Tree of Aeons (an Isekai Story)

332. Relic III

Year 307

The Sun-Rings

“Where’s the demon king?” Roon asked, almost as if taunting them. And yet, there wasn’t any reaction. The world of the Sun-Rings, the twin Rings each moved at its own speed like the rings on a gyroscope. In some ways, they were similar to the Three Ringed world and naturally invited the question whether these two worlds were related. 

But it didn’t take long for us to realize there were several critical differences.

Three Ringed World had three rings as default. 

The rings were a creation that came together with that realm. The Sun-Rings, on the other hand, were truly artificial. They were a construct meant to draw the mana from the world’s sun and convert them into void mana.

The mages were busy installing and testing gigantic constructs, filled with crystals and magical formations, these were meant to map out the magical currents flowing deep underneath the Sun-Rings’ surface. Hundreds and thousands of such constructs were built over the past year, tested, and now finally deployed en-masse.

This was the strength of the Order’s magical military industrial complex in full display, which gathered resources from multiple worlds to feed its constantly growing need.

These things would not be possible without our expansion to Delvegard and the other worlds. The Sunsteel and Sunmetals could be tuned to be sensitive to the flow of void mana underneath the Sun-Rings, while the anti-magic glass from the anti-magical demon world was helpful to tune out unnecessary influences. 

“So, is this finally supposed to work?” The domain holders gathered to finally see the first few data points. We set up a mobile base on the nearby demonworld and used it to collect all the information transmitted by the magical crystals. 

“Yes. It should. The last bits are going in now.” Stella pointed as a batch of crystals were sent back to Treehome. One of the hurdles we faced was the manual data collection process. Our mages had to visit each and every device to retrieve the magical crystals. These magically shielded crystals stored all the data collected by the magical sensors. 

There were already magical crystals capable of using [message] to transmit their stored and collected data, and with the help of Alka’s [crystalline computers], they could perform fairly decent work of collecting data on other worlds. 

But the Sun-Rings were not ordinary places, because there was so much void mana, and these void mana often eroded the quality of [messages] such that magical communication was unreliable and distorted.

One alternative, of course, was to use [Artificial souls] on each and every of these data points, but it was a fairly wasteful way of using artificial souls on these things, since [artificial souls] were destroyed once these data collection artifacts were deconstructed later, mainly to recover their relatively valuable Sunsteel and Sunmetals. 

This was expected to be a single, short term exercise, and so manual collection it was. The data collected would be uploaded and then digested by Patreeck. 

“Right. That’s the last one. Any amendments to the analysis?” Stella asked the artificial mind that served as Patreeck’s interface. 

“No, Lady Stella.” The supermind titan quickly tapped into my other abilities to project the initial findings. We didn’t quite understand the mechanism of the Sun-Rings, but the compilation of our data points suggested that the flow of magic underneath the Sun-Rings created a powerful magical field that stripped the sun’s mana and turned it into void mana. 

A magical formation at the scale of suns and stars

The exact mechanism was still under study, but Stella's intuition was that it was tampering with some fundamental quality of mana. Like how that Princess of Baroosh from so many centuries ago accidentally turned some normal mana into void mana, not dissimilar from how many of our own void mages created void mana and drew void mana from our surroundings. 

Alka looked at Stella and asked the obvious question. “Can we weaponize this? This formation may not be of demonic origins, even if they’ve claimed it and are using the void mana created for their own purposes to feed their black sun.” 

“As a weapon...” Stella sat and agreed. “Possible. We may have to reconfigure the structure of the Sun-Rings’s inner patterns, but once our mages create models of these Sun-Rings at smaller scales, we can try to tamper with them. The formations and patterns should scale.” 

“Should.” Roon and Johann both said at the same time.

“That’s how magic works, boys. We think of something that might work, then we try it out. We learn something either way.” Stella countered.

Lausanne, who popped in and was eager to test out Lightwood. “More importantly, when are we going into the dungeons?” The magical scanning artifacts also revealed the presence of a subterranean labyrinth located on the far side of the Sun-Rings, a place we only visited on the surface during our first few visits. 

“Someone’s eager to test out her new toy.” Roon teased.

“I am not a toy.” Lightwood spoke, making Roon blush.

“I’m not gonna get used to that.” The ranger replied, embarrassed.

***

The entrance to the Sun-Rings’ inner chambers was exceptionally difficult conventionally. There was no opening large enough for anyone to go through. 

But Lumoof’s ability to extend roots meant we could get around these size restrictions and teleport individuals from one end of his roots to the other. It was a fairly slow process, thus not very practical in most combat situations, but it got the domainholders through to the labyrinth.

“Well, we’re here.”

The place was unlit, but even with light, there were no defenders. It was a lifeless place filled with ancient structures long since abandoned. 

Things in this chamber were hardly exposed to the outside world, and the domain holders had to pull in their presence. It was so easy for their aura to accidentally touch something and trigger something else. The air tasted metallic and felt as if it was drained of all life. 

All around us were just ancient buildings and corpses. Corpses were all dried out, but somehow incredibly well preserved.

“These- I don’t know how old these are.” Lausanne used a magical stick and tried to gently poke one of the corpses. “They look like dwarves. How’d they die?”

“There’s no air or natural substances to erode them.” Roon said as he squatted next to one of such corpses. “Do you think they choked?”

All of the corpses looked strangely peaceful. As if they were put to sleep.

“It’s as if they are kept in a sterile, vacuum packed place and whatever was within their bodies just died instantly.” Stella said. “Well, let’s keep moving.”

The chambers eventually led to a series of long empty homes. 

Further in, we discovered more corpses and noticed they were not dwarves. Human corpses. Elven. Lizardfolks. There were many races that had lived here. Lumoof and Hoyia both checked out their attire and suspected that they were priests.

We’d not seen Erasian priests prior to this, but it was the dirty long, flowing robes around the floor, and the strangely preserved altars within the few buildings we passed by that suggested that this place was filled with priests.

Everything seemed frozen in time, we were the only new thing to even enter this place in eons. 

“Look at this.” Roon hopped as they reached a larger building that looked like a canteen. There were tables and chairs, cups and plates. Many were untouched, as if their denizens just died suddenly. “Maybe there used to be some kind of air-producing crystals. Or something just killed all living things while leaving their bodies behind.”

“There should be books or something. Personal belongings of these dead people.” Lausanne said. 

“Do we want to do that? Really? Should we call in the [archivists] so that we can at least prevent ourselves from tampering with these potentially historic artifacts?” Roon said as he then wandered to one of the shelves. They were in surprisingly good condition, and within them were more cups and plates. There was a storage area behind the canteen that still contained food, stored in magically sealed containers. 

“I’m tempted to open them.” Stella looked at them. Their contents were all dried out, and the containers clearly used to have magic. Whatever magic in them faded, and its protective effects were long gone. 

“I came expecting a dungeon, but I guess I’m happy that this isn’t really a dungeon.” Alka smiled, relieved. “It feels more like a city, though it does seem sad that us dwarves are frequently found in such dead underground cities.” 

There were more corpses as the domainholders reached deeper into the chambers, and we saw signs and more buildings of different functions. There were at least ten thousand corpses all over the central chamber, and we realized this area once went by a different name, Saleras, the Gate of Eras.

The words were carved onto the steel walls of their largest building. “So this place really was built by Eras.” 

Evil god or divine prisoner, we were not exactly sure which. Most of the buildings were housing, some for food, and some for crafts. 

But then in one of the largest buildings in the heart of the chambers, there was a series of stairs that led beneath the building.

At the heart of a large underground chamber, was a large circular ring, with multiple control panels on a table-like platform next to it.

The style and carvings were different, but it was not hard for us to know what it was. 

“A rift gate.” Alka hopped and noticed the unusual dwarven tickmarks on its structure. It was made by dwarves, in some way or form. 

“It’s perfectly preserved.” Stella didn’t really care who made them. She instead went to the panel and quickly discovered something more important. “It has the void sea address of the Core Erasian Worlds. There’s five of them.”

Edna hopped over and joined Stella to go through the details on the Erasian Gates. They were linked to five worlds, each named The Forge of Eras, the Crucible of Eras, the Library of Eras, the Bestiary of Eras, and the Store of Eras. 

The other domain holders, like Lausanne, investigated the other parts of that chamber. She soon found records. “This place looks like it used to document who passed through these gates.” 

The dates didn’t make sense to us. It was a series of numbers, but because no one ever used those date conventions, we didn’t know how different they were relative to us. It was like earthings using the year 2025 while these ancient dwarves used Erasian Year 103,204. We didn’t know how these two dates lined up. 

“There’s a lot of priests and warbands. And crafters.” Lausanne said, reading through these historical documents. Roon looked at her and frowned.

“You shouldn’t be touching those. They are historical!” Roon said. Somehow, it was the ranger that was most sucked into the whole historical preservation movement. 

Alka merely frowned. If it was some other people’s sacred relics and historical documents, then yes, they needed to deal with it with velvet gloves, but these things were just left here untouched for eons. 

“Someone’s got to look at them someday.” Lausanne countered. “And I’m using all the necessary protection!”

The domain holders were each equipped with special gloves, just in case we had to deal with historical objects. It was a concern I found rather silly. Adventurers entered dungeons and old ruins all the time and concern for the preservation of their historical value was probably the last thing on our mind. 

We dived dungeons in order to obtain resources and materials. 

Lausanne ignored the bickering and then continued to read. “I think there must be a diary or something somewhere.” It was quite a miracle that even after so much time, the language remained readable till today. It was one of the great benefits of the [system].

Next to the chamber that housed the ancient rift gates was a temple. An actual gigantic temple in honor of their creator, Eras.

But what was truly important was the story carved into the walls of the main chamber. The tale of the god creating the Sun-Rings was told through painted carvings, of how the Sun used to be unused. Then Eras arrived, a golden dwarven man with a golden pickaxe and tools. 

Here, the paint on the walls was perfectly preserved. Eras was depicted in a sheen of gold, and I wondered whether that was a motif common among all the gods. 

Even Hawa took the form of a golden knight.

“I don’t think it’s gold.” Lausanne said to Lumoof, but she was speaking to me.

“It’s not?”

“I think it just appears gold, like an aura that has color. To those creating a recreation of their god, maybe gold is just the closest substitute they have to the majesty of the gods.” 

The paintings then depicted a series of great constructions, of how metals were pulled out of nowhere, and then forged into the Sun-Rings. Here, it was clear that the Sun-Rings was one of many. The depictions had six sets of Sun-Rings, each occupying a specific distance away from the true heart of Erasian lands.

At its center was the Crucible of Eras, the heart of the Eras controlled lands. 

“This lines up, roughly with the map I found elsewhere, but it’s- it’s stretched.” Stella said. “The distances are a bit off. Probably the drift over time. But that’s not a good place to be.”

“Why?” Lumoof looked at her.

“It’s where the Black Sun is. The demon’s prison.”

“Well, then why not fire up the Erasian Rift Gate and see whether we can get past?” Lumoof’s eyes brightened up. “We could hit them quickly and bring an end to this.”

“I can’t. The barrier prevents the Erasian gates from functioning.” Stella countered. “The rift gate doesn’t circumvent the void barrier. Besides, do you even think we are ready for that thing?”

“We have to be, someday. We might as well push it and see where we land. With our immortality-”

“I don’t fear death. I fear not being able to get back.” Stella countered. “The demons can interfere with some domain abilities, especially if they have the power of divinity on their hands.”

The rest of the temple was filled with more carvings of the history of the place, and then, past the main chamber, there was a map. 

It was held in a crystal and the moment Lumoof approached it, the crystal glowed. 

The crystal then projected a three dimensional magical map of Erasian territories. There were five glowing lights, which I suspect represented the five Core Erasian Worlds, and a series of other smaller worlds, all with golden yellow lights. Then, there were six other ring-shaped glowing lights, and with their position, we assumed them to be the six Sun-Rings of Eras. Then there were places in other colors. Blue. Red. Green. 

“Oh. Looks like Eras made it easier for us.”

“Oh. Not just that.” Stella absolutely realized what it meant. “It means it’s possible to travel to the other Sun-Rings from this Sun-Ring. The six Sun-Rings form a network and are entangled together.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? We can use the Sun-Rings to get closer to these other colors. My gut feeling is that these are the other gods’ territories.”

Stella gulped, unsure whether that was a good idea. But she closed her eyes briefly, and then gathered her courage. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

***

But Hawa called for us anyway.

“It is ready. But come alone.”

As Lumoof arrived on Satrya, Hawa came alone. There was not a single person here, not in the nearest town. “You’re alone, this time.”

“Lesser beings cannot stand to be in the presence of this object. Their hearts would be crushed. Keep it safe. Somewhere far away and uninhabited.”

He held, in his golden hands, a tiny, tiny silver colored ball, but I could tell that it contained far more divine energies than anything I’d ever seen. There were no fancy ornaments or anything. Just a single solid ball, with a small button. 

Even the system recognized it for the extent of power.

[Divine Superweapon - Hawan Shieldbreaker]

[Made from the condensed will of divine faith, this small silver ball contains a huge amount of energy and power of Hawa meant for breaking of the great demonic barrier. This object is capable of inflicting great destruction, destroying entire realms and realms that are nearby. In order to prevent misuse, it is now spiritually bound to Aeon and the avatar Lumoof. Prior to activation, it is recommended that the entire realm is evacuated. Aeon and Lumoof are able to activate the bomb remotely.] 

“Beautiful thing.” Lumoof said. “It scares me.”

“It should.”

“We were exploring the Sun-Rings and found ruins dedicated to Eras. Do you remember a time when the demon lands belonged to Eras?”

“Faintly. The position of our worlds shifted, and I hardly interacted with that god.”

“Do you think he is evil?”

“I do not subscribe to the term all that much. Even if my priests preach it every day. Evil is relative. The concepts of morality very much depend on the nature of each world and its societies. They are meaningless to someone outside that society.”

“Ah. I am not here to debate on philosophy today.” Lumoof smiled as Hawa stepped closer. “Perhaps I should be more specific. Do you think Eras wanted to destroy the known world?”

“For that, I do not think so. Eras was a god of experimentation and discovery. Knowledge. Maybe his curiosity caused him to create things he shouldn’t have, but I do not believe a god so devoted to discovery and knowledge sought to destroy the world.”

“That is good to hear. At least, maybe the demons are just some experiment gone wrong.”

“Perhaps, a series of divine experiments gone wrong, by multiple gods.” Hawa continued. Perhaps it is not Eras who created them, but they had somehow managed to usurp or control Eras’ power.

Hawa finally handed the ball to Lumoof, and even he handled it gently, as if it was the most fragile thing in the world.

“To crush a demonic comet, I use one twentieth of what’s needed for this.” Hawa repeated. “This weapon can annihilate entire realms and some. Maybe more. Use it for the barrier and nothing else. I leave the choice of when to use it to you. It is registered to your spirit, so that no one else can use it.”

“Are you ready for what we will unleash on the world?” Lumoof held the ball in his hand and felt like his spirit was warped by the amount of power in it. 

“No. But we will deal with what comes. End the status quo, Aeon.”

Lumoof looked at the ball, and we shared a swirling dilemma in our heart. When do we destroy the barrier?