Void Sprout

Year 215 (continued)

“The entire pit was captured?” Chung asked as my vines have captured the trees. We’ve figured out how to make some bioluminescent plants, which lit up the path, and made it easier for us to defend the pits from the demonic assaults. 

“Only the core chamber is unclaimed.” Beetles,  with adapted legs meant for walking up and down vertical trees, also served as my defenders here. 

“Damn. If Ken could see this. This is hella beautiful if it wasn’t a journey to the death.” Then Chung slapped himself. “Choi! Shouldn’t have said that.” 

Prabu smirked. “It shouldn’t be that hard?”

“Initial data suggests its’ slightly weaker than a demon king, but still significantly stronger than a champion. Seems to be the leftover husk of a demon king, or at least, a part of it was the demon king..”

I could technically teleport them down to the edge of my vines, but I didn’t want to reveal that part of my abilities, so they made the journey riding on Lumoof’s carriage of vines. 

As the heroes approached the core, Stella and my sensors began to detect some movement.

“Something’s happening to the astral paths, and I’m detecting some magical pulse from the demon.” 

It was a momentary magical surge that quickly subsided. Then the demon repeated it again. And then it got stronger, and stronger. 

“What’s that?” Stella asked, her eyes peeled to the stars above.

“I’ve got no idea.” It felt like a warning beacon. Or an alert beacon, meant to alert the demons that it is under attack. “But it sounds like we may have company.”

There was still nothing in the astral paths. No movement. 

Lumoof and the heroes approached the core, and found the demon mother coiled up with the core. 

“Well, that is our opponent.” Lumoof introduced, and the heroes quickly got ready. The demon mother, at that moment, abruptly shrunk its size and hid within the core.

“Uh, where is it going-”

“I think it can see your star mana and is hiding from you.” Edna responded, and knows you are here to get it, but Lumoof just laughed. “It knows that you won’t destroy the core, so it’s using the core as a shield.”

“Oh, I think you can leave this hide-and-seek to me.” My avatar jumped to the core, and then, my roots surged out. My roots and vines spread out, and the demon mother was no larger than a small cow, attacked my vines. It was strong, for sure, but destroying my vines revealed it’s location. 

The demon was indiscriminate and happily attacked the core, but this close, I felt a rough, hazy presence touching on my avatar’s will, it called to us. It was groggy, as if it’s been long asleep or unconscious. 

Something pulled it back. 

“Follow the colored vines, and it’ll lead to the demon.”

The heroes approached the core. Meanwhile, through Lumoof, my vines flooded the holes of the core and attempted to slow down the demon mother’s movement. It could easily cut through my vines.

After a few minutes of hiding, it soon realised its initial plan to escape or hide within the core wasn’t going to work because the heroes eventually caught up and attacked it. 

The demon fought the heroes within the core for a short few minutes, and found itself outmatched. The heroes landed a few hits, but frankly, they held back because they didn’t want to damage the core. Yet, it was clear that the heroes would win if it remained within the core.

So, rather than remain in the core, the demon flared it’s magic, burnt through my vines, and then rushed out of the core. I tried my best to delay it, but it still managed to blast through them after a few hits.

“Chase after it!”

That flaring of energy seemed to mark something else as well, as Stella immediately noticed something unusual was happening. 

“Aeon, something’s coming! I’ll do my best to delay it. I need you to send more void mages over to me right now.” She immediately barked orders as a group of void mages on standby immediately jumped to action, and I sent them through my clone. 

The demon rushed up the pits, and I tried my best to block it, and covered the pits with thick walls of wood and trees. It heated up like a shining, burning missile and blasted through my attempts to delay it.

The heroes and everyone else gave chase, and fired attacks. “Just attack it, don’t worry if you land a hit on the walls or anything. I can always fix the trees later!’ 

Each attack weakened the demon mother, but it moved with speed equal to the demon king, and dodged most of the heroes’ and my domain holder’s attacks.

At that moment, Lumoof immediately asked. “Should I stay in to secure the core, or go after it?”

“Go after it. My vines and roots can reach here, let me deal with it for now. I don’t think I’ll need my full strength here.” 

“Got it.” Lumoof immediately darted after the heroes and my three domain holders. My domain holders were slower than the heroes, but Prabu had used a magical acceleration ability to pull them up so that they could keep up.

Chung launched volleys after volleys of homing magical arrows at the demon mother, and this was when I saw ‘phase-out’ and vanish momentarily, before appearing a short distance ahead. 

“Great. Just great.” Chung charged another shot while he flew up the pit after the demon mother.

“There was an invisible demon before this.” Prabu quipped while he charged a star-mana powered homing fireball. At the hero’s level, the fireball resembled an actual neutron star, rather than a ball of fire. 

The demon mother took a few hits, and then, it flared a magical energy. 

***

Up on the surface, Stella immediately deployed a wide array of void-mana equipment, and started to channel it. I felt her void mana spread through the skies above, and seemed to be pushing against something.

There was something coming, that only she and her void mages could see. “Aeon. Void mana batteries, I need more!” She yelled and my vines wrapped around her and her void mages. This linked her to the void batteries back home.

My clones and my roots essentially functioned as cables, linking them to the stored mana batteries back home. I felt huge quantities of void mana travel through our linked bodies. 

The skies darkened, and I saw strange explosions in the skies above. Then, I saw a flickering ‘astral path’. It flickered momentarily, and a burst of light travelled through the path. It vanished just as quickly.

“Ugh.” Stella winced, and I felt her magical energy destabilise. “We’ll have company, I couldn’t stop some of them.” 

Stella had been working on ‘interfering’ with rifts for the longest time, and even then, it wasn’t perfect. Rifts opened in the skies, and then, strange black demons emerged from them. I could tell these were mini-demon kings, stronger than champions. They charged at Stella and my void mages.  

[Guardian Treants], and an army of beetles emerged around my clone tree. My artificial minds quickly got to work. “Protect the void mages. It’s trying to undo their interference.”

Horns and my other artificial-mind-powered beetles led the defense, while I created a wall around my void mages. I couldn’t block them from the sky, as that would prevent them from doing their part of battling the rift. 

A few of my higher leveled Valthorns also joined the fight on the surface. These were my level 120s to 140s, those who aimed for the domain. 

A battle raged on the surface, as the defenders destroyed the black-demons. 

“Oh dear. Something big is coming.” Stella said, as I felt her and all her void mages expend all of their energy. Their battle was one I couldn’t see, but it was something called a ‘void shield’, that attempted to use void mana to ‘shield’ a world from rifts. 

Still, she did her best, and pushed. I was very surprised by how much void mana she had within her, even without the void batteries. 

Then the skies cracked, like a glass shattered, and I saw that same black blob from before. The ‘glass’ attempted to return, and fix the shattered sky-

And the demon mother surged out of the pits, and bathed in the strange glow of the black blob. 

A black droplet from the blob. 

Stella winced. “Not gonna let that happen.” To me, it looked like a piece of glass sheared through the drop, and a bit of it disintegrated. Yet, that very same strike sent a huge jolt of pain through Stella. She bit her lips, and then pushed again. “More.”

She pulled more void mana through the roots, and I saw that droplet shear in half in an invisible strike. 

Yet, that strike knocked her out. The rest of the void mages did their best to hold out without her. “Aeon, we need another void archmage here!” 

More rifts began to open in the skies above, and this time I could see it. 

The demon mother merged with what’s left of the black droplet, and then transformed. It regained power, and at that moment, the temperature in the world began to increase. 

Thankfully, it’s reign would be shortlived. The heroes shot out of the pits, and they didn’t hesitate. They’ve fought many demons before, and their heroic battle sense was impeccable.

They unleashed a torrent of attacks at the transformed demon. Roon and Johann also unleashed their own version of hell, mostly with bolts of anti-mana glass and anti-demonic wood.

In a single combined strike, the transformed demon mother cracked, and it’s outer shell shattered, leaving a large egg-shaped black droplet that crashed into the ground below. 

At this moment, I noticed the rifts all immediately closed, and the crack to that black blob had vanished. The void mages had sealed the rift once it retreated. 

The egg-shaped black droplet released a similar, familiar pulse. it attempted to detonate itself. 

“Fucking hell it’s got a bomb too.” The heroes cursed, but we also predicted this eventuality. It was, after all, a former demon king. It must have had that crystal core. 

My vines approached it, and Edna, once again, withdrew our valuable antimana glass weapons and stabbed the egg. It wobbled from the strike, and the anti-mana glass did it’s work.

Unlike the demon king, this egg didn’t pose that much of a challenge. It wasn’t as strong as a full demon king, and that made a world of difference. Lumoof immediately closed in, and in avatar mode, my vines wrapped around the egg. 

Lumoof winced slightly as my vines drained it of mana. I then inserted my own mana into it. Through Lumoof, my mana flooded it, but instead of converting it, it began to disintegrate. 

The egg somehow stopped its attempts to detonate itself, and instead, struggled in its dying breath. It pulsed, attempting to fight off whatever nearby, but it’s weakened attacks barely hurt Lumoof. 

We had defeated it, and the egg melted away to reveal a ball-shaped metal shell within. My vines quickly wrapped it, and sent it back home for further investigation.

The rifts had closed, and my defenders crushed the remaining demons. 

We freed the parasiteworld from the demon mother, and elsewhere, we noticed the tide of demons attacking us began to dwindle. 

Down in the core, my vines had wrapped around the core, and started to drain it of its demonic energy. It was like an engine covered in old grease and gunk, and it took a while to clear it. 

Then, the much needed announcement came. If anything, a title seemed like a worthy prize. 

[Title Obtained : Liberator of A Fallen World]

“Huh.” The heroes were rather amused. “A title.”

As I began to drain more demonic energy out of the core, the core began to glow. It was as if it was ‘restarting’ after a long time.

“Uh....”

My vines from the entrance of the pits entered the core chamber, and grew on the walls of the core. Here, in the depths, gravity was a little wonky.

The will of the parasite world began to rouse from a long, long coma. It would take some time before it could communicate, I sensed that it’s will was fragmented, and there was still a lot of demonic mana residue to clear.

***

“Is everything alright up there?” Edna asked as she looked up at the still dark skies. The energies still felt unstable, even if none of the rifts were active.

“Seems normal for now.” The void mages answered. “It’s now quiet in the path, we’re just dealing with waves from the sudden closure of rifts.”

The heroes loosened up after hearing that ‘all-clear’, and some of them stretched. “So, what now? We’re done?”

“Yes. Let’s get all of you back to safety, and let this planet recover slowly. It’ll be some time, I think.” Lumoof answered. “The fact that we got the title is a sign we achieved what we came to do. Aeon will need some time to figure out how to access the core mana.”

Chung looked at Lumoof. “Can we be here when that happens? I’d like to see what Aeon does to the core. I’m not paranoid or anything, but yknow, letting Aeon have the core is a big... uh... responsibility, and I just want to see what’s happening.” 

Lumoof nodded. “We’ll keep you informed.” 

Prabu ribbed Chung in the elbow, and Chung just said. “Ever heard the phrase, trust, but verify? Letting anyone control a planet’s a big deal, even if its an empty one.” 

The heroes returned to Treehome and mountainworld, and my domainholders also withdrew. I watched the parasiteworld’s core carefully but there were positive signs. The recovery rate of natural mana of the world seemed to start to tick up.

This was a very, very slow recovery, and Patreeck’s quick calculations suggested it would still take fifteen decades for the mana to fully recover to Treehome’s level. Of course, this was a straight-line increase, not an exponential recovery, and it’s possible that the recovery of the Parasiteworld worked exponentially. 

With everyone back in their respective homes, I focused on retaking the entirety of the parasiteworld from the demons. 

***

Stella woke up about half a day later on the Parasiteworld. She rested and underwent treatment in a healing pod. I didn’t want to move her, not until I had a bit more certainty on the damage she experienced. 

As my avatar, I always had direct insight into Lumoof’s health, so I knew exactly how he was. With everyone else, I needed to do more ‘checking’ and ‘tests’. 

Stella smiled when she woke up, and I immediately felt it. The density of void mana around her began to swell, and her condition suddenly improved, as if something just clicked.

The void mage had finally gained her domain. 

The domain of [Void].

With both the core and her ascension, the great plan could now take another leap forward.