Tree of Aeons

Year 292

This year was a quiet lull for me. For those living in the various worlds, it was perhaps a busy time. 

Twinspace’s reclamation of the cursed continent continued with great fervor, buoyed by the promise of great wealth and resources. The rush was in full swing, and for those familiar with Earth medieval history, it was similar to the age of colonization with one difference. There were no natives to conquer and only demons to kill.

In the future, mayhaps this Cursed Continent would grow more powerful than the old world where the settlers came from. The results spoke for themselves, and the credibility of our temple was only enhanced. 

Hoyia, at this point, began to preach about the duties of managing wealth and resources. The wealth and resources would first go to improving their living condition up to a point, but after that they should prepare for the return of the demon king.

Duty.

Twinspace likely had a 20 to 30 year cycle, similar to the other peripheral worlds.

In the blink of an eye, all the wealth they built now could be easily lost. 

The promise of prosperity had a price, and that price was service. The Temple of Aeon had a challenging, but not unfamiliar task of transforming and guiding their flock to perform the service asked of them.

I believed Hoyia and her team would deliver.

***

For the remaining worlds, it was largely normal. The Order continued to grow on each, and we worked on training more members for the coming war. 

***

The heroes trained, practiced, but most of the time, they lived their lives pursuing their own interests. For both Perry and Sandra, once the effects of the hero class was suppressed, it brought back old habits. Games, reading, entertainment and music. 

The two were a pair, and yet I felt they were quite different. Perry was a lot more into sports and was eager to learn about the various types of sports available in this world of magic. Naturally competitive, he was quick to pick up local types of sports that didn’t rely on magical abilities, though his supernatural stamina gave him an advantage others didn’t have. 

Sandra, on the other hand, was a lot more introverted and preferred more individual activities. Reading, entertainment, and the sort. 

It didn’t take long for the rest of the heroes to notice that their relationship as a couple from their old world likely would not last very long. 

But as long as they were cooperative and did not create trouble, I didn’t see a need to intervene into their personal affairs.

Year 293

The White Shores was a place I often felt strange to return to. Finally, they would now face a demon king.

“You can tell where it arrives.” The White Statue said, as five of the domain holders arrived. Lumoof, Edna, Kafa, Roon and Johann. Right now, it was a gigantic marble statue that somehow teleported from location to location, but this ability is dependent on a stone platform being in place. “And your numbers grow.”

“As it should.” Lumoof answered. “It is a war of attrition, after all.”

The White Statue looked at both Lumoof and Edna, and then back at where the whirl of demonic energy gathered. The White Empire’s forces had handily dealt with the rest of the demons that bothered the Empire, and what was left was only the final piece of the puzzle.

Just like us, they had got it quite figured out. 

“We would like to see you in action.” Lumoof said, as we figured the White Statue was a person that we should deal with in truths and facts.

We had brought a little separated component of the White Statue to the demon worlds through our void mages, but now, we wished to see its strength. “You wish to see how I fit into your army and where I can be useful. That is a legitimate reason, and so I shall deliver my part.”

“Yes.” Lumoof nodded, as the demon king landed. It was a large creature that had a body of a muscular lizard, with large spikes and interestingly, glowing crystal streaks throughout its body. Those crystal streaks emitted a strong magical beam that started firing the moment it detected our presence.

The White Statue glowed briefly, as it then transformed into an almost-living being. 

It was no longer a statue, but instead, took the form of an old, bearded man with the body of a muscular wrestler covered in olive oil that was three stories tall and surrounded by a golden halo of power.

A statue that came to life to protect their people.

The White Statue punched with great strength and moved quickly. The stone man wrestling a monster reminded me of old myths from our home world. 

But in terms of power, it wasn’t hard to tell where it stood. This White Statue’s form wouldn’t win on its own. That much was clear, but it could deal tremendous damage and even slow down the demon king enough that the White Statue could return to finish the job with another statue form.

For added power, we noticed it had additional artifacts and items that granted it some extra punch in every hit. It had an array of amulets that were clearly hero items, and it gave the White Statue a protective shield to take hits from the demon king.

The giant wrestler and the demon king fought for a while, but we saw enough.

Edna didn’t need to say it, but we knew that Edna was stronger than the White Statue in combat. It affirmed what we knew about the White Statue. “It probably chose a slightly more survivable skill set such as the Statue-Regeneration so that it could win after enough battles.”

Edna and Lumoof both decided it was appropriate to assist. “We will now step in.”

The demon king died under the might of my power and Edna’s attacks.

[You’ve gained a level]

The White Statue seemed to have got the note. “I appreciate the assistance. The destruction of the nearby towns has been avoided. In normal times I believe it would be in my 3rd battle before I brought that creature down, and there’s about two to three weeks before I could battle again. I see more merit in my offer to assist you in the battle against the demons and wish to reiterate my intention to join.”

I understood. 

It would not be a full alliance. Instead, a mutual assistance arrangement, and if it so volunteered, the White Statue would assist us in battles against the demons. 

We also wanted to know whether it had any expansionary tendencies and intention, and we asked it. 

It did. 

“Yes. If the wider world is as rotten as you say it is, our presence in these worlds will help. These worlds would benefit from regimented tasks, organization, and the excess resources of my world. Likewise, the philosophers and leaders of my people should be able to learn from these worlds. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

Stella had earlier made it clear she didn’t like this. We were facilitating colonialism, even if for the right reasons. 

The White Statue seemed to sense our concerns. “Our ways may differ, but our intent is to help. At the moment, you have a right to dictate who you choose to assist, but the wider world deserves more than just one type or method of assistance. I trust my men, and I know that with my influence, they will act in the way they should. Some worlds would benefit from the presence of me and my people, more than yours. When we encounter such worlds, I ask that our views are fairly heard and debated, rather than be outright denied.”

Stella was travelling and hopping through worlds, in search of more worlds to join us in our battle. Even so, the White Statue’s request was reasonable enough. I did not disagree with hearing them out on a case-by-case basis.

***

For the world of Khubur, the demon king came and went. It died the day it arrived, my domain holders eager for more experience and levels. The Osroids said nothing, and for the human-inhabited side of Khubur, it was as if nothing happened.

We spoke with Gideon, the hero of Osroids once more. He remained unwilling to leave and instead preferred to tend to his family. 

So, we gave him space. There was no need for us to impose a duty on someone who did not want it, when we had other options.

***

Year 294

Time ticked on by. 

We didn’t have demon kings this year, though demons did appear in a few more worlds. 

Year 295

Three worlds faced the brunt of the demons.

Terras, the land of the floating islands. Gyroworld, the world with the three rings. Delvegard, with the demons.

Delvegard was of most interest to me, because it was where we would see the difference in how the world fared. The presence of the demons awakened an old fear in the dwarves. 

Their arrival littered the world with the presence of rift gates, and the demons were poisonous, infested creatures that resembled giant apes carved out of swamp stuff. They radiated a thick poisonous fog as it walked. 

The last few years, we had significantly slowed down our recruitment of the dwarves, simply because we had gotten most of those we wanted, and there was no point growing if those present were not properly incorporated into a fighting force.

Recruitment shifted to training.

And the dwarves that joined the Order were eager to prove their worth. So, armed with knowledge and training and most importantly, anti-demonic combat experience, they returned to Delvegard to save their fellow dwarves. 

Many had gained levels in the long war on Darkgard against the demons of the demon-controlled world.

Here, the Darkgardian dwarves proved their worth as a coherent, experienced, and united fighting force. 

Those who joined us could tell how we saved life. How they freely moved from location to location unhindered by the silly boundaries and lines drawn on maps by the local dwarven lords and kings. The local’s defense force would not step out of their own territory to save others. 

The local rulers were quick to blame the vanished dwarves as the cause for the suffering. That those that chose to fight the great war left them defenseless. But at this point, even those who chose to stay behind to work for the existing dwarven lords could tell that those claims were untrue. 

They knew they were helping, because with the aid of void mages and also regular teleportation magic, they crushed the demons as soon as they arrived with overwhelming force. Their gigantic war machines deployed to do battle against demonic champions. 

It worked well. 

The demon king came and died. Just to showcase how different the ways we could fight against the demon king, we demonstrated to the Darkgardian Dwarves how we triangulated the demon king’s arrival location and planted large quantities of magical mines.

The explosion significantly softened the creature, where it was then finished off by the level 140 Valthorns, and also my domain holders.

No one got their domain. Not yet. 

***

We repeated the affair in Gyroworld and killed the demon king there too. An average demon king, as it went. 

***

Then, we redirected our attention to the demon king of Terras. The world of the Floating Islands imposed its unusual laws on the presence of the demon king, and then, a massive demonic island loomed overhead above everyone else.

Smaller islands then emerged that created a series of steps that connected the various islands together.

It was an unusual law of the realm that indirectly protected the floating islands from the full wrath of the demons. Forcing all the demon’s arrivals onto a specific island, and then, the demons would have to travel normally from that island down into the other islands.

The three great empires of Terras raised armies. Fleets of flying ships armed with magical weapons to guard their segment of territory from the demon kings. 

It was beautiful, and we allowed it to play out for a bit, only to see how things happen in this world. 

After we’d seen enough, we sent our forces in to destroy the demon king. 

A part of me wondered what would happen if someone other than the hero defeated the demon king on a world with magical laws such as the Floating Islands. 

But luckily nothing much happened. The demon king died, and the island that was once the demonic island began to drift. It was much higher up, vertically, above all the other islands, which were largely confined to a small horizontal plane.

Once the demon king died, the laws that held its place loosened, and it moved. 

It drifted to the very edges of the world, where it then crumbled and separated into multiple smaller demonic islands. I suspected that the Floating Islands world was thus fairly young, since it had a mechanism that used the demon kings as a trigger for the creation of new islands. 

Our presence on Terras, the world of the floating islands, was in the form of a recruitment office, and for now, we chose to remain largely hidden. We operated by locating talented individuals and directly offering them a chance to try something different.

Naturally, this was viewed with suspicion.

***

Year 296

Time passed. A few more decades to tick on. I wondered what was behind the veil. 

What sort of retaliation awaited us?

“What sort of demons do you face?” I asked Hawa. I wanted to know what we had to deal with.

“The Comet is a common one. I deal with a comet every one or two centuries.”

“Other than that?”

“I do not know. When I was a much younger god, there were tales of more powerful types of demon kings, but I have not seen them. Perhaps, they are chained to the worlds that created them.” 

“What was it like? That era?”

“It is very much like today. Only, denser. The old gods used to be able to speak to each other. Before we all drifted too far apart. But even though we could speak to each other, I could count our interactions with one hand. In fact, I believe our interactions with each other far surpassed my interactions with the old gods.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Our powers allow us to hide away.”

“Why didn’t you hide away?”

“Perhaps, boredom.” Hawa answered bluntly. “Aeons passed, only for more of the same.”

“I appreciate that I help sate your boredom.”

“At the very least, you offer a chance for real change. Wait a bit more, the weapon will be ready in slightly over a decade.”

“I know.”

I closed my senses, albeit temporarily. 

I shut out all the inputs.

Silence. 

I saw, in visions, the worlds then passed me by, as if they were nothing more than little iterations of various scenes from my past, played out in slightly different variations.

Weapons made, powers stored. The time approached for us to venture into the demon’s realm.