Chapter 91: Side Story 3- a lesson on invaders

Lehie paced around while Ben sat down, waiting for his lesson for the day. He’d been there for a couple of weeks at this point and his caretaker had informed him the day before just how important this one was to know, but she hadn’t actually gone so far as to tell him what it would be on.

“Lehie, what’s with all the suspense? You’re making me nervous here.”

“Ah, sorry. It’s just a complicated topic, I want to convey its importance to you properly. Still, I shouldn’t put it off any longer, today I’m going to tell you what we know about the invaders.”

The invaders, the entire reason his classmates’ souls had been summoned for a second chance at life after they died. So far Ben’s knowledge of them consisted of the fact that they’d conquered hundreds of worlds, and the survivors who had managed to escape all came together to form a united front together here, but beyond that he didn’t know anything.

“Pass.”

“What do you mean pass? You can’t just pass on learning this!”

“The only real benefit to being completely forgotten about is I won’t need to fight on the front lines. What am I going to do with this info?”

“It’s not like I’ll be revealing some deep secrets to you or anything! This is stuff everyone knows. When you make your own way in the world it would be strange if you didn’t, especially once the invasion starts.”

He could see the logic to that, even if it felt like letting himself get sucked in deeper to the world’s events and coming war. “Okay fair enough I guess, but if everyone knows what’s stressing you out so much about it?”

“These sorts of things need to be conveyed properly. Anyway, despite all the build-up, there’s unfortunately little to say. The attack was structured the same across each world it happened on. When it began on each planet it started with 333 beams of light marking various places in the world where the invasion would take place. From there, after some time gates would open at each point and the attacks would start coming through in waves. Each time it’s the same. The first has nothing but wild beasts pouring through. Demons as some have taken to calling them. They seem nearly mindless in ways but they’re brutal, savage, and powerful. They alone are responsible for taking out most worlds.”

“Wait, how bad are they that you have packs of animals taking over worlds?”

“Unfortunately their power isn’t the biggest issue, it’s their numbers. Each gate can pour out millions of them. It simply isn’t manageable for many races, especially considering that they’ll scatter about once they get out to continue to cause untold death and destruction. The fact that some managed to hitch rides to this world with the various gods who were simply trying to save as many of their people as they could is already a horrific issue to deal with, but at least provides the opportunity for firsthand training.”

So there’s already some of those monsters on this world? Great. He thought dryly as he listened and waited for Lehie to continue.

“As for the second wave, that’s when their main force comes, at least what we think the main force is. Either way, it’s the one composed of their sapients, an almost undying group that seems intent on causing as much death and destruction as they can. From the accounts we have recorded and the words of our gods it seems that they won’t spare anyone or anything, instead paving a trail of chaos across the world.”

“Scary and all, but what do you mean by undying?” While it was interesting at least, Ben found himself having trouble connecting to what he was being told. Despite that, he ended up curious enough to want to learn more, in the same sense one would want to learn a game or books lore as opposed to the history of a world.

Lehie luckily was happy to teach, regardless of the form his curiosity took. “We’ve seen examples of them using enough magic to know that their race as a whole is able to learn every type, but it seems that in particular, they will always have access to either life or death magic. As a result, they will heal their wounds at terrifying rates, or make it so they won’t succumb to their injuries until one of their life mages heals them. It leads to them seeming almost unkillable unless their bodies are thoroughly destroyed. Finally there’s the third wave, just as bad as the second, but they seem to include their best of the best. At least we hope that’s what they are.” She finished in a smaller voice.

“And after that?”

Lehie only shook her head. “No world’s made it that far. Hopefully nothing. From what we’ve seen it seems like their race is strangely fixated on the number three as a whole, with the 333 gates, and what we suspect of being 333 days on their homeworld taking place between each attack, but it’s hard to say. Maybe they’re ready to attack us 333 times too for all we know and we’ve just never had a chance to find it out, or maybe they’ll never stop attacking.”

Three waves of attacks were enough to bring down worlds. Horrifying in so many ways, but Ben still felt an emotional distance from it all. Maybe it was because he didn’t grow up worrying about this, maybe it was due to the short time he’d found himself on the world. Whatever it was, after hearing all of that he at least had the common sense to hope it would be closer to the twenty years instead of the three.

“So the plan is just what? Keep fighting and hope for the best? Pray that we can survive three waves and that they’ll just stop once the third is done? That kind of feels disgustingly optimistic.”

“This world is more advanced as a whole than the majority of the worlds that had fallen, and thanks to the system in place the strength of an average individual is far greater than in the past as well, but I can’t say I know anything about the plans being formed. All I know is that essentially every nation in this world has spent hundreds of years trying to come up with countermeasures. If any world was going to succeed, it would be this one.”

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