His family spent a while together, none of them having anywhere to go until the next day. At some point, Perumah stopped in as well after returning both the cloak and professionally made artifacts she’d commissioned along the way.
She managed to convince Luke to give her twenty incredibly well-made sets of clothing in modern Earth fashion, all of them some shade of red or black. While Luke didn’t actually owe her anything, Dei was sure he’d done so simply from how happy he was at the success of her expedition.
Perumah had picked up a few sets of clothing while they ventured, and this would only add to her growing collection. Dei noted that she liked shorts and T-shirts most because they allowed for more mobility and for her roots to expand without damaging them as easily, though dresses and other fancy outfits were not out of the question if they went somewhere combat would be unlikely- only if it was unnecessarily complicated though, with eight or nine steps to put it on. She said such articles must showcase her traditionally feminine traits while subtly conveying that she put a lot of effort into her appearance, thus allowing her to take pride in it, similar to creating a painting.
He translated it to “Regular clothes must be quick and functional, ‘Going out’ clothes must be insanely complex for no reason.”
‘I feel like that’s the exact train of thought Sophie and mom use. Are women telepathically communicating across the multiverse?’
At this point? He wouldn’t even be surprised.
* * *
The next day, they decided to part temporarily. Dei had things he needed to check on around Earth, but he said he’d be back to see them one last time before leaving for Avium. Perumah said she’d take the chance to check on her own projects, which worried him but he didn’t pry.
The first thing he checked on were the potential calamities he was responsible for, the Void users.
* * *
Floating high above, he watched Solaire go toe-to-toe with a car-sized monstrosity, and realized this was the first time he’d seen one of the magical dangers of Earth.
It was a swimming collection of blades, barb wire, spearheads and other sharp metal objects. Coated in viscera, it was clear this thing had already taken victims before Solaire arrived to battle it.
Its amorphous form surrounded and punched towards Solaire, but Dei watched the man roll across the ground, phasing through the attack.
‘That’s ridiculous’ he thought, but couldn’t stop the smile tugging at his face.
Doing some research, he found that Solaire’s fights were always the most popular to watch, if they were recorded, because he was always very showy and ridiculous, calling out one-liners.
Levi was doing well for himself, and Dei could offer no help, so he moved on to Japan.
* * *
While it was around nine in the morning in America, it was closing in on midnight in Japan. He was glad for the time difference, because Yoshiko only worked at night, and now was the time.
He didn’t get to see her fight a monster, but he caught her prowling figure patrolling through the alleys and was surprised to see she was only remotely human now.
Donning a mask and kimono, she held needles at the ready, teleporting from shadow to shadow as she remained hidden but present.
After a few minutes he saw her pause and flew down slightly to get a better look, only for her to launch herself up to the rooftops and throw needles out at Dei, despite his hidden form.
He became tangible and caught her weapons, before tossing them back haphazardly while she froze at his reveal. He’d already transformed into the World that Walks form, so she recognized him as the one that’d met with her at the beginning.
She bowed and said something in Japanese which he took as apologizing profusely, so he laughed, waved her off, and flew away.
He supposed having a way to detect others with magic would be imperative to protecting the population.
Surprisingly, there was nothing he could find online about Yoshiko, all the attention being focused on openly government-backed figures, though from what he saw these were more performative than functional.
* * *
Germany comes next, and it’s actually three in the afternoon for them. He finds Karl not battling some monster or using incredible powers, but interviewing some minor celebrity on his show. It’s clear he’s controlling the flow of the conversation expertly, the social aspects Void gave him coming in handy.
Dei isn’t going to be able to learn much about Karl’s more exciting life from here, so he’s forced to do all his research online, and it’s thankfully easy to get videos of the man almost every day with how bombastic he is.
If Levi is Lawful Good and Yoshiko is Neutral Good, Karl is absolutely Chaotic Good.
In the videos, Karl always appears as a cackling old man carried by swarms of rats, bursting from sewers and fleeing down them before he’s caught. He doesn’t just fight monsters, though he does do that, but he also tries to do good in arguably damaging ways.
There was a pub online with connections to the criminal underground, so Karl and his rats chewed it down to the foundation. There are videos of him helping, of him tearing boards out of the walls and chewing them up, then spitting out the wood chips.
‘I couldn’t have picked three better candidates.’
* * *
Next came Agartha and all the different potential hazards he’d created, but mainly his Personal Land Betweens.
He met up with Luke, and was guided to “His” temple, talking about the different things they’d learned about his affinity.
“It’s not a purely beneficial thing,” Luke told him, “There must always be a cost, something lost for something gained- though that is debatable. The most common I’ve seen is time lost for something gained, such as training specifically with intent to improve one’s connection to affinity. If it’s done like this though, there will always be pain involved. Alternatively, someone can feed the connection pieces of themselves to show a dedication to improvement, which is less harmful than it sounds. For example… and try not to judge too harshly… but we had a Gluttony user swear off human flesh, and the affinity responded. Supposedly, he will either die or be severely hurt if he ever breaks his vow to your affinity. In exchange, he receives help in suppressing the urge, though it is not fully gone: your affinity believes a struggle is required for true improvement.
“Ah, also, have you come up with a name for it? Its official title is just… the Dei affinity.”
Dei called up Ashvorn to display his Personal affinity, seeing that the name hadn’t changed since the last time he’d checked; right now, it was called the “Forge of War” affinity, according to his Achievement.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
He knew this wouldn’t be the final iteration of it, as it still felt incomplete, but that was irrelevant to right now. By the time it became relevant to Earth, it’s likely most people would forget about him, so he could be inaccurate if he wanted to.
“Call it the Warforged affinity,” he finally told Luke, and the man looked thoughtfully off into space, contemplating Dei’s decision and seemingly agreeing with it.
When they arrived at Dei’s affinity temple, the Warforged temple, Dei assessed the Land Between he’d created a little over two months ago and found it surprisingly lacking. It was positively simple compared to what he had now.
For some reason, he’d expected it to change or grow alongside him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Anyone else may have struggled to look deeper into it, but for Dei, it was an open book.
He found it to be a mirror into his previous self, someone starting on their journey but clearly inexperienced.
He found it to be little more than a foundation, with confusion and blurriness where more complete abilities should be. Frankly, he considered it a miracle anyone had earned anything from this.
“May I alter it?” he asked Luke.
“How so?”
“To bring it up to date. I think I can make it more powerful than it is now.”
“Then yes. It’s a centerpiece in our ongoing research on how to permanently cure affinity overload, so I simply wanted to be sure we would still have access to it.”
Dei nodded in understanding, then held his hand out, closing his eyes.
There was a perpetual soul-deep ache ever since earning Command, but that was nothing new.
Ever since his domain became tangible, Dei gained the ability to directly produce Null mana, and did so now as well. Because of the pain, he thought he would have a limited amount but… Command was a very tempering state. Eighty percent rested in his current body was far greater than one hundred percent rested as he was before, letting him produce tens of thousands of strongly defined points of mana before he called it off, pouring them into the Land Between.
The space glowed a dull gray, but Dei noticed a subtle hint of orange and black for barely a moment, just before it disappeared. He would’ve thought he imagined it, if not for his perfect memory.
Luke watched it all attentively, smiling when he felt the tangible change in the Warforged Land Between.
Wiping sweat from his brow, Dei said “Now then, where is Victoria?”
* * *
Dei found that the second Void user he’d ever attuned had pushed far past what Dei expected her to. Not only was she able to teleport, she’d found a way to stabilize the connection, creating two warped spaces that allowed someone to walk in one, then coexist in both.
It wasn’t exactly a portal though, as a mundane person without the Void affinity couldn’t pull themselves outside the other end. If they wanted to teleport between two places, they would need someone on the other side to grab them and yank them through.
Victoria managed to link two points in space, creating a situation where someone existed in both, until they were interacted with and proved to be in that particular place, a “Schrodinger’s portal.”
‘The System was right, Void is so stupidly janky, but it’s also incredible. If I wanted simple transportation, I’d have gotten Space.’
Victoria’s new issue was finding places to actually put these portals, but that was something easily remedied considering Earth’s newest allies… Dwarves.
Walking down the hall, Dei heard Thadria, Jacob, and Victoria talking in a room, alongside two deep guttural ones that tickled his memory.
Popping his head in, he saw Yalda and her husband getting belligerently drunk while yammering on excitedly about all the strides dwarfkind had made in the past few years.
Knocking on the door, all heads turned to him and he waved, the two dwarves eyeing him suspiciously while the other three smiled at him.
Jacob was the first to inform her of who he was. “Yalda, this is Dei, the monster that fought off Cralok.”
She continued to glare at him, looking him up and down and saying “You shrunk.”
* * *
Despite the initial prickliness at a stranger joining their table, the dwarves did welcome him in, repeating all the achievements that’d taken place in the last few months.
They were most proud of their artifacts that’d managed to cut into the raw fabric and sent rockets out towards Earth in search of The Champion’s protection. It was a psychotically reckless endeavor which surprised everyone when they succeeded without even a single mortality, but that was mostly luck.
Humans, mainly Victoria, started working with dwarves to create a more consistent passage between. It was only last week that the dwarves figured out a way to imbue Victoria's Void affinity into an anchor, ferry it back to Caps, place it, and let her create a permanent linked point between the two planets, allowing for safe travel.
The alliance wasn’t public knowledge yet, but it would be soon- especially with what Dei was about to do.
“I think we can create a permanent patch for mana overload,” Dei told the room, “I have access to a fringe planet within Edit’s domain. I can take Victoria to this planet and let her drop an anchor, but the rest will be up to Earth because I have no real way to stop the different laws of nature from ripping someone apart, that’ll be up to all of you. If you do manage it though, it’ll be easy to send patients round-trip and simply let them alleviate any pressure on their bodies. As I understand it, there’s already an active effort into this kind of thing using my Personal affinity temple, but having more options can never be bad.”
Both Luke and Victoria agreed, and Victoria was equipped with the Cosmic Cloak of the Sage’s Travels, the very one Perumah returned; their trip to and from Edit went without a hitch.
Dei wasn’t worried about Victoria or anyone else getting caught in a Void trap because they all seemed to exist exclusively within Edit’s domain, and that nowhere near where Dei dropped them off. If it was possible to intercept the portals like they could a Roving Gate, it still wouldn’t happen to Victoria.
Before he knew it, the work day was over and it was time to go back home to his family. He offered for Jacob to meet them, but the man declined, saying he had his own to speak with as well.
The talk of Jacob never seeing them again made Dei think of the Aias the eighth elven king and Loraine the seventh elven queen. On the way to his family’s house, he sent a voice into Loraine’s head, knowing she was the only one qualified to make decisions for their populace.
“Loraine, it’s time to make a decision,” he said with all the finality he could muster. “Will your people follow me into the quarantine, potentially to be locked with us for… ever. Or must I take you to a more peaceful planet for you to colonise.”
Lorraine, for her part, delegated her assistants to take over for her while she returned to her home, sitting at her table alone in contemplative silence.
“What will happen when you die? What happens to this universe?” she asked finally.
“I have a child, Ashvorn, with claim to it. Should I die, it will inherit your world.”
“What will happen when they die?”
“I don’t believe System’s age, but if they are killed? I don’t know. I can only imagine your souls will be ejected and you will pass on.”
“How will we create our bodies? How will we move out?” it wasn’t accusatory, but genuinely curious.
“I know a Leviathan I am confident will assist you in becoming spirits, if you choose to.”
“Will we still be elves?”
“Are you now?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“Then I don’t know.”
She lapsed into another silence, then sighed. “We will go in. Even if we could have other bodies and if we could stay elves, we would not run from this fight. Based on all you’ve told us about quarantine, it is only in this battlefield of the strongest that our full potential may be found. I am… tired, Dei. We all are. But our children won’t be. We need to give them that option, the chance to become the best version of themselves they can be. I want you to promise me that Ashvorn will have a safeguard as well, that it will create a fallback plan in the case of its demise.”
Dei turned his eyes on the System, seeing it read through his memories and watch the exchange through his eyes. It nodded at him.
“Ashvorn says it will. It will ensure your safety, should it inherit your planet.”
“Then we will stay, and we will guide the next generation into finding their wings.”
Dei couldn’t help but be relieved. Though it was tragic he was practically conscripting the entire trapped planet, this was what Loraine wanted, to engineer a situation where her people would be the best they could ever become; with them, came Thadria. With her, came Jacob, the immortal soldier.
He phased through his family’s door, seeing that both his parents and Perumah were home, and turned his thoughts away from the war effort. This was the last time he’d ever see Earth, so just for tonight, he’d forget about the Armageddon waiting for him on Avium.
Tomorrow he would return to his birthplace, find Iora, and rip her apart.
