Chapter 110: Inaugurating the river | Aegis Spore

Red activated the global neural tether, his voice broadcasting simultaneously into the minds of his High Priest and his new Human proxy.

“The channel is set,” Red commanded, his tone echoing with cold authority. “Elian, pull your laborers up to the high ridges. Krug, brace the southern retaining walls. Shatter the bedrock and let the sea inside.”

Down on the physical coastline, the order was executed flawlessly. The massive, steam-powered pistons bolted onto the Treants hissed violently as the ancient guardians drove their reinforced plows into the final barrier.

The coastal bedrock violently fractured.

It shook the entire northern coastline of the East, and the ocean broke through. Millions of gallons of dark, freezing saltwater surged into the continental trench. Red watched the live map as a terrifying wall of dark blue violently crashed its way southward, perfectly guided by the meticulously carved dirt channels.

The floodwaters swallowed the empty riverbed, completely severing the eastern ash plains from the rest of the continent. It formed an impassable, churning geographical moat that stretched from the northern coast all the way down to the deep swamps.

As the rushing seawater hit the heavy bronze blades of the submerged turbines, the entire region shuddered. The water-wheels began to spin, violently catching the kinetic energy of the ocean and converting it into raw, mechanical power.

Up in the Void, Red’s terminal lit up with a blinding sequence of golden notifications.

[ GEOGRAPHICAL OVERRIDE COMPLETE: CONTINENTAL MOAT ESTABLISHED ]

[ HYDRO-KINETIC TURBINES ONLINE: MECHANICAL POWER GENERATION +400% ]

[ BORDERS LOCKED. TERRITORIES MERGED. ]

[ FACTION STATUS UPGRADED: UNIFIED INDUSTRIAL SUPER-STATE ]

Red watched the dark blue line of the new river stabilize on his primary monitor. The continental moat was fully operational, completely severing the eastern ash plains from the rest of the landmass.

“A physical barrier only buys time,” Red muttered to himself, swiping away a cluster of minor system alerts. “If a Rank Twelve god gets desperate enough to throw his entire civilization across that channel, saltwater alone won’t stop them. I need the frontline to be completely unkillable while they hold the banks.”

He dragged his viewport down to the Bastion. The newly carved basin was already churning with the freezing ocean currents from the north.

Red tapped the neural tether. “Krug.”

“Lord?” the High Priest replied instantly.

“Go to the central altar and retrieve the Mycelium Queen’s gift,” Red commanded, his eyes tracking the digital flow of the river. “Take the Aegis Spore Cluster and dump the entire sack directly into the new water channel. We are turning the moat into a medical asset.”

On the secondary monitor, the live feed updated. Krug marched out to the jagged stone edge of the basin. Without hesitation, the High Priest untied the woven silk-moth sack and tipped it forward. Thousands of translucent, glowing cyan spores cascaded down into the dark, rushing saltwater.

The terminal instantly flashed with a system prompt.

[ AEGIS SPORE CLUSTER DETECTED ]

[ INTRODUCED TO FLUID MATRIX FOR RAPID BIOLOGICAL MENDING ]

[ BASE MULTIPLICATION RATE: PASSIVE ]

“Passive is useless right now,” Red stated flatly. The Void-Eater was actively erasing the northern map. He didn’t have months to wait for a natural biological bloom to spread across his territory.

Red highlighted five individual 100x multiplier charges. He dragged the entire stack directly over the Aegis Spore icon on his interface and hit the execution key.

[ 5x 100x ACCELERATION CHARGES CONSUMED ]

[ SPORE GROWTH, EFFICIENCY, AND EFFECT MULTIPLIED BY 500x ]

Down in the physical realm, the dark saltwater violently erupted with cyan light. The spores gorged on the massive injection of System power. They multiplied by the billions in a matter of seconds, spreading a brilliant, glowing web of hyper-regenerative energy up and down the entire continental trench. The rushing river rapidly shifted from a murky blue to a vibrant, bioluminescent teal.

Red leaned closer to the monitor, zooming in on his infantry stationed along the newly formed banks. A Troglodyte worker accidentally sliced its scaled arm on a sharp rock near the shoreline. The moment the glowing mist from the river brushed against the wound, the flesh instantly knitted itself back together, leaving absolutely no trace of the injury.

“Perfect,” Red whispered, a cold, satisfied smirk crossing his face. “An entire continental river of instant healing. Any unit standing within fifty yards of that water is practically immortal.” He tapped his fingers against the console. “Let them try to bleed us out now.”

“Water needs somewhere to go,” Red muttered, dragging his cursor along the northern coastline. “If it just sits there, it stagnates. If the tide shifts, it simply drains right back into the sea. A giant puddle doesn’t serve a permanent empire.”

He had not overlooked the logistics. Red opened his personal architectural tab and pulled up a custom, continent-spanning schematic he had been quietly drafting for weeks ever since he had ordered Krug and Elian to dig for the river.

He didn’t use it before because that was extra work and it would have also been hard to comprehend for his followers. The main goal was to form a river first. Everything else could be done after that.

Now, it was finally his time to use it.

The projection overlaid his map, displaying a massive, intricate circulatory system. It detailed hundreds of deep-water reservoirs, artificial lakes, and a sprawling network of thin, capillary rivers designed to spider-web across his entire territory. The design would force the water to constantly cycle, keeping the river flowing and trapping it inside his borders forever.

To actually build it before the server completely collapsed, he needed serious excavation power.

Red opened the archive he had just extorted from the Brass Construct. He filtered the 412 schematics for terraforming equipment and immediately locked onto two specific designs: [ Mechanized Trench-Borers ] and [ Industrial Siphon-Locks ].

He checked the DP cost to mass-produce the machines and deploy the lock-gates. The number glowing on his screen was astronomical, enough to drain a massive portion of his hoarded wealth.

Red let out a sharp sigh, rubbing his temples. “An incredibly expensive investment. But it is a permanent foundation. Once the water is locked in and circulating, I never have to pay a terraforming bill again.”

He hit the execution key, authorizing the purchase.

[ FUNDS DEDUCTED. BLUEPRINTS ASSIMILATED. ]

[ DEPLOYING INDUSTRIAL SIPHON-LOCKS AND TRENCH-BORERS ]

Down at the northern coastline, massive bronze lock-gates materialized and violently slammed down into the bedrock. They acted as a colossal one-way valve, allowing the ocean to pour inside while completely preventing the infused water from draining back out to sea.

Red tapped the neural tether, simultaneously broadcasting to the Bastion and the City of Spiral.

“Elian. Krug,” Red commanded, his voice sharp and absolute. “The main channel is just the spine. Now we build the veins. I just dropped an arsenal of mechanized borers into your staging areas. Splinter the main river. Carve the capillary trenches and hollow out the designated reservoirs. I want that healing water flowing through every single acre of our territory.”

Down on the physical plane, the Troglodytes, Treants, and human laborers immediately adapted to the new blueprints. They fired up the massive, newly purchased brass boring machines, driving the spinning drills directly into the eastern banks of the moat.

Up in the Void, Red watched the live projection with a satisfied smirk. The single, glowing teal line of the river began to branch out. Hundreds of thin, illuminated waterways crawled across the dark map like a glowing root system, filling artificial lakes and pooling into deep, secure reservoirs.

The hyper-regenerative Aegis Spore water was now actively circulating through the entire eastern hemisphere.

He had perfectly saturated his land.

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