Even as I gathered my mana to respond to the sudden flood of necrotic mana, I was thanking my luck that I hadn’t converted the Divine Spark I had collected earlier into Stats but left it with the Divine Forest.
If I hadn’t, I might have been forced to create a shield around the Tree of Life and retreat inside to protect Seldanna and abandon the rest of the plane.
It sounded absurd,, but the amount of Necrotic mana they were channeling using the tunnel was simply that suffocating, the kind that was counted in hundreds of millions by the measurement of the System.
Ironically, the only reason it didn’t obliterate everything immediately was the structure of the magical pathway. It was strong enough to survive the stress of the planar border, therefore it was strong enough not to shatter under the great flood of Necrotic mana, limiting their throughput.
Still, it was enough to be measured in hundreds of thousands for each second, a huge version of the river that I had dealt with when I first arrived. Naturally, the response was the same. I did my best to create a huge ward. It was a crude one, but against an unrolled wave of mana, elegance was not what the ward was supposed to display.
Resilience was.
Even though it was simple, the ward had three layers. First, the outermost layer; made from a mixture of Nature Spark and Nature Mana.
{-500 Nature Spark, God Forest}
The outermost layer was deliberately weak, not even attempting to block the flow of mana and just letting it flow inside. After all, the only function of it was to hide the second layer from the watchful eyes of the Eternals.
I had no idea how much detection capability they maintained under the suffocating deluge of Necrotic mana, but better safe than revealing my greatest secret.
The second layer was made of Tantric mana. Luckily, unlike Divine Spark, Necrotic mana was much less resilient against manipulation of the Divine Spark, especially when it was used like this, without any shape or form of destruction.
And, my great reserves of Purified Spark allowed me to achieve that very rapidly.
I had pulled a lot of nature mana from the environment to kickstart the process, the elves around me crying in fear at the sudden draught of mana, their nature too aligned with it not to care about its absence. Busy saving the world, I ignored them as I shaped Tantric mana into a huge sieve, forcing the necrotic mana to pass through its gaps and purifying it in the process.
Then, the third part, a strong funnel made of Nature mana, connecting the purified flow into the God Forest, taking the purified flow and storing them in the depths of their structure.
I could have let the purified mana flood the Aether dimension, but that would be harmful in two ways. First, as it flooded the plane, it would give the undead some easy targets to exploit. And it would make the Eternals suspicious, making them question why a Nature God was producing pure mana rather than nature mana.
Instead, I let the God Forest devour the flood, even going as far as to force their leaves to suddenly turn brown, like they were straining under the great flood of energy. It had an immediate impact on the morale of the elves, especially when combined with the absence of the Nature mana, but I wasn’t in the mood to coddle them.
Revealing my secret to Eternals would have been much worse for them. Eternals were willing to destroy the plane behind them just to keep their presence a secret. I didn’t want to imagine the lengths they would go to catch me if they realized the true nature of my abilities.
Even just as a competition for their hunger for Divine Spark, they would target me, and the less said about my true identity and how they would react, the better.
I stood still, straining myself to the limit as I made sure the ward worked as intended, turning their devastating attack into nourishment for the forest.
Even as I did so, I couldn’t help but think about what had caused them to respond in such a devastating manner. Maybe they had noticed I had been fiddling with their artifact on this site and decided to prevent me from learning their secrets.
Maybe they were alerted by my fake god role and decided to retreat, not willing to face a god.
Or maybe, it was much simpler. They had just realized that the elves stopped arriving, and moved to the next stage of their plan. It wasn’t unlikely, especially since the sudden flood of necrotic mana was hardly something that could be put together at the last second.
It must have been planned beforehand.
“And, that answers whether they were just here as an accident or not,” I murmured. I was already suspecting that, but the nature of their response was further evidence that they were the ones leading the undead invasions — though whether the undead invasion force was aware of that fact or they were just unwilling puppets was another question.
One that didn’t have any important implications in the short term, especially since I was determined to hide my true nature regardless. I couldn’t be sure that the Eternals would stop observing the dimensions after that.
I was hoping that it would be enough, but soon, I noticed a shift in the pathway. Strong as it was, under the constant rush of necrotic mana, it was shattering slowly. I would have felt relief if I was having trouble handling the rush.
Unfortunately, the situation was the exact opposite. After the shattering of the pathway, the necrotic mana would spread around the Aether dimension, giving the undead a decisive advantage. And, while I could protect the capital, the same was not true for the rest of the world.
Luckily, I had some time to respond. I floated upward, opened my hand, and made a show of throwing seeds into the air, which glowed with a blinding green before they spread around four corners of the world.
It was just a light show, and at the same time, I reached Seldanna. She was still in a dreamlike state, and while our connection was mutating, it was still enough to use her as a conduit, which, in turn, allowed me to reach the Tree of Life.
And, there, through the roots, I connected with the plane … I wanted to celebrate, and I wanted to hurl in disgust, the sensation of being one with a tree not exactly the sanest of sensations. However, it was not a waste.
The Tree of Life was a unique entity, one that was connected to not only every living being living in this plane either directly or indirectly. It even linked to the plane itself… Enough for me to use it to give every living being one order.
It was not something I was trying to pull blindly. I was trying to copy a feat that I had seen in the memories of the unfortunate god that I had slain earlier, a method that he had used many times during his desperate battle to give commands to his forces regardless of distance or loyalty, accompanied by overwhelming compulsion.
RETURN TO THE CAPITAL!
It was an order that reverberated through the mana itself, accompanied by a great amount of mana — one that emptied all the mana my God Forest had been storing. The mana radiated across the plane, not only carrying my order around the plane, but also empowering all the trees and other immobile beings to react.
Some uprooted and turned into treants, dashing toward the capital with great speed. The plants too weak to handle it forced their Divine Sparks into their seeds, seeds that birds flew down and grabbed before they started their migration toward the center.
Small or large, every being started rushing toward the center. Elves could have rejected that call, their sapience giving them the chance to reject … luckily, they were not stupid enough to do so when every single plant, insect, and beast was desperately rushing toward the center of the plane.
“Success,” I murmured as I cast a large illusion around me. It was necessary.
I didn’t want the elves to see their new god collapsing on the ground, puking blood as he struggled to stay conscious.
Hardly a divine view.
Trying to pull that trick despite the conflicting nature had been challenging. I realized that, if I tried to pull that off without the Tree of Life as a medium, I would have extinguished my soul. Even under the circumstances, the damage was not inconsiderable. Luckily, the impact was blunted enough that I could feel my soul was still whole.
A little bruised, maybe, but nothing a little push wouldn’t cure.
The same couldn’t be said for my body.
{- 3200 Pseudo-HP}
Even as the healing energies rushed into my body, I could feel the structure slowly collapsing. Desperate, I grabbed my Purified Spark, feeding it into my Stats to enhance my Endurance.
[-3084 Purified Spark}
{+8 Endurance}
As my body slowly got stronger, the collapse of my body stopped, and slowly reversed. I wanted to do nothing but lay down and sleep for a day … or a week. Unfortunately, I could already feel the necrotic mana filling the Aether dimension.
The undead was about to receive an incredible boost…
{Strength: 16 Charisma: 22
Precision: 16 Perception: 16
Agility: 16 Manipulation: 22
Speed: 16 Intelligence: 16
Endurance: 24 Wisdom: 16}
{Purified Divine Spark: 188}
{Pseudo-HP: 5800 Mana: 15000}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Forest - 18183}
Elven Priestess - XXXX}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
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