Year 236

“Alright, the goal is to push into the ridges.” Edna declared to the group of eight level 100 Valthorns, and the eight nodded. “We’ll be here.”

Lavaworld was now our main training ground, other than the dungeons. For most high leveled Valthorns, their life involved tours through the worlds, visiting places like the Borealworld where they took month long missions to explore the location, and attempt to piece together the history of that world, or a tour on the Lavaworld where they’d fight through large swarms of demons, arrive at a certain location, set up a temporary base and defend against the hordes.

With a small team.

We tried our best to push them, to try stranger, harder things. The level 100s also suggested missions and challenges for each other, after all, everyone needed to have a mind of their own.

Two of the level 100s in the group of eight were members of Edna’s order of Valthorn knights. It was an unofficial group, and as it wasn’t official, they named themselves, partly as a joke, the Order of the Pointy Stick.

Knights were trained to be proficient in a wide variety of weapons, but jousting spears, spears and pikes were a favorite of these knights.

It was a practical consideration. When demons are such massive creatures, it makes more sense to use spears, especially throwing spears charged with magic and designed to release huge bursts of energy.

The range was just more useful with large magical creatures, and safer.

“How’s this group?” Stella sat next to her, taking a break from her own tour through the worlds. She offloaded many of the initiatives to the archmages, since she couldn’t feasibly attempt so many projects at the same time. The other archmages even took on leadership roles, as Stella and one other void archmage focused on the training aspects of new void mages.

There was a gap in education for void mages, despite my best attempts to copy and record her experiences through my dream academy.

The training outcomes of void mages was always a little bit better when Stella was the instructor, as she had ‘first-hand’ experience from the Zaratans. The pain she went through during the multiple attempts to develop void mana gave her a sense of perspective that younger void mages, with more focused process, didn’t have.

The Zaratans were not warriors, and Lillies told me that any attempts to get the Zaratans to participate in any war effort would fail. The most they would do was teach.

This year was also the first year since the founding of Branchhold that a recruit from Mountainworld was admitted to the elite Valthorns. .

It’s been slightly less than 30 years since that day, so, a single individual from Branchhold, a human [swordsman] named Farsan, reached level 100.

There was nothing quite like the shock of visiting the demonworlds for the first time. To feel the presence of nothingness in a world conquered by the end.

It made it easy to see what would become of their home, should the demons succeed.

A common flaw in people was that many struggled to visualize the future, if they didn’t see it for themselves. You could tell them a thousand tales, but until they were there, to feel it on their skin, to see in with their eyes, that future just seems ever so remote.

For my Valthorns, especially those who visited the demonworlds for the first time, it was usually an experience.

A reality, a version of the future if their homes fell to the demon.

This usually evokes a visceral reaction in some first timers, and for Farsan of the Mountainworld, it did. Some, even though these are Level 100 folks making their first trip, had a minor panic attack.

For those less than level 100, I mostly sent them to fight in dungeons within Treehome or the few dungeons in the underground areas of Branchhold. Once they crossed level 100, they would be sent the other worlds to hunt demon champions.

This meant some of them visited places like Lavaworld, or Borealworld, or Ulara.

For Farsan, we delayed his exposure to these other places until level 100. The Valtrian Order spoke of the existence of these worlds for a while, but as the first of Branchhold to see what it was like, he returned feeling sombre, as if he now had a burden on his shoulders.

“I can’t be the only one who knows.” He said to the Valthorns who came from Treehome.

“They know.”

“No, they don’t.” The Mountainworlder looked at the desolation of the Lavaworld, the sense of emptiness and lifelessness. “They don’t know it at all.”

The Valthorn gave the Mountainworlder a knowing tap on the shoulder. “Once you’ve seen it, you really just can’t go back and pretend everything’s fine.”

I’ve gotta give credit to Lumoof and the priests. They’re really quite good at selecting fanatics to join my military cult.

From what I know, a part of it was skills. Over the decades, Lumoof and my senior priests gained skills like [Eye for talent] or [Recruit Scanner]. On top of that, there’s also a whole load of education and perspective.

It’s probably brainwashing to some degree, though my priests would argue that presenting a set of facts doesn’t constitute brainwashing.

By this point it feels academic.

***

Tropicworld’s reconstruction effort was beginning to speed up, as more migrants and pioneers moved to the new world.

It’s been ten years since this initiative started. At this point, about 70,000 from Treehome had moved over to visit a world unlike any other. A world that has all traces of civilization erased, and now ready to be repopulated.

I wondered whether the will of the world resisted it, and it responded with a mere sensation of acknowledgement. I prodded it more, but it responded with a feeling. Acceptance.

Not agreement, but acceptance.

Over the time since we reclaimed this world, Tropicsworld’s natural environment significantly improved. Trees, animals and monsters now cover most of the world, though the magical energies barely recovered above 25% of the living worlds.

Three to four small towns emerged, the frontier towns of each of the races.

The Canari were quick to set up their own little place, just for themselves, as did the Treefolks and Lizardfolks.

The air of the Tropicworld was different to that of Treehome, and the [pioneers] who moved to Tropicsworld had skills that made settling in easier.

The Treefolks and Lizardfolks have feet better adapted to the muddy terrain, the Canari gained skills that made them better able to regulate their heat and deal with the generally dirty waters of the Tropicsworld.

The water system of Tropicsworld was still unstable, even if they were carved through the powers of the Core. River banks could easily shift, and rain patterns still irregular. Some part of this was due to the Core itself, the Core’s power ebbed and flowed, and that affected the strength of rains, the speed and growth of monsters, the strength of the winds and the heat from the ground.

So, even rivers and lakes were not permanent, as the subtle shifts in the ground due to those fluctuations move water around.

Some [pioneers] remarked that the weather only got more erratic as the Core of the Tropicsworld regained its energy.

***

The void mages’ attempts to manipulate Cometworld’s trajectory through the void sea went nowhere. They were essentially flailing at the unknown.

They tried a wide array of items and techniques, but ultimately nothing seemed to work. Or at least, they were not sure whether they made any impact because it was quite hard to measure how it worked.

Meanwhile, the void mages pursued their other tasks, until one day-

“Stella, you’ve got to look at this.” She felt one of her archmages’ magical energies as the void warped in the area around her office, and her archmage appeared through a small portal.

She stared at the contraption in the void archmage’s hand. A crystal record linked to the various listening devices. Another void archmage popped up right behind him with the exact same item.

“Oh, you’re here already.” The 2nd one quipped, and laughed.

“Hah. You got the same signal from your side?”

“Yeah.”

Stella checked both of the crystal records, and looked at the two archmages. She had her suspicions, but then waited for the archmages to give their views. “What are we looking at?”

“Likely some kind of transmission. If all the other planes were getting it, it’s not a routine one. I was studying it while on the way here, and here.” The void archmage pointed to a part of the transmission. “This was the only part I recognized. A locational coordinate.”

“Treehome.” Stella said as her mind scanned through the transmission again. As of now, we’ve not yet decoded the language of their transmissions, but with our growing lexicon of demonic characters, we could try to guess. “What does it-?”

“It may be one of the countermeasures.” The void archmage speculated. “I’ve asked the mages to scan the skies but for now-”

“Nothing.”

Stella paused and looked at the transmission again.

“Stella, you could use the demon king’s core to check.” The archmage suggested something Stella already planned on doing, but she was pleased that he brought it up anyway. She nodded.

“Come with me.” Stella said and then she called out to me. “Aeon, I’ll need some mind backup.”

The artificial minds were ready, and Alka teleported in. “I was summoned.”

Stella tapped the bomb-maker on the shoulders. “Got a weird transmission from the demons.”

Alka whistled. “Predictions?”

“Our long awaited countermeasures.” Stella said as she walked into the special chamber now crawling with roots and vines. There was a station right next to the demon core, surrounded by more vines and roots, with some crystals. Mixed among the mass of regular vines and roots were some black ones, those that produced demonic mana harvested from the few unrestored Rottedlands and the demonic hybrid trees.

A few mages shuffled about, preparing the place and documents.

Stella strapped in, and I felt the artificial minds buzzing with activity. I kept track of her physical state, and noticed her heartbeat was elevated. She pulled large quantities of mana at certain moments, and about six hours later, she emerged all sweaty and exhausted.

The third void archmage joined the earlier two, “Lady Stella?”

“Nothing conclusive. My [Void explorer] is too far, but I suspect there’s something. This transmission came from the demon sun itself. What’s the progress with our attempts to develop extended void-sea detection?”

The three archmages glanced at each other. “We’ll need to spy on them?” One of them stopped.

“Progress is middling, we’re still attempting to test it out on our junior void mages-”

“Don’t think this can wait. Run the side effects and observations, and if it’s plausible we need to scale it up as soon as possible. The earlier we can see what the hell the demons are throwing our way, the more time we have to prepare for it.”

The three glanced at each other. “At once, milady.”

***

“Something concerning I should know about?” I asked Stella at a private session.

“The demons have sent something, but the star paths don’t indicate anything. No star paths yet-”

“It could be something that doesn’t travel on a star path.”

“I know what you’re thinking. We’ve been predicting it for so long that I know it’s the damned demon comet.” Stella cursed. “But I want to be sure, so, I’m planning to hop my way as far as I can go. I’ll need some bodyguards. Looking at the demon’s starmap, the Borealworld’s probably the starting point.”

Stella wanted to hop to the Borealworld, and travel to the nearby worlds and figure out a way to get closer to the demon sun.

Due to the weird nature of the void sea, this could be a decade long journey, or could be super short, because traveling the void by hopping to nearby worlds didn’t actually mean getting closer to the core in the demon’s map.

“Can I take Lumoof and Edna with me?”

I could pull all three of them back instantly through my ability. “Alright.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“What if we’re wrong.” I thought. “It’s not a comet, and it’s multiple demon kings invading at once. The fact that our coordinates, our location is transmitted seemed to suggest some kind of coordinated strike.”

“Why not both?” Stella laughed uncomfortably. “In either case, we need to go and see, get some visibility. If it’s multiple demon kings, we’d have a chain of astral pathways over our skies. Those things take a while to build, unless-”

Unless the demons had a way to open up such portals instantly.

As it is, the rift gates we had could open portals to other places, even if there are no astral paths, but the void mana cost is significantly higher without the path. That essentially placed a cap in the ‘range’ of the stolen and repurposed riftgates.

Like, yeah, we have the numbers to call, but it’s like not having enough money to call an international number.

“There’s nothing to worry about, but to take our next steps.” Stella said. “We need information, and we’ll only get it if we get nearer, or can see further.”

***

With the support and powers of the [Holy Emperor] at the heart of the new empires, the guilds had to form alliances of their own. [Merchant Kings] allied with each other, and tried to use their combined weight to push back.

Adversity rewarded those who made it through them, and it was horrifying to the Kings that the Emperor was gaining on them in terms of levels.

A new skill from the Emperor, or just a few extra levels meant his blessing was stronger, his empire produced more weapons or some other effect that began to push back. The guilds began to encounter more draws and losses, and the assassin-guilds, previously eager to take the Central Continent Guild’s businesses, began to shift.

The central continent guilds decided to double down on the financial and technological prowess to counter the faith powers and the Emperor’s abilities. They invested more on even better equipment, and leveraged on their industrial bases to build stronger, more powerful weapons.

Of this, came the largest privately owned warships ever seen on Treehome, equipped with long range bombardment equipment.

These weapons resembled railguns, but were magical. These came about after my craftsmen and Alka all worked on large quantities of long range weapons against the demon kings. Some of these designs were inadvertently leaked to the general public, and independent craftsmen began designing copies.

The magical railguns, equipped with a crystal-core projectile were one of those that was copied. It was similar enough to ballistas that the private sector could begin making modified versions, and now, they have these weapons that could shoot a location almost a hundred miles away.

At the same time, my Valthorns had to be extra careful with their state-of-the-art weapons, and even older generation weapons. My spies and counter-espionage agencies detected large quantities of attempted spying and theft of Valthorn-issue equipment. Any advantage, any exposure would lead to attempts to study, replicate, and then mass produce to use against the other continents.

So far, they’ve not outright attempted to attack the Valthorns, but my agents and people were increasingly edgy. My artificial minds picked up multiple thefts and spies, some of which were then caught by my own agents.

It felt like the guilds were in a ‘cold war’ with the Valthorns, even if we were publicly cordial and professional.

Even the nobility were fracturing, those who supported the guilds secretly and some publicly. The nobility of the Central Continent all had respectable wealth.

These nobilities benefited as they were at the top of their realm, taxing a percentage of all trade going through their nation. Then, they could store that wealth in highly safe places, such as with the Valtrian Order’s banks, but that was limited. In order to prevent excessive “robbing”, we placed deposit limits on the accounts itself, and the limit was usually about the price of a single reasonably sized mansion. This forced the nobilities to have other investments,

These banks were usually safe from attacks and riots from their peasants, so they had a lower risk of losing their money in a political upheaval. It was a deal many nobles took, even with the high storage or custodian fees charged.

Next, they placed their monies in assets, and in investments, such as these guilds. It was fairly well known that many guilds were essentially bankrolled by the nobility, even if their management was independent and profited off the nobility’s money.

But the increasingly costly wars meant the guilds were now forced to spend a larger share of their monies. It triggered the wealthy nobility watching their money pool shrink.

The response was fairly varied. Some began to publicly campaign for outright annexation of the empire, claiming that these empire-folks were essentially primitive cavemen that deserve to be liberated from the ancient chokehold of their primitive religions.

I found it hilarious, of course. As if the very presence of a [Lord] is not a primitive thing. As if the Central Continent won’t begin a devolution if my army of artificial minds were removed.

Intip, one of my oldest spymasters, had to hire and train more counterspies.

He had no choice, because the guilds were fanning the flames of war.

“Aeon, like or not, you will have to step in eventually.” The heroes, Kei and Ken all remarked. A sentiment that my domain holders also increasingly shared.

“This is a challenge to your authority over the Central Continent. The Valtrian order sits at the top of the continent’s political pyramid, but right now, by taking actions of waging war, and fanning the public opinion, they are trying to drive you towards an outcome.”

Increasingly, Intip, and the spies caught a few instigators who tried to paint my non-interference as wrong. Worse, it was an opinion that a growing number of my own Valtrians shared.

“We were superior.” They said, “If Aeon stepped in this war would be a slaughter.”

But what was the point?

To the lesser Valtrians, who were not privy to the greater conflict in the background, they felt a lot could be done to improve the condition of the other continents.

I wanted mana. I wanted resources. I wanted talent.

These three things supported the war effort against the demons.

I didn’t need all the land. I didn’t need to RULE everything. Others could do it.

But it was so, so easy for the nobles and guilds to easily twist it into a narrative. It didn’t help that the temples and the Holy Empires used those same talking points, to amplify the hate.

“Aeon’s long attempts to train administrators and Lords through the FTC and the educational institutes was a long-term plan to improve the quality of the world’s rulers and nobles. The seed of this conflict began when Aeon began brainwashing the nobles. The Central Continent views themselves as superior to the rest of us.”

The Holy Empires’ new crusade against the guilds also attacked us indirectly.

They fanned hatred towards the Central Continent, concocted propaganda against us. It undid all the goodwill and assistance we had, and caused a return of the old wars.

Once more, we all felt the beginnings of another crusade. One brought about by my inaction and refusal to stop the Guilds’ expansion.

I could tell that the nobles and merchants were indirectly leading the situation towards an outcome where we could only choose the Guilds.

For now, public opinion within the Central Continent itself remained fairly ignorant of the war.

My agents on the four continents also found it harder to defuse the situation.

The propaganda that emerged was full of hate, and essentially painted the entire central continent as an enemy. The fanatics and the holy believers that now form the inner circles of the new Holy Empires were harder to crack.

All because I didn’t stop this war.

A war I wanted no part of.

Yet it’s been years, and I’m getting more and more intertwined with this conflict.

Even as I commanded non-interference.

I wanted to abstain.

My spies sounded the alarm, that another crusade was not far away. A few years, before the anger would boil over and we’d be faced with a total war.

What a waste of resources.

I stared at the prospect of a demonic counter invasion. I would need to prepare for it.

But my house is not in order.

So, I brought my council, Valthorns greatest spies and agents together, and suggested an idea entirely impossible for anyone but us.

It tormented me to even contemplate whether to use my force in such a manner.

Matreearch Hoyia spoke on my behalf, as she stood to the crowd.

“Aeon’s question to everyone is this. If we capture all the rulers of the guilds and all the rulers of the target kingdoms, can we control the vassal war? Prevent it from spiraling further out of control.”

All the spymasters and agents, senior Valtrian and Valthorns present were quiet. The rest of my domain holders were elsewhere, busy with the bigger things.

“-what?”

“Let me rephrase. Aeon wants to know whether, if he were to order the capture of all the kings, rulers, merchant kings, priests, lords and generals, and essentially force everyone to sit down and talk, would it stop the nonsense and prevent it from escalating to a total war?”

The crowd stared, as if waiting for the Matriarch to continue. She did.

“Aeon’s intention is not to stop the war altogether, but increasingly, we are getting caught in the crossfire. The fanning flames will grow into a crusade, and a world war. It is unnecessary, and so we intend to have this session to remind the participants of this conflict to keep to their designated scope. As parents often say to their fighting children, we want them to ‘play nice’. Or ‘play in the agreed sandpit’.”

“What if they don’t?”

“Aeon proposed sending the leaders to Lavaworld. For a year as punishment for excessive warfare. Nobles supporting the war will spend some time on Lavaworld too, depending on the extent of their involvement in this war.”

I could tell all the members present were seriously contemplating it, and some looked at each other, wondering whether it’s even possible.

But they knew it was. They’ve seen my void mages, and it’s entirely possible for mages with teleportation spells to swiftly capture any nobility or general, especially with our Valthorns’ huge level gap and superior equipment.

No one was safe. Not when we could reach anywhere in the world instantly.

The heroes stared at each other, before Prabu laughed and everyone else followed. It was a good thing they were in their own soundproof chamber so no one else could hear them.

“Oh lord. Aeon’s going to catch all the naughty boys and send them to the naughty corner.”

“Does that work? I’m sure people are greedy and-”

“It might.” Ken nodded. “Fear does great things to people. What’s happening now, is that all these people waging this war are increasingly arrogant and belligerent, confident in their own strength.”

“You know that doesn’t work, it’ll just return eventually.” Colette said. “Naughty kids don’t get better from going to jail or detention.”

“There is no one better suited to break the souls of warmongers.”

Back in the larger hall, one of the spymasters, Varida, stood. “I’m in agreement. I believe it will work. If anything, it is about damned time Aeon asserts our strength, and reminds the world that things must be done in moderation.”

The crowd stared in horror at the spymaster. One Lord looked back at Matreearch Hoyia. “Matreearch, do you believe in this?”

Matreearch Hoyia shrugged. “Those who live in fortunate times do not know how fortunate they are. It would be helpful to remind these ignorant ants gnawing at Aeon’s roots, and give them a small dose of Aeon’s Perspective.”

The same spymaster smirked at Hoyia’s wordplay. “I propose that the phrase, “Aeon’s Perspective” be the official name of this operation. The similarities to “Aeon’s Mercy” must be intentional.”

The matreearch nodded. “Thank you, spymaster Varida. I see the concerned looks of those present, and I recognize some of you need time to process Aeon’s thoughts. Please, go back and think about it. Discuss and return. We’ll meet again in two months.”

I did not intend to carry out the order just yet.

I wanted to see how much mileage I could get out of the threat.

Aeon’s Perspective.

A little embarrassing, but if it strikes credible fear into the hearts of any ruler, so be it.