Torches through the Forest

Torches through the Forest

Year 176

Stellas attention temporarily focused on training new void mages, and also recharging the daemolite crystals harvested. Ive mostly decided that the daemolite will be destroyed at a later date, and for now, they are used to study. The value of the other worlds temporarily outweighs the risks of maintaining the status quo. Follow the latest novels at novelhall.com

The other worlds represented opportunity, and potential allies. A chance to learn of things done in other worlds, their history, and how the demons and heroes interacted in the past. A chance to see and compare things. Daemolites ability to store void mana meant we could augment her range, to reach the further worlds that occasionally drift into range.

Still, its a long process of experimentation, and training new void mages isnt something we can achieve in a year or two.

In the south, more rifts appeared. I know this first hand, because the wispy tendrils through space seemed to glow more frequently, and I noticed all the different tendrils grow a little brighter. I wondered how they achieved this, and Stella couldnt explain it either. The way the demons used their void magic was different. Stella certainly couldnt see tendrils, not the way I could. To her, this outer world is really really dark and all she saw was little faint markers.

A dark forest. Maybe the wider world is just a dark forest, and gods are just magical equivalent of superpower civilisations taking shots at each other. All hiding, and keeping themselves unseen, because once they are seen, they are attacked.

Then again, it didnt make sense. If its truly a dark forest this world should be doomed.

Back to the South, the local militia of the respective southern nations seem to be holding their own. The typical nature of the demons meant the local forces were quite well equipped to deal with these normal type demons.

It goes without saying that all of us wondered whether we will get a normal demon king, and what that meant.

Kei, now eager to regain some of her power after shes seen the level that Edna and Lumoof achieved, set out to the south. She hoped to challenge a few demon champions and regain some semblance of power, so that she can be of some use in Alvins fight with the demon king.

Oh well. It cant be helped that she felt a need to assist her one and only remaining friend from earth.

On the domestic front, I gained a special type of tree while I kept tweaking with the ley lines.

[Unique Tree Type unlocked : The Trees of the Earth Veins. Helps to channel and direct ley lines. Requires gems and crystals in large quantities, and also tends to spawn monsters]

It reminded me of the [Ginseng Tree], another of the trouble tree types that have the whole [monster lure] functionality. But Im not the same tree from that time, and I have the ability to station far stronger defenses, with dedicated commanders. I functionally have no real limit in terms of artificial minds, now that there are tens of millions of connected trees all across the continent.

Sadly my ginseng tree limit did not change much, in spite of my levels and domains. At about 15 ginseng plants simultaneously, this was my 2nd real bottleneck in massively increasing the output of high tier individuals. Both unlocking the said individual, and then subsequently having the dungeons needed to train them up to the necessary levels.

Restrictions.

Right now, I feel like Im hitting quite a few limits. Like in terms of Soul Forge, Ive not had a new color for quite a while. In terms of Titans, Im still hesitating on activating my 3rd Titan, simply because Im not sure what Ill need in the future.

Patreeck has been exceptionally helpful administratively, but his levels too, have stagnated. Hytreerions only seen one large scale battle against the demon king, and even in that battle he didnt really show any exceptional performance.

Reviewing their performance thus far, the Titans are pretty much champion-class, despite requiring a heros soul fragments. In fact, in all combat forms, they just fail to live up to the strength of a real hero or a [domain]-class individual.

Thus, as bad as it sounds, I felt that Hytreerion had been a mistake. The titans, despite their strength, are meant to be utility providers.

But we dont have level limits. Patreeck clarified. Its just that... well, its hard for us to level.

I wondered whether Hytreerion could get to level 150, but because its size, theres no way it could go into a dungeon. Dungeons so far are all relatively small. Even the largest of the dungeons Ive seen and created so far are just big enough for Hytreerion to squeeze in, but its effectively useless in such a tight spot.

I would have to reengineer Hytreerions loadout to be more of a utility player, with more support functions and to serve as a staging and resupply function for the real damage dealers. The very nature of their capped levelling meant they would never keep up.

So, I thought greatly about Hytreerions role again. Hes huge, and that mean he functioned more as a tank, and perhaps a powersource. Were there advantages that size had, that could not, or not as easily replicated by levels?

Because levels clearly overpowered everything else, so why should anything be big? Surely there must be merit to being naturally big. So, what would that be?

Firstly, I would think about materials. Certain materials have overlapping roles with equivalent skills or levels gained but size meant massive mana crystals, and runic formations. Sure, size meant more space to duplicate skill functions. So, firstly, Hytreerion would need to be reequipped as a mobile mana bank, and also store runes. Its also easier to have conflicting magical formations separated by the sheer size of Hytreerion. The walkers were all massive creatures and they can grow even bigger with levels.

Like equipment slots, they should be carrying larger, titan-sized equipment. Things that individuals could carry, but render them unable to do anything else. Titan-Sized anti-demon ballistas were one of the first few ideas.

> No. But I feel them. Invaders. I will kill them. <

> But they dont come underwater. They dont... swim? <

I believe the champions do swim over the oceans. Well, at least the walker-series of demon champions could swim over the oceans, but I wasnt sure about this current generation of stereotypical winged demons with massive axes. Id actually like to capture one of these demon champions, if possible. I wonder what itll be like if I managed to convert one of the demon champions into my own.

Would the axe or sword remain? Are those demonic axes a physical body part of the demons, or a magical creation of the champions? Why do they disappear when killed?

I wonder whatll be like if we get an underwater demon king. Thatll be something of a sight, but I suppose since all the demon worlds weve seen so far lack water, I think thats quite unlikely. The demon kings are clearly grown in their home environments before they arrive here. The best they could do is a shapeshifting demon king that takes on an underwater form.

Thinking about it, if there are underwater civilisations beneath the oceans, they should theoretically survive since the beginning of time, unless a Rottedlands-class incident occurred.

But I have not heard of any? Is it because they are hiding? Or is there something else down there that prevents the creation of a long-lasting underwater civilisation?

Or perhaps its just the immense pressures of the deep sea that makes it impossible for intelligent creatures to emerge?

The Southern Continent endured the demonic waves relatively well. I saw more rifts open, my vision of the astral ways indicated that one rift now glowed, but I couldnt interact with it. Not without void mana.

Stella felt it too, her own senses for the starways spoke to her. Her skill had an interesting name. [The Ways Through the Forest Between Worlds]. It really reflected how ones understanding of the world reflected in the skills nature. Or was it the other way round?

To her, she described it like there was a path of torches through the dark forest. More importantly, thanks to the path, she could now look back at the path to their homeworld. She opened just a tiny, tiny hole. Its somehow easier, despite the distance.

She could tell its really far away, but with the figurative torches, it somehow meant it didnt cost as much void mana for her to open a portal to see their homeworld. The demons clearly had a way of lubricating the astral path. A small peephole and she saw a world of red and fire. Literally fire and brimstone. Demons with wings. Its as if the gods copied a stereotypical demonic homeworld and pasted it in this world.

We monitored it for weeks and months, the torches got brighter and there were more of them.

Its soon. Stella said, and honestly I knew it was coming. The tendrils appeared to glow and pulse in a bright white and red. I made sure my sensors were all honed in, I wanted to collect every single data point I could get. I notified Lumoof to be careful in the South, and that I would recall them immediately if the demon king spawned too close for comfort.

We both saw it. To Stella, it appeared like a fireball that surged through the path. It consumed the torches, growing each time, and then it reached the South. I felt the world twist and turn. To me, the tendrils appeared to flash and glow, like a filament of light. It was incredibly bright when I used it, and I saw like a blob move across that filament of light.

[Demon King Ethrezen has arrived]

The world suddenly felt significantly hot. Areas filled with snow capped mountains started to melt, and avalanches of mud crashed into their nearby cities. In the deserts, oasis suddenly vanished, and the water evaporated into violent thunderstorms, followed by torrents of rain that flooded.

Dry forests burned, and I felt the entire continent was suddenly filled with flash fires. Farms and orchards too quickly started to burn. The intense heat generated strong hurricanes and whirlpools, and strong winds battered the coast.

In the South where the demon king landed, it seemed the regular demons now had a halo of flame, their once regular-looking axes replaced by red-flaming axes. The regular hounds turned into fire-breathing hounds.

The demon champions had wings of flame, and their aura of flame burned most that got close.

Do we stay or retreat? Lumoof mentally asked. We can beat the demons with ranged weapons, but fighting at close range is a bit risky. I may have flame resistance, and Lumoof certainly shared that resistance, but the other Valthorns didnt.

My sensors and artificial minds made some calculations and concluded the demon king was quite far from them. Stay, but engage carefully.

Got it.

Meanwhile, the hero, Alvin, finally arrived in the South.

Spaizzer

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