Bunkering for Trees

Bunkering for Trees

Year 209

Lumoof returned to the Sandworld alone. The place had not changed, but this time, we were not here for the sand or to study the solar radiation.

We wanted to mess with the mechanisms used to send the demon king through the worlds, and see whether we could essentially shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile while its ascending from its silo. Or mess with the delivery vehicle such that the ICBM could not even hit its intended target.

My plan was simple. Weve seen the mechanisms used to create the portal, and the goal was to simply smash them before the demon king could use it. After all, the demon king itself may not be able to stop me, since it has to teleport to another world. If it did interrupt and attacked me, that was a success.

If it lured the demon in the core out of the core, that was also a success.

If that failed, Id attempt to mess with the mana balance of the portal, and see whether I could stop the demon king from teleporting.

Any delay was a success, even if they still eventually made the trip.

I dont think its ready yet. Lumoof said, as we stood above where the hole once was. I could sense the massive pit to the core beneath us. There was no structure here, no tower of void energy. Not yet.

Just the rift gates built into the walls of the pit. We could destroy it, of course. So we did, but I reckon the demons would be able to regenerate these gates fairly easily. These rift gates, built into the walls of the pits, looked more flimsy than the normal gates.

During the day, the pit was covered, and we took advantage of the daytime to enter avatar mode, and my roots pierced through the ground beneath us. It was a demon champion that functioned as a mobile cover, and it wasnt hard to kill it once I found where its core was.

The path between the two worlds was solid, and now, from this side, I sensed tremendous amounts of that core-void blend had been injected into it.

But I couldnt interact with the path. Only Stella could, which made me wonder. I know its possible for a normal person to gain void mana, and I myself already have small quantities of star mana. But could we train a regular person to possess star mana, or to possess any other kinds of mana?

Anyway, I digressed. I focused back on the pit and its immediate surroundings. How did the demon king create those structures, and could we destroy it, copy it or change it?

There was currently nothing around us. Except for the structure at the edges of the pit, which we have destroyed. Yet, I had a feeling it wouldnt be so easy.

The next likely candidate was the demon within the world. Maybe it coordinated the transportation and the opening of the rift. It must have had a mechanism to create the structures needed to open the gates to the worlds beyond.

If so, Id try to intercept it.

We have two years left. Lumoof repeated. Its not here yet.

But the rifts will open soon. Lets head further underground and try to reach those riftgates, and observe from this end.

Lumoof gulped. Some days, I think this avatar ability is cursed.

***

Back home, war preparations continued, and I used the expanded range of my roots to continue my expansions into the sea, and also underground.

There was nothing much to find in the sea, not with my now increased range. Even underground, it was more of the same thing.

Still, with the expanded range, I could reach even further out of the sea, and even deeper, and for once, began to connect to a string of smaller islands further out to sea from the Central Continent mainland.

Places I could never reach before, and with it, more mana. I realised the folly of my earlier attempt at the womb of the demon king. I was still underpowered, and if I sought to unmake the demons with mana, I would need a lot more than then mana of just one continent.

I needed the mana of at least an entire world. Maybe two or three.

So, I shifted my attention to the parasiteworld, now in a state of flux. Do I still need this world?

I needed a world where mana was plentiful. A world that could fuel the war that is to come, and this wasnt it.

Actually, as I reviewed all my clones, I concluded both the moon and the Parasiteworld should be on the chopping block. Cometworld too, but since it had the value of travelling through the void-space, I decided it was worth keeping despite the mana shortfall.

My moon seed was now a waste, even if it was the first experiment we did. It had no mana production, and Stellas attempt to mess with the void paths into our world did not work. Not even when she tried to block the astral paths on the moon.

It was the equivalent of trying to stop an out of control truck with a piece of paper. A really thick black piece of paper. Naturally, it didnt work, so I decided I would recall my moon-clone. It was the easiest to recall, since it was so close to me that Stella could open a portal to the moon. Thus, the opportunity cost to redeploy was the lowest, if some day I were to find some other use case for a moon base.

I felt my close tree shrivel, shrink, and then... vanish.

[Clone Seed recalled. 10 years of cooldown before it can be redeployed.]

We did notice that when sufficient of these demons were around, the ambient mana decreased significantly, and made spelling more laborious.

As a whole though, the regular mobs were weaker, but the demon king wont be subject to the same restrictions. Its likely, from extrapolating our initial findings, that the demon king would have some kind of anti-magic ability.

Maybe well get some global anti-magic? Edna speculated. We havent seen global-effect demon kings for some time.

You sound like youre looking forward to it. Roon said. Those were unpleasant times, from what I heard from the survivors.

No. I mean, thats just what it is. Trends repeat themselves, and the demons eventually rehash the same ability types. A global magic-interruption is likely.

But how do we circumvent a global anti-magic ability anyway? We would once again see the collapse of the global [message] system, but if its anti-magic it could do more than that. I recalled that they could even interrupt my communication with beetles.

The previous heroes made transmission towers, something I was only able to replicate to a much lesser degree. Again, we would need to workaround the magic with skill and system.

I made a note to train a physical-only Valthorn, and relayed the message to elites.

This is a bit too late, isnt it? I heard one of the Valthorns naturally grumble about my request. If the coming demon king is a physical-type, how are we going to get anyone ready?

I know, of course. But if the demon kings eventually repeat itself, a physical-type domain holder would eventually have value. Maybe 50 years, maybe 200 years, but eventually, we will encounter this type of demon king again.

I acknowledge my failure to consider this anti-magic, physical-only type of demon king, so, the right thing to do was to prepare for it.

Essentially, as we reevaluated why we failed to prepare for this type of demon king, we began to realise that we were guessing what kind of demon king was coming, but thats actually unacceptable. For us, as an institution, I had to predict at least 50 to 100 years ahead in order to prepare someone for that eventual outcome. 50 years was the estimated amount of time it took to train a domain holder.

I wasnt thinking far enough. We needed to brainstorm, and start to prepare for the demon kings after this one. Not just the coming one.

Look at where we failed, and what kinds of powers we could have. I needed to be Batman, and prepare for every eventuality.

In fact, this was where the heroes pop culture and media knowledge became useful. Ken and the rest of the heroes were more than happy to brainstorm, during the lulls and rest periods, the kinds of creatures that may exist on other worlds.

The ideas were wild. Vampires, werewolves, slimes, spiders, eldritch horrors, human-like creatures, machines, supervillains, goblins and ogres, golems, oversized snakes. They essentially recited all kinds of monsters they could remember, and tried to imagine demon-king versions of those creatures.

It was a fun exercise, and I found it strangely calming. It was great to be reminded of stories from our world, and it also reawakened my memories of the games I played, the books I used to read and the stories Ive heard.

My domain holders, except Lumoof was still in the sandworld spying on the demons, were naturally horrified by the kind of creatures they imagined.

There were also some really good ones that made me think, such as the possibilities for one of the captured heroes to be somehow turned into a demon king, perhaps through the demonic parasites, or something thats non-physical like a ghost, or a water-based demon king. Or, a weapon-demon king. Ken, as a joke, suggested a beaver-demon king.

I personally suspect a water-based demon king was the least likely of them all.

That said, even though they were speculations, it made sense to make some preparations, and start training individuals to be able to counter or mitigate some of the threats. I wouldnt see the payoff now, but fifty years down the road, who knows what could make a difference?

In this entire world, Im probably one of the best placed to make this kind of moonshot investment. So I must.

***

We didnt face much difficulty with the demonic mobs, so the heroes could breathe easy. Prabu suggested that Adrian and Kelly take a visit to our world. A point I agreed with, since they would fight here, so I had my agents in the Mountainworld make the necessary arrangements.

The nobles were not very pleased, but what could they do?

Adrian and Kelly made the trip to my clone, and I sent them here, right to Freshka.

The transportation went well, and there were no system prompts.

Personally, I was pleasantly surprised that there were no punishments or system-problems from sending gods summoned to another world. My personal gut feeling was that they didnt think it was sufficiently likely, so they didnt create any security measures.

Maybe they might, for a future batch, if they realised that heroes were fighting in places they were not supposed to. Oh well.

The two heroes were most fascinated by the assortment of snacks, and the relative modernity of Freshka.

Their first stop?

The hero logs. I suppose its like a guestbook that the heroes have to sign every time they come here.