Our party, along with the surface members of Jarilo-VI took up residence within the large Qilpoth Fort where I pushed the floating crystal form of Cocolia who was still sealed away into a broom closet with a hum as everyone just stared at me awkwardly.
"Oh! Don't worry about me. I am supposed to be just background noise. Make the literal Aeon a background character if you will. You guys have the resurging Fragmentum to worry about after all!" I spoke as I fell back into my floating throne and conjured up a massive movie theater bucket with a thick straw that was filled with Dr. Pepper that I loudly slurped on.
Stelle looked at me with a deadpan before she said blandly. "Kinda hard for us to treat you like a background character when you swoop in and smash the final boss before we can react."
To which I just raised an eyebrow and said with a cruel smile. "Oh? Cocolia however powerful for being puppeted by the Stellaron was indeed a threat... But what kind of monsters do you think the Stellaron has in store after its been here for centuries gathering power?"
There was a moment of silence before Elysia scolded me. "Jake... Don't have the aura of the final boss, its scary for everyone else."
Which made me roll my eyes and begin aggressively slurping at my drink as the rest of the group in Gepard, Serval, and Bronya began discussing with the other members of the Astral Express on what to do with the wave of Fragmentum monsters that were coming.
"The city of Belobog is one of the strongest fortresses imaginable. Automated turrets, cannons, and other static defenses like razor wire and land mines will slow the forces of the Fragmentum to a halt, if not stall them outright for months if need be." Gepard spoke proudly.
Bronya however spoke more carefully. "But what if they don't come across the frozen wasteland that doesn't have much if any cover. What if they come up through the tunnels as much of the Underworld has its own Fragmentum issues?"
And that got to Gepard and Serval as they both knew that the Underworld was... Weird, the Fragmentum and centuries of burning Geomarrow had fucked with the spatial energy of the underground Underworld of Jarilo-VI
Making it seem like its own micro-world in all honesty.
"So we should use the Underworld as the staging ground to fight off the invading army of Fragmentum monsters, and then using the old tunnels we will fight directly through the underground towards the Stellaron!" Bronya said making me raise an eyebrow at the thought.
"Oh! So we would tunnel right up underneath the Stellaron itself huh!" March 7th spoke excitedly.
And Bronya nodded with her throwing a look at the closet where her adopted mother was hidden away. Then she took a deep breath before she looked at me and spoke firmly.
"I... I request your aid in extending the tunnel with your powers so that we can actually reach the Stellaron from underground though!"
I gave the grey-haired beauty an introspective look before nodding but I added with a wry smile. "Bronya, my help may not even be necessary, I can already feel the power of the World Cancer, it's already tunneling into the world through my senses so we may just have to fight through its own tunnels frankly."
"Well... Even still, the Stellaron isn't a fast thing especially with this one being ice-aligned. Its going to take literally weeks if not months to tunnel from wherever it is all the way here to Belobog to say nothing of whatever we do." I spoke and the room visibly sank in relief.
Making my face twitch as I gave them all a dull look and snapped out. "That's not a good thing! It means that without us here Belobog would be facing an unending tide of monsters while the Stellaron exhausts itself in overflowing the Fragmentum!"
And without a hint of shame, March 7th put a hand to her waist and all but shouted proudly. "But we are here! And we can seal up the Stellaron lickity split as soon as we get to it!"
Dan Heng actually shrugged and added in his more calm monotone. "Who is to say Jake isn't going to just unmake the Stellaron to begin with when he gets close to it?"
Elysia then giggled and said with amusement. "Oh don't worry. Jake will let you guys smack it with your baseball bat... And I guess stab it with your pointy stick Dan Heng."
The Vidyadhara man gave Elsyia a dull look for that but I just moved the conversation on as I knew we needed to. "Soooo, I assume we need to rally the people of the Underworld next for this journey right?"
With the people of Jarilo-VI looking mighty awkward as they looked between one another and said quietly. "Uhm... Yeah, the main tunnels leading from the Underworld to the surface of Belabog have been sealed off for a long while." Serval said weakly.
To which I deadpanned and said plainly. "Unseal the tunnel, and get everyone together by tomorrow... As by tomorrow, the Fragmentum monsters from the nearby corrupted areas will begin to emerge anyway."
With that said, I removed myself from the conversation as my floating throne put me behind the three in Dan Heng, Stelle, and March 7th... Letting them deal with setting up the rest of the arrangements.
As I was busy with my own thoughts... Like wondering how the IPC were reacting to how a new Amber Era had just started.
And whether or not said IPC was able to track where Qilpoth was currently looking when he decided to smash down his oversized bonk hammer.