Universe's End

Chapter 246: KFC

Rory remained in the sky, waiting until the null light faded, his domain that had colored the sky fading away as sunlight began shining once again.

“Damn, I hurt,” Rory said with a sigh once the oblivion energies were entirely gone and he felt the sudden surge of ascension energy.

Hot damn.

A quick check of his interface confirmed a whopping one percent increase in progress. Given he was expecting tier eight to take in the ballpark of three hundred years or so, that was a cool thirty-year boost.

“Sort of doubt I’ll be getting windfalls like that… well, maybe ever again, who knows.”

Dismissing a notification that they’d defeated the Bird’s faction –not exactly surprising to Rory, who’d been said Bird killer– Rory was about to flicker back down to the ground when a new notification caught his attention at the same time the air shimmered where the bird had previously been. Ignoring the notification for the time being –no point in spoilers— Rory waited with bated breath. Below, what seemed like hundreds, if not thousands, of brilliant specks of light shot upward, converging on the patch of shimmering air. If it wasn’t for the surge of ascension energy Rory had already received for slaying the Bird, he might have worried it was somehow regenerating and returning to life like a phoenix that it so badly wanted to be.

For what it was worth, Rory had a sense that was exactly what the brilliant sparks were meant to do, some last-ditch lifesaving trick the Bird had prepared. The problem was, the signal source wasn’t just damaged beyond repair –it was outright gone, total annihilation, thanks to the use of oblivion energy.

So, without a single trace of the ‘signal source,’ the specks of brilliant light instead converged into the next best thing, an approximation of their origin.

A single rainbow-hued feather.

Waiting until the excitement finished, Rory plucked the feather out of the air, noting just how dense it felt with significance.

Feather from on High

Grade: Unique

Within all of existence, there have only existed eight Founders, the first Enlightened beings in all of creation. Yet such beings were far from invincible as a single monster rose on high, laying low two of the Founders and claiming a spark of Enlightenment for itself. As a reward, it claimed a seat at the table meant only for eight others. Believing itself the Chosen champion of the first Ascended World Spirit, it took it upon itself to become judge, jury, and executioner to those who would assert themselves as worthy. Yet for all its resplendent power and its foundation of reified dogma, its universe-shaping consequences were but a single blip of existence of a mere century. Slain, all that it was and all that it might ever be, has been reformed into the shape of a single feather representing the final remnants of its total significance and stigmata.

“Less of a description and more of a eulogy,” Rory said as he finished reading the description.

Checking the remaining notification and confirming it was indeed a notification of the feather being a reward, Rory finally left the sky above Ehkorrus, appearing within a watchtower overlooking the battlefield, as Irene did a surprisingly good job of not jumping.

“Done,” Rory said, as if he’d come back from running an errand and not facing one of his greatest foes to date.

“I can see that,” Irene nodded. “Tired?”

“I’m really good at acting,” Rory smiled. The truth was, the minute he released the limiter removal, he was going to be a potato for the next month or so.

“We’re finishing up here,” Irene said as she waved her hand out. “With the Bird’s death, the empowering effect broke, and basically to sum it up, we’re just playing clean-up duty now.”

“How’d the defenses hold up?”

“The Empyrion Casters were game changers,” Irene answered. “The worth of even those few was like having a hundred extra high-powered tier sevens. I can see why E.O.N. cracked down on you for using them as a low tier.”

“Had to wait until the power level of combatants was equal to or exceeding their output,” Rory confirmed. “Losses?”

“Some, of course. Mostly front-line fighters who didn’t have the protection of the walls in front of them. Around two hundred, total.”

“A lot, but also, far from the numbers it could have been.”

“I can see why the Bird waited until wave one hundred,” Irene chuckled, though it was devoid of any real merriment. “Their forces would have been slaughtered without having a wave to shove into the meat grinder ahead of them.”

“Their forces were slaughtered,” Rory corrected.

“Ehh, we’ve got a decent number of surrenders or captured forces. The preliminary intel is that it took over the Voice's former faction. A large amount of them are composed of a race we’ve never seen before, they call themselves and are identified as Varasians.”

“Oh,” Rory said, recognizing the race. “Interesting,”

“You know of them?”

“You could say that,” Rory answered vaguely.

The Varasians were among the most expansive races of the old universe and an interesting example of convergent evolution, looking strikingly similar to humans compared to other races, such as the Osferians.

“Planning on explaining more?”

“Not really,” Rory said. At this point, his reputation was enough that such non-answers weren’t all that suspicious.

“Well, I expect any minute now there will be a deluge of surrenders after that notification. Other than the firework displays, there wasn’t much that could be gleaned from what was going on above; no one could look directly. Which is to say, many of the Bird’s forces were probably hoping that somehow it had actually won.”

“No getting around the declaration of our victory, though.”

“No, there isn’t,” Irene agreed. “So, what are you about to do?”

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“Sleep. Preferably for a month. I take it you don’t need me to handle any post-wave stuff?”

“We’ve managed on our own; I think we will manage,” Irene answered. “If anything really interesting happens, we will hold on to it for you if need be.”

“Or just ask Roxy for advice,” Rory shrugged. “Or Apostolos. Or yourself. Just pretend you guys are me and try to get in my head if you need to figure out what I’d do.”

“I think I’d rather avoid getting into your mind,” Irene snorted.

“Fair enough,” Rory said. “Now, excuse me, I’ve got a hot date with the sweet embrace of nothingness.”

Rory had been incorrect.

A month was a bit too conservative an estimate.

Three full months later, Rory suddenly jerked upright, mind rebooting as he looked around.

“Bird, right,” Rory sighed. “Won, then went home and slept.”

Stretching his arms overhead, Rory took a minute to listen to the sound of birds –the non-quasi-divine kind— chirping from high up, his own room a good three hundred meters high in the tree.

Remaining like that for a solid hour, Rory finally figured it was time to get moving. Throwing on a change of clothes into autumnal orange pants and a well-fitted green t-shirt, Rory nodded to himself as he looked into a mirror.

I should probably shave.

With just a thought, Rory waved his hand as the excess facial hair fell away in an instant, leaving only a light five o'clock shadow.

Shaving done.

Focusing for a brief moment, Rory appeared high in the sky, looking down on Ehkorrus.

Couldn’t even guess the city was attacked… however long ago. I don’t know how long I’ve been out.

There was something extremely satisfying about watching the city below do… city stuff. Sure, it had the added fantasy elements of a magical world, with people coming and going in armor or wielding weapons, but otherwise it was just another place of life one could find back on Earth.

Crossing his arms, Rory continued to hover in the sky overhead, easy to miss as just a speck in the sky.

Flying is cool as hell, so I’m going to miss leaving Ehkorrus and even the Reverse Mountains.

His flight was entirely possible through his coordinate affinity, constantly attaching and manipulating his attraction or repulsion from the long-mapped coordinates of Ehkorrus. Anywhere else, brute-forcing it would be extremely taxing, although technically possible.

See, this is why I need to get working on that flying fortress.

He’d spent quite a few years considering that project, and would still need a few years before he felt comfortable working on it in earnest.

Besides the point.

With the Bird defeated, there were only a few things left on his ‘agenda.’ Obviously, there were two other factions that-

Oh?

As if summoned by the thought, Rory suddenly received an alert. Mentally ‘opening’ it, Rory’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch.

Oh. So, scratch that, one faction.

The Spear had defeated the Monk, and in doing so, they had become a single faction.

That’s fair. I get a Bird that is all religious fervor wanting to kill me, and the others just get to join up. No, I am not miffed.

Putting that thought aside, the future still held the confrontation with the final remaining faction, the entire fiasco looming with Aelia’s ‘siblings,’ and perhaps most importantly, the final battle with his Bane, where it was victory or death, with no in between.

And then?

The Bane event had been hanging over his head since tier six. Over a hundred years later, he could finally see the light at the end of that tunnel.

Maybe I can take a vacation.

There was still the Maw, and in truth, as he pushed deeper into tier eight, the plan was to conquer the third floor, something that had been outside the realm of possibility before. Alongside that, there had been some territory that had been under a multi-front fight within the Maw; the Blight Khan had been one of the forces vying for control.

Or… I leave that to others to explore.

That seemed fair enough to Rory. He wouldn’t pretend he was some giving saint, but neither was he so selfish that he had to monopolize everything.

So, I’ll clear the true boss of the third floor sometime in the future, but the rest I’ll leave to the people of Ehkorrus.

The second floor of the Maw had several levels of completion rewards, so Rory had no reason to doubt that the third floor followed that rule.

That aside, I wonder what the fourth floor will be like.

The third floor was predominantly tier-seven-centric, with highlights including the occasional tier-eight Khan. The fourth floor would likely be tier-eight-centric if that were the case, though whether it had warring Khans or not was entirely unknown.

So, beat the third-floor true boss, explore a bit of the fourth floor… What else?

The future was vast –assuming his Bane didn’t kill him— which left Rory thinking.

Well, I guess explore what Aelia has to offer properly, and hey, why not the other planets while I’m at it?

“Honestly, why am I even bothering trying to plan this out?” Rory finally laughed after a moment. “Let’s be honest, you’re definitely going to throw some curveball at me, aren’t you, Eon?”

Silence.

“Yeah, figured you’d say that,” Rory snorted. Finished with Superman cosplay of floating in the sky, Rory flickered elsewhere. Not to the city hall, where one might expect him to visit and check in with Irene or Apostolos.

Instead, he appeared next to a horned woman, who jumped as her hammer fell from her hand, falling directly on her foot.

“Fuck!” Roxy yelped. “E.O.N be damned, don’t spook me like that, Dad!”

“Heya, squirt,” Rory said, arms crossed as she picked up the hammer. It still seemed like only yesterday she was a little girl who he’d tuck in at night, and now here she was, a grown woman cussing like a sailor.

“I see you woke up,” Roxy sighed.

“That or I’m sleepwalking.”

“Right,” Roxy rolled her eyes at her father's antics.

“So, what are you up to?” Rory asked, curiously peering at the piece of metal she was hammering away at. It looked like nothing more than the hilt of a sword.

“Updating my aura blade,” Roxy said.

“Ahh, right, the light saber. I haven’t made a new one since I blew mine up.”

“I still don’t get why you call them that,” Roxy snorted. “And it’s because your attempt was through a more construct-pure lens.”

“Yeah, but mine could project oblivion energy, so mine was better,” Rory stuck his tongue out at Roxy, who again rolled her eyes at her father, who was purposely leaning into the childish caricature.

“What’s that?” Rory suddenly asked, pointing toward an aquamarine-colored material.

“What I’m using to update it, here, take a look.”

Handing it over to her father, Rory looked it over, purposely holding off on going straight to the direct examination.

“It’s calcified,” Rory finally said after a moment. “Organic?”

“Bingo,” Roxy said, shooting Rory with his own iconic finger guns. “The preferred material of the ex-Bird faction members.”

Curious, Rory finally took a moment to examine it properly.

Calcified Sungi Bloom

Rarity: Uncommon (+)

The calcified remains of a fungus adapted to an environment rich in metal and sunlight. Calcification has transformed the Sungi Bloom from a purely organic resource into a ferrous-aligned resource suitable for blacksmithing or shaping.

“Weird,” Rory said with a slight grin. “Fungi, Sungi, funny name as well.”

“While the Varasians tended to use it in its raw form, shaping the sungis to grow into their weapons before calcification, we’ve found that adding trace amounts of the calcified sungi bloom into alloy blends has some positive effects for pneuma and energy interplay. It does tend to weaken the material for some reason, but since I don’t use it as the actual weapon itself-”

“That problem doesn’t exist for you,” Rory said with a nod. “Good call.”

“Thank you,” Roxy said, preening. “In truth, this is the first chance I’ve had to mess around with my personal projects; we’ve been pretty busy since you decided to take a nap.”

“That’s me, the responsible Lord Founder of Ehkorrus. I’m like an oil-rig worker who shows up once a year, drops off his paycheck, and leaves again.”

Roxy stared at Rory for a moment, trying to make sense of the words before opting for her favored tactic of ignoring them entirely.

“Did you need anything, by the way?” Roxy asked.

“Not really, just didn’t feel like instantly checking in with Apostolos, or more accurately, Irene.”

“Responsible indeed,” Roxy sighed. “Oh, by the way.”

“Yeah?”

“You, uh, might want to check in with Astra.”

“Something wrong?” Rory questioned. Since Roxy had gotten older, he’d spent less time with Astra simply because Roxy had taken the mantle up instead—that, and the fact that he literally wasn’t around for years at a time.

“You know how you’ve been planning on expanding her travel range?”

“Yeah,” Rory nodded. Over the years, Rory had managed to open Ehkorrus to Astra, in part thanks to assimilating Ehkorrus and the many parts of the city as a singular quasi-living organism; Astra’s ‘tether’ now covered the entirety of the city.

“Well… I don’t think she needs the help anymore.”

Curious, Rory waited for more, but his daughter took a page out of his book, purposely playing coy.

“Bah, fine,” Rory shook his head. “I’ll go see for myself.”

Rather than give his daughter the satisfaction of seeing him walk off, Rory flickered straight into Astra’s room, which she preferred to stay within, even with the ability to travel about now.

And when he did, Rory’s eyebrows instantly rose.

“How do I look?”