Chương 212: The World of Ruins (6)

Two ravens flew over the Darkwood as it burned. Rivers of flames consumed the vast wasteland forming the Borderlands, where demonic legions and monsters warred among the ashes. On one side were dark elves, mutated treants, burning wickermen, and a handful of fiends loyal to the Destroyers; and on the other the leonine hordes of Mithras. Simon watched skeletal horsemen burning alive and fire elementals incinerating screaming warriors by the hundreds.

Simon had sent most of the demons he had enthralled to attack the elves to the west in order to hopefully lure the Archer away from their flight path. The rest had been sent to Frightwall to remain there as guards and healing batteries. However, his flight made him realize it might have been pointless. The ongoing war already provided the smokescreen he needed to cross the Borderlands, quite literally. Ravens weren't even a noteworthy sight around these parts.

Vultures and crows were plentiful where even dragons had perished. Carrion-eaters feasted well in this age of ruin. Simon peeked over at his companion once they crossed the burning Borderlands and crossed into the Darkwood itself. Although Agrat still refused a Devil Brand, Simon convinced her to join his Party as a condition to accompany him by pointing out it would protect them both from hostile divination.

Her lack of knowledge on the Perk's abilities meant Simon gained access to her stats, which proved enlightening. Fiends had no Classes or Perks to speak of, but the Party System gave them an 'estimated' level anyway that represented their power. It assigned her an impressive level 68 Demon with potent abilities, though he couldn't read her spell list.

Simon was pretty confident he could take her in a fight should she try anything, and he had taught her certain secrets to ensure she could assist him against the Archer or any powerful foe they might encounter, but he knew better than to relax his guard around her. He nonetheless trusted her not to do anything stupid in hostile territory. The Darkwood had grown quite a lot since his era, with twisted thorn miasmatrees dominating most of the landscape.

Although nowhere near the size of the mountain-sized lair of the Stone Muse, these gnarly creatures were already reaching taller than young hills and suffusing the air with miasma. Vast trackless swaths of mutated forests, toxic swamps, and colossal mushroom colonies dominated the landscape. The unpleasant smell of decay and musty pollution was joined by hisses and croaking from the corrupted wildlife that called this poisonous hell home. The Darkwood had truly evolved into a miasmic ecosystem over the centuries.

The original, while dangerous, had mostly been a haunted forest shrouded in darkness. The warped forest before Simon hosted countless new creatures that survived, and even thrived, in this vicious environment. There is no way we'll stay undetected for long, Simon thought. He knew from experience dryads could see pretty much everything inside their territory. Every tree and blade of grass was a potential spy. We can only delay the inevitable for a time.

Still, there were enough carrion-eaters in the area that Simon and his companion could fly for miles unmolested until their first pit stop came into sight: an algae-choked swath of swampwater surrounded by three hills covered in red grass. A Deepground Vault should be located under the northwestern one. Simon landed at its base alongside Agrat, then used Fiendmask to hide his true shape under an illusory dark elf disguise. As for his companion, she simply shapeshifted into one.

Enormous toads the size of dogs and mushroom-infested salamanders stared at them from the swampy waters, but did not attack due to Simon's Unquestionable Ruler Perk. So far so good. Simon looked for the nearest cave into the hill and entered it, though it proved rather shallow and devoid of anything besides roots. The entrance must have long been buried. His hand reached for an uncovered wall." Chaos Wave." His spell blasted apart rock and stone in all directions.

Simon followed the spell with another, and another, until he slowly began to dig a tunnel underground. He was wary of using anything stronger to avoid causing the hill to collapse on their heads, so he had to be slow and careful… until he finally hit something other than stone and earth. Metal. Simon continued blasting until he exposed what he was looking for: a great, circular door of enchanted steel covered in runes and other symbols.

A massive lock nearly as tall as he was kept the vault locked shut.

"Interesting design, so complex in its defenses, yet so simple in its solution…" Agrat commented as she recorded observations in her book.

"A single password would unlock all of its protections."

"The knowledge of which I alone possess in this era," Simon said before uttering the right passphrase he had learned during his brief rulership of Endymion in a reign past." Purple World, Fifteen-Nine-Two-Thousand and Twenty-Four, First of Three." His words rang out into the tunnel, and a droning noise answered them. The runes shone and the lock unbound itself. The magic moved the door aside, revealing a dark tunnel.

"Success," Simon said as he pulled out a Ring of Demonbinding from his Inventory, then summoned a branded watcher demon bound to it by his magic.

"Keep watch over this place and inform me if anything approaches." Simon and Agrat left the guardian behind as they ventured into the vault. Enchanted lanterns should have lit up the path, but four hundred years of disuse had caused most of them to die out; the few that remained provided little illumination. It wasn't much of an inconvenience since Simon and Agrat could both see in the dark. Yes, they could see the corpses well enough. Lots of bones and skeletons littered the main tunnel, desiccated and dry.

The reinforced walls also bore many traces of ancient burns and explosions.

"What happened here?" Simon wondered as Agrat cast analysis spells.

"Were they attacked?"

"I do not believe so, Your Majesty. Readings indicate symptoms consistent with famine and malnutrition. Evidence points to these mortals trying to break the lock from the inside."

"The door shut in behind them and they failed to open it before running out of rations." Simon's jaw clenched as he put the pieces together.

"Was that intentional design, or an oversight?"

"The spells woven into the lock indicate a properly appointed individual could have opened it with a magical signal." Agrat met his gaze.

"Probably you, from what I gather." Simon grunted as he pondered those findings. Operation Deepground was designed to host Endymian army personnel in relative safety for years until the Zodiac Parade ran its course, after which they would have retaken the empire's heartlands. Could Balzam have designed the vaults to trap soldiers inside unless he alone decided to free them? It was cruel, but made a twisted amount of sense when taking into account his father's usual methods.

Balzam the Cruel couldn't allow potential warlords to rise and establish themselves outside of his control should communications break down. Our soldiers sought a sanctuary and found a tomb instead. In Balzam's mind, either a Magnos Overlord ruled the empire, or it deserved to die with the House of the Manticore. That, or he preferred undead soldiers to living ones. Your spite was a bane on our people, Father. What an utter waste.

"Odd," Agrat noted.

"They are not rising." Simon wondered what she meant until the truth hit him.

"The cycle of reincarnation has ended with the loss of manatrees. Ambient miasma should have raised the soldiers as undead."

"I wonder if spells woven into this structure harvested their souls somehow." Agrat sounded more and more curious.

"I would need time to study them in-depth."

"Time is of the essence," Simon decided. This mystery would wait until they found what he was looking for.

"We'll check the armory and records room first." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"What is Your Majesty looking for?"

"Answers." The investigation proved mostly disappointing. Four centuries of disuse and ambient miasma exposure that managed to leak through the bunker's fading wards had ravaged most of the armory's useful items or undid their magic. The remaining, damaged weapons wouldn't be of much use to Simon. The records room was hardly any better. Most of the scrolls and documents there had long since rotted away.

However, there was one system there that remained functional: a small carnelian and manalith cube on an altar, connected to the complex's spells. The wards protecting it were among the strongest in the vault and successfully weathered the test of time.

"Fascinating…" Agrat studied the device closer.

"A modified crystal ball linked to sensory runes on this vault's edges."

"Impressive deduction," Simon complimented her as he touched the manaliths carved into the cube's sides.

"Since the vault was supposed to be sealed for a certain period of time, this system would allow its inhabitants to observe the outside world." In short, Simon now had access to four centuries' worth of visual records stretching all the way back to the vault's construction. The activated cube projected an illusory image of the bog outside alongside four sets of numbers. Hour, day, month, year. Simon clicked on the various sides of the cube and confirmed he could indeed change them to show different dates.

The earliest one available was around six months prior to the start of his reigns, back when the vault was completed.

"It will take me a while to find what I seek, Agrat. You are free to study the vault's enchantments until then, if it pleases you." She smiled at him.

"Your Majesty is very kind, but I would rather stay here." The demoness wished to observe his reactions the way a dog tamer studied a strange new hound. Simon ignored her as he changed the date to the 2nd of Nivose 403; the very night Balzam Magnos died. The picture changed to a more verdant landscape and Magvolian countryside. Normal manatrees were still visible in the distance, including the one where the Goetia Research Facility was located.

The recordings showed nothing unusual on that night, which didn't surprise Simon much. News of troubles in the capital would take a while to reach Magvolia. He began to move the date forward at a rate of one day per minute. Worrying details began to show up as early as the 4th of Nivose, when the sensors caught sight of a fleet of airships flying east from the Goetia Research Facility.

Louis' troops were marching onto the imperial heartland months early, which suggested the civil war started as soon as Balzam Magnos perished. My family slaughtered each other without the edited will or an Overlord to rally around. Simon skipped forward day after day, until he reached the date of the elven bombardment on Frightwall. A small group of Cocagnian airships flew over the bunker less than two days later with Norbelle at the helm to lay waste to the Goetia Research Facility.

This is the Oracle's perfect future. This must have been the ideal scenario she had anticipated. Louis' decisive loss in the House Magnos conflict, which ensured he wouldn't muster his resources against Illusea. Simon's suspicions were confirmed after he caught sight of White Unicorn pegasus riders flying over the bunker three months later. The organization's attack had gone off without a hitch, and they likely retook Magvolia.

It was roughly around this time that a contingent of imperial soldiers made its way to the vault and sealed themselves inside it. Simon guessed they were remnants of the army or the Goetia Research Facility's staff retreating here as per protocol. Lauriane wasn't among them. Did his beloved sister even survive the Frightwall bombardment, or the battle that followed the release of the will? Or had she been murdered by that snake Malphas? I can't let her die. I can't let any of them die.

Simon moved the date forward and skipped ever closer to the Zodiac Parade, before noticing something odd around two months prior to the disaster. This is new… The sensors caught entire caravans of people traveling near the bunker. Peasants with carts carrying all their belongings, nobles on their horses, and human refugees guided by elves and knights bearing the White Unicorn's banner. They seem to be moving towards the manatrees.

The flow of people went on for days with birds and other animals flying in the same direction, like a mass migration of some kind. Are they fleeing something? The groups grew rarer as the date of the Zodiac Parade drew nearer. The very last one was a cortege led by Satine herself, riding on a white horse with a retinue of knights escorting her and a frown upon her face. Whatever was happening bothered her. Simon gathered his breath as he entered the next date: the 27th of Frimaire 404.

The night when the comet Abraxas graced the world with its presence. He switched to the 28th, where it now dominated the sky. This left Simon puzzled. If this timeline was the result of the Oracle's plans, then something should happen then. He hadn't expected something as fearsome as the Mana Goddess rising to cast Abraxas down from the sky, but surely something would have changed. All these population movements had to have a purp—"The manatrees are gone," Agrat noted.

Simon frowned, only for his eyes to widen as he paid more attention to the recording. His attention had been so focused on the comet in the sky that he failed to spot a more ominous and telling detail: the great trees that dominated the landscape had disappeared alongside many hills. The horizon was flat and devoid of peaks. Where… where are they? A terrible feeling sank into Simon's heart as he frantically moved the date back to the 27th.

Rather than move from one day to another, he switched to moving the hours to sunset and then patiently watched the recording unfold in real time. Had they been destroyed? Night fell upon the recording. Simon ignored Agrat's scribbling behind him as he waited for Abraxas to show itself. Tremors shaking the ground and forests near the vault heralded the comet's arrival. His eyes remained set on the manatrees in the distance.

His Dark Visionary senses immediately detected a light that began to radiate from them; a dim light nowhere near as impressive as Belzemine's halo, yet faintly noticeable. The manatrees glowed like lighthouses as Abraxas came to bathe the world in darkness. The great comet manifested in the sky with a baleful aura, blanketing the surface of Brimir in a faint veil of miasma. The tremors grew more intense and caused the images to briefly fizzle out from the magical disturbances in the air.

The manatrees shook and wavered, shrouds of dust and mana rising from their base.

"Are they uprooting themselves?" Simon wondered out loud, having never seen something like this happen in previous reigns.

"The manaliths in the ground appear to be undergoing a resonance," Agrat observed.

"The manaliths in the gro—" Simon's heart skipped a beat as he remembered where he had seen such a familiar phenomenon.

"No way…" But the images of the past soon proved him right. Great islands of stone rose from the earth, carried upward by manaliths capable of defying gravity itself. The great miracle Lady Junon pulled during the First Doom came to pass again in the Second. The Magvolian manatrees rose to the sky one after another. Simon watched in utter disbelief as huge swaths of land ascended into the heavens, carried by the will of their dryads.

Dozens, if not hundreds of shining spots lit up the nightly horizon to follow them in a movement too vast and coordinated for a mere unplanned disaster. This was a great migration that spanned the entire world. Countless Kish Sanctuaries were abandoning Brimir under the faint moonlight. The pieces fell into place in Simon's mind, and then he rushed out of the bunker with feverish urgency. He ignored Agrat's smile, the Watcher guarding the tunnel, and everything else as he ran outside.

He transformed into his raven form the moment he emerged from the vault and took flight with righteous fury. He flew upwards past the haze of miasma and pollen that covered the Darkwood, past the toxic clouds, past the many layers of pollution that shrouded the sky from the damned on the ground; and when his raven body lacked for winds to ride, Simon regained his normal appearance and continued his ascent with Darkflight.

Anaximander had once told Simon the elves attempted to reach the moons through teleportation in the past. That information's true significance had flown over his head back then, but Simon could now see the Oracle and her laying the groundwork for a plan centuries in the making. The truth was laid bare to his eyes once he finally reached the edge of Brimir's atmosphere, where Nodens' Forbidden Keep once floated.

Simon looked up into the darkness of the stars and at the once-brownish Earthmoon that currently dominated the night sky. It was like gazing upon a garden. Great forests cultivated over hundreds of years now covered the moon's surface and gave it a verdant makeover. Great manatrees prospered there, surrounded by greenery and artificial lakes. They hadn't yet covered the entire sphere, but they had spread like a scar across it. They… they ran… Simon struggled to find the words for such a betrayal. They ran away.

The other moons were too distant at this period of the year for Simon's eyes to see the details, but he could catch vast patches of greenery on their surfaces. A long journey on floating islands had allowed the elves to succeed where teleportation failed. They had crossed the void of space in a great migration to colonize Brimir's four moons, bringing along their White Unicorn allies while abandoning the Overlord's people to their fate.

This was what the Oracle had planned from the start; the great treachery she couldn't share with even her most devout followers, lest they blow the whistle or rebel. The elves had left the rest of the planet to die.

"I am the first of the damned, trapped in Hell and looking up at the Heavens." Simon glared at the moons, searching for the Worldtree that was no doubt hiding on one of them.

"The Mana Goddess abandoned her garden to the weeds." Simon's heart swelled with rage greater than anything he ever felt; a fury as hot as the sun, fueled by bitterness and betrayal. He had hoped against all evidence that there was a grander motive behind the Oracle's actions, that she was ultimately trying to save the world in her own warped way, but now… now he saw the same truth his ancestor glimpsed all those centuries past. In an elf's eyes, some lives mattered more than others.

"To the Abyss with all of us, eh?" Simon looked at the wasteland he had now inherited.

"So be it. You entrusted this world engulfed in pandemonium to me, and I shall not abandon it." But he would not stop there. His hand would mend the wounds of the world, and the shadow of his purpose would pursue those who abandoned it across the stars. There was no place his fury could not reach. The Oracle had once stared up at the sky with fear in her heart, and Simon would ensure it happened again.