Serenity stared at Aeon’s core; his hand still rested on it, but he hadn’t seen anything from it other than the Voice’s messages when he “conquered” it. This wasn’t a safe place for the core, but he didn’t think he could move it, either. He’d never heard of a World Core being moved. Of course, he’d also never heard of a World Core being broken in two to make a too-close moon or a World Core on the surface of its world.
Serenity frowned. Perhaps his best option was to ask Aeon Itself. “Can you move? This isn’t a good place for you; I’m worried that someone else might try to take you over. Maybe you can move to the center of Aeon, where a core should be?”
For a moment, Serenity saw darkness and rock. It was a cold darkness and rock, unwelcoming in a way he didn’t entirely understand until he realized those weren’t his own feelings. Aeon had to be showing him the center of the rock that made up itself and telling him that it didn’t like the cold and darkness at its physical center.
A moment after he realized what Aeon was showing him, the view shifted. Serenity could see a glowing green stone, clearly Lyka’s core, but there were no walkways built around it and it seemed larger than Serenity remembered. “Do you want to go back to Lyka?”
Serenity’s viewpoint shifted back to the cold, dead center of Aeon. He wasn’t sure what that meant. Was it “Lyka is better than this” or “no”? Either seemed possible, and he was always terrible at guessing games like this.
The next image was of Serenity standing with his hand on the viewpoint; Serenity was sure it was the present. He could see Lykandeon’s body in the background, off to the side. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
He felt more than saw Aeon’s magic move around him. It was an odd spell; even odder, he was inside it. That wasn’t how he cast spells, even ones he planned to cast on an ally; the only person who should be inside a spell was the caster. Even then, Serenity always chose to build his spells in a clear area; anything other than ritual magic didn’t take up that much space and trying to build a spell around something just invited having the spell disturbed, altered, or even disrupted.
Serenity held very still. He couldn’t even ask what Aeon was doing without potentially affecting the spell it was building. It was still showing him the image of himself standing there, so it was probably asking him to stand still.
There was a chance it was trying to kill him, but Serenity had the feeling that wasn’t what it was doing. He’d give it the chance to do something and see what happened.
The spell was interesting; he could feel that it was built primarily out of essence instead of mana. The affinities were odd as well, but there was significant resonance with SpaceTime and oddly enough he felt a resonance with his Rift to the Origin Skill as well, even though he was confident that it wasn’t based on SpaceTime.
The world blinked out around Serenity, then blinked back in. That was familiar; he’d just teleported, though his hand was still on Aeon’s core.
Serenity looked around and saw the image in his mind’s eye sent by Aeon do the same thing; it was still showing him what it was seeing. He stood in a room he recognized on Aeon, the common room for the suite that they’d been staying in.
Aeon’s core floated above the table.
That was strange. He’d always thought World Cores were at the center of a nexus of ley lines, but it was true that the ley energies were thin in Lykandeon’s palace. There was no ley line in the room Aeon’s core had moved to; perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps Earth and Tzintkra were simply at ley nexuses because they were centrally located?
Blaze and Karin weren’t in the room. It didn’t really surprise Serenity; before they left, Blaze had settled Karin into the room the man Ekari rescued, Jeff, had occupied while he was with them.
:Rissa, Ita? You can go ahead and come back to our rooms. The World Core seems to have teleported me back here.: If he’d known it was going to do that, he’d have waited and gathered everyone up; it would have been much more convenient than the rest of the group extracting themselves without him after the notice from the Voice. Serenity had no idea what the outside was like.
At that thought, Aeon sent him a few fragmented images; he got the impression they were all from Lyka. Some were quiet; others showed groups talking and one showed a fight where a green beam-weapon was being used by people wearing Church robes against people who didn’t.
The last image gave Serenity an idea. “Aeon, can we make it so that the weapons you can see through don’t work in the hands of people affiliated with the Church?”
Once again, Aeon answered visually instead of in words. The last vision resumed. The weapon ceased firing, but it was already too late; the people who weren’t in Church robes had broken and were running. He’d probably saved some lives, at least; that was something.
:We will come.: Ita’s no-nonsense mindvoice was clear despite the distance. :It may take some time; a pair of guards showed up from the front entrance right after those messages appeared. They are no longer a problem but Rissa says she is not ready to leave.:
:I’m going to loot the boss room.: Rissa’s mindvoice echoed with laughter. :You always forget, and while I think you got the biggest piece of treasure, I’m sure there’s other stuff here. Maybe even something we’ll need.:
:I don’t forget!: Serenity protested. :Life isn’t a video game, there’s often not anything to loot! Even if there is, I don’t like to steal.: Serenity knew Rissa was teasing, but that didn’t mean it didn’t work.
:Which is why you left the tapestries behind, right? And didn’t look for a possible secret treasury entrance from Lykandeon’s hideaway? He seems like the type that would have one. I have no problems with stealing from him, either.:
Serenity had to admit that her point was reasonable; Lykandeon did seem to be the type that would have a personal treasure vault and Serenity had no problem raiding it. In fact, it was arguably Serenity’s now; he’d taken Lyka and Aeon by the rules established with the Voice, which meant they were the rules Lykandeon had either established or the ones he’d used in the first place. Right of Conquest meant that everything that had been Lykandeon’s was Serenity’s now.
:It won’t be stealing, I technically own it. Go ahead and loot my stuff for me.: Serenity grinned broadly. It wasn’t often that he got to pull something like that on Rissa. :I’ll be here trying to figure out Aeon’s core and where we’re going next.:
Serenity’s grin faltered a bit. He hated the idea of Rissa wandering around a dangerous place without him looking for treasure, even if she did have people watching her back. :Stay safe.:
:I will. You still have one of Ita’s token-halves, right? It can’t get us out since Ita can’t go through her own portal but we could use it to get you in.: Rissa reassured Serenity. :We’ll be fine.:
:You’d better.: Serenity actually had several broken tokens from Ita for different purposes, even if he’d forgotten about them. It made him feel better to know that they had an emergency way to get his help, but he wasn’t entirely certain it would work. Ita’s range was good, but it was still only a few dozen miles if she wanted to hold it for long and he wasn’t actually certain how far Lykandeon’s palace was; he’d only gotten there by portal and it wasn’t on any of the maps he’d managed to get. He’d need to be ready to go through immediately if they called for his help.
:Love you.: Rissa’s words were a clear goodbye, but they still made Serenity feel warm inside.
:Love you too.: Serenity wanted to tell her again to keep safe, but he’d already said it twice. Another time wouldn’t help; it would just make it obvious he was worrying. Not that that wasn’t already obvious.
Serenity needed to distract himself from Rissa’s possible predicament. The only way he could think of to do that immediately was the visions given by Aeon’s core. When he paid attention to it again, it wasn't showing him anything even though his hand still rested on its side. Instead, it glowed a bright grass-green.
Serenity had just long enough to wonder what was going on when he felt a wave of raw mana and essence wash over him. It felt very much like the ley line break that triggered all the dungeon breaks on Lyka except that this time he didn’t feel it at a distance. This time he was right at the epicenter.
The power wasn’t focused on Serenity but it didn’t matter; it was focused on Aeon’s core and he hadn’t removed his hand. Once the flood of magic arrived, he wasn’t certain he should, either; the magic was already flowing through him and breaking the connection might mean that it backlashed. Simply letting it flow wouldn’t be bad as long as he had the capacity, and he didn’t feel strained even though he was starting to glow a deep purple, complementing Aeon’s bright green.
It seemed he’d been right about World Cores being at ley line nexuses; he’d simply been wrong about the reason. They didn’t form at a nexus; they made one. Serenity lost himself watching the process. It was something he’d never actually seen before, even in mana; with both mana and essence, it was beautiful.
Ten minutes and sixteen seconds after it started, Blaze walked out of the spare room, shielded his eyes against the bright light, and stopped in the doorway. “Serenity? It has to be you, no one else would be putting on such a show.”
Serenity felt insulted at the thought that he was showing off. “Hey, I’m not the one causing it! Aeon’s core is establishing a nexus here.”
Blaze chuckled. “Yet as usual you’re in the middle of it. You’re even glowing this time.” He flashed his grin at Serenity. “You can’t escape it, Serenity. How many one-in-a-million-years events have you been at the center of in the past year?”
The past year? “You mean since the Tutorial started, don’t you.” It was far more than a year of lived time for Serenity, but it was more or less a year to the outside world.
Serenity paused to think about it. “The Tutorial, they’re common but once per world. I guess it’s rare that we did so well.”
“Beyond rare,” Blaze agreed. “The Voice changed the Tutorial as your people went through it; I don’t think you know how unusual that is. The Voice normally keeps the same set of scenarios for the entire time but it added information to all of them from itself rather than from the instructors during the Tutorial. I suspect you may have changed all Tutorials in the future.”
That was possible. The Voice had goals.
The events in the Tutorial were possibly another; so were the events on Tzintkra, though he’d never told Blaze about having his own dungeon. Everything that happened on Earth after that didn’t meet the bar, demons were unfortunate but not one-in-a-million-years and he’d already mentioned how well Earth did during the Invasions. So that made two; possibly three if he counted taking Tzintkra but surely that was just another planetary capture even if he was low Tier for it.
Finding out about the kidnappings from the Tutorial probably counted, but nothing on Zon seemed likely to; invasions happened, after all, and he hadn’t really changed that much by his presence anyway. “I guess this is the fourth? Or maybe the third, since we’re here because of the abductions?”
Blaze laughed. “I think you’re undercounting but it doesn’t matter. Three or four is still enough. You’re stuck in the middle of things, Serenity.”
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