278

Year 270

“How many damned rocks are we expecting?” Prabu cursed as his biomechanical suit augmented his movement in space. He darted from rock to rock, propelled by his own magic and the vines from the suit, which functioned as extendable limbs, in the way Doc Ock would move about in space. 

Rocks popped out of the void by the hundreds, as part of clumps or clouds of rock, usually anchored around a single larger chunk of rock. 

On another side of the vastness of space, Colette fired magical spells repeatedly, blasting the rocks. 

Despite the seemingly mundane nature of the act, I was nervous. We, were nervous.

This was about the time the Comet should have reached treehome in one piece, and there was a demon king that we didn’t kill.

We were waiting for Multipus. 

It’s on one of the rocks, and we expected it to appear. 

I suspected it’s alive. We didn’t get notifications, but it’s likely we won’t get notified if it vanished midway? I wasn’t sure when the system gave notifications. Maybe only when we shared the same ‘world’, and so if I wasn’t there when it vanished, I wouldn’t even know?

“More rocks coming it-”

The edges of the reality bubble bent, as if the skies and the stars was a flat lake that suddenly bulged upwards. It burst, and a gigantic rock was here.

“Alright, alright, volleys away!” Stella and the void mages coordinated the defenses. The space-based ballistas and magical cannons were already aimed at the expected entry point of the rocks.

More rocks popped up, this batch was even larger than the one before.

[Demon King Multipus has arrived]

“Oh fuck.” I cursed, and the heroes did too. 

Right now, only Prabu and Colette were in space, dealing with the rocks. Chung was back on Treehome doing whatever shit he was doing. Khefri was in Threeworlds, doing stuff in her little queendom. Adrian was still busy with cleanup of the remnant wolf-demons. 

My domainholders were scattered too. Lumoof, Roon and Edna were still on Satrya, Kafa was back in Delvegard, and Johann was still enforcing order in Threeworld. 

Even though we knew Multipus was coming, we had too many competing priorities that we couldn’t just camp on Treehome and wait. I immediately sent out a ping, and summoned them through my [Court of the Deitree], and they were all immediately pulled back from their current worlds. 

“We need to support Prabu and Colette against Multipus now.” I declared, and prepared to deploy another clone, if needed. I still have a few slots available and having seen what Multipus could do on the demon’s comet, I was fairly concerned about what Multipus could do here. 

A ‘swarm’ of smaller multi-limbed octopus-like demons exited from the larger rocks. They were hiding within the rocks, and their limbs or spines shot out like really long spears and javelins. But this was space, and space was huge. 

“Keep your distance and bombard it from afar.” Stella advised through our shared magical network. With the huge distances of space, every attack from the demon king took longer, and so, for Prabu and Colette, they were able to maintain their distance and maintain their attacks. 

“Aye.” Colette said, as she blasted magical projectiles towards the demon king. “Which one’s the true body?”

There were about fifteen smaller demon kings, and each of them contained fairly similar levels of power.

“None.” I responded, as Lumoof teleported onto the nearest space-based platform. “Would it be better to force a battle on one of the rocks?”

“No.” Edna arrived soon after. “That sounds like fighting on the demon’s home ground. Fighting in space is effective against it.”

“But that means we can’t get near.” Lumoof countered. It was harder to reach the floating, moving bodies of Multipus in space. 

“But we have the advantage. We have enough bombardment weapons to take it out.” Roon and Johann arrived next on the space platform. They wore a kind of wooden suit similar to the heroes. “How far can you make roots?”

“These days? Very far.” Lumoof said. “But space is big.” 

“We just need platforms to stand. Just support us and we’ll shoot it out of the skies.”

“Very well.” 

Prabu and Colette were both relieved to see the rest of the domain holders arrive. “Took you guys a damn while.”

“We were out on other worlds.” Lumoof countered. “It is only natural that we will take some time.”

The Multiple Multipus bodies attacked, rolling like gigantic space urchins through space. It’s tentacles hardened into spears and spines, and attempted to smash into the heroes and my domain holders.

But once more, space is big. We found it hard to hit each other, but we outnumbered the demon king here.

“You know, we should’ve called it a sea urchin, instead of an octopus. It’s more like a sea urchin.” Stella quipped while she helped use her magic to move some of the floating platforms around. 

Multipus attacked with a combination of piercing strikes, using it’s spines to try and hit the heroes and my domain holders from afar. In space, we traded projectiles. Lumoof summoned gigantic roots and trees that reached into space. The domain holders would then hop on them, and use them as platforms to get into better firing positions. 

The platforms, made from rocks such that trees could still be summoned on them, were transformed into living platforms. A few of the void mages maintained open portals, such that my roots could sustain the trees on these platforms, and allow them to give the fighters extra mobility.

“Wait. Multipus is here?” Khefri commented as the news arrived on Threeworld. “Well, send me there?”

Khefri teleported to my main body, and then, she arrived soon after. 

The space began to bend some more.

“More rocks incoming!”

Another gigantic cloud of rocks appeared out of the edges of reality. 

“Well, shit.” Prabu cursed. “We can’t destroy rocks AND fight Multipus!”

As the heroes and my domain holders concentrated on the demon king, most of the rocks drifted past the first line of defenses, and flew towards Treehome. Flying towards Treehome does imply some intentional movement, but these rocks were ‘guided’ to Treehome. They fell towards Treehome, tugged there by Treehome’s magical gravity.

Our bombardment weapons were concentrated on the multiple Multipus bodies.

“More Multipus bodies inbound!” Stella watched as more gigantic space urchins popped out of the newly arrived rocks. “Keep firing the bombardment weapons! Aim the rocks too!”

It was a hard decision, whether to aim the rocks or Multipus.

“Khefri, you should just target the rocks!” Roon suggested.

“No, I won’t. Not the best use of my skills!”

There were some additional space-based weapons platforms spread throughout our space, and they began firing weapons at the clouds of rocks. They were very effective on the smaller rocks. Most of them crumbled and turned into space dust within two to three shots.

The bigger ones were hardy. Still, the impact from the projectiles slowed them down, buying time for us to deliver more attacks on the rocks. 

Meanwhile, Khefri suited up in a full suit of hero’s armor, and charged directly at the Multipus body.

We were weakening some of these giant space-urchins. The spines throughout its body absorbed some of the attacks, preventing some of our spells from reaching the softer inner body. The wall of spines around the body functioned like modern active tank defenses, they launched spines that met with the incoming attacks. 

So, spells like fireballs and conventional explosive spells were diverted, and triggered slightly outside the body. The spells still injured it, but not as much as a direct hit on the inner soft body.

“We need to impale this damn thing.” Lumoof said, and we can only do so if we charge right into that wall of spines.

It was hard enough trying to catch the giant urchins barrelling across space. Thankfully, it’s trajectory was somewhat predictable thanks to the sparseness of space, and it clearly wasn’t that good at moving in space. 

“I thought we’re supposed to fight damned rock golems!” Roon asked Stella. Roon and Johann’s magical arrows were extremely effective, and after a while, they took out two of the demon king’s bodies. 

The heroes themselves also changed their attacks to enchanted javelins, coated in magical power. These were more effective at hitting the body through its thick wall of spines. 

Still, Multipus used the spines on its body as anti-missile missiles, and launched them to meet their javelins. Despite this, we made progress. We were slowly taking out the demon king, but the rocks drifted past our initial defensive lines, and headed towards Treehome.

***

On Treehome, my Valthorns immediately activated our early warning system, as our defenses swung into action. 

“This is a warning from the Central Authority. There are meteors expected to collide and crash into our world in a few days.. Please ensure that your underground bunkers are adequately stocked for 1 to 2 months of hiding. Please ensure that your bunkers are registered with the central authority so that our forces will be able to find you.”

Sky-gazing observatories were able to spot the little streaks of light that were headed to the surface of our world. 

It was beautiful.

And a little scary. 

We deployed our second layer of defenses, as mages, armed with bombs and teleportation spells, teleported onto the surfaces of the larger rocks and began to plant bombs. We also had cannons and various weapons stationed on our moons and nearby asteroids that started to bombard the nearby meteors. 

We whittled the meteors bit by bit.

The skies were filled with streaks of light, and little bursts in the sky, some occasionally as bright as the sun. Our weapons, firing as frequently, and as fast as they could, bombarded the coming rocks. Our mages worked tirelessly to redirect them away.

The locals wondered what it was. 

Was it the day when the skies were lit aflame?

The locals called it the days of Starspark. Some called it the day of the falling stars. For some, safely protected by magical barriers and walls, it was beautiful. Romantic.

But it was not all beauty. There were the smaller fragments that were missed, and most of them burned up as they approached Treehome’s atmosphere and magisphere. In areas closer to the Central Continent, our ground based defenses did its best to intercept the meteors before they crashed.

We’ve started construction of these ground-based anti-meteor defenses the moment we succeeded in cracking the comet. They came in all shapes and forms. Some were large cannon arrays powered by leylines. Some were beam weapons, similarly powered by ley lines. Some were shields, since some mages didn’t like the idea of hitting rocks midair. 

The variety of defenses performed reasonably well. 

Throughout Treehome, not all of these meteors were caught, there were slightly bigger ones smashed into the ground, leaving craters. Thankfully, the world was mostly ocean, so the bulk of the missing meteors fell into the seas and oceans. A few caused big waves and tsunamis, but well within our expectations. 

 

***

Meanwhile, the heroes and my domainholders battled it out, slowly, we destroyed Multipus’s multiple bodies. Piercing weapons were more effective, since explosions and blunt weapons were diverted by it’s gigantic spines. 

We used teleportation spells extensively, but Multipus itself generated a small sphere of magical disruption that messed with our teleportation. 

We really could use Chung’s arrows at this moment, but he didn’t care. He was still too engrossed in his grief and frustrations to entertain us. In fact, I suspected he was fighting the hero class inside his head, because the hero class compelled him to fight the demon king.

This was his duty.

And he didn’t want to do it. 

The two forces in his soul battled.

For us, we kept at it.

Multipus’s gimmicks were fairly limited in the vastness of space, and it looked like it had things it wanted to do, but couldn’t. 

Both sides fought in an uncomfortable environment, and it was quite amusing that the demon king struggled with it more than we did. Multipus might be optimized for battle on land. 

As our attacks continued, the demon king seemed to have realized it was running out of options. The multiple giant demonic urchins began to escape, and roll towards Treehome. Our weapons and defenses caught up.

“Stop it!” Roon and Johann said. We had harpoon-like projectiles from our earlier days, and we used it to great effect. We attempted to ensnare the multiple bodies of Multipus, to some success.

We caught some, and with a heavy bombardment, destroyed a few of them.

“Some rocks are slipping through!” A void mage almost shouted through our shared communications network. 

The skies were lit in beams of light and magic. The heroes themselves went all out, as the two archmage-heroes fired spell after spell at Multipus and the rocks. 

“It’s gaining speed!” Roon and Johann said as everyone chased after the urchins. Our weapons and spells tried our best to catch the urchins, and we managed to hit a few of the urchins with really strong attacks, and destroyed them.

But of the ten to twenty smaller bodies, we only managed to destroy slightly over half of them. The remaining half were all injured to some extent, but they flew towards Treehome at high speed. 

“Surface team, intercept, intercept!” Stella roared as her own set of void weapons launched towards the demon king. 

“But there are rocks headed our way?” The mages manning the various defensive structures countered. “We can’t target both at the same time.”

There was no point hitting the demon king with weak attacks. It didn’t hurt the demon, and our energies are better used dealing with other threats such as the meteors. 

“Focus on the rocks.” I said. “We’ll deal with Multipus once it lands.” 

***

The starry skies were lit aflame, as six gigantic streaks of light burned through the outer sphere. Our weapons and magical attacks chased after the remnant bodies of Multipus. 

Each world has an atmosphere, and to some extent, a magisphere that protected the world. Stronger worlds have stronger protections from such incursions, though the demons have clearly mastered the art of circumventing these protections through their rift gates. 

“Multipus incoming.” I declared, as Freshka entered a rare emergency siren.

We found Multipus somehow charging towards Freshka directly, which I found amusing. It must have felt my presence and determined that I was the threat they needed to eliminate. 

Out on the streets, there was panic as the sirens blared. 

“What’s happening?” The folks asked. 

“Demon King incoming. Expected to land somewhere around Freshka. Please seek shelter or teleport out immediately.”

Freshka quickly emptied out, as I used my teleportation abilities to send people out of Freshka and towards the rest of the city. My domain holders and mages continued to attack Multipus’ body, as it spins through space and pierces through Treehome’s atmosphere. 

Around this point, I created a huge wall of shields around Freshka, as the six injured bodies of Multipus crashed in the lands around us. Its impact on the land around them caused huge shockwaves that smashed into my wall of shields. 

The bodies did not move for a moment, and that was the opportunity we needed. Lumoof teleported down, and immediately charged into one of the Multipus’s bodies. 

His body glowed with the [Fury of the Avatar], as huge magically empowered roots pierced one of the bodies. It died instantly. 

Edna landed right next to the another Multipus’s bodies. She took the spines to her flesh unharmed, and slashed right into it’s actual body.

My roots attacked the remaining four bodies, and though I injured them, it felt like they still lived. I Immediately wrapped my vines and roots around the remaining four bodies, and I felt it struggle against my vines.

I attempted to drain Multipus of it’s power, my vines immediately sucked the familiar demonic energies of demon kings. 

Hate. 

All I felt was hate. We destroyed two of Multipus’s bodies, and the remaining four were not in good shape. Lumoof quickly teleported to the third body, and once more, with his Fury, crushed the third body with an empowered piercing root-spear. 

The three remaining bodies melted through my cocoon of roots, and immediately tried to merge. I battered the remaining bodies with my roots, and weakened it some more.

The melted bodies reformed, and then, reshaped itself into something resembling a golem.

Only to die.

The heroes and the rest of my domain holders arrived, and they came with the heaviest barrage of magic and weapons.

It died before it turned into it’s golem form.

[Demon King Multipus has been slain]

[You’ve gained 6 levels. You are now Level 265]

[Your abilities and skills have been strengthened, range decay for abilities and skills reduced]