Chapter 1096: Darkest Night
<span style="font-weight:400">I was out in the instance dungeon, training my various divine abilities once again, when suddenly I noticed a ping from the system. Half of a month had passed from when Berose sent me the memetic sensor through thest invasion, so it was time to be notified of the next invasion a month and a half away.
<span style="font-weight:400">My opponent this time was someone known as DarkestNight, and I was once again being invaded. Although it was a rather ominous sounding name, I didn’t particrly pay it much mind. After all, Starkiller was one of my best friends among other Keepers. Instead, I just opened the guild chat to send a message to the others.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Hey, everyone.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Oh, hey! Who’d you get this time?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Huh?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Those of us that were on defensest time just got our new matches, so we were going over who we had been assigned. I figured that’s what you were here for, too.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Ah, right. The system told me that my next opponent is called DarkestNight, and I’m on the defense.
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<span style="font-weight:400">After I sent that message, there was a lull in the chat. I couldn’t tell if nobody had heard of that name, or if everyone had. Eventually, Alice was the one to break the silence.
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<span style="font-weight:400">Oldbeard: You don’t have the best of luck when ites to opponents, do you?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Is it that bad..?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: You could say that. DarkestNight is in a rather special category of Monster Keepers, and has earned a bit of a reputation because of it. You know by now what it takes to reach the next level as a Keeper, right?
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Being able to create aplete world without the system’s help, right?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: That’s right. For Monster Keepers that don’t nurture a civilization, this is actually a major bottleneck. Most Monster Keepers ovee this by spending a lot of points to create a monster race that has the ability to create such a world on their own. Otherwise, they’ll be stuck at the top of the fourth rank.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: …I’m guessing DarkestNight didn’t do that?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Right. This makes him sort of like RagnaRocker, a predator in the fourth rank. Of course, his infamy also means that there is a lot of information known about the types of monsters that he regrly uses.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: If he’s as bad as you’re hinting, I’d appreciate any information you can give me.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Right, well… the main thing is that he nurtures what people refer to as ‘cosmic monsters’. The smallest of his creations can be considered a living moon, while thergest could swallow up entire sr systems. Of course, because he’s in the fourth rank, some of his creations have the power to exit a universe and devour it from the void, as well.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: …Okay, normally I would say that’s terrible. But will they be able to get through the Hypene barrier, and the wall of memetic monsters outside of it?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Quite easily. The sheer size and speed of many of these monsters defies logic. It is very likely that the memetic monsters wouldn’t even register to his creations before they are eaten in passing. As for the barrier, it only targets monsters that have void-like properties, so it will pose almost no resistance to these creatures.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“Great… I’m going to need to y space defense again.” I muttered to myself, hand on my forehead.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: If all of this information is known, there’s got to be some reliable method to destroy his monsters, right?
<span style="font-weight:400">Oldbeard: Ah, I know this one. If you have deities specializing in destructive domains, they are really useful. Otherwise, generally anything that can reduce a to ashes can deal with most of his creations. The bigger ones… yeah, you’re going to want gods for that.
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<span style="font-weight:400">“Noted…” Part of me wondered how these monsters could even be created in the first ce, but my assumption was that he used a reallyrge world, maybe even size ten. If that was the case, it would make sense for the creatures born on it to be of such a cosmic scale.
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<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: Anything else I need to be aware of, before I start nning my defenses?
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: He’s fairly consistent with his attacks, at least the ones that he loses and we get information from. Obviously, we don’t know if his pattern changes for the matches that he wins. But usually, he will send two thousand smaller monsters able to devour a Size 4, five hundred that are able to devour a Size 5, one hundred that are able to devour a size 6, ten that are able to devour a size 7, and one able to devour a size 8.
<span style="font-weight:400">EverLasting: Aside from numbers, the abilities of the monsters changes with each invasion, so that’s all the help that we can give.
<span style="font-weight:400">EarthForceOne: So, I should be expecting 2,611 monsters, eleven of which require gods to fight, and the rest just need incredibly powerful ships.
<span style="font-weight:400">Oldbeard: Don’t let the lower numbers fool you. Remember that the invasion can ur anywhere in your domain. Some might even appear directly in the void. You’ll have to have the forces to defend against something of that scale spread out all across your various universes, and still have the strength to fight them. Otherwise, you can expect that you’ll lose severals before you can pinpoint their location.
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<span style="font-weight:400">Alice was right. I only saw the lower numbers, and thought that I might be getting off rtively easy. <i><span style="font-weight:400">What would the people of my various worlds think if every world had an artillery satellite capable of reducing the that they lived on to ash?</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">It was certain that there would be bacsh from something like that, and rightly so. A malicious hacker would be able to take the entire hostage, or just outright destroy it before the Greater Pantheon was able to stop them. Granted, destructive gods were all able to release simr levels of power, but there was a difference between a living being wielding that level of power, and an inanimate object that anyone could potentially take control of.
<span style="font-weight:400">I let out a long sigh, shaking my head and focusing. <i><span style="font-weight:400">Dana, Tsubaki, Lifre, all of you meet me in the Admin Room. Everyone else, get ready for a big meeting. We’ve got news of our next opponent, and we’re defending again.</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">This was my third defense in a row, and I was honestly wishing that I had the chance to attack for once. Especially if it was the chance to attack someone that I could really go all out on. If there was anything that I could consider sce, it was the fact that this was likely to be myst invasion in the fourth tier.
<span style="font-weight:400">At the rate that Chelsea was developing her world-creation technology, it was entirely possible that she would finish before the next invasion. She might even finish it before <i><span style="font-weight:400">this</i><span style="font-weight:400"> invasion, if I speed up time to help us prepare our defenses, which is something that I typically do when we are fighting a defensive battle.
<span style="font-weight:400">Closing my eyes, I returned to the Admin Room, pleased to find that everyone was already waiting in the meeting room, serious looks on their faces. “So, what’re we fighting this time?” Keliope asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the table. “You wouldn’t call all of us here if it was just another pass like before. Or is it a big trade partner?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No, it’s a fight.” I confirmed, and the atmosphere turned a bit heavier. “Our opponent is called DarkestNight. Thankfully, he is quite infamous, so I was able to get a good deal of information on his patterns from my guild.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, if you’ve got all that, you should already know how we need to fight him, right?” Dana asked, a small grin tugging at her face as she tried to lighten the mood.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I know the method, but we’re not prepared.” I said, and she let out a long sigh. “DarkestNight fights with cosmic-level monsters. These are creatures capable of devouring entires, sometimes even whole sr systems in their passing. Some of them can exit into the void and eat an entire universe.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“ording to the others, the best way to deal with his monsters is through abination of destructive deities and interster weapons systems that can reduce entires to ash. We have plenty of the first, but not enough to safely cover all of our upieds. As for thetter…” I looked over at Ashley, who shook her head.
<span style="font-weight:400">“If you were just talking about cracking a or making it uninhabitable, most of our exploration ships possess something capable of that. However, if it requires the power to reduce a to <i><span style="font-weight:400">ash</i><span style="font-weight:400">, that is something else entirely. At the moment, the only weapon that we have that is capable of that is Olympus’s main gun.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Olympus has a main gun?” I asked, blinking. Tubrock let out a snort, nodding his head.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Aye, ‘course it does! Olympus is constantly building up excess power within its systems, until it reaches a critical point. Once this point is reached, the main gun can fire, and anything as big as Lorek can be destroyed with one, big hit. However… This gun has a lot of charge-up time, since it only uses excess energy and the ambient power of its inhabitants. It takes about three days to reach full charge.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“...Noted. Regardless, we can’t mass-produce Olympus. And at the same time, we can’t ce these weapons too close to our upied worlds. It would be entirely unsafe and unwise to do so, because the inhabitants would be constantly living in fear of the deathser that could be aimed down at their.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, where do you want to put it, then?” alia asked with a curious tone, leaning back in her seat with her hands behind her head. “If the monsters spawn inside of one of our sr systems, we can’t keep them too far away, or it will be toote by the time they’re calibrated to fire inwards.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Right… that’s why we can’t put them on satellites in the first ce.” I shook my head, letting out a long sigh. “Satellites would either be too close for public safety, or too far to be any good in an emergency. We have to put them on ships, which means we need to incorporate it with all of the existing systems that could get in the way, including the power requirements…”
<span style="font-weight:400">Aurivy couldn’t help but roll her eyes, grinning slightly. “It sounds like it would be better to have these as specialized ships. Destroyer-ss would be a bit… risky as a title, given that they won’t be leaving the Hypene Network. Defender-ss would be a bit more apt. Ships capable of massive damage, but unfit to leave the zones protected by the Hypene Barrier.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Doesn’t that mean that we’ll be giving up on all of thes outside of the barrier?” Bihena asked, her brow furrowed in frustration.
<span style="font-weight:400">“There’s not much helping it, unfortunately.” Irena shook her head in response. “Even if we had all the time we needed, establishing defense points throughout every universe to offer full coverage simply isn’t feasible. We can only focus on defending the territories that we have upied. And, given that thest invasion already removed all life on the unexplored worlds… all that we are giving up on is emptys. My concern is something else.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Everyone turned their heads to look at Irena when she said that, and she began to exin. “What if one of these monsters appeared in Fyor? Clearly, it would not be able to eat all of Fyor, but… we would be hard-pressed to fight it. If this monster destroyed the mana spire, it could take an entirely unreasonable amount of time to reach it and fight back. And given how much airspace there is in the upper levels of Fyor, I believe that cosmic monsters could very easily appear there.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“She’s right.” Udona nodded her head, a grim look on her face. “We’ll needbat gods on every level of Fyor that’srge enough for these monsters to appear, and then more around every we have upied, together with the new ‘Defender-ss’ ships that Aurivy mentioned.”