Universe's End

Chapter 250: Conversations amongst the branches

1. Conversations amongst the branches

“You got down here in short order,” Rory said as he popped into existence, landing upon a branch as an oversized serpent barely rolled her eyes.

“Yes. After I enjoyed some of the Smoke Wine from the Great Cook, I had no reason to stay within the confines of your nest of hatchlings.”

“Can’t blame lower tiers for being lower tiers,” Rory countered as he sat cross-legged, Eia resting her oversized head next to him, rubbing the ridges above her eyes each as large as his hand. “Anyway, no point beating around the bush, eh?”

Eia was silent for a moment before her tongue slowly flicked out, as her version of blowing out a long exhale.

“No. No, there is not. I will not deny regrets that I was not here to save my Sire, or my kin, whom I never took the chance to meet.”

“You were chasing your own success.”

“Yes, and I do not apologize for that. It is simply a matter of the situation. At the very least, the vestiges of their history, of their significance, are carried on in my own scales.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Rory commented. “You know, Astra also underwent a forced racial evolution recently.”

“Not the same,” Eia mentally scoffed.

“What makes you say that?”

“She is a type to gorge herself, you know as well as I do, there are monsters out there whose main growth is through consumption. She was forced to consume plenty of highly beneficial equal-tier monsters all at once, a forced step up to tier eight.”

“So, you’re saying what she underwent was less than what you did?”

“Of course, that hungry harpy is hardly an equal to the likes of my status.”

“Ehh, harpy was more of the Bird’s thing, but I digress,” Rory chuckled. “So, your case was special. Research for the future.”

“You will not be cutting me open to satisfy your curiosity.”

“Oh, it was only going to be a little.”

“No.”

“Spoilsport,” Rory sighed. “So, Cruor-Shu. Your next favorite nap spot. Not because it has a connection to the vestigial remnants of your kin’s significance?”

Eia remained silent, almost pensive.

“Figured as much,” Rory said, continuing to rub Eia’s eye ridges. “When are you intending to return to the Reverse Mountains?”

“I see little reason to return, in truth. I have outgrown those lands. Should I continue preying on tier seven monsters, I see a real possibility of undermining my own growth. I must either travel deeper into the Maw—”

“Which won’t really be possible if the depths are guarded by anything stronger than a mid-tier-eight Territory Alpha, which is basically the best-case scenario.”

“As were my own thoughts. So, I find myself somewhat uncertain of where to turn.”

“Well…” Rory looked off into the distance, thinking for a moment. “We could always go visit Zoey’s people.”

“Metal Scales has mentioned there were direct efforts to avoid the lands beneath her home. Perhaps there is merit to the idea.”

“Right? It’s like I’m a genius.”

For a moment, the branch vibrated as Eia slightly trembled, a thrumming rumble of amusement.

“When shall we leave?”

“I’ve got a few things I want to take care of here, but I reckon soon. Unlike past travels, return travel should be much simpler.”

Spatial research and understanding had progressed leaps and bounds since the days when Rory was messing around with the creation of portable inventories. With additional datapoints, the ‘basic’ model of long-distance teleportation had been hammered out. When Zoey had returned to her people, she had brought one of the earlier prototypes for establishing a network node along with her, the Zero Ocean Energy Yielder, or ‘Z.O.E.Y’ for short. The name was somewhat random, barely fitting, but Rory had named it such just so that Zoey would be less likely to forget.

Which had proven wise in the end, even if the name was a bit stupid.

Of course, while progress had been made, it still required the hand of someone with a space-aligned affinity to make it possible, which was essentially just Rory for the most part. However, he’d heard mention of some crafters and adventurers who’d either stumbled upon similar affinities or been born with them. Which was great, but they were also a hundred years too early to be working on the finer details.

All of that was to say that, while innovations had been made and progress had been seen, the sheer number of people capable of expanding the networks was a big fat one, though after establishment, others could maintain said network nodes.

“…. The others?”

“Huh?” Rory asked, having zoned out.

“I’m certain you had at least one mental thread paying attention. I will not repeat myself.”

“I don’t always run them full throttle,” Rory rolled his eyes.

Eia remained silent.

“Fine,” Rory sighed. “One second… Oh, yeah, ‘what about the others?” Rory said after digesting the contents of the mental thread that had, in fact, been paying attention, even if he liked to act as if it wasn’t there. “I’m not too worried about that, I reckon we probably have at least a year or two.”

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“Based on?”

“Hunch,” Rory shrugged. “Worst case scenario, I don’t expect them to be terrorist birds.”

“Quite the assumption.”

“Yeah, but in the end, how often have I been wrong in my assumptions?”

“What about your Ba-”

“Do not mention that to me,” Rory growled. Perhaps it was being atop Cruor-Shu, but the mere thought of his ba- of his ba- of that thing, was enough to have his heart beating with titanic rage.

Definitely feels like a spill-over from Cruor-Shu.

“Besides,” Rory said, pushing the thought of it away as he focused on a related topic. “I have a plan for it.”

Hand outstretched, the anti-matter essence, Feather from On High, and the Heart Strand floated in midair.

“Oh?”

“A weapon unlike any seen before,” Rory grinned. “Lots of workshopping still needed, but another hint.”

Another two objects appeared, a hammer and a knife, his two trustiest tools at this point, literally blood bound to him.

“A fang to end all fangs,” Eia said, and had she had a human mouth, Rory would have suspected her of having a rather vicious grin.

“Perhaps a bit of a lofty claim at only tier eight,” Rory snorted. The future was uncertain as ever, but at the very least, Rory knew there were at least fifteen tiers worth from what proto-Eon had mentioned all the way back in year one, so claiming at tier eight he was going to make some ultimate weapon seemed a bit… much.

But.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try to make the greatest weapon ever made by humanity.

Alright, I might not quite be the level of a nuclear bomb… yet, but by tier nine? Definitely by tier ten.

“Well, I shall look forward to it, all the same. In the meantime, I believe I will hunt some more in the depths below.”

Raising her massive head, Eia uncoiled from the branch she was wrapped around, slithering downward before sliding into the lake below without causing so much as a ripple.

“Spooky,” Rory chuckled, before vanishing, appearing elsewhere.

Specifically, within the Core Room of Ehkorrus. Since its inception, the room had changed, now resembling a cavern of jagged wooden stalactites and stalagmites, with crimson vines growing everywhere and thick wax filling the cracks in the wood. Within the very center of the cavern, there was a massive monster core that was suspended by vines piercing into it like the arteries of a heart.

It was the monster core that had come from the former Blight Khan, the replacement core for the prior core that had maintained Ehkorrus for decades.

Well, ‘replacement’ wasn’t technically correct as the oversized monster core had outright subsumed the much smaller monster core of the original Iasilisk he’d fought back in those early days.

“It does look familiar,” Rory said after a moment of staring. After having seen the ‘inner world’ of Cruor-Shu, he’d slowly realized that the appearance of the wooden beating heart reminded him of something. While they weren’t one-to-one, the Core Room of Ehkorrus and the ‘core space’ of Cruor-Shu had clear symmetry.

Interesting.

Part of Rory was curious as to what would happen if he transplanted the Heart Strand within the Core Room, but he quickly put that thought away. He really didn’t need to gamble with a bloodwood archon taking over the symbiote Grand Tree that was wired into essentially everythingof Ehkorrus, before it started to feed on the city itself.

Rory stared at the oversized core for several seconds longer before frowning. Even back when he’d replaced the original monster core that acted as the heart of Ehkorrus, Rory had wanted to enhance the regular monster core into a full-on pearlescent core, but trying that level of modification to a core of such size and potency sounded like a real god damn good way to lose the one-off treasure. Until he went hunting other Khans, something that still wasn’t something he could readily do solo, there wasn’t going to be any better monster cores coming their way, and so risking the oversized core seemed a bad idea.

Oh, it looks like I have a visitor.

“One day,” Rory sighed as he looked about the Core Room one last time, before vanishing again as he teleported once more. Appearing high up on another tree branch, rather than Cruor-Shu, he was sitting on one of the highest branches of the Ehkorrian Grand Tree.

“You noticed quickly,” Aelia said, her avatar looking like a ram-horned willow tree spirit.

“I was somewhere perfect for noticing,” Rory answered. “Why are you here?”

“Perhaps I am admiring your handiwork,” The World Spirit said, looking out at the city below.

“Uh-huh,” Rory said, rolling his eyes, catching the double meaning. To an observer, it might sound as if she were referring to Ehkorrus, and she, in part, probably was, but reading between the lines, Rory understood what she was truly

referring to.The Bird.

“Soon, you will be dealing with my siblings.”

“Yeah, it’s been considered,” Rory said.

“Do you feel prepared?”

“Reasonably.”

“Doubtful, but I appreciate the sentiment. I expect that the Founder competition will have concluded by then, which will be necessary.”

“The Monk, the Rogue, the Woodsman, and the Spear. Did I miss anyone?” Rory rolled his eyes as he counted off his fingers. “You know, it seems a little unfair that the deck is so stacked against me.”

“You have the Vanguard.”

“Oh, two against four, so much better.” Rory snorted.

“Do not be a complainer. You know that, in the end, I am not the architect behind all this; I have only so much control as the World Spirit who hosts it. In the end, how events play out is largely up to chance after the initial roll of the dice.”

“Bleh,” Rory stuck out his tongue childishly, as Aelia rolled her eyes. “Oh, by the way, remind me what the point of winning really is?”

“Control of my surface,”

“Okay, and what exactly does that mean?”

“Your Sovereign System would likely gain an added layer.”

“So, I could use it over everything here?”

“No, you’d still need to claim wild lands, but there would be another layer of depth.”

“Sounds like micromanaging hell.”

“Now you understand why I spend so much time in my core.”

At that, Rory chuckled, genuinely amused, as a sly humor colored Aelia’s expression. It was the only betrayal of her amusement, as her lips refused even to twitch in acknowledgment.

“Oh, a quick word of warning,” Aelia suddenly said as she stood up, dusting herself off, entirely unnecessary given the body before him was an avatar.

“Yes? Let me guess, something terrible is coming to eat me.”

“No, a perhaps unnecessarily negative outlook on life you have.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“My warning was about the Reverse Mountains. Absolutely do not attempt to rouse what lies within the very center of that region. I know the Vanguard already explored it in a very superficial sense, but as you are now, you are ahead of the curve of what I intended for someone to set that event in motion. It was planned with tier nine in mind, and on a much larger scale as well.”

“Noted,” Rory said, filing that away in the ‘foreshadowing’ folder. “What about the heart of the mountain used as our secondary base?”

“That’s fine,” Aelia waved the concern off. “The elemental has already spent a considerable amount of time pestering its inhabitant, so you can assume they aren’t nearly as temperamental as either the Queen or the King were.”

“Duly noted,” Rory nodded once more. “Anything else?”

“Hmmm…. Would you consider starting a yearly festival in my honor, with offerings of food and drink?”

“Why?”

“Because,” Aelia sighed. “Every time I turn my attention here, I find myself curious as to all the things your people are constantly indulging in, such as that rather pleasant-smelling black liquid.”

“Coffee?”

“Yes, that one.”

“You could always just… get some for yourself? You’re the World Spirit here.”

“Hah, as if I would lower myself to skulking about just to snatch some food,” Aelia said proudly before deflating a hair. “That, and I am unable to consume food in that manner, physically speaking. So, on with the festival in my honor!”

And like that, she vanished, always the one to have the last word.

“At least it wasn’t anything foreboding or vaguely threatening this time around,” Rory sighed. He considered ignoring her request, but as he thought about it, he found the idea… not terrible.

Plus, we already have the end-of-the-year celebrations that started with an offhand remark I once made about the winter holidays. Too bad I slept through them this year, after everything with the Bird.

“Sure, why not?” Rory finally said. “A mid-year festival or celebration. I can also use it as the build-up to leaving once more. Now that Ehkorrus is out of the siege waves, I don’t even have to worry about anything utterly terrible happening in my absence. Though I can still only be gone for a year or so max, what with the others…. Anyway, I digress!”

Clapping once, Rory stood up as he looked over Ehkorrus.

“Now, for the hardest part… the hell am I going to name it?”