World Keeper

I was out in the instance dungeon, training my various divine abilities once again, when suddenly I noticed a ping from the system. Half of a month had passed from when Bellarose sent me the memetic sensor through the last invasion, so it was time to be notified of the next invasion a month and a half away.

My opponent this time was someone known as DarkestNight, and I was once again being invaded. Although it was a rather ominous sounding name, I didn’t particularly pay it much mind. After all, Starkiller was one of my best friends among other Keepers. Instead, I just opened the guild chat to send a message to the others.

EarthForceOne: Hey, everyone.

EverLasting: Oh, hey! Who’d you get this time?

EarthForceOne: Huh?

EverLasting: Those of us that were on defense last time just got our new matches, so we were going over who we had been assigned. I figured that’s what you were here for, too.

EarthForceOne: Ah, right. The system told me that my next opponent is called DarkestNight, and I’m on the defense.

After I sent that message, there was a lull in the chat. I couldn’t tell if nobody had heard of that name, or if everyone had. Eventually, Alice was the one to break the silence.

Oldbeard: You don’t have the best of luck when it comes to opponents, do you?

EarthForceOne: Is it that bad..?

EverLasting: You could say that. DarkestNight is in a rather special category of Monster Keepers, and has earned a bit of a reputation because of it. You know by now what it takes to reach the next level as a Keeper, right?

EarthForceOne: Being able to create a complete world without the system’s help, right?

EverLasting: That’s right. For Monster Keepers that don’t nurture a civilization, this is actually a major bottleneck. Most Monster Keepers overcome this by spending a lot of points to create a monster race that has the ability to create such a world on their own. Otherwise, they’ll be stuck at the top of the fourth rank.

EarthForceOne: …I’m guessing DarkestNight didn’t do that?

EverLasting: Right. This makes him sort of like RagnaRocker, a predator in the fourth rank. Of course, his infamy also means that there is a lot of information known about the types of monsters that he regularly uses.

EarthForceOne: If he’s as bad as you’re hinting, I’d appreciate any information you can give me.

EverLasting: Right, well… the main thing is that he nurtures what people refer to as ‘cosmic monsters’. The smallest of his creations can be considered a living moon, while the largest could swallow up entire solar systems. Of course, because he’s in the fourth rank, some of his creations have the power to exit a universe and devour it from the void, as well.

EarthForceOne: …Okay, normally I would say that’s terrible. But will they be able to get through the Hyperlane barrier, and the wall of memetic monsters outside of it?

EverLasting: Quite easily. The sheer size and speed of many of these monsters defies logic. It is very likely that the memetic monsters wouldn’t even register to his creations before they are eaten in passing. As for the barrier, it only targets monsters that have void-like properties, so it will pose almost no resistance to these creatures.

“Great… I’m going to need to play space defense again.” I muttered to myself, hand on my forehead.

EarthForceOne: If all of this information is known, there’s got to be some reliable method to destroy his monsters, right?

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Oldbeard: Ah, I know this one. If you have deities specializing in destructive domains, they are really useful. Otherwise, generally anything that can reduce a planet to ashes can deal with most of his creations. The bigger ones… yeah, you’re going to want gods for that.

“Noted…” Part of me wondered how these monsters could even be created in the first place, but my assumption was that he used a really large world, maybe even size ten. If that was the case, it would make sense for the creatures born on it to be of such a cosmic scale.

EarthForceOne: Anything else I need to be aware of, before I start planning my defenses?

EverLasting: He’s fairly consistent with his attacks, at least the ones that he loses and we get information from. Obviously, we don’t know if his pattern changes for the matches that he wins. But usually, he will send two thousand smaller monsters able to devour a Size 4 planet, five hundred that are able to devour a Size 5 planet, one hundred that are able to devour a size 6 planet, ten that are able to devour a size 7, and one able to devour a size 8.

EverLasting: Aside from numbers, the abilities of the monsters changes with each invasion, so that’s all the help that we can give.

EarthForceOne: So, I should be expecting 2,611 monsters, eleven of which require gods to fight, and the rest just need incredibly powerful ships.

Oldbeard: Don’t let the lower numbers fool you. Remember that the invasion can occur anywhere in your domain. Some might even appear directly in the void. You’ll have to have the forces to defend against something of that scale spread out all across your various universes, and still have the strength to fight them. Otherwise, you can expect that you’ll lose several planets before you can pinpoint their location.

Alice was right. I only saw the lower numbers, and thought that I might be getting off relatively easy. What would the people of my various worlds think if every world had an artillery satellite capable of reducing the planet that they lived on to ash?

It was certain that there would be backlash from something like that, and rightly so. A malicious hacker would be able to take the entire planet hostage, or just outright destroy it before the Greater Pantheon was able to stop them. Granted, destructive gods were all able to release similar levels of power, but there was a difference between a living being wielding that level of power, and an inanimate object that anyone could potentially take control of.

I let out a long sigh, shaking my head and focusing. Dana, Tsubaki, Lifre, all of you meet me in the Admin Room. Everyone else, get ready for a big meeting. We’ve got news of our next opponent, and we’re defending again.

This was my third defense in a row, and I was honestly wishing that I had the chance to attack for once. Especially if it was the chance to attack someone that I could really go all out on. If there was anything that I could consider solace, it was the fact that this was likely to be my last invasion in the fourth tier.

At the rate that Chelsea was developing her world-creation technology, it was entirely possible that she would finish before the next invasion. She might even finish it before this invasion, if I speed up time to help us prepare our defenses, which is something that I typically do when we are fighting a defensive battle.

Closing my eyes, I returned to the Admin Room, pleased to find that everyone was already waiting in the meeting room, serious looks on their faces. “So, what’re we fighting this time?” Keliope asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the table. “You wouldn’t call all of us here if it was just another pass like before. Or is it a big trade partner?”

“No, it’s a fight.” I confirmed, and the atmosphere turned a bit heavier. “Our opponent is called DarkestNight. Thankfully, he is quite infamous, so I was able to get a good deal of information on his patterns from my guild.”

“Well, if you’ve got all that, you should already know how we need to fight him, right?” Dana asked, a small grin tugging at her face as she tried to lighten the mood.

“I know the method, but we’re not prepared.” I said, and she let out a long sigh. “DarkestNight fights with cosmic-level monsters. These are creatures capable of devouring entire planets, sometimes even whole solar systems in their passing. Some of them can exit into the void and eat an entire universe.”

“According to the others, the best way to deal with his monsters is through a combination of destructive deities and interstellar weapons systems that can reduce entire planets to ash. We have plenty of the first, but not enough to safely cover all of our occupied planets. As for the latter…” I looked over at Ashley, who shook her head.

“If you were just talking about cracking a planet or making it uninhabitable, most of our exploration ships possess something capable of that. However, if it requires the power to reduce a planet to ash, that is something else entirely. At the moment, the only weapon that we have that is capable of that is Olympus’s main gun.”

“Olympus has a main gun?” I asked, blinking. Tubrock let out a snort, nodding his head.

“Aye, ‘course it does! Olympus is constantly building up excess power within its systems, until it reaches a critical point. Once this point is reached, the main gun can fire, and anything as big as Lorek can be destroyed with one, big hit. However… This gun has a lot of charge-up time, since it only uses excess energy and the ambient power of its inhabitants. It takes about three days to reach full charge.”

“...Noted. Regardless, we can’t mass-produce Olympus. And at the same time, we can’t place these weapons too close to our occupied worlds. It would be entirely unsafe and unwise to do so, because the inhabitants would be constantly living in fear of the death laser that could be aimed down at their planet.”

“Well, where do you want to put it, then?” Accalia asked with a curious tone, leaning back in her seat with her hands behind her head. “If the monsters spawn inside of one of our solar systems, we can’t keep them too far away, or it will be too late by the time they’re calibrated to fire inwards.”

“Right… that’s why we can’t put them on satellites in the first place.” I shook my head, letting out a long sigh. “Satellites would either be too close for public safety, or too far to be any good in an emergency. We have to put them on ships, which means we need to incorporate it with all of the existing systems that could get in the way, including the power requirements…”

Aurivy couldn’t help but roll her eyes, grinning slightly. “It sounds like it would be better to have these as specialized ships. Destroyer-Class would be a bit… risky as a title, given that they won’t be leaving the Hyperlane Network. Defender-Class would be a bit more apt. Ships capable of massive damage, but unfit to leave the zones protected by the Hyperlane Barrier.”

“Doesn’t that mean that we’ll be giving up on all of the planets outside of the barrier?” Bihena asked, her brow furrowed in frustration.

“There’s not much helping it, unfortunately.” Irena shook her head in response. “Even if we had all the time we needed, establishing defense points throughout every universe to offer full coverage simply isn’t feasible. We can only focus on defending the territories that we have occupied. And, given that the last invasion already removed all life on the unexplored worlds… all that we are giving up on is empty planets. My concern is something else.”

Everyone turned their heads to look at Irena when she said that, and she began to explain. “What if one of these monsters appeared in Fyor? Clearly, it would not be able to eat all of Fyor, but… we would be hard-pressed to fight it. If this monster destroyed the mana spire, it could take an entirely unreasonable amount of time to reach it and fight back. And given how much airspace there is in the upper levels of Fyor, I believe that cosmic monsters could very easily appear there.”

“She’s right.” Udona nodded her head, a grim look on her face. “We’ll need combat gods on every level of Fyor that’s large enough for these monsters to appear, and then more around every planet we have occupied, together with the new ‘Defender-Class’ ships that Aurivy mentioned.”