Tree of Aeons

Chapter 365.2 Hero II

Year 366

Khefri

Threeworlds

Khefri walked the vibrant streets of the City around the Great Pyramids of Threeworlds. The three nations of the humans, scorpionoids, and centaurs had transitioned from an enforced peace over hundreds of years to what these days felt like genuine peace. In the major metropolitan cities, known these days as the Four Great Capitals of Threeworlds, people from all the three major races could be found in relatively large numbers. 

Many of those who had fought great wars with each other, survivors of the times when the humans used to march armies of knights and mages to the borders of the Centaur or the Scorpinoids or when Centaur warbands used to raid the border towns.

Half of them were buried or now encased in urns, and another half felt the weight of age grind their bones and weathered their joints. 

The City of the Great Pyramids. Crawling with centaurs and scorpionoids haggling over goods and trading. More than a few security officials watched nervously. Racial tensions could still easily flare up, and small skirmishes still occurred.

Gang wars. Small battles. All of that never went away.

But in the minds of everyone throughout the world, what was a centennial occurrence now felt impossible. The era of the Great racial wars was over, because there was a bigger force. 

Every centaur, human, or scorpionoid that visited Magisar and gazed upon the giant tree that imprisoned their seemingly divine ruler would know that there was a power beyond the Three. If anything, the Order became a uniting force, if only out of the sheer need for the natives to oppose the Order. 

Centaurs, Scorpionoids, and Humans whispered in not-so-secret corridors of power, regurgitating words of unity in different ways, such that the Order couldn't push them around and impose unnecessary demands. 

In the minds of the locals, the Order was an extractive entity. The Order were forever the imperial colonialists that colonized new worlds and then extracted their wealths. Demands such as constructions and crafts. Threeworlds was one of the Order's Core Worlds, along with Mountainworld and Treehome, and as such, these were worlds with significant industrial output. 

To the locals, the Order's demands for weapons was nothing more than the Order using one world's resources to expand to other worlds. More than once, Khefri was invited to such meetings where agents of the 'United Threeworld' tried to gauge her loyalties. 

It was so silly, and she now understood why Aeon said that his greatest desire is to sleep. 

She walked through the city of the Great Pyramid, and Zhaanpu was just as unbothered. 

"Schemers must scheme, and people with political power like these will imagine enemies even when there are none." Zhaanpu said. "The Order already found a few suitable worlds to be our new home."

"Our?" Khefri said. She had heard that the Order submitted a list of worlds of the faraway periphery. At first, the Order submitted a list of purely desert worlds, but this was rejected. This time, many of these worlds were filled with deserts, with a decent amount of natural moisture. 

Cities were built around oases and rivers. Not in deserts. 

"Ah. I mean, the scorpionoids. A group of pioneers have already started constructing smaller towns in a few different worlds." 

Khefri blinked. "I had not realized."

"It matters little in the short term, at least in the larger scheme of things. For now. But it will matter a lot for us in the future. Of course, what this means is that I have a part in the wars to come." Zhaanpu laughed, and it felt genuine. 

"The soldiers?" Khefri recalled there was a battalion of warriors permanently a part of the Order's war machine. A contribution to the war effort and now stationed in a faraway world. The tales when they returned would be made into stories. More than one retired warrior of the Order found a second life as a storyteller. "Is that the price?"

It was to weave tales of faraway worlds when they lived it. 

"Ah. The soldiers are one thing. But these mostly empty worlds are a gift. But a gift is a price most heavy, because now I have to wage war on his behalf. As will many others like me." Ṙ𝘈ɴőΒËṦ

It annoyed Khefri on some level, because she couldn't visit these faraway worlds without Lumoof. The heroes were made with so much star mana that they couldn't use rift gates and void portals. 

In the early days, that felt like a non-issue. Lumoof was easily reached, and the number of worlds they could visit was rather small. But these days, she felt trapped. Without Lumoof around, she could only visit worlds with node trees or clones. 

On the other hand, Zhaanpu's wooden Level 100 avatar could visit so many worlds with the far more accessible network of riftgates, or request the assistance of one of the void mages. 

***

Aeon

It was usually hard to tell whether the White Statue was happy. His servants and philosopher-advisors often said that the White Statue's thoughts were not for men to comprehend. After all, a stone's mind worked very differently from the men of the White Statue. 

The White Statue though, clearly didn't enjoy fighting. Especially fighting lesser demons.

"There is no virtue in fighting weaker foes." He said to his soldiers. "But I do it because it is virtuous to protect the weaker worlds." 

The White Statue was assigned to fight, as he requested, on four nearby worlds. A group of void mages and Order operatives stood to support his movements.

His real enemy, the demon king, came eventually. 

A foe he fought many times on his homeworld. 

The Order watched. A dozen of Level 140s stood nearby to observe the White Statue glow and turn into a giant and try to wrestle a demon king into submission. The White Statue lost the first battle, the statue cracked and turned into dust.

But the White Statue was more of a collection, his soul was split across his statues, and another nearby statue grew to replace the destroyed one. 

A second battle. The second statue was just as strong as the first, but the demon king was already battered in the battle. They traded punches, and the second statue lost as well. But a third statue emerged to continue the fight, somehow as fresh as the first. 

The demon king lost this time around, and interestingly, the demon king wanted to detonate itself. But the White Statue responded with a massive kick and sent the core flying, and the exploding core detonated midair, far from everyone. 

"I must apologize for that show." The White Statue commented. "The creature was a little more hardy than I expected."

"No matter, with each victory you will grow stronger." I said.

"Indeed." I wondered how many statues could he resurrect. Was there a limit? 

"How soon can we redeploy your statues to the other worlds? There are demon kings there as well."

"Now. Let's not wait." 

***

Mages and starwatchers across the thousands of realms suddenly realized how a curtain hid an entire section of the sky. Stars were now seen where there was once none.

The void sea was a realm in between realms, but it also behaved like the waters of a lake. It deflected and distorted worlds and the presence emitted by those faraway worlds. The reality barrier of each realm was like a lens, a screen. It simulated, but it also partially reflected. 

On the world of the Five Core Erasian worlds, many took the opportunity to admire the changed night sky and gazed at the tens of thousands of new stars in wonder. A space when there was none.

Ally's propaganda went into full swing, with the aid of the local dwarven populace. 

"The Descendants hid the presence of the other worlds from us for ages! Eons! Ever since the Construction of the Six Rings, it was nothing more than a ruse!" A dwarven man took to the stage in one of many local shows. "They lied to us!"

Many dwarves were still affected by their lies and still believed that the Descendants guided them to a good path. 

But now the Descendants themselves were under fire. Magical crystals containing recordings of Ally's interview with the dwarves circulated, to great chaos and whispers. Rumors moved so quickly from taverns to taverns that the Department of Descendant Affairs could not quite keep up. 

The Department of Descendant Affairs tolerated some amount of suspicion as long as that did not result in any overt action or statement against the Descendants. But those days felt like ages ago, and just two to three years since, the tensions between the Descendants and the native dwarves boiled under the surface.

The Descendants were heavily outnumbered, but the Descendants were much stronger, and they had domain holders.

Publicly they rubbished claims of a plot by Wa-Libra. That the destruction of the Descendants' leadership on the Library of Eras was nothing more than a lie. In private, the domainholders grew exceptionally paranoid and surrounded themselves with loyalists. 

They also moved carefully and suspected any dwarf or unseen Descendant as a potential enemy. 

Stella loved it. 

We had already raided Wa-Libra's personal treasury, and within it were an array of void weapons that he once used. Then, with the help of shapeshifting magic, Stella transformed into a Descendant resembling the now deceased Wa-Libra. 

A shapeshifting and illusion magic would fail if it interacted with any other strong magics, but given our overwhelming strength, it would be hard for them to replicate and assume anything other than Wa-Libra lived. 

Ally and Stella were going to absolutely make it seem as if Wa-Libra lived, and use his good name to assassinate the other Descendant Domain holders. 

***

"How? Who are you?" The Descendant declared and tried to activate an array of magical artifacts. An anti-magic spear slammed into them, and their powers vanished before they could activate. The Descendant was one of the Lord Commanders of the Department of Descendant Affairs, Forge of Eras Division.

His tentacles flared and he screamed, and yet none of it got through the walls. Void magic was exceptional at isolating spaces from one another.

"I am not an easy one to kill." He countered, realizing his calls for aid did not work. The creature activated his abilities, but before he did, hundreds of voidlings swarmed the Descendant and drained him of his magical energies. 

"So you say." Stella declared, with a voice that mimicked the dead Wa-Libra.

"You are a traitor!" The Lord Commander yelled.

"Traitor?" Stella laughed. "The Ravenous One will feast on everything. What makes you think you will be spared?"

We needed to strike fear into the domain holders. We wanted the rumors of Wa-Libra's presence to  circulate. One or two murders were not enough. We needed to make it seem as if Wa-Libra was running about, killing key individuals. 

One or two deaths were a coincidence. Multiple deaths was clearly a conspiracy.

The Lord Commander struggled, and even though he was restrained by a swarm of small voidlings, he still mustered a small resistance and managed to activate a blend of void magic and his own fire magic. 

But they all bounced off Stella's void shields, and with a powerful thrust, a spear pierced the Descendant's head and injected large quantities of hostile void mana. She spent a whole two weeks studying our own records of Wa-Libra's personality and attacks, just so we could replicate some of his abilities. 

Though Descendants were friendly and compatible with void energies, large quantities of void energies, laced with their owner's hostile intent, were still extremely corrosive. They spread through the Descendant's flesh, and the flesh began to turn into a mixture of rot and decay.

The creature tried to scream once more.

But this time, death put an end to his voice.

The body collapsed, stained by large quantities of void mana.

"I'm not used to fighting like how he did." Stella said through our shared connection once the Descendant died. "It is so awkward." 

"But is it not fun, mistress?" Ally, in possession of another recently assassinated Descendant, stolen from the Crucible of Eras, whispered. She took out a whip, apparently one of Wa-Libra's favourites and left whipping marks on the mutated corpse. 

"I'd rather not sully the dead." Stella said, but with how twisted the corpse was, she realized it was hypocritical.

"Subterfuge often requires more unconventional movements." 

"Let's leave." 

***

One of the murdered Descendant's servants screamed when they walked into the dead creature's room and more came. Soon, the entire place was crowded with investigators, some of them the leaders of the Descendants. 

"Void magic poisoning. Clean strike. Whip marks." The investigators pointed and looked around. They picked up things. 

"What was his level?" Divine Lord Ghul-Dah, overlord of the Forge of Eras squatted and his jellyfish flipped through the dead corpse's body. There were many whip marks, but the cause of death was clear. 

A single void-infused spear strike. 

"Somewhere around Level 110." Ghul-dah's assistant responded. "That was about 12 years ago during the last major Descendant Census. As one of the Lord Commanders of the DoDA, he is perhaps one of the most involved in the investigations." 

"And yet here he is, murdered in his own bedroom. Whoever is doing this wants us to know they can." Ghul-dah said. 

"Is it really Wa-Libra? The former divine lord of the Library is a known void master and is one of the three great void domain holders." The assistant flipped through the flesh. 

Ghul-dah's eyes squinted, and his tentacles made movements to call on a spell.

A magical window appeared. 

"Zam-Zaqa." Ghul-dah said. "As one of Wa-Libra's peers in the ways of void magic, come, how familiar are you with his void energies?"

"Eh. Very." Zam-Zaqa answered.

"I will temporarily uplift the travel embargo, just for you. I have a murder that I need you to solve. Someone murdered one of my people and it looks like an attempt to imitate Wa-Libra's ways. I need to know whether we are really dealing with Wa-Libra, or something else." Ghul-dah said.

"You have suspicions, do you not?" Zam-Zaqa said.

"Of course. I dislike the creature as much as anyone else, but the Wa-Libra I know does not have the mind for such a scheme. He is too foolish." 

Zam-Zaqa laughed. "I will be there."