World Keeper-Chapter 1203: Final Preparations

At this point, there was little more that we could begin to prepare for the upcoming invasion, at least on the grand scale. All it would take was time to get everything finalized. With Blank having created the virtual world core, it was obvious that he was ready to become an Origin, so he just needed to work with Chelsea to get his inner world set up.

Meanwhile, the virtual world itself needed time to fully replace the old network. Our Origins needed time to acclimate to their abilities. Chelsea and Ashley needed time to work out a defense against malicious cores… everything just boiled down to time. With the coming invasion only two weeks away, there was nowhere near enough time for everything to be completed properly.

This led to one rather obvious solution, with me returning to the Admin Room. All I had to do was decide how long to fast forward the world. Ultimately, I decided to let time advance by two years. That way, everything that was in progress should be completed, unless there was something fundamental that we were lacking, and needed to make some major discovery.

These discoveries, of course, could be achieved with more time, but there was no telling how much time was required. In cases like this, it was better to let the world play out normally, and inspiration could potentially strike from anything.

Regardless, two years passed in the blink of an eye, and I briefly spent a bit more time with Irena and Terra in the Admin Room, before making my way back to Olympus. When I arrived, the first thing that I noticed was the sound of hammering echoing throughout Olympus. Is Tubrock working on something big? I thought to myself, deciding to follow the noise to its source.

What I discovered was Chelsea, Tubrock, and Ashley standing together, with Tubrock hammering a giant pillar into the ground as the other two observed. “What’s going on here?” I asked, drawing their attention to me.

“Oi, there he is.” Tubrock grunted, before going back to hammering. “Talk with the lasses, lad, I’m almost done with this pylon.”

I glanced towards Ashley and Chelsea, concerned at what they were building. This entire planet was created from my divinity, so I was slightly cautious about shoving random devices into it. “Care to explain?”

Ashley offered a small smile. “We’ve been having some security issues the last few months while you were gone. Nothing malicious like an assassination attempt or anything, don’t worry. However, there have been quite a few people who have begun to master the technique to travel via the virtual world. A lot of them find their way to Olympus, as there is no real method to isolate this region from the virtual world without preventing us from connecting.”

“Because of that, Chelsea and Tubrock have been working on a solution. Thanks to these pylons, people shouldn’t be able to manifest from the virtual world in the nearby space. This includes regular travelers as well as digital intelligences. It’s not a perfect solution, but it will at least stop potential invaders from being able to simply walk right up to your door undetected.” Ashley said, Chelsea nodding her head firmly.

“That’s right. We’ve got about six more pylons to go to complete the blockade, which should take a few more days, giving the time for calibrations and everything.” She said, turning to look at me.

I nodded my head, turning my attention to Chelsea. “Were you able to make any progress on the preparations that I asked you for?”

Chelsea let out a sigh, shrugging her shoulders. “Yes and no. As far as I can tell, it’s not possible to create any method to prevent a world core from being fused with a universe. Not without putting the entire universe at risk. I tried out a couple of methods, but in both instances, it was possible to brute force the fusion, and doing so destroyed the entire affected universe.”

“As for extracting a core… I’ve had moderately more success with that. So far, the only auxiliary cores that we have access to are the Underworld and the virtual world, so my reference data is a bit too limited. However, I’ve managed to safely extract the virtual world core from a universe, it’s just… incredibly difficult. We need constant readings of the affected world’s core structure, and only someone highly adept at manipulating the void can perform the procedure.”

“In other words…” The shorter kitsune shook her head. “It’s possible, but it’s not something that we can do during the invasion itself. If they throw a self-destructing core at us during the invasion, there’s not much that we can do other than cursing our own luck. Thankfully, this Keeper you’re up against seems like the type who wants your worlds intact, so that type of core is hopefully not in their arsenal.”

I let out a low groan, wishing that I didn’t have to rely on ‘hopefully’. Still, it was marginally better than nothing. “And the contingencies for other types of cores?” I asked, and Chelsea shook her head again.

“I made what I could come up with. However, the field of auxiliary cores is a largely unexplored technology. There’s no telling what all they could put in one. It’s even possible that they could fundamentally change the structure of one of your universes. Even I can’t plan for something that I don’t even have theoretical knowledge of.”

As sad as it was to admit, she had a point. “Well, is there anything else that you think that we should be wary of?” I asked, and she gave a firm nod.

“If this guy is as reliant on game systems as you say, there is an incredibly high chance that he has some kind of respawn mechanic. The fact that it wasn’t featured during your first match against him would imply that it is something done through either an auxiliary core system, or a device that he wasn’t advanced enough to create yet. If it’s the former, we’ll need to find the way to circumvent it, at any cost, or the invasion will never end. If it’s done through a device, we’ll need to destroy the device responsible. These will be our primary goals for the invasion, cutting off their respawn mechanic.”

I couldn’t help but twitch at that, nodding my head in agreement. There were few things more fearsome than an enemy unafraid of death. An enemy unafraid of death that kept coming back to life was certainly chief amongst them. “Would a mechanic like that even work on an Origin?”

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Chelsea hesitated for a moment, before shaking her head. “It’s unlikely. Origins are directly connected to the void. According to our studies in educational streams, the death of an Origin results in the void reformatting their domain, returning it to ‘factory settings’. It shouldn’t be possible for any form of respawn mechanic to preserve an Origin’s essence, not without being astronomically expensive. Like, we’re talking tens of billions, at least.”

“Okay… so we can probably assume that Origins won’t be able to respawn. Anyone else though… they would be fair game. And it is safe to assume that the majority of combatants dispatched will be at a level where they can compete with gods. Anyone else would be support staff.”

“Right… even way back then, they had gods among their fighters, and even a fallen goddess.” I nodded my head, recalling the event. “Anything else that you can note?”

Chelsea thought about it for a moment. “There are three ways that they might appear when they first invade. In the best-case scenario, they will bring an army, and land somewhere visible. This will make them immediately noticeable, but could potentially start a conflict right off the bat. And yes, that’s the best case scenario.”

“The second option is that they bring an entire universe with them. This is also the most likely option, given the scale of the enemy. If this happens, we would be able to identify them immediately like in the first scenario, though combat would be significantly more challenging.”

“The final, worst-case scenario is that they bring one or two star systems. There are too many universes that we’d need to keep an eye on to even attempt to identify if one or new stars suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and trying to watch from in-universe is pointless. By the time the light of the new stars reached any inhabited world, the invasion would have been over for years.”

“Is there any chance that they could use multiple of those options at once?” I asked, and Chelsea nodded her head solemnly. If that happened, we wouldn’t really know what was going on. While we were fighting one battle, another group would be going into hiding.

“For the most part, it depends on just how much this other Keeper wants you dead.” Chelsea said, glancing up at me. “If he uses all three methods… it’s safe to assume that this won’t be the only time that we have to fight him. Especially if he has a method of recovering any of his lost combat power, aside from the Origins.”

I certainly didn’t like the sound of that, but the important thing right now was to make it through this first invasion. After that… well, we would have to take it step by step. “Right… anyways, how many new Origins have you created while I was gone?”

Chelsea gave a small smile when she heard that. “Just two, Philia and Blank. We’ve got some others lined up to consider, but we need to figure out how we’re going to design their inner worlds before we do anything. Without that consideration, the ascension to an Origin would actually be a downgrade to their abilities.”

“Still, that’s two more Origins to add to our arsenal.” I said with a satisfied smile. “Anything else, before I head inside?”

When Chelsea shook her head, I turned to walk back into Olympus. Thankfully, I saw Tsubaki’s avatars back to work, so I knew that her own training had gone well. Of course, if anything major had happened to her, Chelsea would have let me know even if Terra or Irena didn’t say anything.

That said, it was one of Tsubaki’s avatars that approached me to stay at my side, rather than Tsubaki herself. When I gave her a curious glance, Tsubaki nodded her head. “My main body is in meditation, focusing on controlling the training avatar in the hidden dungeon. If you need me to come out for any reason, please let me know, my Keeper.”

Hearing that, I shook my head. “As long as you are still safe. How far have you managed to descend?”

“To date, I have managed to descend a total of fifteen floors in X-444. I’ve done some excavation and exploration work on previous floors, but I have not found any important resources to bring over. Still, the combat training itself is a very valuable resource, at least in my case.”

I gave a small smile at that, reaching back to pat her shoulder. When I did so, Tsubaki’s eyes twitched wider, before her expression quickly returned to normal. “Again, make sure to focus on your own safety. Our next major battle is just around the corner, and I can’t have you breaking down because of overwork.”

Tsubaki quickly nodded her head at my words. “Of course, my Keeper. I will take the utmost caution. Do you have any final instructions for me to prepare for this invasion?”

I thought about that for a long moment. There really wasn’t anything that I could think of that we’d need to set up, outside of the standard procedure. Everything else had already been taken care of, or was outside of the scope of what we could feasibly achieve. “Just make sure that you’re ready to oversee the reports when the invasion begins.”

Of course, I’d make sure to get plenty of use out of both Lena and Terra for this battle. The sooner we could find our enemies, the sooner we could end this entire fight.