That which lies beneath the roots

That which lies beneath the roots

Year 206 (Part 3)

I wonder whether the demons essentially acquired their unique skills as a result of adaptations to their current worlds. If so, what kind of world created demons like Sabnoc and their army & encampment style? One of those quirky worlds where everything was linked to some capture-the-flag system?Finnd new chapters at novelhall.com

Meanwhile, Lumoof went down and around, and these giant demons created canyons out of their footsteps. Well, not in a single step, but the texture of the sands and rocks seemed to suggest that the entire canyon was formerly just a flat desert, but the weight of these massive demons had essentially carved a path where there was none.

These demons moved the same path all the time. Lumoof observed. The night was long. Really, really long. The day-night cycle in this demon world was essentially two-full-days long.

It strangely repulsed me. A primal part of me rejected such an unusual day-night cycle, and it was uncomfortable, quite like the feeling I got from my clone on the Cometworld shard.

But why?

Magic was really, really faint here. The sands and everything absorbed mana, but yet, the demons heart clearly had some demonic mana. Did the rocks release the mana eventually?

The labs back home studied it intensely, and then, they tested a small spot by overloading it with mana. The sand exploded, and that explosion released mana. My researchers and Treechikomas quickly suggested that the demons rocks absorbed mana, and through a series of controlled overloading of mana, released the absorbed mana through these explosions.

But it was a net loss. The very nature of the sand drained mana from its surroundings and accelerated the decay of magical things.

Then, we had the very obvious answer. Crushing the sand released small amounts of mana. Essentially, the demons ate the anti-mana rocks for the little bits of mana within them. So, they became the anti-mana demons.

There was no vegetation whatsoever, and I wondered if it would've been really easy for the demons to conquer this world, since there was no resistance.

The demons continued to walk and walk, and when the sun began to peek out of the horizon, they all stopped. They shook their bodies, and then sat down. They hid their legs, their heads underneath their massive body of the anti-mana rock and sand.

At that moment, they were very animal-like, and I felt a sense of wonder. These massive creatures were wonders in their own way, even if they were demons. Massive lumbering moving mountains. Its a sight to behold when it wasnt attacking us.

The demons, as they are now, were just ravenous locusts with extra steps, meant to consume and extract each of their captured worlds to produce more of themselves. Could their nature be altered?

I remembered that Aiva said they have attempted to destroy the demons, but they still came back. So maybe destroying them was really rather futile. Its like attempting to exterminate cockroaches. Perhaps, was there a way to change their behavior at their source, if its not something that could be destroyed?

Was there a way to, like, with mosquitos, introduce less hostile variants into their genetic code?

We looked at these hidden giants, and the vast deserts around us, only mildly accentuated by some rocky outcrops.

Lumoof, lets capture one of these massive demons.

He gulped. He didnt really enjoy mana sickness, and he guessed this one would be almost as bad as the demon king.

Later. Lets find one of the rift gates. I could sate my curiosity later.

***

During the long day, we noticed that most of the demons just hid in the sand or the dirt. There were some rumblings and shakes here and there, implying that there was some subterranean movement, but for the most part, the hostile, mana-draining sun seemed to be so overwhelming that the demons entered this low-energy mode.

With the sun above us, the demons frankly didnt bother us, and it was entirely possible for us to walk everywhere uninterrupted. If this was a demon world, it sure wasnt what any of us would have expected.

Roon and Johann both joined Edna and Lumoof on the sand-demon world, and they moved quickly too. They had more scouting and exploration skills due to their heritage as rangers and archers.

Johanns bird companion literally caught fire as it flew in the sky, and then exploded. Lumoof also transformed into the full avatar mode, and I attempted to perform more tests on the solar light that seemed to cover the entire world.

It took a while, but after a bit more detection and sensing, we noticed that the anti-mana rays of light carried a special kind of particle. It wasnt mana, and it was highly unstable. But it was these particles that gave the rays their anti-mana qualities.

It was the magical equivalent of super-strong UV rays that significantly increased magical decay.

Our converted sand-lizard lost mana when it walked, and I felt it dry out as it moved. For my domain holders, their souls generated far higher quantities of mana than they lost, so it wasnt that bad. But weaker creatures would find themselves drained from exposure, so they hid in the soil and sand instead.

I couldnt quite capture this strange particle, it refused to be confined by my attempts to lock it, and slipped through me easily.

Its like cosmic rays passing through my body, igniting mana in the process. It gets weakened by obstacles or objects in its path.

This was extremely fascinating, because I immediately realized there was tremendous weaponization potential for this sort of particle.

Could we essentially disable heroes and demon kings, with very high quantities of such particles? Or at least, weaken them to a state where we could then capture them and bind them?

I would love to conduct long studies on the qualities of this particle, especially how it reacted to various types of materials. But experiments are a long process, and I would need to have a semi-permanent placement here.

Lumoof. Roon spoke through our familiars, routing it through the system. In this world, [message] spells were unusable. It was like trying to send mail through the ocean, without protecting it in glass. The water disintegrated the paper over time. Spotted something. A strange valley.

There was a valley that was more like a rift in the earth itself. The opening was small, but it went really, really deep.

The top part of the opening had been battered by the anti-mana rays, and transformed into the same kind of material and sand we see everywhere else. But the lower half actually looked normal. Like... rock?

No. Water? Like, really deep down?

Lumoofs body was surrounded by vines, and the vines acted as anchors. The vines and roots emerging from Lumoofs body pierced the cliff walls, and like a massive multi-legged spider, we gradually went downwards.

The sand layers really quite deep. Roon observed, as my four domain holders regrouped. They stood on wooden platforms created from the wooden roots. We were about fifteen stories deep, when we began to see soil and rock that resembled our own. Theres... nothing here.

Its likely they just appear at night. Edna said.

But I dont detect anything. Roon commented. I couldnt sense them either, so it was probably nothing.

We found the floor, or the bottom of the chasm about eighty stories down. There was water, just a bit, gradually trickling out of the rock. The rock felt wet. Lumoof touched it, and I attempted to extend my senses into the ground.

And we killed them.

We explored these horizontal tunnels somemore, and soon found a large cavern with something weve always been wondering about. Rift gate. A normal sized rift gate, exactly the same model.

Subterranean rift gates. Interesting. Shouldve seen it coming when my own rift gates are in the Valley of the Unrotten, hidden from view.

We moved to capture it, and cleared the place of demons. Those guarding the rift gates didnt pose much of a challenge, and my aura meant they were mostly frozen in place. Lumoof briefly entered avatar state, and created a few subsidiary trees around the rift gates. Then, I activated the star mana variant of my [Vine Ropeway Network], and shoved the rift gates back home.

Alright, thats one. Bet theres more. Roon commented.

The group explored the tunnels for days, and found one more. We also captured the rift gates and the nearby daemolite, and then sent them back home. This part of the tunnel now fully explored, the team went back down the pits.

***

We went deeper, and the journey down took even more days. It was also getting really hot as we approached the core, and the magical forces in our surrounding got even more wild. It wasnt difficult to deal with the heat, since I had the ability to adapt to all kinds of environments, so I protected the domain holders in a sphere of wood. As these woods were linked to me via Lumoof, like a small enclosed space.

Essentially, they rode a wooden pumpkin wagon going down a deep hole. Sadly, its not Alice in wonderland or Cinderella, because down there was probably a monster. There was magic here, but it struggled and fought an extremely strong draining force.

About fifteen days in, the core was not molten lava, and instead, was a dried lattice of what appeared to be volcanic rock, and the heat had mostly stabilised. In fact, that strong draining force seemed to be keeping things cool.

The walls had now transformed into what was probably a really intricate latticework of rocks, and as my vines touched these rocks, I could tell there was once a really strong magic in these rocks.

They were a little like the core shard I got from the Cometworld.

We kept going. This deep, there were no demons. Nothing.

And we began to feel a really strong pulse.

The anti-mana energies pulsed periodically, and it flared outwards in a rhythm.

We didnt see the sand or rock that was poured overhead. Roon commented.

Maybe the anti-mana draining effects transformed them into something else.

Indeed. So deep down, everything was just these dried lattice-like black rocks. There was once a flowing thing here, maybe centuries ago.

It took a total of almost a month, and it actually became really cold. All heat was sucked out of the air, and it would be impossible to breathe outside. There was no ice, no water, and as we reached the massive core cavity.

The entire core of the planet had been largely hollowed out. There were still some massive rock pillars similar to the dried lattice-like rocks. Filling up the gaps was this structure resembling a really complicated web of flesh and demonic spire-like structures.

They all radiated a small, faint pulse.

The structure was demonic for sure, filled with streaks of demonic energy that was familiar. Yet, at this point, we both sensed it. There were two forces here, both similar to a demon king, and yet different.

One of the structures itself, here, up close, it radiated a really strong corrupting energy, quite like the effects of the Rottedlands, and a [Forest Rod]. The structure was like a network and web that spread out.

The structure around that cocoon is something... We began to look around, and then we saw an area where there was a very large mass of demonic flesh. It was a large lizard-like creature, but many parts had been hollowed out. That part of its body was wrapped around a large rocky structure that had an extremely faint energy.

A demon king, or, it was a demon king. The first source of the demon energy, and this demonic energy was throughout the structure that covered this hollowed out core. It wasnt hard to put our observations together and conclude that our earlier theory was mostly correct.

Damn to think there really is a demon king in the core. Edna vented. Its possessing the world?

It is. Lumoof nodded. So that huge its holding must be the core of this world. Or whats left of it.

The demon king itself was just a massive [Forest Rod], meant to capture worlds and control it, such that it transforms into a demon world. The win condition for the demon kings isnt just defeating the heroes. Its also to reach the core, and then possess it.

With the core, I suspect they would gain system-rights to the world, and that allowed them to spawn demons instead of the usual monsters. There should be something similar that lives within the core of the parasite world, and we should reach it.

Its the equivalent of a hacker getting access to the mainframe and then reconfiguring it for its own purpose. Or capturing a mine and using its resources to support its own war effort.

That second source of demonic energy was a large cocoon. A nascent demon king. It was coiled up, and it was a gigantic lizard or wurm of some kind.

It was massive, and was the single largest object Ive ever seen. It was the size of an entire mountain, and would blot out entire cities with any single one of its legs.

My first suspicion was mostly confirmed. Demon kings were made out of the energies gathered from the core of the world. If so, that explained the drained feeling, and why that recovered slightly post demon king. But, if there was a demon king still in the core, continuing to possess it, it also meant the parasite-world would never fully recover. Once it reached a certain threshold it would start producing another demon king.

How the fuck were the heroes supposed to fight this? Roon said. Without magic!

Hack it repeatedly. Edna answered. There should be a core somewhere.

Lumoof looked at the rest. Aeon?

A demon king, still in its earthly womb, without its will. If it is a machine, is this a mecha without its pilot? A body without a soul? Could I hijack it? I felt all sorts of torment, but would I ever have an opportunity like this ever again? What do I lose, and what can I learn from this?

Frankly, a lot.

But what do I do with the demon king around the core? Should I attempt to destroy that, and free the core?

Or do I attempt to control the growing demon king, and use it to destroy the structure?

Lumoof. Take my seed out, and throw it into the cocoon.

In any case, all Im sacrificing is just a seed.