Treeal by fire

Year 220 (continued)

“We need to talk about our strategy.” Roon and Johann gathered the team before the invasion, and brought up the issue. “We’re currently limited, bottlenecked by Aeon’s low supply of clone seeds.”

Everyone listened intently.

“Aeon intends that we eventually find our way to strike at the Black Suns, as Stella described it. From the sheer size of those things, the amount of mana required to have an ‘even’ battle is huge, and yet, Aeon currently only has what... 4 clones?”

Stella nodded. “Yes, we need a lot of firepower for that.”

“But, we have a force projection issue on a multiverse scale. We are dependent on Aeon to deliver our main damage dealers, the heroes. Void portals don’t work, because of the magical instability caused by star mana-void mana interactions.”

“Go on.”

“Aeon needs to level up quickly, and find a way to scale up that number of clones. The battle with the demons, and the black sun, feels like essentially a “numbers” game. Aeon needs to control a large number of high-mana generation worlds, in order to even compete with the amount of demonic energy those black suns seem to possess.”

Edna nodded. “Alright, so Lumoof needs to participate in every battle.” Roon then raised the main point.

“My opinion is, we should not be “investing” so much in recovering demon-worlds, which have very long gestation periods. The parasite world, as per Aeon’s own models, claim at least 50-100 years before it’s mana output could even hope to match our homeworld. This is because the demon’s world had eaten away at those worlds, and those worlds are less, diminished, weak. Instead, Aeon should be focused on spreading his clones on regular worlds that are facing their own demonic invasions.” 

Ken and Snek didn’t quite like that angle. 

“We can still free Snek’s world, but we need not plant a seed there. That’s essentially my point. Travel to Snek’s world will then rely on Stella’s riftgates.” 

“But we need the clones to send the heroes over.” Ken responded.

“Which Aeon can withdraw after the deed is done.” 

“Fair.” Ken nodded, but Snek looked quite upset by the idea. 

“I reiterate. Aeon’s focus should be reaching the mana-levels needed to effectively ‘drown’ a demon king, and to do so, it needs multiple regular worlds. At least 10. Aeon should abandon non-productive worlds and replace them with Stella’s riftgates.”

“That’s reliance on the whims of the void.” Stella quickly clarified. “Aeon’s clones are an output of the system, its connection secure. Riftgates can be hijacked, and the pathways can be destroyed. It is not a worthwhile comparison, especially if it’s a world key to the plan.” 

Roon agreed. “Indeed, which is back to our “bottleneck”. Aeon needs to take a much more aggressive stance, and level, because Aeon’s foundation is what supports the plan.” 

“Could someone else play that same role?” Ken asked. “I’m just saying that.. Could there be a clone-focused domain holder who could “lock” or leave a clone in those worlds? Train another spiritual tree into another Aeon? It doesn’t even have to be a tree, we just need someone at the [domain] level to play Aeon’s “linkage” role.”

The room was silent, and I myself was rather taken aback by the suggestion. It... could work, but it needed a cooperative partner. My mind immediately thought about the first two non-mobile ‘friends’ I had. “Lillies? Or... Reefy?”

I could imagine a Reefy or Lilies clone across worlds. Lillies especially, with their natural multi-minded structure seemed easily able to gain some kind of clone-like ability. Or maybe Aria and Aispeng. 

Reefy... I wasn’t sure I wanted to unleash Reefy out to the multiverse. I fear Reefy, badly controlled, could easily warp into another demonic swarm. 

I would have to check with Lilies and Aria. At that point, Edna suggested someone else. “There are two former-heroes, Alexis and Meela. Meela’s Hotels has branches. Do you think she can be trained to have hotels across multiverses?”

My priest had an aha moment then. “That’s a good point, I totally forgot about the two.”

Roon then elaborated. “Ideally, Aeon gets more clones, because they are all locked to the same teleportation network. At the rate we are going, we will discover new worlds quickly, and with the amount of demonic worlds out there, we pretty much need to add clones at an exponential rate.”

“But gaining levels gets harder the higher we go.”

“Which then leads to Ken’s very good point. If we can’t have Aeon gain many levels, could we ‘train’ multiple Aeons?”

Lumoof nodded. “In theory, that’s a solution, but I would like to immediately add that Aeon’s unique mindset is due to his current mix of knowledge from before he was a tree. Training a native tree into an Aeon-tier domain holder frankly sounds horrifying, and could go really, really bad. I’ve seen Aeon’s thoughts, and their perception of things can be very different from our own. With humanoids and other mortals, we can get aligned quite easily. It’s not so easy with trees. Druids can tell you of strange behaviors from their spirit trees from centuries ago.” 

The archer-ranger looked pensive, as he contemplated the issue. Ken, eventually, also nodded. “I realise I did not give enough thought to my suggestion, and thus I’d like to retract my suggestion. Raising a potential lovecraftian deity is not a good idea.”

“That idea with Meela is worth considering. Meela’s hotel, at the [domain] level could be a reasonable alternative.” Edna added. “Not ideal, as her hotel lacks the defensive abilities of Aeon’s clones, but... doable. Her past-life as a hero would also mean she would be more amenable to our objectives.”

“What if she never develops those abilities?” 

“Then too bad. It’s a risk we take with these developments.” 

***

The riftgates opened, and Lumoof led the way. 

It was humid, and hot, and glowing spawning pools littered the landscape. The demons spotted Lumoof appearing, and roared. 

We knew that this was one of the stereotypical ‘hellworlds’. There were fountains of flaming lava, and jets of fire around us. Demonic spires and structures similar to the dreams I once had. 

If some of the worlds were sandy and dry, this one was hot and lava.

The demons were medium-sized, about the size of a large cow, and had two horns and two wings. They were similar to what we referred to as the ‘old-school’ demons. 

My vines and roots spread out around Lumoof, crushing each and every demon in our way. 

“Normal demonworld. Really hot.” Lumoof described it.

“Normal in what way?” Those back on Treehome asked. There’s really no baseline for normal. Each demon world seemed different, and there’s no ‘repeat’ yet. 

Yet.

“Correction, traditional, hellfire and brimstone demonworld. I believe the type the heroes were expecting.”

“Oh. Shit. We finally found ‘hell’.” Ken cursed. “I didn’t know why I wasn’t expecting this.”

We’ve made a loop, and I remembered that flaming demon king from the earlier days. [Demon King Baal], and now, after 220 years, I’m bringing the pain back to their world. This was probably just one of the many such-worlds, but it felt symbolic to me. I was once burnt by the flames of this type of demon king, and now, I’d disrupt it in it’s infancy.

Lumoof had a good time, and naturally enjoyed my shared-fire immunity. As a priest, there was something extremely satisfying about crushing these really traditional demons with divine vines and roots. 

“You guys better get here before Lumoof wipes the place clean.” Stella and a band of the Level 125-149s joined the fray. The demons clearly weren't expecting company, and my mages made short work of the many exposed spawning pools. 

“Really?” Edna was amused. “Why?”

Lumoof shrugged. “I don’t know, weird system shenanigans. I seem to really get a kick out of destroying these earthly inspired traditional demons.” 

“Ever feel like an inquisitor?” Stella smirked as her own void magic skewered the demons apart. Now that she had a domain and had the insurance of my revival ability, she was willing to take more combat risk. 

“Is this the point where I tell these demons-”

Stella knew the phrase that came next and already pre-emptively rolled her eyes. 

“No one expects the Aeonic Inquisition!” I wished I could groan, because that was terrible. 

My forces fanned out, as they crushed the demons in their path. Like a tide, the demons tried to cobble together a resistance, but nothing much could stand up to high level individuals. They had greater demons, like those with wings and large massive claws that were the size of houses, but even these champions died easily now. 

Nothing was going to stop us from getting to the pits.

All we needed to do was find it in this hellhole.

***

The Valthorns ravaged through the lands, and cut through the demon’s defense like paper. Even without the heroes, there wasn’t much that could stand against the might of so many high-leveled individuals, and eventually we found a pit. 

It was a big boiling chasm of lava, surrounded by the tell-tale riftgate towers.

“The demon king’s in that, right?” Roon looked at Lumoof.

“It has to be. It’s underneath all this lava or magma?” 

“Well, this at least means it’s fire resistant, or fire-earth-immune. We’re dealing with the pits-of-hell type of demon king?”

“It’s probably a magma beast.” Edna looked at the bubbling lava in the huge pit. It was likely this chamber of lava led all the way into the core. Ken, naturally, thought about Lord of the Rings. 

“How do we get down there?”

My roots were incredibly fire resistant, but the lava still got to them eventually, and it just drained my mana to keep healing my roots against the might of endless lava. 

“Our attempt to invade the demon world, curtailed by a sea of molten lava. How appropriate.” Roon smirked. “This calls for a really strong earth mage.”

“We could freeze the surface and turn it into hardened rock, that way the demon king can’t get out.”

“You know it’ll just blast through it.” 

“This is unfair though. How does anyone expect to retake such a world from the demons?” Roon added. “Getting through lava would need a really strong mage to work at it for years, just to get to the core.”

“Not really. A good lava mage could easily manipulate the lava out of the way, and give us a path through to the depths.” Edna responded.

“Our strongest fire-earth element mage is what, level 120?” Roon said. “No offense, but this is the demon king we’re talking about. Even us domain holders are still inadequate.” 

“Alright, what’s our alternative plan? Similar to the anti-magic world?” 

“What do you mean ‘similar-to-the-antimagic’ world? We can’t even access the core. I say we cover the surface with bombs and nuke the demon king once it tries to leave for our world.” Roon said. “We know it has a fixed path up that chamber of lava, and through this pit.”

Alka was fairly amused. “I like how you think, Roon. I really do.”

Stella paused as she stood above the tunnel. She opened a portal somewhere else and then, lava shot out like a high pressure water cannon. 

Edna looked and asked. “A portal in the core chambers?”

“Close. There’s a magical ‘eddy’ of some kind preventing my portal from getting too near, but this is about 3/4th the way to the core.” 

The lava jet was constant, but nothing changed. After a while, Stella shrugged. “Doesn’t work. The entire core and the surroundings of this world is magma.”

“Look. How the fuck did the demon king even conquer such a world?”

“Magic.” Stella smirked. “Roon’s idea has merit. With sufficient bombs, and I’ll add my own void ones, it may be possible to send the demon king off course entirely. What I’d like to achieve, this time, is to knock the demon king out of it’s teleportation path, so Alka needs to invent some kind of “snare-bomb”.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“We don’t want the bomb to detonate immediately. We want bombs that will latch itself onto the demon king, blow up while it’s floating through the void space, and knock it out.”

“Anyone tell you that’s insane?” Roon said. “I mean, I like it, but it’s insane.”

“We know that the demon king doesn’t get summoned if there’s a surviving demon king. I want to test whether that is location-dependent, and requires the demon king to actually be there. If the demon king is in another world, what happens?”

“...alright, go on.” Roon admitted. 

“On a super-large scale, I want to know whether WE can teleport a demon king elsewhere.”

“You want to build a rift gate here?” Edna asked. 

“We’re not ready for that. But someday, I’d like to try it. For now though, let’s just start with snare bombs.”

“Snare bombs.” Alka nodded. “No issue. We can easily repurpose Aeon’s beetles to be suicide-bomb-beetles and latch onto the demon king. I think we can try giant harpoons too, whether we can anchor the demon king to this world. Force it off it’s teleportation process.” 

Roon whistled.

The Valthorns quickly cleared out an area around the pit, and started constructing fortifications based on the volcanic materials available. An army of druids were deployed to support the installation. 

Most of the domainholders returned to Treehome to start construction of their planned materials. Multiple giant ‘nets’, harpoons with magical chains, and bombs with hooks.

It would take some time to accumulate the necessary equipment and ordinances, but based on the magical sensors we had on this hell-world, the demon king wasn’t ready yet. In fact, none of the rift gates had opened. 

The Valthorns regularly swept through this lava-world, clearing the land of demons, and captured any rift gates that we found. Stella then sent them back to Treehome, where she would study it with the other riftgates. 

It also helped that we now had three other void archmages, they took the role of maintaining the interplanar riftgates, and transporting the materials to the demonworld

We sent specialised builders and craftsmen to the demon world, to study the rift structures, and also build the ‘traps’. 

Honestly, it may not work, but if it did, we were sure as hell going to replicate it every single time.

***

“Ken, you alright?” Chung asked, as Ken sat in a corner of a city cafe in Freshka. He looked tired, and sipped a big mug of herbal tea. Ken, who was so young so many decades ago, now looked like a man in his late 40s, unlike Chung who looked to be in his mid 30s. 

“Age, friend. Age.” Reality meant Ken, who is no longer a hero, did not benefit from the aging reduction effects of the [hero] class. He did have fragments, of course, from his friends who perished during the war, but outside of the fragments, he has high levels in [Thinker] and [Beast Tamer]. 

Those levels slowed down aging, but not as much. Even my own domain holders experienced a burst of deaging once they gained the [domain]. Stella, for example, felt younger, stronger once she gained her domain. 

Theoretically, I could keep anyone alive forever. With my incredible healing powers, and evolutionary powers, I’m able to modify a person’s body such that the effects of aging are almost entirely eliminated, but, they would become not-exactly the same. 

A human that was made immortal, becomes... different, and because this is an ‘imposed’ process, unlike an earned process through gaining levels or unlocking their domain, the body becomes in conflict with the soul, and it creates issues. I should be able to get past this, in time, after all, ‘calming’ or unifying the soul and the body is part of my repertoire. 

But for now, it’s something I rarely experiment on. And, so, back to Ken.

“I’m aging.” Ken laughed, and the herbal tea removed the pain. 

“I can tell.” Chung said.

“A price for freedom of mind. The freedom for me to think un-heroic things.”

Chung smirked. “You can fix it if you gain levels, like them.”

“I don’t need to.” Ken said. “There’s a point where one lives too long. I think this, a lifespan of 200-250 years, I think this is ideal. Too much, and we become unable to care for anything, because everything fades away, and we’ll just be burdened with endless ennui.”

“I’d still rather live forever.”

“You only feel that way, because the Gods impose a purpose in your life.” Ken insisted. “Which, as I sometimes think, it’s not a bad thing. Many of us require purpose. Purpose gives us direction, gives us... focus. It allows us to forget, to forgive, to let go of things that do not matter when viewed against our central purpose.”

“You’ve lost me.” Chung laughed.