there was a constant undercurrent of fear. It manifested as a vibration. The assistant’s words shook and vibrated more. 

“Exactly. Disobedience. We can’t have that within our ranks, can we? We are the superior species. We exist to rule. We are better than dwarves. And here we are, one of my own Descendants, losing to the heretical dwarves and dwarven creations.” Wa-Libra walked around the shacked Descendant Galah-Ga, and his knife made light brushes on Galah-Ga’s skin. There were small cuts, but they were not deep. 

It healed quickly. 

“Now, my dear assistant. What is the stated punishment for disobedience?”

"Disobedience," One of Wa-Libra's attendants said as they watched Lord Wa-Libra approach the restrained Descendant, "is punishable with the removal of three tentacles." 

The restrained Descendant, Galah-Ga, was one of the senior leaders of the Department of Descendant Affairs and had the terrible task of dealing with the heretics. One that the Descendants had mostly delegated this task to the dwarves, even though he considered the dwarves to be useless. 

Wa-Libra's blade shone with void energy. "I instructed the Descendants to stay the course and keep the heretics under control. You failed. You knew the dwarves were useless, and yet you left it in their hands?"

"My apologies, Lord Wa-Libra!" The shackled Descendant struggled and begged. But the High Lord held the knife, and it was surrounded by a black spherical aura that marked the presence of powerful void magic. Lord Wa-Libra ignored Galah-Ga’s pleading, and then made a cut. sliced off the shackled creature's tentacles.

The blades cut through the jelly-like tentacles smoothly, as if they were just butter. But not all the way through. It was a third of the way through, and Galah-Ga screamed in pain.

“Oh? Painful, is it?” Wa-Libra taunted. “Is it painful? Do you know why I do this? Simple. Because you didn’t listen to my commands.”

Galah-Ga pleaded. “Please, Wa-Libra! Give me another chance!”

“Another chance? What? How many chances have I given? Assistant. Tell me.”

The assistant whimpered. “This assignment was first awarded seven years ago to Galah-Ga.”

“Seven years, Galah-Ga. It seemed that the problem was festering underneath the ground without me noticing, and yet you did nothing. For seven years, I ALLOWED you to deal with this problem, and now you can see what you’ve done. They have sentinels, and they are brave enough to attack us. Why should I give you more chances?”

Galah-Ga now had no good arguments. “Please, Lord Wa-Libra. Mercy!”

“Mercy? Have you been spending too much time with the incompetent dwarves that you’ve learned their language of weakness? Is this what’s happening to the Descendants when we’ve spent too much time amongst these useless dwarves?” 

Wa-Libra held the blade, and made more cuts. Each time, the shacked Descendant screamed. Each cut was deeper. Each cut was filled with void magic.

“Seven years, Galah-Ga. I expected incompetence from the dwarves. That is their level. But not you. So, for each year, three cuts to each of your three tentacles.”

Then, finally, after twenty one cuts and countless screams later, Wa-Libra finally sliced all the way through the three tentacles.

The three tentacles flopped on the floor and began to rot. These dark, semi-translucent tentacles began to rot and turn grey-ish. 

The Descendant screamed in pain. A scream that sounded like the screeching of metallic doors, and sounded thoroughly alien. Then, the shackled descendant flopped and collapsed on the stone floor. He had fainted. 

"Take him away and let him repent for his failures. I do not want to see him anymore."

The attendants nodded and dragged him away. 

“Now, what else is on my schedule?”

High Lord Wa-Libra was a busy, busy creature. 

Meetings with officers of the dwarves, discussions with other descendants, and meetings with his own cliques. Throughout my observations, the matter of the demon's prison was never mentioned, though there were extensive discussions on how to improve worship in the Reviver. 

It was deeply frustrating, but I reminded myself to have patience. They would spill hints and clues eventually. 

***

While we expanded the espionage efforts, the heretics continued to launch harassments at the various institutions, aided by Edna and Lumoof, and armed with new weapons and tools shipped from Treehome. 

With high quality upgraded weaponry and a thorough intelligence of the Descendant’s activities, the Sentinels were able to cause significant damage. 

They attacked military institutions that housed weapons for the DoDA and stole them. They attacked the Descendants’ artifact treasuries, and there, the sentinels got hold of ancient relics. Relics that survived because destroying divinely-blessed items was extremely difficult. So the Descendants’ had decided to hide them and lock them up in special treasuries.

Erasian Relics were dangerous, because they triggered the Erasians to remember Eras as he was. Many Erasians became heretics because of exposure to these relics.

These relics were also very useful to the sentinels, since they contained a fragment of Eras’s divine energies. The Sentinels could equip them and use them for a temporary burst of power.

At the same time, there should still be many more sentinels on the five core Erasian Worlds, especially the Rank One to Three Sentinels. 

According to Gorkun, there were thousands of them made, and most of them were stored on the rings themselves. So, my roots also fanned out to search for more of these lower ranked sentinels. 

As we needed additional firepower, Gorkun visited all the six Sun-Rings and numerous ancient structures to explore the many secret armories of the Sun-Rings. There, Gorkun led us to various secret rooms that we hadn't even detected in our earlier visits.

The powerful magics of the Sun-Rings, the massive size of the Rings themselves, the mix of unusual alloys, and the overwhelming amounts of void mana created and sent towards the inner demonic worlds created powerful turbulence that hid the presence of secret rooms or rooms so small that our vibration and magical energy based senses easily missed. 

There, we found a total of six more additional Rank One Sentinels and about twenty more heavily destroyed sentinels that were beyond repair. 

Though we could not rebuild them, their corpses could be salvaged for spare parts and my crafters could then work through them to build additional tools for the sentinels. 

Hoyia naturally found it annoying that Gorkun held out on such important information, and she was upset that the golem did not trust us. But I understood that the golem wanted to keep some backup moves. If we tried anything funny, the golem could call on more of his brothers to join the fray. 

Gorkun worked quickly to reactivate the Six Rank One Sentinels, and introduced us to them. The six new Sentinels, Harkun, Merkun, Shinkun, Zhinkun, Eserkun, and Barkun were weaker than Gorkun, but these Rank One Sentinels were still around Level 100 in strength. But unlike Gorkun, they, as Rank One Sentinels, were asleep during the great betrayal by the Descendants.

There were many more Rank One to Rank Three Sentinels throughout the five Core Erasian Worlds. 

It was almost impossible to find the sentinels in a large area, especially when many of them were hidden in underground bunkers and under collapsed buildings. There would also be sentinels hidden within the various parts of the Five Erasian Core worlds, but these worlds were filled with people and many, many layers, so searching for them normally would have taken us way too long. So to find them, I placed all the additional nodes that I received at Level 275 on all the five Core Worlds.

I had hoped to keep the nodes, but alas, looking for the sentinels and adding them to the heretic’s strength was key to building these rebels into a viable counterweight to the Descendants.

***

About three months after we began observation and under pressure from the rebels’ constant harassment, Wa-Libra finally slipped. 

There were attacks on the Descendants on the fringes, and there was growing unhappiness within the Descendants. Murmurs of unhappiness emerged and some began to question Wa-Libra’s leadership.

The Descendants were more than happy to gnaw at each other, and so, Masa-na, one of the domain holders, confronted Lord Wa-Libra demanding answers.

"Lord Wa-Libra! These heretics are getting out of hand. My people are restless." Masa-na, a supposed mind-controlling domain holder, barged into Wa-Libra’s office and asked. "Even with my powers, they are asking for a strong response."

"Patience!" Wa-Libra countered, and visibly annoyed at Masa-na’s disrespect. But Masa-na was a peer, a domain holder, so Wa-Libra’s responses were more restrained. "Do they think I do not know about these gnawing pests? These heretics are meddling with our great plans! I will deal with them soon, Masa-na."

"Plans! Plans!" Masa-na stood his ground and argued back. "My people have been wondering whether these plans are even real, Lord Wa-Libra. You've been tight lipped on this for so long that we do not know what we are working towards!"

"They dare to doubt me? And you did not punish them?" Wa-Libra's aura flared in anger, and Masa-na took a step back. Though both were domain holders, Masa-na was much lower on the totem pole of power. 

"I- I will punish them later."

"See to it that they are punished!" Wa-Libra barked. 

"But enough with the secrecy, Lord Wa-Libra. We domain holders deserve to know what is planned, more than just a vague idea that we are channeling the faith of the Erasians to Lord Reviver! How do we know what we've done so far is even real? We do not see nor feel his presence so far from here! How much progress has Lord Reviver made?"

"You lack confidence, Masa-na?" 

Masa-na took another step back at Wa-Libra's anger, but the Descendant seemed confident. I theorized that Wa-Libra would not attack another Descendant domain holder, in order to show some semblance of unity. "I need assurance, Wa-Libra. Only when I believe, then my people will believe. Give me something real, Wa-Libra, and I will herd the flock to your desired command."

"Lord Reviver's flesh and body grows stronger." Wa-Libra said. "Feasting on Eras's flesh takes time, but Lord Reviver's mental and physical strength grows by the passing day. Every day a little more of the old one manifests itself."

"And this is real? Beyond just your words? Have you seen it?" Masa-na asked.

Wa-Libra's tentacles formed a circular shape, and a window made of void magic appeared. A window to the Demons' Prison. 

"Behold."

It almost seemed as if the entire world felt the growl of a sleeping creature. What we could see was only a sliver. A glimpse of the creature's body. It was massive, as if it was meant to devour planets altogether.

A power so intense that the entire structure trembled.

Even through the portal I felt an intense, oppressive power. The room felt like it was a ton heavier, and Masa-na's tentacles shook and flailed violently. Even Wa-Libra staggered slightly, as he struggled to withstand the weight of the Reviver. 

"It already resembles our ancestor!" Masa-na exclaimed in surprise, and then, once Wa-Libra closed the small window, the weaker domain holder prostrated in obedience. "Glory to the Reviver! May his return restore our place, and bring ruin to the old heathens!"

“Have I assuaged your doubts, Masa-na?”

“Yes!”

"Good. We do not have to wait long as the Reviver's strength grows. Tell your people to behave. As for the heretical fools, they will soon face our wrath. These old chunks of metal have grown overconfident. I will assume direct control, and will be hunting these heretics personally.”

Masa-na’s tentacles wobbled as a sign of obedience. “With your direct involvement, the problem will be swiftly dealt with!”

Masa-na’s sycophancy worked, and Wa-Libra’s tone was clearly pleased. “Good. Anything else?”

“No. I will remind my people that Lord Reviver’s return is not far away, and that I have seen his glory.”

A part of me struggled to comprehend how the Reviver would survive if it moved to the World Faith System. After all, from what Mozart and Bach described, Gods under the World Faith System died if they lost believers. 

Wouldn't the annihilation of the dwarves also kill the Reviver?

But thankfully, Wa-Libra's response answered everything.

"Good. Remind them that they do not have long to wait. Once Lord Reviver consumes enough of Eras's divinity, we won't even need the Erasians. With millions and billions of greater creatures designed to worship the Reviver, we will unleash the horde."

Masa-na continued to praise the Reviver. "Glory to the Reviver! May he restore us to our glory!"

But a part of me wondered why? Was there some mechanism that required them to leech the divinity of Eras?

Or was that process too slow, and it was much faster if they stole the divinity that way?

"How much time do we need?" Masa-na asked.

"I do not know for certain as only the Lord himself knows. Maybe decades, perhaps a century? The transformation of Lord Reviver may have many stages. I ask you to guide our people and tell them to just bear with it."

"Yes. Certainly!" The weaker domain holder was now a lot more obedient.