The Guiding Branch

The Guiding Branch

Year 205

Lumoof sat in their magical archives, there were just a few mages here. These archives used to have hundreds of mages, all pouring over where to push their magic. These days, every single mage was working in the workshops, making weapons, or fighting in the battlefields.

Not here. Lumoof sighed. Our quest for Core Mana in this new world was fruitless. Not here, not Threeworlds. It seemed that we would need Stella here, if we want to find somewhere else with core mana.

Is this core so important? One of the local dwarven mages asked. She had been tasked to attend to Lumoofs queries.

Lumoof nodded. They had relatively good maps, at least, from a decade or two ago, before the demons invaded. I felt like I was missing something.

Why was there a stationary demon king? Its not the first time the demon king had been stationary, but... why?

-

Some time later, Lumoof and Ebon met the group gathered for the mission of rescuing the heroes. This was the meeting

They were all level 80s, the highest among them Level 87, a dwarven magical maceman of some kind. He was the stereotypical dwarf, with a grumpy attitude. Because of how extensive and long the war was, there were about fifty of them around level 80s, but only about twenty would join the mission.

The initial concept was a small, dedicated strike team.

Are you the upstart who called us here? The dwarf said.

Ebon hid his aura well, and shook his head. That would be my superior, Lord Lumoof. This idea of rescuing the heroes was our benefactors suggestion.

Lumoof smiled at the dwarf, and the dwarf walked closer to Ebon, and sniffed. He returned the smile afterwards. Well, at least were dealing with guys who can put their lives on the line. Ebon shrugged, as they activated the fully-recharged hero-item. A group of mages explained the location of the possessed heroes.

Well do the rescue? The group asked. Against possessed heroes?

Yes. The local archmages said. Our current situation has been a stalemate for too long.

But then our defenses? Who will handle it then?

The rest of us will have to just hold out.

One of the lizardpersons looked at Ebon and Lumoof. What if this is just a trap to weaken us. If all of us die, we just lost twenty of our strongest fighters. These guys are from another world, and maybe they are here to invade us.

The dwarf nodded. Exactly. Since they are suggesting it, shouldnt they help us out? Not just that, how are we expected to deal with the possessed heroes? We cant just kill them, right? We need the heroes alive. Somehow.

We certainly have no intention of anyone dying on this mission. We will go with you, though our role will be minimal, or only where your team does not have the capability. Are there any strong priests who are good with high-level exorcisms? Lumoof answered.

There was a collective head-shake. Our strongest priests are heavy healers and buffers. Exorcism isnt something we have to deal with.

In that case, if there are no further objections, I would like to handle the exorcism of the heroes. I would need the help of everyone present to just keep the rest of the demons at bay, and weaken the possessed heroes.

So were bodyguards. One of them answered.

Perhaps. Lumoof smiled. Ebon will stay back and support the defense, if there are any particularly strong attacks during this period.

One person is not sufficient.

Across all the theaters of battle, certainly. But if there are any huge threats, he is more than sufficient.

***

The plan was relatively simple. Small group teleports as close as possible, then rushes for the possessed heroes. The hero-item confirmed that the heroes were still in the same location, and twenty-two level 80s and an assortment of level 50s from their various armies joined the force, mainly as support.

Level 80s put them in the same category as Lausanne, so twenty-two of them were a very decent fighting force. This group could take down demon champions easily, even without the hero items.

Some of them had anti-demon abilities too, thanks to the decade-long endless conflict. The system favored conflict, and awarded those who struggled really long against it.

Lumoof had to just tag along, and followed the group as they pushed through the demon territory. Not all of it were occupied, after all, these type of army-demons favored ley lines as their bases, where there were no ley lines, these places were sparsely guarded, even if there were regular demonic patrols.

The only reason the locals havent taken these territories back, was because of how vulnerable their location was to the demons from the nearby demon bases.

You said you were from another world. The group asked, as they made their way to their first rest spot. How?

My patron has a way of opening portals to another world. This world is just in the same neighborhood.

How is it there?

From what I can see, were very similar. We also have regular demonic attacks, but weve not had a situation like this. Lumoof answered.

I always thought heroes could never be possessed by demons. One of the mages on the trip said as they discussed the idea of a possessed demons. Guess what the temples tell us isnt always true.

Lumoof laughed. Honestly, they dont know any better. The gods dont exactly communicate much.

But yours does.

Well... thats because my patron is a rising native god. Aeon lives on our world, and Aeon gets stronger over time. Have you spoken to your gods?

All of them shook their heads, and I was secretly impressed by Lumoofs clever sowing of doubt. How powerful is Aeon?

Lumoof grinned at the question. Im sure anyone here knows that power isnt so simple to explain, especially with the way classes work at high levels. In Aeons field of mastery, I would say Aeon is unparalleled, just like how Im almost very good at what I do in my field. My companions are similarly powerful in their chosen field. Power isnt a linear scale.

They nodded in agreement. One of the knights present couldnt help but ask. Sir Lumoof, may I ask... what level are you?

Lumoof smiled, as they took the bait. More than level 100.

There was a collective gasp. How? We all stagnate at level 80s.

The dwarf rolled his eyes. You dont really need us to protect you.

Teenagers.

Still children. Lumoof sighed. Such great responsibilities in the hands of the young, and theres not a trace of guilt among the kings for letting them do it.

Defeating the demons didnt gain levels, sadly.

***

Thanks to the success of the rescue mission, the council of King had increased trust in Lumoof and Ebon, and we were given access to many parts of the civilised worlds. The heroes, of course, realised their mistake and went about farming demon champions. With the heroes returning to the battle with their heroic powers, they made noticeable gains against the demons within months.

We were given a small escort, and we visited many of their cities and temples, and more importantly, places where we suspected may have things of value.

We found one soon enough, practically hiding in plain sight. In the center of one of the largest cities, there was a massive park with an ancient tree. Thanks to the war, there wasnt much maintaining it.

The rest of the park was an overgrown mess, but we sensed it the moment we were in the city. We headed there immediately. Lumoof looked at the overgrown park, and we gradually made our way in. We didnt cut any of the trees or vines, but we felt the pulsing presence of something smaller.

A tree spirit, like myself.

Smaller, and not yet a domain holder, because Lumoof instantly detected it wasnt very high level. Only about level 80, despite its extremely old age.

Greetings. Lumoof said.

There was no response, and Lumoof got closer, and placed his hand on the trees trunk. In an instant, I felt a mental connection.

I said through Lumoof.

I was instantly flooded with images.

> Greetings. < It sounded old, like a very tired old grandmother.

> Well met, Aeon and Lumoof. I am Tgtherian, a tree spirit. <

I said. Generally tree spirits have been... nice.

> Ah. Our kind are few. Many trees are cut down before our consciousness can fully form. < I reckon it took centuries for that to happen. A soul only takes root in a tree after a certain size and age.

Tgtherian, didnt know much. It was about 1,800 years old, but it spent most of that time in this park, from a small sapling, and she gained consciousness and awareness about 1,500 years ago. She leveled slowly, even though she offered familiars to druids, shamans and rangers. She didnt have the hero fragments supercharging her experience.

Because she was relatively young, she didnt remember about the Will of the World, or any other such things.

A shame, but I suppose I cant expect every spirit I meet to be as powerful as me. Many would be below level 100.

Now that I met another tree spirit, I wasnt sure what I was about to do with it. I decided to just leave her alone for now.

***

Stella continued to experiment with the rift gates with Alka. Alka already made his first prototype star-mana bomb, and he came with a rather interesting idea.

Aeon, do you think you can fuse a soul with the bomb?

You want to make a sentient bomb?

Yes. Our theory was that souls can reduce the decay from storing star mana or void mana. But Im also interested in whether it could function as a regulator of the star mana, if the storage function was handled by the hero-item.

Prabu made it with the [hero forge], but Alka wanted to see whether theres potential for hero-made items and souls to coexist together. Hero-made items didnt leak star mana that much, due to some unknown mechanism, so Alka wanted to inject a soul within it to examine how that worked.

It didnt work. The hero-item rejected my attempts of inserting an artificial mind into it. Nope.

Darn.

It would be quite overpowered if it could.

***

On the parasite demonworld, we started deployment of my newly developed treechikomas, version one. That was the name I gave for the walking tree-labs thats a hybrid between a demon walker, a beetle and a lab, invented, or really, modified from a demon walker base. Courtesy of my Tree of Lifes evolutionary powers.

Treechis, for short.

The Treechis, each of them with their own artificial minds, were assigned to scan and examine the demonworld in more detail, with more active and live testing with their ability to directly perform tests.

The Treechis each had a different type of lab on their back, were each about the size of a small car, and they worked in teams of five. They would test the soil, test the mana, and perform examinations in contested territories.

For now, they didnt produce any spectacularly groundbreaking findings, but all the little bits of new data helped push my knowledge of the demon world, and supported our researchers out in the fields.

Along with the Treechis, we also began experimenting with specialisation of the Treefolks and Lizardpersons of the Central continent, through thematic use of my new evolutionary-inherited skill powers.

Our goal was to create natural-born, skill-engineered specialists, even if it did feel like I was robbing these guys of choice. Like, what if a Treefolk who was born with a natural skillset for healing and defense wanted to be a fighter? Or a lizardperson who inherited a bunch of spear skills wanted to be an archer?

Then again, thats how it was in our world too. Not everyone had the physique to excel at certain kinds of activity.

Oh well. For now, the treefolks seemed alright with the inserted skill-experimentation. I started with simple skills harvested from some fallen paladins and knights, such as [Demonic Resistance], and skills from some of the rangers, such as [Strength]. I wanted to see the implications of having inherited skills in young babies, and how they manifested.

I didnt want super powered little babies killing their caretakers.

Spaizzer

AYY Gonna shout out a buddy's book! If youve got KU or some spare audible credits, feel free to read!

MORCSTER CHEF by @Actus is back with Book 2: 'Into the Fire'. Join Arek on another adventure against unexpected enemies and burnt crust.

Audible: /pd/Cleavers-Edge-Audiobook/B09M7JG4ST