Chapter 841: Don’t Throw Our Dead Friend’s Stuff Out of a Tortoise

The final unclaimed territory of the transformation zone was the smallest of them all at roughly eight kilometres across. It was situated in the middle of the zone and was close to perfectly round. Unlike the permeable shadow boundaries of the other territories, the one containing the tree was pitch black and impenetrable, at least at ground level. At higher altitudes it became opaque and eventually entirely transparent, allowing the tree inside to be visible from across the zone.

The permeability of the barrier had been tested before. It remained impenetrable at all levels, even when completely invisible, with certain environmental exceptions. Clouds and wind could pass through normally, yet not when produced by magic or even the weather machine.

As the alliance prepared to make the final push and completely unify the transformation zone, it was tested again. The tests were carried out from within Onslow’s ever-useful flying shell. Jason, Taika, Belinda and Clive were there, along with Emir and Gabriel to see if any gold-rank powers could make a dent.

They had conducted a variety of tests, ranging from Belinda and Clive casting complex ritual magic to Belinda and Taika throwing random stuff at it. The invisible barrier was less invisible when coated in scorched ritual markings and smashed pumpkin oozing down the dome with fake paper money stuck to it.

“I can’t believe you threw a board game at it,” Jason said.

“Bro, Monopoly sucks,” Taika said. “You know Monopoly sucks and you still have like five more versions of it. Are you really going to miss the Bass Fishing Edition?”

“No, Monopoly’s terrible, but I inherited those from Greg.”

“Why? He hated Monopoly more than any of us. He had what? Eight different t-shirts ragging on it?”

“You know what he was like with games. He just kept getting more and never got rid of the old ones, even if he didn’t like them. I have about a thousand games of his and he died without playing at least a hundred of them.”

“We can afford to lose a few then.”

“I’m just saying that maybe we don’t throw our dead friend’s stuff out of a tortoise.”

“Bro, I didn’t know Greg as long as you, but I know one thing for certain: he would absolutely love to throw copies of Monopoly out of a magic flying tortoise.”

"He would love that, wouldn't he?" Jason said with a laugh before his expression grew sad. "He'd love all of this."

Taika rested a hand on Jason’s shoulder and changed the subject.

“This is a huge tree, bro. That trunk has to be a mile across.”

“A mile?” Emir asked.

“Sorry,” Taika said. “A bit over a kilometre and a half. It’s weird that an alternate reality has the metric system and the Americans still can’t figure it out.”

“It’s the link between worlds,” Jason said. “It creates echoes. That’s why even though Earth doesn’t have elves, our folklore is full of them.”

“We probably shouldn’t tell the real elves about rule thirty-four,” Taika said. “I’m pretty sure they feature heavily.”

“You’re pretty sure, are you?” Jason teased.

“I’m not ashamed,” Taika said. “I’d say I like sexy elf cosplay as much as the next bloke, but the next bloke is Travis and that guy is anime-body-pillow lonely. Good thing he’s still in Rimaros because he’s bad enough around celestines. If he went to an elf city like Yaresh I think he’d stroke out.”

Jason looked at Taika from under raised eyebrows.

“Not like that,” Taika said. “Okay, probably like that, but it’s not what I meant.”

They looked out at the tree which towered over them even a half-dozen kilometres in the air. The trunk was around a kilometre and a half thick, as Taika said, and thinned little as it rose into the air. The tree topped out at roughly twelve kilometres high.

“Bro, this tree is a mountain. It’s way bigger than the one in the shape of your head.”

“Forget mine,” Jason said. “This thing is taller than Everest.”

“Probably a lot less poo, though. Not much of a tourist attraction when there’s an impenetrable force field over it.”

“Okay, I’m going to stop that conversation there,” Belinda said. “I think we can safely say that no one is getting in until you make the attempt to claim it, Jason.”

“How are the preparations going?” Gabriel asked.

“We’ve collected a lot of things from the zones that might help,” Jason said. “Weapons like those you’d see in my world, but gold-rank. Various magical tools. Some we know how to use, others we’re figuring out.”

“I saw the hover-tank, bro. It looked a bit rusty, though.”

“Yeah, it was some post-apocalyptic sci-fi territory,” Jason said.

“Too bad there wasn’t a mech,” Taika lamented.

“There was,” Jason said sadly. “Unfortunately, Farrah hit it with her lava cannon when we were clearing that zone.”

“That’s a shame,” Taika said. “Does anyone know how to drive the tank?”

“I do,” Belinda said.

“She’s the one we’ve got figuring all this stuff out,” Jason said.

***

The adventurers and their allies massed on one side of the tree's territory rather than trying to surround it. They were spread out enough to avoid all but the largest of area attacks, but sufficiently close that they could focus their efforts and support one another as necessary. The front line consisted of gold-rankers with the adventurers, brighthearts, Builder cultists and messengers all represented. After them were the array of weapon emplacements and armed vehicles scavenged from the various territories.

Only a few of the scavenged assets were what Jason would categorise as ‘sci-fi guns’, although many didn’t fit the Pallimustus magical paradigm. There were steampunk belt-fed Gatling guns akin to weapons Jason had used in other transformation zones. There was what looked like a giant school-fair volcano project on the back of a wagon. It was able to conjure objects of sculpted light that looked and acted like gun drones armed with lasers. They contrasted starkly with the wooden wagon the device was mounted on.

Belinda was managing this section of the allied forces but was unable to operate the devices herself. The gold-rank requirements forced her to use proxies for each, taken from the brighthearts. The brightheart gold-rankers were mostly conscripted civilians, not trained warriors. The near-genocide of their people had been a harsh teacher, but they were still not the match of trained adventurers, brutal cultists and messengers born with the knowledge of war. This made them good candidates to operate the relatively simple weapons, even if it meant leaving a vehicle stationary and just using its guns.

Behind all of that were the silver rankers, ready to charge or flee as circumstances dictated. They had resources for their evacuation ready to go, including some scavenged vehicles not built for war.

The sole exception to that ordering was Jason, stationed with the gold-rankers. This was not another territory where he could saunter up at the end and use a magic orb to claim it. He instinctively understood that this fight required him to participate. Miriam had assigned him a protection detail comprised of Rufus’ parents, Emir and his wife, Constance.

Jason stood with Miriam at the rear of the gold-rankers. With them were the other factional leaders, Lorenn of the brighthearts, Beaufort of the cultists and Boris of the messengers. They stood behind Jason and Miriam, ready to issue orders to their people once the battle began.

Jason and Miriam shared a look before casting their gazes to the sky. The tree was tall enough that it poked through dark cloud cover thick enough to turn day into twilight. Silver-rankers had a good sense of time but Jason took out a watch, wanting to be precise.

“We’re on schedule,” he said. “Is there anything else, Tactical Commander? Do I need to send a delay code to the network hub?”

“No, Operations Commander. There’s nothing else.”

“Then we go as scheduled. Four minutes.”

***

The impenetrable barrier was not hard to remove. All it took was Jason wanting it gone. It vanished like it had never been and the transformation zone was unified. Jason felt it become one and immediately understood that the battle was for who would control it; him or an unstable, corrupted giant tree. He was confident it would be bad if it was the tree.

There were three or four kilometres of open ground between the trunk and where the barrier had been. The land was nothing but rocky dirt and protruding roots. Floating in the air just off the ground, packed wing to wing, were elemental messengers. They immediately flooded out to attack.

There was a skyquake as twilight turned into blinding brightness as thousands of bolts of lightning struck down at once. With the barrier gone, the weather machine could do its work, turning the space around the tree into a realm of electricity. Lightning poured down in a constant onslaught, too imprecise to be used once the forces clashed, but devastating when striking the elemental messengers alone. The sound of it was like nothing Jason had ever heard; a cacophony of thunder that rattled the air.

The allies were untouched but the elemental messengers were all but annihilated. The lightning finally stopped, the brightness fading and the clouds breaking up as if they had no more to give. Everything had been poured out on the messengers. Daylight broke through the thinning coverage, illuminating what had been, moments ago, a massive army. Now, all but a scattered few lay dead on the ground. The earth was scorched but the roots of the great tree were untouched, despite the cataclysm of gold-rank lightning that had rained down upon them.

“You were right,” Miriam said. “Those were gold-rank auras but weak, like the anomalies when we first arrived.”

"And I think I know how we escalate things," Jason said. "Boris, what do you make of that tree trunk now we can see it clearly?"

The leaders all cast their eyes at the tree, no longer obscured by the barrier. Set into the bark were hundreds, if not thousands, of crystals. Some were round like awakening stones, others square like essences. Most were rough and unshaped, like quintessence. Whatever form they took, however, they were all far too large to be the genuine version of what they appeared to be. All were in fiery or earthy colours.

“The lightning did nothing to those roots,” Boris said. “I suspect the wood of the tree is extremely resistant, if not outright immune to attack. But those things set into it look as much like target points in a boss fight as you could ask for. The question is whether the raid has phases as we take them out.”

“What does that mean?” Miriam asked sharply. We don’t have time to waste on explaining references to your world, Operations Commander.”

“What he’s saying,” Jason said, “is that we need to destroy the crystals set into the tree. But the more we break, the more powerful the elemental messengers will become. He’s also worried about thresholds at which the tree might display new abilities.”

“The enemy are destroyed,” Lorenn said. “We should strike now.”

“Yes, but with caution,” Miriam said. “Destruction of the crystals may lead to further messengers being produced.”

“Respawns,” Jason said. “New and stronger enemies; it makes sense. That’s the general pattern of transformation zones. Let’s test the water and see what we learn.”

Miriam directed her own team, Moon’s Edge, to move up and destroy a crystal. They were not the strongest of the gold-rankers but they were the fastest. When something inevitably went wrong, they had the best chance of pulling out safely. Miriam had them attack a round crystal, larger than the shards and smaller than the cubes. The hope was that this was important enough to provoke a reaction, but not an overwhelming one.

They got their reaction, the auras of the few remnant elemental messengers growing a little stronger. More messengers appeared as well, moving through the bark of the tree trunk like they were stepping through a waterfall. A waterfall with a clown car behind it, based on the numbers pouring out.

“Well, at least we know where we stand,” Miriam said. “Let’s just hope there aren’t any more surprises.”

“There are definitely more surprises,” Jason said.

“I know,” she told him. "I'm still going to hope there aren't."

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