World Collision - The Eleventh: Deluge of Madness
The mystery unleashed by Dwyero was not limited to infectious dementia. Infectious schizophrenia, infectious paranoia, infectious depression, infectious delusions of persecution, infectious intellectual disability—every conceivable form of Madness spread as contagious mental illness.
While especially devastating to intelligent beings, it worked on anything whose neural structure rose above the level of an insect. At the very least, any creature large enough to be called an animal possessed some degree of intelligence, and lowering that intelligence itself was enough to neutralize the enemy.
As Dwyero’s mystery swept across the world in successive waves, the tens of thousands of Dessert Legion creatures that had been devouring Umjeory’s territory all collapsed, writhing on the ground as full-blown lunatics. Demons poured out from hiding and seized their bodies with ease.
In mere six months, every lost force had been restored. On top of that, they had stolen a massive number of enemy life forms. A situation that had been sliding toward defeat was overturned in a single stroke.
“Oh?”
Even Biin was mildly surprised. He hadn’t expected the mystery to be this potent.
It wasn’t merely individual power; those constructs seemed to emit the mystery as well, and higher entities appeared to be assisting. Yet to think they could claim every inch of the encroached territory in one go.
But there was something that surprised him even more…
“Wouldn’t it have been far more effective to endure until the very last moment and then flip the board with a single blow?”
Exactly. That was why Umjeory had been rationing supplies and holding out, even hoping the Dessert Legion would finish devouring his world for him.
But what was he supposed to do when his own subjects started whining that they were hungry? He had accepted the inefficiency and deployed anyway, only for his forces’ lack of discipline to cost him even more. In the end, his own creations were his greatest curse.
In any case, two years still remained before the dimensional passage stage would end. Yet during this very stage, Umjeory’s demon monster legions charged madly into Biin’s world.
Infectious mental illness eventually breeds immunity. Spreading it like a plague reduced efficiency, but striking hard after the plague had already broken out produced far greater results.
No matter how many times he ran the numbers, the correct move was either to attack swiftly while Biin was groaning under the plague, or—if that window had closed—to endure for a long time and then swallow everything with one decisive reversal…!
What could he do? It was Umjeory’s own fault for failing to properly educate his creations.
Still, the decision to deploy now had been correct. If he let this chance slip, victory would never come.
The only question was whether it would actually work.
If it succeeded, every last one of the opponent’s entities would be infected with madness. The spiritual realm would be corrupted with insanity, the Nectar Well contaminated, and both it and its master Abhojuth would burst.
If it failed, then—regrettably—he would have to accept defeat and switch to a war of attrition. Since Biin currently had no means of striking Umjeory’s main base, it was an acceptable gamble.
Thus the all-out offensive began during the dimensional passage stage. They would drag every creature in the Dessert Legion with them, rampage through the main base—the Dessert Desert—and spread the plague everywhere.
By twisting the mind of a possessed creature with Madness, one could extract and use its memories. No matter how wretched the opponent’s ecosystem was, the creatures that had once lived there could hardly survive it, could they?
Umjeory’s demons each “overlaid” themselves onto the stolen Dessert Legion creatures for rapid infiltration. They intended to race across the world, spreading contagion as they went.
Yet a wall of lamentation stood in the way of that demon legion. It was not the Dessert Legion, nor its commanders. It was the desert itself.
World Shaping
“This is weird. My memories clearly say there should be a mountain here???”
“Wait, why is there a lake?”
“Didn’t we just pass through here a moment ago?”
It had been far too frustrating that he could not use it until now. Umjeory’s demon legions found themselves completely unable to navigate the power of World Shaping, an ability that could be called absolute when limited to defense.
When they woke, the positions of the land had changed.
They walked in a straight line only to find themselves back at the beginning.
A mountain that seemed far away drew close; one that seemed close grew distant.
A map drawn today became meaningless by tomorrow.
Using Deity-World Oneness to perceive every enemy movement, then deploying clones to freely reshape the terrain with World Shaping—Biin sent the invaders wandering in circles.
Of course his divine power was not infinite, so this was ultimately a temporary ploy. Even so, he succeeded in stalling Umjeory’s advance, which had needed to end the fight in the early stages.
Gathering the enemies into specific zones in this way also allowed for natural quarantine. Biin simply ordered the Dessert Legion to avoid any region where the enemy had invaded, isolating the threat with ease.
“Um… what are we going to do about supplies now?”
“We can just squeeze pain out of them and eat, can’t we?”
“Ah, no. Not our supplies. I mean supplies for the creatures we’re possessing.”
“Uh…?”
While trapped in specific strongpoints and forced to wander in circles, biological resources were rapidly depleted. Biin further accelerated the exhaustion by converting internal biomass into ordinary desert terrain.
The wandering demon monsters eventually converged on specific points, chasing after prey. And when enough of them had gathered, what awaited them was Chaltteoggua—the strongest combatant among the Dessert Legion Commanders—and his rice-cake legion. The demon legion that had come to spread disease was reduced to mere game and slaughtered without mercy.
“No! We can still do more! Keep pushing! Once the plague begins to spread, it will become impossible to contain!”
That statement was also true. The demon monsters somehow broke through the maze created by World Shaping and succeeded in spreading the plague across many parts of the Dessert Desert.
But did they realize? The Dessert Desert was now dozens of times larger than Umjeory’s entire world. Scattered outbreaks would only grant the enemy more chances to adapt.
Umjeory knew this as well and launched the next phase of his plan.
“Install constructs in the enemy world too! Cross the dimensional passage, build them quickly, and connect them directly to our main base so the enemy cannot destroy them!”
It was a strategy to absorb the pain and despair of the Dessert Desert as well. Chaltteoggua stepped forward and smashed several, but Umjeory’s workers built them faster than they could be destroyed.
Soon the Dessert Desert was covered with the constructs. Umjeory succeeded in absorbing the enormous pain, despair, and all other negative emotions pouring out of it.
Yet the forces he had sent were annihilated. More than half the Dessert Desert had been devastated by the spreading mental illness, but the difference in scale meant Umjeory’s losses were still greater.
“Whew! At least we’ve bought ourselves some breathing room.”
Surprisingly, Umjeory felt relieved. Although the attack had been blocked, he had inflicted maximum damage on the enemy world.
From now on it was a war of attrition. He had exhausted every offensive option available to him. He would simply… endure. Endure without fail, endure and endure again, and survive the dimensional rift stage that would last more than twenty years.
He had accumulated plenty of resources—pain, despair, and the like—during the war with the Dessert Legion. Twenty years’ worth remained even after heavy consumption. Honestly, most of the mouths he had to feed had already died anyway…
“Now that we’ve caught our breath, we can torture that Wafflach-Nacha who still refuses to submit, brainwash it, and make it ours. That should be enough to last twenty years. Even if the enemy invades, Dwyero and our grown higher entities will be more than enough to hold them off.”
Thus the dimensional rift stage began.
Umjeory’s strategy was founded on the belief that no matter what tricks Biin tried, he would never be able to strike him directly.
Even if it meant his world score would plummet, he switched to a strategy of holing up in his underground headquarters and simply holding out.
Creator. It seems the materials we needed—Madness and Pain—have exceeded the target threshold.
Biin had been waiting for this exact moment.
∞
The dimensional rift stage had begun. Now his Dessert Legion Commanders could cross into the enemy world.
That did not mean they could attack it, however. Even space-time magic proved insufficient. Yogur-tosoth had tested it roughly and reported that the spiritual barrier was simply too strong; physical transit was impossible.
In the end, the only viable method seemed to be descending through the constructs.
Yet the Dessert Legion had no way to travel through those constructs. They only accepted demons, pain, despair, madness, and emotion.
But that was precisely the part Biin had focused on. The opponent was currently using those very constructs to absorb every negative flow and convert it into resources…
He would exploit that.
“Begin.”
IYAAAAAAAAAA! I UNDERSTAND, MY CREATOR!
Understood.
MORE!
Abhojuth first condensed all the syrup and flow filling the Nectar Well and passed it to Yogur-tosoth.
Yogur-tosoth combined it with the immense mana of the Milky Way and his own advanced magical understanding, modifying the mixture so it could contain flows of Pain, Despair, Fear, Madness, and the like.
It was not particularly difficult. Strangely enough, many of the satellites within the Milky Way were oriented toward Mind or Emotion.
The player called Terasion had apparently planned to use them to generate happy emotions and comfort his creations—an admirably kind gesture. Biin, however, had no interest in such things. Instead he gathered the most horrific pain and despair imaginable.
When that condensed mass was handed to Shuc-rimmurath, she used the techniques she had learned to instantly convert the entire flow of Creamland—originally used to produce nutritious cream—into Madness, Pain, Despair, Fear, and similar energies.
Having chosen the Level 13 Military trait Territory Development Specialist, the feat was barely within her capabilities.
STOP! STOP! STOP!
It seemed even Shuc-rimmurath found the strain nearly unbearable, screaming in agony. The time had come.
Level 16 Military trait: Irresistible Command. Usable only once per collision. It allowed the user to issue a single order that ignored morale and forced absolute obedience from all creations. It worked even on those with low intelligence.
“Connect Creamland to the enemy’s constructs immediately!”
The dark rims and Shuc-rimmurath urgently stretched Creamland toward the constructs, grafting the enormous artificial spiritual realm directly onto the enemy structures.
The instant the connection was made, the consciousness of every living creature across the entire Dessert Desert was ripped away as if torn out by the roots and poured into the Nectar Well.
First, the egos of those already suffering from mental illness were sucked out entirely and flowed into the Nectar Well.
Next came the mental strength, willpower, pain, and emotions of those who had still been sane.
Chaltteoggua, having nothing else to do, ordered powerful creatures to beat one another or commanded them to tear open their own flanks. The Nectar Well greedily drank every drop of that pain as well.
Abhojuth, having absorbed it all, transferred the pain into syrup and passed it to Yogur-tosoth. Yogur-tosoth then crammed every mystery he had swallowed—Madness, Fear, and the rest—into the satellites’ power and fired it back.
Shuc-rimmurath received it, and the torrent raced through Creamland straight into the underground depths of Umjeory’s world.
“It’s done!”
Whether this was success or failure would become clear in a moment.
∞
The demon race used pain as a resource.
That did not mean they could not feel pain, nor that they could convert every kind of pain into resources.
Just as moderate rain allows crops to flourish while a flood washes everything away, the current situation could be described simply.
It was a flood of Pain and Despair.
“Close the valves right now! Hurry! Immediately! The amount of pain we’re absorbing is too great—the cities are about to be flooded!”
Umjeory poured out divine power without reservation as he issued commands, but there were simply too many constructs across the world absorbing the flow. Even when they closed the valves that absorbed pain, the barriers burst and the volume that poured out only increased.
They tried to block it with mystery, but something broke through the blocked areas.
“What is this?!”
They were [Dairy]. Spiritual life forms that had not yet been given a precise name. These entities, created by processing milk spirits, reacted to and moved in response to powerful emotions such as Madness, Pain, and Despair, and they themselves carried those properties.
“Stop them! I said stop them! Please, stop—!”
But no matter how many orders he gave, and no matter how diligently the god-fearing demons tried to obey…
When a torrent of emotion far beyond the cities’ processing capacity was already pouring down, what exactly could they do?
Even the higher-ranking demons, including Dwyero, were swept away by the flood of pain and madness now raging through the streets.
Eventually Pain, Madness, Fear, and Despair filled the cities completely. The demons, no longer needing to worry about rations, were instead drowned in an overflowing sea of resources and died. Their bodies merged into the colossal flow and were carried away.
Two cities had been destroyed simultaneously.
Umjeory’s vision went black.