On the ground, the trees all over the world suddenly wilted en masse. Not all of them wilted, but about 90% of them did. This caused the Lignum world to change drastically.
A few seconds later, the sudden suicidal charge of the creatures of the world suddenly ended. They stopped rushing forward and appeared to be confused.
The human soldiers were wondering what was going on when they received a message.
- The First Expedition Army of the Yggdrasil Civilization is victorious.
- The Lignum world has been successfully subdued.
Everyone cheered, including Kelvin.
He sighed in relief and said, "I made it. I'm alive."
Meanwhile, in the core of the Lignum world.
Aganju had returned to the blue spherical space and was standing near a golden ball made of interwoven golden threads. He was the only one here.
Technically, there was another person with him. The green giantess was nearby, but her body was cold and lifeless. Her corpse hung limply as he held it by its green hair.
The corpse was cracked all over. It wasn't entirely green anymore. More than 70% of its body was black or red.
There was a large gap in her chest which showed that her body was completely empty. But it is still valuable, so he held on to it.
It is clear that he had killed the mother of life. The green aurora in the sky and the wilting of trees signified her death. This caused the weave of destiny to appear in the core of the world.
She was in possession of it before and was using it to maintain her power as a false god and break through to the level of true god. Now that she is dead, another god can take up the destiny of god king.
Only someone born in the Lignum world whose destiny is part of the weave of destiny can take up this destiny. That person can be a demigod or a false god. But an invader like him has no such luck.
He would have better luck destroying the Lignum world than making it listen to him. However, he is not out of options for what to do with such a powerful and valuable item.
He reached out his hand to touch the golden ball. The green mark of a tree on his hand flashed brighter as his hand got closer to the golden ball.
By the time his hand had made contact with it, the green mark had become very bright. The green tree grew roots from his hand, which wrapped around the golden ball and penetrated it.
The roots detached from his hand and formed into a brand new mark of a green tree in the golden ball.
He received a request soon after.
- Weave of Destiny found.
- Infiltration and subjugation ready.
- Permission to infiltrate required.
He said, "Permission granted. Authority code AJ-362."
- Permission Acquired.
- Infiltration beginning.
The green mark began to grow. It grew upwards and downwards as it turned into a seedling with roots embedded into the golden ball.
As time passed, the seedling turned into a small sapling. The small sapling turned into a big sapling. Then the big sapling turned into a small tree.
The small tree continued to grow bigger. It encapsulated the golden ball completely and used it as its core.
It grew into a giant tree that reached the sky of the blue spherical world. Soon some of its branches wove together and created swirling white vortexes.
This marked the connection of the Lignum world to the Yggdrasil civilization and the end of the invasion. A message was sent out to every soldier informing them of this success.
- The First Expedition Army of the Yggdrasil Civilization is victorious.
- The Lignum world has been successfully subdued.
The soldiers cheered above while Aganju continued to sulk. He wasn't satisfied with what he had earned in the war.
He grumbled to himself, "One immortal soul and a domain of life for all my troubles. At least the war was short and easy. I'll just take it as a paid vacation. But I can't wait to leave this drab world."
After a while, motherships like the one that had invaded Lignum came out of the white portals created from the branches of the tree. The blue spherical world soon became full of spacecraft of different kinds.
Troops and robots came out of the motherships with machines and various materials. Then they began building a base in the core of the world. Some of them left to construct bases all over the world and in space.
From this point on, the Yggdrasil civilization can use the Lignum world to replenish their troops and also use it as a landing point to attack other worlds nearby.
This is how the Yggdrasil civilization spreads from world to world across the galaxy. It is a robust system of war that makes them stronger with each world they subdue.
---
The expedition had ended, so Kelvin could finally return to Earth-11.
He could decide to stay behind and help with construction, mining, scouting, or the quelling of resistance. He will be able to earn more merit points this way. But he only wanted to get his game points and go home.
So, he signed up for a discharge and began the process of exchanging his merit points for game points. Both things involved the use of his mark, including checking how many merit points he had.
- Total Merit Points: 91,392,500 >>> 103,728,617
- Current Performance Evaluation: 2 Stars
- Current Merit Ranking: 276,824 >>> 235,892
His merit ranking had increased by some 40,000 positions thanks to the two mines he found. But apparently, it wasn't enough to increase his performance rating during the war.
He didn't dwell too much on that. Instead he focused on the fact that his merit points have crossed the 100 million mark.
He has finally acquired enough merit points to get the smallest portable nuclear reactor he can exchange for. But he wasn't willing to exchange the bulk of his merit points for it yet.
What he wanted was game points, so he didn't let the temptation sway him. He went ahead to exchange for game points as soon as possible.
The formula was (Soldier's Merit Points ÷ Merit Sources × Soldier's Performance). So his game points will be (103,728,617 ÷ 70,682 × 2).
He said with some emotion, "2,935 in 14 months of work. 14 stressful and dangerous months, and all I get is almost 3,000 game points."
Wrath looked at him and said, "You don't look so unhappy."
He was actually smiling. He said, "I'm just happy that I have my life and can return home safe and sound."
She nodded in agreement. "You truly have a lot to be happy for. You have even become A-rank."
He sighed and said, "All it took was almost dying several times."
She rolled her eyes and asked, "Who doesn't experience that before they can grow stronger?"
"Right," he said and chuckled.
Then he went back to his mark. He wanted to see what else he could use his merit points for.
Apart from the portable nuclear reactor, he also has the option of exchanging for powerful races whose ability he wants to take. He decided to buy them first before he exchanged all his merit points for game points.
As he went through the list on his mark, he saw that the Lignum world had a lot of races with interesting abilities.
Most of them were not powerful, though. After all, if they were powerful, the elves wouldn't have become the dominant race on Lignum.
As for the ability of the elves, it was a psychic ability that manifested in two different ways.
The first was the animal communication ability and control ability of the normal elves. The second was the plant communication, growth, and control ability of the royal elves.
He sat down beside a wilted tree and said, "With what Lignum has become, I don't think the elves that can control plants can still be considered the royal ones anymore."
Wrath looked around at the black stumps where trees used to stand and said, "I agree. Both variations of their races will have a chance to rise now that the planet is not full of trees anymore."
He shook his head. "Not that it matters since they will have to join the first division."
He didn't want any of their abilities. If there was one that interested him, it would be the ability of the mutant spiders who could use their webs to puppet creatures across large distances.
Unfortunately, the race doesn't exist anymore. Apparently, the mother of life had killed all of them for the sin of their ancestor.
He wasn't sure if that made sense, but that was what was written in their history. But it is certain that the race of puppeteer spiders is no more. So the Lignum world is disappointing in general in terms of interesting abilities.
-----(
A/N: What do you think of the first foreign battlefield arc?