Tree of Aeons

Chapter 362. The Eye

Year 339 (continued)

The domain holders stood victorious in what was now nothing more than a field of rubble. There was chaos as their deaths ripped the threads of reality and tore out multiple large strands. 

It was a strange thing for us. Even for Lumoof, it felt as if the world itself mourned the death of so many. 

For Stella, though, it was horrifying. 

She would later say it felt as if the familiar voices of the void had suddenly turned silent. Quiet. It was too quiet and thus it was eerie. Eerie in a way made her feel that during that short hour, she felt as if she was the only one in the world. 

In a single defining moment, we ripped multiple threads out of that tapestry, and the world reeled. 

Stella described that 'fabric' of reality as the connection a world had with the void sea and the world beyond. The death of so many domain holders in a single strike caused the entire Library of Eras to seemingly freeze within the void sea as if it was temporarily dislodged from the void altogether. It lasted no more than an hour, but it was long enough that during this time, it felt as if the Library itself existed in its own plane of existence. 

Then, the world began to repair itself. 

The voices of the void began to return slowly. The world adjusted, and it spread outward. Like a ripple. Like mail in a bottle, carried by waves over the void sea. 

The leaders of the Descendants on the other worlds and also the Demon's prison, stirred. 

"Run!" Stella said in horror as we all felt the attention of a monster. We quickly warped away into the deepest part of the Library.

At that moment, a giant red eye appeared over the skies of the Library of Eras. A monstrous eye and eye of a creature. A red slit eye, streaked with black lines. 

The attention and the focus of a monster. 

It was not divine. Not yet. But it felt strong. Stronger than Wa-Libra. Stronger than anything we had ever faced. It was only for a moment, but the once blue and grey skies of the Library transformed and were replaced with an ominous brown and black. 

The dwarves who were on the surface were then attacked by horrific nightmares. The red eye glared and scanned the surface of the Library, but saw nothing. Found nothing.

Or so I thought.

The skies blinked. 

The red eye's gaze hovered throughout the Library of Eras, moving from segment to segment. It seemed as if it was searching, but I did not know what it was for. 

The dwarves were petrified by the sight of the massive red eye, and it horrified them. Overnight, hysteria emerged within the dwarves. Madness in those who were caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Regular dwarves could not stand the gaze of a creature of that strength.

Some called the red eye the herald of destruction.  The doom of the Erasian Worlds. The fall of Eras. But the death of so many Descendant domainholders left the fabric of the world temporarily damaged, and everyone, even those lower leveled, felt a profound sense of unease that would take weeks to fade. A sense of loss..  ṚἈ𝐍Ŏ𝔟Ëṥ

There was a gap when a domain holder died. A gap we felt the world try to adjust. 

My spying trees across the other Core Worlds watched the rest of the Descendants recoil. They were surprised. Shocked. 

There were even emergency meetings. Magical attempts to communicate with Wa-Libra. 

My trees, hidden within the various Descendant compounds over the four other Core Erasian worlds, were busy.

"Is Lord Reviver's transformation complete?" We eavesdropped on some of the Descendants' leaders on the Crucible, and the few magical domain holders, the high Oracles, frowned.

"It is too early. Lord Reviver's absorption of the divinity and also the faith of the dwarves should still need a hundred years!" said one of the Descendants' Oracles, identified by the DoDA of the Crucible of Eras as an approximately level 180 [Witch] named Wata-wa. 

There were still many other Descendants even on the Library of Eras. The attack on the domain holders took out thousands of descendants, but there were still many thousands more. Most of them were weaker. 

***

I needed to sow more chaos within the rest of the four worlds, and I wanted to amplify the inherent rifts within the Descendants.

One of the easiest ways was to exploit the differences between the five worlds. Descendant groups on each of the worlds had traditionally operated separately. Interactions happened between the leadership of the Descendants, but amongst the lower leveled, each Descendant group hardly knew people from the other worlds. 

Travel wais almost non-existent, even though there were no actual restrictions for Descendants to move from one world to another. 

But not anymore. 

The Descendants fled the Library of Eras in large numbers, and chaos was a great enabler of activity.

"There's more movement from the Library of Eras to the other worlds!" Descendants, now fearing for their lives, naturally fled the Library of Eras. Their logic was fairly simple.

The Erasian Dwarves and the Sentinels didn't have access to abilities to travel to the other worlds. So, the Descendants believed that opponent that was behind the deaths of the Descendants would be restricted to the Library of Eras.

"What happened?" One of the ruling lords of the Crucible of Eras, a high priest named Zaza-ha, demanded. According to the DoDA equivalent on the Crucible of Eras, Zaza-ha was also a domain holder, but exact details on his ability was unknown. There were internal reports that he was some kind of water-void magical battlemage of some sort, but there was hardly any supporting evidence. 

"No one knows! The refugee Descendants were not at the Libran Council, but all they knew was that there was a massive explosion, and no one escaped! Next thing they knew, all the Descendant's leaders were dead! A few that returned to the site of the ruins only found a massive crater and signs of incredible battle!" His assistant countered. 

"Impossible. Those a few steps closer to the Lord Reviver do not die in an accident like this! We must make a visit to the Library of Eras and get to the bottom of this!" 

Similar conversations occurred among the Descendants on all the other Erasian Core worlds.

Yet, on a larger level, we observed no difference in how the Demons behaved. It led us to conclude that the mechanism that controlled Demon Kings, Demon Mothers, and the Demon Prison to be independent of each other. 

Likely, as something the original demons created. 

So, as Descendants from the Library escaped, new Descendants arrived from the other four worlds to investigate the entire event. 

Here, we exploited a vulnerability. The Descendants themselves did not maintain records or name registers and knew only their own immediate circle of allies and acquaintances. On the Library of Eras, we found and cornered a weaker Descendant, and Ally, my Aeonic Infestor Champion, thus snuck and possessed the Descendant. It was made easier by my research into the flesh and soul of the Descendant Kha-ha and a few other Descendants that we'd captured along the way. That understanding allowed Ally to overcome their soul's quirks and take over.

It was also a sweet, sweet joy that one of my Infestors possessed the flesh of a clearly 'spliced' creature's soul. 

Ally, who now possessed Munna-Fa, gained access to the Descendant's knowledge, and through Munna-Fa's stored memories, we learned a version of the history from the Descendants. 

***

Instead, in the Descendants' own ancient oral history, the Ravenous itself, during the war against the Old Gods, created two strains of minions. 

The flesh strain and the mind strain. 

First, it created spawnlings based on aspects of itself. The demons were thus created from this strain, his all consuming flesh, as a type of beast who desired to devour and turn the world into more of itself.

Many types of demons thus existed, spawned as variations of the flesh strain. These monsters were designed to be self-replicating, largely independent, and could evolve according to the threat of the time, based on some inherent structure and command within the spiritual structure. 

In the earliest versions, these Ravenous Spawns were just powerful demonic monsters, and most of these were annihilated during the war between the Old Gods. The old gods, who still possessed many different means to counter powerful monsters, easily defeated them. 

Then, in order to ensure that aspects of its will and desire persisted, Ravenous also created mind strains. Spiritual parasites that possessed living beings or snuck into living creatures to be amongst them, in a process not unlike demonic possession. 

The Descendants thus came from one such strain, a type of spiritual enslaver that dominated the possessed body and could even multiply with their possessed flesh. They remained hidden within the Wadran people, aided by the fact that Wadra himself was a fading god with little ability or interest to monitor the corruption within his people. 

Multiple tens of thousands of years ago, the possessed Wadrans and Wadra came to seek Eras's aid to preserve Wadra. Thus, Eras sought to build the structure that came to be known as the Demonic Prison.

It was originally meant to be a stasis field to ensure Wadra's preservation, in hopes that some day, the collective [System] evolved to the point that Wadra could survive with little faith. 

But that did not happen. The Descendants managed to sabotage the plan and with the aid of powerful Descendants, they trapped Eras within the Stasis Field and began to siphon his divinity. With Eras's stolen divinity, they began to supercharge their plan. 

To cause one of their own leaders to ascend to be the new Ravenous. 

But it was a plan that would take years, decades and eons. Divinity was a power that had to be molded gently and slowly, through the reshaping of hearts and minds. 

So, to buy time and to apply pressure on the other gods, the flesh strain continued to attack the known worlds. Over the years, the leaders managed to improve the flesh strain demons with a portion of Eras's corrupted divinity and the spiritual energies of the void sun. 

As the realms drifted further and further from each other, the Old Gods found it harder to reinforce the faraway worlds, and this made it easier for the flesh strain demons to capture and destroy the worlds. 

Tens of thousands of years later, their leaders predicted that Reviver's ascension was no more than a century or two away from completion. He had grown larger and had now taken a striking resemblance to the Primal Ravenous' original form.

A giant world-eating leviathan. 

Once it was fully grown, it would finally be able to fully devour the demon's prison and unleash its full strength on their ancient enemies beyond. 

A leviathan that would swim through the void sea and devour its foes.

***

The domain holders gathered to digest the information. Though the three domain holders were far away on the Library of Eras, through my clones and nodes, we were able to magically meet for a 'dream-meeting'. 

"There's a world-eating giant worm growing on the Demon's Prison. Once it reaches full strength, it will eat the demon prison, digest what remains of Eras, and gain even more power." Lumoof recited the findings within our shared awareness. 

"We have a hundred years. Doesn't feel like a disaster. More like a train that we can see coming." Stella said with a laugh. "Get Aiva, Hawa, and Neira to give us bigger bombs and blow that thing up before it gets there." 

Alka grinned. "Exactly what I'm thinking. This Worm-god isn't mature yet. It should still be vulnerable to our attacks. The crippling of the faith on the Library of Eras should also slow down the process and buy us time." 

"That's theoretical." My avatar answered. "We have no way of measuring faith, and this Reviver's development state is entirely the statement from one source. A captured Descendant. We do not know if the domain holders have been entirely truthful to the rest of their flock."

"Whether theoretical or not doesn't quite matter." Alka pushed. "We must blow that worm into bits. One way or another, someday sooner or later, we know that the worm is real, and that worm comes for us. We push for it and attack once we are ready. The faster we hit it, the weaker that worm is. The longer we wait, the more divinity it steals, and the stronger it becomes."

"Did our captured Descendant reveal any insights into the faith mechanics and how the divinity was stolen?" Hoyia asked in our dream meeting.

"The Descendants' belief in the faith mechanics is not too different from what we know. I will continue to interrogate Ally to pry deeper into his memories."

"Perhaps capture a few more Descendants with other specialties?" Hoyia asked.

"Will give that a try."