Chapter 481: The Next Step (1/2)

Confusion and guilt plagued Zac's conscience about what he had just done to Alea. But the deed was done, and he couldn't stay in this secluded valley and second-guess himself forever.

The two jumped onto Zac's flying treasure, immediately setting off toward Azh'Rodum. As they flew he got an update of the situation from the demon. Ogras had returned 30 minutes ago, at which point order was mostly restored to the island. The Valkyries had discovered the jamming array that blocked out any communication and teleportation on the island and immediately deactivated it.

They were still locked out from the rest of the world, but Kenzie and the other experts were working on multiple solutions while multiple squads had set sail to look for hints of similar arrays. Even the Creators were furiously producing new vessels to replace the destroyed ones, and they had already delivered three Carracks in record speed.

They reached Azh'Rodum soon enough, and Zac was relieved to see that the miasmic clouds were mostly dispelled by this point. He saw hundreds of warriors walking through the forests in groups, likely looking for stragglers who had wandered off from the rest of the zombies. An inquiry told him that his sister and the demon generals had already returned to Port Atwood, and they took the teleporter back as well.

The scene in Port Atwood was pretty similar to the one in Azh'Rodum. The raging flames had been doused by now, but much of the southern edge of the island had been completely ruined by the wildfires. Thankfully they sat right on top of a Nexus Vain, and the dense energies would restore the greenery in a year or two.

The two walked over to the battlefield, where the bodies of the fallen cultists were still being examined for lingering threats. The few who survived Zac's onslaught had either tried to go out in a blaze of glory or were summarily executed by one of the demon armies. Zac didn’t care about that, as there was no middle ground with these two forces.

He saw his sister stand at the edge of the battlefield as a dozen drones roved back and forth across the area. It was the same ones who had stood sentry around the Technocrat incursion, and Zac guessed she was looking for any survivors who tried to play dead. The demon generals were nowhere to be seen though, perhaps occupied elsewhere.

Of course, her search was a bit redundant considering that demon warriors and a few nauseated humans were cutting the head off every corpse just in case. It was both to kill the straggles and to avoid any corpses from rising again.

Their approach was quickly noticed, and Kenzie ran over with worry written on her face.

“What happened? Is Alea okay?” she asked the moment they appeared.

“… It’s complicated,” Zac sighed. “We’ll talk about it later. How are things here? How are the losses?”

”Around 200 people died from the invasion, almost of them during the battles at sea before they reached our island,” Kenzie said. ”We mostly stayed within the arrays after they arrived though, so very few people were hurt.”

Zac closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. Another 200 people dead, and that was probably just a drop in the bucket compared to the losses on the main continent. But he couldn't do anything about it, and he slowly opened his eyes and indicated for his sister to continue.

“The threat was essentially over after you arrived. We’re mostly cleaning up and rebuilding by this point. We've also figured out a means of communication, old-school radio signals. A few engineers and the Ishiate tinkerers have managed to strengthen the signals of old machines to the point we can communicate pretty great distances, but it's only in morse code.”

”That's good,” Zac nodded. ”Do the ships you've sent out have these things?”

”They do, and we've actually found the missing Cultist Ship already thanks to Mr. Trang's Companion. It is sailing away from us, toward Mystic Island I think,” Kenzie sighed. “We have sent over half of our remaining ships to harass it though, but it will take a few days to catch up. Ilvere is leading those ships.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Zac said with a frown, preparing to take out his Flying Treasure again.

“Just let it be,” Ogras said from the side. “Our time is limited, and we can deal with the stragglers another day. It should take them a few days to reach that Island, perhaps over a week if they’re constantly under harassment. We already have elites stationed there, and they can just jump into the Mystic Realm and close the spatial tunnel, allowing us to reclaim the island at a later date.”

Letting the invaders have free reign in his Archipelago went against every fiber in his body, but he knew that he didn’t have much of a choice as there were bigger fish to fry.

“How long do we have until the realignment array activates?” Zac asked

“We broke a couple of key pillars before we had to stop,” Kenzie answered. “I can’t be sure, but we think it will take around 6 or 7 days to complete unless something changed the last day. But the sooner it’s stopped the better. It’s draining our planet, who knows what long-term effect that might have.”

“What about the arrays blocking our Teleportation Array?” Zac asked. ”I heard you were working on some sort of solution?”

“We haven’t located any more arrays apart from the one on this island,” Kenzie said with some helplessness. “So we are still locked out from the main continent. Worst case you can try flying over to Cogstown and use their Teleporter, it's possible it hasn't been impacted by the spatial disruption.”

”That will cost us a few days though,” Ogras interjected. ”And we don't know the situation on the Mainland.”

“Calrin and I have looked into these types of arrays since what happened to Alea and the army,” Kenzie said. “I figured they might block out all teleporters around the Dead Zone after they activated the realignment array. They found a simpler solution though by just blocking this island though. But I do have something that might work.”

“You do?” Zac asked with surprise.

“Blocking arrays is a standard tactic during conflicts in the multiverse,” Ogras added from the side. “It’s almost impossible to catch your targets if they just keep teleporting away. Just look at the insectoids and their war. They have tried to catch the followers of the old Redeemer for months, but they just keep teleporting away from any compromised hive.”

“So there are solutions?” Zac asked.

“It boils down to whether your or your opponent’s methods are better, and that’s why I’m not sure,” Kenzie explained. “We managed to get our hands on a [Spatial Reinforcement Array], and it should technically be able to stabilize the subspace or whatever long enough for you to teleport to the main continent.”