Universe's End

Chapter 284: One small step

Some theories proved truer than others.

Such as Rory’s theory that Aelia was growing tired of waiting for him.

How did he know that for a fact?

Because roughly thirty-six seconds after congratulating his team on a job well done and placing the Goblin Mk. 3 into his inventory with a sudden pop, Rory vanished, a spinning twister of autumnal leaves marking his departure as he found himself somewhere else, with several familiar faces.

“Oh, there you are,” Tom, the First Monk, nodded to Rory. “We’ve been waiting.”

“You do not realize just how much I was bending timelines,” Aelia sighed, standing at only human height and looking like she’d built her body out of a composite of roses, vines, and smoldering thorns, as always, only her eyes remaining constant.

Rory glanced around what was clearly the ‘heart’ of Aelia, a space he’d entered once before when she had not so subtly told him to murder the Bird. This time, he was joined by the remaining Founders.

All the remaining Founders.

“Mr. Luck of the Irish there,” Zoey didn’t even bother waving at him, even though it had been years since they’d last seen each other. “Mentioned that last he heard of you, you were working on some project that had you playing the recluse again.”

“I was,” Rory nodded before frowning. “Wait, how long have you all been here?”

“Technically speaking? No time at all,” Aelia answered for them. “From the point I collected them, it has felt like only hours at most.”

“Weird time distortion, noted,” Rory nodded. “Tom, what was the last thing you remember us doing together?”

Both he and the Monk had spent time together over the last few years getting to know one another. While Rory wouldn’t call the man a true friend in the way he would Zoey, he would definitely qualify him as a solid acquaintance by now.

“When we had that drinking contest at Delta’s,” The Monk answered.

“Oh shit, that was six months ago,” Rory’s eyes widened. “How the hell did I not notice you’ve been gone since then?”

“Because you’re a hermit, and everyone else probably assumed you noticed,” Zoey snorted. “So, no one said anything to you. I mean, how would Mr. Lord Founder possibly miss that fact?”

“That’s… way too plausible,” Rory sighed. “Alright, but I’m taking it this isn’t just a group get together?” Rory raised his eyebrows at Aelia, who nodded.

“Correct. The time is now. My remaining Founders, those who have proven themselves beyond a reasonable doubt of being the best of all current existence. You shall face my siblings at last. Starting with The First.”

“The First Sibling?” Zoey asked.

“Yes and no, as they’ve taken to calling themselves The First after it was known they were to be the first sibling you would all visit together.”

“Wonderful,” the Primordial Rogue said. “So, we pop over there, grab some brunch, and be back by dinner?”

The World Spirit stared at the Rogue for several seconds before he shrugged.

“Just trying to bring some humor, damn.”

“Humor won’t be necessary,” Aelia said. “Your objective is simple, though upon transfer over, you will likely be informed of what I’m about to say a second time by your host. The goal is to slaughter or destroy the chosen obstacles my sibling puts before you. Do know, where I made an effort to never outright try to kill you all, their objective is to win, to see you all dead. You understand what that means?”

“Our only protection from bullshit is what Eon does or does not allow?” Rory offered.

“Correct,” Aelia said. “They have no scruples about doing whatever they can to see you all dead. Now, as for the exact details of the trial facing you when you set foot upon The First, those he will tell you himself.”

“Is there anything else we are waiting on?” The Spear spoke for the first time since Rory had appeared, making a point of not looking in his direction, something even the Rogue managed, albeit with flipping him the bird every time.

“No. As much as I would have allowed you all even more time to prepare, there is a limit to what is useful. Furthermore, I do not want to allow the Eternal to give extra benefits to my siblings by being later than we already are.”

“Great, dandy,” The Rogue said. “How are we getting there?”

Clapping her hands together, Aelia looked each of them in the eyes as a tremor began to radiate outward, something the surface world would have felt as a worldwide quake.

“You two,” Aelia looked between Rory and Zoey as she spoke. “Should recognize this.”

An instant later, what looked like a current of gaseous reddish-orange ‘liquid’ appeared, flowing upward before splitting through the ceiling itself.

“Terawa,” Zoey said. “Fun.”

“Fun indeed,” Aelia answered. “As much as this would be the time for encouragement from me, none of you need it, or else you would have never reached this point to begin with.”

“Ehh, fair,” The Rogue said. “So, while I would suggest nose-goes for who hops in the weird liquid-gas stuff first, I’m going to go out on a limb and say maybe the one called the Vanguard should go first?”

“In a situation of hostilities upon touchdown, we should plan for area denial, giving time for the others,” Tom spoke up. “I can buy time with my own frozen aura. Eric, you’re up after me.”

“What? Why?” Eric questioned defensively.

“Because you are the closest thing we have to a scout or assassin,” The Spear said. “I’ll follow, and finally, The Architect will take the rear.”

“Why does he get to go last?” Eric protested.

“Because no matter how much any of us like or dislike him personally, the value he brings as the sole artisan of the group can’t be understated.”

“He does like to hang out in the background when others get their hands dirty,” Zoey said, smirking at Rory as he shot her a withering look. “By the way, anything you can hand us before we head out?”

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Here,” Rory sighed as several baggies appeared that he handed over to each of them. “A tote bag with varying gems. Red hexagonal gem shaped like a tear? Vitality gem, made to be usable by anyone. It will give you a surge of vital energy. Still, it’s not the same as a recovery brew; vitality gems that are made for anyone tend to have a limit before they start reversing the effect from vital poisoning.”

“Didn’t know that was a thing,” Tom said.

“Most don’t,” Rory answered. “There are recovery brews in there, but truthfully, they aren’t much better. Unless you have a skill that literally removes brew limitations, recovery brews can only be drunk a few times per day.”

“The difference between the two?” Eric asked.

“A vitality gem is made from ossified blood essence and… you know what, the short answer is, a vitality gem tailored for a specific person can be used without limit, but there is still a max output of how quickly you can absorb vital energies that would heal wounds or replenish flagging stamina.”

“Got it, so the good stuff is for you only,” Eric snorted.

“There are also a variety of weapons within temporary inventories inside these bags. I say temporary, because inventories can’t be stuck in other inventories unless the nested inventory is specifically a sealed inventory that is essentially one use only, you put things in, seal it, and it stays sealed until it’s opened, after which it disintegrates.”

“No nesting dolls,” Zoey said rather sagely.

“Correct.”

“Maybe you aren’t so bad after all,” Eric muttered. “Anything else?”

“More gems, some talismans, brews, but the vitality ones are the most important for the time being.”

“Alright, then, if there is nothing else?” Zoey glanced around before shrugging. “Let’s do this thing.”

Without any additional fanfare, she simply dove into the stream, being whisked away a moment later.

“Indeed,” Tom said as he, too, joined the stream.

“Still think he could have been bumped up the line,” Eric grumbled as she flopped backward into the stream.

With only The Spear and Rory remaining, she couldn’t help but glance at him. There was a flash of anger, before it was gone with a tired sigh.

“Stupid sister,” Rory heard the woman mutter before she also joined in the stream.

“And then there was me,” Rory said, one step from the stream before halting as Aelia appeared in front of him.

“One quick note,” Aelia said, voice low and serious.

“Yes?”

“I say this to you alone,” Aelia’s exotic eyes squinted. “Understand priorities. I would prefer all of you make it through this alive, but if I had to focus on any, I would prefer if you and the Spear made it out alive.”

“Are you telling me to abandon them if things go south at any point?” Rory asked, taken aback.

“Somewhat,” Aelia agreed. “When push comes to shove, The Spear is the strongest combatant alive. You are the greatest crafter alive. You may piece the rest together yourself.”

And then with that, she vanished, her physical avatar melting away as Rory frowned.

That’s never a foreboding sign. Not at all.

Having been given a final burden, Rory stepped into the terawa before he, too, was whisked away.

Interplanetary travel was a bit of a strange experience, if Rory said so himself. Rather than simply being teleported from point A to point B, Rory was ripped through the terawa river as it flowed, without concern for things as trivial as ‘physical distance’ or even ‘matter,’ the gaseous liquid flowing through folded space itself.

I wonder if part of this event has to do with Aelia herself, she is expected to bridge the distance between herself and her siblings, and not Eon, for whatever reason, maybe a proof of her own abilities?

Teleporting directly through space, while direct, was also far more taxing than sending them along a mystical orange river. Given the distance they ended up crossing, even a little bit of mental extrapolation presented a mind-boggling amount of effort to teleport a full group that far.

Given Aelia herself was approximately the size of the sun at the center of the solar system pre-collapse, give or take one or two magnitudes, the distance proved truly staggering. She vanished into a speck within moments of the terawa river flowing off-planet. Based on that and the time taken, the total distance they must travel was like the distance from Earth to Proxima Centauri, four light-years away, and that was just to reach the nearest planet within their star system.

Which also wasn’t too shocking, given in the very first days within this universe, Rory could recall Aelia boasting how even ordinary star systems of the current reality had more energy than the entire pre-collapse universe combined, something she’d only possibly known thanks to the weird instinctual knowledge world spirits had about certain things.

A rather random factoid for her to know in hindsight, but hey, the early universe was a weird place.

Whatever the case, after what felt like days, a new thing appeared within the darkness of space, a blob that rapidly grew. It was a planet, half of it covered in red… trees? Rory wasn’t really certain of the details, the other half covered in neon green and pink clouds.

So, this is The First.

Racing toward the planet rather than the green-and-pink gas cloud-covered side, the terawa coursed down toward the red side, with massive red deserts marked by forests of red-and-white trees. For a moment, it made Rory nostalgic for the early days of the Ehkorrian forest, before the land had been converted into a renewal-evolved forest and was instead dominated purely by Sol’s Glories.

The nostalgia didn’t last long, though, as the speed they were moving became clear: within a moment of the details becoming visible, he was already hurtling down toward an already devastated patch of land, as if meteorites had been shattering upon the ground, exploding like devastating bombs.

Oh.

Touching down, the explanation was immediately obvious.

They had a welcome party.

Hundreds of tier eights were flocking from the forest, with dozens of alpha variants leading their own packs, each ranging from only two or three dozen to almost two hundred in the largest pack, led by a monster that looked like a gelatinous blob had tried to shape itself in a facsimile of a porcupine and a spider of all things.

The other Founders were already in the thick of things, fighting for everything they were worth as the small army of monsters, the bulk of the forces made up of mangy-looking hyenas with white spider lilies growing from the mangled patches of skin.

“Rory!” Zoey shouted as soon as he was secured on the ground, the other four fighting at opposing points like the hands of a compass. “Domain!”

“On it!” Rory answered instantly. Establishing a domain was normally tricky work… If one were fighting and establishing it simultaneously. If one was able to take advantage of hanging out away from the frontlines, it was far easier. Plus, Rory didn’t need a fully realized domain, just an extremely wide-scale domain to suppress whatever magical bullshit or abilities the swarm of monsters might be leveraging.

With only one focus in mind, it took only thirty seconds or so, as darkness swept out in a massive range. Putting his all into simply suppressing, Rory was unable to muster his own abilities, the trade-off it incurred for the suppression.

But that didn’t mean he had no way to help out; he was the Architect after all. Appearing from his inventory, a moment later, Rory was standing upon the Goblin Mk. 3, taking to the air –but avoiding flying too high where he might attract the attention of monsters that called the sky home— and zipping through the battlefield. Heavy Light cannons firing up, ‘bullets’ of prismatic fury rained down on the hordes of monsters, easing up the pressure and giving some much-needed breathing room to his peers.

With his domain suppressing or outright nullifying the magic of some of the monsters, plus the strafing fire of the heavy light cannons, within only a few minutes, the battle was already coming to a close, the varying pack’s leaders clearly intelligent to some degree as the remaining forces retreated upon a chorus of linked howls, squeals, or other sounds.

As fast as it had started, the fight came to an end as the Founders held their guards up for another few minutes just to be sure.

“Well, talk about a fuckin’ welcome mat,” The Rogue snorted.

“That ‘welcome’ party would have wiped all life from Aelia’s surface,” Tom frowned. “Even if all the enlightened on the planet were united together.”

“Maybe not, if they were all stationed at Ehkorrus,” Zoey partially disagreed.

“No, but it would have required them all to be there in the first place,” The Spear said

“Should we be surprised?” Rory said with a shrug. “Aelia could do something similar if her goal was to wipe out every human or enlightened on her surface as well.”

“Ehh, I guess you got a point,” Eric snorted. “Sometimes puts into perspective the gap between us and everyone else.”

“Tier eights are still rare,” Tom said in defense of the rest of the enlightened life on Aelia. “That’s just how things will be.”

The group was silent once more as they took a moment to reflect on the opening ‘skirmish’ already proving more threatening than the absolute height of the Siege Waves that attacked Ehkorrus or anywhere for that matter, in the past.

Their ruminations, though, were cut short as a new voice suddenly spoke up.

“I do hope you enjoyed the first welcome,” A warbling voice said, having somehow appeared within the very center of them.

Whirling around as one, they took sight of the figure that had appeared, cutting an imposing image of a twelve-foot-tall ram-headed, skeletal moss golem.

“Welcome to my surface,” It spoke, a sort of vicious mockery to its tone. “And may you enjoy your time while you can.”

Rory stared for a moment longer, no mistaking what the ‘thing’ was, the World Spirit of a foreign, hostile world.

They may have arrived on the planet, but The First had arrived for them.