Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Seven

“Oh, yes-yes, you did promise me that.” Shaeula agreed. “I would rather-rather have my kin returned to me though...”

Man she’s cute. But I’ll say it again, I’m still definitely not interested in furries! “Don’t worry, I promised I would help you return your kin and I mean to keep that promise. But first we need your throne. It’s an important next step in the plan. Long term I plan to use the second build queue to work on longer builds such as the Barracks upgrade, while the first queue works on quicker lower-level buildings.”

“I see-see.” She shrugged sadly. “I suppose it can not-not be helped. Besides, I do feel better now that many more-more of my kin have been reborn.”

“I’m curious...” I had to ask a question. “When all your kin are restored, can you still create more weaselkin from the Barracks?”

“I can-can.” She agreed. “It is not unheard of for lesser Fae to be born-born from the fabric of the Astral itself, though no Noble Fae such as myself would be created in such a vulgar manner-manner. This is little different.”

“Good. That way we can build a great host. That’ll surely impress your siblings, right?” I teased.

Shaeula grew flustered, so I changed the subject. “How goes your training? Have you made any progress?”

“Some-some.” Shaeula answered. “I can not-not grasp your stealthy ways, but in terms of compression...” Green light flared around her and her weasel-snakes appeared, all knotting into one huge mass which then shrank down to the size of a single snake. It darted out and detonated in the air, the rushing force hitting me like a club, making me take a step back.

“Nice.” I applauded. “And if you combine that with rotation and vibration you might even be able to take down Grulgor. A troll should surely be no trouble now, right?”

“Carelessness is the great-great enemy.” she replied primly, but I could tell she was pleased, her eyes shining.

“I know, I know.” I had to laugh. “But soon your power will be strong enough, without question. Anyway, have we had any problems while I’ve been gone?”

“Nothing of note-note. The tide is reaching the peak-peak, and after a few more days it should start declining. Then we can-can relax. Some beasts drifted into our Territory, but we dispatched them without much-much problem. Larger beasts have been spotted in the Territory of the Raven Knight, and in the far-far distance, but none-none have come to bother us.”

“That’s good. By the way, have we found many Etherite ores during the tide?”

“Some-some.” She allowed. “All are the red-red ones though. This tide may not-not be deep enough or we may be too far from the centre to find-find many.”

“No matter. Every little helps. Fifty-seven and a half thousand ether is the goal, so we need just under seventeen and a half thousand more.” That doesn’t seem so much now, yet when I started this a few weeks ago such sums were nearly unimaginable. Still, Rank three Buildings cost a ton and take ages, so I daresay I’ll have to start spending further ether on speeding up construction...

“There are few monsters remaining from the tides-tides...” Shaeula said, pondering. “I do not-not feel it is wise leaving our Territory now-now to go looking for more. While the tides are still shallow, anything could wash up-up.”

“Yeah, you are probably right.” I ran the numbers in my head. Ten Astral days had generated a bit under forty thousand ether, so at around four thousand a day, plus the gathered Etherite ores... yes, we can do it, the Throne at least. I want the upgraded Anchor, but it can wait a little if necessary...

“All right. We’ll go back to training for now, but first I need to have a word with the kobolds. I have a task for them.”

“Those-those... beasts.” Shaeula scowled. “I am not-not sure what purpose they could have...”

“Don’t worry, it isn’t something you need to be concerned about. Go fetch the Etherites and I’ll meet you in a couple of hours.”

“Hmm, the ether is climbing steadily. Etheric tides are great. It’s like a compound effect, I get more time, and more ether is generated per unit of time. I wonder if all the other candidates for Astral Emperor are taking advantage of this too? If they miss out it’ll hamper their growth quite a bit. I’m going to run into another one sooner or later...” Ideally I’d like to make an alliance with any candidates I find, just like I have with Shaeula, since the Earth is supposedly in grave danger, but that is obviously going to depend on them and their natures and ambitions...

“You should not-not be so flippant. The risks of tides are...” As Shaeula began berating me a shadow passed across us, long and massive. As I looked up the Territory shook, an impact slamming into the defensive barrier over my Territory with great force.

Your Territory is under attack. Immediate response is recommended. The strength of the defensive barrier is currently at eighty-seven percent. If the barrier... silvery words flared across my vision as beside me Shaeula spoke urgently.

“See-see? Your mockery has brought trouble down-down on us.”

The Territory shuddered again, a flash of rainbow light hammering down into the barrier, dropping it by another ten percent. My Defensive Emplacement with the Sniper Mode countered, sending a lance of aether up into the flying shadow, exploding with a bright flare, bringing a loud bellow of anger which hurt my ears, even at this distance.

Taking hits like that the barrier isn’t going to last. We need to do something now...

“What should we do? What do you think it wants?” I asked Shaeula as the shadow descended. It was a long eel-like creature, with dead-white scales and rainbow eyes. It must have been twenty metres long, and as wide as a car. Shit that’s scary.

“It looks like-like some sort of wyrm. Usually they want to eat-eat.” The barrier rocked again as the wyrm opened its huge mouth and let out a blast of light. “It might-might have been attracted by the ether we have here.”

Damn. I did wonder why the Silo was necessary when the ether was kept within my Territory anyway. There goes my dream of queuing up the Throne of Heroes today... I accessed the Territory menu and added the last upgrade to the Ether Spire, seven and a half thousand of the over-spilling ether disappearing immediately. The wyrm paused for a moment, looking confused, before slamming its massive, sinuous body into the barrier shimmering over my Territory, knocking it down further.

“Whatever you are doing-doing is working!” Shaeula shouted.

Hardening my heart I scooped up the remaining ether that wasn’t protected by the Silo and channelled it into aether. My body was overflowing with force, my Chakra networks humming with power, my lunar node flaring with sudden needles of icy pain. The gaze of the wyrm swung to me, more ear-splitting bellows of rage erupting. Yes I know, your ether is gone now. But you’ll have it shortly...

Merging the aether with my abundant wind elemental energy I formed it into a great spear, and with a yell launched it high into the sky. With a whipping gesture of my hand I started it rotating, and it accelerated as it flew. The wyrm turned, but before it could the spear struck it low in the belly, ripping deep, scales flying, thick silvery blood raining down on my Territory, hissing and steaming. Screaming in rage it turned to bite at the stake tormenting it only to lose teeth and have its jaw shredded by the rotating winds.

Howling in rage it let out one more blast of light, this one missing my Territory and soaring off into the distance to impact an apartment building with an explosive glow, before turning and fleeing, soaring up across the sky and into the distance, fading from view.

Goodbye, over ten thousand ether... Exhaustion ran through me as the huge rush of ether and elemental energies left me, coupled with the mental anguish of expending such a huge sum of ether on an attack. All that was left was the twenty-five thousand ether that was protected by the Silo, although as spent energies rained from the sky some of it was absorbed and re-condensed, giving me a couple of hundred more ether back.

Even so... damn that hurts me. Still, trying to see the best of it I considered that it was good practice in seeing the massive scale of aether-powered attacks. If an enemy Astral Emperor used that on me... I’d die. I’d definitely die...

“That was most-most impressive. Even my siblings would be praising that attack. The rotation made it very hard-hard to defend against.”

I nodded weakly. I’ve been too cocky with things going so well and me getting stronger. Death can still come with a moment of carelessness. “You know I think I need to return to the Material and rest. I’ll be back tomorrow to hopefully queue in the Throne of Heroes when we rebuild our ether stocks. Looks like the Barracks will have to wait a bit as well I’m afraid, as our first Rank three building will need to be a Silo. We don’t need this happening again...”

That wyrm was on an epically different scale than anything around here. If we consider ourselves at Rank one or maybe two, that Wyrm was surely a three. To feel confident about taking on something like that I would need to be far, far stronger than now.

“Very well-well.” Shaeula agreed. “I shall set my kin to gathering up all the scales and teeth that have-have fallen. I will make sure our Territory remains safe-safe in your absence.”

Ruffling her head absent-mindedly I nodded. “I know I can count on you. Later.”

And with that I returned to the Material, waking up shivering in the dark.