Universe's End

Chapter 231: Ice Cream from Paris

1. Ice Cream from Paris

“It won’t work.”

“Yes, I’ve realized that,” Rory grumbled as he turned to face the bug woman, a properly grown ‘adult’ since her creation almost two decades ago.

Tsarina was standing beside him, staring at the corpse of the Khan of Blue Lightning, occasionally glancing at the cracked samsara seed Rory had handed off to her.

“The creation of complex life simply is too much of a vast gulf if what you seek is the ‘rebirth’ of the Khan; it was a territory alpha and a tier eight one at that,” Tsarina said.

“It’s one thing to create life, but it would be born as a low-tier. You were specifically a special case,” Rory muttered as he glanced at Tsarina.

“This Samsara seed, if it were one of the more advanced versions as you’ve mentioned, it would be possible,” Tsarina agreed. “Or if the Khan of Blue Lightning left behind a samsara seed of its own.”

“Which it didn’t. Probably because it was the Bane that killed it, ignoring how samsara seeds aren’t meant to be common.”

“I apologize for not being able to offer anything more useful,” Tsarina said, emulating a human sigh.

“It’s fine,” Rory shook his head. “I figured as much, but I was hoping with the insight of a Queen-class monster that perhaps you would see something I hadn’t.”

“The Khan would make excellent nourishment for the most powerful Royal Guard I could possibly make, and enough nourishment that I could spawn hundreds of them, but for what you’re attempting? Impossible.”

“Well, I appreciate the insight,” Rory sighed. “You can head back.”

Bowing her head, the humanoid bug monster left, leaving Rory alone.

“Damnit,” Rory grunted. “There goes that thought.”

His initial idea had been to take advantage of the cracked samsara seed to rebirth a tier eight territory alpha alongside the fallen corpse of the Khan.

Tsarina had rained on his parade. He simply lacked in the significance department; he’d either end up with a powerful low-tier that would take time to grow or a flimsy tier-eight.

There was a third option, but Rory wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Can I even afford to be picky?

In only a few years, there was an attack coming from a fellow Founder, one that had already slain two other Founders, and it wasn’t coming alone.

Oh, and it was intelligent, so any hopes it would simply waltz in and get itself smeared against their walls felt low.

I need to ensure this place is well protected so it can’t be overrun easily.

A tier eight territory alpha was a rather serious deterrent, given that even a base-tier-eight territory alpha was something that would require Rory to team up with Zoey to defeat. The Bane could cheat by bringing out its ‘max’ strength as a peak tier eight, but that wasn’t anything that they could do.

Alright, technically, I could release my attribute limit. Still, I’d rather not explode my arms and legs because I’m not acclimated enough to handle it.

The point was, if there was a tier eight territory alpha hanging out in their ‘basement,’ there would be far less risk of an intelligent monster potentially figuring out there was a method of attack through the Maw into Ehkorrus.

It would be quite an accomplishment to figure that all out to begin with, but I’d rather not put all my eggs in that basket.

So, there wasn’t time to raise a low-tier monster to a high enough level to actually be a deterrent, and a weak-tier-eight would get squashed.

Fuck.

“Option three it is,” Rory sighed.

Corpse Puppet.

If a truly living guardian required too much ‘input’ to get the sort of on-demand power he needed, then he would nix the ‘living’ part.

Like a golem. Except not at all like a golem.

Between the literal corpse of the Khan of Blue Lightning and the cracked samsara seed, it should be possible to resurrect the power within its body, or some approximation of that power. The problem would be ‘piloting’ the corpse puppet. His golems worked because they were made in his

image; he could ‘download’ instructions within Ghost Message that were then used in the inscriptions laid upon the golem. Made in his image, there would be no issues of ‘disconnect’ in things like depth perception or similar problems; he only needed a single set of ‘instructions’ for the golem to follow, without needing to extrapolate on how to follow them.“When you think about it, my golems were almost more like specters formed from my own mind rather than robots programmed with zeros and ones,” Rory said before shaking his head. “And that’s the problem.”

That wouldn’t work with the Khan of Blue Lightning’s body, mostly because Rory wasn’t an oversized serpent that could swallow buses for fun.

Go figure.

“So, back to the problem. Even if I can theoretically resurrect the body with an approximate level of power from life, it would still be an unmoving husk without something actively directing it. No matter how I slice it, my inscriptions aren’t that advanced to give directives to something of that scale.”

Pacing about, Rory began replaying recent conversations, looking for inspiration. It was funny how life often worked that way, random conversations or passing comments often had the answer to a problem that was otherwise an impossible brick wall to pass.

As he paced, Rory suddenly stopped, one foot still hovering in the air.

“…They instead would require the corpses of monsters to fall in their vicinity, where their roots would slowly reach out to drag them below.”

Bloodwoods were carnivorous plants.

They also couldn’t ‘hunt’ on their own.

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Usually.

“Oh,” Rory muttered. “That might work.”

Originally, there were meant to be the guardian and the tree.

But what if the guardian was the tree?

Reaching into his inventory, Rory suddenly tossed out the corpse of a monster.

Why did he have the corpse of a monster just lying in his inventory? Because sometimes you need to do experiments on the fly.

Like now.

Touching the corpse, moments later, it began to wriggle and squirm, until a thicket of fleshy vines like flailing intestines ripped out of the body.

It wasn’t anything new; it was just an application of the growth concept in the form of an ‘attack’, essentially super-duper cancer. It was an attack he’d used plenty of times in the past, though he’d opted to shelf the move once his arsenal for dealing with packs of weaker monsters had expanded.

But the instinct is what matters.

Then there was another component worth considering, something made possible through bloodwoods. Years, decades ago, Rory had nearly gotten himself killed due to the outsized influence of some blood weave armor he had been wearing, entering a battle-haze while facing down an Ash Worm. The remanent vestiges of will contained by the blood weave had carried through, influencing his actions, like a tiny nudge in a certain direction.

Yeah. Yeah, that might work.

It would require an evolved bloodwood and some serious planning on his part, but it could work.

“Fucking hell,” Zoey said, one leg crossed over the other as she sat on a chair, enjoying the warmth of the day and drinking a mother fucking coffee. “That fucker held out on me.”

Ehkorrus, the ‘village’ run by her partner, the humble old Architect.

“Stupid fuck,” Zoey spat, zero venom in the words. “He totally misled me on purpose.”

Ehkorrus was not a village. It was not even really a ‘town.’

It was a city. Oh sure, a city with a tiny population compared to Earth, but still a god damn city—coffee, restaurants, people hustling and bustling to and fro. No cars, sure, but there were people in carts strolling down roads paved with some glossy black stone that seemed to twinkle like starlight.

She’d asked around, and apparently, according to the last estimate, the population rangedfrom

6 to 7 thousand.Christ.

While Rory was off being busy doing Rory things, Zoey had been exploring.

First, there was the big fuck off tree. Like really fucking big. As big as the mountains they’d called home? Alright, not even close, but compared to even the tallest trees of Earth, it was massive, at least three hundred meters tall. Bigger? Larger? Zoey wasn’t sure; Rory was the one who was good at all that gauging stuff.

To be fair, plenty of the trees outside the city limits were massive, on a scale similar to the tallest trees of Earth, but only comparable. In contrast, the fuck-off-sized tree made them look small.

It was also apparently Rory’s home.

Go fucking figure.

The city was surrounded by three sets of ‘walls,’ but even calling them ‘walls’ felt off. It was more like three sets of jungle vegetation and waxy material so densely packed that they gave the impression of impenetrable walls. The fact that she could sense those same walls utterly crawling with monsters creeped Zoey out a tad, but again, it had been shrugged off by people she’d spoken to.

“Oh, those? That’s just Lady Tsarina’s brood.”

She’d yet to meet this ‘Tsarina,’ but the descriptions were… something at least.

I wonder what I should do next?

She’d been spending some time lounging about, which was really strange for her after decades trapped within the floating volcanic isles, ignoring that it had been over a century since she’d seen proper civilization.

Maybe I could see one of those movies?

Yeah, they even had movies here. From what Zoey had gathered, they were closer to really elaborate shadow puppet shows, but given it had been a single century since the start of ‘history,’ that itself was astounding.

I really need to visit my people.

Zoey was giving herself a ‘vacation’ for the time being, but eventually she’d have to check in with her people.

Though that’s going to have to wait for a bit longer.

She would have no way to return until Rory got around to figuring that one out. Still, it probably wouldn’t be that much work, given that his people back at their volcanic home had made the prototype that brought them here.

So, probably after he deals with all of this stuff.

Zoey nodded to herself, concurring with… herself.

A few years, perhaps?

Given that Rory had gotten a sense for when his people were under serious duress, Zoey doubted her own people had perished since she’d left them.

Unless they completely gave up on me. Always a chance of that. Cheery thought.

She could admit she hadn’t been the… ‘best’ leader, but it had reminded her far too much of what her father had wanted from her. So, she’d done what she’d done as a teenager.

Ran away.

Oh, it hadn’t been that dramatic, but in the end, that’s exactly what it amounted to.

Abandoned people who looked up to you. Again.

“Bad thought,” Zoey sighed. “Shoo, git. Git.”

Motioning with her hands like she was shooing an unwanted pest away, she received a few strange glances from a couple sitting nearby, forcing her to smile at them awkwardly.

“Hi,” She waved, as the couple looked away.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Lady Ascendress.

In fairness, her identity was on the down-low for the time being. Only a few people actually knew who she was, those who’d been there when she’d arrived with Rory. Otherwise, the city of Ehkorrus was large enough that one could misplace a face as unrecognizable.

Alright, so movie, where to next?

She’d been given a blanket ‘pass’ from the real leaders of the city, a man named Apostolos and a woman named Irene, to go where she pleased, basically. The only place that was off limits was the big ass tree that Rory called home.

Not like I’m trying to barge into his digs.

There was a mine nearby that she was interested in checking out. From what Rory had explained to her and what she’d pieced together from some mentions, it was likely the location where Rory had found the sensen girl.

God, that is still so fucking odd.

A sensen. A fucking sensen. The boogieman beneath your bed, eater of children, kicker of puppies, jaywalker, and omnicidal freaks.

And yet the girl had been none of those things.

Well, “girl,” she was a grown adult, but a woman in her twenties may as well be a kid to Zoey.

Roxy, Rory’s daughter, took a lot after Rory, though far more sociable from what she’d seen. The people of the city adored her. The ‘Daughter of Design’, she could always be counted on, extremely friendly and kind, and more skilled than just about anyone at just about anything.

That second part wasn’t surprising. The Sensen were known to be geniuses even in their old universe; a race had to be filled with geniuses to destroy existence itself.

All so strange.

If there was one odd thing about the woman, it was that, while she was unmistakably a sensen, her crowning horns were a bit… off. The sensen were well known for the set of ram-like horns framing the sides of their heads and a set of antelope-like horns atop their heads.

Roxy’s crowning horns looked more like they’d been plucked off a dragon. Then there were her eyes, heterochromatic. As far as Zoey knew, they’d never seen a sensen with heterochromatic eyes before.

But then, heterochromia wasn’t common in humans either.

Whatever the case, Roxy didn’t meet any of the expectations of a sensen, even though Zoey was still keen to keep an eye out around her. Zoey had already run away long before humanity was introduced to the rest of the universe. However, she had still kept tabs on the news, her father a frequent guest on the news or other media. Constantly waxing on about the need for humanity to work together with their new allies to defeat the dreaded sensen threat.

Yeah, he was definitely trying to leverage a presidential run as the great unifier. Hah, how’d that go for you? We all died in the end. Or, almost died. Whatever.

It was only a shame that she only ever saw her father on TV. Well, okay, occasionally her mother showed up too; being the CEO of a Fortune 500 meant she made public appearances, but the one she really cared about was her younger sister.

Thoughts of her younger sister played through her head, even as Zoey enjoyed her coffee. She’d been what, nine when Zoey ran away at the age of seventeen?

Or was I sixteen? Fuck, it’s been long enough that I just stopped thinking about the details.

Her little sister had always been talented, exceptionally talented at everything she did, hardworking, and fiercely opinionated. Still, God damn was she a little brat.

Snorting, Zoey let herself indulge in the memories. Her younger sister was sticking her tongue out at her after she had trashed her room because she had tried to climb to the top of the dresser. Why? To dive bomb a teddy bear, of course.

Or when Zoey had been scolded for putting her little sister in a headlock after the little demon had gone and eaten the last ice cream cup from her favorite dessert place in Paris. The worst part was that the entire time, her little demon sister hadn’t even surrendered or repented, chomping down on Zoey’s arm, who even back on Earth had an unnaturally high pain tolerance.

What a little shit.

Looking around, Zoey frowned slightly.

I bet she’d like this place.

Sighing, Zoey shook away the thoughts.

“If only you could see this all, sis.”