Year 211 (Months after the victory)

“How are you feeling?” Edna came and checked on Lumoof. There were lingering side effects from the exposure to that twisted space.

“Better, it’ll take some time before I’m fully in shape, though. The strange energies of the demon king and that void space are far more persistent than Aeon expected.”

The tearing forces of the void forests were mild, but they lingered, and manifested quite a bit like demonic curses. I could remove curses quite easily, but these were not exactly curses either. They felt a bit more like reality being in conflict with itself, which was really hard to explain. I also noticed they seemed to ‘mark’ Lumoof like a sign, though eventually it went away.

Lumoof gained about ten levels from the trip through space, and he unlocked a new skill. [Forest Sanctuary]. It’s not a combat skill, but it created some kind of ‘pocket dimension’, as long as there’s a few trees in the area. The Forest Sanctuary essentially functioned as a super-safe campsite, since, well, it’s in its own pocket dimension.

***

Around the same time, I got the briefing on the battle with the demon king from the team, though I saw most of it through magical scrying, and the moments when my trees were through to the other side. The anti-magical energies of the acid interfered with the scrying, and Edna’s mention of the weird greenish glow made me suspicious.

The flesh we harvested that didn’t rot or disappear, or the demon king’s core both had greenish glows.

They have never glowed in that manner.

The core of the demon king was safe in the Valley, and they looked strange, and out of place. Like someone tainted the demon king’s core.

I vaguely recall the pulse to be quite weak, at least initially, but now they pulsed with a far stronger glow and with much more fixed intervals. It felt a bit like two incompatible songs mashed together.

On top of that, the battle with the heroes meant their star mana already damaged the core, so it wasn't fully usable.

Still, we now had multiple specimens of the core, sufficient for my researchers and scientists to perform comparative analysis. They also began to construct a smaller model based off the various undamaged components across all the cores.

It was the equivalent of stripping multiple crashed airplanes to get sufficient parts for a usable whole, and it was Alka’s little pet project.

While they worked on that, I focused on the tainted energies of the demon king's core. The green streaks.

They were mine. We made them.

It wasn’t hard to figure out that these were created from my mana, the cumulative effects of our attacks on the demon king during its gestation clearly left a long-lasting impact on their formation. Coupled with what the heroes reported, I suspected that my mana had somehow lingered, or was absorbed by the demon king.

The fact that this could happen validated parts of our offensive strategy.

What if I could taint all the demon kings? Could the taint stop the demon kings from behaving the way it currently does? Does the taint carry over to the next demon king? Could I render the planet’s cores ‘infertile’ such that demon kings could not spawn from them, even if they won? Extrapolating my earlier ‘conversion’ of the demon walkers, would it be possible to ‘convert’ the demon king.

The next step was naturally to scale this up by an entire order of magnitude. What we needed to do, was to effectively deliver such a high quantity of mana to the demon king, such that I corrupted it when it was still in its infancy.

The quantity of mana I needed was more than what I have now, but it’s not impossible.

I’d also need to improve Lumoof’s ability to deliver mana and cope with my power. Though he could project my power and my abilities, he also suffered from the side effects of that projection.

Therefore, he began mana-practice. He’s a priest, but he had to train and get used to large quantities of mana. We did this training before, but our goal post had shifted. The goal was to prepare Lumoof for mana at least ten times more than what I had now.

With that amount of mana, we’d then attempt to ‘poison’ the demon king once more, and see whether we could essentially stop the demon king before it even happened.

It was painful to subject Lumoof to the large amounts of mana, but like Stella, only through exposure to excessive amounts of mana, could he hope to gain the immunity to it. With higher mana tolerance, Lumoof would last longer in the demon worlds.

He cursed, of course. He understood, but he cursed. The path to end the cycle required sacrifice. Pain.

My avatar understood the purpose.

But the pain was real, and it hurt as hell.

***

The astral pathways collapsed instantly after the demon king’s death, and though I was a little sad that I would lose access to the anti-magic sand, I was also curious of what came after. What would the next demon world be like?

Stella was quiet as she watched the astral paths collapse, the revelations of the starways being this space that’s not really empty. Souls, and maybe even other things we may not even think of.

Maybe the gods truly reside in this void space?

***

The dust had settled, and it seemed I gained a few levels. I wasn’t there for the bulk of the battle, so I was still pleasantly surprised by the additional levels.

[You gained 5 levels. You are now Level 226]

[Astral Sight improved. You may now see further between the realms]

[Natural Mana overwhelming upgraded]

[Mana storage upgraded]

It was nice that the system rewarded my mana poisoning with more mana related skills. These upgrades were ‘incremental’ improvements, little bits of extra efficiency and effectiveness from every point of mana.

***

We had a post battle review with the heroes too, and strangely, they actually said the battle was comparatively easy. There were very few truly ‘threatening’ moments, and their problem was just dealing damage to the demon king.

They had a small panic moment when the bomb apepared at the end, of course, but that was something we all saw coming.

Based on the data from the domain holders, the heroes were generally right. It wasn’t that ‘bad’ for a demon king. Unlike Sabnoc or Akkila, the number of strange gimmicks were few, just that acid lake defense.

I wondered whether that was because our ‘mild’ mana poisoning had somehow interfered with the full breadth of the demon king’s powers. They had easy mode because we ‘locked’ some skills.

“Aeon and Lumoof should invade the demon world more often.”

Lumoof choked. Edna just grinned. “Now, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, it just so happens that the demon world was an anti-magic world. For the next demon king, we should consider a more thorough invasion. One led by the heroes.”

The heroes squirmed at Edna’s response. The initial plan a few years ago was a hero-invasion. One that had to be modified because of the unique qualities of the anti-magic sandworld. Now, it’s time to revert back to our original plan.

“There’s nothing to worry, we would do the initial scouting and reconnaissance, but the plan should not change.”

Both Alvin and Kelly of the Mountainworld were just too stunned to respond. They couldn’t wrap their heads around a pre-emptive invasion, or at least, struggled to. Even after they’ve seen Lumoof do it, it still baffled their mind.

I wondered whether their mental controls were slightly different from that of Chung, Prabu and gang, but when they dipped into my biolabs, I didn’t see anything different.

At least, not from the outer appearances.

Chung just sighed. “Can’t delay it forever.”

“It’s likely we will get something more ‘normal’ for the next demon king.” Edna speculated. “If the next world is anything like a parasiteworld, the plan will proceed. We’ll see which world comes first, either this, or the Mountainworld’s demon king.”

“The frequency of our demon kings isn’t that high, I think.” Kelly said. “I think... I can’t remember.”

“Fifteen, if I’m not mistaken.” Lumoof answered. “Their records are just as choppy as ours.”

“Darn it. Why is ours so frequent?”

“Daemolite.” Edna answered. “We have more daemolite than them.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Chung answered. “The demon kings create daemolite. Why would more daemolite result in more frequent demon kings?”

Edna shrugged. “I don’t know, but the daemolite’s linked to the frequency.”

“Wait. Have you guys known this for a long time?” Prabu asked.

Edna paused, and she momentarily wondered whether this was revealed before. “Yes. To some extent, it’s something we’ve been speculating, but we were not sure. We saw it in ancient dreams. Or more like, Aeon saw it.”

The heroes murmured as the statement stewed in the air.

“The locals won’t like that.” Chung said. “All the native rulers use daemolite to varying degrees for stuff.”

Edna nodded. “Indeed. Even Stella’s void portals and the riftgate relies on daemolite to store the void mana. It is currently the best available source of void-mana storage. Other alternatives just don’t work as well.”

“So if we destroy it, we may or may not reduce the frequency, but we lose our best known way to store void mana.”

“Yes. That’s right.” Edna answered. “It’s why we did not say much, until we have more certainty.”

***

Branchhold’s growth was good, and I was quite fascinated by the idea of starting a city from scratch.

My spymaster seemed excited to have a new assignment, and I thought he grew bored of the challenges back home. He denied it, of course.

Branchhold itself was designed to be significantly more compact, with my clone tree at it’s core. One of the things we took advantage of, was to create ‘vertical’ structures, using my giant attendant trees as the anchor and support.

This allowed greater density and more efficient use of space. Normally, with increased densities, there needed to have sufficient food and water to support it, but a city composed of trees has its advantages. Food and water was not a problem, since we could produce fruits, and pull water from beneath the ground.

In other cities, they had to go an extra step of having magical food equivalents.

Thus, Branchhold was designed to be significantly more ‘vertical’ than Freshka that sprawled outwards.

This resulted in some redesigns for my beetles. Beetles naturally had the ability to climb up trees and slopes, but their ‘packages’ and ‘cargo’ had to be properly supported since gravity still applied.

I liked the idea of a city that’s dense, and strangely, it appealed to the beetles too. It seemed that humans, Canari and elves didn’t quite like it, but dwarves found it quite similar to the mines, so density wasn’t a problem.

The treefolk also didn’t like dense places, they got comfort from their link to the earth, so dense cities didn’t appeal to them.

The local folks were neutral to the idea of density, they seemed more interested in the safety aspect of any institution, most likely the residual impact from the long period of war. Those who faced long periods of uncertainty due to war valued security far more than those who didn’t. Generally, of course. There are those that embraced the nihilism and meaninglessness of life in the face of war.

What I learned from the locals through Branchhold’s extensive surveillance was rather telling.

The drive to survive created a hardened society, and nobles who are just far more warlike.. A decade of constant war created nobles who were now eager to expand their power, and that power turned on each other.

I had expected that my presence would ‘deter’ them from actually fighting each other. After all, in our world, the presence of a strong superpower pretty much resulted in an era of peace.

That did not happen.

The system, which indirectly encouraged conflict, since everyone gained levels from fighting, essentially was stuck in this hostile loop. War was inevitable, not just because of demons, but because war rewarded those who survived them. The system grants levels, which then equate to strength.

Strength to impose one’s will on others, and thus, war.

Therefore, how could a world that grants power through warfare have a state of ‘peace’?

It could, if somehow everyone turned away from the system. But that leaves a world defenseless against the demons. With no outside interference, either divine or demonic, those who possess power will fight for more power.

Of course, this is a very pessimistic assessment of the nature of people. Not all people seek out power, but those who ‘become’ nobility and the rulers tend to be those who are more likely to seek out power and cause conflict.

It was just the necessity of their role. Even if one originally did not covet power, those who coveted their power would rise up and attempt to overthrow those who could not defend their position.

Thus, by sheer elimination of more ‘peaceful’ rulers, as they failed to defend their throne, the world should naturally veer towards violence.

On the central continent, we mitigate this through our extensive education program, the FTC, and also the presence of our priests.

But I know that wars cannot be entirely avoided. In fact, small wars are like controlled fires, a thought that sometimes horrified a part of me. It keeps the military on their toes instead of decaying into a state of complacency, especially since the threat of demons had dwindled significantly over the past few decades.

I’ve tried to mitigate that with more dungeons and more dream-wars, but a ‘lifestyle’ of war? An entire society engineered towards winning a war? That was something else, and that’s what the Mountainworld had.

That kind of focus was admirable, and I admired how well they handled it. I wondered whether that’s how Lilies felt, as they grappled with the constant shifting forces of the world.

Competition and conflict created true strength. This was true back home, because it forced everyone to be on their toes. On a macro level, if I wanted a strong army, it must be allowed to experience war and battle.

Back on Branchhold, they have yet to have all these cumulative systemic changes, and thus a state of warfare is the default. The peace created by the two heroes did not last very long.

A rather pessimistic state of affairs, but so be it.

Their weakness meant I had gaps to exploit, and I freely expanded my trees on the Mountainworld to increase my total mana capacity.

It didn’t matter if I didn’t formally own the land, in a way, that was just a feint.

As I thought about it, the Crystal dude was right. I was an invader, and right now I’m spreading my trees to ‘invade’ this world and ‘steal’ its mana.

My actions were justified, because I can’t defeat the demons and end this stupid cycle without some invasions to gain more mana. At this juncture, it was a good and timely reminder for that age old phrase.

He who fights with demons, should take care that he does not become a demon.

I suppose with all the demon hybrid experimentations, I wasn’t far off from being one.

***

On the topic of experiments, Alka approached me to explore ‘bomb-beetles’. Essentially massive suicide beetles, or a swarm of tiny ones. Using my biological evolutionary engineering, to ‘craft’ or ‘grow’ a bomb-compatible beetle, with flight or movement, for the explicit purpose of blowing itself up at the target.

Smaller experiments were successful, and now we wanted to take it to the extreme. Supersized bombs, and superfast swarms of them. Speed, stealth and power was the primary issue.

The idea was to create a literal flying swarm of explosive beetles, and then, with a large enough portal, send enough through to the demonworld.

Why not just normal bombs?

Simple. Alka wanted to exploit system-shenanigans to overcome ‘manufacturing’ constraints.

My subsidiary trees could spawn beetles by pure system-effect and mana. If I could create suicide beetles, and the subsidiary trees, of which I have an absurdly large number of, I essentially had the abilty to bypast resource-restrictions and just bomb the demon world with just an army of banelings or exploding zerglings.

We could then bomb the parasite world to hell, and break the status quo. The war on the parasite world had reached another ‘status quo’.

We were beginning to question the value of this world. I wasn’t learning much on the parasiteworld. The fringes of my expanded territory had to endure more demonic attacks, and I noticed some changes in the demon types used to attack my lands, but it really felt like it was going nowhere.

If anything, I should ask the six heroes to mount our first ‘liberation’ mission on the Parasite world.

“Liberate a world from the control of the demons?” Prabu wrapped his head around the idea of a counter invasion. “I thought we wanted to invade the demon world to attack the demon king before it attacked us.”

“Yes, but Aeon proposed something more ‘radical’ as a test bed.” Edna was the one to deliver the message. Lumoof’s recovery meant he wasn’t in his best shape, but it was time. “Aeon’s incursions into the demonworld highly suggested the existence of a demon king that metamorphosed into a ‘mother’ in the core of the world. We believe that if we defeat it, it may free the core from the demon’s control, and the planet then ‘reverts’ back to a normal world.”

Ken and Snek were excited at the idea. If this worked, it meant Snek had a chance to save his homeworld. It’s proof that it could be done.

“Aeon has been expanding on the parasiteworld, right?”

“Yes. Aeon has a large force present currently fighting a long-drawn out war of attrition. It reached a stalemate recently, due to mana limitations.” The heroes glanced at each other uncomfortably.

“We know what we are hitting?”

“No. Aeon’s unable to see what’s in the core as the pit that leads to the core is flooded.”

“I’m not doing it without Lumoof doing recon.” Prabu said. “Or at least, can the flooded pit be drained? If we know what we are hitting, then maybe.”

“Possible. With enough trees, Aeon could drain some of the water out. But if it goes all the way to the magical core of the world, it would take some time. The roots would need to reach that deep in the first place. The demon mother’s also likely to be weaker than a full demon king, at least, that’s the sense I got from the demon I saw in the core of the antimagic world.”

“Another free world.” Prabu answered. “Could we get heroes there?”

Edna shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s entirely up to the gods.”

“They only summon heroes in response to a demon king.”

“Is... the parasiteworld linked to any other worlds?”

“Yes, but they are too far with our current abilities. Anyway, let’s have that conversation later and get back on topic. The battle, if any, will happen in the core of the world, because it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to get the demon ‘mother’ away from the core.”

The heroes looked at each other. Strangely, it was Chung that asked. “Ken, what do you think?”

“Fighting a demon in the core of the planet feels very end-game boss to me.”

Chung rolled his eyes. “Eh, now's not the time for a gaming reference!”

“It’s a risk.” Ken said. “Snek would definitely like to see it happen, but if Aeon could stack the battlefield in our favor, and with the full recovery of their team, it may work.”

“Can’t we just drop a bomb into the core?”

“You mean like star wars?”

“Yeah. Death star and all that.”

“We could, but that may blow up the planet. And that’s not what we want.”

“Aeon would prefer to keep the planet in shape in order to have another ‘hospitable’ world to our stable of ‘safe’ worlds.” Well, if I could free the parasiteworld from the demons, theoretically the mana recovery should improve significantly. Not being in a mana-deficit would support my goal of increasing my mana output.

Adrian and Kelly were both too flabbergasted to digest the idea. Aiding the defense of another world was one thing, but an invasive liberation of a demonworld never quite crossed their mind.

“You have time to decide.” Edna said. “We’re waiting for the full recovery of the entire team before we attempt this.”

***

“What do you think of the idea?” The heroes had their own session.

“Yes.” Prabu said. “I say go for it. We have the necessary skills, and as heroes, this is what we do. Defeat demons.”

“You sure that’s not your mental overrides hitting you?” Chung asked.

“I know, but it’s the right thing to do. If it resets that world, it may mean more hero summons in the future. More candidates for the League of heroes.”

“It’s insane.” Kelly just said frankly. “So yes.”

“You’re insane.” Chung said. “Why are we taking this risk? We’re risking our lives here, going down to the demonworld’s pit to fight this thing in there. I’m against this. We don’t need this fight.”

Colette shrugged. “I don’t know. I want more information before I decide.”

Hafiz and Adrian both nodded. “Yeah, I’m with Colette. I need to know more. If it’s an easy fight we should go for it. Ken’s right. If Aeon could stack the odds in our favor, then we have nothing to lose.”

Chung sighed. “Alright, then I’ll let Edna know that we want more info. We’re not going in there blind.”

Prabu laughed. “That's a privilege, Chung. Our predecessors all had to face their demon kings with no data.”

“But this isn’t a necessary fight.”

“Maybe not, but it is our duty.”

“That’s the gods’ speaking.”

“Maybe.”