Origin Seeker

Chapter 261: Merging / Weapons

The four barren planets surrounded Tersa's planet, their surfaces only a few hundred miles apart. These were entire planets, and ones much bigger than Earth. 

Without suspense, Dream commenced the merger. With a wave of his hand, the planets each slightly shifted. Then, their surfaces started to roil. Each planet was composed entirely of nanites that could be manipulated according to Dream's will. Thus, he engaged them. 

From each of the four planets, towers rose. The nanites flooded and stacked on top of each other, reaching past their atmosphere and into space. They grew to dozens of miles in size in only minutes. 

And with a bit of assistance from Dream, the nanites grew to over a hundred miles in height. Nanites from Tersa's planet also began rising, and after reaching past the 300 hundred mile gap, the two connected. 

A 300 mile bridge formed and widened from the four planets to Tersa. She didn't have to lift a finger as all the nanites from the barren planets flooded onto her surface. The other planets began to noticeably shrink as she noticeably grew. The surface of her planet expanded as material flooded it. 

Melody watched it all from a distance, unable to even mumble. She could never even imagine something like this, let alone think of watching it happen personally. She had no words to describe her awe at the display of science and power. 

That wasn't all though. As all the nanites flooded to Tersa's planet, one of the four planets drifted down. Tersa watched as this planet touched the surface of hers. This contact didn't cause anything like an explosion. The planet merely sunk down through the nanites. 

Then, Tersa made contact with the Terra Core of the planet as it was sucked down to her own. When the two touched, Tersa extended out her power and pushed it into the core. Like this, she sought to absorb it. 

At first, this went well. The core was sucked into her, increasing her power. After several hours, the entire core was absorbed, increasing the size of her own core by a significant amount. Then, she went on to absorb the second Terra Core. This was also completed without a hitch.

However, halfway through the third absorption, she felt full. Tersa's absorption slowed down as she struggled to eat more. Finally, it slowed to a crawl. Her absorption stopped when taking in any more began to hurt her. 

Dream obviously noticed this change. He viewed Tersa's core that had expanded to nearly 20 thousand miles in size. Her planetary body had also grown to about 100 thousand miles in size and was still growing as more nanites flooded from the one and a half planets yet to be absorbed completely. 

"Too much?"

"Yes, master. My soul can only sustain so much. However, I can also feel myself expanding. It's like my soul wants to grow in order to fill the core. It's slow, but over time, I'll be able to absorb more and more."

"Is that right? Well, you certainly have time. Once all the material reaches your body, you can continue to absorb the rest of the cores. They'll just stick around."

"Of course."

Tersa nodded. Normally, a Terra Core would grow over millions of years, slowly taking in turbulent mana from the space around it and turning it solid, adding to its massive mana body. Tersa understood this as she had experienced nothing but this growth for her millions of years of life. Now though, Dream was providing Terra Cores for her to absorb, massively speeding up the process of her growth. Now the only thing limiting her was the strength of her soul and how fast it could grow into her larger shell. 

After several more hours, all the material finally moved to Tersa. Now, her planet was 130 thousand miles wide. Within this massive planet of nanites was her own core as well as the other Terra Core and a half that had yet to be absorbed sitting next to her. 

Dream smiled as he saw this. 

"Good. Very good. Now your situation is taken care of. It's time for me to focus on making weapons. I'll be doing that here. Also, I plan to use some of the spare Terra Core material you haven't absorbed yet."

"Use as much as you like. In fact, I can give you some of my own Terra Core."

"Thanks for the offer, but I don't want to hurt you."

"Oh, it wouldn't hurt me. Have you ever wondered how the mana crystal deposits are formed on the asura planet?"

Tersa's avatar turned to Dream. He looked back at her, a bit surprised by her supposed knowledge on the topic. 

"Yes, I have wondered."

"Basically, the Terra Core of that planet spits out chunks of its highly dense mana, thus forming the deposits. Of course, the deposits are tiny compared to their power, but across the entire planet and over many years, it adds up. I figured it was a way to help the people on the surface develop. Either way, giving you some of my core won't harm me at all."

"I see. But why shouldn't I just take it from the spare cores?"

"Because my core is loaded with my power. The mana within those cores are empty batteries compared to mine. If you're making weapons, mine will save you lots of energy."

"Hm. Alright. I'll take you up on the offer."

"Of course! Here."

Suddenly, Tersa waved her hand. The next moment, a massive chunk of mana shot out of the planet, floating in front of them. It was easily a thousand meters wide.

"If you need more, let me know."

"No, this will be enough. Thanks."

Dream smiled at her generosity, taking the chunk of mana. Tersa smiled, happy to help him. 

After that, Dream descended upon the sea of nanites that comprised Tersa's planet. Looking around, he suddenly thought of something seeing the endless horizon of metallic material.

"...Start forming the planet."

Dream spoke these words. As if they were the words of a god, the entire planet began to shift. Then, Dream saw the ground beneath him solidify before turning brown. It was dirt. 

Across the planet, land formations began to spawn from the nanites that could synthesize any and all elements. Oceans of mana were created while dirt and metal formed in the ground. Rock and stone rose from the dirt to form mountains taller than even Everest on Earth, and rivers the size of seas flowed across the horizons. 

Compared to Earth, the formations on this planet were even more extreme. Deep crevices, cliffs the size of mountains, oceans the size of the entire Earth, plains the size of countries. This planet was larger than even Jupiter, an entire 130 thousand miles from one side to the other. The distance around the equator was over 400 thousand miles. And the surface area was 13 billion square miles. This was dozens of times larger than Earth that had a mere 200 million square mile surface area. 

Dream couldn't begin to imagine the entire planet being colonized. Even with over ten billion people, Earth still wasn't totally filled. There was still so much space that could be used. And now, a planet was just created that was exponentially larger than Earth. If Dream put the entire human race on a single continent on this planet, they wouldn't even begin to fill a small portion of it, let alone the entire thing. 

Dream thought about these things as Tersa's planet rapidly shifted from a metallic wasteland to an evolving ball of dirt and rock. As for life on the planet, Dream was planning on shipping plant life and animals over from the asura planet. He still remembered what Luna had said about being able to tell the difference between his created life and natural life. 

But since he couldn't harvest the entire asura planet and fill his, he planned on engineering some plant and animal life that would rapidly proliferate, turning the planet into a hospitable one with natural environments. 

With those plans, Dream waved his hands. Suddenly, factories rose from the ground all around him, shooting into the sky. These were the factories that had been constructed over time from nanites. There were also countless storage units, containing the fruits of Tersa's enchanting labor. 

"Go and collect all manner of planets from the nearby planet. Don't attract too much attention, especially that of class 6's. I want the seeds of life planted here where they can grow. Now come here."

With those words, the ground shook. The next moment, tens of millions of ships rocketed from the surface of the planet. Each ship contained hundreds of bots, all of them enchanted to have at least class 3 power. Half of them were at the class 4 level, and there was a small portion above them at the class 5 level. 

This armada shot up from the surface, flooding into the space outside of the planet. However, they eventually stopped, waiting.

The next moment, Dream felt a small earthquake. He turned to see a massive metal ring shoot into the sky. There were 6 other metal rings right behind it.

Each of these rings were easily a mile wide. After flying into the air, they stopped in space, lining up one in front of the other. They were pointed at the asura planet. 

After lining up, they sparked with astronomical power. Space began to warp between them, forming a vortex from the first ring to the frontmost 7th ring. 

Finally, this vortex stabilized. It never tore open the chaotic void, instead only accelerating and folding space. 

With that, the armada approached the rings. The huge cloud of ships funneled into the mile wide entrance of the rings. Then, upon passing through the first ring, the ships were rocketed forward with beams of light. Space wrapped around them and accelerated them to extreme speeds, shooting them straight toward the asura planet. 

Dream nodded as he saw this. His planet of nanites hadn't been idle while he was gone. This was what they had made. The only thing limiting their constructive ability was Dream's personal input. After all, only he could build and operate devices capable of shuttling through the chaotic void. He could barely enchant spatial devices such as those rings that could be operated by Tersa. 

After seeing everything work, Dream turned his attention back to himself. A small table rose in front of him. Placing the huge mana chunk beside him, he got to designing the most powerful weapons he could. 

He pondered.

"Two things proved to be useful in wounding a class 6. Extreme bolts of energy and spatial attacks. I don't have the personal energy to effectively and instantly kill a class 6, but I can build weapons that can. The only problem I face is harvesting their souls."

[I noticed earlier, but I don't believe you actually wounded the soul of that class 6 you almost killed. The soul of a class 6 is a core, an amalgamation of their entire being. It might be possible that even after destroying their entire body, they might not yet die. The only problem is actually destroying their body, because it'll take you draining every bit of energy they have to the point that they can't defend themselves in order to get to their soul.]

Sophia chimed in with her evaluation. In his fight with that old class 6, Dream had used all of his nuclear fusion marbles and was only able to seriously wound the man. Given time he could kill him, but in that time the old man was able to cower behind his friends. Dream had to make sure he could dish out enough energy in order to force the class 6 to expend all of theirs and then destroy their body before harvesting their soul. And this had to be done before they could run across the planet for help. 

Dream agreed with Sophia's evaluation. Basically, his energy output needed to surpass their total. However, the problem was that he may not be able to catch one of them alone. They knew his power and knew he was preparing to kill them all. Thus, they would stick together. Dream needed to accumulate weapons surpassing the total energy pools of multiple class 6's. Such a feat wouldn't be easy.

"...Well, I'm pretty sure only I can constantly build weapons containing all my power. They're likely just waiting, perhaps gathering a few consumable items to help combat my attacks. But those items are limited. I can build such things without reserve. Even if it takes a year, they will be worn down. Hopefully it doesn't take that long though and I can do this in one shot. I just need a few souls, granted I would prefer to have as many as possible. I wonder if anyone sells class 6 souls? Perhaps that Blood Drop clan? Worst case I can see if they have any for sale. There's no way people haven't harvested souls before."

Dream mumbled to himself. At the same time, a small marble of mana was plucked from the huge core chunk next to him. He gazed at this marble before setting it onto the table in front of him. 

Raising his hands, a line of energy extended from each of his fingers, piercing into the marble. Enchantments were written into the marble of atomic mana, Dream feeling the bursting power within it. Tersa was right. The material from her own core was much stronger than the spare material from the other barren planets. 

"'This is good stuff. Alright. First, let's make some fusion marbles for my gun again. That worked rather well. Only this time, I want to add some spatial effects to the gun. Let's make it so that space folds after the bolt of energy is fired, vastly multiplying its speed. I can also use that to make its path unreadable so it's harder to block. I'll make a few hundred of those rounds. Then I can make some heavier weaponry. Those marbles are only half an inch wide. What if we increased its size to 10 feet? I can make a few of those giant things along with a small cannon to fire them."

[Oh, you should also make some long distance weaponry. How about orbital gamma lasers?]

"Hm, I like that idea. Have a few satellites constructed by the nanites. Arm them with the most powerful focused lasers you can build. I'll enchant them later."

[Queing construction. And what about spatial weapons?]

"I was thinking I could make another pistol, one that shoots bullets of aether that tear into the chaotic void upon impact. With that, I can let physics do the destroying for me. I just need to charge the bullets enough so they can tear into the void deep enough and do plenty of void sucking."

[Void sucking? That's a creative way to put it.]

Sophia responded oddly as she drew up some plans for this new pistol of his. 

[Anyway, two pistols that work with energy and space, plus some death rays in orbit around the planet. Anything else?]

"For weapons, not really. There's not much else that can reach the extreme destructive power that I need. However, I do have some ideas for Aegis. Come on out, my trusty armor."

"My lord."

Aegis appeared with Dream's word, forming beside him and bowing. Dream turned to him and pondered. 

"You're due for an upgrade. Enchanted material doesn't cut it anymore at this level. Your defensive systems need to work based on physical and magical concepts. Spatial manipulation is the perfect tool for this. Things like spatial severance will allow you to tank attacks from people like that class 6 barbarian. I can also add some energy control to you. As for physical material, I think we can ditch it all. How about I form your body from mana material?"

"I would be honored. I only wish to be of greater service to you, my lord."

"Aw shucks. You really know how to butter me like a biscuit, Aegis."

"..."

"Anyway, it's time to move on up in the world. With these aether and energy enchantments you'll be invulnerable to class 6's, given enough energy of course. I can also optimize you for void shuttling. I shouldn't even have to supplement you with my power. With that class 6 heart inside of you, you can generate aether by yourself. And with your soul, you can operate spatial enchantments independently. Hey, what if I implanted a class 6 soul into you? That would be pretty cool. I'll have to see how many I get first though..."

Dream trailed off as his hands went back to working. Aegis stood to the side, watching his lord create fusion marbles and then enchant them with transmutation effects. With that, the full physical power of the marbles could be turned into magical power, thus creating his nuclear bolts of energy that could punch a hole straight through a class 6. 

But it took a lot of energy to enchant all the energy of a marble, especially with how he was making these marbles more powerful than the ones he built casually. With his power, Dream was only able to create a couple a day. Such a thing would require him to drain and fill his energy pool several times over. He was lucky that he had an energy regeneration boost from contacting those concepts, otherwise he wouldn't be able to create nearly as much. 

As for why he didn't have many during his last fight, that was because he had been busy creating high power weapons for all the class 5's of the clan. He had only made those marbles in his spare time and hadn't expected to use them so soon. 

But now he was devoting his full effort toward building these weapons. He already knew how to make the most of his energy pool, so his time was maximized. 

Still, this went on for a while. An entire 6 months, in fact. During that time, Dream did nothing but enchant marbles. In the end, he came out with 400 enchanted fusion marbles. During the process of constantly enchanting, he was able to increase his proficiency with [Arcane Transmutation], leveling it up from level 75 to 80. It wasn't much, but Dream was pleased by a greater understanding. 

At the same time, on the asura planet, the great war was beginning to rage.