”How the hell am I supposed to say hi to someone for you if you don’t tell me who…” Jake grumbled as the damn birdbrain didn’t make any sense at all. He genuinely had no idea who she was even talking about… it could be so many. Maybe another Primordial, seeing as Jake had met, like, half of them during Nevermore? Some Void God was also entirely possible… or maybe Artemis? It could even be that Wintermaul elemental, in case the one who’d blessed that guy was closely related to Stormild. Wait, it could definitely also be Minaga. Both Minaga and Stormild were chaotic as fuck.
Shaking the thought away as it really wasn’t worth dedicating any brainpower to, he turned his attention to Sylphie, who looked curiously at him. ”Ree?”
”No, just Stormild messing with me,” Jake sighed. Yeah, that was his conclusion, even if the Primordial could have actually meant something with her words. He really wasn’t a fan of people acting mysterious just for the sake of acting mysterious.
”Ree,” Sylphie responded.
”Yeah, not surprising an elemental spirit likes to mess with people,” he just agreed. Jake also took a moment to really feel the Union Oath once more. It was odd. When it disappeared, Jake hadn’t really missed it overly much, likely because he still always had the Golden Mark of the Fallen King to find and contact Sylphie quickly.
Then, after Nevermore, they quite frankly all could do with a bit of time apart to do their own thing. Now, it felt oddly comforting to have it back, though. Sylphie also seemed happy, which made Jake happy in return.
”So, what are your plans now? Gonna continue to help Whaleman?” Jake asked the hawk.
”Ree, ree, ree,” Sylphie confirmed. She also told him some interesting details he hadn’t heard before. Sylphie had recently adopted the role of primarily hunting elementals and given them stern talking-tos. Elementals tended not to be very good at listening, and even if they were intelligent, they were more akin to children than adults.
Some more adult-like elementals - such as the water elemental at the harbor town Jake, Carmen, and Sylphie had stopped by on their way to Paradise - were already working on taming the elementals close to human land. At the very least, the elementals were trying to eliminate them as threats to humanity.
Elementals trying to control other elementals was a lot easier than beasts trying to control other beasts, primarily due to their lower level of intellect. If a smart and powerful water elemental entered a group of dumb water elementals, these other water elementals would instinctively begin to follow the smart one.
Sylphie was this concept taken to the extreme. Other wind elementals practically worshipped her. She even told him of the time she went to the cloud islands that had drifted away from hanging above Haven a while ago. All the Cloud Elementals, Storm Elementals, and other variants were incredibly subservient to Sylphie without her even needing to do anything.
Maybe it has something to do with that Authority skill, too? Jake questioned himself without having any means to confirm. Sylphie also had no idea when he tried asking her, either.
”Seems like you got a quest ahead of you,” Jake smiled, happy Sylphie had something to do.
”Ree?”
”I’ll just stay here, I reckon,” Jake said. ”Gonna do some alchemy and be available for when people start returning to Earth. Jacob, Casper, Eron, and many others will make their way back for the Prima Guardian event, and I want to be ready for when that happens. Or, at the very least, be within quick flight distance to help Miranda when the time arrives.”
“Ree,” Sylphie nodded in understanding before waving her goodbyes… but not before flying by and stealing one of Jake’s time bananas.
Speaking of the time banana musa. It had grown a little, so that was great. Not much else had changed, though. Truthfully, it would have been weird if the musa had experienced any great changes in less than a year, as these things tended to take their time growing.
Anyway, with Sylphie gone, Jake returned back to his laboratory beneath the lodge as he didn’t have any more obligations for now. With Miranda back, he also felt a lot more assured that things would be handled elsewhere, and he also trusted that there wasn’t really anyone capable of making trouble for her. At least not anyone where Jake’s skill set of beating people up could help, as he trusted she could do that herself. She had genuinely impressed him with her progress, but not as much as Lillian.
Both of them had grown strong. They still weren’t absolute top-level geniuses, but Jake could see Miranda reach a level where pretty much no one her level stood a chance if they entered her domain. He recalled the Dark Witch and her simple domain that already made her a lot stronger and more difficult to deal with. Adding someone with actual intellect and cunning to control such a domain was just straight-up a nightmare.
Lillian was a far more classical mage, but she still gave off an odd aura and was far from actually being a normal mage. Both of them were the kind of mages that didn’t really fight people straight-up but did weird shit to win. To be clear, Jake was totally okay with that, as long as they weren’t his enemies, because damn did he hate fighting super-tricky opponents. To date, Valdemar had still been the best kind of foe there was: just a dude with an axe who was really strong.
Inside the laboratory, Jake refocused and went back to his acid project again. He did plan on spending the last half a year or so specializing in creating his most powerful iteration of Heartrot Poison yet. While he didn’t know for sure the Prima Guardian would be a flesh and blood Vitality-based lifeform, Jake heavily assumed it was based on how most of the Primas had been beasts. It really wouldn’t make much sense for a big robot to suddenly appear… but if it was a robot, then hey, he had something to test his acids on.
With a loose plan in mind, Jake delved into his alchemy once more, as there really was little more to do now than wait for the system event that would decide the fate of the planet. Oh, and greet his acquaintances and friends as they returned to the planet.
As Earth was making its own preparations for the Prima Guardian to arrive, so were all the other planets in the ninety-third universe. The ones that had enlightened ones who successfully united under one banner anyway. Planets like the one Draskil came from had effectively fallen already and were now ruled solely by beasts.
Many other planets that had technically united still faced huge challenges, as even if the World Congress had elected a World Leader, that didn’t mean all civil unrest was addressed.
Especially not when one introduced the powderkeg that was people returning from Nevermore. People, more powerful than ever, some of whom had finally hit their stride, were not satisfied with their stations and were now grasping for organizational power. Many changes of leadership happened across the multiverse, and multiple factions appeared, battling it out even if they were meant to work together in preparation for the system event.
For the smaller planets, with less area unexplored, they could perhaps make do even if there was internal chaos. However, for others, this led to their chances of handling the Prima Guardian significantly falling.
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As per the system message during the final mandatory World Congress, the power of the Prima Guardian also scaled with how many Primas had been killed and the overall performance of the people on the planet during the initiation. So, when some people had to abandon the planet – not unlike how the Holy Church and Risen had left Earth – after having killed some Primas, it could cause an imbalance between what the planet looked capable of beating and what they could actually beat.
This method of scaling was also a boon to some – assuming the goal was just to beat the Guardian - if a lot of people from their planet had left to become more powerful with divine factions, having thus killed fewer Primas. This was naturally with the expectation they would return.
Of course, the power of every individual planet wasn’t necessarily the only deciding factor. There was also the entire Prima Guardian Alliance – an aspect of the upcoming event Earth had voted not to take part in. At the cost of splitting rewards, this would allow several planets to band together and assist one another. Meanwhile, Earth would not be able to interact with this alliance before they had killed their own Prima Guardian.
All in all, there was a lot going on with this event, but at its essence, it was pretty simplistic:
A powerful boss would appear, and the people on the planet have to defeat this boss along with an army of undefeated regular Primas who had grown more powerful while away. More beasts would likely join them, making it only reasonable to prepare by ensuring that not too many or too powerful beasts would join the Primas. This entire army and the Prima Guardian must be defeated within five years, or the Guardian will claim the Planetary Pylon.
Should the Prima Guardian take over, no one truly knew what the result would be. Perhaps they would enslave the enlightened races, kill them all, or become some sort of benevolent leader, meaning having the Prima win was actually the best outcome imaginable. Or, you know, it could just make the planet go boom.
The point is, no one knew. Not even the gods.
All of these system events during the initiation of a new universe were unique. They did share some similarities here and there, allowing some of the oldest and most knowledgeable gods to theorize, but having a reasonable theory was far from the same as actually knowing.
This Prima Guardian event also being linked to a World Wonder, was something never seen before during any initiations, adding even more interest. As hinted at already, chances are individuals could take control of parts of the World Wonder. With time, perhaps even the entire World Wonder. WIth how things were playing out currently, it was reasonable to assume one potential method to take control was through these system events during the initiation. That was an utterly massive incentive to get involved, even for the largest of factions, as controlling a World Wonder was simply invaluable.
Yet even with this divine influence, the chances weren’t good for some planets across the Milky Way… at least it didn’t look like it was initially. But they all had one hope. The most powerful of planets tended to vote for dealing with the Prima Guardian themselves to get the most rewards, just as Earth had. However, there was one exception to this. One pinnacle planet that had voted to join the Prima Guardian Alliance and become their leader and symbol of hope:
Ell’Hakan.
Despite his homeworld being more than fit to solo the Prima Guardian, he had joined the alliance. After he returned from Nevermore, the belief in his skills had grown to newfound heights, as they placed all their trust in him. While he hadn’t beaten the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, he had proven himself second of the entire multiverse this generation. He had proven himself more than capable.
Of the planets across the Milky Way that had joined the alliance created by the system, nearly five hundred were now already under his banner. A massive coalition, controlled by the Chosen of Yip of Yore, with many of the gods supporting Yip, having blessed people on the many planets, as it quickly became clear this alliance was morphing into something more than simply a temporary alliance to defeat the Prima Guardian.
It was Ell’Hakan laying the groundwork for the eventual galactic politics related to the Seat of the Exalted Prima… and who knows, there might even be a Galactic Congress in the future.
Months passed, and Earth only continued to improve. People were also still coming back from Nevermore throughout this time, but there was no turmoil or anything caused by their return. Even people who had left to be with their divine factions in other universes began to make their way back to participate in the upcoming system event.
Their return was once more partly due to the lack of information. Nobody knew what the rewards for this event would be, and no one dared risk missing out on something that could be significant and reward great Records. It was entirely possible that merely participating – no matter how minor your role – would earn you a title or something like that. Many even hoped they could ride on the coattails of the ridiculously powerful people on the planet and get partial credit for defeating a Prima Guardian that was definitely close to the highest difficulty one would find in the ninety-third universe.
While many relatively unknown people returned, many known figures also began to make their way back, or at least been polite, and announced their return to Miranda. Casper had contacted her and given an actual estimated time of arrival, where he also explained it wouldn’t just be him coming.
Tens of thousands of Risen would return to Earth in what had to be a massive undertaking. But, not knowing if the rewards would be worth it, it was something they chose to do.
It was also hinted that the group was as big as it was because they wanted to set up a permanent outpost on Earth should they succeed against the Prima Guardian. Even before they officially proposed this as an option, the World Council was in tentative agreement it should be allowed, even if their presence didn’t come without… let’s just say, challenges.
Miranda was already stressing a bit as there really weren’t many Risen on Earth after Casper and the others left. There were only a scarce few, and there were no whole towns or anything like that with only Risen. She had also spent a lot of resources dealing with all the damn xenophobia of both the Earthlings and many of the freed slaves, and having Risen to now also deal with was an entire thing. They were a far more unpopular race across the multiverse than nearly any other race, besides maybe ectognamorphs.
The Risen were not as hated as the damn vampires they already had plenty of, though. A race the Risen also historically didn’t like.
Oh, and then, to make matters even worse, Jacob applied to return together with a group from the Holy Church. It was the kind of request that was overly polite from their end, promising gifts and compensation for allowing their visit, making any form of rejection an obvious “fuck you” to the largest faction in the entire multiverse. Something that Jake would have been fine doing, but Miranda had enough diplomatic sense to know there was nothing to be gained from offending them needlessly, so she accepted their application. Though, contrary to the Risen, she had no plans of offering them the possibility of having an outpost after the event was done.
So, to summarize, there would be Risen, vampires, and people from the Holy Church - all supposed to be together, fighting the Prima Guardian. This was despite the Holy Church and Risen both having standing kill orders should one spot any vampires. Yeah, Miranda definitely had her work cut out for her, but hey, dealing with all this was great for her level. Not as great for her general stress level, but the levels made it worth it, right?
Other less controversial individuals and factions also announced their return. Eron would return with only a dozen or so people who belonged to the Dao Sect. They were people Miranda hadn’t even known were originally from Earth, and quite frankly, it didn’t matter much. The Dao Sect was perhaps the most neutral faction in the entire multiverse, never really getting involved in anything big or causing any trouble.
All in all, this system event would be a massive reunion of everyone from Earth. The ridiculous fighting power they would display was also almost comical, and Miranda genuinely looked forward to seeing what the event could possibly throw at them that Earth couldn’t handle.
She assumed the answer was that they could handle the Guardian… which was why she was already looking ahead and making plans. But all of that was for after their own Prima Guardian was confirmed dead. For now, the most immediate thing was making sure all the people who would visit for the event didn’t end up killing each other before the boss even arrived.
However, while they waited for many of those who had announced they could come, the first to arrive was someone Miranda hadn’t even really considered, and someone Jake wasn’t even sure would come. No, someone he wasn’t even sure could come.
It was still a bit less than half a year till the Prima Guardian, and Jake had just begun his Heartrot improvement spree when he was contacted by Miranda. However, even before she contacted him, Jake had this weird itch that was explained when he heard the message:
“Sandy has returned to Earth… bringing along a certain Vespernat Hive Queen.”
That’s right, Vesperia had finally come to Earth.