Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage - Chapter 383

Chapter 383: First Contact
CH383 First Contact

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In the eyes of Pangeans, the Navi were parasites—vermin who leeched off their plane’s inhabitants under the false pretence of divine power. They tricked the people of their worlds into offering up precious emotional energies—chief among them, Faith.

Through the faith siphoned from their indoctrinated believers, these false gods stole Providence, allowing them to grasp fragments of one or more of the plane’s laws. With this stolen authority, they were enabled to train their comprehension of laws just like true high-rank professionals.

In other words, the Navi used the faith and providence of a world’s inhabitants to worm their way into the realm of laws, feeding off their plane’s natural order to strengthen themselves.

Instead of working hard to comprehend the laws on their own, the Navi simply stole that qualification through the combined providence of all who worshipped them.

This inevitably ensured one thing—

All followers of a Navi would forever be weaker than their so-called deity.

Even worse, it robbed the plane itself of potential.

Among those believers whose Providence had been drained away, there might have been a genius capable of changing their world’s fate & providence—someone who could have elevated their plane’s rank among the myriad realms, benefitting all its inhabitants.

But such growth would threaten the Navi’s supremacy.

So naturally… they would never allow it.

Why did any of this matter to Alex and his expedition group?

Simple.

Because they were outsiders.

And outsiders either worshipped other gods—other Navi from entirely different planes—or they were the worst category of all: people who couldn’t be brainwashed and recognised the plane’s “gods” as the frauds they were.

Either way, outsiders represented a threat to a plane’s pantheon.

Outsiders capable of crossing the void to reach other planes often meant they came from stronger worlds—worlds whose Navi could compete for their faith, or worlds whose inhabitants had grown strong enough to discard their Navi entirely.

Thus, driven by a collective instinct—a shared, primal self-preservation—all Navi were xenophobic.

Unlike the semi-sentient World Consciousness, which judged intruders by designated power levels and encoded primordial parameters, Navi were greedy leeches who refused to tolerate even the smallest risk to their power.

Ordinarily, interplanar Grand formations had built-in mechanisms to fool not only the target world’s World Consciousness but also the eyes of the plane’s pantheon.

An expedition team of this size should have slipped in unnoticed.

Alas, misfortune rarely came alone.

The mechanism responsible for disguising them was encoded within the Guidance Formation—the very same formation that had been corrupted by the possessed Spatial Mage, along with the Safety formation.

Plus, with the erratic way they had entered this plane, the world’s pantheon would have to be utterly blind not to notice them.

At this moment, Alex found himself at his first true crossroads as leader of the expedition. His next choice would determine one of two outcomes:

Either he ended up on the plane’s most-wanted list—triggering a full-scale conflict with the world and, most particularly, its Navi-believers…

Or he somehow managed to defuse the situation and divert the eyes of this plane’s gods away from his group.

‘This isn’t a choice at all,’ Alex thought grimly. ‘I don’t have the forces needed to take on an entire world. Survival first—we must get out of this mess before anything else.’

“Master, everyone is armed,” Udara said as she came to his side.

Alex turned and saw the group finishing their preparations. They had reclaimed their weapons and armour from the interspatial storage chests—items they had stowed away earlier to make the interplanar transfer easier.

More than their armour, though, it was their eyes that struck him.

They were looking to him for direction.

Zora gave him a soft, reassuring smile. Eleanor and Udara’s eyes showed determination; they were ready to support whatever decision he made.

It steadied him.

He turned toward the direction where the noises were loudest.

Calm Madness.

His heart stilled while his anxiety evaporated as a cold clarity washed over him.

He needed a solution that would get the group out of this predicament without branding them as an immediate threat to the plane’s pantheon.

That confrontation would come eventually—likely sooner than later—but they were not prepared for it now.

Right now, they needed to escape.

Fortunately, his scouts were already moving.

Senu took the skies, giving Alex a bird’s-eye view.

Fen sprinted toward the rising tide of beasts.

And Silver headed toward the sapient natives approaching through the forest.

Soon, Alex began receiving detailed reports from all directions.

Through Senu’s vision, he saw the sapient natives had just entered the forest. They were spreading out, forming a containment net to block any escape routes.

At the same time, the beasts deeper in the woods had gone into a frenzy—rushing straight toward them.

There was a massive gap in the beast distribution around their landing area. And it wasn’t too difficult for Alex to figure out the reason; their arrival had startled the surrounding fauna, which then triggered a chain reaction that sent the rest of the forest’s beasts into a stampeding frenzy.

‘That likely means the two sides aren’t working together. More likely, these beasts are simply hostile to strangers and disturbances in the forest—much like the beasts of Dankrot Forest.’ Alex speculated.

Bark!

Fen’s mental barks echoed through Alex’s mind, updating him on the beast situation.

Just as Alex suspected, the beasts weren’t rushing directly toward them. Instead, the outer beasts had been startled by the expedition’s arrival and had fled deeper into the forest—only to collide with the territorial beasts already living further in.

The deeper beasts had then chased the outer beasts back toward their home ground… inadvertently dragging the entire frenzied mass right toward Alex’s group.

However, according to Fen, the chase had already triggered the hunting instincts of several of the pursuing beasts. Those particular beasts would likely not stop even after pushing the intruders out of their territory.

Just as Alex digested that information, Silver’s voice came through the comms.

“The hostiles are all human,” she reported. “Around thirty of them. Light armoured, mostly warriors. Seven rogue-types, three archers. Looks like an advance party searching for us.”

“Understood,” Alex replied. “Keep eyes on them. Report their position relative to camp. Avoid combat unless absolutely necessary. I’ll send support soon.”

“One more thing, let me know if they say anything significant.” Alex added.

“They mentioned something about a prophecy. Does that count?” Silver replied.

“Yes, it counts,” Alex said sharply. “Confirm for me—are there any priests among them?”

“I… don’t know what a priest looks like. Are they like mages?” Silver asked.

Alex resisted the urge to palm his face.

Right—Pangea’s higher powers had purged almost all knowledge of Navi from common education. Only noble scions who were bound for interplanar expedition, and elite scholars, learned about them.

A frontline soldier like Silver wouldn’t know a priest even if sang and danced right before her.

“Sort of,” Alex explained. “Think healers… but more ceremonial. Important-looking. Always placed at the rear of the formation.”

“Then there’s none here. All thirty are frontline fighters,” Silver confirmed.

“Good. Keep me posted,” Alex said before ending the call.

The small artefact he had given to Silver and the rest of the group were, of course, earbud comms – ‘artefacts’ he explained away as a military-grade miniaturised Rune Phones, the kind secretly circulated by the Golden Palace.

Fortunately, Rune Phones were already ubiquitous across Pangea, so the group adapted quickly and needed no further explanation.

Alex turned toward the expedition members, all armed and ready, waiting for his command.

Now that the full battlefield picture was painted in his mind, Alex took a deep breath…

And began outlining his plan.

**33**