“From there, you’ll need to alternate between casting detoxify and low heal constantly until your space mages have enough mana to transfer you all,” Anailia told her believer as she watched above in her realm. “When the one called Steph wakes up and regains some of her mana get her to cast the highest form of detoxify she can manage on him as well and immune enhancement everywhere but the organs that have been transferred, if those receive an extreme immune response he’ll likely die immediately.”

Thera didn’t say anything and simply did as she was told, but her god wouldn’t fault her for it. She had to put all of her focus into using a level zero magic she’d only just acquired on someone whose resistance to it would trouble anyone but an awakened skill user. The fact that she was pushing herself so hard was something worthy of praise, which Anailia was going to ensure she would get. After all, Thera had been an uncut gem for too long, it was growing time for the world to see what she would be capable of given the proper resources.

“I really can’t thank you enough,” Said the floating cube beside her. Myriad’s voice was filled with worry and none of the other gods present could fault him for that. He was well known for the longest time for his unfortunate state, trapped in the same condition as the forbidden gods by virtue of his people's sacrifice to deal a major blow against the invaders. While many gods felt discomfort around him due to his nature as a partially artificial divine being, as well as the extreme act his people committed as a final defiance over those who would lust for their world, enough others took pity on him as he made his way to this world, sharing some of their own meager faith and giving him work to ease their own burdens as an excuse to provide some of the power they’d receive as payment.

In the centuries he’d been on the world, it was genuinely nice to see the pleasant little cube get a believer and grow his faith, if only a little, and now that his apostle who helped make all that possible was in such a state, none could blame him for his concern.

“Unfortunately, Ben is still far from safe. I’ve heard the reports from their world that such treatment is possible, but we lack those strengths, and worse still that the organs had to come from an invader. Even if he gets back it’s impossible to say how long it would take a life mage to adapt them to his body.”

“If only the life gods hadn’t had to weaken themselves just to construct bodies for the otherworlders,” One of the gathered gods lamented. “It’s hard enough exerting influence on the world, even if your divinity is suited to the act. For us to only be able to watch as such a promising young mortal might lose their life…”

Unlike the mortals, who had significantly more strength than any time in the past when a world was invaded thanks to the system in place, the gods were all significantly weaker. It couldn’t be helped, it was a side effect of so many of them being gathered in one world with only a handful of believers devoted to each of them, their strength was nothing compared to what it once was.

“We can do more than watch,” She told them, not ready to give up on the boy that managed to pique her interest during her trial. “I’ve already instructed the leader of my people’s nation to send healers over to Stonewall as soon as they can, while telling the one I have there already to have their clinic prepared for an emergency case. If any of you have healers that can be spared as well then it would be appreciated. They should be back there after just a few hours once the mage Wedrow has enough mana for the jump, so the faster you can act the better.”

It was fortunate they had one of the only awakened spacial mages in the world with them, the mana cost for jumping to a place they’d already been was nothing compared to going in blind to a new location.

Even better though was the agreement of all gods present. There were only twenty there, and Anailia was the most powerful one by far, but they had all witnessed how hard the boy worked to save his friend and were moved to act. After all, what was the point of power if not used at times like this?

Myriad's emotions couldn’t be contained as he gave his thanks to everyone present, but with everything they could do for Ben done, it was time to move on to the most important part of their meeting.

“The issue now,” Anailia began, taking charge of the discussion. “Is determining how this happened.”

The mood went tense as they thought about what they’d seen. A horde that big didn’t just happen, even if they were neglectful, especially not a horde with a fully formed invader in the mix. It had been well over a thousand years since such a thing had occurred, and the most likely explanation was that it happened the same way as the previous time.

“I’ll say what I’m sure we’re all thinking,” One of the gods with an appearance somewhere between a sunfish and tarantula said. “It has to be a case of demon worshippers, doesn’t it? How else could they have grown to be such a big group, or for the invader to have learned world speak?”

Everyone murmured amongst themselves, but they’d all come to the same conclusion as well. A group that had existed in the past, with varying beliefs about demons, that they were gods, or at the very least might spare them if treated as gods. They had been wiped out after a disastrous event where they’d managed to raise a group of demons in secret, even bringing two of them up to sapience in the process, but they were meant to all be destroyed along with their dangerous beliefs. Whether some had persisted in secret and had been biding their time for the day the demons would arrive, or if this was a new group that had formed, only one thing was clear. They needed to be hunted down and destroyed. A group like that couldn’t be permitted to exist, especially not so close to their approaching war.

Anailia could only sigh, for such a thing to happen now of all times, she couldn’t imagine much worse happening for the world. “For now I’ll make sure to pass on the message to all of the other gods and it would be best to inform the leaders of your faith and nations. If a group of demon worshippers have been working in secret for who knows how long then there may be more hordes out there, or worse, more invaders. We’ll need to all begin investigating immediately.”

The agreement was unanimous and they all went their separate ways to begin pushing their people into motion, feeling a crushing fear within themselves that it would be their own precious mortals that would prove to be the world's undoing.

A figure silently walked through the forest, its invisibility keeping it safe from prying eyes as it made the long trek home. There was much that needed to be said to its people, decisions that needed to be made, but that would come second.

As he arrived at his home he ignored the questions of the people surrounding him, they would get their answers in time. Instead, he made his way to the center of the village and stopped before one of the many statues their ancestors had painstakingly constructed, kneeled down before it, and began to pray.

<Hello child,> A voice spoke in his head. <I take it you’ve seen your mission through to the end.>

“I have my lord,” It spoke aloud, letting the gathered masses hear his half of the conversation at least. “I’m sorry to say, but before I could eradicate the wise beast and retrieve the lesser ones, they were found by a group of strange ones.”

<I see,> The voice said, keeping its tone neutral. <And how did you react to their arrival?>

“I must apologize. Given the information I had, I wasn’t sure if collecting the lesser ones like you ordered would trump our founding rule of not interacting with the strange ones so I resolved myself to wait to the side to see how events would transpire and as a result all of the lesser ones were killed. I am ready to accept any punishment you deem fit for my failings.”

<It is unnecessary, you made the most appropriate choice you could given the time. Unfortunately, the village must be moved for the sake of everyone's safety.>

It would have been better for the ones who found the lesser ones to be killed, but the voice couldn’t fault him on that. It acted on the information it had, and a resource like him couldn’t be wasted just to punish it.

“Pardon my insolence my lord, but is that so necessary? My presence was not detected and our group has grown large, it won’t be easy to move everyone, especially the young.”

<You have your orders,> It said, a hint of anger coming to its voice for being questioned like that. <I don’t care how large the village has gotten, you all must be ready to move before the sun falls and march through the night. You must get deeper into the forest depths. Should you fail, you’ll be rewarded with the punishment you seem to desire.>

The figure looked up to the statue, violet eyes shining in the few remaining hours of daylight filtering through the trees. “It will be done.”

ProbablyATurnip

Hey there it's Turnip, bringing you the end of the third arc of Chaotic Craftsman! When I started writing this one I fully expected it to be maybe 15000 words less than it ended up being, it really ended up more as a medium arc than the short one I'd promised but hopefully you were all able to get some enjoyment out of it.

As for some things about stuff, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There's always some things I feel I would have done a bit differently with the benefits of hindsight, but even still it managed to set up some future events while giving characters a little bit of growth, while at the same time loading Chekhov's gun just to ignore it for the next couple arcs.

Finally I'm just going to mention that as a result of having a bit of extra time at the moment I'm going to be posting on fridays for a while on top of the regular sundays and tuesdays. I don't know how long it will last because sometimes life can come at you all at once, so I'm going to give the very unhelpful time frame of you'll get them until I can't anymore, though I'd be surprised if it ended up as less than a month.

With all that said hope you all have a fantastic rest of the week and come back on tuesday for the start of what comes next!