World Keeper-Chapter 1227: Turning Back the Page
After watching everyone leave the throne room, I let out a long sigh. It had been quite a while since I had done a time skip anywhere near as long as this one. However, even with that in mind, I wasn’t sure how much of the world had changed in my absence.
According to the others, there had been a major energy crisis, which would have drastically slowed down the advancement of technology for generations. It was hard to develop new gadgets when you had no power to get those gadgets to work.
That said, I wouldn’t know for sure until I took a look for myself. With that in mind, I sent out my World Sight, first observing the illusory world that Olympus had been created on. Nearly a century of accumulating divinity meant that the planet was now completely solid. In the worst case scenario, this gave me quite the reserve of energy…
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At the same time, I found the root that branch that Dana had mentioned at the heart of Olympus. From its outward appearance, it looked like a column of blue wood jutting out from the ground, held in place by numerous black beams. It glowed with pulsating mana, which flowed through the beams and into Olympus itself.
At the base of the branch was a blue portal, which I sent my sight into. Inside, I saw a secure room, two avatars of Tsubaki standing guard. Beyond the room was a glowing hallway that branched in numerous directions, a few people walking along as if it were normal.
So, each universe now has its own branch? I thought to myself, following the path. Sure enough, the end of one of the branches led to what was once the Fairy Ring square of Ashtanu, which now had a large tree occupying it. At least this means that we won’t need to worry about random transmissions anymore, or delayed departure times.
Of course, there was a small downside with this method, namely traffic. All in all, I’d say that this method probably allowed for more convenient travel between worlds than the gates we had previously.
Pulling my sight back, I decided to check on Terra’s new incarnation, that way I could see how she was adjusting to Olympus.
Terra walked slowly through the halls of her palace, hugging a book to her chest. Her eyes were half-lidded, and she kept glancing around, as if hearing something. Lowering her head, she walked faster, until she finally found the bedroom. Inside were two beds, reminding Terra of her predecessors.
She let out a faint sigh, moving over to lay on one of the beds. As she did, she opened her book and looked at the pages. “Well, he doesn’t really seem mean, at least…” She muttered, the pages of the book rippling. Soon, a golden light emerged, and a young felyn woman with blonde hair was sitting on the corner of the bed.
“Oh, he can’t be that bad.” The woman said with a light laugh. “I think you just need to warm up to him.”
“But, he’s…” Terra began, before the other woman shook her head.
“It’s precisely because he’s the Keeper. He’s not like the rest of us. You’ll have to actually talk to him and get to know him, won’t you?” The other woman said, causing Terra to let out a sigh.
“Yeah… I guess. Thanks, mom.” She said, a small smile playing on her lips. The blonde felyn gave a warm look, reaching out to stroke a hand through Terra’s hair.
“If you ever need me for anything, I’m right here.” The woman spoke kindly, before her body began to fade, returning to the book in front of her.
Seeing the brief interaction between Terra’s incarnation and the entity that she called her mother made my brow twitch. I couldn’t help but reach out to Terra in the Admin Room. That’s not her actual mom, right? She didn’t trap her in one of those life stories or something?
Terra chuckled slightly at my question, seeming amused. No, nothing like that. Her mother died when she was young. Killed by a star beast in Lorek before she came into her power. The book that she carries around is… something like a diary. She records people around her who have died, and they can come to life through her power.
I blinked slightly, before nodding my head. So, she’s been carrying her dead mother around with her for decades, as well as any other friends that have died along the way.
And any fictional characters that she writes about in her stories. Terra added on, and I let out a long sigh.
No wonder she has issues. She doesn’t want to let go, so she’s essentially keeping herself trapped in her own history. In a way, she’s refusing to grow up, because growing up would mean moving on.
It took a moment for Terra to respond after that. That’s right. She said in a soft tone. I thought about intervening a few times. She can’t stay like that forever, after all. However, she still knows when to set that all aside and take things seriously, so I let her indulge herself. Don’t want to risk my interference backfiring and causing her to only retreat more and more into her fantasies.
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Yeah, I had to agree that that would be bad. So, what kind of abilities can I expect from her in case of an emergency? You said that she doesn’t go for the same prophetic route as the twins…
Terra gave a light chuckle with her answer. That girl loves happy endings. She can’t tell you the bad that is going to happen in the future, but she can tell you how to get your good ending. Give her a scenario to write down, and her book will find the brightest future for you to follow.
Of course, when she gets mad, she’s not against writing a tragedy. She’ll set her target, and lock them in an eternal hellscape, where they will suffer constant torment until their mind collapses.
My brow twitched when I heard that. That sounds dangerously close to your life story. Is it safe?
Yeah, this is fine. It doesn’t operate on the same principle. Terra assured me. Instead of trapping the target’s essence in the book, the only thing that is trapped is their consciousness. Once they are pulled into the book, they are already technically dead, their mind is just not allowed to rest until it has completely collapsed under whatever pain she chooses to inflict on it.
Well, that was somewhat reassuring, at least. Even if it was utterly horrifying to think about. Got it. Any other skills that I should know about?
Terra thought that over for a few seconds. She’s really good as both a monk and a mage. Aside from that, nothing relevant that I can immediately think about.
Priscilla walked down the halls of Olympus, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. Despite spending so much time training in preparation for the upcoming assault, she had not yet received the Keeper’s permission. Given her status, she was worried that the Keeper would insist that she remained behind.
“Looks like you got in.” Dana said with a small grin. “How does it feel?”
Priscilla looked at the short elven girl that was following along beside her. “It feels nice. The Keeper has validated my training to prepare myself.” She said, the two making their way towards the elevator. “Though, after all of this, hearing that the attack is only a few months away feels almost rushed.”
Dana rolled her eyes, shaking her head as the two went to her personal palace. “Not rushed at all. With how long we’ve had to prepare, there’s not really anything else that we could get done, even if we were given more time. At most, there’s the faint chance that we would learn how to do Origins for gods with multiple domains, but we’d need to get back into research that has been stalled for nearly a century to try that. There’s no telling how much longer it would take, or how much Tsuba would actually improve even if she went through the process.”
Priscilla offered a small nod at that. The two walked into Dana’s workshop, and Priscilla sat down in front of the workbench, rolling up her sleeve. As she channeled some mana into her arm, a black tattoo appeared, looking like three connected diamonds. “We still need to charge this up a bit more, just to be safe. I don’t want to get in and have the mark run out.”
Dana nodded her head, walking over to sit next to Priscilla. She reached out, a hand over Priscilla’s arm, and began to channel an immense amount of mana into her arm.
The Mark of Emptiness was far more powerful than they had originally imagined, after it was finally developed by James and Chelsea’s research team. While active, the user became invisible to all extraordinary senses. Furthermore, all energy that they released would be completely undetectable by those same senses. Even World Sight couldn’t detect what was being concealed, only the fact that there was something missing.
However, this meant that it also had an exorbitant energy cost. Out of everyone heading to this invasion, only Dana had the mana output necessary to charge the marks in a reliable manner. She could charge a single mark in one day, and it would last a week upon activation. If Priscilla wanted to charge that mark herself, she would need at least two or three weeks to get that same level of charge.
On the one hand, this was incredibly expensive, energy-wise. Regardless of its effectiveness, the charge could only be maintained if a powerful Origin was supervising. On the other hand… the ink for these tattoos turned out to be amazing for storing mana. Chelsea speculated that it was due to the memetic influence when creating the ink, but they had an immense upper limit for storage. The only problem was that the energy would degrade over time, so it was hard to justify using them as mana batteries.
It was because of this degradation that the members of the assault team regularly had Dana recharge their marks, keeping the charge full to prevent any potential issues that they may face in the future. “Hopefully by the time we’re back, she’ll have made some improvements on these.” Dana chuckled, the air rippling around her glowing blue hands.
Priscilla simply nodded, watching the process. Her mind was still going through a checklist of various abilities that she wanted to make sure that she had prepared for the invasion. She didn’t want to get to the final day and realize that she had missed something obvious.
Tsubaki returned to her training room within her own palace, taking a deep breath and pulling out a pair of daggers. She was perhaps the most concerned about the upcoming invasion, for multiple reasons. Aside from Lena, she was the only one that was going to be going on the mission that was not an Origin. Moreover, she was the Keeper’s subordinate deity. When she went on this invasion, that link would inevitably be broken. And she wasn’t sure if it would return after coming back.
More importantly than the link itself, it had been quite a while since she fought with her own power without at least considering the possibility of borrowing power from the Keeper. Or from Irena’s power that she kept within herself. Another thing that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to take with her.
For this reason, she had been constantly honing her skills, going so far as to ask Lena for training in various techniques. She wanted to ensure that, no matter what bonuses she lost during this invasion, she would be able to perform at her peak when it came time to fight.
