Chương 877: End Of War And Next Steps. [End Of Volume 12]

[End Of Volume 12] The attack on the Covenant happened very differently from how it went against the Nexus. For starters, the Covenant's population was not opposed to World Trees. Therefore, when Liu Shu's roots descended onto their worlds, they felt more awe than fear. This was because they were taught that World Trees usually don't touch Low-Level Intelligent Species. Therefore, all a new World Tree signified was more of a change in management than anything worse.

As long as the World Tree didn't touch their daily lives much, no society in the Covenant would resist as the Nexus did. Therefore, conquering the Covenant's worlds for Liu Shu was not that difficult. What was complicated was adapting their culture to hers. In some cases, it might be even more difficult than overturning the teachings of the Nexus. After all, changing between two familiar things and participating in something completely new were two very different things. Take it with reading a book.

If you were accustomed to reading romance novels, switching to another one would make you more critical, as you have a point of comparison. On the other side, if you went from romance novels to a high fantasy novel with no romance subplot, you would accept that novel much more easily because it is new. This was a gross simplification, but it encompassed the core challenges Liu Shu would have to go through during the Covenant's conquest.

As for the defensive line Namue created, it fell even harder than that of the Nexus. The reason was that Liu Shu had waited before the attack. The first thing Liu Shu did was push Deadly Petal's roots away. She attacked the edge of the Solar System, pushing away Deadly Petal's domain and leaving the Solar System stranded. Now, without Deadly Petal's <Titles> and <Passive Skill>, the army lost almost 20% of combat power.

Not as exaggerated as what Liu Shu's army would go through, but underestimating the influence of a True World Tree buff was something that should not be done. After that, Liu Shu asked the army over at the Nexus's side to gather and come over. The time it could be described as long, and it could also be described as short. A total of around two and a half years of travel to arrive from the Nexus's solar system to the Covenant's. Reunited with Harmonixia, Ignatia, and Flor, the offense was unstoppable.

Liu Shu summoned absolutely everything in this last strike to cause not fear, but pure, agonizing terror. The Arboreal Winged Serpents, the World Legion, and the entire remaining army of the Golden Sap Empire. The combination caused the four fortresses in the Technosky Solar System Capital World to collapse in a matter of days. Namue didn't use what Carter used, and instead, he retreated together with most of the <Second Ascension> powerhouses. Cinderielle muttered.

"It ended in a more anti-climactic way than I expected." Tempestria chuckled.

"What did you expect? An epic final battle? That has already happened several times. After the Nexus retreat, it was a forgone conclusion." Cinderielle's words as she walked down Technosky's Capital World's streets reached the other Sylvans. The people walking around glanced at them with some wariness, but not true fear. Unlike the soldiers, they didn't really have a concept of what it entailed for four fortress-class defensive structures to fall in less than a week. Verdantia glanced around as well.

"Still, I am quite shocked that the Covenant's architecture is far less nature-oriented than I thought. Almost all buildings are built with concrete or similar materials." Tempestria agreed with her.

"Unlike us, who use living houses, they use those more commonly seen in other societies. I didn't expect that living architecture was so… Hm…"

"Rare?" Harmonixia finished her sentence, and Tempestria nodded.

"That's right. It seems that our <Lignified> babies are quite rare and also valuable species." Verdantia spoke proudly.

"Of course, they are our daughters, after all." Even though Liu Shu gave "birth" to them alone without their influence, most of the time at least, they treated all of them like their own children. Of course, the relationship was somewhat platonic. They cared about them, but communicating with them actively was impossible. There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of <Lignified> houses and their variants. Harmonixia chuckled.

"Speaking of daughters, Seraphina and Obsidianis rushed back quite quickly, didn't they?" Tempestria smiled.

"It is normal. They are new mothers. This war has kept them away for quite a lot of time from their children. Having that urge to see them is normal. Even I have an urge to just leave and go meet my babies." The other three chuckled. Cinderielle sighed.

"I wonder how Liu Shu plans to change these worlds? Their technology is not primitive, so infiltrating culturally will be much more complicated." Verdantia, having pondered that exact problem, spoke thoughtfully.

"Didn't we just give the unintentional answer? Lignified structures." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Ah." Cinderielle was an intelligent woman, so she quickly figured out what Verdantia meant.

"That would be an intelligent move. Did you tell Liu Shu?" Verdantia gave a small smile.

"Actually, I heard it from Liu Shu."

"Tsk." Cinderielle bumped her shoulder with Verdantia's.

"Here I thought you had a stroke of genius." Verdantia laughed and bumped her shoulder back.

"Hey. I contributed by giving her ideas, alright? It was a combination of both of us conversing around the matter and having a sudden inspiration."

"M-Monster! Get away from here!" A young child suddenly rushed at them and threw a bottle of water. The father quickly rushed forward, catching up with him and bowed deeply.

"S-Sorry! I have not taught him anything of the like. Please, have mercy. It is just a child's emotions going wild." The four of them didn't fall for it, though. Tempestria looked at the man coldly.

"How would a child know how to call us monsters? Even if someone precious to him fell in the war, it is because you've told him and demonized us. It is sad, but of the millions of affected, it is quite peculiar that only your child rushed at us." Using her Wind Aether Mana affinity, she could pick up several presences filming this situation. Clearly, someone was trying to create some type of propaganda using them and a child to gain sympathy points.

"A child is suffering!" Has always been one of the most prevalent yet also most effective uses to demonize someone's actions. Of course, it wasn't always done with that intent. Sometimes there were truly suffering young. Yet, in a world where information was swallowed through an article's titles and not its content, propaganda was very easy to spread with a few sensationalist headlines. Tempestria glanced around and sighed.

"We are not an aggressively invading force. Don't worry, your daily lives will only improve from now on. The only ones that should be fearful are those in power. Those that suppress you. Only those are in fear, and therefore, targeting us. Please, be at ease." Cliche words, but also mostly truthful. Therefore, Tempestria didn't feel burdened saying them. What Liu Shu had always targeted was those high above. Those at the very top. Controlling the behavior of the top 0. 1% made the remaining 99.

9% rather easy to guide. Although, sadly, this was true for those with malice. A situation only possible because Liu Shu, who overlooked everything, did so with a rather kind and caring heart. There naturally were selfish motives in many of her actions, but the overall framework was "making the people have affordable and fulfilling lives." A life where, if they wanted to just live quietly, they could.

And a life where, if they wanted to excel, effort would be rewarded and take them there through grit and competitiveness. Not a guarantee, but at least the path was there. In summary, the usual types of political maneuvers were not going to work on them. The reason? Liu Shu's canopy was higher than whatever position those in power thought they were in. Under her shadow, law was bound to affect everyone without preference. After Tempestria's words, there were some agitators who began shouting to muddy the waters.

Tempestria and the other three didn't react, and instead, they flew up and left the street. What happened quickly spread through the local popular social media and other communication sources. Like with everything, it caused the world to become divided. Some thought that the child was not acting and used statistics of deaths and the number of orphans created through the war.

Others were on Tempestria's side, using the same statistics to point out how many went to fight a World Tree that was defending herself against the Nexus's threat. This brought back Liu Shu's past actions and messages to the surface once more, creating many viral posts and headlines. Overall, both sides presented convincing arguments, and in essence, neither side was completely wrong. But it didn't matter.

Liu Shu had now taken over, and those controlling the various narratives were about to face something they were absolutely unprepared for. A true, non-biased judgment. Liu Shu was observing everything through her spread consciousness, and she also knew where those high-status people hid in the Covenant's worlds.

"It's time to see if my government was trained properly." Her own participation was inevitable. She had to appear and make her existence known to all so that both the <Eternal Church> and <Golden Sap Government> could work efficiently.

'It will take some time to move people where I need to… Traveling between stars is truly somewhat inconvenient for them.' Her gaze landed on the large structure orbiting around Ceperet.

'Now that the war is truly over, I need to finish this and also begin growing my two new Lignified babies in earnest. I also need to digest the technology I've gotten my hands on, gather the floating resources around the battlefields, and collect parts of Deadly Petal's roots to use as resources.' That was only the surface work. If Liu Shu added her civil, architectural, and terraforming work… Liu Shu sighed deeply.

"Digesting the gains of a war is both joyful and incredibly burdensome." For now, though, Liu Shu was untouchable. Having defeated two massive armies, no one nearby in their right mind would target the Golden Sap Empire.

"I have to use this time to make the nine Solar Systems around me become a massive fortress and unified front." Three of those were Solar Systems that didn't even have a True World Tree, so they had already been in the process of being digested. Etheria, that incredibly powerful religious woman, had been steadily growing and taking the lead in conquering her world and expanding into the rest of the Solar System. Elyne had already met her and became quite excited.

Elyne herself admitted that Etheria's potential and talent for becoming a religious leader were higher than hers. So, she was teaching her on a personal basis. Even then, Etheria treated Elyne with incredible respect because Elyne was essentially a founder of the <Religion of Eternity>, as they call it. Beyond those three Solar Systems, there were the other two that had a True World Tree. Petal Dew, the World Tree that almost became a tragedy at the start of the war, had long since submitted.

The other was the same as Petal Dew. After being attacked and seeing the true threat of the "outside world," she quickly submitted. Not to mention, their strength was even lower than that of most of the World Legion World Trees. So, once Liu Shu connected them to the I-CARE network, they became obedient big sisters. Overall, Liu Shu felt that there was tons of work to do, and she was excited to start and see the final form of what she was creating!