Lena narrowed her eyes as she stared at the world barrier in front of her. The Keeper had tasked her with finding a monster so massive that its every movement would cause disruptions in space. However, when solar systems appeared smaller than a grain of sand, it was still difficult to find even something so large.
She had, at the very least, narrowed it down to a single galaxy, focusing her attention only on that, but it was still a lot for her to observe at once. Her eyes focused, sweeping over the galaxy, until she saw a faint ripple. A speck of light vanished, and her eyes widened. Immediately, she sent the coordinates of the disappearing star to the Keeper, turning back to look at Dana.
Dana’s brow was furrowed, and she held a pair of swords at her sides, ready to fight as soon as anything appeared. The Keeper had already warned her of the dangers that the ‘King’ represented to her in the void, so she was waiting for her chance to strike.
The cosmic horror flying through the Sher Dien universe grinned, its wide, toothy maw showing glowing teeth. As it flew past one solar system after another, its clawed hands reached out, fists clenching over the solar system to crush them into nothing but fire and dust. Then it brought those materials to its stomach, where a large, glowing hole could be seen, and inserted them inside.
Judging by the size of these solar systems, it estimated that it would need to consume the materials of at least fifty more solar systems in order to make the weapon that it was working on. Thankfully, it could fulfill that goal quickly, as long as it continued moving.
If there was one thing that it enjoyed, it was the fact that there were no predators large enough to threaten its life. It hadn’t seen a single life-form in this entire universe large enough to attract its attention, though there were likely smaller pests that it had killed by flying past them. Such tiny things were unworthy of its notice.
As it flew, looking for its next target, the giant monster let out a sudden roar of pain, its six eyes widening. Its hand, which it had been repeatedly using to scoop up raw materials, was now missing. Nothing but a bloodied stump remained. How did something take its hand without it seeing them?
Additionally, its tail seemed to have a large gash running through it, but it couldn’t figure out how or when it had been injured. Its senses sharpened, sweeping the area around it. Had there been some microscopic being like those residing within its head, one capable of unleashing power beyond its level?
No matter how it searched, it couldn’t find such a creature, at least not one that appeared to have any sort of intelligence. There were numerous monsters floating about, some with unexplainable body structures or strange protrusions. Some looked like floating oceans, or tiny eyes, but nothing that showed any identifiable hostility.
The beast growled, turning and fleeing at a high speed. If there was a creature there that could deal such damage to it, he needed to find somewhere to escape to as he healed.
My Keeper, the Avenger has been fired successfully. Tsubaki’s voice spoke up in my mind, and I nodded my head. “It’s done.” I said, looking at the Origin of Fate standing before me. She had said that she would arrange for the ‘worst fate’ she could for the ‘King’ monster, so now it was time to see how well she did.
“It would appear that this beast does not directly eat the stars and planets as we had thought.” She muttered, before blinking. “Hmm… things have become… infinitely better, and also infinitely worse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion, and she began to explain.
“First of all, the monster you seek to slay only lost a single hand, and part of its tail to the Avenger. Naturally, this means that I wasn’t able to consume any significant power of fate. However, due to the shock of this attack, it paid closer attention to its surroundings for a moment before fleeing. It is currently on its way outside of the galaxy, to the vast emptiness where it finds comfort.”
“That’s… going to make it hard to track.” I thought aloud, but the Origin of Fate shook her head.
“Tracking it is no longer a concern. In fact, I would suggest you immediately have Lena abandon her task of tracking this beast, lest she find herself in undue harm.”
I couldn’t help but blink in confusion at that. “What do you mean?”
The Origin of Fate smiled softly. “You tasked me with ensuring that this beast suffered the worst fate possible. Unfortunately, it did not consume the solar system directly, or I might have been able to gouge out its heart. However… the fact that it paid close enough attention to its surroundings to observe the monsters which would otherwise have been too small for it to notice… this king of foes now carries with it a black taint. One by one, its fates are becoming sealed, and I no longer need to act personally for it to be slain.”
I arched my brow, doing my best to decipher her words, before my eyes widened. “You mean, it observed a memetic monster, and got infected?”
The Origin nodded her head. “That’s correct. Because of this, I dare not observe the beast too closely anymore, and I can only look at the path its fate takes it. I can guarantee you this… it will never leave Sher Dien’s universe.”
I let out a sigh of relief, before my breath caught in my throat. “Wait… you said that it became infinitely worse. What do you mean by that?”
“…It will no longer leave Sher Dien’s universe. However… a beast of this scale, its body will become fodder for a new generation of monsters. When it dies, a new life will spawn from its corpse. This life will seek out the only intelligent life that remains in the universe, and devour it. In one week’s time, the planet of Sher Dien will fall. In one month, the beast will become so strong that it will destroy the universe from the inside.”
My eyes widened at that, and I clenched my fists. “Can’t we use another Avenger on the monster to destroy it before it reaches Sher Dien?”
Unfortunately, the Origin shook her head. “The king of foes is leaving the galaxy now. There will no longer be sufficient coordinates to target the Avenger with any degree of accuracy. Even if I interfered, we could at most remove another limb or two. However, doing so would require your golden shadow to personally observe its movements, becoming infected with the same power.”
“At this point, the only way to save the people of Sher Dien is through an evacuation.” She said, and I nodded my head solemnly.
“Thank you. Is there anything else that you can help us with, before you split again?” I asked, but she shook her head.
“My role in this invasion is not yet concluded. However, it is not yet time for me to take the stage as a leading role. Until the time of the divine scourge, you should not have need of me again.” She said, closing her eyes and splitting into the identical twins.
I couldn’t help blinking, looking at the duo. “I… really hope that I’m wrong about this, but what did she mean by that?”
The fallen twin put a hand to her head, wincing. “Gimme a second. She was looking at a lot of different timelines at once, so we have to piece it together. It looks like… sooner or later, the monster swarms are going to devour a god. If we divert resources to help one, it will weaken the resistance another can put up, and cause that one to fall instead. Once they do… they’re going to feed their divine monsters to other swarms, leading to a disaster…”
That defense ticket was starting to look very appealing right now. I was tempted to activate it now, that way I could simply smite the monsters together with the Greater Pantheon. However, I had to save it as a last resort. Though the chances were slim, I couldn’t risk the chance that using it now would leave me vulnerable to an even bigger invasion before the next meeting.
This was especially true, given that I was likely to hit the next rank as a Keeper soon. My first battle as a Fifth Ranked Keeper could potentially involve the enemy sending an Origin at me. If that happened, and the only Origin on my side was Terra, who could only be considered a pseudo-Origin at best, I would need to use the ticket immediately.
Lena, immediately withdraw from observing Sher Dien. Under no circumstances are you or anyone else to observe that universe. When the Keeper sent that message, Lena immediately backed away from the Sher Dien universe. A message ordering for something not to be observed meant only one thing.
Is everything alright? Dana asked, glancing towards Lena before returning her focus to the other universes.
The big guy apparently got hit with a memetic effect somehow. Boss just ordered us not to observe Sher Dien in any way. Lena responded, and Dana’s eyes widened briefly, before she nodded her head. The fact that the biggest threat to her life had been dealt with was a relief, though she still had to be wary of the other monsters out there. If one of them could kill her, there was nothing saying that some of the others did not possess their own methods.
Pierce focused on the main screen before him, his eyes straining. At some point, the second screen depicting information about ‘King’ vanished, so he had less to observe. He hadn’t focused this closely on viewing multiple timelines in a long time.
At this point, he had provided the details for three different types of swarm generators, two of which were located in Deckan, and the last was in the new Metong homeworld. The first was, as he had originally identified, a monster race that could clone those that it ate alive, and then graft those powers onto other members of the swarm.
The second type of swarm was one that originated from an inorganic lifeform. The only information that he had uncovered was that it could consume any form of metal, and use that metal to replicate itself. Naturally, this was a major threat, as it did not need any form of life to grow. Already, there were thirteen solar systems confirmed to be lost to this swarm after less than one full day.
The third type was a mutation-type swarm, which absorbed the genetic matter of dead plants and animals, using any beneficial qualities that they possessed to strengthen themselves. The bright side was that this meant that they could only grow through eating organic life, and could not take on the power of energy bodies like the first type. However, as this was the race found in the Metong universe, they had far more chances to find such things.
At least they didn’t land in Spica. Pierce thought to himself. Although the cosmic storms would decimate most of the swarms, if even one hive landed on any planet with surviving plant life, they could gain the universal trait prevalent throughout Spica, allowing adaptation to any environment.
In fact, this danger didn’t only exist within Spica’s universe itself, as plants from Spica were a common tool when terraforming a planet. Additionally, the elves of Spica had spread out and intermarried through various worlds. The only universe where they were actually not likely to encounter any trace of Spica’s adaptation was, in fact, the new Metong universe.
Although they have a larger variety of races there to devour, they won’t get the universal adaptation trait. If they were able to copy that, there would be nothing stopping them from evolving ways to consume energy bodies.
