Beneath the Tree’s Shade

Beneath the Tree’s Shade

Year 201 Continued

We saw the path through the void sea lit up, and this time, I tried to see what was happening from this side of the world. I saw a massive tower emerge from the ground, right next to the huge hole that led to the worlds core.

The tower was pitch black, mixed with little bits of other colors, and I felt huge amounts of strange magic being pulled through that pillar. It was absorbing something... from somewhere.

The smaller spires around the massive hole glowed, as if it stored the energy that was being pulled.

I switched to my astral sight, and I saw a dark blob appear right above the demons world. There was a black pillar of energy that linked to that physical tower. I felt a huge, splitting headache and Patreeck immediately stepped in.

As I concentrated on the sky above the demonic world, I saw it.

A huge black sun of void magic. It had many other little pillars that I couldnt quite see, like... easily hundreds or maybe thousands. What was this? The demons power source for void magic?

Or is it an actual demonic god?

That pitch black tower seemed to pull void mana from the black sun, and I felt the air tense with void energies. It was void mana, the very same void mana that Stella used.

At the same time, my magical senses were attacked by a huge surge of power that came from the core itself. This part wasnt void magic, but a different kind of energy. It was also familiar, like the one I saw from within that shard of Cometworld.

It surged out, and then, alternatingly split to the smaller pillars around the hole. One pillar was void, another one was this core energy.

Void mana from the black tower was then transferred to the pillars, again, in alternating patterns. The ring above the hole started to float into the sky, and expanded.

Then, I watched as the spires formed pairs. One spire that contained the core energy, and another spire that contained the void mana from the black tower, mix together to form this weird mana.

The pairs glowed and then the floating ring in the sky spaced out.

The pair of spires each shot a beam of energy to the ring in the sky, and I felt the world bend. From the center of the circle, a huge rift opened. The ground rumbled, as the demon king moved out of its cradle deep in the core of the world.

It rumbled for a long time, the demon king didnt move very quickly. At that very moment, I saw that tower of darkness glow again, and there were three astral paths in the skies above.

One that led to Treehome, where my main body was. Another one that led to that black sun, this path was filled with a constant flow of void mana, and this third one was another black object. It resembled-

I wasnt sure what I was looking at. It looked like a constant moving blob. Maybe it looked like a lava lamp? I wasnt sure what it was.

At first, I didnt know they opened a path to this blob. But there had to be a purpose, so I watched. No one opened a pathway to this faraway place, bending space and dimensions for no reason. There had to be a purpose.

The ground rumbled, and rumbled some more.

Then, this formless blob that constantly moved separated a small, tiny droplet of pitch black darkness, and that darkness went through the pathway. It came out of a rift right above the ring, and I saw a black and dark red crystal descend and fall into the deep pool that led to the core.

But this crystal had a familiar energy. It was a part of the demon king, I was sure of it..

The crystal descended into the pool, and the rumbling intensified. I felt the demon kings body stop somewhere, and then, I tracked the two energies approaching each other. The crystal and the body, fusing somewhere along that massive hole.

The pathway that led to that blob closed first, and now there were two left. One that led home, and one from that black sun. The black sun continued to pump void mana through the path, and I noticed that even though I could very visibly see this astral path, it had a far more robust structure.

I needed Stella to see this. Maybe she could learn how to reverse engineer this portal!

Just then, I felt the two separated energies of the demon king, the crystal and the demon kings body from the core completed its fusion. It was noticeable, and familiar, as I felt the fabric of the world bend to the presence of this emerged being.

The gestation period within the cradle of the world was over, and so, a demon king was born. for new novels

A few tests indicated it was successful, and I rolled it out to the Valthorns operating in the South. It meant they would have to lose their normal familiars and the generally more useful generic abilities.

The demon king immediately raised armies to war, along with champions, but my trees had spread really far into the demon lands, and I spotted them demon king.

In any case, I called up Edna.

She knew that the demon king arrived. She could feel it in the air, anyone with a domain could. Yes, Aeon?

I found the demon kings.

Kings? There were three of them, each slightly different from one another, but I saw a thick web of magic that tied the three demon kings together. They were one and the same, and yet separated into three bodies? How was that possible? He saw only one that left the parasite-world, did they separate once they landed?

Still, the three demon kings each resembled humanoids, but each of them had large wings. It seemed to me like poor design, I expected a parasitic demon king called the Infestor King to have far stronger powers, instead of typical demon knights. Or was that their trick? Take the form of humans and lull the heroes into thinking that these are just normal demon kings?

In any case, I observed their powers, and was prepared to share my findings with the heroes. I liked Prabu and Colette enough that I feel they were worth saving, and the fact that Prabu could, at least, have a reasonable conversation with me was something.

These demons did not destroy the trees I planted in the area, nor did these parasites, and that was another strange thing I observed.

The earlier demons were far more destructive of their general surroundings, and I wondered, just wondered, could we co-exist with these demon kings? If, say, I was able to construct a pool where these demon kings could remain sleeping.

But I didnt know whether keeping a demon king would stop the other demonic worlds from noticing us.

Did the demons identify our worlds by some form of scanning mechanism? That each demon king emitted a signal to the other worlds that said to the other demon worlds that this world was occupied?

Actually, on that train of thought, could it be possible to mislead the demon worlds on this? Find a way to fake the demons signals, such that they believe this is a demon-controlled world? If I could do that, I could buy time, both for recovery-post-invasion, and to build strength.

I didnt learn anything from watching the three demon kings. They didnt move much, and seemed to be waiting. I wondered whether this was normal for demon kings.

That said, I wondered whether it was time for me to disrupt the rain of larva from the side of the demon world. If I could cut off reinforcements, I could make it a battle on two fronts against the demons.

There were still many other demon spire spawning pools throughout their world that continued to pump out demonic larva.

I havent tried anything drastic yet, as I was also trying to find where the champions were made. My hope was to capture one such spawning pool, and see whether its possible to make my own champion from scratch. My gut feeling is that it is possible to create the body of the champion, but Ill still need titan souls to fuel them, but no harm trying.

Anyway, the Southern Continents war against the parasites had some good developments, again, by sheer necessity. The worlds citizens are more resilient and inventive than I gave them credit for, and at the same time, it also reminded me that just even with the best facilities, and all the money a continent can throw at a problem, sometimes, it is those who truly needed such things that found ways to invent something that worked.

The heroes made more star mana emitters, and that helped keep certain spaces safe. Add to that, the soul-protection developments made by the priests, and even stronger variants of anti-demon coffee-based cooking, condiments and sweets helped the Southern continent nations to endure the demonic wave, and slowly began their counter-attack.

The Valthorns also felt more confident to operate in the South, now that they were no longer afraid of the demonic parasites. New skills and spells, such as [Inner Fire], [Soul Sanctuary] and [Soul Guard], all invented by and stolen from the Southerners in the past one year, helped protect many from the demonic parasites.

So, Edna finally moved to the front and joined the heroes in their push towards the demon kings. Roon and Johann joined her too, as they were both on the verge of their domains. Both, with my [Court of the Deitree] familiar, in case of any emergency-teleportation. I also deployed more Valthorns to support that final push, though most of them would sit out the battle.

I pulled Lumoof back from the Threeworlds, and readied for another battle with the demon kings. Together, we made a push into the demon-occupied kingdoms.

Where the demon kings awaited.

Spaizzer

Something shorter because i'm not really feeling it. Also, since it's already march, time to shill my patreon. There's 3 more chapters on patreon + some patreon-exclusive side stories.

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