Year 190

We focused on preparing for the upcoming fight. We were going to hit the demon king hard, and hopefully get some levels out of it. I wanted my Level 200, I was so close, and I would empty my entire arsenal at the demon king if it gets me there.

So, first things first, Kei got in touch with the heroes to negotiate an arrangement.

“Hi Colette and Prabu, where are you two these days!” Kei said. It took a while, but what Aiva said now faintly at the back of her mind.

“We’re actually in the Western Continent already to hunt the champions.” The Western Continent, home and stronghold of the Neiran Temples. Or was it? My spies told me some of the Neiran top dogs have moved to the South. But I wasn’t sure, Neira was probably one of the more secretive temples, but also one of the weakest, despite being spared of most of the demon’s attacks.

Perhaps Neira was even more distant. No. Maybe Neira doesn’t even bother anymore. At this point, I really wonder which god still looked after this world. Whatever little that means.

Kei nodded. “Alright, that’s great. So, remember that question you asked a few years back, about having an arrangement to fight the demon king?”

“Uhuh.” Prabu nodded.

“Aeon would like to volunteer his elite forces to support your next battle with the demon king. I’m not sure whether you guys want our assistance, that’s why we thought of asking.”

The two mages paused. “Hmmm I need to talk to Chung and Hafiz, but it shouldn't be a problem. More hands should help. At least, we could use some help with the champions and all the other small fries while we focus on the King.”

“Alright!” Kei nodded.

-

Next step was figuring out how to deploy and project sufficient force that we could have an impact on the demon king. The system clearly favored those who contributed to the fight, and it is a reasonable assumption that our level gain is correlated to the contribution.

So, this meant we needed a few things. One - a way to send my forces to where the demon king was at a short notice. It was possible to use my own tree-networks and Stella’s portal to send a small force there quickly, so that meant the logistics of manpower was partly solved.

One of the things I wanted to test out was whether Lumoof was able to function as ‘home’ when using the Court of the Deitree’s ‘recall’ function. It didn’t work, and they still automatically returned to my main body. I suppose the system for the Court is still programmed to only consider my main body as ‘home’.

It’s too bad. If it worked, I essentially could use Lumoof as a warp point and then dropship the rest of my forces around him. I could even use him to send people across worlds, as long as he was on the other side.

Perhaps some other upgrade to the Court of the Deitree will allow this. No matter, I had to work with what I have at my disposal.

I also needed to figure out how I could throw huge amounts of crystal-bombs at the enemy. Thanks to Alka’s persistent experiments over the past few years and almost decades, we now have a rather huge arsenal of crystal bombs. Similarly, we experimented with my vines flinging the crystal bombs through a void portal. It worked, as long as the components of the crystal bombs did not involve star mana.

It’s a crude solution, but I didn’t like the fact that everything depended on Stella and her band of void mages in training. A single point of failure meant if the next demon king had some kind of anti-magic or anti-void energy ability, we wouldn’t be able to use it. No, there was also the risk that the demon king, a creature with at least some void magic ability, would be able to interfere with Stella’s magical portal.

So, we had to consider alternatives, as backup.

Through a bit of upgrades and outfitting, we finally managed to get Hytreerion to gradually swim to the Western Continent with a huge arsenal of crystal bombs. But thanks to it’s incredibly slow speed, it would take half a year for him to actually arrive there. We also arranged for ships loaded with crystal bombs too. The idea was to plant the bombs everywhere and then detonate them when the demons are near.

Stella didn’t seem particularly pleased with the idea. “This has the problem with landmines written all over it.”

“That’s partly true.” But of course, these crystals are magically activated. They shouldn’t cause such problems, right?

Wait, no. Actually, all bombs have this problem. It’s possible that some crystal bombs don’t detonate and are instead embedded in the ground. Some day, they will get accidentally triggered by some hapless adventurer. Or their demon-sensing runes get confused and blow something up.

Everything decays over time, even magic. So, once they decayed, their behavior is unpredictable. Institutions decay too, and I noticed it in the Valthorns. As the central continent accepted my dominion, there was a shift in the behaviors of those who are admitted to the Valthorns, especially those who grew up knowing that I am the supreme authority of the land. Arrogance. Minor abuse of power. Some of these were hidden when they were just part of the Valtrian Order, but the promotion to the Valthorns revealed some of this.

Worse, I was only made aware of this after a few incidents I witnessed while doing other things, and commanded my artificial minds to highlight all of them. There were many small instances. Arrogance was not punishable, even if it did make us unlikeable. For the minor abuse of power, it was hard to really assess whether it was the person who provided or granted the payments were trying to curry favor.

There were benefits to being in high places, and I saw how the Valthorns would recommend their friends or families for certain roles. Not exactly unallowed, but it’s nepotism.

As an institution, now that the Valthorns and Valtrian Order is considered mature, I needed my artificial minds to play the role of an ‘opposing’ or ‘offsetting’ force, of identifying those who are outside them for admission.

But I went off tangent with my thoughts there. Back to crystal bombs, was excessive use of magical artifacts the equivalent of using landmines? Maybe, but I argue that danger posed by the demon king, as a beast of significant destructive power, offset the risks of using magical artifact.

One day when I, or the non-heroes under my wing, gain sufficient power to challenge a demon king without such bombs, I will remove them from our combat plans. But now, the bombs are a necessity, even if I’m doing the magical equivalent of carpet bombing. The destruction of the demon king easily killed more than my bombs ever will.

Stella nodded, though she did make a rather poignant statement. “He who fights with monsters, might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”

“Nothing to worry there, for I am already a monster.” I am, by all means and definitions, a monster tree with magic and godly powers.

Stella sighed. “In our pursuit of peace and the end of this cycle, we will turn a war between man and demons, to a war between monsters and demons.”

“Eh, that’s not accurate. The gods were always the puppet masters. In the larger scheme of things, you’ve heard from Aiva yourself, that this is a war between gods and the demons. We are just the background, the terrain and the natural environment rebelling against that stupid war.”

“But on the ground.”

“I think that’s better, actually. It’s better for the citizens that the war is fought by monsters. We can take the losses a lot better.”

Druids gathered giant birds and flying creatures. Most of them were small, but master trainers and animal tamers can ‘grow’ their tamed beasts to larger proportions. I looked back at my Titan choices. If I had an air force, the air force could functionally perform as my bombing squads.

Drop the crystal bombs from the air and fly off. Or could I have suicide bombers?

No. It wouldn’t be suicide bombing if we used ‘summons’ and ‘spirits’ that can respawn to deliver the crystal bomb payload. Magical summons would be the best weapons delivery tool.

-

Through some magical modifications, we managed to upgrade Hytreerion to be a floating ship with cannons. A battleship. More oil rig than ship, it carried large cannons that could throw the crystal bombs a certain distance to their target. Its range wasn’t fantastic, so it wouldn’t be able to shoot far inland unless more upgrades were made.

For Lumoof, he moved to the Western Continent, our expansion plans in the north put on hold. That can resume after we capture whatever experience and levels we could from the demon king. Hell, maybe I can get something that can solve my damned ocean problem.

It was also my first time in the Western Continent.

One thing I noticed was that the culture of the world is actually relatively aligned. There are kingdoms everywhere, and the differences in cultures are usually in the small things. Like the way they eat certain foods, and the other small stuff. Kings are still Kings, and nations run the way they were run elsewhere. That meant the local lords as pretty much local gods.

Like the Northern Islands have Aria and Aispeng, I wondered whether there’s a tree spirit or some other spirit here in the Western Continent, and whether I could rope them into the fight.

The kingdoms of the Western Continents are putting up pretty good resistance against the demons. Many of them had large standing armies, courtesy of their relative safety during the past few decades. Instead, they were mostly focused on fighting each other. From what I understood, they were still in the period of ‘warring-states’ when the demonic rifts appeared. Nothing to unite a nation in war than a bigger bad guy.

Oh well, no matter, Lumoof arrived in a port city called Pelabuhan Dikelang, on the Eastern Shore of the Western Continent. The first thing I noticed was that the Neira priests have really lovely outfits.

We came, formally, as reinforcements at the invitation of one of the friendly kingdoms on the Western Continent. We came by ship, because we did not want to reveal our possession of void portals.

Our goals were multifold, of course. The main objective is to participate in the battle against the demons, gain levels. Not-so-publicly, our goals are to make friends, get more information on the powers of those who rule Neira, use the demonic attacks as an excuse to freely explore places that was previously not-so-accessible.

Even more secretly, it was the best chance to mix my spies into their society, get to know some of the individuals, and see how we could gradually grow our influence on the Neiran Temple. Our goal, with Neira, Gaya and Hawa, was to learn their methods of communicating with their gods.

The Neira priests were hostile, but they did not attempt to fight Lumoof or the entourage. The gap in our strength was clear to anyone who bothered to do some research, even if politically, we generally allow the other temples some dignity by not openingly comparing our relative strengths.

There were some boring formalities of introducing ourselves to the local rulers and all that, but that was a task I allowed Lumoof and the group to do. Even in the face of demons, there are sycophants and asskissers. These were tiring for me to deal with, so when there were political matters, I allowed Lumoof to handle it.

Lumoof wasn’t the wisest politically, but he had enough sense to give empty but pleasant sounding assurances most of the time, such that the asskissers realise that they were going to have better luck with his subordinates.

On this front, this was also one of the problems we have with diplomats, spies and our other agents. Away from my eyes on the central continent, all I could do was trust them to know what to say, to know how to spot those who seek to curry their favor with the powers they possessed, to know that just as we seek to gain from them, they too will gain from us. There, I have to believe that they have the experience and skills needed to spot what they should spot, and know of their biases.

There were no eyes to watch them when they are away.

Well, except through Lumoof.

-

While Lumoof handled the preparations on the Western Continent. I also spoke with my fellow spirits.

“I intend for my warriors to join the fight against the demon king. Would you be willing to make some weapons for them?” I asked Aria and Aispeng for the best weapons they could make. They agreed, and forged 10 weapons made out of some magical ice, which I offered to the 10 of my strongest Valthorns.

For Lilies, they made 5 sets of magical staffs made of fused bone and metal, which amplified both healing and death-elemental magic.

I also asked the fused wolf-shaman for some things, but it had nothing to offer. That was fine.

I decided not to ask for anything from Reefy. I think it would probably be mistaken what my intentions are.

-

The demons that spawned this time were mostly smaller, impish creatures. They look like dark-red versions of goblins, with small reddish wings that seemed to do nothing but let them hop a little bit higher. Claws.

We also encountered one demonic champion, a large two-headed reddish ogres with tentacles fo. I think we were gonna have the Demonic Corrupted Orc Hordes for the demon king. If so, are we gonna get some kind of corrupted orc shaman for a demon king?

“I must admit I am absolutely clueless about what you are talking about.” Both Kei and Stella probably didn’t play the popular gaming series.

Of course, we also met the heroes. This time as fellow combatants.

“I’m actually pleasantly surprised that Aeon would help us.” Prabu said face-to-face to Kei. Lumoof was there, of course. Edna was on her way, by boat. One of my concerns was what if the demon king was early? In that case, we would avoid combat until we could get our full forces in order. “You made it sound like he was rather hesitant.”

Kei smiled. “Well, just consider it a pleasant change of heart.”

“Just to be sure, there’s no catch, right?”

“Nope. Just help fight the demon king, and they’ll leave right after.” Kei repeated. Of course, the prize is the demon king itself.

“So, what’s the strategy?”

“Wait for the demon king to spawn, and lure the demon king to you on favorable grounds.” Kei said. “I’m sure you’ve seen in the journals how the demon king can see us. It’s possible to pretty much shout ‘we’re here’ with the use of star-mana. Hopefully we get a dumb one that would fall for the trap, then we’ll soften the demon king up and you guys can land the finishing blow.”

The part where Jura and Lovis landed the finishing blow was happily omitted. There was no need to highlight that it was my people that did so. But it is a common story on the Central Continent, so maybe they’ve heard it.

The mage-hero nodded. “Sounds doable. We’re setting up our own magical formations too, hopefully it’ll help. But if the journals are right, there must be a trick.”

The heroes, too, were scattered. Only Prabu, Colette and Hafiz were here. Chung seemed to be working on some kind of secret project, but he promised that he would magically teleport to the Western Continent once his project was ready. As for Ken...

With Lumoof preparing for the demon king, I lost my ability to see through the trees of the Northern Islands, and so I lost Ken. I was not very confident I could find him again, especially with that snake-spirit, but I weighed my priority and decided that gaining levels from the next demon king outweighed whatever risk that they posed.

“Well, we can’t predict the trick, the best we can do is prepare as hell, and fight like crazy.” Kei said.

Prabu paused. “True, not like we have a choice with all that godly mind control all over us.”

“Try some tea.” Kei offered. “It might help.”