344. The Third Planet (IV)
Zane woke, as seemed quite often these days, with his face planted firmly in the ground.
But he seemed healed—no pain anywhere. That boded well.
His head was still pounding quite a bit. As much in his soul as anywhere else. He rolled over, blinking, trying to get the fuzz out of his eyes.
A barrage of notifications popped up.
ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕥 𝟛 𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕕!
ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕥 𝟜 𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕕!
And he saw over the teleporters, just in front of him—
ℂ𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖: 𝟙𝟘𝟘%
Nice.
He allowed himself a moment to enjoy it.
It'd been a while since he'd pushed himself like that. He was pretty sure he was deep in critical health at the end there. His essence was nearly gone. His body had been pushed to its limits, and his soul too. Nearly every part of him that could fight had fought to his breaking point.
He yawned.
No wonder he felt so groggy.
But it was a satisfied exhaustion. He knew he'd gotten the job done.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕖𝕧𝕠𝕝𝕧𝕖𝕕!
ℝ𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞 𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕙 [ℝ𝕒𝕣𝕖 (ℍ)] -> ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕡𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕙 [𝕄𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔 (ℍ)]
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟜𝟞𝟡 -> 𝟜𝟟𝟚
He nodded at that.
Things got intense near the end there. It was all a bit of a blur in his head after those last few waves. He vaguely remembered how it went.
He figured he'd lost quite some blood by that point. He'd also been kicked in the head more times than he could count. But all that time, he'd known what he had to do—he'd fixed it in his mind. He just had to endure.
That simple thought bore him through. He remembered being struck by a pain so intense it felt like his soul was being shredded. It hadn't been easy fighting through it. At some point, under the weight of all those spells, battering him with blindness and dizziness and agony, pure instinct took over.
Even drunk, blind, half-asleep, his body seemed to know how to fight. Reina felt it was written into his being at some deep level.
He still remembered hazily raising that final axe, feeling a bursting triumph in his chest as he brought it down over the Final Boss's head…
He picked himself up, dusted himself off.
Well.
Next he'd see about collecting that prize, he supposed.
The remains of some burnt-out high-grade star, or something—Burnwater had said it was extremely radioactive. He seemed to think Zane could glean his first Concept from it pretty quickly.
After that… Zane looked around and felt a few of those pesky spirits popping up in the distance. A cloud of spirit jellyfish floated far out.
He frowned.
Those Monkeys had walloped him with that soul screech. And the Witch-King had nearly brought him down with those astral plane curses… it was a good thing he could take a few blows, soul-wise.
Still, he was due for another Pagoda upgrade soon. Tune up those soul defenses.
A strange thought occurred to him then. He figured he must be nearing what the Red Moon Emperor himself had been in terms of combat strength. That fellow was peak Minor God, if he remembered right.
Just a year ago, when he'd first gotten the Pagoda—in that trench dungeon, before he'd even gone in the Superdungeon—peak Minor God seemed so distant he could hardly imagine it.
Zane had just spent the past hour crushing Minor God after Minor God.
He'd been charging ahead all this time. But when he thought back on it, he supposed he really had come a long way.
He yawned, thought about what to do first. Get some food and rest, maybe. It'd been a long day, and things had to be getting late.
…Though he got the sense he was forgetting something important.
He tapped his Interspatial Ring, pulled out a little crystal—checking the time. Reina had given it to him, one of many little useful tools she thought he should carry around in a pinch. This one was synced to the Earth standard time.
It was Saturday evening, apparently.
He blinked, a little alarmed.
He was rather late to his reunion with Reina.
The last time they'd met up was before he'd broken through to Tier 5. It felt like a few weeks. With the extra time dilation in that pocket dimension, it must've been a while for her—a few months?
The thought of her brought a warmth to his chest. After all that, a weekend back with her sounded quite nice.
He was looking forward to seeing her again.
***
ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴛʀᴇᴇ ғᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ
In the past few weeks Reina's handmaidens had been getting increasingly nervous.
There were a few reasons. The most front-of-mind reason was the war effort. The whole Faction, from the highest boughs to the lowest, had been shaken by news of Tier-3 dungeon breaks.
Monsters that could threaten True Gods had leaked at the edges of their territory in recent weeks. For a little while, even the commoners in the lower-bough kingdoms started getting antsy, looking at the skies, wondering if world-ending Monsters would break out of the void and attack at any moment.
There were tales of three-headed hydras breaking loose, gorgon swarms devouring entire E-grade planets…
But Mistress Reina had sent out the World Tree's elite strike teams—the Faelon Guard—to contain the threat. Within days she had things under control.
To the folk of the World Tree, it was just another notch in her belt.
The World Tree had undergone massive turnover since she'd taken over. It'd become more streamlined and efficient than anyone could remember. She'd overhauled their alchemy pipeline and whipped their standing army into shape, remaking it to promote based on merit rather than connections. And somehow she'd managed it all while keeping the Great Families under her thumb.
It'd all been done so fast it was almost frightening. Down in the kingdoms of the lower boughs, the common folk spoke of her in awe—some said she was the Goddess reborn. It was clear the World Tree Faction had entered a new era; some were calling it the Reina Era.
This was all well—nothing to be nervous about. Though the Mistress took on a lot, she always seemed to handle it quite well—like a kind of superwoman, her handmaidens thought.
Then Zane stopped coming to visit.
In recent weeks they'd noticed a change in their Mistress. Usually she was quite kind and warm. But she'd been getting steadily moodier, even crankier—she seemed a little tense all the time. Like there was constantly a little dark cloud over her head.
Just this morning there was a high council meeting where Third Prince Rivendor Valoran, steward of the Treasury, put up a boneheaded budget. She took one look at it and gave it such a tongue-lashing she left the man in tears.
She seemed embarrassed right after, and even apologized. But it left the whole council on edge.
"She doesn't seem herself," whispered handmaiden Syriel, silver eyes wide.
"The Mistress has been under a great deal of stress lately…" said handmaiden Aelin.
Their arms were full of stacks of scrolls—reports on how the Mistress' brand-new alchemy Institutes were doing. It was getting to the point even Aelin was a little nervous about presenting them, though the Mistress had been nothing but warm to her in the past.
It was clear to all the handmaidens what was going on. The Mistress seemed to be more pent-up each passing day; she usually had an outlet to deal with everything that went on in her head, which was quite a lot.
Aelin wasn't so keen on having him wandering around the lawns, blundering into things. But he did seem immune to stress. He seemed happy to sit there and let the Mistress offload on him—as well as distract her in other ways. The Mistress was always glowing by the time he left.
Aelin used to complain about how often he broke door handles or squashed flowers. She winced. Neither she nor Syriel had really appreciated what he was doing until he was gone.
The two of them continued up one of the thousands of staircases crisscrossing that massive trunk, heading for the uppermost canopy.
Aelin wrinkled her nose. "What's taking him so long?"
"Who knows?" said Syriel.
"Well, he'd better hurry," said Aelin. "What is it, exactly, that's so much more important than attending to the Mistress?"
They were just passing the main teleporter hubs when they noticed the commotion. There were guards stationed around the main square—elite guards, judging by their signature emerald-forged helmets, stylized with leafy patterns. A few even blocked the main thoroughfare.
"What is the meaning of this?" said Aelin, indignant. "We've got important scrolls to deliver—they're for the Mistress herself, I'll have you know!"
"Pardon, my lady," said the guard. "But this entire area will be sealed for the next hour. We've just gotten advance word a VIP will be arriving—"
Aelin looked over his shoulder, saw a striking figure in the distance, and gasped. "It's her!"
It was true. Mistress Reina had come down to the busy teleporting stations in person. She was tapping a foot, arms crossed, frowning a little, looking impatient.
Syriel felt a twinge of envy—and then felt a little bad about it. Mistress Reina's hair was in disarray and there were dark circles under her eyes, but she was as effortlessly beautiful as always.
She did look a little scary in that moment, though.
A few seconds passed.
Then the teleporters lit up, and a big figure beamed down.
It was Zane Walker.
He was recognizable instantly even from this distance. The Mistress Consort stood out rather sharply from the folk here—World Tree folk tended to be slight and fair, especially those with elf blood.
Aelin wasn't sure what the Mistress saw in this barbarian man. She supposed he was handsome enough, in a rugged sort of way—if a little too hairy for her liking. And rather too oblivious.
At first, the big guy seemed pleased to see Mistress Reina. Then he blinked and noticed her mood.
She marched all the way up to him, arms still crossed. He looked a bit nervous. There was a moment everyone in the square held their breath.
Then she said something, chin held high. Zane said something back. By the look on his face, he seemed to be hoping it was the right thing.
It seemed to satisfy the Mistress, to everyone's relief.
She kissed him quite aggressively, took him by the arm, and all but dragged him up the staircase. They were gone.
The handmaidens shared a knowing look.
Just to confirm, the two of them made it up to the highest bough.
By the time they got there, it was shaking quite vigorously.
Aelin and Syriel agreed the reports could wait until next morning, and wisely left them to it.