Chapter 985 Sounds of Yesterday (1/2)
”Subject codename: Ultimate Forage recovered—regrettably, the destruction of the First Agricultural Realm is also confirmed.”
Cold, dismal tempest screamed upon the shattered land of magma, with air vortices that moved beyond 100 meters per second tearing apart ground and stone, forming a massive hurricane of dust that shaped a constantly-moving distinct dark spot on the surface of the world.
The battle between Legendary champions and an ultimate entity had completely destroyed the ecosphere of the planet. The power of the Murloc High Priest could have blown the world's air out of its atmospheric layer, which would have at least destroyed less of the planet's surface. However, the orbicular sky and rectangular earth world structure of the First Agricultural Realm had kept all the shockwaves inside the world, leading to a rather unusual inward detonation that prevented the aftershocks from ceasing even until now.
It was one of the disadvantages faced by small worlds after the appearance of ether: it would have been fortunate if the world was directly torn apart should exceedingly powerful champions have fought within, but the remaining shockwaves would have been kept reverberating inside the World Barrier for over a million years. Without any unexpected circumstances, the First Agricultural Realm would become a broken world of windstorms, and perhaps in time, elementals of wind, earth, or fire would have been born in the hot dust vortex beyond 10,000 kilometers in diameter, growing new species and civilizations.
And in one corner of the windstorm was a huge tunnel directed deep beneath the land and into earth's core. Godard, whose body was gradually reverting to its usual elderly murloc form, stood beside Galanoud the Nature Magister's elven form. They were on top of one of the milk-white roots that was kept sealed in a bounded field of profound Nature Power, and were communicating with Pope Igor from afar. ”It's a recovery operation of great success. That fellow isn't weak, and it's only after I had pressed it down to the planet's core at full force that I could finally manage to stop its struggling—but without its roots to stabilize it, the continent that had mostly been eaten away cannot maintain its original form. It's a wasteland now.”
”Of course, it's alive. Galanoud is healing it beside me. Its vitality is simply robust, you don't have to worry about that.”
”Yes, the core activity of the Ultimate Forage is still present. It was the both of us combined against a Legendary beast of instincts, we certainly wouldn't have missed it. Right, it's time for the next move.”
”Igor, do we wait for the rest of you to come over, or do we start now?”
A jade hued spell formation of Nature Power that resembled vines and appeared unusually uniform was wrapped around the composite of milk-white roots. It was absorbing the roots' energy while also using its own to maintain the life within the roots. Above the spell of Nature Power, Galanoud frowned as she spoke to Igor as well, appearing to have heard some bad news.
”We don't have to wait? Trouble at your end?”
”…The epidemic has already spread, I see… have the Void civilizations nearby been alerted? Preventing viral infection is not difficult in itself—but it is vital to pay most attention to any Ultimate Entity that may be present.
”What?!”
The conversation did not actually last too long. When both Godard and Galanoud turned off communications at the same time, the two of them reflexively shared a glanced, their expressions equally somber.
”Seven Ultimate Entities in the sector that Igor, Barbarossa, and the others got too, with two being reborn from intelligent life and extremely hard to handle…”
The Nature's Magister brandished her scepter, causing the spell that bound the core of the Ultimate Forage to tighten and the creature to convulse in agony, ejecting massive white viral shrouds. ”How long has that only been?” Galanoud's tone was grave. ”That epidemic which has mysterious caused the death of trillions, infecting so many civilizations and creating almost ten Legendary monsters in just the planetary sector around here! Even the Evil Gods leading their legion of spawns in a full-blown assault would never have compared!”
”Evil Gods would at least have a true form which can be attacked.”
The Murloc Hight Priest shook his head, staring at the Ultimate Forage before him and said in a rather muffled voice, ”As for the plague itself—truth be told, we know nothing about its true origins. There is no angle from which we could counter it directly, and all we can do is guard against it.”
”That's why we're here,” the Nature Magister spoke as if she was seething. In fact, Galanoud's hands was so clenched tightly that distinct plant roots were appearing over the hand grasping her scepter, making her rage very evident. She could not help but to imagine what would have happened to all intelligent life and elves living back home if the world of Mycroft had not been warned by Joshua or protected by the Seven Gods, and had instead been infected by the Ultimate Virus like those ignorant civilizations laid waste by the epidemic.
Simply thinking about the possibility left the Nature Magister shuddering despite the absence of chill in the air. The plague was a horror which could destroy the struggles and effort of generations within a split second, a calamity which would instantly reduce all accomplishments into nothing. The elven race had only returned to the Void and the stage that was the cosmos with much difficulty, but it simply took some artificial supernatural plague appearing from some unknown place and of obscure purpose to destroy everything.
”Such is the dark Multiverse. Effort, courage, belief… without great power, even the most profound and firmest of wills—even the strongest and most passionate emotions are meaningless.”
Hovering above the Ultimate Forage, the Nature Magister gently landed, her feet stamping on the Ultimate Forage's core. Seemingly sensing a threat, the creature began to struggle with all its might, even crying in the manner of a begging child—having consumed billions of humans and trillions of livestock, even the once-mundane man-eating grass had developed considerable intelligence. Even so, Galanoud showed no hint of sympathy, for her gaze was cold and her expression rigid. ”It's a blessing from those who came before the Mycroft civilization… that I still have some strength.”
”That's why I'm here, and trying to fix that problem.”
With those words, bright light abruptly emanated where Galanoud was, causing the surrounding air to be dyed with the thickest and most profound of green.
Amidst the dark greenery, the sounds of trees moving in waves resounded. The rustling echo became a sacred harmonized tune that spread across all directions, with all vigor it brushed over revitalized—even the Ultimate Forage that was hanging on by a thread and bound where it was had regained considerable strength.
Even so, the first thing that the Ultimate Forage did after regaining some strength was to continued its struggle. Even if its struggle was without avail beneath the suppression of the Nature Power and appeared simply bizarre, Godard could see from a corner that dark green veins were spreading like tree roots from beneath the Nature Magister's skirt, which was sewn from flower and leaves. It dug deep inside the core of the Ultimate Forage, a sight that was at once curious, sacred, yet natural left the Murloc High Priest clicking his tongue and showing an awed expression.
”Most of the Ultimate Virus spreading everywhere isn't actually complete at all. It's even mutating a considerable number of times, and there won't be a real solution or vaccine even if we decrypted and studied it.”
Godard watched as Galanoud eroded the Ultimate Forage without averting his eyes. ”Only Ultimate Entities, and only the cores of those specimens which have fully changed, contain the earliest and most complete information about the Ultimate Virus. Only with the first prototype can we at least attempt to study and create a vaccine.”
It was the more dangerous amongst the two plans that the champions of Mycroft had drawn up. In other words, it was to infiltrate infected zones of the Ultimate Virus and capture an Ultimate Entity to study its fundamental information while keeping it alive—and from there, developing a vaccine!
As the rarer biological specialists in the Mycroft civilization, both Galanoud and Godard naturally became the core of the plan, with everyone else including Pope Igor and Barbarossa the Legendary Mage acting as their escort and protection, purging any dangerous Ultimate Entities that might have been present in other surrounding worlds. Even so, they had definitely never imagined that so many of those Ultimate Entities could have actually leapt out of a single fringe planetary sector.
Certainly, if they had known that over 700 Ultimate Entities had appeared immediately in the Galaxy of Bloodbath once the epidemic exploded in the Amos Court, they would have thanked their lucky stars that there were very few creatures in the surrounding sectors that met the conditions for the Ultimate Virus.
According to the plan, Galanoud was to be in charge of extracting raw Ultimate Virus. Then, by using her own body as a petri dish, she was to apply her Legendary powers to analyze the processes of mutation and infection displayed by the Ultimate Virus in real time and attempt to weaken or sterilize it. By the end of the process, she would have grown a weakened form the Ultimate Virus, completely dismantling it into the most basic of blueprints. But with that being said, Godard the Murloc High Priest was to be there in case Galanoud failed and would help her recover, while also using another series of rapid evolving processes to force the Ultimate Virus into coincidentally spawning weaker progenies. He would then redo the entire experiment from scratch to hence decipher it by each layer.
That was only the way that the Ultimate Virus and its variants could have been completely sequenced, ensuring that the people of Mycroft would never be infected.
”So, Galanoud, are you alright?”
Noticing that the dark green veins of Nature Power had dug deeply into the core of the Ultimate Forage, and despite knowing that Galanoud was in familiar territory and boasted mastery since the entity was a plant existence, Godard could not hold back from asking, ”If there's trouble, we can return to the lab back at base. There is more complete equipment there!”
”No. We can't go back!”
The Nature Magister's determined voice echoed. ”I am not bringing such a dangerous virus to any location that has to do with Mycroft. Any mishaps, and both you and I would become villains to our own civilization!”
”As for whether it would work… I can only say that it would be very difficult.”
”Very, very difficult.”
As she spoke, Galanoud slowly closed her eyes. Most of the functions of her humongous body had completely paused while every bit of her strength converged inside the Ultimate Forage—at the raw form of the Ultimate Virus. Then, a manifested spiritual message emanated, ”But it isn't impossible.”
By now, the Ultimate Forage had stopped every form of struggle: when the spell of Nature Power had slowly traded places with the energy that sustained it, its body was now under complete control. Indeed, one could say that its core had been completely assimilated by the Nature Magister, leaving a final portion of its spirit that was kept inside the Ultimate Virus composite within its own body, slowly studied by Galanoud.
In fact, the Nature Magister was not holding back. As mentioned before, she was using Legendary class power to break the barrier of supernatural forces that covered the outer layer of the Ultimate Virus on a microscopic view, piece by piece… the seemingly tiny virus boasted an extremely complex structure as its essence, a tiny hybrid spell composed of various Extraordinary powers. To a certain extent, it was not quite a virus, but resembled computer programming built with supernatural forces instead, infecting other elements as if it were a computer virus and rapidly spreading its curse through a variety of methods.