Land of Turmoil

home of the Broodmother

The worm nest in the depths of the Land of Turmoil was now almost a hundred metres tall. A transparent compartment had been prepared at the very top, filled with a roiling green fluid that looked like boiling slime.

has spatial tears

## Volume 5

After the divine war

The journey was swift yet steady, but as they reached the Land of Turmoil Richard was shocked at the sight. What was once a land of trees and forests had been turned completely barren, devoid of all but soil and rocks. Even insects didn’t live here anymore, forget troggs and goblins that bred fast enough not to care about the dangers.

However, as he looked ahead he saw that a new, smaller forest close to the centre. This entire forest was made up of a single kind of a tree, each grown to the same height, looking the exact same, with their luscious leaves flying in the wind. These trees had been planted at exact distances from each other, so mechanical that it sent shivers up one’s spine. When the astral chrysalis quietly brushed through the forest, these trees seemed to sway gently in greeting.

At the centre of the forest was what looked almost like an enormous beehive, with two smaller hives nearby. In the blank space between the three was the broodmother, sitting in place while her fog was carried off by the wind.

With the workers and this expanding forest, the broodmother seemed to developing her own unique ecosystem in the Land of Turmoil.

“You drink too?” Richard laughed in spite of himself, but then he yelled out, “Hey, this is mine! You’ll finish it all in one go!” The entire crate would be less than a sip for someone of her size.

“Only one bottle, Master. I just want to know how it tastes.” 5;24

Richard nodded, slowly drinking bottle after bottle of his liquor. His vision started to blur and his mood started swaying; before he knew it, his guard was down and he started to pour his worries down on her. These days, it was only when he was utterly drunk that his self-control would slip. It was also the only way for him to relieve some of the seemingly infinite burden he bore.

Eventually, his drinking speed slowed down. With a burning pain in his stomach, the gate of his repressed emotions and memories burst open completely. Now he was forgetting to drink for minutes at a time, instead going on rants about various topics that were inundated by belches that reeked.

At some point, the broodmother’s voice suddenly rang beside him, “Is this how it feels to be drunk? It’s really nice!”

Richard didn’t understand for a moment, but then he shook his head and looked up. One could see that more than half of the liquid was still in the bottle she was drinking from, and this alcohol was weak enough that half a bottle wouldn’t be enough to even leave him buzzed. However, the broodmother’s body started swaying left to right.

The earth nearby started to shake as she hiccuped, causing the stench of liquor to waft through the air and confirm that she was indeed drunk. It even felt like she’d consumed tonnes of it, leaving Richard startled, “What? How did you get so much?”

Richard felt strangely open to this unexpected drinking companion, feeling much closer to her in his drunken stupor.

“Your styles are different. There is no right or wrong, the only important thing is the outcome!”

“Many people have placed their futures, dreams, and even lives in your hands. You cannot take risks wilfully,”

7 102

The deadly auroras of timeforce slowly drifted through the sky, having clearly grown in number in the last decade. It implied that the space here was growing more unstable.

The larval forests had already been formed, the trees towering into the sky while their roots formed the nests deep in the earth. All of the foliage bent do the ground as the astral chrysalis descended, opening up a wide berth for it to land.

## Volume 8

The place truly had been formed to her needs now, the larval forest covering the entire area while worm nests that were hundreds of metres high towered everywhere. The sky was flickering with strands of timeforce that even he wouldn’t want to pass through, and three flesh furnaces were operating at full speed in the west. Two of the furnaces were refining frostiron, some for sale and others used to create the winter soldiers, while the third was creating equipment parts like sword blades and scalemail to be transported to Norland for enchanting.

Two wasps were slowly making their way through the skies, carrying hundreds of tonnes of frostiron and weapon parts towards Bluewater Oasis. Meanwhile, a good number more were heading over from the Iron Triangle Empire, bringing in raw ore. Drones were bustling everywhere in the huge underground maze formed by the larval forest, tending to the trees and any other organisational tasks. The roots of the forest had dug kilometres in to extract all the energy in the earth, while their tall crowns were swaying in the sky absorbing energy there. A single tree only managed a tiny amount, but with the hundred thousand square kilometres of area, it had grown to an astronomical figure.

The larval forest had grown alongside the broodmother herself. It could now create units below level 6 without any need for intervention, able to form an army of a hundred thousand in only a few days if need be.