Chapter 114: Echoes of Exploitation 2
Philip opened his eyes.
Before him, a golden sphere had formed alive with rotating glyphs, maps of planetary leyline systems, and fluctuating energy flows. This was not just a map of Earth. It was her soul laid bare. He could see the power junctions where ley lines crossed like arteries. He could feel the heartbeat of the pyramids some strong, others faint, one or two almost gone.
The Artifact Spirit hovered silently nearby, watching him process the enormity of what he had been given.
"Can I fix them?" he asked.
The spirit raised a hand, and with a gentle wave, the golden map zoomed in focusing on the African continent.
"You can't restore what no longer exists," she replied. "But you can reforge. The pyramids still active can be recalibrated. The dormant ones can be awakened. But the broken… nothing can be done "What happens if I do nothing?" he asked.
"Then Earth will continue limping toward death," she said, eyes somber. "Its core will remain unstable. Mana will erupt in waves chaotic awakenings, dimensional tears, mana storms, spiritual droughts. Eventually, Origin Mana will withdraw completely, and the Earth will become a wasteland, unfit for life ."
Philip stepped forward, his fingers brushing one of the glowing pyramidal sigils. A warmth flowed through him. It was unlike anything he had felt not divine, not arcane. This was older. Wilder. Sacred.
Then something shifted in the room.
The golden interface dissolved and was replaced with a screen he had not seen before. It was not composed of glyphs but of memory echoes voices recorded in essence, preserved like starlight.
A voice spoke. Deep. Ancient. Familiar.
"If you're hearing this… then I have failed to return."
Philip froze.
It was the Emperor's voice.
The Artifact Spirit knelt in the air, her body shimmering with respect. "This is one of the Emperor's preserved echoes. Only accessible to the next bearer of the Sovereign Thread."
The voice continued.
"In the age after the Great Collapse, I created systems The Locus, the Pyramids, the Crystal Thrones not as monuments, but as tools of healing. We could not restore the Origin Plane… so I made echoes of it. Seed-worlds. This planet is one of them. I entrusted its care to time and trust."
There was a pause. A sorrowful one.
But trust is fragile. I watched, from the outer galaxies, as those I once called comrades became tyrants. They drained the planets I forged. They turned gifts into prisons. They turned life into power.
Philip's hands curled into fists.
"And so I hunted them."
The voice darkened, fury hidden beneath divine calm.
"Those who defied the purpose of creation… I sealed into Everlasting Batteries coffins of power. Others I scattered into dimensions unanchored by time. But still, new gods were born. Young ones. Arrogant. Disconnected from pain. I realized then restraint would not save the worlds."
Another pause.
"So I left the Locus with restrictions. No Divine may walk freely upon a planet not capable of birthing its own Divinity. If they try, the world will resist. Their mana will drain. Their essence will be taxed. Their divine Domains will collapse."
Philip inhaled slowly. So it was intentional. The strange draining phenomena across Africa, the weakness of foreign awakened all of it had been written into the planet's code.
Philip frowned. "What is coming?"
Philip's jaw tightened. "They'll try to invade."
"They already are," she said. "But subtly. Through cults. Through corporations. Through gifted children and sponsored wars. Through the increase of mana slowly the world mana will increase and the world will move up a grade from a mid-high tier to a high low."
The golden glyphs rearranged again this time displaying a timer.
Fifty years.
Philip narrowed his eyes. "What happens in Fifty years?"
The Artifact Spirit met his gaze. "A planetary test. The Convergence. The world will evolve and in that moment earth will be vulnerable. It will absorb the locus as it was set because in the locus contains the sap of the world tree this will quicken the transformation and strengthen the world but the divines know they cant destroy the locus so they wait for the moment it is vulnerable and the suppression has ended to act
"She nodded. "But now, the rules have changed. The system has an Administrator again. You have access. You can change the trajectory.
A silence passed between them.
The Artifact Spirit drifted beside him. "You don't need to save everyone, Philip. You only need to give them the choice."
Then she stepped back and began to fade.
"I will wait," she said, "in the Core Layer.
And with that, she vanished her essence pulled into a descending beam of starlight.
Philip stood alone.
He closed his eyes.