Hearing the report from James and Chelsea, I naturally did as they had suggested, mirroring Ryone’s powers in order to determine if there was someone with the same levels of divine power as a member of the Greater Pantheon. Surely, such individuals would be few and far between.
However, after a few moments, I shook my head. There did not appear to be anyone that matched such a description, at least not that I was able to detect. According to Chelsea’s notes, that meant that they were more likely to be the more violent path that pursued technology.
I let out a sigh, checking the window again to verify the number of enemy forces. Perhaps they really were in Lorek or Spica, and it was just taking longer for the monsters to perish? I thought to myself, figuring that there was no harm in at least looking.
However, what I saw nearly made my eyes pop out of my head. The number hadn’t gone down by the tens of thousands, but had instead begun to increase by the hundreds of thousands. Over the course of an hour, over three hundred thousand new enemies had appeared on the display.
Without hesitation, I sent this message to James and Chelsea, hoping that they would have some insights into this. Perhaps Chel had left some note about if this would be the case.
Sure enough, James reported back just a few minutes later. There are three possibilities, according to the journals that Chel wrote in advance. First, this could simply be a coincidence, and they had a surge of new births shortly after arriving. Although hundreds of thousands seems like a lot, that is only approximately one millionth of their total population. Comparing the population size, that’s actually less than the average birth rate of a world like Earth or Deckan.
The second possibility is that they have activated a dormant army of machines, which were waiting on standby, and only registered in the system after they were activated.
The final possibility… James began, but I had to cut him off.
In the time that you took to explain that, the increase has exceeded fifty million… I told him, and he paused. He resumed his message a moment later in a more serious tone.
The final possibility that she noted is that the excessive numbers are not a sign of civilization at all, but are a monster race that is born through the consumption of matter. If it is this possibility, a planet was just devoured.
My eyes widened slightly when I heard this. Now this, this had the potential to be a true worst-case scenario. Tsubaki. I have reason to believe that a planet was just destroyed. Run a check of all colonized worlds, and look for any missing responses.
Almost immediately, Tsubaki reported that nothing was unusual, and all colonized planets responded to the ping. While I was relieved that we hadn’t lost any of our colonized worlds, that meant that we also had no information on where the enemies were located.
We didn’t even know whether they needed to devour biological material, or if they could spawn these monsters through devouring inorganic matter. There would still be plenty of organic material on all of those once-populated worlds that had been destroyed by memetic monsters.
At that thought, my eyes widened. James, the latest worlds that you’ve been creating, they have fully evolved ecosystems, right?
That’s right. The progression of time was necessary in order to stabilize the barrier around the world. That’s why we needed that null field before we would even attempt to do the merger experiment.
I took a deep breath, thinking to myself before sending another message. In other words… there could be thousands of inhabited worlds in the Metong’s new universe, and we have no way of detecting if one of them disappeared.
James was silent for several moments, likely consulting with Chelsea about what I had said. Afterwards, he responded with a sigh of resignation. That’s right. There are defense stations near every solar system that the Metong’s Network has colonized, but there is no way to say for sure how many other worlds are still out there that have evolved life.
If we were to go by the assumption than biological material was needed in order to rapidly produce these monsters, then there were two possibilities that I could think of. First, they had found a previously inhabited world, and managed to salvage the plants from that world to create their army. Secondly, they had devoured a colonized world.
Given the increase in numbers, I had a hard time believing that they got all of that material just from devouring plants. Of course, there was still the possibility that they were able to produce monsters without any organic components. In that case, the monsters that they produced would be akin to golems. I wouldn’t be that worried if that was the case, as there were many ways to deal with that.
The problems would arise if we were truly dealing with creatures that harvested organic matter. If that was true, they might even be able to produce more planet-devouring monsters. Dana. Do you have any updates from the void?
Yes, sir. Dana responded almost immediately. Lena and I caught two monsters leaving Fyor, and dispatched them. We can’t be sure what layer they came from, though. From their behavior, they were simply trying to travel to another universe, rather than aiming to devour one.
Understood. Were there any odd growths, or colonies of life-forms on the creatures you killed? I asked, and Dana hesitated this time.
I can’t be sure. To be safe, we destroyed them as soon as we confirmed their existence, without leaving any traces. If there were any creatures living on their bodies, they would have been annihilated in the blast.
I could hear the apologetic tone in her voice, and so I shook my head. You did good. Ask Lena to investigate the new Metong homeworld. We have reason to suspect that there is at least one monster there, capable of spawning additional monsters by consuming planets. If she can provide any information, that would be of great help.
Got it, I’ll tell her right away.
“Sir Keeper.” Hermes’ voice suddenly spoke up in the throne room. “Alena has arrived in Olympus, and is asking to speak with you.”
I couldn’t help but blink at that. “Let her in.” I said with a nod. Alena wasn’t a permanent resident of Olympus like some of the others, but would occasionally visit. After all, she was Irena’s incarnation, despite being a felyn.
Leaning back in my seat, I waited in the throne room until Alena entered. There was a calm smile on her face as she bowed. “A pleasure as always, sir.”
“You don’t need to be so formal with me, you know.” I said, chuckling slightly. However, Alena shook her head.
“On the contrary, it is this formality that makes me comfortable. Besides, I am currently here on a business matter, rather than a personal one.”
My brow arched at those words, and I leaned forward, my hands folding over my lap. “A business matter?”
“That’s right, sir. I have a proposition for you. There is one among the gods who I suspect may be what you are looking for. Though, I believe that he will be quite difficult to track down if he does not wish to be found.” Alena said with that same, calm smile.
“Given the timing, is this someone that Irena told you about before? Someone that could potentially help us locate the current threat?” I asked, to which Alena tilted her head to the side slightly.
“Yes and no. I believe that this is someone that can help with the crisis at hand. However, it is not the Goddess that informed me of his existence. Rather, I learned of him through my own investigations.” Alena clarified. “After the events that led to the birth of the Fallen God of Order, I began a personal investigation on the matter. The likelihood of that situation resolving itself like that seemed unnatural, and I felt as if another power was at work there.”
“In my investigations, I learned of an individual that seemed calm in the face of the crisis, and prevented a single building from being affected by the memetic entity’s effects. After questioning those involved, I learned that this individual had made contact with the sister of the new Fallen God of Order, only a day before the event took place.”
“At this point, I had the suspicion that he was somehow related to what had happened, so I began to investigate his history, contacting various agencies to find out what little I could. Although the man himself keeps a low profile, he is consistently found near events that either cause significant loss of life, or those that had the potential to do so. In the latter, there is often some strange series of events that leads to another individual or group rising up to overcome the danger.”
I gave a slight nod at that. “You believe that this individual has some measure of foresight, then, and travels to the location of future disasters?”
“That is correct, sir.” Alena confirmed. “He has a history of having his divinity forged, though none of his domains are currently known on any public registry. It is my belief that this individual would be able to assist in locating the threats that you are currently wary of.”
“Right… and what is his name?” I asked, curious who she was thinking about. If there was someone that had an ability like this, I would certainly like to have them on my side.
“His name is Pierce Laplace. I believe that he would be of great help to you.” Alena concluded with a smile. “He is a lycan male with brown hair, often seen wearing casual clothing and glasses.”
“Got it. I’ll have Tsubaki begin to look for him right away.” I nodded my head, sending the message. Even if he didn’t agree to work with us, just meeting him would be enough to have Lena copy his abilities.
“What is this…” Pierce stared at his notebook, sitting at a desk within the transport ship that he had boarded. He was planning to head to another world, where there was a small likelihood of some form of disaster in the near future.
However, there had been a sudden change in his notebook, seemingly out of nowhere. Through the different futures that Pierce observed, names were crossed out in red, scribbled over, or entire pages were torn out. Every future seemed to have a different result, but all of them led to some manner of planetary destruction.
This was not a result that he had ever seen before. There were always peaceful possibilities. However, here, it seemed that entire planets would collapse, regardless of what he did. Flipping through the pages, he saw a note written in a future timeline. ‘The Keeper is looking for me’.
That was another surprise, as he didn’t think that he had done anything to attract the Keeper’s attention lately. However, if the Keeper was aware of him, then combining that knowledge with the sights that he had seen in his notebook… he had a feeling that he should meet the Keeper personally.
He had always done his best to avoid the Keeper’s gaze, knowing that it would inevitably lead to the Keeper wanting to use his powers on a more regular basis. Who wouldn’t want the aid of someone that could see the future? Still, if there were truly so many lives at stake, he wouldn’t be able to resolve this simply by having an innocent conversation with a bystander, or buying a snack at a food stall. Bigger problems required bigger solutions.
