The development of the Holy Knights was not a matter that could be settled quickly. In fact, Priscilla used the power of these knights to create a temporary barracks out in the countryside that she could use to train them, letting them practice and showcase their new skills by hunting local monsters.
This process took several weeks, during which several new innovations took place. First of all, the temporary realm for the Metong had been established. Though it was little more than an infinite expanse of cosmic dust, it was a stable enough world that it did not appear it would collapse easily.
Next, a new creation had appeared, seemingly from nowhere. Like with the information-blocking shield, Tsubaki provided this machine directly to several research teams, ten in total. These were red and black platforms, each with six blue, cylindrical crystals slotted into them.
According to the information from Tsubaki, these devices were meant to monitor the entirety of the internet, identifying any memetic traces. At the sign of such traces, they would be immediately censored from public view and the relevant authorities notified.
Their job was simple: study the machine to determine if there were any hidden mechanisms in place, and then create a port to connect it to the internet. Studying its construction could be considered a long-term project. After all, they could reproduce the machine endlessly with Digital Conversion.
The next development was one that most of the public was unaware of, and that was the spatial compression device created by the Metong and March collaboration. These devices went into immediate mass-production, capturing not only the planets of their subjects, but their entire solar systems.
Throughout all of this, the dimensium fluctuations had only grown stronger and stronger. By the time that they began securing their planets, the dimensium of their world had stopped functioning entirely for hours at a time, the frequency becoming faster and faster.
Finally, there was one last invention, this one known to the public. The information barrier had finally been adapted to work in modern vessels, and the first unmanned tests were a success. For the first time since the sacrifice of Giles, people were able to explore and expand beyond the known systems.
Udona let out a sigh of relief when she heard that the golems had created the tools necessary to begin the evacuation procedures. It would still take some time before they were able to fully evacuate their entire empires, but they had everything that they needed at this point to get started.
As for the time that they had remaining, Udona wasn’t entirely sure. It was possible that the universe would collapse when dimensium became entirely inert, or that it could happen either before or after that point. This was the first time that a universe had collapsed slowly rather than from a single, immediate event. They didn’t really have a frame of reference to go by.
The best that she was able to do was to have the Fallen Gods under her command maintain the realm barrier to the best of their abilities. Everything else was left to fate.
“Now this is what I’m talking about!” Lifre laughed as she sailed through the air, navigating between strange, hovering bubbles of energy that detonated with remarkable force if anything drew near. These bubbles all but filled the sky, and triggering the wrong one could lead to a chain reaction if she wasn’t careful.
Behind her, Petra’s face was pale, doing her best to keep up with the slime. “Why are we doing this?!” The demoness asked in a near-panicked tone.
“Because it’s fun!” After completing her mission on the sixty-fourth floor of Fyor, identifying the likely route that James took when traveling to the world’s natural energy core, Lifre moved onto the next floor. This floor appeared at first devoid of life, but this was only at a first glance.
Throughout the sky, bubbles of energy fluttered about, exploding with the force of a sizable bomb if they were provoked. Through careful study involving the pointy bits of her sword and trying to destroy the bubbles before they popped, Lifre discovered that these bubbles were actually a type of lifeform.
It took her some time to learn how these creatures functioned, mostly because of how hard it was to study them without them blowing up in front of her. However, she had a good idea of things now. When they exploded, these monsters weren’t really dying. Instead, it was akin to a puffer fish inflating itself, trying to ward off predators and making itself an unappealing target.
After detonating, the energy that created these bubbles gradually reformed, the bubble again appearing in the air where it had originally detonated. Lifre had tried to communicate with these creatures, but every attempt led to explosive results. Due to this, she had determined that the creatures were very likely non-sentient monsters.
Her inner adventurer urged her to tame such a fun monster, keeping one as a pet. However, her inner child disagreed, and had what she argued was a better plan. She grabbed Petra, bringing her to this floor, and decided to ‘explore’ together, flying narrowly between packs of what she was calling Bombubbles. Every time the sky was filled with explosions, Petra’s face went pale.
Even as gods, she knew that they would not come out entirely unscathed if they were caught in those blasts. “Please tell me that there is a reason for this other than the excitement of being next to a living bomb!” She shouted, yelping when the noise triggered another wave of nearby blasts.
Lifre paused, thinking to try to come up with some excuse. “Maybe… maybe there is some special energy or artifact that gave birth to these creatures! You know, like on the sixty-first floor!”
Petra’s eyes narrowed at that, her body stiffening. Although she had the distinct feeling that this was not Lifre’s true objective, she couldn’t deny the possibility that such a thing could happen. “Shouldn’t you be using your compass, then?”
“Nah, no need!” Lifre shook her head quickly, as that would only end her fun faster. “We just have to fly to where the biggest Bombubbles are! Ooh, there’s one!” Her eyes widened, seeing a massive bubble in the distance, spanning more than a kilometer wide. Given that most of these bubbles were no more than ten meters in diameter, this could easily be seen as a local boss monster.
“W-Wait!” Petra’s eyes widened, trying to call back Lifre. “We should detonate it from a safe distance! If the explosive force of these things can be measured by their volume, you could fit hundreds of thousands of the little ones in that!”
Seeing Lifre’s eyes sparkling with anticipation, Petra slapped her face, deciding to take a different approach. “You can’t appreciate the fireworks if you pop it up close!” She said, and Lifre finally stopped moving when she heard that.
“Mmm… you’re not wrong… dang it!” Lifre stomped her foot in midair. With a huff, she pulled out a longbow, a golden string of energy appearing that she pulled back. Golden light flowed through the string, forming a dense arrow that flew into the distance.
Petra let out a sigh of relief when she saw this, but still braced herself. As soon as the arrow touched the giant bubble, the surface rippled and popped. There was a brief lull, before black energy erupted. Petra’s eyes widened, realizing that this was different from the previous blasts. This energy swept out, seeming to devour the nearby bubbles.
Petra focused, wrapping both herself and Lifre in shadows to immediately pull them into the shadow world. Only once they were safely within the shadow world did she let out a sigh of relief.
“Oooh, that was a nice boom.” Lifre said with sparkling eyes, which only further stood out in the dark landscape.
“That shouldn’t have been the same type of monster.” Petra said, furrowing her brows. “It appears that it preys on the other creatures–”
“Bombubbles.” Lifre interjected, but Petra ignored it.
“By having a similar appearance, they lure the other creatures in, so that they can absorb them to grow stronger. That one is likely quite significant, with how large it is.”
“Oohh, you mean that they could be mixed in with other bombubbles?” Lifre asked enthusiastically, to which Petra nodded her head.
“It’s possible, but they likely wouldn’t be mixed in with groups. If they’re in a group, they would have eaten the others. Any of the predators would be isolated.” That explained why they hadn’t encountered any thus far, as Lifre had insisted on taking the more… thrilling path.
“So, if we follow these things to the source, we’ll find something interesting?” Lifre asked, as if having not paid attention to the major points of what Petra was saying.
Petra simply let out a sigh, nodding her head. “That’s right.” She agreed reluctantly. As much as she was wary of this place, she knew that this floor would eventually be occupied like the others, and needed to see if there was a way to do so safely. “It should be safe to exit now.”
Shadows once again wrapped around the two of them, depositing them on the ground some distance away from their previous position. Looking up and into the distance, Petra’s expression was distorted. There was a black cloud where they had previously been flying, one that looked as if it spanned hundreds of kilometers.
Slowly, this cloud was pulling back towards its core. Wherever it passed, none of the previous bubbles remained, having no doubt been absorbed into the black mass. “We should avoid any of these predators going forward.”
Lifre pursed her lips, briefly pouting before nodding her head. Even she had felt a sense of danger when the black energy had approached. “Fine… but I want my objection to be noted!”
“It’s noted.” Petra nodded with a low sigh. Finally, she felt as if this ‘adventure’ might become more bearable.
“Well… you said that they don’t appear in groups, right?” Lifre asked with a sudden grin, and Petra’s face became pale once again.
Before she could object, Lifre had grabbed her wrist to pull her through one of the densest groups of bubbles. “This isn’t what I meant?!” Petra shouted as explosions once again began to ring out in her ears.
Lifre, meanwhile, was simply laughing as she flew through the explosions. In the distance, she could see other isolated bubbles, which she assumed were likely the predators. Some were small, others even larger than the first that they found. Keeping an eye on them, Lifre navigated her way through the clouds of bombubbles, trying to move towards where she assumed more and more of these predators had come from.
Petra was too busy trying to drown out the explosions ringing around her to notice exactly where Lifre was taking her. As far as she knew, Lifre was flying around aimlessly, trying to have more and more fun while dragging her along for the ride. And, to be frank, she wasn’t’ completely against it. The fact that Lifre had dragged her into this showed Petra that Lifre thought of her as a friend, which she liked. She just wished that her friend had more normal hobbies than flying through massive landmines.
