Cleansing Fire

by D. L. Harrison

  I also got a message, from Rachel. Well, that was convenient, I didn’t realize we’d be able to message people in the online world when we were outside. Apparently, they were being raided by a sea monster. They’d fought it off a few times, but it kept coming back every day or two.

  Of course they were being raided by a sea monster. Well, it would have to wait, the real world came first. I felt a twinge of guilt at that, since the online races felt as real to me as humans, but we had to have priorities.

  I was never going to get a vacation. At least, not a whole one. The best we seemed to be able to manage was a few days. Sure, we’d had a full week last time, but most of that had been building a house and making enchantments.

  Gaia replied, “Your world’s forces are assigned to the human colony.”

  I nodded, and I passed that on to the others.

  I asked Gaia, “How is the Earth defense thing going.”

  Gaia replied, “It will take several days. I’m fast, but even for me it will take time to recrystallize diamond gems the size of Rhode Island to remove all impurities. I also need to add safety features, it isn’t inconceivable the mantle will shift at some point releasing magma and breaking one of them. I need to make sure if that happens the Earth doesn’t explode. Despite the drop in imminent danger, I’m going ahead with my plan. I’m sorry all this was necessary, and for what I’ve put you all through, but I’m proud of you all.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that last part. Although, it was just as well we had Gaia’s approval, since all our lives were in her hands. As for the Earth blowing up in a quadrillion mana explosion, well I’d have to trust she had that in hand.

  Gaia added, “There are several thousand solar systems to explore with the probes that support life, or that have ships in our galaxy. But it looks like for our current enemy, the nineteen worlds are all they had. At least, in this galaxy.”

  I frowned, she was probably just being cautious without definitive data. This had to be all of them, didn’t it?

  We arrived at the transport point.

  Alan asked, “Are you sure you can teleport us straight to another planet?”

  I nodded, and then created a sheet of ice underneath us. I lifted us twenty yards into the sky, giving me more than enough clearance to make the teleport bubble ten yards beyond everyone in the center. It made a huge difference in safety, and as a result it was cheaper. If the ship could do it, of course I could with many times the mana of the ship.

  I got the coordinates and a visual by checking the main combined probe database, and I took us to the planet.

  “Shit!”

  Tau Ceti had a gravity point nine seven of Earth, so it felt normal. We were at most, a few pounds lighter than we were at Earth, but it wasn’t noticeable. Ironically, the human colony planet of Tau Ceti was even more alien looking than the world we’d just left. The sky was a little darker of blue, verging on a purple tinge. The trees on this planet looked weird too, but it was more the purplish tint in the sky, and the three large moons more than anything else that made it look so alien.

  My cursing however, was all about the flight of enemy fighter ships that was bearing down in the exact spot we’d teleported to. The ice holding us up dropped away at a thought, and I slowed our fall to the ground at the last minute, so we wouldn’t hit so hard. I felt the air blow my hair, the fighters came really close to hitting us.

  I also saw why this world was such a problem. The alien base wasn’t just a fortified city out in the open, it looked like they’d built their base in the side of mountain. The mountain itself was covered with turrets, and the sky was buzzing with aircraft. The side of the mountain had several bunkers, with small slits in the concrete and mana shielded walls the enemy warriors could fire out from.

  I could see why it was a hard nut to crack, on the other hand I wondered why the ships in the sky weren’t a part of history yet.

  There were several trenches in front of the mountain, covered with arching stone and ice blinds to protect from plasma barrages both from the mountain and sky, and we moved quickly in that direction to take cover. I don’t know, maybe I was a coward? Why did no one else figure out how to kill shit without exposing themselves until I showed them how to do it?

  To be fair, most people only had one sphere which would cut down on that possibility. Like Gwen couldn’t kill that way for instance. Neither could Steve. Still, Dan, myself, and Cassie could. Cassie could use light sensors to target ships with a lightning turret for instance, and since they were passive in nature she wouldn’t even have to pulse them first.

  Right before we dropped into the trench, I dropped off a ship killing turret on the ground, and also sent out my water and fire elementals to do something about the shielded bunkers in the side of the mountain.

  The ships started to explode every two seconds. Dan’s turret got one every five seconds, and Cassie’s every three or four. It didn’t take long for others to join. The twelve hundred people that had joined from the last world we were at already knew how, and the rest caught on fast. They weren’t stupid, they just hadn’t thought about the possibility until they saw it in action.

  With so many of us, we cleared the skies in less than a minute, and could concentrate on the bunkers in the mountainside. With the ships gone, the enemy barrage lightened considerably, though the bunkers still put out a lot of enemy fire, along with the turrets, without the barrage from above a lot more of us were able to shift from defense to offense.

  I took a minute to check the mission parameters and probe scans. The mountain was riddled with passages, fifty bunkers in total around the mountain at multiple levels, and there were several hundred turrets and thousands of soldiers.

  I used the same turret I used for the ships, and I used alien life signs to aim. They were behind stone and shields, but like the ships the attacks would destroy those first, in an effort to get to the soldiers. The only difference in the spell was I didn’t specify lifeforms in the air. I tossed the spell out, and it started firing at the bunkers. It would eventually wear down the shield, and then start destroying the concrete.

  The mana shields were a hundred thousand per bunker like the ships, so each attack would do that much damage, using twenty thousand mana a shot every two seconds. That gave me a surplus of ten thousand or so every two seconds I could use for casting other spells, unlike the ships.

  The barrage of plasma from the mountain was pretty intense, but we had so many water and earth Sphere people constantly regenerating our cover it didn’t have a chance at getting through to us.

  The first blast destroyed the bunker shield, the second blast destroyed part of the bunker wall, and the third blast hit the enemies hiding behind it. Some died, others farther away from the blast point merely lost their mana shields. Another follow up shot or two, would finish off the soldiers in that bunker, and my turret would switch to the next one.

  That was ten seconds to take out a bunker and kill all the soldiers, just with my spell turret.

  Several others along the line followed suit, the ones with life detection copied my spell, and the ones with earth and fire like Dan copied his and took out turrets. All in all, it didn’t take all that long to take out all the bunkers, turrets, and outer soldiers. Not with ten thousand of us surrounding the mountain.

  Once they were all down, we got up and walked into the mountain through the many holes that used to be bunkers, and we started to hunt down the soldiers within. At that point, it was a slaughter. By the time it was over and done with, on all worlds, we’d lost less than fifty of us to just plain bad luck and overwhelming enemy fire in one spot.

  Then I got a surprise.

  Congratulations! You have freed seventeen worlds and removed an evil race from space, confining them to their two home worlds. You have earned seventeen million Experience Points!

  You have leveled!

  You have leveled!

  You have leveled!

  You have leveled!

&nb
sp; You feel wiser!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Fire sphere to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Water sphere to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Life sphere to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Meditation skill to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Sneak skill to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Builder skill to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Hunter skill to master level two. You have earned a hundred thousand Experience Points!

  Wow. So, Gaia was rewarding us for stuff out here too, one million experience per planet we’d freed. I supposed we’d earned the knowledge and power by risking our lives in the real world. I also didn’t fail to notice it was purely a quest reward, I imagined she couldn’t accurately add up enemy numbers taken out when it was out in the real world. Which… was reasonable.

  We also had four levels of concepts to integrate, with three more advances in each. At a hundred thousand a shot, that would add up to another twenty-one hundred thousand once we’d caught up.

  Plus, more wisdom! My mana gains were even crazier, not only with four levels, but out here in the real world with my bonuses from equipment and Lara’s spell, I had a forty-four wisdom. Which made my mana gain forty four percent total mana, four times.

  That put my mana up to one point four eight million.

  I made my mana shield an even million, and then split the other four hundred and eighty thousand in half, for battle mana and emergency mana amounts of two hundred forty thousand each. My mana regeneration was now over sixty-six thousand a second. So, I’d regen my entire battle mana allocation in three point six seconds.

  I was at the point I could teleport outside one of the enemy ships, and annihilate it with one spell blast, shield included. It made me wonder what could challenge me. Of course, any master in the mid-levels was the answer, and any grandmaster could still spank me without effort. Still, it was… humbling in a way. Gaia was truly taking a chance on us giving us this power in the real world.

  Oh, we’d earned it, through hard work, study, and understanding, along with our ambition to protect others. But it was still mind-boggling, the scale of it. Normal technology just wouldn’t be able to touch us at this point. It was a good thing we were all protectors at heart, otherwise we could become a scourge on the galaxy.

  Of course, Gaia would stop us if we tried, not that I would, any of us I didn’t think.

  Gwen said, “Let’s go home.”

  I nodded, and I lifted our four parties and took us home.

  “Study, relax one day, then take care of the sea monster, assuming nothing crazy happens out here I mean?”

  Cassie replied, “Sounds like a plan to me. Then beach days, damnit.”

  Gwen added, “And building houses in the real world, after the beach vacation. I suppose the bunker’s nice enough, but we need a home, and the equatorial region doesn’t look so bad.”

  We all laughed, but at the same time we were pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. Eventually yes, but life hadn’t slowed down for us yet. It would happen, eventually. There was a lot to do, try to find that life balance, build out and in game, get ready for a family, protect the worlds out here, and our friends in game. There was also lots left to learn, and not just in eight spheres. Despite our power, Gaia had made it clear we’d just scratched the surface on the knowledge of this universe and the multiverse. That kind of thing called to me, as someone who enjoyed and craved knowledge.

  I added, “Oh, and I’m so growing coffee when we get back to the island.”

  The others snickered.

  Epilogue

  T’lar, who enjoyed a similar rank as lieutenant commander in the military of the Vaututh Empire, frowned in distaste. He was the monitor of the smaller spiral galaxy a mere two point five million light years away from the heart of their empire. Their empire’s home galaxy, unbeknownst to him, was named Andromeda by the species that had alarmed him that day.

  It had been the empire’s policy for uncounted eons to monitor surrounding galaxies and ensure no other races grew to become a threat. There were various ways to do this, but one of the most common ways was to create a subjugate species, give them powerful weapons and ships without access to any true power, and establish them on a planet or two in the target galaxy. The race would then spread on their own, and they’d ensure any races that gained interstellar travel would be stopped before they could become a threat.

  Their own galaxy had been under their control for millions of years. They had plenty of room, and saw no reason to spread, they just wanted to make sure there were no other threats out there in the wider universe.

  T’lar was alarmed by what he’d seen on that day. He rose up on his four back legs, and spun out a communication spell, and waited.

  When the spell was returned, and his commander appeared, he dropped to all six of his knees and bowed his head.

  “Report!”

  T’lar said, “A race in the galaxy I was assigned to monitor have gained true power. They seem to only have a crude grasp on the energy of creation, but they have it. They managed to free seventeen worlds, and then confined our created race to the two planets they were seeded upon, in just hours. Besides them, there are several interstellar races in that galaxy who depend on primitive technology. Our tools could have handled those, but…” he trailed off.

  The commander scowled, “Send our most powerful created race, give them approval to use teleport blockers.”

  T’lar frowned. They didn’t normally give their created races that ability, since it would also block them from folding space to one of their ships. Still, he would follow orders. The arachnid race was very obedient, thanks to its hive mentality, they should be able to handle it.

  “And if that fails? I haven’t been able to find where they’re hiding yet.”

  The commander growled, “Our best created race can see through cloaks. There is no excuse for failure. If it comes to that, we will move on them ourselves. But… if that step is necessary, you won’t be around to see it happen.”

  T’lar swallowed, “Understood.”

  T’lar frowned as the commander disconnected the spell. He’d better not fail, there was nowhere in the multiverse he could run to hide from his superiors. He’d called their mastery of creation energy crude, but in truth he wouldn’t want to face one of them. Still, it was crude compared to their higher ranked commanders and race as a whole, he was only a lieutenant commander after all, and power determined rank.

  It also disturbed him because it didn’t follow a natural progression. Their race and empire had started out using technology based on creation energy, it was only after thousands of years that they learned to adapt it to be used with their own minds. Where did the race come from, and how had they grown so quickly?

  Afterword:

  I hope you enjoyed this story, if you did please leave a review. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback or opinions.

  This was the fourth book in the Evolution Online series, there are currently five books planned before it’s tied up, so just one more to go. Originally, the series was going to be longer, but as I wrote the books it became clear my original plotline dragged things out too much, and if you read my series you know I don’t milk them with a whole lot of empty filler.

  About the Author: If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at dlharrisonauthor@gmail.com If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.
I can also be found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7456808.D_L_Harrison

  Other books by D. L. Harrison:

  http://www.amazon.com/author/dlharrison

  The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own.

  Silvia is a dark mage. Unfortunately, she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over. After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before.

  Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience.

  The Rise of a Dark Mage - This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Cassandra, it takes place in the same world as The Formerly Dark Mage, but happens three hundred years later, long after Silvia is gone and some shocking changes have taken place in the world.

  Cassandra is a dark mage in the kingdom of Zual, she’s also a mage prodigy.

  She hates both her kingdom, and her master. She wants him dead, not to take his place, but so she can leave and explore the world. Her ambition will drive her to rediscover the secrets of the strongest of magic.

  She is determined to succeed, or she’ll die trying.

  Celia Winters Novel Series

  Witch’s Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 1

  Celia Winters was raised by her single mother, and her earliest memories are of the store her mother owns and the nearby coven, who have always been her family’s close allies and friends.