Tree of Aeons

Chapter 364.5 Destroyed Barrier

Year 343

Lumoof stood close to the edges of Sun-Rings' inner surface. The barrier loomed in front of us, a thick wall of darkness that hid all that was behind it. To most laypeople, the barrier was nothing more than a sheet of black. 

To Lumoof, we saw magical lines crisscrossing the structure, hidden underneath thick void energies. 

To Stella, the barrier was a thick layer of black oil. Bubbling. Moving. Shifting. And for her, somewhat transparent. She could see through it, though whatever she saw was clearly distorted by the thickness of that void. It bubbled and wobbled, and sometimes, it got so thick that she didn’t trust whatever we saw. 

This was a decision we’d postponed for years. Decades. Maybe, a part of me remembered that there was no reason to rush. Thousands of worlds faced centuries of demonic attack. 

I frequently asked myself, I have waited so long, what was a few more decades?

But I knew in what remained of my fragmented hearts that we could not wait forever. My soul that now lived in part and in its entirety, duplicated across all my clones, did not want to wait for too long.

The decades passed, and armies were built. The collective will of all my trees and forests, the voices of the creatures who lived in them. The people, my warriors, those who joined the cause all wanted it. 

They wanted to, because they were mortals. They lived in the normal time frames. 

I had made them wait decades. For some, they'd waited centuries. 

But it was ultimately time. We have nursed this seed long enough. 

Each day, through Lumoof, we are reminded of the growing leviathan. The sight of that leviathan in the sky overhead, monstrous that it could be seen even on the Erasian worlds. Each passing day it absorbed a little more from everything. The faith of the Erasians. The thickness of the void. The magic of everything else. 

We did not want that worm to grow even more. Each day we delayed, each moment we waited, the closer the giant worm would grow to its full size. 

The benefit of interfering with that gigantic creature's development outweighed all the disadvantages. 

The Hawan Shieldbreaker rested on my avatar’s palm, and we felt it click at our thoughts. 

The object swirled, as the outer shell moved and unfurled itself like a blooming flower. A single golden sphere shone through the gaps. A small but incredibly brilliant light that the entire Sun-Ring was bathed in a surreal golden glow.

None of us had ever seen the Sun-Rings in shades of gold, and it was beautiful. 

My attention, however, refocused on the object in Lumoof's arm. I sensed within that small light, the combined voice and will of trillions of prayers, condensed into a tiny golden sun. It was as if the world's space and reality bent in order to allow such a thing to even exist. All of those thoughts and prayers condensed by divine power into such a small thing. 

This was power.

It jolted the Sun-Rings, as if the sphere reminded the world and everything around it that it existed. 

A wobble spread through the entirety of the Sun-Ring. A quake shook, and we felt the various steel alloys throughout the Sun-Rings twist and contort from the power.  ȒÅɴΟꞖË𝒮

“There is no turning back.” Lumoof said, as the entire Sun-Rings shook some more. Cracks emerged on the Sun-Ring as the Hawan Shieldbreaker twisted space and magic around us. 

Even though the weapon was still in our hands and not yet directed at the demon's void barrier, the barrier still twisted. We saw the waves on the surface of the void barrier, as if a strong wind was blowing downwards at a pool of water. For the human part of me, it resembled the sea when a helicopter got close to the surface.

"Go." Lumoof declared instinctively, and the Shieldbreaker understood. It flew outward like a streak of light that blinded the skies. Like a giant meteor of light, it propelled itself towards the demon's barrier with divine power. "The demons will hide no more."

So much power that the once dark skies turned bright.

Across the hundreds of nearby worlds, everyone saw a beam of light that rushed through the sky.

The beam flew the massive distances of the void sea and then slammed into the demon's great void barrier. The barrier that kept the true demons apart from the rest of us.

The barrier that shrouded their plot in secrecy.

Today, it would all come to light.

The spear of light touched the void barrier.

At that moment, in the thousands of worlds that were adjacent to the void barrier, they all saw a massive illusion. 

Or mayhaps, a reality masked as an illusion.

Or an illusion turned real.

The dreams and faith of millions and billions turned into a knight god holding a spear. The massive golden god held up a spear of divine gold pierced the air. An illusion that replicated itself over a thousand worlds, for everyone that looked, it seemed as if it happened right above them, even though it occurred on the other side of the void sea.

In worlds everywhere, the night turned to day, and everyone who looked up saw a titanic golden knight thrust a glowing sunbeam at the wall of darkness.

A thrust.

All the worlds that saw felt it together and all at once.

The attack of a god.

Hawa's energies were contained into a single golden ray. 

It pierced the sky and left a puncture.

From a tiny gap, a hole no smaller than a mote, it multiplied then spread thousands of golden lines throughout the black sky, and the thousands of golden lines turned the fluid void barrier into a glass. 

Then it broke.

Loudly. 

A portion of the skies shattered.

A thousand worlds heard and felt the cracking of the heavens. 

Where it was once dark and empty, thousands of stars now came into view. Where there was once a sea of emptiness, blocked by the void barrier, now, there were stars and worlds. Everyone looked up, and could see new worlds.

What was hidden for aeons was removed. 

If there were people who did not believe in gods, many would reassess their thoughts and opinions. Everyone with preconceived notions of power had their understanding of that power broken.

Even me.

Could I deploy that level of power?

Maybe. Someday. But not yet. 

As the wall that once stood crumbled, what came next was the rush of void mana. 

Void mana rushed out of the demonic worlds like a broken dam. It rushed into the rest of the void sea, like floodwaters when the levee and flood barriers finally gave way. 

The rift gates, previously gathering void mana into small trickles, were flooded with void mana. This supercharged their void crystals, and the rift gates all roused together. The surge of void mana activated their innate functionalities, and the void pathways that connected the demon worlds and the unconquered worlds solidified. 

New, unexpected rift gates opened on thousands of worlds, so quickly that even the demons themselves were not prepared. But on these thousands of demon worlds, the idling demons reacted to the presence of active rift gates by sheer instinct. They marched and moved to the rift gates and fulfilled their innate command. 

They march!

Invade!

Prepare their target worlds for conquest!

Regular demons and demonic champions flooded out of them, even though their demon kings were still gestating within their planetary cores. Demonic hellhounds, small imps, demonic golems and worms marched through the rift gates.

Had it been any other time before the Order, these waves of tens of millions of demonic hellhounds and golems, spread across thousands of worlds, would have led to death and destruction. 

Had it been any other time, these rifts would have been the harbingers of destruction.

It would have led to deaths of living beings, by the millions, and likely billions.

Rift gates of widespread doom.

But not today.

Across the thousand worlds, the domain holders raised their weapons. Rallied the armies. 

The Order had prepared for this day for decades. Standing armies and militia trained for years. From the Order itself, more than a million strong, and from outside of the Order and from the various natives, a few million more. 

Decently equipped and led by high level commanders drilled and planned for this day so many times that they'd seen it in their dreams. Armies we'd funded and built, finally ready to execute the command they'd spent years of training and preparation.

Just like the demons rushed to march through the rift gates, our armies rushed to march through repurposed rift gates and void portals. Void mages, their abilities now amplified by the significantly higher ambient void mana, found it easier to send forces further and faster away.

They would likely never experience this surge of void mana ever again, and many void mages would forever chase that sensation of having so much void energies around their fingertips.

For every rift gate that they could find, the Order's void mages ensured that there were at least a squad, a battalion of mid tier soldiers there to suppress the demons. 

Though thousands of worlds faced demons unexpectedly, there were armies on thousands of worlds ready to face them.

But there on the cracked Sun-Rings, Lumoof stood and watched. When the void barrier crumbled, there was a lull. As if the world and the system itself struggled to comprehend what happened. 

The system needed time. The system needed to judge. 

Then, it came like a wave. Both myself and Lumoof felt a surge of levels. 

[You earned the title : The Tree That Broke the Wall].

[You have gained 10 levels. You are now Level 291]

[Additional domain abilities unlocked]

[You’ve unlocked the Domain Ability : Microflora Biome] 

[Microflora grants the ability to create extremely small plants that can latch onto living beings and non-living beings, while still passively connected to your extended root network. These microflora can function as parasites, as synergistic plants, as a disease, or a combination thereof. Microflora can also attach onto flying or swimming creatures or objects and also float as semi-living plants within shallow waters and liquids. Microfloras can be engineered to survive environments that your main body can survive in. The powers of the Microflora is dependent on the total number of microflora that infest or latch on the same object or living being and also its surrounding biome. Microfloras also release spores to spawn new microflora] 

[You gained one additional clone slot and five new node trees] 

***

From the bridge of Gantreethor, Admiral Nulven watched the chaos below. Gantreethor's first independent void travel through the demonic pathways was successful, and now they were stationed on one of the worlds along the Neiran periphery.

The news came quickly, as their own magical sensors lit up at the sight of activated void pathways. 

The day of the foretold invasion.

“The demons are coming!” 

Down below, natives came to fight with the Order's forces. The sight of Gantreethor looming over the battlefield must have lifted their mood, because Nulven noticed some squadrons of the natives charging into battle as if they believed themselves to be invincible. 

Fools. 

Or glory seekers.

Because, if they didn't chase glory now, then when?

Down below, the heavy beetles formed walls and supported the order's elites, their fighting forces brought a swift destruction to the flood of demons. It was as if the waters had met an impenetrable wall. What were low level demonic hounds against the might of gigantic beetles that are equivalent to Level 50 to Level 60 monsters?

It was no less than a levee that would not budge. The waves of demons tried and tried again to break through, but the Order pushed back.

"Squad twenty two reached the rift!" An officer shouted. He didn't need to. Nulven noticed the squad with three level 100s punching through the flood of demons easily. This part where all they had to fight were low and mid level demons didn't challenge them.

"Begin the operation to close the rift gates on the other side." An officer said. 

***

The presence of domain holders made the demons laughably pathetic, and for people like Lausanne, their primary challenge was not actually fighting the demons. 

She spent more time travelling, than fighting. Armies of demons didn't last more than a few blows. Her single ray of star mana could level armies. 

But the vast distances of large worlds and the great void sea? That required travel time.

"Are you ready?" She asked her paired void mage, she tried her best to hold back her impatience. There were more worlds to reinforce. The void mage was already exhausted, so another came to help her. They traded places, as Lausanne prepared to move some more. She reset her mana back to normal mana to prepare for void travel.

The rest of the natives and the Order's operatives mopped up the demons and activated a set of artifacts designed to interfere with the rift gates. Some of them would then step through to the other side and steal the rift gates. 

"Ten minutes, milady." The younger void mage said. Even though the air thrummed with void mana, there was a limit to how quickly the void mages could act. How far they could go. Basic safety procedures, especially for void travel, still needed to be fulfilled. 

Lausanne, Roon, Alka, and the various domain holders hopped from world to world, and they were like superweapons, destroying waves of demons after demons.

Thousands and millions of small fry were nothing but a chore. 

Bit by bit, over a period of two months, the Order arrested the tide of demons, closed the rift gates, and the flood came to an end.

Now, our attention focused on the dense void energies surrounding the demon's prison and the Erasian Core worlds.

Like an ice peak with its ice cap removed, we could now see the truth of the demon's prison and the black sun. 

We saw a gigantic worm with heads on both sides sprawled and curled around the demon's prison, like a snake coiled around a ball. 

But it was something mere mortals should not attempt to see. Thousands of those on the Erasian Worlds looked up and collapsed. Thousands if not millions fainted, just because they were looking up and staring at the black sun's gigantic orbital planet. 

Even the Descendants shivered at the sight of their so-called god.

[ You have seen the flesh of the Ravenous Reborn. Primal Horror effect has been blocked by your domain ]

[ You have seen the flesh of the Ravenous Reborn. Primal Curse effect has been blocked by your domain ]

[ You have seen the flesh of the Ravenous Reborn. Weaken effect has been blocked by your domain ]

[ Tree of Aeons will be on break for a month. I'm still writing but I want more time to work on the final few chapters. THanks]