Year 178

After locusts, it was a global heatwave. Strangely the heatwave made some places colder, some places hotter. Global climates are strange things, whatmore with the complicated interactions with magic and mana.

“I’m not melting.” Aria said through the ice mirror that seemed unaffected by the heat. I was once burning, so, the heat didn’t really bother me anyway. At least, I thought of checking in on the two-in-one ice spirit. “But thanks for asking. Aispeng's powers keep the island cold and snowy, and it’s strong enough to overpower the demon’s global influence.”

Local specific powers are stronger than global generic powers. That’s like a principle for magic.

The main problems were the volatile winds that now whipped the oceans of the world into a craze. Traditional trade ships that relied on the gentle trade winds to move from continent to continent now had to contend with more chaotic and dangerous winds. But for the more experienced and higher levelled captains, the stronger winds were a net advantage since they could predict and use these strong winds.

I checked in on the other growing spirit. Reefy just felt rather uncomfortable. > It’s kinda hot. It’s not nice.

> My energy sustains the reef. Without it, they die.

I offered to supply cold water through the roots. My roots were designed for heat transmission anyway, and it worked both ways.

> For now no. But I want to kill the demons. They did this, right?

> Can you pull them underwater?

> Next time then.

Lumoof and the group helped to fight off some of the demon champions. They were stronger, empowered by the presence of the demon king. Still, their flames meant their close range engagements were limited, and strictly ranged attacks only.

I could theoretically possess Lumoof and engage the demon champions in close range, but that would defeat the purpose of letting my Valthorns level. Besides, the challenge of fighting a demon champion at range helped their levelling.

Kei was also battling it out with the demon champions, but her tactics were rather underhanded. She fought like Techies from Dota, she planted her crystal bombs in a particular location and lured the demon champions to the bombs, and then nuked them. It worked really well with the mostly stupid demon champions.

Their presence was overpowered by Alvin’s exploits on the battlefield. He did not directly engage the demon king, and the demon king seemed rather content to stay in one place. My mages attempted to use farsight and scrying to view the demon’s activities, but it seemed this demon king had spying protection.

Was the demon king so confident that it was willing to wait for the heroes to get close?

Alvin and Kei regrouped, and they attempted to fight the demon king for the first time. Kei had one of my Court of the Deitree familiars too, just so that I could recall her if she was in a bad situation.

It didn’t go very well, as Kei later narrated the battle to me. The Demon King really was a typical demon king, in a sense. It was massive, had six massive arms each wielding some kind of flaming weapon or shield, a cow-skull head with four massive horns, a body covered in some kind of black scale armor and eight floating fireballs of different colors, each of them capable of independent attack. It’s a demon king designed for direct combat.

Alvin and his ranged missile arrays didn’t do very well. His missiles numbered in the tens of thousands. He rained fury on the battlefield, but the demon king’s flaming shield detonated the less powerful missiles before they got near. His stronger penetration missiles detonated on the Demon King’s shield-arm, and they made a large hole, but not sufficient to seriously injure the demon king.

Reviewing the battle, I concluded that Alvin was underleveled. His abilities, in the Level 120+ range, was not sufficient to single handedly take on the demon king at full strength. Kei succeeded as my bombs helped weaken the demon king, but Alvin? He was too weak. Even with Kei’s bombs assisting at the distance, it wasn’t enough to tilt the balance.

Alvin lost badly.

He attempted to retreat, and it was then the demon king radiated a big reddish flare that interrupted the hero’s teleportation ability. The flare latched to Alvin like a chain. The demon king closed in, and Kei slammed the panic button. Kei activated a crystal that contained a short range teleportation spell, and teleported to the nearest city. She then [messaged] one of the Valthorns, for a recall back here. Home.

[Alvin died. You received a fragment.]

I had a total of 91 hero fragments now. 9 more to go.

Once more, the world erupted in panic. The hero has fallen! I swiftly recalled Lumoof and the team too.

“The demon king is not moving.” My sensors got better at nailing down the demon king’s location. The way its energies distorted space, the way it’s abilities spread into the world and heated everything up. The demon king was a presence, and it’s not afraid to say it.

I looked back at the path between worlds. It’s a lot dimmer now, but I wanted to observe something else. The torches were smaller, almost fading away. The demon king itself was some kind of rift conduit, I felt its energies leaking into the pathways between the worlds.

The gods will summon the next batch of heroes soon. I told Stella too, that if she wanted to see the path home, she would have to focus and pay attention. We would need to see what happened, whether the heroes came the same way as the demon king. If they left trails, we could follow their path.

“What... what do we do now?” I’ve had this question so many times. When the previous heroes also died at the hands of the demon king, they came with this same question. History has clearly shown that all we have to do is wait, and watch the cycle repeat itself. It’s quite annoying to face these same things, like that coworker that never seems to learn despite telling them countless times, or like being that long employee teaching new interns for the umpteenth time. Is this how it feels?

“Observe, wait, and prepare.” What else was there to do? What is there to do when it rains? We hope our preparations so far are adequate, and observe the situation. If it floods, we flee to higher ground.

“You alright?” Lausanne and Stella both asked Kei. Kei rested at her house in Freshka after the whole fight. She was injured, but not much.

“...I’m not sure, honestly.” Kei answered. “I thought I would feel more sad, I know I felt quite sad when I heard Hans died, but somehow this time, I feel a little bad. Like, I’m more tormented that I don’t feel sad, than from the sadness of his death itself.”

“That sounds quite serious.” Lausanne said. “Mentally serious.”

“I’m not sure if it is because I actually helped, so I felt like I did what I could. Whereas for Hans, I didn’t help at all. Not that I could do anything then, but still... I feel kinda bad gaining a few levels too, even though all I did wasn’t much.”

Lausanne shrugged and Stella just patted the golem-girl on her shoulders. “So how long do you need to get out of your funk?”

“Uh... I’m fine. I think... I think I just gotta deal with this feeling.”

Stella shrugged. “Sounds like what you need is some monster-bashing. It helps with my negative emotions, and I think it’ll help with yours.”

“When did you ever become such a monster-hunter?” Kei laughed.

“Uh... It’s complicated. But seriously, try it. Hunting monsters is fun. The adrenaline and the satisfaction of bashing something is really... wow.”

“Where’s the meek and quiet painter I used to know?” Kei wondered aloud.

“It’s gone when I lost my classes for [Void Mage].” Stella answered. “Seriously, come, monster hunting. Shoot some monsters up, like the boys y’know.”

Kei had a facepalm moment. Lausanne just stood there. “What the hell did you see in those 40 years?”

“A lot of really mundane stuff. Mostly a lot of warping here and there. I guess that messes with my brain?” Stella laughed.

“This image of three ladies smashing monsters for fun isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” Kei frowned.

“Two ladies and a golem. Technically you are sexless.”

“I’m emotionally and spiritually still a woman.”

“I believe spirits are sexless. No, correction. Your soul is sexless.” Stella emphasised. “You can ask Aeon. Apparently when we boil ourselves down to our raw soul particles, we are all sexless. You believe you are a woman because you inherited memories of a woman, but if you let yourself embrace your new body, you will think differently.”

Kei just laughed. “Alright. Alright. Let’s go smash some monsters. This conversation took a really weird turn.”

Lausanne just rolled her eyes. “Did you meet some kind of eldritch creature on the other side that you’re now all kookoo?”

“I suppose exposure to the void should theoretically make me more susceptible to insanity.” Stella mused. “But monster-smashing time!”

“You’re surprisingly calm when there’s a demon king that’s in our world.” Kei said.

“We have Aeon, Edna and Lumoof. They’d give the demon king a good fight if it wants one.”

“You have a surprisingly high level of confidence in their ability.”

“They survived the last demon king, and they levelled for sure. They may struggle, but I think they can force a stalemate.”

“This demon king has an axe. I think it’ll probably have some anti-tree chopping perk.”

“Oh. Let me know when they send a Woodcutter Demon King, then I’ll panic.”

“That would make a fascinating thought experiment. I wonder the kind of skills and stats that kind of demon king would have...”

“Is that something we should be thinking about? Let’s go smash monsters. A level 50 dungeon would be good.”

The Demon King moved, but remained in the Southern Continent. It seemed rather disinterested, and it raided kingdoms throughout the South with its army of demons. It attacked, destroyed cities and towns, and then retreated back. I didn’t quite understand why it did so, strategically, but now that the demons have their ‘mind’, I suppose their behavior would change.

Refugees and escapees abound. In fact, the escape began once the hero died. Most of the royalty sent their children away to escape the problem, and some came here, to the Central Continent. It reminded me of my earlier days of being a refugee center. The masses, all fleeing for their lives. The fear.

The refugees that arrived on our southern shores were mostly the less wealthy sort. The nobles and those with sufficient funds would not antagonise the 4 churches by escaping to the central continent, so they escaped to the other continents instead. So, it is those who don’t have the flexibility and financial power for a longer journey to the other continents, those who can only afford the shorter trip here. They took whatever they could, to make the trip.

Generally I left the management of refugees to the respective local governments that receive these refugees, so each jurisdiction treated their refugees slightly differently. Some had a talent-harvesting or collection mechanism where new refugees are assessed for their skills and qualifications and deployed to fill missing needs.

Some just place them in dedicated refugee towns and let them fend for themselves. In these places, the refugees then take charge of buying supplies and food from their nearest towns and cities, with whatever resources or cash they have.

The life of a refugee is one where they make do with what they can get, and I do think the people of this world have been culturally ingrained to be ‘hardy’. It’s an admirable trait.

The Valthorns generally ceased recruitment from fresh refugees a while ago, due to the suspicions of loyalty. Patreeck’s mind reading abilities are after all still limited to only the vicinity of Freshka. The refugees themselves usually have some combat ability, though not at a very high level. Usually they would have 5 to 20 levels in some combat class, which, strangely, makes them more combat-proficient than my local group.

The newer generation of central continent citizens are on average, less combat capable than their predecessors, as the presence of beetles throughout the continent have reduced the amount of monster attacks they face. Instead, for the average citizen, their main threats are petty crimes and thuggery from their local rulers or criminal gangs. For most part, lesser criminals do not attract the attention of the Valthorns.

On the other hand, the specialised military forces are significantly higher levelled due to their privileged access to dungeons and the effects of my assisted training, and the average Valtrian Order soldier pretty much outclass everyone except for the above average adventurers.

As a result, there is a power-gap between the common populace and the Valtrians, and the Valthorns are quasi-nobles, despite their lack of a noble title. A military aristocracy, in a way.

Refugees generally have a very awkward relationship with the Valthorns they encounter, simply because in their other kingdoms, the nobility controls the army. Here, the federal army is an independent entity and that’s something that needed some time to adapt.

That said, based on Patreeck’s data, almost all refugees eventually settle in the Central Continent, with only a minority returning to their home continents.

In terms of the total number of citizens, the Central Continent has increased between two to three times since 50 years ago. The growth in terms of total number had been primarily caused by the generally higher reproductive rates of humans, at least compared to dwarves, or elves. In terms of actual percentage growth, lizard-people and treefolk dominated, due to both of these races coming from a low base, their ability to have multiple children at any time and the effect of the Treeology Priests’ various saps and syrups significantly improved their survival rates beyond their infant-years.

I don’t have the exact number of people on the continent prior to the Rottedlands, but it seemed that records suggest that it took only 3 decades to repopulate the continent, and it seems we are about 50% more than prior to the Rottedlands. Still, it’s hard to really estimate the total lives lost with unreliable data.

We saw the starways dim even more, though there seemed to be some kind of string, or line that came from our world, and there were flashes of light that moved through that ‘string’. It seemed to suggest that the demon king is able to access the starways from its end, and not just reliant on their gateways on their homeworld.

I shared my memories of the demonic gateways with Stella through Patreeck, but it didn’t do much. She did not recognise the magical words or enchantments on those gates.

Throughout the continent I kept my magical sensors ready, and just as before, I spread the Valthorns out.

The heroes will arrive soon. When they do, I want to know whether they are here. It’s important to get them before monsters or any strange criminals get to them. I will need to keep my eyes open for the path they took.

“What if we can’t see it?” Stella asked.

“That’s a datapoint too. It meant they used a different method.”

“Huh. True.”

“More importantly, what if you can’t go home? That it is impossible?”

Stella just sighed. “Uhm... oh well?”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. I think this world isn’t too bad. It’s in better shape than the other two worlds.”

“Have you met any other spirits on the other worlds?”

“Uh, I mostly stayed with Vallasira, and only went to the cities occasionally, myself. The good thing is, they speak the same language. Strange, how the language of both worlds are identical.”

“It could be a skill.” I wondered. “A passive?”

“Pretty sure it is. Feels like maybe I’m actually talking gibberish but the system auto-translated the content to the recipient?”