World Keeper

Chapter 955: Darkness Falls

Terra’s plan to remove the viral void beast may have been a success, but it also caused quite a lot of chaos in its implementation. Billions of people around the world suddenly saw a black monster appearing in front of them and attacking them, so it was natural for some accidents to occur. Unfortunately, she was not able to warn the world about what was going to happen without alerting the void beast that had been attached to those individuals.

In that sense, this was a pyrrhic victory, with no small amount of lives lost in the few seconds of chaos caused. The worst of it was naturally the areas surrounding any affected Immortal, as they released the greatest outbursts of energy in order to instinctively protect themselves.

Thankfully, despite the losses, the void beast was successfully eliminated through the use of the anti-meme. Though, that anti-meme itself was branded by the public as a disaster. The vast majority of people never even realized that they were under any sort of effect to begin with, so they thought of their salvation as some sick joke played by a Fallen Immortal.

While people demanded that the source of this disaster be brought to justice, the Terra twins simply watched helplessly from the sidelines. After all, they knew that they were the cause of the event. However, in order to properly destroy the void beast affecting everyone, they had to use a violent anti-meme. That was the prediction that Fate had given them, that only by truly attacking the void beast in every host at once could it be defeated.

Clara watched her factory with a satisfied grin, flying over it and monitoring the hordes of monsters that were working to automate the initial stages of production. It wouldn’t be hard for Sienna to make monsters capable of automatically producing weapons if she wanted, I’d bet. Though, they wouldn’t be of the same quality as a master blacksmith.

Even now, it was impossible to automate the creation of weapons as strong as those made by the best smiths. The only way to emulate that level of skill in crafting was with a true AI, at which point it was no longer considered as automation, due to the rights of the AI involved.

Clara shook her head as those thoughts passed through her mind, landing near one of the buildings in the midst of construction. A large number of silver drones were flying through the air, firing beams of light that seemed to be ‘printing’ the walls of the building. “Once this place is done, I’ll be able to monitor the Dyson Sphere progress without having to synchronize with the game.”

It had been well over a week since her conversation with Fifi, and she had sent the first of her solar panels into orbit around a neighboring star. This panel was probably the most advanced item that Clara had personally designed to date, as it could automatically convert solar energy into mana, and then mana into ki or spiritual energy. After doing so, it used an automated version of Digital Conversion that had been created in Fragments of Acidia.

There were only two blueprint files stored within this conversion software. One was for the solar panel itself, allowing it to exponentially self-replicate. The other file was for the drones that would come together and form the framework of the sphere.

The Dyson Sphere was a massive undertaking, and in normal circumstances a massive waste of resources. It only became viable when you removed the resource cost from the equation.

Of course, this sphere was not Clara’s only undertaking, it was just what she was working on to speed up the completion of her empire within Fragments of Acidia. Out in the real world, her factory was still her primary focus, as well as her regular void patrols.

As she was thinking that, Clara felt a presence appearing behind her, turning and seeing Dana. Clara blinked, about to welcome her with a smile, before seeing Dana’s stern expression. “Did something happen?” She asked curiously, tilting her head.

“I thought you were going to be patrolling the void?” Dana asked, her tone strict. “That was why you were able to have this factory, wasn’t it?”

“Well, yeah.” Clara nodded in agreement. “I’ve been going on regular patrols every three hours.”

Dana stepped over, pressing a finger to Clara’s forehead and transmitting some spiritual energy. Given that Clara was a clone of herself, Dana did not need to be nearly as careful when transferring memories, and was able to directly share the memories of the news related to Lorek’s recent disaster.

Clara’s eyes widened as she accepted this information, before her brows furrowed. “Wait… that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve always paid special attention to Lorek and Spica because of their time acceleration. How did something like that manage to get through?”

“According to Terra, that wasn’t the main problem, that was her fix for the main problem. And it wasn’t alone. There are numerous void beasts latched onto those two worlds.” Dana crossed her arms in front of herself, all but glaring at her familiar.

“No… what?” Clara blinked, before tearing open a void gate and jumping through. Naturally, Dana followed, the two rushing into the void and flying towards the larger sphere which represented Lorek.

Clara could see numerous beasts attacking the structure protecting the world, repelled by the giant force field that James and his people created. However, when she looked through the barrier, she didn’t see anything inside. “What do you mean that there are multiple beasts in there?” She asked, circling the sphere repeatedly to check for anything that she might have overlooked.

“This is Terra we’re talking about.” Dana reminded, though she too arched her brow when she didn’t see anything. “Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.”

Clara bit her lip gently, nodding her head. She looked at the barrier again, focusing her attention on it. As she approached the barrier, she used her security clearance to bypass it and approach the world’s protective shell. Only once she was inside the barrier did she let out a shocked gasp, Dana’s eyes going wide next to her.

There weren’t just one or two void beasts clinging to the world, but dozens, perhaps hundreds. “They managed to get through to this extent?” Clara asked, keeping her voice down as if afraid to alert the monsters devouring the information within Lorek.

“It would seem so.” Dana clenched her fists, turning to face Clara. “From now on, your patrols will be more in depth. I want you to inspect each world to make sure that nothing gets through like this again.” Of course, she knew that a stronger barrier was going to be produced, but she did not want to risk another incident like this.

“Right…” Clara sighed, nodding her head with a defeated look on her face. That order would more than triple the amount of time that it took for her to complete each patrol, but she had to admit that this was a dangerous situation. She flicked her wrist, producing a black whip in her hand. “Can you let the others know that things are about to get loud here?”

Dana nodded her head in satisfaction when she saw that Clara was taking action to clean up this mess, sending off a quick alert to Chelsea. Several of the void beasts noticed the fluctuation above them, turning and seeing the two girls hovering in the air. Rather than leave Clara to the battle, Dana floated backwards, wanting to get a look at Clara’s combat skills.

Clara held the black whip above her head, its body writhing like a serpent. Sensing the threat to their continued existence, five void beasts removed themselves from the barrier, flying towards Clara. Clara swung her whip, a wave of darkness wrapping around its tip. “Distant Shadows.”

The head of the whip seemed to split, five distinct lengths lashing out and grabbing at each of the monsters that had been charging towards her. Clara pulled on the whip, and these five beasts were brought before her, each one clawing or screeching to try and extricate themselves from the whip binding them.

“Dark Devour.” She declared her next attack, darkness spreading over the bodies of the captured beasts. The whip itself seemed to be absorbing them, devouring their bodies. At the same time, thanks to the noise caused in this battle, the rest of the monsters latched onto Lorek similarly noticed the threat.

Clara could sense that the beasts all around the world’s shell had locked onto her, and took a deep breath. A black puddle of darkness began to spread out beneath her feet. “I don’t know what will happen, but… requesting to deploy the Sanctuary.”

Dana nodded her head, knowing that it would be reckless to fight so many void monsters while holding back. “Granted.”

As soon as Dana gave permission, the black pool of darkness stretched out, encompassing the entire world shell. Dana could hear the screeching cries of the monsters trapped within, but only narrowed her eyes further. With the Sanctuary active, this battle would be over in moments, but there were still several other worlds that needed to be checked.

It had been more than a month on Lorek since the ‘Angelic Disaster’, an incident in which more than one percent of the world’s total population reported being attacked by some strange entity at the same time. Lorek was only just recovering from that incident when the next round of chaos hit.

All over the planet, all over every planet in the world… light died. For five minutes, no light existed in the world. Whether it was natural light such as from the sun, or even artificial light created from mana, everything became pure darkness for five minutes.

If there was any benefit to be seen, it was that the monsters of the world were just as disoriented by this sudden event as the residents themselves, unlike the previous disaster. Those who were able to use other forms of detection could still move unimpeded after a brief period of adjustment, but many were left helpless for these few minutes as darkness took over the land.

This was the first time that someone had wrapped an entire world within their sanctuary, so the people involved were unable to identify what had caused such an event. Naturally, there were many screaming about the literal end of days. This was no eclipse, after all, but the total destruction of light in a universe.

Once the darkness ended, and light was allowed to return, many Fallen Immortals rushed into the void, preparing themselves for battle. They expected to find the barrier around the world shattered, a great beast attacking their home. Instead… they found nothing. The barrier remained intact, and nothing could be seen within it.

Dana and Clara left as soon as they had finished cleaning up the monsters that had snuck in. Unfortunately, this disaster was not for Lorek alone. After cleaning up one world, they went to do the same with Spica, which had been equally as infested. Thus, the Fallen Immortals were given the chance to catch up to their progress when they heard that darkness had fallen over Spica as well.

When they arrived at Spica, they saw a Sanctuary layered beneath the barrier, just over the main body of Spica’s shell. Frightened, they attacked the barrier, trying to break through and stop whatever Fallen Immortal was trying to attack the world’s shell. However, this curtain of shadows lasted only for a few moments before fading away, taking with it the source of this ‘disaster’.

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