Year 167

The wars in the North turned really ugly, as the demons brought out the merged worm-champions. Worms fused of multiple-champion level demons, these were absolutely massive monsters and they levelled cities quickly. Again, the two heroes couldn’t be everywhere at once, and although one single hero was enough to defeat these merged worm champions, there were still a few of them, and these worms were smart enough to escape once the heroes were on their tails.

Ugly.

“They need help.” Kei said. “I’d imagine Lausanne could do quite a bit of damage to these worms.”

Lausanne shook her head. “If they are merged champions, probably not. I fought a champion by myself before, all I did was just drag it on. I still needed help to win.”

“Maybe, I think Aeon’s powers are stronger, and your linked powers are therefore stronger.”

“True, but it’s still a big, big gap.” Lausanne shrugged. “And that’s not what I want.”

They have not met Edna for years now, but that was normal. Kei, Lausanne and Astia have been busy hunting dungeons during their short breaks, but Lausanne had to frequently take time off, to spend time with Lauda. Lauda, the second child grew up extremely attached to Lausanne, increasingly so these few years, I wonder whether it’s because of her long absence during her dungeon expeditions.

Kei nodded. She was level 80 now, and she gained the ability to shapeshift her golem form even more, and also some coloration changes. Fighting the dungeons at the right power levels meant she was earning enough experience. I was honestly quite amazed that she got so high leveled so quickly, but it seemed she hacked. She had a skill called [Precious Memories of Stone], which strangely, gave herself a boost to experience gained.

Stella was a level 53 [Void Mage], and honestly it a huge mixed bag. From what I can see, void mages have very few special spells. The difference she brought was that the usual spells she casted were just ‘twisted’ by the void mana such that they have a slightly more ‘powerful’ impact.

The issues are also two-fold. There is no grimoire or manual where Stella can refer to and see what kind of spells used void mana. So, her best bet was to use existing spells and modify it as she practiced. Next, void mana was also unstable and she frequently got cursed from it, so its not easy to experiment with void mana either.

Perhaps we just needed to find a [void mana] manual.

Or perhaps ask Vallasira to teach her, since it had void mana. Wait. Why didn’t I think of that before?

-

> I would like to speak to Vallasira again. < I asked Lilies one day to help communicate the message.

> I see. <

Damned hiding zaratans. I wonder how Lilies even found them.

-

It was one fine evening, when everything seemed to be doing alright, that I got the string of messages.

[Hans has died. You received a fragment.]

[Demon King Durthal has been slain.]

Then, my magical sensors went nuts again. An explosion? Is it going to be some kind of superbomb event?

Turns out... no. We got the answer a few days later, as our informants quickly spoke of black swarms that blot out the sky, creatures that devoured crops and plants without any fear.

Demon KIng Durthal was a bomb, alright. It’s body was a massive swarm of pests that it waited to unleash on the world.

“That’s just cruel.” Kei said, after she had a moment of grief. “You’re telling me there’s a magical swarm of locusts when it dies?”

“Yes. It blew up and seeded it’s immediate surroundings with these... spawning things that pumped out locusts.” Our mages attempted to use their magic to get information, the area was no longer interrupted by the demon king’s presence. The terrain was a huge mix of large daemolite crystal structures, and these massive hatcheries.

Kei frowned. “Y’know, I want to be a magma or fire golem for my next evolution so that I can burn these structures with fire. I hate bugs.”

“You’re immune to bugs.” Lausanne laughed. “You’re a crystal.”

“My trauma as a human carried over. I still hate bugs.”

“Don’t let my beetles hear that.” I said.

“Your beetles are cool.” Kei quickly shook her arms. “I mean, they are totally awesome. But I hate those tiny types. LIke spiders.”

A group of my web spiders appeared next to her and she yelped.

“You do realise I have spiders as servants too?”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Point is, right now, in the Northern Isles, there’s a locust and pest generator that’s spreading these bugs all over the world, and we’ll be seeing food shortages if that place isn’t shut down.”

“But Alvin is still alive, right?”

“News is unclear. It seems that he may be heavily, heavily injured and the temples are keeping all news about the hero’s condition in extreme secrecy.”

“I must go there.” Kei said.

“And do what?” I countered. “You’re not a human form.”

“I still must go.” Kei decided, ignoring all of my warnings. “He’s my friend, as much as I hate him.”

“In your current form, you’ll get attacked and robbed, cut up and sold as gems.”

“I’m level 80. How many can hope to defeat me or even hurt me?” Kei was confident in her strength. “Except a hero, few can even touch me.”

“You’d be surprised at how many level 80s are hidden in the world. Many just choose to play it safe and not let their talents be known.” I explained. It’s common for many elites to understate their value, lest they be sent by their lords to do dangerous things, or suspicions of treachery. In fact, Patreeck reckoned there’s an average of 5-10 level understatement by adventurers out there, simply because most adventurers wanted to avoid the eye of the government. As they say, this was all about holding their cards close to their hearts.

The issue with the cap also distorts one’s strength. Someone with multiple non-complementary classes may be a lot weaker than someone at a lower overall level but with a single focused class. Just like how Jura had villager classes back then.

“So you’re saying there are level 80 bandit lords and stuff?”

“Well, maybe not.”

The highest of the lords in my kingdom is almost Level 70, and there’s been a lot of ‘higher’ level inflation simply because most of these lords now survived longer. Even Kings reached their higher level 60s, but the Kings were not really levelling as much, I suspect, maybe a ruler must be truly independent to gain levels?

Or is it because the role of ‘ruling’ has been separated and segregated to the FFA’s council of representatives, and also some areas of sovereignty were traded away.

“I must go.”

“Then you must at least learn some spells to disguise your appearance.”

“I already have.” Kei said, and in a flicker, the magical energies coated her crystal skin and she looked absolutely human.

-

Year 168

The locusts crossed the damned ocean. The Valthorns mobilised. Fighting locusts was a hard tasks. The cities closest to the North suffered greatly as the locusts attacked crops and even forests.

The forests had their natural defenders and predators, and those attempted to fight off the locusts. Their territory had to be protected.

But the farmlands were brutally eaten, and somehow these locusts were able to breed even this far from their homeland. The fields were ravaged, a month’s harvest wiped out. The larger locusts attacked trees too, and I felt them, nibbling.

It felt like I had ants crawling all over me. They deal no damage, but goddamn they are fucking irritating. I deployed my beetles by the tens of thousands to chomp on them., but still there were millions.

I needed some other kind of solution.

Edna’s ascension to the domain didn’t help much against these tiny swarms of bugs. Individually or in swarms they can be eradicated, but miss a few and they will quickly multiply. In areas where my aura is strong, these magical demon locusts are nothing more than regular bugs, their strength individually is flat out pathetic, and I could kill them by the hundreds of thousands using the chomping defensive plants.

It’s really just a freaking pest.

I soon deployed my bug-eater plants around all the major agricultural locations. It’s an ugly sight, but a necessity. These magical locusts are not bothered by the weather, and must be slaughtered. Fields where the locusts ‘captured’ and ‘infested’ become mini-hatcheries that pumped out even more of these locusts, though in lesser numbers than the main hatchery.

Annoying.

Ugh.

I forgot how much I hated dealing with an insect infestation. Bugs. Damned bugs.

“We’re not bugs, right?” Horns asked.

“Technically you are. But I like you.” I said. “I’m referring to these... pests.”

“We’ll crush them.” Horns happily declared, and the beetles outfitted themselves for anti-locust battle. That meant more pincers, smaller sharp thorns and spikes, and some kind of anti-locust gas spray.

Bug spray.

-

The northern shores turned into a place of horrible carnage as we slay the locusts by the millions. I’ve lost count, and my artificial minds lost count. We’ve resorted to using magical estimates, and using long range magical explosions, our newest magical weapons, to intercept locust swarms crossing the oceans.

It’s kinda like shooting a bomb at a typhoon. Or nuking a hurricane while it’s over the ocean. Wait. That’s not the right kind of description. Bombs work, but it’s not really the best countermeasure against these things.

But what else could we do? Our druids and mages attempted some hurricane or wind spells to destroy the locust swarms, and they do work. But the thing with swarms, is that inevitably some of them survive.

“Master, unless we can destroy the main hatcheries and spawning points.” Which are across the ocean. “We’ll be dealing with these pests for a long time.”

Ugh. I can’t be the only one dealing with this shit.

“How are the other continents coping?” I asked my council.

“Strangely, not that bad. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of locusts headed their way, and the Northern Isles is simply closer to us than any other continent.” My advisors said. “A few of the local lords have started activating magical wards and formations to create ‘pest-barriers’. They work, but these swarms have very high flight-limit and seem to be able to fly past the barriers.”

“Really?”

It’s more of a case that we were the first to see it, as the other continents soon saw the swarms descend on their farmlands. The Eastern Continent suffered heavily, their magical defenses were lacking after the prior wars, and the locusts soon devoured their agricultural produce.

“Do the locusts die off without food after a while?” This was something I actually wondered.

The answer was... yes and no. My spiders captured thousands of locusts for experimentation within my biolab.

One of the few countermeasures I contemplated was... natural defenses. In nature, as I could recall from some documentaries, it’s common for other insects to ‘check’ the growth of other insects. If these locusts are pests, I could possibly design insects that specifically counter their massive swarms.

As it is, my beetles and spiders, stationary bug-eater plants are doing a decent job in killing these demons, but I needed more. Something more powerful that could chase them wherever they went. Interceptor bugs.

We also considered other natural defenses. There were plants that emitted certain gases that were poisonous to their pests. Some plants emitted saps that caused these locusts to stick, or certain changes to the shape or content of their food that reacted to certain parts of their body, which then caused these locusts to die.

Everything was on the table, because they were freaking annoying. I felt like an angry househusband attempting to destroy all the pests in his home.

So, we conducted experiments on the locusts that we captured, and discovered that they are magically powered, and have a little tiny bit of demonic flesh in them that absorbed magic and mana from the surroundings for sustenance. But, once they started eating, they switched to another demonic flesh that digested food. They also had an inbuilt ‘death trigger’, and that was after 5 reproductions, where after food, they made tiny demonic locust eggs in small blobs.

Very strangely well built and engineered, for a tiny creature.

Then, we did one of my favourite anti-demon abilities. Flooding their bodies with my overwhelming mana. They popped like balloons.

Then I tested with less.

And less.

Until I reached a point where my mana was just enough to overwhelm them, but not overload the parts till it burst.

[Demonic Locust captured. Converting...]

The locusts changed shape into... giant grasshoppers? That was one of the biggest letdowns ever. Massive, harmless giant grasshoppers.

-

These locusts were mindless, and we also discovered that they can be ‘lured’, using specific scents. Smell of fresh, growing plants seemed to attract them.

Maybe that’s why they attacked the central continent in such large numbers. The level of forestation and agriculture on the central continent far exceeded the others, and we generally have a food surplus, so for these mindless locusts, they were just drawn across the continent to that scent, most likely swept across the oceans through the high winds.

So, by amplifying these scents, we soon discovered we were able to pretty much lure the locusts to a specific location, and then, with some good ol’ magical bombs and magical formations from Alka, either burn them to death with magical flames, or blow them up. Later we tried to develop specialised anti-demon gas spray that were effective only against demons. Tried.

Our own demon-locusticide.

Yeah. It’s a mouthful. If I had a mouth.

But it’s surprisingly harder than we thought. I honestly never had an appreciation of how hard it is to develop a powerful chemical agent that worked specifically on something, because most materials are shared across many different life forms.

-

As the war against the demonic locusts raged on, we also analysed the metals from the Margmarian City. These were strange metals to me, but once we put them in the material labs, it’s soon clear they were just a blend of metals that were forged into an alloy. Mostly common materials, so now I have the ratio of what went into that alloy.

Yet, the method of production still eluded us, though we have some good, educated guesses.

Since metallurgy was clearly something I am unfamiliar with, this was a matter left for my high-level blacksmiths and steelmasters to research, and whether there is any use for these alloys in our weaponry.

-

Our agents speak of attempts by the adventurers in the north to attack the locust’s main hatcheries, but they were thwarted by massive worms. It seemed that there were still champions that remained. This went on for about two-to-three months, before it seemed a few of the kingdoms, and the temples themselves unleashed their big guns. Their hero items.

They used these weapons to mount a series of assaults on the hatcheries and made significant gains, and the locust swarms quickly dwindled. But it was a short period of calm, as the hatcheries soon reproduced. They were not able to clamp down on the hatcheries in totality, and something about the residual energies there caused the hatcheries to respawn.

-

“I want to speak to Aeon.” Kei messaged via a magical communication device, one of the legacy artifacts of the Harrisan era. She was apparently already in the Northern Isles, somehow.

“Why?” Lausanne picked up the artifact. “I can’t just walk up to Aeon and talk to him just because you said so.” Well, that’s not true.

“Alvin is poisoned by some kind of super-worm poison during the fight with the demon king, but the poison doesn’t seem to kill him. Instead, it just somehow interfered with the functioning of his classes.”

Wait. The demons can do that? How?

Seriously, how? I had attempted to tamper with the hero skills in the soul springs too. “He looks relatively okay, but extremely pale, as if something’s just massively weakening him. He can’t even use the most basic of abilities.”

Did the demons just discover something I wanted to know for a long time? The secret to ‘disabling’ heroes without killing them?

I quickly informed Lausanne and she spoke on my behalf. “Aeon asked whether you can transport Alvin to the Central Continent for further studies.” Well, curing him is beside the point. I want to know how the demons did it, so that I can do the same. If I can replicate this, then I have nothing to fear from heroes!

“I will try. The temples are keeping this under tight wraps. I had to sneak in to find Alvin.”

“Aeon said if you need help, he will quickly arrange an extraction team.”

“Really?” Kei seemed to ask. Did I play my cards too openly? That she suspected that I have an ulterior motive?

“Yeah.”