Tsubaki flew over to the elite monsters, watching as they gradually began to replenish their forces. Given that there were only four of them to start, it was inevitable that their process was slow, but she had seen before that the increase would be exponential if she let it continue. Naturally, she had no intention of allowing them to build their forces.

The violet orb lit up behind her tail, radiating outwards. Any of the lesser monsters or corpses it landed on were immediately evaporated, and even the elite monsters had to deploy their energy to protect themselves. Tsubaki watched curiously, surprised by how fragile they were.

Against a true divine being, the light of destruction only shows minimal effects if I use it like this. Unlike some of the others, she had been able to practice with her Ray of Hope during the previous invasion. Thanks to that, she had an understanding of its power. Of course, there were some things that she hadn’t been able to practice with.

Tsubaki took a deep breath, manifesting a pair of daggers in her hands. Her body tilted forwards, before surging towards the four monsters. Even if they were far weaker than normal gods, she would not let her guard down. That said, this was more of a training exercise than an extermination.

Cierna watched from the sidelines, her eyes wide in fascination. Like most, she had never seen those from the Sky Citadel fighting before. The amount of power that they released was simply outside her understanding. However, the most confusing part of it was that she recognized some of the techniques that were used.

I don’t know what Dana did… it looked like it might have been magic involving the two clones of herself. There was no trace of binary, so I doubt it was code magic. Did they find a way to replicate other magic systems internally within the game? As for Lifre… that should have been the Essence of the World’s End, the ultimate fighting style of druids.

The Keeper… that first move wasn’t something I can understand, but it seemed to be a spiritual ability. I think I heard that Spirit Hunter powers work normally in the game. That last move was definitely one of the shattering hands. But… what’s Tsubaki using? If we were following the pattern, it should be the twin swords judging by her weapons. Though, why don’t I feel any spiritual power from them?

It was natural for Cierna to assume that Tsubaki was using the Twin Swords of Joy and Sorrow, or maybe the Absurdity of Fate, given that she had seen the other two using primary energy arts. However, from what she saw, Tsubaki was simply having a standard brawl with the monsters. It even looked like she might be at a disadvantage?

One of the elites crept up behind her, releasing a cone of black mist from its mandibles, but Tsubaki’s body faded away like an afterimage. A moment later, she was behind that monster, slicing her daggers at its back. What confused Cierna the most was that the wounds Tsubaki inflicted on her opponents were all too shallow, and some didn’t even seem to cause any damage at all. She couldn’t imagine that Tsubaki was weak, so was she just holding back?

Cierna knew that an elite could typically contend with a normal god, due to their pure ferocity. However, given the power that the others displayed just now, was Tsubaki really not able to match up against the equivalent of four normal gods?

As these thoughts emerged in Cierna’s mind, Tsubaki’s body vanished again. This time, she did not reappear in the battlefield, instead appearing at the Keeper’s side. “It is done, my Keeper. As expected, it was rather difficult.”

Difficult? Cierna looked at the elite insects, who were peering back and forth. When their eyes looked in this direction, they immediately resumed their charge. “What about the enemy..?” She asked hesitantly. If Tsubaki wasn’t able to kill them, were they above a normal elite?

“They are already dead.” Tsubaki nodded her head assuredly.

“What..?” Cierna looked over, just as the bodies of the four monsters split apart. Every small scratch suddenly widened, cleaving entirely through their bodies and reducing them to small pieces.

Hiding action with inaction. I see… the style Tsubaki was using wasn’t the twin swords, it was the Way of Hidden Truths. Cierna’s eyes widened at the sight of the four monsters crumbling apart. The Way of Hidden Truths was a devious, though unpopular choice of martial style.

Combatants who used this art had to be prepared for a protracted battle. Any wound inflicted while using the Way of Hidden Truths would appear to either be more or less severe than it really was, depending on the user’s goal. While the opponent was unable to properly assess their own condition, the energy within the attacks would hold their bodies together, waiting for the moment that they were released.

Worse still was their defensive moves, as the user could project a seemingly real image of their body wherever they wanted, masking their presence. So when those attacks made her fade away, that was just the projection…

Cierna gave a slow nod of her head, turning to meet the eyes of the Keeper. Sure enough, the enemy had been completely annihilated. With the swarm being a hivemind, it wouldn’t come this way again soon unless it was prepared for far more losses. There were numerous cases in this game’s history of worlds being left alone for decades if a swarm cloud was entirely annihilated. Of course, if the cloud was small enough, it would instead just attract the attention of a larger cloud, but that was surely not the case here.

“As agreed, I will request a copy of the hyperlane technology plans to study as soon as I return to my post. With the merits earned this time, they should be willing to overlook me requesting this information.”

Although she didn’t have the intention of taking the merits that the Keeper had earned, this game did not have a concept of the ‘Keeper’ beyond the original Acidia. She couldn’t just say that Acidia himself had helped her, so the only thing that she could do was report that she had hired a group of fragments.

The Keeper nodded his head, looking at Tsubaki once again. She seemed to understand the intention behind his glance, tearing open a portal for the group to depart through.

Back in the real world, Dana rubbed her hands together, ready to get to work. The plans from Lorence had already been delivered, so she was going to study those as she waited for Cierna to send hers over.

At the same time, both Sienna and Clara opened their eyes, having similarly been synchronized with their new Virtual counterparts. Both seemed rather happy to have been able to test out their new powers, with Clara being especially vocal. “That was awesome! You’re going to take us to play next time too, right?”

Dana simply rolled her eyes, Sienna’s body already melting into the shadows. “Do your patrol first.” She chided playfully, causing Clara’s expression to crumble.

“Can I at least work on the Sky Chariot when I’m done with the patrol?” She asked in a hopeful tone, causing Dana to blink for a moment, thinking over the request.

“Sure, that shouldn’t be too much to ask.” She agreed, immediately causing Clara’s face to brighten. Without a moment’s hesitation, she cut open a path to the void, leaving Dana to her own studies.

With her newfound silence, Dana loaded up the blueprints on her terminal, splitting them into dozens of screens that spread out all around her. “Hmm… it looks like the same kind of barrier that James installed around each universe, but… inverted?”

Her mind was divided, looking at every screen simultaneously while reading the information within it. “This kind of barrier should be feasible with the magic systems of the world, and we can even apply it to Lorek and Spica’s array systems. The power source… it’s a heat to magic conversion, with a star as the center?”

Dana pursed her lips when she came to that detail. Setting up a magic formation larger than an entire star was technically possible, but it would consume a great deal of resources. Resources that would have to be spent for every star that was brought into the hyperlane network. “There are different grades of hyperlanes, based on traffic requirements. Bigger lanes will require a higher quality formation… so this is why a lot of the lanes we traveled through were really small.”

In her mind, Dana was calculating the total amount of resources that would be needed to complete a hyperlane network, judging by the current star map of Earth’s universe. “I’m sure that the teams in charge of construction will just want to buy these materials off the market, but… it will be a lot more cost-effective to simply mine uninhabitable worlds and resource-rich asteroids.”

There had never been a pressing need for materials on this scale in their universe before, so such companies were only run by the March and Metong within their own realm. However, the array not only established a hyperlane network, but it also established a hyperlane barrier around the star system used, out to a range of ten ‘light hours’. This would save Chel a lot of trouble maintaining the defenses around inhabited systems.

“I’ll work on translating this into a geometric spell formation, as well as a magic array for Lorek for now. Once the second set of plans come in, I’ll review them and adjust as needed.” She nodded, opening up the magic design program she had installed on her terminal long ago.

Dana was still largely unfamiliar with the exact specifics of magical binary, but the design notes associated with the segmented code helped her understand what she was working with. Moreover, it had been over a decade since the game was released, and there were multiple translation programs available on the internet to convert ‘arcanobinary’ to geometric magic. All she had to do was download one of those, and then cross reference the results with her own understanding.

The hardest part was finding the proper equivalents for the material components, as many materials used in the plans Lorence gave her were game-specific, and some were even censored entirely. Those were likely the ‘secret components’, which even Lorence himself didn’t have authorization to review.

However, Dana simply saw this as a puzzle that she needed to solve. She was the Apostle of Magic, and was not about to bow down to some random magic formation from a game. She grinned widely, cracking her knuckles as she began rapidly typing.

“First, let’s set up a simulation to reverse engineer the magic formation, and then test out possible materials to fill the gaps.” She tapped on her synchronization bracelet, sending the necessary memories to her game self so that she could find the listed materials and perform a deep scan of them. Once Dana had that, she could accurately simulate the effects that they would have on the formation in the program that she was writing.

This was the first major project that she had worked on in several months… no, it should be in fifteen years. She was excited to get back to work after her long vacation, her fingers rapidly typing on the holographic keyboard. “I’ll need to get one of the new direct interfaces later to test out.” She muttered to herself, watching the lines of code falling into place.