The Great Core's Paradox - Chapter 267: The Greatest City In The World

I pulled my snake-self forward, and reached down with my Coreless-self at the same time. It was still strange, controlling a Coreless’ body so directly, but I was getting used to it. The instinctual revulsion at feeling my legs – legs! – wasn’t so bad now.

Though that was probably because I was sitting down. It was easier to handle when I wasn’t actually using the terrible things. I could almost forget about them entirely, and just bask in the sensation of being so large.

Even when I was on the ground, my Coreless-self was nearly as tall as not-Needle!

It was more than a little exhilarating.

I gave my Coreless-self another bite, habitually refreshing the death essence that kept it animated. It wasn’t really needed yet, but my mana was full. Might as well.

At the same time, I continued to work on my grove. [Verdure Parasite] was a constant presence in the back of my mind, thousands of tiny streams of time being twisted this way and that to ensure the rapid growth of specific bits of plant-flesh. For now, that meant those that bore fruit. The Coreless of this many-nest were rather small, and that was particularly apparent now that I could look at them through the eyes of my Coreless-self.

They needed to eat.

And it seemed that they agreed with my decision, bursting out into cheers as they watched plant-flesh flourish and multiply, [awe] and profound [relief] spilling from the connection to their [Little Guardian’s Totem]s. The more adventurous of the bunch clambered up stalks of plant-flesh to reach their prize, more than one shouting in [surprise] when a branch lifted itself out of the way so that they could climb further without trouble.

“This is…remarkable,” a Coreless jabbered from beside me, speaking to my disciples. I peered a little closer, noting that it was one of the ones that had helped spread the Great Core’s light to this new many-nest and introduced my disciples to his people.

“He can do some remarkable things, yes,” not-Needle replied in her own jabber, exuding a gloating sort of [pride] in her [Little Guardian’s Totem]. “With this, your people shouldn’t need to worry so much about food or monsters. Though the fruits won’t grow this fast normally; I think that the little guy knows you’re hungry.”

She paused to reach over and scratch at my head-scales, the motion hitching ever-so-slightly as she drew closer to my Coreless-self.

“I’ll admit that…these…are quite troubling, though,” she said, motioning towards my two remaining reanimated minions. The two strongest of the blasphemers that I’d used [Transient Reanimation] on so recently. While I only bothered to directly control the largest one, even the smaller Coreless could be useful; I’d noticed that he was much stronger than the other blasphemers.

I could even feel it. In much the same way as my disciples had their own specialties, my two remaining reanimated Coreless went beyond a normal Coreless in ability. In one, strength enough to crush stone, enhanced by mana in a way that I’d grown to recognize. In the other, simple skill with his chosen ore-flesh – though the changes wrought by [Transient Reanimation] had wiped away a vast majority of that skill at first, I had set the Coreless towards regaining his lost ability. He stood off to the side, striking at the air. His glowing second skin and rod of darkwood and sharpened ore-flesh occasionally let out gusts of air or fangs of wind, scoring marks into the nearby stone.

I hissed in approval at the sight. It was good to see such a revolting blasphemer put to use in serving the Great Core. Though he might not earn redemption, his good works would at least ease the lives of those who had seen the light.

“Yes, troubling, indeed,” the Coreless hummed in [agreement] with whatever the-female-who-was-not-Needle had just said. “If our Horik and Leo here hadn’t caused many of the people here so much grief, seeing them like this might have been enough to make them pause.”

“Just pause?”

He motioned towards a group of children gamboling about near the trio of [Little Guardian’s Focus]es set within the grove. I followed the motion, hissing softly in their direction. The tiny Coreless were already looking much better than before, free from the rot and the bruises that had covered their flesh. Even the hollowness of their stomachs was starting to be filled, based on the [satisfaction] in their totems and the juices of plant-flesh upon each face.

“Mmm,” the Coreless hummed again. “For a moment. But people would do a lot to see their children full and in good health. What father or mother wouldn’t sell their soul for a sight like this?”

The-female-who-was-not-Needle stiffened. “And is that what you think this is? Selling your soul?”

“Frankly, no. I’m just saying that some of the others might not know that. And, from the looks of things, they might not even care,” the Coreless murmured.

While the Coreless continued to make noises among themselves, I decided to do something that I’d been waiting on for the few days it had taken to prepare the [Little Guardian’s Focus]es, [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, and grow the newest grove of plant-flesh to its current state. My mind slithered its way along one of its numerous magical connections, following a link to its end.

I wanted to check on my other undead.

“Is that it?” someone asked, voice quavering. “Are we to be stopped here?” David wasn’t sure who it was, the former prisoners too clustered together to tell. He squinted his eyes, staring at the vast growth that had sprung up before the group.

It was a veritable forest of blues and golds and greens and browns, more plantlife than David had seen in his entire life. The cavern ceiling reached high, high above, and yet – even then – some of the trees that made up the forest attempted to challenge that height. One of them in particular rose above the rest, a great thing of pitch-black wood and gnarled bark that David could have sworn occasionally shifted slightly. It was ominous. And the rest of the forest’s ominous nature wasn’t nearly so subtle; it had only taken a second or two for the first of the former prisoner’s to point out a serrated vine covered in the mangled remains of a monster’s corpse.

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With that discovery, David found himself reaching a hand for the pendant hanging from his neck, letting his palm wrap around it and feel its warmth. A stream of vitality, life itself, constantly flowed from the miraculous object. With it, the journey from Erandur had been surprisingly easy; easy enough that the cohort of creepy undead that had followed along behind them had only barely been necessary. If most of the miners hadn’t been such lousy fighters, then they wouldn’t have been needed at all.

David had already decided that the path he’d walked would one day become one of the world’s great marvels.

The Snakeway.

It was a winding path that well deserved the moniker, but that wasn’t the reason why the group of former prisoners had named it so. No, it was the Guardian Statues that lined the path, always appearing in groups of three. The statues, so magically lifelike despite being made of simple stone, made the journey easy. The only moments where David felt vulnerable at all had been during the span of time between reaching the edge of the previous set and attuning to the next. And he knew that, if he were to walk the Snakeway again, there wouldn’t even be that.

His [Little Guardian’s Totem] was already attuned, now. He could walk the entire length of the Snakeway, from Orken all the way to Erandur, without ever losing the healing touch of the Guardian Statues. His legs would never tire, his feet never blister, and even the threat of monsters would find itself growing dimmer. It was freedom in a way that he’d never felt before.

As the group of men stared, uncertain whether to continue onwards into such a clearly magical forest, someone let out a harsh whistle. Not someone in the group, but something in the forest.

David activated his armor’s wind barrier from pure reflex, a howling gale of pressurized air forming around him as a shield. His hands tightened around his Windspear, ready to defend himself if needed.

The undead they’d brought with them, on the other hand, didn’t react to the noise at all.

Another whistle sounded out and, this time, David saw the forest shift. The movement started from deeper in the forest, from somewhere that he couldn’t quite make out, and then moved in the former prisoners’ direction in a steady wave.

And at an oddly walking pace.

“Oh Skies, what is this thing? We’ve come all this way to die,” Ian whimpered at David’s side, the sound barely audible above his barrier of wind.

A few of the other men chimed in with depressed agreement, but none of them ran. The undead hadn’t moved, and they didn’t want to leave the safety of their protection. Even without [Little Guardian’s Totem]s of their own, the twisted creatures were nigh-immortal in a typical fight, only dying when the mana infusing them ran out. More than that, their mana-enhanced armor meant that even that hardly ever had a risk of happening. For something to injure them in the first place, it would have to break past metal and wind.

The forest shifted again, the wave of motion finally reaching its edge. In a flurry of motion, it was as if all of the danger – the serrated vines, the sharpened branches, the spore-filled sacs – twisted away, clearing a path through the abnormal vegetation. A group of men and women stood within the open path.

“Ho, the cavern!” the woman at the group’s head greeted with a jaunty wave, and David saw more than one man’s knees buckle in relief. “Hurry up and get in here! Scouts say a wave is coming soon!”

With a surprising degree of acceptance, the prisoners moved forward. The undead surrounding them kept to their sides, ringing them in, and David felt a little better at that. Especially since he realized he’d just stepped out of range of the last group of Guardian Statues he’d attuned to. Something that, despite only having access to its magic for a few days, had grown to feel wrong.

Without the warmth of its magical vitality, he felt weak and cold.

It’s only been a few daysand it already feels wrong to be without it, he thought, giving an absentminded thought towards whether or not the magic was addictive somehow, or if the difference was just so stark that he couldn’t help but feel its loss.

The sound of a great many somethings coming from one of the other tunnels leading into the cavern forced him to brush the thought away, lending an urgency to his steps as the rest of the group bustled forward, their previous fear of the strange forest momentarily forgotten.

By the time they reached the first of the oddly colored plants, the source of the sound had made itself known. It was, as the woman said, a wave – a flood of monsters that appeared more akin to a natural disaster than the frenzied fighting force that it actually was.

David had seen a few in his life before; some of the more impressive ones were usually set off by an overly strong monster or group of monsters pushing into the nest of fast-breeding creatures, forcing them to flee and set out for a new home.

But even the smaller ones were dangerous. David’s home tower had suffered two of them, and the result had been a not-insignificant loss of life despite their defenses. Even the null-water pond at the base of the tower hadn’t quite been enough to keep everyone safe; there were always people who happened to be in the wrong place at the time.

His own father had died that way, too poor to take off his work at every little rumor of a possible wave – and likely figuring that, even if a small wave did come, with nearly one hundred different towers to choose from in their assault, the likelihood of being too slow to retreat back into the safety of the tower diminished.

But, even in that small wave, he’d gotten unlucky.

And this was not a small one. The wave following behind David and the other prisoners was larger than any he’d ever seen, large enough that anyone outside of their tower at the time of its arrival should expect to die. And, worse, there were flying creatures among them. The bane of any human civilization, able to travel directly over the null-water and completely ignore one of the greatest defenses that humans employed.

Yet, when the prisoners stepped into the multicolored forest, ready to follow the path to safety that this new group offered, they seemed in little hurry at all. The only nod to the danger of the situation was that they didn’t stay put, beginning to lead the prisoners through the strange tangles of vegetation. Tangles that started to untangle themselves as they walked, only to begin reforming as the last members of the group passed by.

And then, as the first of the monsters began to press into the forest behind them, the trees erupted into motion. Serrated vines moved like bladed whips and tangles of bushes and moss writhed, forming tripping hazards and devilish binds to make those whips land with even greater ease.

As the unnaturally mobile plantlife lashed out, a symphony of chaos echoed within the confines of the strange forest. Sharpened branches twisted and contorted, forming makeshift barriers and nets and shields, each lined with dangerous thorns to impale any creature foolish enough to draw near. Spore-filled sacs exploded in bursts of toxic mist, engulfing clusters of monsters in a choking haze.

The former prisoners found themselves frozen in place, watching with a mixture of awe and terror as the forest waged war. The undead that had escorted them, meanwhile, remained visibly unmoved. Their eerie stillness was a stark contrast to the chaos around them.

The silence was only broken when one of the men who’d beckoned them into the forest started to laugh, pointing to a group of monsters that was trying to fly a little higher overhead, avoiding some of the more obvious dangers of the forest. “Hey, Mara. Think they’ll go high enough that the big tree’ll be forced to slap some out of the air this time?”

The woman at the group’s head, Mara presumably, rolled her eyes. “I hope not. The splatter would get everywhere.”

She cocked her head and started moving further into the forest. “Come on, let’s get going. The Council will want to see you before anything else.”

Pausing for a moment, she turned back around to give them one last look. “Oh. And welcome to Orken – soon-to-be greatest city in the world.”