Chapter 912: Not An Egg

Chapter 912: Not An Egg

Jake’s mind went blank for a moment as the realization sunk in. Yet what he had expected to follow next never came. There was no anger or desire for revenge... just a belief that he had to get the fuck away from the moon as fast as humanly possible.

Anything capable of killing Sandy wasn’t something Jake was confident in facing, and just feeling the aura from the thousands of vines extended up from the surface of the moon, Jake knew that this wasn’t just some weak low-tier B-grade. It was already quite a few levels into B-grade and a powerful variant on top of that. The mere fact it had a range extending all the way from the center of the moon to the surface was proof enough of that.

Luckily, it didn’t seem to attack him as he flew away. The eye had also faded away, and all the vines began to retract back into the ground, leaving a battered Lunewood Forest behind. Many rotting spots were left where the vines had shot up from, and hundreds of Lunewood creatures had died. For some reason, the B-grade didn’t seem to care about the forest at all, and it had more or less just been collateral damage while trying to get Jake to leave.

Speeding up his flight, Jake just went further and further into empty space. He didn’t have any particular direction he was flying in, he just wanted to make sure he was out of range from any potential attacks that could reach beyond the moon. Only when he was many thousand kilometers away from the exit of the moon’s exosphere did Jake slow down before he stopped and had a while to think. And the first thought he had was to reach out to someone who had to know what had happened.

“Villy, what the fuck happened to Sandy? I felt the Mark disappear, and I think they died, but-“

“Sandy did die,” the Viper just answered in a casual tone.

Jake’s mind went blank a bit again before he quickly gathered his thoughts. “Then why am I not-“

Suddenly, Jake stopped as he felt his spatial necklace act odd, as if something wanted to break out.

“I think you’ll find the answer is quite obvious,” Villy commented, still clearly unbothered.

Things within the moon had not gone as planned for everyone’s favorite Cosmic Genesis Worm.

Sandy had met their fair share of powerful beings while traveling around the multiverse and eating stuff, and sometimes, one naturally gets into trouble when eating the tasty snacks of others. Yet, this was definitely in the top two for most dangerous situations Sandy had ever gotten themselves into.

The wound on the worm’s side was already rotting, and more vines were closing in as the Ghostvine kept sending those nonsensical telepathic packages, yelling at Sandy to leave while not giving the poor worm any chance to actually do so. Sometimes, a worm had to be decisive, so Sandy steeled themselves and didn’t think twice before doing what had to be done:

“Begin operation clean up and consolidate! Go, go, go!” Sandy yelled to all the people and creatures in their internal worlds – also known as all the different stomachs - as Sandy opened gateways between all of them. They also quickly tried to spit out the Lunewood Meteorite Fragments hoping they were the cause of the aggression, but it didn’t make the attack stop.

A dozen vines closed in as Sandy shifted in space, teleporting out of the way. Entering Sandy’s Sand World wasn’t possible with space this unstable – the place not really made for fleeing either. It was made for traveling, first and foremost.

Sandy did have other defensive means, though.

Hardening the cosmic dust, Sandy slowed down all the vines, going for the worm. At the same time, the wound was rapidly healing as space shifted, launching Sandy toward the tunnel the worm had entered the core chamber from. Vines moved to block the worm, but with Sandy’s intense momentum, they managed to slip through, entering the tunnel.

Yet it wasn’t enough, as more vines just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. They just popped into existence without any rhyme, reason, or warning. It was as if the entire moon was part of the Ghostvine’s body, which probably wasn’t that far off.

The Ghostvine had integrated itself with the moon’s core, after all.

Sandy kept going through the tunnels, teleporting, dodging, and blocking vines, but they just kept coming. A few managed to slip through, leaving nasty wounds all over the worm’s body and eating away at Sandy’s vital energies.

It definitely didn’t help that Sandy had practically trapped themselves within the belly of the beast. To escape and do long-range teleports, Sandy needed to get out of the vast tunnel network of the moon and into open space, but there was just so far.

Too far.

So, rather than escape, the name of the game was dragging things out as long as possible to give Tom and the others enough time to get everything prepared. Thus, Sandy did their best, as the wounds got worse and worse, and Sandy knew that death was inevitable.

Luckily, before death came, Sandy got the confirmation they needed.

“We’re done.”

Sandy didn’t hesitate as they turned around and flew at full speed back toward the core chamber. The Ghostvine wasn’t ready for this, allowing Sandy to get pretty damn close before too many vines impeded their path, and a dozen wrapped around the worm’s body, crushing it.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to share all the weaknesses of what’s arguably your biggest trump card with others? Even if it’s me?” Jake asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Oh, no, it’s a stupid thing to do, but I reckon if I want you to carry around one of my egg things, it’s only polite to tell you... oh yeah, that gets me to one of the other drawbacks. I need the egg things to do my rebirth trick, so if the final one breaks or is lost or something, I’m screwed. Also, I can’t control which one I use; it’s always the closest,” Sandy continued, over-explaining their abilities with a sigh. “So, anyway, I will need to reconstruct the egg, which takes a lot of stuff I could have eaten instead, so that sucks. And all of that comes after I heal my stomachs. It all just takes so much time and energy to do... dying is a real bummer, you know?”

“From the times I’ve tried it, death indeed has been wholly unpleasant,” Jake answered honestly, remembering the Challenge Dungeons in Nevermore, especially the Colosseum of Mortals and his strategy of just throwing lives at Valdemar.

“Right?” Sandy agreed. “I think we should both strive to not die as much.”

The two of them fell silent for a while as Sandy slowly got back their bearings. It would take a bit for the worm to feel well enough to move, and Jake didn’t want to disturb Sandy while that happened.

While Jake had asked some questions about Sandy’s skill, he still had no idea how it worked. Not really. Sure, he knew what it did, but the fundamental concepts behind it were a massive mystery to him. He also reckoned there was more to it than Sandy said. Especially seeing as there wasn’t just one egg but multiple, giving Sandy more than one extra life.

If there wasn’t more to it than met the eye, why wouldn’t all gods give their Chosen a skill like this? Having a Chosen was a risk, and a skill like this would heavily alleviate that risk. Jake wanted to ask Villy, but decided to postpone that conversation for later.

After a bit of time had passed, Sandy spoke again:

“The thing inside the moon is something called a Ghostvine Sovereign,” the worm said. “Ever heard about one before?”

Jake frowned as he rummaged through his memory before he shook his head. “No, can’t say I have, but the name is pretty telling in its own right. Plus, anything with Sovereign in its name makes me assume it can’t be weak.”

“It definitely isn’t. What’s more, it has merged with the moon’s core entirely,” Sandy kept explaining.

“That’s... bad,” Jake muttered.

“Yep,” Sandy readily agreed. “But, there is one kind of good thing. I don’t think this Ghostvine has any real intelligence. It looks like it does, but there is no cohesion in its thought pattern or telepathic messages, and I sensed primarily emotion and not anything truly complex from it. Heck, I think it only attacked me because of the Lunewood Meteorite Fragments I had in my stomach, and that was entirely on instinct. Once I was designated as an enemy, the way the attacks worked seemed almost automatic.”

Jake could only agree as he also found the way the Ghostvine had acted odd. “Then what do you think it wants? For some reason, it didn’t attack the Lunewood Forest at all.”

“I’m not sure, and in all honesty, I don’t think the Ghostvine is either. It may be because it originated from the Lunewood Forest and thus instinctively views it as a part of it that shouldn’t be destroyed, or it may be because it uses the life energy to fuel its own death energy. Or, you know, something entirely illogical since we are talking about a creature that doesn’t really operate on logic here.”

They were quiet once more for a minute before Sandy spoke again. “Just to be clear, we both agree on what we’re gonna do about that stupid Ghostvine and the celestial object it integrated itself with, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Jake nodded as he looked at the moon. “We’re gonna kill that fucking Ghostvine one way or another... even if the moon has to go along with it.”

“Can we call it Operation: Moonfall?”

“Sure?” Jake agreed, confused.

“Thank you. Tom will be very happy to hear that.”

“I’m sure he will,” Jake said with a smile. “Now let’s go home, alright?”

“Alright... but you’re in charge of transport this time around, at least for the first part of the trip,” Sandy said.

“Sure,” Jake shrugged, wondering how exactly he planned on doing that. Maybe he could have Sandy-

“And no, I’m not shrinking down. Can’t at the moment.”

... or he could figure something else out.