Chapter 370 - 370: War with the Native Gods

Twenty four hours in the physical world translated to nearly four months inside the game engine. Rubedo utilized this temporal gap to shift his focus away from the eastern canyons. He tapped the crystal console to activate the Omniscient Eye, projecting a live visual feed of Valerius onto the primary monitor.

Valerius stood inside a grand colosseum carved from petrified coral and dark basalt. The neutral meeting ground hosted the highest ranking Native Gods of the neighboring hemispheres.

Aegir, the Lord of the Abyssal Trenches, lounged on a throne of woven pearls. Ignis-Vael, the Scourge of the Twelfth Continent, loomed beside him draped in cooling magma.

"I advise you to leave the Seventeenth Continent alone," Valerius stated while holding his palms open to placate the ancient deities. "The new Sovereign is highly competent and fully armed. His Vanguard commands an industrial infrastructure we cannot breach."

Aegir sneered and swirled an orb of pressurized water between his fingers. "You expect us to fear a fake player god? He rules the trash heap of the server. That deadland is a quarantine zone for failed experiments."

Ignis-Vael crossed his arms, shedding glowing embers onto the floor. "We call him the Sovereign of the Mud. You embarrass yourself by acting as his messenger, Valerius. We do not negotiate with interlopers."

Valerius tightened his jaw. "You underestimate his resources. He defeated the Fourth Continent pantheon in a matter of weeks."

"He stole an Incubation Core," Aegir interrupted, pointing his trident at Valerius. "That artifact belongs to the native heavens. Tell your Sovereign of the Mud to deliver the core to our borders as a tribute of submission. If he appeases us, we might let him keep his little mud fort."

Aegir refused to wait for a diplomatic response. The Lord of the Abyssal Trenches struck his trident against the coral floor to send a magical ripple expanding across the ocean.

"I will send a warning to his maritime borders," Aegir boasted. "Let us see how his toys handle true predators."

The visual feed shifted to display the dark ocean miles away from the colosseum. Three Apostle class ocean beasts broke the surface of the water. The leviathans possessed armored scales and rows of glowing dorsal fins. They roared at the sky and swam straight toward the Seventeenth Continent.

Up in the orbital sanctuary, Rubedo watched the diplomatic failure unfold on his screen. A cold smile stretched across his face. He found their ancient pride highly amusing.

'They believe they command the server just because they spawned here first,' Rubedo thought. 'However, now that I have learned the truth about this game, it makes sense why the native gods are aware of 'players' and 'servers'. There is someone from earth who is helping them and giving them information, and I need to find out who that is.'

He opened a communication channel to his coastal defenders.

"The native council rejected the peace treaty," Rubedo projected his voice down the neural tether. "Old-Shell. Sludge. You have three Apostle class targets approaching the western maritime borders. Prepare your weapons and turn them into seafood."

Down on the western coastline, Old-Shell braced his boots against the reinforced concrete pier. The iron cannons mounted on his back pivoted to track the approaching anomalies. Sludge stood on the carapace and pulled a fresh batch of acid cores from his satchel.

"You heard the Sovereign," Sludge yelled to the surrounding dreadnought fleet. "Load the explosive munitions. We have fresh targets to sink."

The Native Gods' invasion fleet materialized over the western horizon. Sleek warships carved from enchanted coral and bone glided across the ocean surface to bypass the orbital defense grids. Flocks of armored wyverns darkened the clouds above the galleons.

The ancient deities anticipated catching the Vanguard off guard by striking the seemingly unguarded beaches of Sector Seven.

They sailed directly into Sylara's composted ocean floor. The submerged warships scraped against the newly cultivated defensive perimeter reef. Microscopic corrosive spores grafted to the Omnivemon-Web roots reacted instantly to the foreign vessels. Emerald acid bubbled along the waterlines to eat through the enchanted coral hulls in a matter of seconds.

The invading ships listed and sank before they could even reach the shallows.

Beneath the churning waves, the Weaver of Tides raised his watery hands. He manipulated the ocean currents to drag the sinking infantry deep into the trenches.

Old-Shell waited at the bottom with his calcified obsidian dome locked against the seabed. He activated his internal boiler plating and vented superheated steam directly into the trapped currents.

The freezing saltwater flashed into scalding thermal pockets. The aquatic legion cooked inside their own armor, turning the dark trench into a boiling cauldron of seafood soup.

Above the water, the surviving wyvern riders abandoned the melting fleet and dove toward the shoreline. Warlord Gorak stood on the black sands of Sector Seven alongside thousands of Vanguard infantrymen. He cracked his neck and raised his right arm.

The faceted, violet-tinged crystal fused to his flesh pulsed with unstable magic.

"Knock them out of the sky," Gorak commanded.

He channeled Abyssal Thunder directly through his mutated core.

A blinding wave of crystallized lightning erupted from his knuckles. The branching bolts of blue electricity struck the diving wyverns mid-flight. The crystalline energy sheared the leathery wings right off their bodies.

The crippled beasts plummeted from the sky and crashed into the wet sand with crushing force.

The Vanguard infantry stepped forward in perfect formation.

They raised their star-iron bolt-throwers and fired explosive munitions into the helpless, grounded riders. The shoreline transformed into a one-sided meat grinder. Golden light flared repeatedly across the Vanguard ranks as the soldiers absorbed the combat experience.

'These ancient gods are very generous,' Gorak thought while watching his troops glow with newfound power. 'They delivered a free training exercise right to our doorstep.'

Up in the orbital sanctuary, Rubedo watched the tactical map update. System notifications cascaded down his primary monitor to confirm continuous level-ups for his ground troops.

The Native Gods had dispatched an elite strike force to teach the Spiral a lesson, yet the Vanguard mopped up the entire armada while suffering zero casualties.