World Keeper

Chapter 667: The Anti-Climax

Standing on the hull of one of the fleet vessels, I looked out and into the void. As I was currently mirroring Leowynn’s abilities, the void looked… different than I was expecting. The black expanse gave way to tints of red, with dark shadows marking the presence of the various void monsters in the area. It was hard to make out the exact shape of each void monster, only that most of them were almost as large as the universe ‘bubbles’ scattered throughout the expanse.

Shaking my head, I looked towards the bubbles that represented Deckan and the golem world, finding them wrapped in a tight, metal cage. To me, the worst outcome here would be for that cage to be struck, and inadvertently damage the protective shells around these worlds. Thus, I quickly informed the fleet that the cage was not their target. Instead, their target was the nearby bubble being protected by a small group of ships.

As the fighting began, I noticed movement from the nearby void monsters, as if they had been waiting for a chance to move in. Lifting myself off of the vessel I had been riding, I began to absorb the void energy around myself, something that was only possible to achieve in my current mirrored state.

Granted, this was only an avatar formed by my divinity, but it would be bad to act too recklessly. After all, there was likely to be a second base near the Earth universe bubble. We would need to take care of that after we were done here.

With the energy of the void pouring into my body, I could feel myself rapidly growing. The power of the Void domain gave me a rather helpful set of abilities in this campaign, but I wasn’t planning on using them to destroy the enemy base. Rather, my attention was turned towards the void monsters hiding in the distance.

If any of those came over, the fleet would quickly be destroyed without any ability to fight back. This was an obstacle that only I could block, so I had to make sure to keep them at bay. Especially given the fact that many of these creatures seemed to give off rather powerful auras… I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d be able to fight them all by myself, if they decided to rush over.

How do the invaders stop the void creatures from interfering with them? This question flashed through my mind, but I was forced to let it go as the first of the void monsters rushed over. It seemed to be a vaguely snake-like creature, its body composed of black energy.

Lifting my hand, I focused on the void energy surrounding myself. “Bind.” I called out, and the snake was frozen not far away from me. As it had already gotten this close in such a short amount of time, I felt a chill running down my spine. At the same time, I could sense countless strands of energy connected to its body.

Following a few of those strands, I found that they led back to Deckan’s universe bubble, and I was somewhat enlightened. The first time that I had seen a void monster in the normal world, it had taken advantage of the structure of a storage device to rush out with its main body. Thus, I had never seen how they ‘normally’ invaded a world.

With a thought, the numerous energy strands surrounding the snake were severed, cutting off its connection to every world. In doing so, the black energy surrounding its body vanished, and I was able to see the creature for what it really was. The snake’s body was composed of brilliant silver flesh as opposed to scales, and it had three eyes resting on its head.

With the snake serving as an example to the others, I thought that they would be more hesitant to rush at me. On the contrary, however, five others rushed in at once. These five all seemed to have different forms, whether they were humanoid in appearance or a mass of surging tentacles.

Furrowing my brow, I extended both hands to greet them. “Bind!” I shouted again, flexing the power of the void to wrap around these creatures as well. It was starting to feel suspicious, just how eagerly they were attacking. Of the five, one had even charged at the world being guarded by the enemy fleet.

They’re obviously not tamed. With that being the case… why haven’t they attacked before now? I couldn’t immediately think of an answer, even while borrowing Leowynn’s mentality through her mirrored self. If possible, I would have switched to Accalia, as she had likely the greatest analytical prowess in my group. Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk cancelling my mirror image of Leowynn, or else these monsters would be able to swarm at me en masse.

Wait… I blinked, thinking of a distinct possibility, though one that I normally wouldn’t have considered. I would have to investigate the matter once this battle was over and everyone had been sent back.

I risked a glance over at the battlefield, noticing that a large number of enemy ships had arrived, no doubt having emerged from the base that they had established. Currently, about a third of the ships I had brought with me had been either destroyed or incapacitated, while the enemy fleet showed heavy losses as well.

The strangest thing that could be seen was that the enemy’s universe base was showing signs of breaking apart. It shouldn’t be broken that easily, should it?

Admiral Degaru sat within the bridge, staring at the screens displayed before him. Of the battery power that they had entered the battlefield with, less than twenty percent of it was remaining. He grit his teeth in frustration, knowing how unlikely it was that they would be winning this battle.

The enemy seemed to be protecting the strange ‘bubble’ behind them, but not from direct attacks. Degaru assumed that every ship had managed to land at least one solid hit on the bubble by now, if not more. Rather, the enemy fleet would violently attack any ship that attempted to physically move in, to the point of sending their own ships to ram them.

It didn’t take a strategic genius to figure out that something was wrong with that picture. They were less afraid of their base being destroyed than they were of it being infiltrated. As Degaru saw his power creep down below ten percent, he let out a solemn sigh. He decided that he would initiate one last gambit, sending his own ship in to become a target, before unleashing all of their remaining power in an outwards blast.

However, just as this thought crossed his mind, something remarkable happened. The bubble that they had been attacking for so long… popped. Without any warning or discernible cause, it simply collapsed. Following this collapse, the ships which had pushed them to the edge of despair simultaneously exploded, as if they had taken critical damage in their battle.

Degaru blinked in confusion, not understanding what he was seeing. In the event that a unit could be mass produced, it was understandable that they would be willing to dispose of those troops in order to protect some secret. However, directly eliminating their primary base as well as their full army was an entirely different level of sacrifice.

Regardless, the battle seemed to be over, for one reason or another. As such, Degaru immediately sent a command to power down all weapons systems, hoping to buy them enough time for the Keeper to send them all back home.

…I’m sorry, what? I stared at the shattered remains of the bubble for several long moments. The idea that they had destroyed their base so decisively was far beyond my calculations. Especially given the fact that they had not only destroyed this base, but every base they owned… I knew this because of a system prompt that appeared in front of my main body.

Congratulations! You have successfully repelled the invasion of Keeper Silence!

Assessing the value of forces deployed in the invasion…

200 enemies assessed!

1,000 points have been awarded as a result of your successful defense!

I was fairly confident that this was the least amount of points that I had ever received from defending against an actual invasion. The only reason that I could think of for this was that the enemies sent did not have any combat power on their own. Had they appeared in the vicinity of any of my ships before establishing their base, it was likely that they would have been immediately killed.

Shaking my head, I quickly opened another portal back to Deckan, knowing that time was a very limited resource for the ships remaining in the fleet. However, I did not return with them, simply watching as they left while ensuring that the void monsters were unable to get in their way.

Once the last of the surviving ships had made their way through the gate, I immediately closed it. Now that I was the only one here, the void beasts seemed to have lost much of their interest. Some of them began to disperse, while others remained in the area to seemingly observe. Of course, the six that I held suspended in place had no choice in the matter, and I had no intention to let them go for the time being.

Instead, I brought them with me as I went to find the remains of the universe that the enemy had been using. Leowynn, could you give me a hand here? I called out to her, knowing that the real Leowynn would likely have more insights into the subject than a replicated facsimile of her.

A moment later, she responded, arriving at my side and quickly giving me a warm hug. Though, given the fact that I was still using her appearance, the hug slowly became somewhat awkward, until I changed back to my normal body.

Perhaps it was because I had only been using an avatar for this conflict, but the change in my mentality was not as extreme as it typically was when I turned into someone else. Regardless, I gave my daughter a small smile, patting her on the shoulder. “Can you tell me if there is anything strange about this area?” I asked, my body rapidly deflating to return to my original size. Now that I no longer had the Void domain, it seemed that I could not maintain my enlarged form, so I floated up to rest on Leowynn’s shoulder.

“Do you know what I’m looking for?” She asked curiously, quickly trapping the six monsters again after my power was no longer restraining them. I might have felt a bit bad for them, under different circumstances.

Thinking about her question, I shook her head. “Anything that would serve as a deterrence. I think… they might have had a Fallen God stationed here.” This was the strange possibility that had occurred to me when I was observing the battlefield previously. “A Fallen God would be able to keep the void monsters at bay, while also allowing them to establish and collapse their own world. Of course, there’s a chance that they simply had some incredibly advanced technology, but it just seemed suspicious.”

Granted, the points I was awarded didn’t seem to suggest that a being on the level of a Fallen God was present. But… what if it were one of the things that they were able to clone, and considered as their secret weapons?

Leowynn furrowed her brows, before nodding her head. “Okay, dad. I’ll see if there’s any traces.” As she said that, she scanned the area with her eyes, before shaking her head. “I… can’t tell. I’ve never seen the traces of a Fallen God in the void. But… there was definitely some sort of energy supporting this world. It feels like… when the energy disappeared, the world began to destroy itself.”

That supported both the theory of them using technology to achieve the effect as well as a Fallen God. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more that I could investigate either way, as they had quite thoroughly destroyed their base and machines. Even the structure surrounding Deckan and the golem’s universe had detonated, destroying itself.

“Okay… then, can you take me to the large, blue cluster over there? There’s something else I need to investigate, before we head back.”

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