Chapter 1136: Best Worse Case Scenario
<span style="font-weight:400">Lena narrowed her eyes as she stared at the world barrier in front of her. The Keeper had tasked her with finding a monster so massive that its every movement would cause disruptions in space. However, when sr systems appeared smaller than a grain of sand, it was still difficult to find even something sorge.
<span style="font-weight:400">She had, at the very least, narrowed it down to a single gxy, focusing her attention only on that, but it was still a lot for her to observe at once. Her eyes focused, sweeping over the gxy, until she saw a faint ripple. A speck of light vanished, and her eyes widened. Immediately, she sent the coordinates of the disappearing star to the Keeper, turning back to look at Dana.
<span style="font-weight:400">Dana’s brow was furrowed, and she held a pair of swords at her sides, ready to fight as soon as anything appeared. The Keeper had already warned her of the dangers that the ‘King’ represented to her in the void, so she was waiting for her chance to strike.
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<span style="font-weight:400">The cosmic horror flying through the Sher Dien universe grinned, its wide, toothy maw showing glowing teeth. As it flew past one sr system after another, its wed hands reached out, fists clenching over the sr system to crush them into nothing but fire and dust. Then it brought those materials to its stomach, where arge, glowing hole could be seen, and inserted them inside.
<span style="font-weight:400">Judging by the size of these sr systems, it estimated that it would need to consume the materials of at least fifty more sr systems in order to make the weapon that it was working on. Thankfully, it could fulfill that goal quickly, as long as it continued moving.
<span style="font-weight:400">If there was one thing that it enjoyed, it was the fact that there were no predatorsrge enough to threaten its life. It hadn’t seen a single life-form in this entire universerge enough to attract its attention, though there were likely smaller pests that it had killed by flying past them. Such tiny things were unworthy of its notice.
<span style="font-weight:400">As it flew, looking for its next target, the giant monster let out a sudden roar of pain, its six eyes widening. Its hand, which it had been repeatedly using to scoop up raw materials, was now missing. Nothing but a bloodied stump remained. How did something take its hand without it seeing them?
<span style="font-weight:400">Additionally, its tail seemed to have arge gash running through it, but it couldn’t figure out how or when it had been injured. Its senses sharpened, sweeping the area around it. Had there been some microscopic being like those residing within its head, one capable of unleashing power beyond its level?
<span style="font-weight:400">No matter how it searched, it couldn’t find such a creature, at least not one that appeared to have any sort of intelligence. There were numerous monsters floating about, some with unexinable body structures or strange protrusions. Some looked like floating oceans, or tiny eyes, but nothing that showed any identifiable hostility.
<span style="font-weight:400">The beast growled, turning and fleeing at a high speed. If there was a creature there that could deal such damage to it, he needed to find somewhere to escape to as he healed.
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<em><span style="font-weight:400">My Keeper, the Avenger has been fired sessfully.</em><span style="font-weight:400"> Tsubaki’s voice spoke up in my mind, and I nodded my head. “It’s done.” I said, looking at the Origin of Fate standing before me. She had said that she would arrange for the ‘worst fate’ she could for the ‘King’ monster, so now it was time to see how well she did.
<span style="font-weight:400">“It would appear that this beast does not directly eat the stars ands as we had thought.” She muttered, before blinking. “Hmm… things have be… infinitely better, and also infinitely worse.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion, and she began to exin.
<span style="font-weight:400">“First of all, the monster you seek to y only lost a single hand, and part of its tail to the Avenger. Naturally, this means that I wasn’t able to consume any significant power of fate. However, due to the shock of this attack, it paid closer attention to its surroundings for a moment before fleeing. It is currently on its way outside of the gxy, to the vast emptiness where it findsfort.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“That’s… going to make it hard to track.” I thought aloud, but the Origin of Fate shook her head.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Tracking it is no longer a concern. In fact, I would suggest you immediately have Lena abandon her task of tracking this beast, lest she find herself in undue harm.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I couldn’t help but blink in confusion at that. “What do you mean?”
<span style="font-weight:400">The Origin of Fate smiled softly. “You tasked me with ensuring that this beast suffered the worst fate possible. Unfortunately, it did not consume the sr system directly, or I might have been able to gouge out its heart. However… the fact that it paid close enough attention to its surroundings to observe the monsters which would otherwise have been too small for it to notice… this king of foes now carries with it a ck taint. One by one, its fates are bing sealed, and I no longer need to act personally for it to be in.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I arched my brow, doing my best to decipher her words, before my eyes widened. “You mean, it observed a memetic monster, and got infected?”
<span style="font-weight:400">The Origin nodded her head. “That’s correct. Because of this, I dare not observe the beast too closely anymore, and I can only look at the path its fate takes it. I can guarantee you this… it will never leave Sher Dien’s universe.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I let out a sigh of relief, before my breath caught in my throat. “Wait… you said that it became infinitely worse. What do you mean by that?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“...It will no longer leave Sher Dien’s universe. However… a beast of this scale, its body will be fodder for a new generation of monsters. When it dies, a new life will spawn from its corpse. This life will seek out the only intelligent life that remains in the universe, and devour it. In one week’s time, the of Sher Dien will fall. In one month, the beast will be so strong that it will destroy the universe from the inside.”
<span style="font-weight:400">My eyes widened at that, and I clenched my fists. “Can’t we use another Avenger on the monster to destroy it before it reaches Sher Dien?”
<span style="font-weight:400">Unfortunately, the Origin shook her head. “The king of foes is leaving the gxy now. There will no longer be sufficient coordinates to target the Avenger with any degree of uracy. Even if I interfered, we could at most remove another limb or two. However, doing so would require your golden shadow to personally observe its movements, bing infected with the same power.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“At this point, the only way to save the people of Sher Dien is through an evacuation.” She said, and I nodded my head solemnly.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Thank you. Is there anything else that you can help us with, before you split again?” I asked, but she shook her head.
<span style="font-weight:400">“My role in this invasion is not yet concluded. However, it is not yet time for me to take the stage as a leading role. Until the time of the divine scourge, you should not have need of me again.” She said, closing her eyes and splitting into the identical twins.
<span style="font-weight:400">I couldn’t help blinking, looking at the duo. “I… really hope that I’m wrong about this, but what did she mean by that?”
<span style="font-weight:400">The fallen twin put a hand to her head, wincing. “Gimme a second. She was looking at a lot of different timelines at once, so we have to piece it together. It looks like… sooner orter, the monster swarms are going to devour a god. If we divert resources to help one, it will weaken the resistance another can put up, and cause that one to fall instead. Once they do… they’re going to feed their divine monsters to other swarms, leading to a disaster…”
<span style="font-weight:400">That defense ticket was starting to look <em><span style="font-weight:400">very</em><span style="font-weight:400"> appealing right now. I was tempted to activate it now, that way I could simply smite the monsters together with the Greater Pantheon. However, I had to save it as ast resort. Though the chances were slim, I couldn’t risk the chance that using it now would leave me vulnerable to an even bigger invasion before the next meeting.
<span style="font-weight:400">This was especially true, given that I was likely to hit the next rank as a Keeper soon. My first battle as a Fifth Ranked Keeper could potentially involve the enemy sending an Origin at me. If that happened, and the only Origin on my side was Terra, who could only be considered a pseudo-Origin at best, I would need to use the ticket immediately.
<em><span style="font-weight:400">Lena, immediately withdraw from observing Sher Dien. Under no circumstances are you or anyone else to observe that universe.</em><span style="font-weight:400"> When the Keeper sent that message, Lena immediately backed away from the Sher Dien universe. A message ordering for something <em><span style="font-weight:400">not</em><span style="font-weight:400"> to be observed meant only one thing.
<em><span style="font-weight:400">Is everything alright?</em><span style="font-weight:400"> Dana asked, ncing towards Lena before returning her focus to the other universes.
<em><span style="font-weight:400">The big guy apparently got hit with a memetic effect somehow. Boss just ordered us not to observe Sher Dien in any way.</em><span style="font-weight:400"> Lena responded, and Dana’s eyes widened briefly, before she nodded her head. The fact that the biggest threat to her life had been dealt with was a relief, though she still had to be wary of the other monsters out there. If one of them could kill her, there was nothing saying that some of the others did not possess their own methods.
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<span style="font-weight:400">Pierce focused on the main screen before him, his eyes straining. At some point, the second screen depicting information about ‘King’ vanished, so he had less to observe. He hadn’t focused this closely on viewing multiple timelines in a long time.
<span style="font-weight:400">At this point, he had provided the details for three different types of swarm generators, two of which were located in Deckan, and thest was in the new Metong homeworld. The first was, as he had originally identified, a monster race that could clone those that it ate alive, and then graft those powers onto other members of the swarm.
<span style="font-weight:400">The second type of swarm was one that originated from an inorganic lifeform. The only information that he had uncovered was that it could consume any form of metal, and use that metal to replicate itself. Naturally, this was a major threat, as it did not need any form of life to grow. Already, there were thirteen sr systems confirmed to be lost to this swarm after less than one full day.
<span style="font-weight:400">The third type was a mutation-type swarm, which absorbed the gic matter of dead nts and animals, using any beneficial qualities that they possessed to strengthen themselves. The bright side was that this meant that they could only grow through eating organic life, and could not take on the power of energy bodies like the first type. However, as this was the race found in the Metong universe, they had far more chances to find such things.
<em><span style="font-weight:400">At least they didn’tnd in Spica.</em><span style="font-weight:400"> Pierce thought to himself. Although the cosmic storms would decimate <em><span style="font-weight:400">most</em><span style="font-weight:400"> of the swarms, if even one hivended on any with surviving nt life, they could gain the universal trait prevalent throughout Spica, allowing adaptation to any environment.
<span style="font-weight:400">In fact, this danger didn’t only exist within Spica’s universe itself, as nts from Spica were amon tool when terraforming a. Additionally, the elves of Spica had spread out and intermarried through various worlds. The only universe where they were actually <em><span style="font-weight:400">not</em><span style="font-weight:400"> likely to encounter any trace of Spica’s adaptation was, in fact, the new Metong universe.
<em><span style="font-weight:400">Although they have arger variety of races there to devour, they won’t get the universal adaptation trait. If they were able to copy that, there would be nothing stopping them from evolving ways to consume energy bodies.</em>