So many words, thoughts collected from dead people who ultimately didn’t matter.
Their ramblings thrown together in a little book, with my name scribbled along theirs, and the pages just flowing together, without any apparent purpose.
Crystal hands slowly turn the pages, before shaking the book, and tossing it on the table when no greater truth is revealed.
I wonder why you did it, why shake the tree of the long dead, even if at least some of them happen to be gods?
Was it just to record history, to make a few credits off their deeds, or was it something else…
The scholar is just meditating in the void, apparently unaffected by lack of everything, but if a few days or even weeks was enough to break a tier fifty reality, itself would be a far more fragile place.
Then again, the only thing remarkable about this scholar is their ability to pull from the past, manipulating time to gather things long destroyed, but like that dead God of time wrote.
With enough time, everything that has been, will be again, hmm, which means.
If something or someone managed to live long enough, they could watch history repeat itself, a younger clone inventively joining them or they could alter the path they would have taken, and see how fate could have played out differently.
The being, the god, the destroyer of worlds for a moment freezes.
“Or they could save someone, people from the past who died long before they maybe should have.” Dust begins to fall from his body, the crystal cracks, and falls to the floor revealing flesh underneath.
Perhaps, I’ve spent too long in my realm or at least, maybe there’s still something out for me to watch for “The question just is, who do I want to see again?
Maybe the one who started it all?” He then laughs, before muttering to himself “Who knows how long it will take before time repeats itself, but without monitoring I’ll never know, well until I guess a twin too seeks the escape of the void.”
He then disappears in a blink, and a smile grows across the face of the scholar “Sometimes to kill a monster, one first has to rouse another.” He then shakes the dust from his robes, before disappearing from the void, without leaving a single trace.
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The speech went well, knowing that the war is now finally over is like a weight lifting from the shoulders of the average Salazar.
Aurisa, meanwhile, is sitting in the palace staring at a map, the infinite void of space, and every location within their budget.
It’s a surprisingly high range, the primordial core, sold for so many credits that even after purchasing the mercenaries there’s still a significant amount remaining, and there is still so much flowing from earth every single day.
Millions of credits, mana, and is a secret that’s slowly eating her alive, but that doesn’t mean the decision can be rushed, when choosing the wrong place could doom her people in an instant.
Her advisors are being helpful though, trying to pick up the pieces of this world while she searches.
Well, the ones who didn’t push for new positions now that they’re the “head of their lines” even though most of them were at best the second cousins twice removed from any of the actual noble houses.
They are busy politicking, not that any of them are any good at it, but regardless it’s a mess, but with only two cities, and far too few villages still standing it’s a manageable one.
Mages are repairing the land, and helping farmers getting to the point where food once again flows, but the anger is still there, boiling to the surface when anyone even so much as glances in the sky.
Katar mocking, every single last one them, when finally Aurisa has had enough, and she picks a location deep in a mana less galaxy called Oriana.
It has a solar system with three super planets capable of supporting life, but none of them at least seem to have any sentient beings, although all of them are over flowing with life.
One thing is stopping her from pressing the button though, a question making her question everything… should she cut off the flow from Earth?
When the credits, and mana, could help her people in so many ways, but at what cost?
She looks at the soul weapon highlighted among the unique purchases, proof that the humans already have access to the darkest abilities the Salazar know of.
“At this point, what would it change? Besides, maybe it will at least let them learn exactly what they’re dealing with.” A lie, a compromise, she knows that in her heart, but is her honor truly worth more than the lives of her own people?
No, then again the mercenaries were already proof of that, the button is pressed.
Blue light slowly washes over Hesto, massive sigils form in the sky, and after about an hour of ever increasing humming while glowing blue lines connect themselves around the world.
The planet disappears, before appearing somewhere new, and floating through space with three massive planets dotting the sky, along with a warm golden sun.
A new beginning, a new chance for her people, and it’s like a weight of stone falls off the shoulders of the Salazar as they stare up at a skyline filled with endless possibilities, but not all of them are quite so relaxed by the sudden change.
In fact they’re furious, the nobles of Hesto being robbed of even the chance of having a say on where their world ended up, and that’s something they can’t allow to stand.
Resulting in an emergency counsel meeting instantly being called for.
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An orange ash filled sky, with plant like stones endlessly sending flames into the air, while the ground is covered in brimstone, red dirt, and a sweltering dry heat.
Oh, and of course, who could forget the disturbing otherworldly screams ringing off in the distance… it’s exactly what I always imagined hell to be.
A legion of the undead pour out of the portal, a couple of hundred knights, mages, and archers quickly surround the portal looking for anything moving, but things are quiet for now, well minus the screams of course.
Mages instantly begin the construction of a small stone little fort around the portal, I along with some of my shades even throw some mana into the mix.
While the rest of my shades, and around half of the undead begin to wander around looking for concentrations of mana, which is of course when they arrive.
Hell hounds, dogs covered in fire, the size of lions, about a dozen in number, and they crash into the undead, after releasing an ear splitting howl.
The dogs smash into the vanguard, their teeth locking onto pieces of armor, before their mouths are filled with a red glow that eats into the metal, as they try to rip the undead apart, but swords, spears, arrows, and magic quickly rip into the dogs.
Sliding into the unprotected flesh of the dogs with little difficulty, one of my shades even managing to get a stab in, before all of the dogs are no more.
Harvest
The bodies break into five balls, all tier three, uncommon grade materials, well other than the souls, which one of my shades is focused on gathering up.
Five minutes here, and we’ve already made hundreds to thousands of mana.
Conquest!
Truly, is the most beneficial path, with the undead, and the armor they provided it’s even relatively safe.
The gashes in the damaged undead’s armour slowly fill in by absorbing the ambient mana, which is so much richer than on Earth, but not nearly as much as on Katar.
Undead then begin banging their weapons against their shields, the sound echoing out for about a mile, and is quickly answered with more howls as we bunker behind plain stone walls, which have finished forming.
They come from everywhere, hell hounds, some launch balls of fire from their mouths, which slam into the stone walls, and the shields of the undead, before rushing into the waiting weapons of the undead.
Arrows fill the sky, along with bolts of lightning smashing into them, and flinging the dogs into the air like burnt little toy dolls.
Maybe fifty of the hell hounds die in under a minute, before there is a howl, unlike the others.
Waves of mana roll off the sound waves radiating from its body, and a massive hound the size of a hippo crests over a hill.
The dog is covered in golden flames, its flesh boiling from the heat held within its skin, power pulses from its body taking on a life of its own as streams of red energy begin to drift through the air, and the nearby hell hounds begin to gather behind the massive hound, while the rest pull back as it slowly starts walking towards the fort.
The undead watch as the horde approaches, still banging their weapons mockingly, daring the dogs to come, and meet their demise.
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Another wall falls, but this time dust isn’t the only thing that rises into the air.
Twenty beams of light burst in different directions, the various powers using spells to propel themselves to freedom in streams of air, water, or just pure mana.
All twenty of them slam into a black net of mana, before being dragged to the ground.
The undead quickly pounce on the would be escapees, and shackling them, underground however, a single beam of light is unimpeded.
They shoot through the earth at an angle, and arrive in some far off sewers, which is barely even large enough to fit them.
Olivia is free, and she releases a sigh of relief, before gagging on the toxic smelly air, her coughs echoing down the metal pipes.
A sound, which is quickly answered with the sound of small scurrying feet, and the glow of countless red eyes glowing in the dark.
“Hmm” fire erupts from Olivia’s hand, before igniting the air, and the whole tunnel is blasted by an explosion.
Olivia is tossed like a rag dog, her body smashing against the walls, but is otherwise not that hurt.
The enchantments, along with her higher tier negates most of the damage, but the rats on the other hand don’t fare nearly as well.
Their bodies are covered in fire, while the smell of burnt chard meat, and sewage fills the sewer, an awful smell, but significantly better than getting eaten by a swarm of rats. This story is hosted at NovelPing.
A smile grows over her face, and best of all, she is now free, free to do whatever she wants with nothing standing in her way.
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It’s a good thing, all of the powers are gone, particularly given we finally have complete control of the prison, but…
The others of Carter’s faction aren’t taking the attempted escape of the most powerful people well, particularly with the screams, which almost seems to be being broadcast directly into their command center.
Wailing echoes of pain, as the powers are pinned to the floor, weapons pierced through their bodies, before they’re chained, and dragged away.
It’s a sound with an intensity that no one is quite able to block out, and frankly to Carter at least, it’s another gift.
A reminder to everyone here that they’re prisoners, and that everything could become so much worse at the drop of hat.
The only real downside being… that the powers were entirely crushed, none of them even managed to get close to escaping, so how will they ever manage to escape, when they’re all so much weaker?
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A prison break, it was expected, even if it occurred a bit faster than anticipated, and who could have guessed that Olivia would sacrifice everyone else, along with her stuff, in order to be free.
Well, maybe it’s not that surprising, but how far she managed to propel herself, on the other hand around thirty miles… makes recovering her far more difficult while highlighting exactly how vulnerable the underground currently is at least for now.
Veronica taps on her desk looking at streams of all the prisoners, people who aren’t a drain on mana, but are still in a word problematic.
One that would disappear if she just killed them all or let them go, but neither of those are going to happen today or any day soon.
She flips to orbs of the undead hunting down Olivia, watching as they exit the city as little more than black blurs.
“They killed so many of us, and not a single one of them is going to escape.” Veronica’s hands grips the table, and stone begins to crack underneath her fingers.
“They killed Kacious.” They deserve to pay for what they’ve done, but the lights run into a wall.
Countless herds of animals wandering around the forests with massive leader class monsters in the middle of them all.
They hesitate, the animals are far stronger than normal, and are very clearly staring at them, but vengeance, justice?
Doesn’t stop.
The undead six of them move as a single unit, cutting around most of the animals, but the ones who stand in their way don’t last very long when each of the undead is rare grade, and covered in the best enchantments Renata is capable of producing.
An unstoppable force off to find someone who’s going to die.
Veronica sighs mostly at the materials they won’t be able to recover, before going back to the latest project, the demon realm.
A dozen massive hell hounds, are standing on the walls, two of their legs on the ground while the other two are on the walls themselves, the beasts trying their best to bite for all they’re worth, while an ocean of much smaller ones crash against the walls, but only find steel, magic, and in one case covered by shades who are stabbing them for all they’re worth.
“Tier tens at least” and probably more dangerous than anything naturally evolved on Earth, but against the undead?
“It’s going to take a whole lot more than that.”
Thump
The ground begins to shake, and the self assured smirk falls off of Veronica’s face as something massive, a golden yellow mountain shakes itself from the ground, raining crystals falling from the sky, but more importantly two massive glowing red eyes open, lava drips from its skin, as it begins walking towards the fort.
In response the undead launch a single massive lance of black energy at the behemoth, but in comparison to the mountain, it’s little more than a toothpick, but a toothpick being jammed into one’s eye, isn’t exactly fun.
Ooze leaks out of its eye while it releases a roar that flings the other hell hounds into the air, and a beam ball fiery red energy erupts from its mouth.
The stone walls along with a number of hell hounds are instantly incinerated, while the lucky undead who are hit are simply blasted into the air, and their armor is melted.
Their bodies scorched to the bone, while the metal reforms against whatever remains of their bodies.
The unlucky ones though?
They simply cease to exist, washed away by the beam of fire as if they were never even there.
Undead mages then blow through their mana releasing waves of magic, lightning bolts, a hail storm of ice, and waves of water at the rest of the hell hounds.
They’re pushed back from the walls in a wave of magic while the rest of the undead grab the injured, and begin an orderly retreat back through the portal.
Luckily, at least this time it even seems to go off without a hitch, or at least the survivors manage to escape, before the massive hell hound makes it to the fort, and tears it apart.
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Victory!
The last bug falls, and for some reason no more of them are crawling out of the hole.
Issec, waves to the forward line, before releasing a pulse of mana into depths, but minutes pass, and his mana just shows him empty tunnels.
Then he reaches the bottom, but it’s also empty, just a large empty flat area, with notably reinforced walls oh, and a massive tunnel around the size of an elephant heading up at around a forty five degree angle to the South… “Hmm, looks like we can pack it up, the ants have run off somewhere, and it’ll be up to the scouts to track them down, if Veronica even wants to bother.”
Outside the hole there’s more than two dozen boulders made of materials, metal, arcane crystal, ichor, and chitin.
The remains of thousands of ants, but with most of them just being common grade tier ones it’s not exactly too impressive even if the volume is a bit much.
The materials are piled into bone wagons, and they begin the trek home, while the remaining ants are left to their own devices.
Their trip back home though is quickly complicated by arrows pinging into shields, and even armor.
Apparently not even a couple of hundred undead enough to deter a certain archer.
Causing many to sigh in frustration, when the only thing so many truly long for, is some time to relax, but a certain commander grins, and thanks his stars that someone relatively harmless is making sure the troops don’t get complacent.
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At long last peace has finally been achieved!
Well, actually more so all the local more brainless variety of fish, along with a lot of really dumb animals have all been killed.
Well, until a new school of fish is drawn in, but the smarter ones, along with most of the larger creatures of the sea, are now staying about a quarter mile away from the tower.
Enjoying the richer mana, floating out towards them, and eating some of the animals constantly being drawn towards the tower.
The smartest ones though, always keep a wary eye on the undead who are still killing anything that dares to swim their way, but on the bright side or rather in the name of progress.
A lot of the “materials” have been cleaned up, the bones, along with the arcane crystal simply being absorbed by the core, who have begun to follow the will of their overlord!
And is simply directing them towards the tower’s frame.
Resulting in thousands of tones of materials quickly coating the tower, and bringing a noticeable change.
The light of the arcane crystal becomes insulated by the bone, reducing, both the intensity, and the flow of mana.
Creating an eerie glow, the cerulean light flowing through the white bone creates an interesting sight in the depths below, particularly with the different intensities of the different grade crystals.
Odder still with the undead endlessly patrolling, mostly ghosts who have a freedom of movement most fish could only dream of, but there are also countless massive skeletal sharks endlessly killing all they find, and causing their corpses to float to the surface.
A place once absolutely covered in corpses, but now it only sometimes is… the blood is being poured directly into the tower, while giant balls of flesh floating on the red surface on where a level is supposed to be.
They tried to place it on a floor, but the common grade crystal simple cracked under the weight, and forced them to remove tons of water, but with the core slowly absorbing them, and turning them into pure mana, which the core is surely using for something… either way at this rate or if the core manages to hurry up!
More draining potentially won’t be needed, particularly with there being less of a draw to this location.
Leaving, just what’s happening below, and above.
Below is easy enough, digging, even underwater with earth mages is a breeze, and they’ve already torn up all of the tiered material, at least around the main tunnel, which is centered around the epic pillar.
A pillar slowly grows down even if only a couple of inches of it are epic grade, and the materials are being sent up on basically sturdy stone slabs surrounded by flesh sacks that they fill with air whenever they want them to rise.
A slightly disturbing sight at least to the squeamish, not that there are a whole lot of those around here.
When the materials make it to the surface, mainly just stone or sand they’re converted either into glass or stone arrows, and are the source of their massive spears.
Above the ocean things have calmed, just not naturally, around a hundred weather mages are still standing around maintaining the weather, and drawing whatever trace elements they can before handing them off to the necromancers, but most of them have been replaced by something new.
Beings who not only casually break apart the storm, but are actually drawing power from it.
Vie stares at a marble of compressed lighting, the electricity dancing within the mana crystal, and she rolls it within her palm, before looking out her balcony.
A clear circle surrounded by dark angry clouds, with a full moon, and countless shining stars.
“Grumble” Vie pat’s her core “I know right, the world core was such a push over, and now!” She flutters into the air, it’s time for this place to truly become a dungeon.
The ground floor shudders, the descending staircase being replaced with smooth crystal, and ghosts rise from the ground.
Engravers begin enchanting the entire chamber, and the tower continues to rise, with the top floor endlessly rising inch, by inch.
Quest Advanced
Congratulations!
You have managed to claim the surface of your world!
Or at least have become a smudge that the world core just can’t remove, yet.
Your mettle though does show your commitment to your task, and unlocks the next step.
Claiming the arcane realm, which the core of your world is calling home.
Reward!
Ritual – Realm Breacher
A small tome appears within her hands after a wave of mana “Hmm, or maybe not quite yet.” She then begins to flip through the pages while humming to herself.
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A problem has arisen, Bartholomew The Second taps a chart, one showing a rather distressing trend, to some a fate worse than death!
A plateau, mana sales are no longer growing, even though the rate at which the humans regenerate mana is still increasing!
Dread, races through Bartholomew The Second mind, feelings of being a complete, and utter failure consuming them, after all how couldn’t he see this coming?
Of course there would be a point, where the humans no longer need any more food or random goods, but what’s the alternative start selling weapons to them?
But, even if they didn’t inevitably turn them on us, eventually they won’t even need those soon enough, after all what is there even for the humans to fight with the legions clearing the land, which leaves what?
His fingers race across his desk, endless tapping while he glares at the various humans going about their day, when it’s as if a light goes off in his mind once he sees the human, the leech, building up their little stand.
Expansion!
More services!
An image of an entire city grows in his mind, a place where humans rent spaces all in exchange for mana, filled with all kinds of commodities, and it could even be built out of all the worthless mundane materials currently being dug out.
There’s just one little issue, the food stall, well, and the full blown shantytown, which has come to life around the market.
He then turns looking at the new growing wall, and the materials which are just wasting away.
Then again, it’s not as if we have to rebuild it here, an evil smile grows across his face as he looks at the vendor, wasting their time, building up a shop that will soon be far away from everything.
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Power, mana courses through Tide’s chamber, his thick white glowing arcane walls now covered in engravings, and sigils, which all pulse with a dark oily green glow.
While in the center of it all rests a single body, a single undead bound to the floor.
The undead is thrashing on the floor, chained by their arms, legs, and an arcane bar is filling their mouth, all of which are covered in the same sickly glowing engravings.
Each pulse fills their body with the green mana, which is doing something to it, something that’s turning its veins green, and is clearly painful if the involuntary shudders racing through their body are any indication, then suddenly there’s one final pulse.
The undead crumbles, their body fading into dust leaving behind a single glowing crystal.
Tides calmly walks over to it, before picking it up, and swallowing it.
Green light rushes through his body making his entire body glow as he’s filled with a new power, new strength drawn from some worthless risen minion.
Hmm, I wonder why absorbing from the living grants so many more attributes?
“No matter.” He begins gathering the next set of materials, before looking down at them with a cold smile. onto the next one, for I’ve yet to hit the cap on any of my attributes yet.
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They’re all dead, a cleansing wave of mana finally managing to grab ahold of everything, turning it into a small tier twenty five marble, and reducing their entire little city into a smooth blank space, which will surely soon be claimed back by the invasive plants, but that’s certainly not Sarah’s problem.”It’s finally all over, now all that’s left is relaxing, and enjoying my vacation.” She then lifts into the air flying back to the city, which has noticeably grown, her eyes darting around it, briefly narrowing at the realm breacher, which is currently overflowing with fleeing undead, oh, and a whole lot of fire, before it snaps shut.
Regardless of whatever hijinks the undead are up to, everything here currently seems relatively fine, but one little detail is quite apparent.
The city is missing one dungeon fairy, and her heart races in her chest a moment, before she locates the rising tower by the endless mana spewing into the sky.
Sarah quickly turns into a blur, lands on top of it, and sends a pulse of mana out.
The air is filled with undead elementals?
Who are mixtures of death mana, and either wind or lightning.
They are just flying through the sky absorbing any power, before it has time to build, while the tower itself, and the ocean is absolutely crawling with undead.
Thousands of undead crawling around like a colony of little bugs, everything seems to be fine though peaceful even, mostly just undead meditating or digging away, and with a shrug she tosses her home onto the top of the tower, resulting in someone below yelling “Hey!”
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A new world awakened to the system, typically a fairly unremarkable event, given it’s something, which occurs every single day.
As empires expand their reach, claiming the rest of their solar systems or even expanding beyond them.
With of course the only notable exception being a system day!
The day some planet filled with life is going to be inducted into the system by some overwatching faction, the life, and death struggle being some of the best television around!
Filled with the rise, and fall of factions, the stories of heroes, or even villains watched by trillions.
Rare geniuses can even on occasion be saved from the rubble, but most of the time the stories, well the lives of these people play out until they reach some form of stability, but… sometimes things take a turn.
In bids of desperation, doors to certain realms are sometimes opened, AI is at times weaponized, the undead gain a foot hold, or something worse happens.
Then, the watchers step in, perhaps reminding everyone they’re the only thing standing between these dangers, but also showing that these dangers aren’t some insurmountable problems.
That these foes can bleed or die just like anything else in existence, but what happens when one of these dangers is born on a world where there are no watchers?
When no one has invested billions of credits or has any interest in some far off world, which barely even has a speck of mana?
That’s when things get interesting, a man hovers above a world, a tier three world with a bit of an undead infestation.
“Now let’s see if this tip is worth anything, nothing too remarkable, a few high concentrations of mana, probably just mineral deposits, but what is that?” The man watches a single light, a single powerful core flashing across the world, and then he pulls up a log, but stops after the second line.
Bounty Hunters Log
Highest Ranked Hunter: Sarah Falmos
“Falmos, now what exactly are you doing out here?” He then taps on some device along his wrist, and some message heads off into the cosmos in a beam of gray mana, He then pulls out a chair, and settles in to watch, from the comforting void of space.
Due to formating issues this story doesn’t quite look the way it’s supposed to 0_o and you can read an updated version on Kobo, or other platforms. https://litrpgandpolitics.wordpress.com The story is also at around chapter 60 with around 400,000 words, and will posted once per day, until it’s caught up.
Then it will either be weekly, or twice a week, with that being said, I still welcome any feedback, after all I’m still editing everything 0_0 and different perspectives can so often help one see the things we take for granted.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you have a great day!