Chapter 783 - Incursion

Chapter 783: Chapter 783 - Incursion

Time continued to pass.

The Black Mass kept receding, and eventually even that impossible sight became part of the background of everyday life.

People still watched the reports. Tidewatch still updated the exposed portions of the corrupted supercontinent. Factions remained alert, and every newly revealed region was studied carefully.

But fear could not remain sharp forever.

Markets filled again. Training grounds stayed busy. Trade resumed wherever routes remained safe. Children who had once stared at every communication device whenever an alert sounded gradually stopped doing so.

The Thousand Races learned to live with the darkness withdrawing in the distance.

That’s when Aurelia’s warning finally became real.

•••

Tidewatch detected the first movements before anyone else.

They did not come from a single direction.

Several signatures appeared across the seas surrounding the five continents, faint at first and scattered so widely that older versions of the network might have dismissed them as ordinary disturbances.

The current Tidewatch did not.

Its detection arrays followed the traces.

More appeared.

Then more.

By the time the pattern became undeniable, warnings were already spreading through the communication network.

Black Mass forces were approaching from multiple directions.

The reaction across the five continents was immediate.

For a few moments, the old fear returned in full.

People stared at the alerts as though the greater war had finally arrived.

Training grounds emptied.

Factions activated defensive formations.

Families reached for emergency supplies they had checked so many times that most knew exactly where everything was without looking.

Then the second message arrived.

This was not the greater invasion.

Tidewatch had confirmed multiple hostile groups, but their scale still matched what Lootwell had warned them about.

Advance forces. Probes. Raiding groups.

Whatever name people preferred, Aurelia’s divination had begun unfolding.

That knowledge changed the reaction.

Fear remained, but panic did not take control.

The Lifeline Routes activated almost immediately.

Communication devices across threatened regions updated with evacuation instructions, showing which hubs were open and which routes had already been cleared.

People moved.

Not perfectly.

No real emergency ever followed a training exercise exactly.

There were children who cried, elderly people who moved too slowly, and families who nearly forgot something important before remembering that possessions could be replaced more easily than lives.

But the overall process held.

Evacuation teams guided civilians toward the nearest teleportation hubs.

Local administrators redirected traffic when certain routes became crowded.

Medical teams waited at receiving points.

Within a remarkably short period, the most vulnerable coastal districts had begun emptying into the protected regions prepared by Lootwell.

Lucien watched the process through the network.

For a moment, it almost looked too smooth.

Then he remembered how many times these people had practiced exactly this situation.

The drills had been repetitive because repetition was the point.

Now nobody needed to invent a plan while monsters were already approaching.

They simply followed one that had been tested until it became familiar.

Lucien allowed himself a small smile.

For once, boring preparation had become beautiful.

•••

Tidewatch responded before the first corrupted monsters reached the outer defensive range.

Dark traces moved through the sea ahead of several groups, staining the water around them with lingering miasma.

The network reacted automatically.

Purification structures embedded along the outer monitoring zones activated in sequence, releasing controlled waves of cleansing energy across the affected waters.

The weaker contamination vanished almost immediately.

Several smaller Black Mass creatures disappeared with it.

Others survived long enough to reach the next layer.

They did not survive that one.

Lucien watched the reports update.

The improvements made during the temporal research years were finally being tested against real enemies.

They worked.

Not perfectly.

Nobody had expected perfection.

The first waves contained weaker creatures whose bodies could not withstand the purification output, but stronger signatures continued advancing even after the surrounding miasma had been stripped away.

Monster Emperor authorities appeared among them.

The automated systems slowed those groups.

They did not erase them.

Lucien had expected that too.

Tidewatch was a shield and an early-warning network.

It was not supposed to win the war by itself.

That part belonged to people.

•••

Lucien stepped into the open sky above Lootwell.

His awareness stretched across the network.

Threat markers surrounded the five continents.

Too many for one battlefield.

Fortunately, there was more than one Lucien.

Split Bodies activated.

One Lucien became several, each carrying the same face, structure, and enough Divine Energy to function at full strength.

Lucien’s Divine Energy was vast enough that each major Split Body could now carry power approaching the original without collapsing the structure supporting them.

He could still create smaller versions if he wanted quantity over strength.

Today, he did not.

Parallel Thoughts spread across the divided bodies.

The fronts appeared in Lucien’s awareness simultaneously.

Different seas.

Different allied forces.

Different enemy formations.

One mind held all of them.

He could have ended many of the approaching groups himself.

But that would have defeated the purpose.

The people of the Thousand Races had spent too long preparing to remain spectators the moment a real battlefield appeared.

Lucien would lead them.

He would protect them.

But they needed to fight.

•••

The first major clash happened far beyond one of the western coastal regions.

Lucien arrived before the allied fleet completed its formation.

Warships floated above the sea instead of upon it, their defensive arrays linked together while fighters gathered across reinforced platforms.

The ocean beneath them had already begun changing.

Black veins spread across the water where corrupted creatures approached.

Tidewatch had stripped away most of the lingering miasma, leaving the enemy exposed.

That made them easier to see.

It did not make them pleasant to look at.

The first creatures emerged from the haze like pieces of a ruined world that had decided to crawl forward.

Some resembled beasts twisted far beyond their original forms. Others carried shapes that barely suggested anything natural anymore.

Behind them came larger presences.

Monster Emperors.

The fighters around Lucien went quiet.

Aurelia had called these small forces.

Standing before them, nobody felt like arguing about the definition.

Lucien understood the problem.

Compared to the war Aurelia had seen, this was small.

Compared to ordinary conflict, it was still enough to erase nations.

He looked across the assembled forces.

Nobody retreated.

That mattered more.

"Hold formation," Lucien said.

His voice traveled throughout the battlefield.

The first corrupted wave accelerated.

So did the Thousand Races.

•••

The battlefield erupted.

Formations opened before the monsters reached the fleet.

The first layer did not attempt to destroy anything.

It redirected.

The arrays bent the approaching wave, forcing the enemy into narrower channels where their numbers became less useful.

Projected attack paths shifted across command interfaces.

Weak points appeared before most fighters could have identified them on their own.

The Thousand Races struck.

Magic crossed the sky.

Law authority followed.

Several Monster Emperors tried to force their way through the narrowing corridors and discovered that the formations had already changed shape around them.

The battlefield did not remain elegant.

It was not supposed to.

A defensive line shattered on the southern edge.

Another unit moved into its place before the gap widened.

A fire specialist nearly ruined an allied formation by attacking too early, corrected after one warning, and did not repeat the mistake.

One contracted wind spirit changed the direction of an incoming attack before its partner even turned toward it.

A spear user followed through the opening without giving the command aloud.

Lucien noticed that.

He noticed everything.

That was the advantage and the danger of his current senses.

Across several battlefields, his Split Bodies watched the Thousand Races use what they had learned.

Not perfectly, but well enough.

Far better than they would have years ago.