Like every successful party, It was a challenge for the place to empty out, especially when everyone wanted a word with the host before they left.

A small group of Elders were interested in continuing their examinations of the children and the unique changes they were experiencing, which Jun naturally welcomed.

Another group of Elders were primarily interested in the rune formation that made everyone react like crazy people and Jun didn’t feel safe refusing their manic enthusiasm.

The last group of Elders were proactively offering resources and guides to quickly growing his Earth side forces, and although Jun knew their goodwill wasn’t without costs, he was touched nonetheless.

And all of them wished to see the second Spiritual Treasure he’d sculpted titled, The Guardians of the Pass.

Thats how he found himself back on Earth along the Jaws of Madness, a good distance away from the work for a proper evaluation, holding up a giant hole in space where a crowd of cosmic tourists peeked safely behind the layers of reality that separated his fragile planet from their powerful fragile planet destroying divine auras.

And since he was already out there, they encouraged him to get to work. Time was not on his side.

Jun had a brief petulant urge to resist, but they weren’t wrong. Time really was not on his side.

Snapping his fingers, space opened and a two meter ball of clouds zoomed out like a fluffy flash and came to a complete stop at Jun’s feet. Climbing up his treasured Silver Floating Cloud, Jun zoomed straight up to the sky, the hole in space locked to his side offering a continual stream of ‘ooh’s and ‘aaah’s as they got better views of the rumored sculpture/Spiritual Artifact.

Rising to the height of the orange Oath Flame, Jun approached with his mobile audience and tried to sense what he was looking for.

A small group of Elders with experience in dealing with damaged and dying worlds had come together and brainstormed an initial emergency treatment plan for Jun to implement on his world that really was in critical condition.

When they learned about the torch bearing Guardians and the Oath Flame’s functions, one suggested it as the place to start.

Jun held out a purely spherical ruby red orb and felt the warm pulses of confirmation. This would work. The murmuring peanut gallery agreed.

Putting away the first tool, Jun reached into space and took out a second.

“All you have to do is toss it into the flame and it will complete the process on its own. Be prepared to fish it out once it glows blue,” the creator of the oddly shaped artifact reminded from behind the screen.

It was a unanimous opinion. The first thing that Jun needed to do was to locate and identify the exact problems that needed dealing. It was an obvious goal to set, but was anything but simple to achieve.

At this point in the process, the world’s spirit inability to even bless its few remaining children with runes indicated the lack of its consciousness.

How was one to know where a planet in a coma was hurting?

One Elder provided an answer - do a scan - and handed him a tool to do it.

But what does one scan to diagnose a planet? The ground?

Another demigod offered a suggestion - a place rich in spirituality - and offered a tool to confirm it.

The Oath Flame was the gathering place of a growing collection of spirits that had no place to pass on to. There, they waited in comforting warmth out of the harsh polluted elements until the day the Oath Taker fulfilled their promise to help them move on. As extensions of the universes’s spirituality, the growing mass of resting spirits was a viable port to connect with the weakened spirit of the world.

The ruby orb confirmed it.

Listening to the instructions, Jun was shocked when the flames yielded not the ugly three-dimensional mosaic of exotic materials he’d thrown in, but a single, pristinely cut blue gem the size of his fist.

This was his map.

It barely took any effort.

Jun looked towards the chatting groups of exotic beings and marveled at how easily things could be accomplished with proper backing. Colossal hurdles became mere inconveniences when the right thighs were hugged.

“Now inject some essence into the jewel and show us what we’re dealing with,” the whale headed Elder Boriella excitedly encouraged from the side, eager to see the results of his creation.

The blue jewel shone with faint ethereal misty light as it pulled on the connection it had captured from the spiritually rich flames and read the slowly circulating energies. A dim orb of pale-blue manifested around the fist clutching the jewel that looked like a projection of the globe.

Looking at the blue misty orb forming shapes of broken continents, his guess became surer.

Once the orb settled into the form of the planet that every child became familiar with at school, new red marks began blooming all around it. Hundreds of small bloody wounds covered the globe, slowly bleeding it, but five particular lights shone with a deadly intensity that promised to do the final killing.

The globe showed a planet ravaged by a level of warfare that couldn’t be justified by any moral code. On the map of continents shattered, split, and sunk under the blackened oceans, five places were boldly marked, and one of them was right where Jun returned from.

The flattened plains. It was a wound too large for the world to handle. It alone would have been enough of a killing blow. But there were five.

A somber stillness filled the world of white clouds.

Even some of the apocalypse survivors gaped in horror at the excess of violence that left no land untouched. It was now no longer a wonder how only humans had survived on the planet, but a wonder that any humans could have survived in the first place.

Pressure.

A heaviness bore down on Jun’s shoulders, and pressed down on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. The magnitude of the problem was slamming into him like a truck, and he was feeling lightheaded. A firm hand anchored his shoulder and helped him find his footing.

“We got this, kid. What are you even stressing for? There’s a lot of incredible people supporting you now to do this together. Don’t worry about trying to handle it all on your own. You’re already doing fucking amazing buddy. Keep it up.”

The transporting cloud had already descended, and Juan had stepped through the window to support his son. He looked at the bloody globe projection, pointed, and casually said, “That one’s close. Wanna take a look?”

Having calmed himself, Jun looked gratefully at his dad and glanced at through the viewing portal by his side, saw a bunch of spectators looking settled in their seats, some taking out snacks and drinks, his own family looking comfortable with a growing mix of diverse friends joining their platform, and shrugged, ‘why not?’

Juan made a giddy chuckle as he excitedly took out the ‘trauma compensation’ Jun had gifted him from his pocket. He lifted a small black device, half the size of his palm, towards the clearing and clicked a button.

A dark cherry red metallic vehicle that looked like every motor enthusiast’s wet dream had magically materialized.

The two-seater was low to the ground like a proud predator, with sharp and sleek lines to cut the wind for pure speed. It silently hovered mere inches from the ground and relied on eight separate rune turbines for instantaneous power that could reach zero to mach twelve in seconds without turning the driver into paste.

Climbing into the passenger seat of the futuristic ride, the viewing portal hovering a few feet above their heads, even Jun was immune to the excitement about the drive, not having had the chance to drive too many of the gifts.

“Buckled in?”

“What’s a ‘buggledden’?”

“Something they used to say. It’s like asking if you’re ready to dance with death. Don’t worry. Safety’s automatic. Hold on tight, close your mouth so you don’t bite your tongue, and try not to piss the seats. They’re some kind of leather and I don’t know if I can get that out.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” Jun mumbled, and tightly gripped the ‘oh shit’ handles on the sides.

Juan just chuckled and stepped on the pedal. Hard.

At the base of the Guardians Pass, a high-pitched squeal echoed along the mountain range long moments after the red blur vanished from human eyesight.

Desperately trying not to hyperventilate from the shock of sudden speeds that were out of his own control, even though he could move much faster on his own, the embarrassed new Elder glanced hatefully at his driving father who was laughing like it was going out of sale while wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

What made them both pause was the laughter of a third voice from behind them.

Juan, frozen in mid laugh, didn’t turn back, but his knuckles on the wheel were as white as his face.

Jun did turn back and looked where there should have been no space for anybody to laugh. It was a freaking two seater.

Space was extended out, and where there was no space, space was made. And in this space that was made, a familiar violet haired girl of transcendent beauty, dressed in a dress whose colors never settled, was sitting on a dainty chair with a small table filled with tea and snacks, looking past the two pairs of shoulders in the front at the view of desolation they traveled, still chuckling at Jun’s cute screams of terror. Making stunned eye contact, all Jun got was a sweet smile.

Granted, it was a nice one.

“Ms. Administrator, if you were looking for ways to scare two grown men to death, you’re on the right track,” Jun complained, trying, and failing, to not look impressed by her trick.

“Administrator? Jun? Is there a person behind us?”

“You have a rear-view mirror right here.”

“I’m too scared to look.”

“It’s the person that showed up at the end. She did something really cool back here with space.”

“I don’t like ghosts Jun.”

“No ghosts! Its Nexus Elder super power stuff. Nothing strange at all.”

“Oh. Okay,” Juan nervously muttered, before finding the nerve to look up. He looked up. The outrageously pretty floating girl with the crazy hair looked back at him through the mirror and smiled sweetly. Enlightened, he smiled back, straightened his posture, and locked his gaze towards the horizon, choosing not to ask anymore questions. Like, where?!

“I just wanted to ride with the cool kids. I’m so sick of those oldies up there. They’re entertaining your family and friends with stories I’ve heard a million times, and that’s not a hyperbole,” their uninvited guest told them.

“Well, do you have any thoughts about our impromptu field trip?” Jun asked, genuinely curious about her perspectives.

She didn’t answer right away. The being that was born directly from the World Tree and nurtured as her kin when the Enemy first appeared, closed her eyes and seemed to be feeling out with her other senses to assess the condition of her sibling, named Earth. Opening them, she looked at Jun with full confidence and declared, “The situation is complete shit. But you’ll make it work. I’m very confident.” And with that, she smiled sweetly and took a small, dainty sip from her teacup.

Both men faced forward with twitching facial muscles. That was still a vote of confidence, right?

“So, what else do people call you Miss?” Juan asked, making small talk.

She smiled and looked wistful when she replied, “I was born as a response to the sacrifice the final divinities made in creating the Nexus. Mother, or to say, the World Tree, watched the last of her eldests sacrifice themselves for her protection, and made a special fruit to birth a semi-divinity to watch over the product of that sacrifice. That is me. The Administrator. And no other name. Not until the Enemy lay vanquished at our feet, and my former titles hold no meaning.”

Not feeling too intimidated by the immortal passenger, Juan blankly said, “I don’t see why you have to wait that long until you can have a name. Are you only a person who has no other opinions and values other than your jobs? You seem like a classy lady that likes to prank her juniors. That’s an entire character biography for some major roles. I feel like that identity deserves a name.”

“Thank you for those kind sentiments, Mr. Guard, but it’s more a matter of upholding a spiritual vow that keeps my resolve from dulling, rather than it being a meaningless emotional clutch,” the Administrator said, giving a surprisingly sincere response.

Jun didn’t pay much attention to the following polite conversation between the two cosmically polar opposite creatures as they drove along the smooth blank terraformed surface towards their unknown destination.

They could get a sense of general direction and that they were close, but at what scale that closeness was measured was hard to tell. But they were for sure close. Probably.

The misty projected lights that showed them the way captivated his attention for a few blank minutes before Jun began paying more attention to the sensation of the blue jewel artifact in his hand that had somehow latched onto some kind of signal that still emanated from the world’s spirit and captured a snap shot of its condition in the form of this projection.

And it was still connected.

With new senses he was getting more accustomed to attuning, Jun reached out and felt for that specific connection. After a few handfuls of minutes, he felt a confined, cold, and unnatural sensation that was barely tethered to a strip of something connected to something bigger.

That sensation of largeness, barely an arm’s reach away, was more temptation than he could bear. His awareness, bypassing the unnatural elements, seeped into a delicately established bridge and a mortal soul that had Glimpsed Origin connected with the sleeping spirit of a universe.

There were images, glimpses of dreams, and an even clearer map of the world’s condition.

One that showed Jun and his clueless father that they had reached their destination. While Juan didn’t know that the newer, more detailed maps that were being projected helpfully along one side of the dash were produced directly by his son, he wouldn’t have known why that was significant, even if he did. But there was one other present with the appropriate levels of awareness to be completely blown away.

The Administrator nearly spat out a mouthful of tea and was tempted to take another sip to deliberately spit out in her shock.

“Stop here, dad,” Jun said, “this is about it.”

Disembarking without the now useless jewel, the duo made the trio retrieved the live audience and walked towards the few minutes it took to get to the right spot, as according to new maps that looks nothing like the original misty globe. There were scale-able maps with three dimensional features.

The Administrator watched silently with a strange expression as the duo walked in the front, casually chatting about the new appearance of the map interface. She wasn’t the only one to look strangely upon noticing the conversation.

The gray and white whale headed Elder Boriella was frantically waving her giant flipper arms with so much confusion that her rapid queries were coming out in unintelligible but beautiful whale songs. When she finally managed to get a hold of herself, she screeched out with great dignity, demanding to know where her Universal Connection Artifact was and how Elder Jun was connected to the world’s spirit.

That artifact was a result of millions of years of research and experimentation. How was it rendered so useless so quickly. It was something that even demigods needed expensive preparations to do. Since when did connecting to the universe’s core become so simple that even 4th ranked being could do it?

Jun distractedly explained his steps, also not fully comprehending how absurd it all truly was.

Elder Yamahaka, a graceful giant humanoid tree person with pastel pink flowering willow branches for hair, extended their smooth gray barked arm right up to the boundary and waited for an extending hand to take what she offered. Jun hurriedly reached beyond the boundary and accepted her offering.

It was the most important item in sustaining Earth from its probable demise. A treasure the ancient trents of Aldorin were famed for. The specially cultivated Nutrition Bomb.

With varying levels of concentrated vitality, it was widely accepted as one of, if not the, top supplements in the multiverse.

This one contained the concentrated vitality of a dying star, one of the weaker ones in her line, and was safer for her low level to digest.

Jun stood on a flat spot like any other flat spot on the flattened plains and confirmed his position for accuracy.

According to the images recorded and replayed on the new screens, this was the specific spot that the terraforming beam struck the Earth. The spot the blade pierced its flesh.

Holding out the exotic green fruit in his hands that was the size of his head and glowed in pulsing yellows, Jun saturated it in his spirit fire as he’d been instructed, at the first point of impact of the beam meant for shaping lifeless terrains into ones that could flourish that fell and struck the flourishing and turned it lifeless.

The life here was wiped out so cleanly and so quickly that the spirits here were far less agitated and likely to accumulate into anything foul.

Should we be so close?

“Elder Yamahaka,” Jun called out, a slight crack betraying his frayed nerves. “Is it alright to do this directly from my hands? The way you were throwing around terms like ‘ignite’ and ‘explosion’ had me thinking this was an activity best done from a distance?”

“Oh, it’s fine. Barely a tickle. Much more fun from up close. Trust me! The other human may want to step back, though.”

Before Jun could say anything, Juan silently stepped back through the barrier while giving Jun a supportive thumbs up.

“But wait. Elder Jun is, in fact, still a 4th ranked awakened and not a demigod, right? You might want to back up a bit.”

Too late.

Boom.

 

 

---

 

 

Hey guys. I wanted to assure you that I did not die.
If you started out with me from the beginning, you might remember a post I took down about my current situation as a primary caretaker for my mom who has a rare form of dementia. Well, last week my mother a series of minor seizers that have grown more common for us but never with such frequency, but otherwise she was stable. Then I think Friday, I’m not even sure what day it is today to be honest, she gave us a real bad scare. Like, I was preparing for the end, kinda scare.
I’ve had a number of years to emotionally prepare myself for the eventuality, but facing the potential real thing, I realized I wasn’t prepared for shit.
Thankfully, it stayed as a false alarm, but my family is collectively pretty shaken from the experience.
The original plan was to take a week hiatus from posting online to focus on building my patreon chapters, but I never even got to friday’s post. Right? Friday? Ioonno. I honestly didn’t even think about posts or anything this weekend. I’m just gonna thank you for your patience, and say I’ll be back to posting soon, but I’ll be taking a few days before I do that.
Anyways, thanks so much for sticking with me and my weird journey with Jun. I haven’t read any comments in probably over a week now, not out of choice, cause I love reading them, but, you know, life. I’ll get to them though. It’s gonna happen!
Thanks again for reading!
MoonHopper