Universe's End

“And the wave?” Marshal asked from behind his desk. “Is everything in order for the upcoming wave?”

“Things are running smoothly,” his aide replied. “Mangrove Sands continues to question if the resource allocation is truly-”

“Bah!” Marshal slapped his open palm on the desk before shaking his head, his demeanor relaxing. “I apologize. Of course, Mangrove is questioning such actions- actions that defend them.”

“They are arguing that given waves can be optional, that the resource allocation Martial Tide is requesting from them is unfair leverage, forcing them to-”

“Yes, I’m aware of the shape of the argument; I’ve heard it before. We draw in waves to position them into a point where they need to fork over resources to us, because we’re the big bad military. If only more resources went to them, we’d all benefit far more than currently. Of course, we’d be in a position where the other cities could run us over if we don’t constantly polish ourselves, but what does that matter to a bunch of bureaucrats and the like? It’s all that damned Luminary’s fault.”

When the average citizen was questioned regarding the most important figures out there, the answer was usually either the Founders or the World Spirit herself.

Marshal knew better.

Irene, the Esteemed Luminary of Ehkorrus. She was formidable, his most formidable foe out there. Direct power was uncertain; no one had ever seen her fight directly, but the influence she held, the webs she’d spun throughout the planet, the words she spoke, and how they could reshape the tide.

Oh, how Marshal wished he could just punch her in the face and be done with it and assert their strength, though such thoughts were nothing but fanciful wishing; she was protected behind the walls of their impregnable bastion, not to mention the current Chief Protector of the city itself, the Bug Empress. Then there was the ‘wandering hero,’ Heroic Fist Marcie Prota, or her original epithet Marshal preferred to call her by: ‘Grinning Demon.’ The woman put on a great show as this wandering hero. Still, anyone who knew a little about her past knew she just wanted a good fight, and wandering heroics turned out to be a good way to get one. Given that she was Irene’s sister, whether by blood or not mattered little; it was another hiccup in his desire to punch her in the face.

Regardless, the point was that the Esteemed Luminary was directly responsible for the mannerisms and attitudes that had flourished in Mangrove Sands. All the plausible deniability in the world wouldn’t change the truth of her planted agents and whispered words that were as much a knife in the back as an actual knife.

It was impossible to say for certain, but Marshal had reasonable confidence that the woman was a major factor in the official split of Tidal Grove into the two allied but distinct faction-cities of Mangrove Sands and Martial Tides.

“Sir?” his aide spoke up, jolting him from his thoughts.

“My bad,” Marshal sighed. “You were saying?”

“Oscuro preparations have been going well. The message had been delivered to the hopefuls for this year’s event: that so long as they don’t punch down, tier eights may attack only tier eights; there is open season on teams from either Vanguard faction.”

Marshal grunted in affirmation. He’d have preferred open season on Vanguard or Architect faction members. Still, they’d be spreading themselves too thin at that point, and relations were technically more amicable between them, Ehkorrus, and Shuuaang, at least on the surface due to their continued reliance on Ehkorrus-based resources.

This was also driven by Mangrove Sands wanting to suck at their teat, with zero understanding that it was a deal with the she-devil, Irene.

That fueled tensions with Sky Haven and Deep Rock. They’d been caught sabotaging some of their trade caravans, and while they had been presented as rogue agents, it had gotten to the point that they could no longer turn a blind eye. Not that Marshal wanted to turn a blind eye, but the preponderance of evidence meant he could force the council to bend the knee. As for why they’d been sabotaging them? That reason was less clear, but Marshal’s pet theory was that, once more, the source was the Esteemed Luminary, who wanted to keep Mangrove Sands and Martial Tides dependent on them for resources.

Marshal didn’t consider Irene a She-Devil for fun, after all.

The Sects of High Crest Mountain had been aiding them as they could. The issue was that the difference in climate from the balmy Martial Tides and Mangrove Sands compared to the frigid peaks of High Crest meant that many of the resources that High Crest could offer weren’t compatible with what they needed; frost-, cold-, or ice-resistant metals, for example, wouldn’t help much against the sort of monsters that could be found around their home. What good was a hauberk made of ice-resistant Frostite when you were facing a magma-spewing Latcher found in the monster-rich environments of the ocean vents littering the shores of their homeland?

Marshal hated the game of politics, of maneuvering around the backs of his enemies, domestic and abroad. Still, as the lead figure of power within Martial Tides, it was his job in the Celestial General's absence.

The Celestial General. A more divine being had never been seen or lived before. Marshal had admired her strength, her force of will, her resolve, from a young age. Some might argue that Marshal perhaps idolized her too much, but how could one idolize a godkin too much? After the death of her right hand, who’d been posthumously given the title of the ‘Badger of Battle,’ a title that had also been made into the highest honor that could be received for what it was worth, Marshal felt it was his destiny to become her new right hand. He would do whatever it took, for the good of their people and for the Celestial General.

Was there a bit of childhood crush mixed in? Perhaps. Marshal wasn’t that lacking in self-awareness.

“Sir?” his aide repeated, even louder than last time, his thoughts drifting off again.

“Regarding the issue of the King Eater-”

“It’s fine,” Marshal waved it off. They’d recently sent an envoy to her lands, requesting that she stay out of any conflicts that might arise in the future. The standoffish serpent chastised his people for even bothering her, but confirmed she had no intention of involving herself.

Another nuisance.

The King Eater Eia was regarded as the current strongest ‘civilized’ being on Eia. She, like the people of Shuuaang, had split from Ehkorrus. However, unlike Shuuaang, the enlightened monster collective wasn’t formally allied with anyone.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

But what did that matter, when one of the former titles of the King Eater was the Guardian Beast of Ehkorrus?

At the very least, she seemed to take much after her ‘Sire,’ the Grand Architect, with little interest in involving herself outside of her own interests, which for the oversized serpent typically involved hoarding natural treasures and sleeping.

“And what about Skinwalker?”

“That is a bigger concern,” Marshal grunted. The man, woman, them- it could change on a whim- had been reported to have gained some degree of a power boost recently. Details were murky, but it was annoying that the figure who’d been treated as the ‘least’ of Aelia's top figures had suddenly gotten a boost. No one knew where it came from. All that mattered was that the leading power figure of the Vanguard faction was now stronger.

“The twins have stated that they don’t want to involve themselves in what’s been occurring,” his aide added after a moment.

“Figured,” Marshal sighed. He’d petitioned the top figures of High Crest to work with him; they could potentially pin down Skinwalker and remove them from the board, three against one, but regardless of which High Crest sect he talked to, both emphasized understanding when to enact battles of honor and battles of necessity. The twins had deemed battles between transcendent peers to be battles of honor. “Any update from Varas?”

“The faux-Dawnzu remains tight-lipped and elusive,” his aide said without even glancing up from her papers. “Neutral to a fault, that Varas. As for the rest of their deciding body, well, what you’d expect.”

“Neutral, sure,” Marshal snorted. Anyone with half a brain would recognize the small but consistent patterns: that for all their ‘neutrality,’ they seemed to err on the side of Ehkorrus when push came to shove on matters of importance.

“And that’s most of the report summed up,” his aide finally glanced up at Marshal. “In short, the wave continues to be a topic of tension between ourselves and our sister-city; Oscuro is shaping up to be bloody but well-targeted, and the most direct foe for the moment, Skinwalker, is now an uncertainty factor, whereas before they were given a Threat-level two.”

“About expected,” Marshal nodded. “Except that last point. It annoys me that they graded Skinwalker as a threat-level two.”

Threat levels were simply how much of a literal threat something posed to their people, typically gauged based on comparisons to Marshal himself. A threat below his notice was threat-level four or below. Threat-level three referred to anything that would require his direct action, but was considered in his favor. Threat-level two referred to an opponent or situation that was essentially a coin flip, for whatever factors of uncertainty or simple strength matchups. Threat-level one was something beyond him, such as a territory alpha, which would require him to work alongside others to achieve victory.

And then there was Threat-Level-White. Named for the Divine General’s famed white armor, threat-level-white was utterly beyond their ability to handle, whether an elite team accompanied Marshal or not. The closest thing to a designation of threat-level-white was King Eater Eia, though there were still deliberations being had on that designation; the fact that she’d apparently defeated a territory alpha on her own had quite a few of the council alarmed regarding just how powerful she might truly be, even if it were with the benefit of home-field advantage.

“Headaches, all of them,” Marshal grumbled to himself, as his aide arched an amused eyebrow at him.

“Oh, you’re fine, Thera, I didn't mean you,” Marshal added.

“I know I am; without me, where would you be?”

“Suffering, that’s for certain,” Marshal chuckled. Thera had enlisted in the same class as him, and while they’d followed different paths, they’d forged a close bond; she was the closest thing Marshal had to a confidant, or perhaps even a sister of sorts.

“Oh, there is one other thing you might want to check out,” Thera said suddenly, eyes snapping upward as if recalling something very interesting. “One of the newcomers.”

“What about them? And newcomers? It’s been almost a year since the last wave, calling them-”

“No,” Thera shook her head. “The information is being closely guarded, but he was a premature entry, like the arrival fault cracked open a tad early and prematurely spilled a few folks out. A small group in comparison to a true wave arrival; one of them is rather interesting. A daeshi,”

“Strange. Perhaps E.O.N is doing something new this year. I want to put this forward as a consideration for ensuring this wave we’re running an even tighter ship. Actually, we can use this to get Mangrove Sands off our backs a bit. That aside, you said a daeshi? Here? Usually, they appear in places like Mangrove Sands, Ehkorrus, or other citizen-focused cities. Not that we haven’t gotten any before. So, what’s so important about this one?”

“It’s… hard to explain,” Thera said, frowning at some hastily written reports. “The details are essentially that he’s rather, uh, smart?”

“Aren’t all of those little folks rather smart?”

“Which is the point,” Thera said. “A tier one, apparently the man has been picking things up like a wet sponge.”

“Hmm,” Marshal glanced to the side thoughtfully. “Did we get a name for the daeshi?”

“Yes,” Thera nodded, scanning the paper once more. “Laen.”

“Well, I do hope Mr. Laen-”

“And that’s actually the other unusual aspect about the daeshi.”

“Oh?” Marshal questioned, even more curious. “His name?”

“No, the fact that he already identifies with a surname, one he seems to have a stronger affinity toward than his first name; in fact, he stated his last name first.”

“Oh?” Marshal repeated. “Well then? Don’t keep me waiting.”

As she was told, she handed the report to Marshal, who gave it a thorough read-over. Finishing a bit later, the large man reclined slightly in his chair and looked upward, lost in thought.

“Well, Mr. Laen Ackaestar, I do hope you can prove a valuable future asset to Martial Tides.”

“Interesting,” Laen said as he inched forward, peeking his head around the woman showing off the device. “Very interesting. So, this ‘pneuma crusher’ is the product of who again?”

“The greatest mind in existence,” The woman said before frowning. “Well, okay, context matters; I might get in trouble if I said that without offering something back toward our dear Celestial General. The greatest crafting mind in existence. The Grand Architect, otherwise known as the Architect of the Precursors.”

“Extremely interesting. It refines pneuma by drawing it inward like a whirlpool, grinding it against itself as the reaction’s energy intensifies. One might normally expect the energy cost to be negative. Yet, I find myself curious why I’d adopt such a notion to begin with. Conservation of energy. Rather novel of a thought, isn’t it?”

“Err, sure,” The woman said. “So then-”

“And the ‘pneuma stages’ as I’ve heard mentioned,” Ackaestar cut the woman off, not done probing. “How high can it uplift the stages to once more?”

“Well, that depends,” the woman explained to the overly curious daeshi, sighing. “A standard model is fairly limited, lifting latent pneuma to stage two. Stage three crushers are more advanced, able to refine the now-concentrated pneuma into an even more concentrated stage that may be visible to the naked eye: gaseous pneuma, as it’s referred to. Stage four crushers can bring it all the way to, as the name suggests, stage four, liquid pneuma, though such crushers are extremely rare; we know they exist, but they’re used for things above our pay grade.”

“Interesting. And beyond liquid?”

“Theoretical.” His mentor shook her head. “But we’re talking about solid pneuma, the highest state pneuma can achieve, after which, rather than undergo state changes, it’s simply a matter of increasing the density of the solid pneuma. Any information we have on solid-state pneuma is limited to what we’ve learned from things such as special Trial spaces; for example, Ehkorrus is known to have a nearby trial referred to as the Trial of Space, which essentially established some of this foundational knowledge.”

“I would very much like to investigate this trial,” Ackaestar said, as the woman laughed.

“Fat chance; it has a waiting list a mile long, not to mention the prerequisites of being tier six. You, my oh-so-green tier one apprentice, are a long way from that. Not to mention that relations with Ehkorrus are… rocky as always.”

“Politics?” Ackaestar questioned.

“Quick as always,” his mentor winked at him. “Yes, politics. But, as crafters and academics, we tend to keep to ourselves as best as we can. The big shots don’t like the fact that most of the talented crafters, artisans, and academics tend to view Ehkorrus favorably due to the patron Godkin of artisans being the Architect himself.”

“Godkin?” Ackaestar questioned, looking puzzled.

“Apologies, with how quickly you catch on to things, it’s easy to forget you’ve only been around for roughly a week.” His mentor said. She was a special military researcher who had been specially assigned to him, as apparently his arrival had been a rather irregular one, appearing ‘early,’ something that no one seemed to have anything more than wild speculations about. Because of that, she was assigned to handle special cases like Ackaestar. “Godkin, one of the slang or nicknames for the Founders. Well, that depends on who you ask, to be honest; the more… religious folk treat it as truth, so be cautious about when, where, and how you use it.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” Ackaestar said with a nod. “So, this Architect is the Godkin of Academics.”

“Is also the founder of Ehkorrus, a rival city-state.”

“Hmm,” Ackaestar frowned for a moment before sighing. “Politics.”

“Politics,” His mentor chuckled.

“Well,” Ackaestar drummed his fingers for a moment before smiling slightly. “I do hope one day I get a chance to meet this ‘Architect.’”