“That bastards. To think that they are about to attack my domain...” Seldanna started before her words turned into a chain of curses, some I had never heard before.
I didn’t blame her. Realizing that she was just weeks away from a deadly invasion was a nasty realization.
Pity it was just an avatar of hers and not her real body, preventing me from helping her stress in a more direct manner. We had spent almost a full day together without stopping, but it had been barely enough to quench our thirst.
Right now, we were floating in the Primordial Aether, safe in the wards I had created while we observed the Eternals’ invasion plan.
“You have to admit, they are not playing around,” I said as I observed the plane in the distance, only visible due to my Tantric spell creating a viewport. “The moment they realized they have to deal with a god, they brought one of their own. And, this time, they are not bothering with an avatar, but attacking with full force. And, to make it more interesting, even if the surprise attack failed, there’s no evidence linking them to the attack, giving them plausible deniability. They have perfected their art.”
“Do forgive me if I don’t feel impressed by an attack that was about to be launched into my land,” Seldanna said, her voice thick with anger.
She was the most furious I had ever seen, suggesting that there were some unexpected side effects to creating a Divine Domain. Though, maybe I should have expected it. The tighter she connected to her domain, the more it turned into a part of her existence.
Meaning, the upcoming invasion was a highly personal attack. I had no doubt that, if I suggested her to let that attack happen as a part of a complicated plan, she would have fought against it very intensely.
Luckily, that was mostly theoretical. I had no intention of taking the risk of letting a god with more practical experience step into her domain.
“Don’t worry, we have enough time to deliver a lot of attacks, especially with my ability to freely interject with the area,” I said.
She looked at me, looking considerably more relaxed. “Yes, you can just attack from outside until you can break the planar border, and the Primordial Aether will do the rest.”
“No, that won’t work,” I countered.
“Why?” she asked, frustrated. “It looks perfectly doable.”
“Well, let me correct it like this. We can do it, but why should we waste such a golden opportunity,” I said. “I need to find a planar fragment for Mariel to fix her current situation, and the Eternals were kind enough to bring one to us, even showing me the best way to link the two planes together.”
“That’s … ambitious,” she said, though her tone made it clear that she wasn’t happy about that solution. A part of it was her concern for her Domain, but I had been juggling a complicated relationship long enough to catch the hint of jealousy not too far away from the surface.
“Ambitious, true. Especially linking two domains together without making them merge or drift away. I probably have to come and check every couple weeks for a long while to make sure everything was in order.”
Just like that, Seldanna’s distaste disappeared at the prospect of more visits. “How exactly do you think this long while is,” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“Probably years,” I said, doing my best to hide my smirk. “Maybe you’re right and I should just break the planar border —“
“No, you’re right. It’s an opportunity not to be missed,” Seldanna said, her panic clear despite her avatar making it much easier to hide.
She was cute enough to tempt me to teleport back and show her just how much I missed her, but I suppressed that desire temporarily.
Unfortunately, we still had serious issues to talk about. “It’s not going to be simple. We need to work hard to create a counterforce to distract them.”
“Not elves, right,” she countered. “The war had damaged their numbers badly enough that they need decades to even start to recover from their losses.”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head, my smile wide. “Only the idiot and the desperate try to invade the domain of undead with living beings… And, we’re not desperate.”
“You want to use treants,” she gasped.
“Exactly. That, and I’m almost sure I could fashion some kind of breach using the God Forest… Then, just as they pit all their forces to block the invasion of the treants…” I said.
“Then, what?” she asked, excited.
I gave her a naughty smile. “Well, that’s a surprise. A man needs to have a few to continue impressing a sexy goddess of nature….” I answered as I changed the direction. We had a lot of work to do, and maybe a few more rewards in the process.
***
“Fascinating,” Seldanna said as she looked at the army of treants that spread in front of us. Ten thousand trees, each filled with endless waves of Nature mana we created through a combination of my purification and Seldanna’s conversion.
A trick that I only dared to pull after checking the whole plain carefully so as not to alert the Eternals. However, compared to the previous times, I was less careful.
Ironically, it was their invasion method that led to it. Clearly, once rejected, their methods were more heavy-handed than I expected. I had no doubt that, even if they didn’t catch anything suspicious, the failure of their invasion would give them enough reason to escalate.
At this point, them getting suspicious about my abilities — well, the abilities of the ancient nature god — would actually be helpful to keep them behind.
And, even if that failed, we still had my other surprise to distract them.
“Are you ready,” I said as I looked at Seldanna. She nodded, and with a wave of her hand, another treant bloomed. It was smaller than the others, barely twenty feet tall rather than five hundred, and made of flowers rather than wood.
I said nothing about the shape. The avatar was throbbing with Divine Spark. Those flowers didn’t need thorns to be dangerous.
Then, I waved my hand, and another avatar — a fake one in my case — grew with a shocking speed. A wooden dragon, with a five hundred feet wingspan, almost a thousand feet long from head to tail.
An avatar worthy of my fake personality.
“Let’s go,” I said as I stepped on the dragon, and Seldanna’s avatar followed. I used the dragon as a focus to cast another spell. This time, another movement appeared, and a huge ark appeared, enough to hold this impressive army.
Even with our combined abilities, it took two full days for us to create it. The size was not a problem, but the fact that it had to hold against the ravages of the Primordial Aether, even for a moment, was something else.
Especially since I couldn’t just cheat by using Tantric and alerting everyone in the process.
The ark started to fly, leaving Seldanna’s real body behind. Through her avatar, Seldanna cast a spell, and the planar border parted open just enough for the ark to move out, showing the extent of the control Seldanna was exerting on the fragment.
Just like that, we were floating in the Primordial Aether. I pushed the Ark to go at maximum speed, each second melting the surface of the Ark. I watched the artifact that the Eternals had been using to connect two planes to see if they would notice such a big commotion.
It didn’t seem like they did, but even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. I could feel that the planar fragments were already close enough to exert some kind of magical pull on each other.
The Ark cut through Primordial Aether, each second further breaking the defensive structure. “Do you think we’ll be able to reach the other side safely,” Seldanna asked.
It was not a bad question. Made purely from Nature mana, I doubted the Ark could last another minute. And, even if Primordial Aether behaved somewhat normal near planar bodies, there was no guarantee that a sudden chaotic wave wouldn’t have extended the distance by a few minutes … or hours.
“Don’t worry. I can always cheat,” I reminded her.
“Good,” she said even as her avatar reached and squeezed my hand.
Then, we hit the planar border of the undead Domain.
The moment the contact occurred, I felt the mana at the planar border shift and solidify. The speed at the border transformed was incredible. The mana pushed against the Ark. It wasn’t as destructive as Primordial Aether, but it didn’t need to be. All they needed was to keep us out for a minute, and the environment would do the rest.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time. It might have been different if they expected a counter-attack, but they did not. The Ark had already rammed through the border before they could start reacting, costing them precious moments.
We pushed through the border, and entered the plane.
Into the domain of a true necrotic god.
The easy part was over.
—
{Strength: 45 Charisma: 45
Precision: 45 Perception: 45
Agility: 45 Manipulation: 45
Speed: 45 Intelligence: 62
Endurance: 73 Wisdom: 45}
{Purified Divine Spark: 58,410}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10
Knowledge - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
GODDESSES
Elven Goddess
Goddess of Knowledge}
