Tree of Aeons

Horizon of Trees

Year 197 (continued)

The Cometworld crumbled, as large chunks that blanked the red sky drifted apart. I spawned my trees quickly, and my roots spread out through the rocks and dirt, and grabbed the earth. There were still meteors that rained from the red skies above, but thanks to this large chunk of rock that drifted overhead thanks to the loss of gravity, it functioned as a meteor-umbrella. 

I wasnt even sure whether its just gravity, or just some weird magical forces in this world. I certainly could feel it, as it tried to tear my roots apart. 

My trees had spread as far as I could, during the attempts to rescue as many of the Canari people, and I spawned more [Giant Attendant Trees] wherever I could. Still, a stray meteor that I failed to block could single-handedly destroy my Giant Trees. These meteors contained powers that exceeded their size, and it was getting stronger. 

The suns redness turned even redder, and it felt larger. The heat was immense, and part of my mana was spent cooling down my entire network of trees as I attempted to reach the exposed core of the cometworld. 

There were no monsters left. No one. 

Just the pull of some unusual magic tearing the entire world apart. It wasnt godly, either. Magic didnt work anymore. The tearing energies here seemed to interfere with magic, which was why I sent Stella home. 

I popped my trees as fast as I could, and it was a race against time, before the chunk of earth I was on would be torn away. 

The meteors smashed into one of the floating chunks, and it split in half. A part of it drifted back to the glowing exposed core. I didnt know why, but I felt drawn to it. 

A large meteor slammed into the exposed core of the Cometworld, and large chunks were torn out. The parts that glowed flew up and turned into rock almost instantly, and I saw the core shrink in size. 

I attempted to reach it. 

Too late, child of another world. 

I felt a really strong pulling force on the ground, and even as I increased the number of roots, it ripped them apart. I was trying to hold the ground together with flimsy tape during an earthquake.

The path to the core was lost, and I felt a bit weaker. No, my trees in that world felt a bit weaker. 

The core was smaller, with most of the bits around it drifting apart. I saw the exposed core glow, and then it exploded into multiple fragments. A strange white fragment flew right towards me.

It was a white ore the size of a tree trunk, and it flew and dropped close to one of my other subsidiary trees. My roots immediately wrapped it, and pulled it to my tree of clones. No time to analyse what it was, because I sent it back.

Once I did, the core seemed to glow again, and then... crumbled. A layer in the sky shattered. It was like a protective dome that once existed over the entire planet faded away, and the entire world was blanketed by a burn. All my lesser trees were destroyed, and the ground burned briefly, and then stopped. 

There was nothing to burn. Nothing left. 

Yet my main tree of clones survived, the reddish sun continued to batter my tree of clones with searing hot energy, but it did nothing. My tree of clones shared my resistance. 

A part of me floated in space, and I watched the red sun glow, and grow. It grew even larger, and took up a larger part of space.

Meteors now flew at me directly, drawn to me by some kind of magic. I felt the air was thick with a kind of mana and magic that I didnt quite understand. It was like star mana, yet different. I couldnt get my magical sensors to check it, they were destroyed too quickly by the perpetual ambient rays. No, more accurately, everything disintegrated... except me.

The red sun grew over the course of the year, and then, in a sudden moment... vanished.

Gone.

My tree of clones drifted alone in space, in seemingly perpetual emptiness and darkness.

The world vanished. Stella looked in horror back from the safety of our home. How?

There was nothing... absolutely nothing at all. All the stars in that world seemed to have disappeared as well. 

In the emptiness, back home-

[Youve obtained a title : Witness of a Worlds Death]

[Youve obtained a title : Otherworldly Rescuer]

-

The Canari people got a title. [Otherworld Refugee]. Both Lumoof and Stella all gotten the title [Otherworldly Rescuer] as well. Titles seemed mostly useless to me, but the fact that the system awarded them meant there had to be some use. 

Anyway, Lumoof had to break the news to the Canari directly. Your world has died. The Canari howled and wailed. By now, they had relocated to a secret mountainous area in the central continent. Perhaps one day they will be introduced to the wider world, but for now, there are too few of them. There were secret convoys that brought food to them, while they adapted to the new world.

The Canari also had to organise themselves, in order to communicate with me. Edna and Lumoof were both so powerful that to them, they were pretty much living gods. Strangely, they didnt seem to notice me much, and mostly paid attention to Lumoof. But I needed Lumoof elsewhere, now that the Cometworld was lost. I wanted Lumoof back in the Threeworlds. 

I had Valthorn druids assist to build temporary housing for them, while their own builders and workers built something more to their own liking. 

We had a meeting, mostly to discuss the future plans, and also to better understand the past. 

The meeting was held in a makeshift wooden hall in their part of the world. Their people sounded happy, but I wasnt sure since I couldnt exactly read the facial expressions of the Canari, mainly because I was entirely unfamiliar with them. In a sense, this was a problem I faced with the lizardfolks, and treefolks too. 

At the very least, these Canari had tables and chairs, so this part was normal. Hows everything?

The Canari split into one large faction that largely embraced this new world, and two smaller factions. One that seemed a little suspicious and wanted to go back, and a third group that strangely, wanted to die. These last group seemed to say that they shouldve died with their world, with everyone else that died.

Stella called it survivors guilt.

I honestly didnt know what to say about it. It seemed quite similar to what the heroes and those who survived great destruction experienced to some degree. All I could do now was to pop some [tree of prayers] and keep their stress levels manageable. I know for a fact that the people of this world were hardy, and seemed to take the frequent destruction and death in stride. 

So, the Canaris was somewhat different, and I wasnt sure why. I also attempted to introduce my priests to them, to help these groups manage their anxiety and trauma, but most of them only pushed the priests away. They didnt want help, even if they needed it. 

There are people like that everywhere, and all we could do was ease them into their new environment. Some will always cling to their old world, just like how some reincarnated heroes still dream of home. 

I focused on those who accepted reality.

It happened out of nowhere. One of the Canari folk explained to us. He was a level 65 [Lorekeeper], and spoke of their world history. 

The world of the Canari had demons, and they came rarely, once in a while, with no real certainty or regularity. Even so, their description of demons seemed relatively weak, that their champions can defeat them. Their best warriors in the high level 80s was enough. I suspected its the demon champions, and not the demon king proper. 

Thats so strange. Stella said frankly. Why the demon champions, but not demon kings?

As the world moved so quickly across the void sea, was it possible that perhaps, the demon kings just could not establish a stable portal? It explained that they had enough time to open a small path that champions could walk through, but not enough for the Kings. 

Our world is usually at peace, and our wars are fought with each other, and monsters. The Canari Loremaster. We dont know why our world suddenly behaved that way. We had wars and we had fights, but nothing seemed to have changed.

A Canari Astrologer gave a differing view. Other than the stars vanishing from our skies. 

The gods that they worshipped were based on the sun, the land, the moon and the darkness beyond. They didnt have a notion of otherworldly visitors, other than the demons themselves, which they thought were just nothing more than creations of darkness beyond.

So, they didnt even know about Zaratans. 

As we spoke to more and more Canari, all of them had no idea. They didnt know why. All they could do was observe the eventual destruction of their world. 

Some posited wild theories that the world was angry. Or that someone offended the sun. The sun was once a different color, and the sky, too. But somehow it just died. 

I thought of the white ore. 

-

The white ore stood in my main tree, hidden inside my [secret hideout]. These days, theres no one in my main bodys secret hideout. All of them live outside. 

Laufen lived with her grandson, Lauda in Freshka. Lausanne usually teached at the Valthorn academy when shes not chilling with her friends. 

I took a good look at it. 

[Shard of A Destroyed World]

Well, here goes nothing. My vines inserted it into a pod, and I had a vision, and I heard its voice again. 

Our sun died, for no reason other than age. We are an ancient world, and our world lived for too long. Our sun was never meant to live long, for it burns bright, and burns quickly. I shielded my children for as long as I could, but death comes even for a world like me. 

I saw a shortened clip, of a sun growing and then fading.  

The grand mechanisms of fate granted me a final hope, a portal to another world. A hope for my children, instead of the nothingness I offer. For that, thank you.

[Youve received a skill: Canari Knowledge and Biology.] 

[Your astral map has been updated]

The world sent me a goodbye memo. That sucks. But I was drawn to a sudden increase in my astral map. I saw, for a sudden moment, wide swaths that were revealed to me. This cometworld travelled in a long arc through the void sea, and I understood that these worlds may have moved since then. 

I felt like a xianxia protagonist, suddenly realising the existence of the world beyond worlds. 

Now I realised how large the multiverse was, it truly narrowed my focus. I didnt think it was possible for me to save the thousands of other worlds out there, and nor do I intend to,

My goal should be this world. Home. I would protect my home, and I would stop the demons from entering my world. The greater world can be a later problem, but my first and main focus should be to save this world. 

I may consider reinforcing Threeworlds and the other neighbouring world, as a means to properly protect this world. 

The path of the Cometworld through the seas also revealed that it came in close contact with some demon worlds. There are way too many demon worlds.

There was something else in the Shard. A strange mana I didnt understand, and refused to interact with me. Did the Shard leave something else in there? 

Ugh. 

But the fact that this world could even talk to me told me something very important.

Its possible to talk to the world, and that means it must be possible to talk to my world. If I elected [Will of the World], did that mean I would merge with the thing at the center of this world?

What other kind of power did an entity like that have? From what Ive seen, the core has some way of creating shields, since the core shielded their world from the harmful effects of their dying sun, and also has the power to give skills.

I remembered that some of the elves and treefolks worshipped variants of the nameless mother, and these were likely references to the world itself. 

Did every world have a will at the center of it all? 

> Lilies. Do you know of the will of the world? <

> Have you ever spoken to it? <

> How do you know of it? <

Huh. What was the relationship of the gods and the will of the world? Is the Will of the World a god? > What is the will? <

Great. If its not a god, then it mustve been a creation of the system itself. I didnt understand why there are gods and demons in the first place. Like, our own world didnt have them, but the ancient people invented them to explain the world. 

But the other world called the Canari their children. Did this mean that the will of the world was responsible for the creation of the inhabitants, and thus, all of those who lived here were creations of the will? 

Wait. If we extend this train of thought, does this mean that the gods needed otherworldly heroes because the will of the world interfered with their meddling of the natives? Or maybe, only some will of the world interfered, so for those worlds, they needed to use externally sourced heroes. 

Looking at it in another way, from what Snek described of how the demons used the energy of the core to create demon kings, this suggested that the demons ultimate goal was to capture the will of the world, in order to create more demon kings.

But why? Why create more demon kings? 

What was the end goal for the demons?

What was the end goal for the gods?

Lilies answered frankly.  

Was that a jab at Reefy?

Lets assume that Lilies is right. The demons invade other worlds, take control of their world, and then just use it to invade more worlds. If so, they are essentially a virus. 

Then the gods? Each god is a sentient, sapient creature with its own intellect. So, each of them would have their own goals, but clearly, each god has a limited sphere of influence. If they are  higher levelled versions of me, their ability to touch multiple worlds are clearly constrained but simple practical issues like distance, unless the system allows certain overrides. 

Stella was also thinking about it, and she posited a fascinating possibility. 

The void sea was expanding, in the same way earths distance between galaxies expanded. A slow expansion of the multiverse, so worlds where the gods could reach were getting less, as each of them drifted further and further apart. 

Certain worlds, where they are close enough such that they are clustered and locked together by local magic-gravity, remain reachable to each other, but those further apart were being ripped apart. 

The expansion of the universe was an issue over millions, billions of years on Earth. But perhaps here, there is a magical equivalent at play. If so, this implied that each world would eventually be unreachable to the others. Even demons will eventually disappear.