World Seal, Ch 24: Winter Rises (Patreon)

Snow spread across the Western Reaches and out across the plains of the kingdom. Icy winds blew and storm clouds gathered, bringing freezing cold from the high peaks.

The Legions of Ice covered the skies for the first time in thousands of years.

The world remembered their touch.

Grasses trembled as their slender forms turned white with frost and trees shook in the wind as ice coated their leaves and hung heavy on their branches. Snow drifted down from the skies in the wake of the ice drakes’ wings.

On their shoulders, the Ice Sylphs stood tall and fierce, their eyes colder than the snow, like spirits born of Winter and Frost.

Some natural magic of the Ice Sylphs or the Gate of Winter magnified their aura and that of their allies, the drakes and griffins, making the weather and lands nearby freeze over as they rode.

On the lands below, Ice Giants walked like moving glaciers. Their steps made the valleys tremble as they descended from the mountains.

Sam watched from the skies where his avatars were fighting against the elemental storms and he couldn’t help but be astonished at the sight.

The old legends were alive.

Even more legions had come out of the Gate of Winter at Siwaha’s call, until tens of thousands flooded from the ancient valley. Some of the new forces were only at the Second or early Third Evolution, unlike the ones who had come first, but they had also chosen to sleep until they were needed again.

The power of Winter was greater than any one of them, and in his eyes now, he could see the strength of a natural Law.

The Law of Winter.

The rune that flowed through all of them, embracing them in frost and frozen purpose, was the same one that created the Gate of Winter itself.

Even though they had never broken through to the Fourth Evolution, the Ice Sylphs had tapped into the natural laws on their own, and now they bore it as a mantle of power.

It was no wonder they had conquered these lands in the past.

Under the Fourth Evolution, there was barely anything that could face them. Even for those above it, their enemies had to face an entire army that wielded the same power.

“Winter Rises,” he said quietly as he watched them go.

The green element of Spring was still there with them, keeping them alive and healthy, but it was less prevalent now as they rode to war.

The frozen blade had been unsheathed.

With their help, this battle against the Flaws would be entirely different. He gave them a nod of thanks.

Then he turned his attention back to the elemental storms as he reached out toward the closest Flaw. Strands of silver light from Dimensional Stabilization and Astral Binding flowed around the rainbow chaos of the Flaw, wrapping it in a seal.

The gash tried to tear wider, but he gripped at the edges with a massive golden hand and crushed it. The Flaw fought back as it tried to slice through his hand, but it made no headway and was slowly forced closed.

He pinched the edges of Aster Fall’s dimensional wall back together as a wave of auras flooded toward him from the world. They mixed with Astral Binding and wove deft webs of power across the opening.

The rift faded away as the dimensional space was rewoven. Finally, it disappeared for good.

He turned to look at his other avatars, who were working on their own Flaws in the storm, and then he disappeared in a streak of flame, heading for the next one.

This process would take a while, but at least it was good practice for his abilities.

***

One day turned to the next as time passed.

His avatars ranged far across the kingdom and sometimes beyond it as he chased down the most difficult Flaws, sealed them, and crushed any opposition he encountered.

The Outsiders that came through these Flaws were mostly in the First and Second Evolutions, but there were quite a few lower than that as well, around Level 50 to 75.

Most of them had been trapped inside the Seal by earlier breakings and were waiting for a chance to tear free again, but a few were more recent.

Where it was possible, he encouraged local forces to deal with them, including the church and bloodline clans. He teleported groups across the kingdom and back dozens of times to give them a chance to earn Marks and improve themselves.

It was a small part of a plan he had to spread his influence across the kingdom in a direct way, creating allies and ensuring that everyone was familiar with the High Artificer and the Conclave of the Moons.

At the same time, it showed his power and gave him a chance to meet with many of the kingdom’s forces. He was hopeful that it would help to keep everyone in line at the conclave, which was quickly approaching.

Despite that, most of his attention was on the Flaws, as well as the greater dimensional picture of the World Seal that they revealed.

It was the first opportunity he’d ever had to study them in depth and with the power to see what was really going on.

The results were astonishing.

As he closed one Flaw after another, here and there, he found traces of elemental and dimensional energy that was a close match for Aster Fall. It suggested the realms they were coming from were nearly the same as his world.

Based on his old understanding of how Flaws worked, that shouldn’t have been possible. He’d always thought they were rifts that led more or less directly to the Nexus.

There had been many times when it seemed like a Flaw was a pocket dimension trapped in time, like a bubble inside the World Seal, and while he encountered a few of those as well, they were actually in the minority.

Those were the ones he decided to call true Flaws, while these others with elemental energy that matched Aster Fall were clearly something else.

But both types had Outsiders in them and they both operated the same way to tear holes in Aster Fall.

The discovery made him frown as he studied the problem in more depth, and eventually he sent one of his avatars into a Flaw to see what was happening.

When he stepped through, he found himself in a layer of the World Seal far away from Aster Fall.

The sky was twilight grey with glimmering yellow flames like a sunset that never ended, but there was just enough warmth and light to support life. The land beneath his feet was covered in a grey moss that matched the sky, layered over tumbled rocky plains.

The realm stretched for four hundred miles from side to side, bordered on each side by mountains. One side looked like it had been torn from beneath the seas, with stone that was rippled and smooth, while the other side was craggy and weathered, rising upward in dull old peaks.

A cold wind blew across the rocky plain, carrying a dark and hazy fog.

It was like a sliver of a world floating inside the World Seal.

He knelt down and dug his fingers deep into the earth before he scooped up a handful of stones. He analyzed them in depth as he studied the aura in it.

It didn’t take long to find out that some of it had come from Aster Fall.

The rest was formed from the chaos winds of the Void.

Some Breaking or fluke of dimensional energy had brought this section of the world here, or perhaps created it from Aster Fall’s elemental auras, and mixed it with the Void.

Based on everything he knew about dimensional energy and the Void, there was only one answer that made sense.

The chaos winds of the Void could have done this...but only if they were tempered by Aster Fall’s presence and forced to gather together, sinking down into the World Seal for ages as they condensed into stone.

Like energy slowly falling into a hole.

The auras of Aster Fall had bled through to lower layers, and the chaos winds of the Void had flowed in as well, creating subdimensions that were like layers beneath Aster Fall.

Worlds upon worlds extending downward through the Seal.

Perhaps realms was a better term for them than worlds, since they were technically part of the dimensional structure of Aster Fall, just amorphous and unstable versions of it.

It seemed there were regions of the World Seal that had been turned into entire realms filled with Outsiders...they’d either found them or been forced into them, and from there, they had managed to survive.

Perhaps they had fallen into them originally when they tried to come through the Seal, or perhaps they’d been trapped in them another way, but there was no doubt that they were here.

These realms weren’t at the surface, but when the dimensional walls cracked, the Outsider essence they had was enough to create a Flaw through the dimensional barrier and they were able to leap through into the main world.

He wasn’t sure what resources they were able to find or how successful their lives were in these realms, but in some of them they were apparently able to scrape by as they honed themselves for their future escape.

Most likely, there was enough elemental energy in some of the realms that plants could grow, where heat and cold were able to combine with the wind to form weather systems, lightning and wood could combine to spark life...and more, all of it providing a way for the Outsiders to cling to existence.

When Aster Fall had been built, there were several subdimensions devoted to storing elemental essence, including pure Fire and Earth, Water and the rest, as a place to gather elements for the world.

It was possible that some of these realms had tapped into those primal dimensions as well, or that some of their energy had poured out and given rise to new lands.

He crumbled the stones in his hand as he let them drop back to the plain. Then he looked around, studying the sky and the dim wisps of flame that served as the sun here.

This realm was mostly free of Outsiders, which was why he’d chosen it as his first target for exploration. From what he could tell, it wasn’t that different from some of the realms that should be behind other Flaws.

There was a logic to them.

It made sense now how so many Outsiders came through, and how their numbers seemed to be endless.

This was...the World Seal was...their world.

Time and war had created something like an abyss of dimensional layers beneath Aster Fall, and he wasn’t sure if it would be possible to eradicate it. There could be hundreds of layers by this point, all of them filled with enemies.

There was no lack of space inside the World Seal.

These had to be what gave rise to some of the Flaws on the world, and they were probably the regions where some of the Church’s weaker Banishments sent Outsiders.

It was not good news, but it vastly expanded his understanding of what was going on and what really happened during a Breaking.

In some areas, sections of Aster Fall had broken off and fallen into the World Seal. In others, Aster Fall’s aura and the dimensional force of the World Seal had gathered free energy from the Void.

Where there was enough Earth element, that energy would eventually condense with the other elements to become land.

It was similar to how worlds formed in the Void sometimes, when a natural vortex of energy gathered elements from the chaos winds, but in this case it was like the Void had poured energy into the World Seal, turning it from an empty realm to one that had the foundation for life.

If it hadn’t been full of Outsiders, he would have been amazed with the wonder of it.

It was a miracle of the Void.

The elements were slowly creating a new world here, one that might even be hundreds of times larger than Aster Fall itself.

It was like Aster Fall was a rock hanging above an empty pool. All of the energy trapped by the World Seal was like silt gathering into that pool, which eventually, might become a garden.

It wasn’t there yet, but these realms were clearly nascent worlds, places where elemental energy could give rise to unique auras over time.

They might eventually become part of Aster Fall, creating an enormous dimensional foundation for the world as it hung in the Void...but at the moment it was a problem, since it meant the number of enemies inside the World Seal might be far greater than he’d hoped.

He wasn’t sure how to solve it besides destroying everything he found.

Now that he knew what was happening, he was unwilling to destroy entire realms.

The resources and natural auras of these dimensions might one day be beneficial to Aster Fall, and from the sense of the Flaws, it seemed like some of them might have already absorbed parts of the world into themselves, which made them something he was potentially obligated to protect...or at least to rebuild.

He wasn’t sure what to do with these realms, but he would have to think of them as part of the bigger picture.

For all his intention to preserve Aster Fall, he wasn’t going to destroy entire dimensions of potential life, even if they were full of Outsiders.

He made sure the Flaw he’d entered through was sealed before he teleported away, using his own power to pass through the dimensions as he returned to Aster Fall.

In his mind’s eye, the World Tree’s dimensional beacon shone brightly, guiding him home.

It didn’t take long before he stepped through the last dimensional wall and arrived in the sky above Veritan.

Below him, the World Tree was flourishing, continuing to grow at a massive rate as it absorbed energy from the World Core.

It was already half a mile tall and three miles wide, with wide sprawling branches that were slowly covering the entire capital.

On the ground near its roots, smaller saplings were sprouting, ones that would eventually form a new forest around it.

He looked around, studying the arrangement and the ley lines he’d connected to the tree to make sure everything was working.

As far as he could tell, there were no problems with its growth. The World Core was continuing to channel a vast amount of energy into it, helping it to grow swiftly.

He teleported higher into the air, close to where the upper air met the Void, and looked across the world below.

A powerful river of elemental energy was pouring into the World Tree from Aster Fall and the Void. It gathered around the tree’s leaves in golden rainbows, making the entire tree shine, and the trunk glowed with a rich radiance as runic patterns interlocked across its bark.

The dimensional stability offered by the tree was continuing to expand. He could feel it sinking into the world like roots stretching outward.

Soon, they would reach into the neighboring dimensions, anchoring them in relation to Aster Fall. With each step, the world would become more secure.

With his new understanding of the World Seal and the realms below, it made him wonder what the result would be.

Perhaps there was no way to change them.

Once the World Tree’s roots sank into those dimensions, they would become part of it...and removing them would damage the tree, as well as Aster Fall.

They would all be linked together in one great binding, with the World Tree as the axis at the center of it all.

If it had happened before those dimensions existed, the tree might have only sunk its roots into the elemental realms, from which it could draw nutrients to support itself.

Now it was different.

Those layers might one day be an endless challenge for the inhabitants of Aster Fall, or additional realms to help the world flourish.

It all depended on how he handled it.

His plans for the rebuilding of the World Seal would have to take them into account.

He turned his attention to the dimensional cracks left from the comet, studying the layout of Flaws across the world. Distant kingdoms were dealing with their own battles, but the farther out from Veritan, the easier time they had of it.

Aethra had been hit the hardest and it should have suffered under the burden. Normally, it would have, but thanks to the Legions of Ice and his own work, including the growing force of the World Tree and the Moonlight Relic, they had managed to reverse that fate.

It was now the most secure of all the regions.

The Legions of Ice had frozen a thousand Flaws in their tracks, he had personally crushed over two hundred, and his parents and allies had dealt with dozens more that were close to them, turning them into a grindstone for their growth.

They had activated the Sky Guard and were working with some of the new astral golems he’d created to crisscross the area in powerful search teams, earning Marks and experience.

The Dimensional Convergence that looked like it would once sweep across the relic and devastate the area seemed weak by comparison. It was still there, simmering on the edge of the dimension, but if any Flaw dared to appear, it would be torn apart.

The problem that had once kept him awake at night now looked like a training exercise.

Many more problems were out there, but that one at least, they had outgrown.

Unless an army of Fourth Evolution invaders broke through, things would be fine.

He continued to study the dimensional cracks across the world, focusing on areas where the World Core was slow to repair them. Those were the most significant, areas where its old battle damage prevented it from working at full strength.

There were some Flaws opening in the chaotic regions outside of the continent, but only a few. The ones that appeared out there would either dissolve in the flow of wild energy or some of the World Spirits who guarded those regions would deal with them.

That was one of their purposes, which he hadn’t known until recently. It was one of the reasons the World Core had adopted them. They helped to stabilize the dimension and to buffer elemental energy.

They were also warriors who fought against forces from the Void, like a Fourth or Fifth Evolution Void beast that wanted to get too close. They were a large part of why the world had survived in recent years.

The downside of becoming one was fusing your aura signature to Aster Fall, however. It meant you basically became part of the world and couldn’t leave, but it did give you a very long lifespan and it allowed you to slowly increase your level past 399.

Since your aura was fused with the world, it didn’t damage the World Seal, but there was a chance that your options at Level 400 and above would be more limited.

They were beings worthy of respect. They had sworn an oath of loyalty to their home that was no less than that of the Ice Sylphs.

Once the World Tree was fully grown, some of the burden would be taken off their shoulders.

He finished his study and then he looked into the Void, where he felt a streak of silver light approaching.

This time, it wasn’t an avatar, but his true body.

It had been a month since he left on the hunt, and that meant the time for the conclave was approaching. He gathered his power and his voice echoed out across the world.

“Let all who hope to transcend the World Limit come to the Moonlight Relic. The Conclave of the Moons begins in three days.”