Thankfully, it seemed that finding Pierce wasn’t an incredibly difficult challenge. Especially not once, a few hours after making the decision to find him, I received a report that there was an unexpected guest standing outside of Olympus. Yeah… he came to us. That really helped, given that I had already received a report from Lena that at least two stars had abruptly disappeared from the new Metong universe.
At least none of our colonized worlds have been eaten, yet. I thought to myself, waiting for Pierce to enter the throne room. One of Tsubaki’s clones was next to me, serving as a bodyguard while handling the meeting.
The door opened, and a brunette lycan walked into the room, adjusting his glasses. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir Keeper.” The man said with a polite nod, which I returned.
“I’ve been told that you have a set of rather useful skills for our current circumstances.” I skipped straight to the point, as every moment wasted could lead to entire planets vanishing from the cosmos. “Is that true?”
Pierce took a deep breath, shaking his head. “If you are referring to the ability to identify the location of your enemies, I am not sure how much help I can be. I’ve been doing some work on my own before coming here, and… well, I’ll spare you the foresight lessons.”
“The future is currently in an extremely chaotic state. Your enemies do not have any kind of a fixed plan, nor are they going for the nearest, convenient targets. Given how chaotic the futures that I’ve seen are, they are wandering around aimlessly, simply destroying anything that they come across.”
I nodded my head, unsurprised by this fact. Still, there were some important pieces of information that he could provide. “Right. If that is the case, then there are two things that you can help me with. With the future being as chaotic as it is, the only information that we can reliably obtain from your power is something that is ‘constant’, meaning no matter what happens, this is a current fact. Is that accurate?”
When Pierce nodded his head, I let out a small smile. “The first piece of information that you can give me is the realms in which the enemy has appeared. This should be within your capabilities.”
Pierce hesitated when he heard this, thinking. “I have my own method for predicting where danger is going to strike. However… what I can say is that, through this method, the only planet that hasn’t shown signs of being destroyed is Fyor, though individual floors will sometimes be attacked in different timelines.”
“In other words, we should consider that the enemy is occupying every universe, other than Fyor, and will turn to Fyor as the situation changes.” I spoke up, to which Pierce nodded his head. “The second piece of information that you can help me with is determining the enemy’s capabilities. In truth, there is another individual that can help me track them in real time, it is just quite… costly to ask for her help. But, finding their strengths and weaknesses is something that you will have an easier time with, if you can tell me what you need for that operation.”
Once again, Pierce hesitated. “I… need some form of screen or other method of storing text. Then, no matter what happens, there must be someone that is dedicated to writing any uncovered information on that display. No matter what emergencies arise, they must be completely dedicated to their task. Any chance that they deviate from this job could compromise the results.”
I paused briefly, considering it, before nodding my head. “Athena, provide a holographic display for Pierce. If any information is uncovered about the enemies that we are facing, you are to display it immediately, whether the information comes from an outside or inside source. Even if it is about an enemy that has already been slain. The only information that should not be displayed is that which comes from Pierce himself.”
“Understood, sir.” A respectful voice echoed throughout the room, and a holographic screen appeared.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, and Pierce let out a sigh.
“I need permission to stand here and watch this. If I would be asked to leave at any point, I will no longer be able to see the information that would be displayed. That is why I usually do this on a personal notebook, which I can always view whenever I want. For a display like this, I need constant access.”
I blinked, but nodded my head. “You have that permission. No matter what happens, you will not be made to leave.” That was an easy enough request to fulfill. After all, if something major happened, I would be the one leaving the room, not him.
Pierce nodded, turning to stare at the screen. He brought a hand up, adjusting his glasses, and I could feel his divinity flowing into one of his eyes. “The first entry to appear occurs at the earliest in thirteen hours, and twenty-seven minutes. It reads ‘two confirmed carrier beasts, more suspected’.”
“Next, two hours later, there is another message. ‘Spawned monsters identified. Biological in origin, with the capability of independent space travel. Capable of self-mutation through devouring living entities. Note: The devoured entities must be eaten alive to trigger the mutation.’ After that, the messages start to become garbled. My guess is that it’s because the mutations are causing numerous branching timelines.”
I furrowed my brow. “I understand. Is there anything else that you can give me?” I asked, and Pierce continued to stare at the blank screen, his eye visibly straining.
“There is one entity, which has earned the designation of ‘King’. I’m seeing at least twenty timelines, and more appearing every second, where it kills Dana.”
I wasn’t the only one surprised by that, as even Tsubaki’s clone tensed. I gripped the armrests of my throne, my knuckles going white. “How many timelines are there, by comparison, where she wins? And how far away is that fight?”
“The fight is between two and three days away. As for her odds of victory… I have seen three reports of her winning that battle, so they are rather low.”
I nodded once again, looking up. “Athena, create a second screen next to the first. On this screen, display only the information for the largest enemy, designated ‘King’.” I ordered, not wanting to tamper with the futures that Pierce was seeing.
Sure enough, another screen appeared, and Pierce turned his gaze to that. “According to a report from Lena in one of the losing battles, the ‘King’ possesses a weapon capable of destroying isolated regions of the void, and used that to slay Dana. Most likely, the three victories occurred before this monster had the chance to use that weapon.”
I let out a sigh, understanding just how powerful such weapons would be. It seemed that the enemy did possess some level of civilization, if Lena used the term weapon. Maybe this ‘King’ monster was the only civilization-carrying enemy, and the rest were carrying the monsters?
I stood up, gesturing for Tsubaki to stay where she was as I descended the stairs. “I need to make a call. If you discover any more important information, please tell Tsubaki to relay it to me.”
Pierce nodded his head, not looking away from the two screens as I left the room. Where are you two? I asked, transmitting my thoughts to the Terra twins.
We’re in our palace. Big sis told us to wait for you, because you would probably need us for this. Hearing that, I turned, walking to an elevator and moving to Terra’s palace.
There, I found the twins waiting for me in the hallway, their books already open. “Do you need the two of us, or the ‘other one’? The divine Terra asked, and I shook my head.
“Right now, I need the two of you. I believe that I have enough information to have you locate a certain enemy. But first… how much Origin power do you have saved up? Is it enough for what we might need later?”
The fallen Terra grinned, nodding her head. “Thanks to the tests of the Avenger weapons, we’ve got enough that we can do a fight, albeit a short one. If we’re not fighting, we can last about eight hours, more if another Avenger is used after a monster attack.”
“Right. In that case, the enemy that I need you to locate. We have given it the designation of ‘King’, because it is the single largest opponent that we have to fight in this invasion. Additionally, it plays host to an advanced civilization that resides on or within its body. This civilization is powerful enough to create weapons capable of disrupting the void. As for just how big it is… consider that it could devour an entire solar system in Desbar with a single bite.”
The eyes of the twins widened, and they looked at each other, before nodding their heads seriously. Both of them began to stare at their books, which would glow either dark purple or gold. “I’ve got him.” The fallen twin said, staring at the book. “He’s currently in the realm of Sher Dien.”
“Thank you.” I looked at her quickly, before nodding. “Can you give me any information about him, or the civilization he houses?”
The fallen goddess flipped the page in her book, reading out what appeared. “The civilization lives… in its skull? Specifically, they live on its brain, which has been altered to provide them a thriving ecosystem. Their collective intelligence is then absorbed into the monster through their mana, and it uses this intelligence along with a forge-like construction in its abdomen to produce any technology that it or they come up with, which it finds beneficial for it. Currently, it is equipped with full-body armor that resists mana, spiritual energy, and ki, and three powerful weapons.”
“This is the epitome of not fair.” The divine sister muttered. “I just found him, too. He’s planning on trying out a new device that his people imagined, the one that you mentioned that can disrupt the void. He’s in the planning stage for it now, and believes that it will take two days to forge. In the meantime, he has to harvest raw materials for its construction…”
I bit my lip when I heard that. According to their information, that meant that Dana was killed in a weapons test. Right now, it was as vulnerable as it would ever be, though that wasn’t saying much. “Would the Origin of Fate be able to kill this beast?”
The two of them chuckled when they heard that, speaking in unison. “Fate governs all things. If it lives, then its ultimate fate is death.”
Afterwards, the divine sister shook her head. “We’d need to get to it first, though. It’s moving outside of the Hyperlane Network, so we don’t have any clear landmarks to use. We would need to conduct the entire operation as Fate, to ensure that we got there, but that would make us use a lot more of our power.”
“Normally, we’d have Aurivy send us.” The fallen sister spoke up. “However, at times like this, the worldly form of Aurivy has lost her omniscience, and won’t be able to direct us there.”
I nodded my head, thinking. “Could you devour its fate, like you do with the Avenger weapons? Would that allow you to recover the costs of activity?”
The twins thought about that for a moment. “Maybe… the fact that there is a civilization living in its brain means that there are countless possibilities. However, there is a risk to doing so.” The fallen twin explained. “The Avenger works because it limits the scope of ‘fate devouring’ to a set area. If we were to use this power ourselves, there is a chance that this could exceed the parameters of what a universe can withstand. Especially one like Sher Dien, where there are so few other civilizations to fuel fate.”
“In other words.” The divine Terra summarized. “We can do it, and it wouldn’t even be that hard. But… there is about a fifty percent chance that doing so would destroy that entire universe in the process. If it was in any other universe, one with more colonized worlds and a greater population, that risk would be lower, but we got unlucky there.”
