Dana was left to rest alone in Olympus, Tsubaki having to run out as soon as she delivered Dana to her room. As she laid there, she took a mental count of her casualties. The shadow dragon’s gone, as are most of the army… thankfully, I had the others leave, or that faceless guy would have been more defensive. If he saw one of them dying when I should have, it would have been over.
Dana allowed her mind to sink into her shadow world, checking up on Clara and Sienna. The two were resting in their own rooms, both barely able to move. For once, Dana was thankful that her familiars were both clone types, as it meant that they would be protected by the same energy that protected her.
Still, the fact that I only got that little energy when I was revived… Dana knew that she couldn’t rely on the World Shadow to keep reviving her in combat. As long as the opponent kept their guard up, they would be able to continue killing Dana until she had no more shadows left to sacrifice. Especially someone like that… if he knew about that, he could have made a rule to kill everything linked to my soul at once.
That was the very kind of thing that Dana was afraid would happen if she took one of the Keeper’s summons with her. Had she not struck him with the sword of joy first, the thought might have occurred to him.
In other words, I got lucky. Dana grit her teeth as she thought about that. There were simply too many variables in the previous fight, and it was the hardest one she had ever fought. Worse than any of her days in the Underworld, or any fight she had had since. If things had played out only slightly differently, she would have perished completely.
“Getting a bit ahead of yourself with that self-critique, aren’t you?” A familiar voice spoke up. When Dana opened her eyes, she saw the red-skinned Ashley sitting at her desk nearby, watching her with her arms crossed.
“Huh? Oh, sorry. Can you let me know when your main self is able to return?” Dana asked, having not sensed Ashley enter. “I want to make sure I’m kept up to date.”
Ashley simply smiled. “This is my main self.” She said, causing Dana’s eyes to widen.
“Then it’s?” She asked, to which the demoness nodded.
“It’s over. However pyrrhic the victory, the enemy was defeated. We were watching the whole thing from above. That fight was incredibly reckless of you, and I was worried you’d be joining us for good. But you won. And your victory gave everyone else the chance to fight.”
When Dana heard Ashley’s words, she hesitated for a moment, before nodding her head. “Yeah… that guy was a pain. So… the others…?”
Once the last of the apocalyptic beasts fell, I looked over to Tsubaki. “Go make sure Spica and Kione are safe. I want to assess the damages of the other worlds.” I told her, receiving a firm nod before she flew off. My first destination was none other than Deckan, the place that was undoubtedly hit the hardest out of any world. I didn’t even take the time to look at the rewards for the invasion, delaying the message to look at later.
When I arrived, I saw Udona descending, looking teary-eyed at the ruined city of Ashtanu. My eyes widened at the scale of the destruction, clouds of smoke rising throughout the destroyed city. My earlier estimates of the damages fell far short, as less than a fifth of the city’s inhabitants had managed to survive to the end.
Spreading my World Sight out to scan the planet, I felt my mind trembling. Other cities had it even worse, with a roughly ten percent survival rate. As for outside of the cities… there was no more greenery on Deckan. Every last animal plant and animal had been killed, whether it was in a forest, the desert, or even the ocean. Outside of the cities, there was nothing but endless craters and barren wastes.
I couldn’t help but look over at Udona. “Are you… going to be able to recover from this?” I asked, and she seemed hesitant to answer.
“I can’t bring back all of the lives that were lost, no.” She answered in a sad tone. “The best that I can do is work together with Tryval to allow the world to regain its greenery. As for other planets… if I try to focus on all of them like that, there will be no end to the power consumption. Rebuilding… we’ll need help from the other worlds. Anything more advanced than a toaster was destroyed in the last wave.”
This was the bitter truth that Deckan was now faced with. Aside from those that had evacuated ahead of time, there was only a small percentage of the population left. I wish that I could say that we wouldn’t be able to survive another attack like this, but the truth is… that would be a lie.
Although it is horrible to think about, our strength as a world was largely not impacted by this invasion. Instead, what was impacted was our foundation, which we would need to take time to recover. It would be difficult for us to recover, but not impossible.
I offered a small nod, glancing over to look at the city. “If there’s anything that I can do to help, just let me know.”
Udona thought about it for a moment. “Sadly, not even the Digital Conversion system can help here. We’d need to have an unlimited energy reserve of all three remaining energies to be able to repopulate a planet. And even if you bought the modifiers to let Ashley’s team develop those… it would take years to implement. By that time, monsters would have already respawned naturally.”
Right… it only takes a year for an uninhabited zone to be designated as claimed for monsters to begin spawning. “How long will the respawning take, given that this is already our world?”
Udona furrowed her brow in thought. “I would say… a week before the spawns are sustainable. I need to act fast with Tryval, or else the monsters that spawn here might be influenced by the wasteland and be a disaster of their own. Aznod, I’ll be needing you to help me with this, as well.”
“Of course.” Aznod smiled at her, the two leaving to get to work. Almost at the same time, Tsubaki returned to report.
“I’ve done a rough check of the various worlds, my Keeper.” She reported with a deep bow. “From what I can tell, Lorek has suffered no serious damage to the planet. There are numerous violent monsters that remain on Spica, but they are within the capabilities for the locals to handle them.”
“Fortunately, those affected in Kione have returned to normal after the defeat of the void monsters. If there is any world that suffered disastrous consequences, aside from Deckan, it would be Sher Dien. The cosmic storm that swept through Sher Dien has caused severe harm to its atmosphere, and scorched a large majority of the planet.”
I nodded my head, closing my eyes to think. “Was there any damage done to the world that James is using for his mana refinery?”
Tsubaki hesitated, her head dipping down. “There was no hyperlane network established within that realm. The apocalypse that swept through it… seemed to have destroyed any and all man-made structures.”
“They’ll need to rebuild that…” I muttered bitterly to myself. “We lost our energy source, and both Sher Dien and Deckan are almost uninhabitable. Is there any other majorly bad news that I need to hear right now?”
Tsubaki once again hesitated. “I found the world that the ninjas had inhabited in the void. They had been using some tricks to keep it concealed, but the ‘void god’ apparently broke through them. That realm… I dare not guess what apocalypse struck it. However, the world shell is filled with cracks, and it is dissolving at a visible speed. I estimate that there will be no survivors, other than those who evacuated to Fyor.”
I brought a hand up, pinching at the bridge of my nose. Losing the ninjas wasn’t entirely critical. They had been a big help here and there, but they had just as often gotten in the way when it came to James’s research. “Are you alright?” I asked, knowing that Tsubaki herself came from the ninja clans.
However, Tsubaki only offered a firm nod. “I have long since cut my ties with them. For more than a thousand years, we have walked a different path. I only regret that you have lost their service.”
I nodded my head slowly, and let out a long sigh. This was the most tempted I had ever been to reset. However, I stopped myself. If I reset, the previous victory would be pointless. I would lose everyone tied to these worlds, and have to start over from scratch. We still hadn’t gotten far enough in Fyor yet to find James’s floor, and I did not want to have to deal with climbing the ranks all over again.
In that case, what would help us to recover the most? Turning back the time of a world to before it was destroyed? No, I saw already that time travel like that would simply delete the planet from this timeline. Udona said that most of the machinery had been destroyed. Advancing the ranks to unlock more powers? No, that wouldn’t do me any good, and would just open me up to more troubles later while I was recovering.
In the end, there was one thing that I thought of, but it made me sigh in frustration. Up until now, I had been avoiding the creation of a Fallen God companion because I felt that Leowynn filled the role rather well with her Void domain. But now, it was getting to the point where I could not just rely on Leowynn anymore. In doing so, I had forced her to use her energy more than any other deity.
“Tsubaki… I need to go meet with Leowynn in the Admin Room. Please ensure that my host returns to Olympus.” I said softly, before focusing on ascending.
When I ascended, I found some of the others sitting on the couch in the living room. Among them was Leowynn, her eyes red and cheeks puffy. Losing her original disciple must have been a big blow to her, not to mention the damage to the rest of the worlds. “Leowynn, can I have a word in private?” I asked. Leowynn blinked, nodding her head and wiping her eyes as she followed me to her room.
“What… what is it, dad?” She asked, closing the door once we were both inside.
“Lyra, can you tell me about her?” I started, sitting down at the corner of Leowynn’s bed. Leowynn’s eyes widened slightly, but she moved to sit next to me.
“She was… pure. Diligent. She always did her best for everything. She was one of the first ones that I trained to become a Fallen Goddess. Over the years, she started to become more comfortable with me, willing to speak her mind. She even objected to some of my decisions to insert her own thoughts when she thought that had made the wrong choice.”
“Her and Strea were like sisters, both raised together. It’ll… it’ll be harder on her now that Lyra’s gone.” Leowynn looked down at her hands when she spoke, and I could tell that it was hard on her, as well. There weren’t many mortals that left that much impact on one of the companions when they died. The last time I saw it this severe was when Udona lost Brie.
“With your permission… I want to create her as a Fallen Goddess Companion.” I spoke honestly, Leowynn’s eyes snapping up to meet mine. “I’ve had the ability ever since we hit the fourth rank, but I haven’t seen a reason to use it. I always thought that it would be enough with your power over the void, but I was wrong. I can see how much I’ve made you work over the years to keep everything working. No other god or goddess has had to exert half as much of their divinity as you have, unless it was for a private project like Sanctum.”
“I thought about creating another race or world to have the Fallen Companion rule over, but… honestly, I think we’re getting oversaturated with new worlds as it is. I would rather choose from someone that already exists, and let them ascend like you did, like Scarlet did. Then, I thought about Lyra…”
“It’s no exaggeration to say that she gave her life for us in this fight. She was willing to lead the charge against an unknown foe, and paid the ultimate sacrifice.Without her getting us the information that we needed, Dana wouldn’t have been able to go and fight. None of us would have been able to do what we did. With all of that in mind… if you approve, I will have Terra make the profile so that I can create her in the Admin Room.”
Leowynn’s eyes widened at that. On the one hand, she would be getting her friend back after losing her. However, she knew that the Lyra that they got back would never be able to go back to being the old Lyra, not after being introduced to the greater workings of the world. Still…. She nodded her head. “I would… I would very much like that, dad.”
