World Keeper

Chapter 1141: Cleaning Up

Although the process by which the Cloning Swarm was defeated was… regrettable, there was nothing that we could do about it now. Additionally, the Origin of Fate said that she had already taken care of all of the other cosmic monsters. Now, the only thing that was left should be dealing with the two remaining swarms.

That said, it would still take quite some time to deal with the Mutating Swarm once we were able to focus on it. Unlike the other swarms, we did not have any way of annihilating the entire swarm at once, and would have to manually track them all down. Thankfully, we were now able to retrieve Lena and Dana from the void, at least. Without any other giant monsters remaining, it freed them up to help in other areas.

For another two days after the Origin of Fate made her move, I continued to defend Earth’s solar system. At this point, I was no longer able to defend the entire thing by myself, and had to pull back, only defending the few inner planets and Olympus. As long as I reduced my activity to that area, I could create a barrier using the power of my gauntlet. This was more energy intensive than when I went around to deal with them manually, but it was also the only way that I would be able to take care of all of them before they broke through.

Chelsea sat in her control room, operating a screen that seemed to be straight out of a video game. She was commanding numerous orbital stations and defense platforms to shoot down the swarms as they approached. There were a few gods dealing with this territory as well, but she could use her defense platforms to fill in the gaps where anything leaked through.

Chelsea, what’s our status? James asked mentally, causing Chelsea to widen her eyes.

We’re holding on for the moment. Is the Swarmkiller ready? She asked, pulling up another screen as she continued firing pulses of energy to disable the units that made it through.

Just linking up the power now. According to our calculations, we should have more than enough energy for a single burst. I’ve got Ryone here, ready to amplify the output by an order of magnitude, while Ashley and Tubrock are here to make sure it doesn’t fall apart, so there should be no chance of failure. How long before we’re lined up to fire?

Chelsea reached out, tapping on a few controls. Given the swarm density… as long as we aren’t directly aiming at the surface, any angle is a suitable firing position. It doesn’t matter which one we hit, right?

Right. They’re a gestalt, so hitting any of them is as good as hitting the leader. Just make sure that you coordinate with the gods outside, so that they don’t accidentally blast a hole where you’re aiming before you hit the trigger. That would be highly unfortunate.

…Chelsea had to agree there, nodding her head. She contacted the ninja gods that were fighting around the solar system, informing them of her target. Those gods began to pull back from that area, allowing the swarm to flood in through the gap created. Evacuate the firing chamber. She said, moments before hitting the big red button.

Orbiting around the research planet was a large weapon platform, housing a single-barreled beam weapon. The weapon lifted up, aligning itself towards the approaching swarm, and released a thin beam of blue light. This beam impacted the swarm dead on, piercing through it as the rest of the swarm began to pulse with blue energy.

Moments later, their bodies began to twitch, before floating lifelessly through space. Deep within the empty space of Deckan’s universe, a giant monster the size of an entire continent sat within the husk of a deceased beast, its body having been slain days before. Long, silver wires stretched out from its body, connecting it to the dead monster’s flesh.

When the pulse of blue light struck this monster, it let out a skittering screech, its legs slamming against the flesh beneath it. This resistance continued for only a few seconds, however, before the giant, metal mass slumped to the interior of its fleshy chamber, dead.

Throughout the various universes, the Replicating Swarm pulsed with an intense mana, before simply seeming to shut down. This allowed the defending gods to breathe a sigh of relief. Now, the only ones left to deal with were the comparatively weaker Mutating Swarm.

All of those gods that had previously been on the defense were reorganized, divided into units and sent to the Metong universe on a grand hunt. It was finally time to put this invasion to rest.

As battles raged across countless planets in the Metong universe, I sat on my throne, waiting impatiently for that all-important notification. For the first time since the invasion began, the number of enemies was decreasing at a visible rate, showing no signs of recovery.

The problem was the time needed to weed out the last of the swarm. Already, three weeks had passed since the hunt began, led by Accalia, Leowynn, and other gods capable of following their traces through the stars. Once encountered, the battles were over almost as soon as they began, but it still took a significant amount of time to find the next targets.

Looking at the number of monsters, which had finally dropped to ‘merely’ the billions, I sent my gaze towards Tsubaki. “Do we have a damage report for this invasion? It looks like everything should be over soon…”

Tsubaki bowed, nodding her head solemnly. “Our most significant loss in terms of territory is, of course, the Sher Dien universe. We have confirmed the destruction of the universe just two days ago, and it would appear that the memetic entity responsible was also killed in the resulting flood of destructive energies.”

“Aside from this, we have confirmed that thirteen colonized worlds were destroyed, either by the cosmic monsters or the swarms that they unleashed. As for the number of life-bearing worlds in the Metong universe that have been destroyed, but were not part of the network, we estimate at least several thousand. Likely far more than that…”

“Finally, for damages not involving the loss of life-bearing planets, it is estimated that roughly one-third of the planets within each universes’ primary galaxies have been destroyed. Most of the stars currently visible in the night skies of each primary world will likely disappear over the next century or so.”

I clenched my jaw at that, but ultimately nodded my head. Without a doubt, this was the most devastating invasion we had ever faced. Although the void monsters unleashed by RagnaRocker had destroyed all alien life, and ravaged the inhabited worlds, we were able to largely limit the damage to the worlds that were inhabited. That invasion came in at a very close second, and may have been more dangerous if Dana hadn’t killed the Void God, but for now, I believed that this was the worst we had ever faced.

“Got it… is there anything else?” I asked in a tired tone, and Tsubaki shook her head.

“Clara has reported that she can have her drones devour the deceased units from the Replicating Swarm, as well as the giant monsters that remain in the vicinity of each solar system. With your permission, she would begin this project, and then wishes to know what you would have her do with the new drones that are being created.”

I paused at that, thinking. We couldn’t risk sending the drones out somewhere where they might get infected by a memetic monster, but we also couldn’t just leave them floating freely, either. “...Have any of them that won’t fit in Sirius sent to the Metong. They should appreciate the additional workforce.”

Tsubaki gave another nod, before I glanced at the side, letting out a sigh of relief. The number of monsters plummeted again, down to the thousands, and then to nothing. Immediately, the window disappeared, replaced by the fanfare and reward screen. My eyes widened, seeing that we were being awarded two hundred thousand points for this invasion.

“My Keeper?” Tsubaki asked nervously, but I shook my head.

“It’s finished. I was just surprised by the reward. Can you let everyone know that they can stand down, and return to normal activity? There are some things that I need to take care of.” I told her, to which Tsubaki nodded her head. Meanwhile, I focused, opening up the chat window to send a message to Balu.

EarthForceOne: You there, Balu?

Starkiller: Oh, hey! Did you finally finish up with that invasion of yours? I saw that it was still ongoing just a bit ago.

EarthForceOne: Yeah. My opponent was DarkestNight, and I have some information that I need to report to the guild.

Starkiller: Selling us some intel? Sure, what sort of intel are you looking to give? I think we’ve got him pretty well documented, though.

EarthForceOne: He’s breaking his pattern. In addition to the usual numbers that I was told he sends, he also sent three monsters capable of releasing different types of swarms. Next, the largest monster that he sent had an entire civilization living within its body, one with enough advanced technology that it could create a device able to destabilize the void. In my opinion, I believe that DarkestNight is preparing to break through to the fifth rank. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

Starkiller: Oh. OH! Yeah, I need to report this right away! Give me just a minute, and I’ll get back to you. I’ll need the guild master to give me an estimate on how much I can give you for that.

While Balu was taking care of that, I opened another chat window, specifically the guild chat.

Oldbeard: Oh, looks like Dale’s back!

EverLasting: Welcome back, Dale. It looks like you made it through DarkestNight’s invasion?

EarthForceOne: Thanks, you two. And yeah. There were some unexpected twists, but I already reported it to the Gilded Branch. Apparently, he’s incorporating swarm tactics into his monsters now, and is working to advance in rank.

EverLasting: Oh… I’ll need to keep an eye out for him, then. Thanks for the warning.

EarthForceOne: No problem. Have any of you tried the new streaming system that was made during the meeting? The Interactive Stream system.

Oldbeard: I got it when I got back from the meeting. I also got that Educational Stream add-on that I saw you made.

EarthForceOne: Nice. How is it working for you? Any problems, so far?

Oldbeard: If there was one complaint, it would be that the streams pull people away from other games. A lot of times, streamers playing a game will help influence their viewers to play it as well. However, with these interactive streams, the viewers don’t have the chance to play it themselves. It’s… sort of like watching purely for the streamer, instead of for the game that they’re playing. Not a bad thing, and I’m sure it will balance out over time. I’ve only had it for a few weeks, after all.

I gave a small nod at that. I hadn’t thought about the fact that this would lessen the popularity of other games, but there was probably a way to fix that. For instance, if the streamer specified that they were streaming within the setting of Fragments of Acidia, and disabled any donation options that would break that setting.

If they did this, then they wouldn’t be interacting with other players of Fragments of Acidia, but they would be essentially doing a single player version of the game where their viewers were able to influence the events.

As I was thinking about that, Balu got back to me. Due to the importance of the information, she said that she would be to my Admin Room soon, and that she would be giving me eighty thousand points for the information. Not a small sum, by any means, and it was a nice bonus to add onto the reward from the invasion itself.

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