Chương 244: Chapter 317 - Verge of Victory

The leyline regulator stood as a marvel. Not of technical engineering or artifice—though it was also that—but of social engineering. The cooperation it had required was more than just coordination of the construction teams. It had required the cooperation of experts from every field, reconfiguring production across four countries. And, it was more than just a means to an end; it was a schematic for the hope of future harmony among them all.

Great distance and isolation could trick people into thinking they were fundamentally different from other people. Here, deep bonds of friendship and understanding were being formed; rich soil for what she hoped would grow after. The emerald ring around the ruins of Mayat Shadr was the first thing one noticed upon approach. The sea of flowering cacti, shrubs, and succulents formed the outermost ring, but then as one moved inward, waving grasses and blooming brushes rose up.

The great sea of green looked completely out of place in the desert. Throughout, it was dotted with bursts of color, not just from the flowers, but from bits of arcane energy spontaneously converting into light. Within that were the ruins of Mayat Shadr—except they were ruins no longer. They had needed a city's worth of workers, and thus, they had reconstructed the old seat of the Triarch's power. What had been cursed and forsaken land was rejuvenated.

Deep wells designed by Baracueli geomancers drew from the aquifers below the sands and dumped them into an aqueduct system designed by Tlaxhuacan engineers. It then flowed into buildings designed by Persaman architects who best knew how to mitigate the scorching heat of the desert. The old street networks of the Triarchy had been designed to segregate districts from each other, keeping the centers of power isolated from the masses.

Now, those streets were designed for both efficiency of transit and met up in common forum areas. They had not forced communities to grow, but like the verdant flora that has risen all around the city, they had created the circumstances to encourage these communities' growth. More, they had fortified the will of these people through education programs.

They had not just taught them the tasks that needed to be done, but why they were important, and that though they didn't remember it, they were building off the inventions and insights of themselves. Was that any stranger than the usual progression of history, where new generations with new memories built on the wisdom of the previous generation? In both cases, there was a break in the continuity of memory. The leyline regulator, then, was not some mysterious thing they built without understanding.

Purpose connected them. Several of Gabriel's spies and saboteurs who had attended these classes in order to find a weakness in the device had ended up confessing; others were rooted out by the tight-knit labor groups. However, Mirian had to assume someone had succeeded in a subtle attack on the device. Or, perhaps, errors had accumulated.

Zhuan and Mirian had tried to make the device as modular and as simple as possible, with built-in checks where glowing glyphs would indicate if any problems existed, but systems were most resilient with multiple redundancies. As primary artificer and the only one who truly understood every aspect of the device, she would take no risks. As she levitated in, her first check was on the center of the device.

The six colossal crystals fanning out from the center were already radiating light as unstable arcane energy from the leylines below trickled up to them. The rest of the device was built around these conduits.

The device was conceptually simple: the six conduit crystals simply kept the already existing arcane force stable, in turn keeping the repulsion of the Divir moon's entropic field stable, maintaining the delicate equilibrium that had existed since the Mausoleum of the Ominian had broken from the world due to some foolish ritual of the Triarchy.

The leyline regulator, unlike the unnatural phenomenon that has arisen, could adjust the magnitude of the arcane field in relation to the entropic field above, allowing Divir to slowly settle back to Enteria, removing the danger. The rest of the device helped modulate that process. As she'd learned from the arcane eruptions, high amounts of arcane energy spontaneously transformed into other energy types.

That was well enough for light, but vibrations, force, and heat transformations would cause the giant conduit crystals to crack apart. The glyphworks and runeworks used principles of her father's best insights into energy transmutation. Enchantments and smaller conduits siphoned arcane energy safely out of the crystals, spreading it out through the device, then further spreading it out to the myrvite plants that encircled the city where the energy could be safely transformed and returned to Enteria as ambient mana.

The device shimmered with coils of orichalcum wire, thousands upon thousands of glyphs and runes, glimmering crystals, and all the stonework and woodwork needed to support such a structure. While Zhuan took over the war effort, she would perform the last checks on the device. It would be three full weeks of casting divination after divination spell. Time she would use to recover.

With the abundant ambient mana being produced by the myrvite gardens, her auric mana would regenerate nearly as fast as when she was in the Frostlands. Mirian opened up her spellbook and began to cast.

The message came eight days later as a sensation in her enchanted ring. Her father was communicating through Meu. At the beginning of the cycle, Mirian had sent the cat south, sprinting day and night the way only an undead construct could. The mummified feline had arrived just days before Ibrahim and scratched out a code system in Gaius's hidden enclave that they could use to communicate using pulses of soul energy. The message was simple:"Prophet Gabriel confirmed dead, not extracted.

Assassination attempt on Liuan his doing. Attempt failed. Secure anchor?" She sent back,"Awaiting word on Jherica and Celen. Hold." A new anchor had appeared in the Ominian's living corpse in the Mausoleum, and they had been unsure as to whose. Now, one possibility had been eliminated. If need be, Gaius could ambush Ibrahim while he was sleeping. However, of all the Prophets, Ibrahim's anchor would be the hardest to take by force; his soul was a fortress, refined and perfected through dedicated meditation.

Only Mirian had more soul ascension than he did. Gaius might succeed. He might not. Right now, he also was in position to pierce the Akanan flank in a devastating surprise attack—but only if he decided to join them. Xecatl doubted he would come around, but Mirian hadn't given up on him yet. Zhuan had joked that Ibrahim was the last contingency for Enteria if the rest of them failed. If anyone could fight a thousand-year war against Liuan, it was him.

It was a week later as her divination checks were nearing an end that she received a message at night. Zhuan, communicating from the front through the Ominian's dream. Zhuan was the one with more expertise in Zhighuan oneiromancy, and so she was having better luck maintaining her connection to the dreamscape. Mirian's soul was fading each day; soon, she thought her ability to communicate through it would end.

"I've heard from Jherica. Celen is dead. It's Jherica's anchor that returned. There's riots and strikes all over Akana. Liuan's loyalists are attempting to maintain control, but without her guidance, Jherica has been able to push the movement into cutting goods to the ports. That's the good news. The bad news is the Cearsia was able to seize some of the foss quarries up north. Akanan logistics have been devastated, but not cut entirely.

We've begun coordinating with guerrilla fighters who were previously non-aligned to harass the northern lines." Mirian sent her a nod.

"Checks are almost complete. How's the center?" This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Zhuan sent worry.

"They've gotten better at rooting out and hitting our hidden positions. The center has been in a slow retreat this past week. Liuan will be besieging Alatishad within the day. We should be able to hold on there for some time." Mirian contemplated that.

"If the divination checks are good, I want to implement contingency 47-S."

"Are you sure?"

"I got word that Gabriel is also dead. We have what we need. If we remove the vulnerability of moonfall, we remove our single greatest point of failure. Can you hold?" Zhuan's soul flickered, parts of it wisping away out of the dream before she was able to pull them back together.

"There'd only be a small gap of vulnerability. And we have our two friends we can call. You're sure you can make the journey?"

"I wouldn't go if I wasn't sure. I've done it before," Mirian replied. Zhuan turned her back to Mirian, her soul gazing up through one of the great windows of the Mausoleum, looking out at the endless field of stars. For a time, she said nothing. Twice more, she had to pull herself back into the dream as she thought. At last, she turned back to Mirian.

"Come back safe," she said. They embraced, then faded from the dream.

Fixes on the leyline regulator took another week. Unsurprisingly, it was mostly runework that needed her attention. When the final checks were done and she'd ordered patrols around the device increased, she checked in on the progress of the defenses. She landed next to Song Jei and Iliya Torres.

"Congratulations are in order," she told them. Torres shook her head.

"You were the one that designed it. We only followed your schematics."

"I had significantly more time on my hands to comprehend the design. Besides, you both know who taught me the fundamentals." Jei smiled. Torres allowed herself to relax her shoulders and said, "I still can't tell you how strange it is."

"She can and has told me, though," Jei added. Mirian smiled.

"Enteria owes you both a debt. How progress the defenses?"

"I can vouch for the artillery," Torres said.

"When it comes to the plants…" Off in the distance, they could just make out Selkus Viridian, his silver beard and pale skin making him stand out from the nagual. He was working with them on a verge by the road. The myrvite plants would help suppress spells in the area, making Akanan munitions that much less effective. Armed with a watering can and a jade focus, he looked about as happy as a man could be. Mirian said, "I'll be away again for a few days. You two make sure Viridian remembers to drink water and rest."

Jei snorted.

"No promises." With that, she departed, levitating for Mahatan. She kept at a lower speed to conserve her mana. She had a huge fortified jug of distilled mana elixir with her now, made by Professor Seneca's team of alchemists, but even with that, she was about to need every bit of mana she had.

When Mirian had first seen the walls of the oasis city, they had seemed like ancient, unshakable bastions. Now, they seemed frail things, and even the old artillery bristling along its length seemed insufficient. Rows of trenches and fortifications surrounded the city in every direction. The pit mines to the north and east no longer had miners in them, but soldiers, tasked with fortifying the pits and connecting them and the old cave networks with tunnels. Far in the west, the flanks of the armies were skirmishing.

Sometimes, there was a low rumble or a distant flash. As she flew overhead, sending spells ahead to alert the defenders of her coming, she gazed at the Nine Spires of the Isheer and the beautiful turquoise roofs throughout the city. Rostal was busy, so it was Thaseem who met her by the oasis. The guard had come down from Falijmali as a liaison for the Junudasun, the old rebel group that had sought to force Baracuel to honor its treaties with the city.

"Sacred One," she said with a bow.

"Thaseem. Good to see you. I have unfortunate news for the city, but good news for the project. The leyline regulator stands ready. I will need to connect Mahatan's Gate to Divir until the return, so no more supplies will be flowing to the city. Stockpiles should be sufficient to withstand a short siege."" Div —!" Thaseem swallowed and bowed again.

"As you will, Sacred One." Internally, Mirian sighed. She didn't miss people not listening to her, but she did miss informal conversations.

"Honor to the Junudasun," she said. She dove down into the waters, a shield of air surrounding her and air canisters in tow, then made her way to the conduit room. Conductor appeared a moment later, the gateling looking stern as always. Divir, she told them. The elder creature regarded her for a moment. YOU ARE DIFFERENT, they thought. DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD HAVE CHANGED WITHOUT YOU? You've visited more paths than I have. You tell me. HMMM, Conductor thought. Then, WHAT STRANGE THINGS I'VE SEEN ON THE FIELDS.

PERHAPS ONE DAY WE'LL TALK OF THEM. And with that, Mirian felt the currents of arcane energy change as the Gate moved destinations. As Conductor vanished, she wondered what had gotten them to break from their usual grumpy, dutiful demeanor. Mirian dragged a tank of air through the Gate, then gently levitated down to the grand gates. The great hall of the Mausoleum stretched out. As Mirian walked, memories flitted through her mind.

She'd stored so many things here; a thousand names, a thousand conversations, a thousand bits of knowledge. It had become more than the Ominian's Mausoleum; it had become another home. The reliefs and statues she'd once thought of as monstrous, leaning out of every wall with their fangs and spines, now resembled no such thing to her. Monsters were not made by form, but by action. She strode with confidence through the halls.

The first time she'd walked them, the soul of the Ominian had been wild, scouring the tomb like a wind. Now, it only blew as a thin breeze until she reached the chamber where it intensified. Mirian reached the throne room and gazed up at the Ominian. Little by little, the horrid wounds that had riddled Their body had been covered in soothing light as the needles returned to Their flesh. Only four wounds remained now, the black ichor long solidified, and yet still moving in flowing patterns just beyond description.

She still wondered, Why give them up at all? Wouldn't it have been better to keep them and let them heal you? She reached in her sheaths and pulled out the two chthonic needles she'd gotten from the Labyrinth. Gently, she held them up, levitating them towards the Elder God. Then, she let go. Currents beyond even her ability to divine them carried the needles into the Ominian. Two of the wounds now glowed with fresh light. Mirian stared up at the Elder God. We're almost there, she told Them.

She wondered how much They saw and understood, in that place of both death and life. She had struggled with growing distant over the course of a century. She had seen the Ominian walk Enteria long before humanity had even arrived. If They'd truly shaped the planet and moon, how many millions of years had separated them from this moment, and who They had started? And how much could one learn with all that time?

Despite all the secrets of the world that she'd uncovered, there was still so much more to know and understand. She wondered if even the Elder Gods were still discovering new things. She stood there a moment longer. Then she departed. When she exited back into the oasis, she didn't visit Conductor again.

The Mahatan Gate would stay connected to Divir, with arcane energy trickling in the whole time, destabilizing the entropic field around the Ominian and the moon early, changing the equilibrium in lock step with the regulator so that there was a gradual descent. Liuan was now on a strict time limit; she could no longer slowly grind out victory through sheer force of numbers and attrition.

And, the only sign she'd have of it before the moon actually fell would be a slight dip in leyline energy moving south of Mahatan until the smaller leyline suddenly failed. Even now, Zhuan was commanding the defense of Alatishad. The city was a veritable fortress. That should keep her busy until it was far too late. Mirian gazed up at the sky. Two last temporal anchors were needed to stabilize the Ominian, and they were already waiting for her. One last trip to Luamin, she thought.

She checked her extra air canisters, water, and other supplies, then activated her leyline repulsors, accelerating high into the sky.