[MA] 416. Lagoth (Patreon)

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[Chapters this week: 3/3

Next chapter: Tuesday]

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The place on the other side of the portal was very different from Flower City. It was called Treespire and, as its name implied, was a massive B+ tree miles wide and dozens of miles tall, shaped like a twisted spire. It had no branches or leaves except for a lettuce-shaped coming out from its very pointy top. The thing was even more expansive than the tree, casting a humongous shadow upon the surrounding grassland.

The tree had been extensively carved and used as a building, with countless doorways and window openings throughout its trunk. There was no external stairway for those incapable of flying to reach the upper floors, but there were some internal ones up to the thirtieth floor.

Flower City had been dominated by Gardener Sect members, but they were a minority in Treespire, a bustling commercial and military hub. People did a lot of business and trained on the lower floors. The upper half, however, was exclusive to the Gardener Sect and VIPs. There were homes and training areas there. More importantly, Shen unexpectedly discovered he couldn't see into the last ten floors.

Every floor was enchanted for multiple purposes, all at the B-tier. Shen had expected only Realizations or A-tier enchantments to block his Allvision, as his One Self could only be infiltrated by Realizations, but he had been wrong. The enchantments on the top floors felt like they were at the limits of the B-tier, similar to how Un'Re was a C+PEAK weapon when not boosted by his domain.

That mattered a lot because it confirmed that as special as Shen's current existence might be, some abilities that came with it were not rare enough for powerful forces to ignore them when protecting themselves. They knew about things like his Allvision and could defend against them.

Shen actually liked finding out about that. It reminded him not to get too full of himself. If someone could block his Allvision, they could likely also trick him into making him see what wasn't there. He knew he should confirm anything he felt with any sense with as many other senses as possible, but he had been trusting his Allvision a little too much.

The portal they came out of was one of hundreds of similar metal doorframes on the seemingly endless grassland surrounding Treespire. Unlike the single portal out of Flower City, each doorframe here had the name of the destination carved on it. Each portal led to another place in Lagoth or a different world. Unlike the portals on Flower City, these were made of liquid-ish blue light swirling around. People of all ranks moved freely to and from them.

"I thought inter-world travel was strictly controlled?" Shen asked.

E'livia smiled. "It is. People are checked by sect members and formations upon departure and arrival. We won't see anyone trying to sneak through. Trust me on that."

Shen hadn' t felt anything or anyone checking on him, but there were a couple of B-ranks on Treespire's upper floors looking down. Maybe E'livia's presence made them not scrutinize his identity, or perhaps they had done it, but he simply hadn't felt it.

"We'll need a guide to the Alchemy Guild," E'livia said as she flew to one of the doors to the thirtieth-first floor. It was also full of activity, but less than the non-flier floors below. "I never visited this place before."

Air traffic was heavy, with thousands upon thousands of C-ranks of multiple races and a few hundred B-ranks going everywhere. Reaching B-rank wasn't a walk in the park, so Shen was impressed with their numbers. He wondered how many cultivators the Myriad Worlds had.

The thirtieth-first floor was made of wood, as all others. It was barely furnished except for the one hundred wooden reception desks evenly spaced around the area, each manned by an early C-rank wearing the Gardener Sect's clothes. Yet, their enamel pins betrayed their low positions on the sect—if their job wasn't evidence enough. They were round wooden badges with a light gray world tree drawing.

"Are these people candidates or trainees?" Shen asked.

E'livia answered, "Kinda both, I think? I heard they passed a few tests and are being trained and further tested."

She was pretending not to be a sect member with insider knowledge. Who knew who was listening? Shen was definitely paying attention to the conversations around him to improve his Galan. Not that he heard anything even remotely interesting or useful.

He pointed out, "We didn't see people like them in Flower City."

"Small worlds can do with a small contingent, but big worlds require a lot of work."

"And the sect uses external help for that? Isn't that a door to bring politics into the sect?"

E'livia thought for a moment before replying, "You know that the first time anyone tries to join the sect is free, but that following attempts are paid, and each successive buy-in gets progressively more expensive, right?"

Shen didn't know that but nodded in case anyone was watching. A local was unlikely to be ignorant about it. "So?"

"Well, almost everyone tries to join at least once in their lifetime. Many do it at least a few times. In big places like Lagoth, you can draw lots to pay the fee with labor. It's a win-win. As for politics... They already passed some tests, I guess? And I'd bet the sect wouldn't be lenient on them. I doubt no one is watching."

Shen nodded. That made sense. "It's easier to have only one official sect member watching over everyone here than filling the table with sect members. And it trains the watcher to supervise others."

It wasn't E'livia who answered, but a peak C-rank who landed right next to them. It was a male naga with a bronze pin over his clothes. He had no hair on his body, but countless golden and red piercings on his scalp kind of simulated it. He also had silver piercings on his nose and ear slits. Everything he wore was C+ rank, and Shen wondered how expensive his "hair" was and what uses it had.

"You're correct," the guy said as he cupped his muscular fish-y hands before himself and nodded. Unlike most snake people, he didn't drag the "S" sound when speaking. Instead, his speech was almost as sharp as his double teeth rows, marked and abrupt, contrasting with his jovial and pleasant voice. "I'm Sharan, an Outer Disciple. I work here to gain merit points and experience. You two aren't registered as having taken the test before. If you take it now, I'll gain a lot of merit. I will pay ten low-purity crystals for each of you to take the test. Are you interested?"

"No, thanks," Shen said, walking and ignoring the guy's presence.

E'livia followed in silence. Shen felt Sharan's eyes widen in surprise at the blunt rejection, but instead of getting upset, he sighed and flew away.

"He gave up easily enough," he commented to E'livia. "I expected him to ask for a duel or attack me or something."

The holin blushed a little. "I heard some unproven high-level sect members can be a bit entitled. But that's not the norm. And there's a reason unproven sect members don't work with the public unsupervised."

Shen raised an eyebrow as he looked at her and she nodded. They came to an understanding with that look: she had confirmed that the only reason she had been allowed to leave the sect after messing up was Shen being there to oversee her actions. Shen guessed that him being the one who asked for it had also helped, as he was the one she had tried to kill.

He changed the subject. "Well, that confirmed a sect member is paying attention to everything here. And I guess someone stronger is supervising him and many others."

"Probably."

They reached an empty table and asked how to get to the closest Alchemy Guild branch. The attendant directed them to the fiftieth-sixth floor.

"Does the Alchemy Guild belong to the Gardener Sect?" Shen asked as he and E'livia left the floor and flew up.

"Not usually," she replied. "I'm as surprised as you to hear that's the case here."

"You don't sound that surprised."

"Well, I'm surprised at different things. It's not like something like this is unheard of, but the sect only takes over an organization in a world if it does something very nasty, and I was told nothing interesting ever happens in Lagoth. Also, the sect only takes control of some organizations, and I didn't know the Alchemist Guild was eligible. But the strangest part is that such takeovers should be temporary, but it doesn't feel like that's the case here."

They were halfway to their destination. Shen asked, "Why is that?"

"Getting any external organization into a Garden City is complex and takes a very long time. The Guild has a branch here, so this has been going on for a while—"

She was interrupted by an inverse explosion. Sound seemed to be sucked in a single direction. It was fortunately on the opposite side of the big tree, but Shen's Allvision allowed him to see the infinitesimally small Void hole sucking all sound.

More importantly, he identified it for the diversion it was and grabbed E'livia while deploying his domain and running as far away from Treespire as he could.

E'livia didn't ask anything. She realized his intention a moment later and deployed her domain, then teleported them hundreds of miles away. Well, she tried. A bubble of Void Energy suddenly surrounded the tree and the region a few dozen miles away, cutting her domain off and preventing all teleportation in the enveloped region.

Shen looked at the Void Energy and felt nothing wrong. He credited it to his One Self. He kept flying towards it, hoping he could physically escape.

The few miles Shen managed to run away were enough to place him in an advantageous position as seventeen Void Insertion Points appeared around Treespire. None were further away from the tree than they were, so they were safer than almost anyone else.

Not that the Gardener Sect members were likely to agree. They were running into the tree, trusting its defenses. But Shen didn't think the Void would attack a Garden City without a card in their sleeves to deal with its defenses.

"We need to help," E'livia said while Shen carried her away from Treespire.

"Are passersby obligated by law to help?" Shen asked.

E'livia bit her lower lip and shook her head. Her mission was to protect him, which evidently superseded any duty to help Treespire. She could only let him take her away.

Yet, Shen sighed and stopped running away.

E'livia was his only friend. He wouldn't force her to abandon a place and people she cared about for his safety. At least not until he was sure he was in mortal danger. 

"Let's help, then," he said, flying towards the tree. "But stay close. Please. I don't want to lose you." She looked thankful at him and nodded, broke free from his grip, got a few steps away, and took her armor from her spatial treasure.

Shen himself didn't take Un'Re from his soul. It would destroy any attempts at disguising himself. But he had a lot of qi and a domain; it should be enough.

He formed a spear of qi and rushed towards the closest Void Insertion Point. Feeling the Void with his domain was like feeling a hole in his senses, nothing more. It was similar to how his Allvision could see nothing in there, and his meta-senses felt nothing.

E'livia's face showed discomfort, though, and it didn't look like it was just because she was worried about Treespire. His One Self had made him immune to the pain of looking at absolute nothingness, though his mind still couldn't comprehend it, and it just looked like materialized darkness.

The Insertion Points were big masses of Void Energy. They tried to spit moving creatures into the world but had trouble with it. Each creature resembled an animal enveloped in a placenta bag, trying to claw its way out, but the placenta resisted it.

Everyone but Shen and E'livia were running to Treespire, including the people further away from the tree than then and the Gardener Sect's B-ranks.

"There's no holin in this place," Shen said as E'livia returned to his side. "How will the sect do the ritual to close the Insertion Points?"

"The Points haven't Ignited yet!" she replied. "The world's defenses are resisting them! They aren't even graded until they do something! We can Counter-Materialize their existence before then!"

"How the hell do we do that?"

"You can't! Oh. Wait! Pierce the Void with a limb and push your domain inside it! Use your Ideal to make it deteriorate; it might work! And use that special skill of yours while at it, too!"

So, use his domain's ideal and Absolute Horizon to make the Void disappear. Shen estimated the odds of that backfiring were about 500%. He went for it anyway.

It wasn't a suicidal action as much as he had come to trust E'livia to know more than him and save him as long as it didn't jeopardize her sect. He found he liked trusting someone. It was comfy.

They split apart to each reach a Void Insertion Point. By then, seventeen B-ranks finally emerged from the tree, positioned in the directions of each Point. And yet, they didn't move. They just stood there, watching.

"Why aren't they helping?" Shen yelled to E'livia.

"I don't know!" E'livia yelled back.

Shen reached his target before E'livia did and pushed his hand into the ball of Void Energy. He felt nothing. But his domain felt something that shouldn't be there. A deep, deep hole without end. His domain barely touched its shallow surface, yet he knew it was the deepest Abyss ever.

"There you are," a grumpy old male voice said. "I've been waiting for you, boy. I knew you weren't dead."

His hand felt matter, and the Heavenly Lightning in his heart went crazy. Almost all the electricity rushed furiously towards what he had touched. The thing disintegrated, and Shen heard a draconic roar of anguish.

That wasn't all; the Heavens were pissed at that creature for finding Shen.

Pure white lightning bolts pierced the Void bubble surrounding Treespire, and it faded into nothingness, revealing the angry clouds covering the skies and the millions of Void Spawn that covered the horizon. The lightning ignored all of it and went into the Void Insertion Point. They were targeting the creature.

Alas, the Point didn't resist the ire of the Heavens and popped out like a balloon. The white lightning went to the next Insertion Point, and it also disintegrated. It kept going until every Void Insertion Point was gone.

Then, it paused for a moment, then shot straight at Shen. It anchored itself in his heart. This lightning was stronger than what had been there before and pained him, but it wasn't anything impossible to ignore. It wasn't like he could do anything but withstand it, after all.

E'livia and most people fleeing to the tree were looking stupefied at Shen or scared at the Void Spawn that had just appeared. The B-ranks frowned at Shen.

Shen ignored them all and rushed at the Void Spawn.

He hated them.

He hated them with a force and fury he couldn't explain.

He would kill them all.

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