Dei walked a short distance down the hall, from the eighth generation of elves to the seventh. While he didn't want to connect to everything just yet, Aias mentioned the entire facility was imbued with hundreds of thousands of souls. True, only the top brass of a generation got to be placed here after their deaths, but it was the top brass of an entire planet over the course of some eight millenia, as Dei found out that elves tended to live that long before passing away. A thousand five hundred was the limit to their natural lifespan, but a ton of factors on the planet meant repeatedly cutting it short, sometimes intentionally.

The elves had been enslaved for around eight thousand years, while his planet had only been around for six thousand which was an… interesting thought.

'I wonder why the Titans were able to enter this plane at all without it rejecting them? Gods back on Avium were forced to ascend. Is it because of The Champion's absence? A change in the natural laws? Or are Primordial Children not subject to the same rules, considering The Mother has a physical body?'

Walking into the seventh generation's room, he saw it was actually clean, and thought back to how Thadria had needed to dust her own room before it looked like this. Did they add a cleaning enchantment to the seventh, but not the eighth? Or was the eighth simply unfinished, because everyone died before it was finalized?

Studying the room, he was leaning more towards the eighth being unfinished, because the seventh looked like a work of art. The decorations were beautiful, and everything was measured to be perfectly pleasing on the eyes. He felt like he'd somehow stepped into a painting, and had to pause to appreciate it in the doorway.

Moving further in, his focus was on the twin crowns near the back, which he guessed would represent the king and queen. The king's was similar to the one he'd seen Aias in, but the Queen's was far more brilliantly adorned, letting off a blinding gleam in the low light of the mana lamps.

When he felt ready to speak, he transformed back into his World that Walks form and reached out to as many places at once, tying himself into their connection.

His mind was filled with endless chatter, hundreds of elves debating what they were, and how they'd gotten into the bunker. There were a few saying he was the mutated remnants of elf-kind, some thinking he was some kind of ghost, but most saw him as nothing more than a part of some kind of monster race that'd taken over after all the elves perished.

"I can hear you," he projected into the system, and everyone went silent.

"HA! I was right! A ghost!" one of the elves in the dresser said, and Dei chuckled despite the hostility he felt the other elves direct towards that one.

"Not quite. I'm a world walker, I come from another dimension. In mine, the world hasn't ended, and I was actually surprised to see the terrible aftermath in your own."

The same voice was about to speak up, but was ruthlessly silenced by those around him. Instead, predictably, it was the queen who asked "So the two of you are elves from a parallel world?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Parallel dimensions don't really exist, just other dimensions. Mine is nothing like yours at all, and elves don't exist where I'm from."

"I see… then it is over? The last person to enter this room announced the death of the titans, but how there was extreme fallout from it. After that, we have heard nothing. Elves truly are gone?"

"Sort of… there was a single elf that survived, Thadria."

"And elf lived and has not visited us in millenia!?" the queen exclaimed, "A failing! Not only that, but Thadria was one of the eighth's generals! It was of her duty to report back to us the state of her research into the world, and if the aftermath could be restored!"

Dei frowned at how… instantly accusatory the seventh queen was. "She went insane after seeing everyone she's ever loved either get blown apart or melted by the toxic flesh of the Titans. Frankly, I would have killed myself if I were in her shoes, and I'm impressed she managed to hang on for this long."

"It does not matter, she failed to do something she had the ability to do. And you truly are not an elf if you would have taken such an easy route after a little suffering," she said, somehow managing to convey a sneer through voice.

"You do realize that I'm able to free all of your souls and potentially give you bodies again? And it is only through Thadria's efforts that I know of this bunker in the first place? Or that the elven souls exist at all? Who gives a shit whether she swings by every decade or so and says 'Yep! Everyone I loved is still dead!' What's wrong with you?! How many millennia were you in that crown and still manage to act like a prissy bastard who owns the world?"

'How fucking self-centered can someone be to hear about their races genocide and only care that they weren't coddled more? How- Pride. She's self-centered because of Pride. God dammit, Aias' mastery over his own emotions skewed by bias as to how reasonable this queen would be. But perhaps… I can use it.'

The room recoiled, enraged, that he would talk to their queen like that. "Really? Some thing like you has the technology to save our entire race, to do something all elves couldn't?" she asked sarcastically. "You admit to being weaker than elves, yet here you are saying you're better?"

"Is my species better than elves? Maybe, maybe not, but right now I know I'm better than you!"

He felt her ready to fly into a blind rage, but cut her off. "Because what kind of elf can't see that I'm able to speak with the dead, where they couldn't? I've already done something you never succeeded in! Not only that what kind if queen would give up her people's salvation because she didn't like the way it was presented? You don't like non-elves, so you're going to let every single member of your species perish? Shouldn't you, as a queen, be the ruler to your people, rather than be ruled by your own indignation?"

His approach was simple, elves couldn't fail at their "Thing" as Aloran called it, and he was talking to the de-facto queen after eight had perished. If she didn't take his deal, she'd be a horrible queen, no matter how much she hated him.

True, the negotiations had turned sour, but he didn't have to like the elves to understand they needed help. He'd rescue them, find a place to release their undead selves, and let em run free. Would they likely be a huge hassle? Yes, but he wouldn't just let them all die because their queen was a bitch.

The queen bit back a retort, and he felt her presence recede slightly, thinking on his words.

"Fine," she eventually spit with more venom than he thought possible in a single word. "If you speak the truth, then I will allow you to help us."

'Allow? Really?' he thought it was just her saving face though, so he let it slide. "Alright, good. In that case, give me a moment while I prepare my inner world. I'm going to transport all of you out by taking you into my own soul, going somewhere you'll be able to live independent of me, and dropping you off. I intend to save everyone on the planet though, so do you know of some way to find trapped elven souls?"

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With their agreement, the tension around them bled away, and she seemed more willing to help without a song and dance.

"I know the location of all major webs of souls, but the more individual ones will be harder to spot. Depending on how fast you are, I cannot see it taking any more than four to five hundred years to go over the entire planet with our assistance."

'Yea, that's not gonna happen. I'm gonna find a way to cheat this, and I already have a good idea of how to go about doing so.'

"Good point. Just a moment to get everything in order."

He closed his eyes and looked inward. He hadn't used Harmonic Sanctuary yet, but he had a very good idea of what it did, because of Knowledge's understanding of it.

Right now, his planet was not even a seed. It existed as a big ball of nothingness within him, but that could be changed.

In order to create a particular environment, he needed a matching concept. The easiest way to do this was to flood the inner world with a particular mana, which was not difficult for him to get right.

The mana in this world was corrupted and infectious. When he destroyed what was inside him, more would rush in. To get enough soul mana, he used Homeostasis and Starved Bastion to break down everything he didn't need, leaving whatever Soul mana they could find behind. The result was… overwhelming.

There was a lot of Soul mana in the air, and he was left with more than he knew what to do with. To focus it into the proper concept, one of spirits, he forced it to turn into Soul Strength, which was veritable spirit food.

With this, he felt the baseplate come into existence. An underwhelming flat expanse of grey opened in his mind, but he wasn't bothered by it. Because he'd used flavorless Soul Strength that'd never been a part of a living creature, it had nothing special about it; this was exactly what he needed right now though, as the elves would be what provided the meaning.

He checked and rechecked everything with Knowledge, but it was solid. It was perfect. He didn't need to experiment, and there was no doubt in his mind that this would work, so he focused back on the room and said "It's ready, who wants to go first?"

"Shali, test it out for us." the queen delegated.

'Harsh. I'd think such a proud queen would insist on going first to be sure it was safe but… really, that sounds like a stupid idea. She is the decision maker, and even if she feels guilty for sending a subordinate to their potential doom, it's the correct path. If the queen dies, they're lost, so it's proper to protect her.'

Shali, the elf in question, did so without complaint. He felt her grab at the connection between them, and the shock that emanated when she realized she could. She felt a body for the first time since her death, and braced herself for the full conversion into the new world.

One forceful tug, and her soul disappeared from the enchanted object. A hole was left behind in the elven web, weakening the entire thing, but she successfully appeared within him.

Inside his soul, Dei watched the blank world reshape itself. Shali watched in awe as grass and trees grew, sprouting from absolutely nothing. The sky turned from a dreary gray to vibrant blue, and the sun from sterile white to deep orange.

She provided concepts and ideas for his world to work off, and it responded in kind.

"Shali, I understand you like the world, but could you return to your previous item and tell the queen of your success?"

He saw reluctance in her body language to return to her cage, but it failed to manifest in her actions. Seconds later, she was back in her old spot, giving a report.

"I saw something of a blank world. The moment I appeared, it changed into some kind of bountiful garden, with lush trees and grass. The sun felt familiar, and the sky resembled our own, but I cannot say if the vegetation was what Minerali had before the Titan's conquest, as I've never seen it."

'Minerali? As in minerals? Did they name their planet minerals? Better than Earth, honestly.'

"How would you know of our vegetation before even us?" the queen asked Dei.

"I don't" he said, shrugging, "My inner world is building off of what elves are supposed to live in, because Shali provided the meaning innate to her. Think of it as you building the world according to your perfect environment."

He placed more emphasis on their importance to the world inside him because he felt they would like it more if they thought it came from them, rather than some kind of imitation made by him. They would want to live in an elven-constructed world far more than a union or World that Walks constructed, and their newfound eagerness only proved to support his theory.

"Very well," the queen said "We must all enter at once to ensure the collapse of our web does force any of us to perish. We enter in three, two, one, now."

With little to no coordination, all the elves connected with him were readied and leapt through, all appearing within him.

'I can say what I will about elves, but they are coordinated and decisive, with good reason to feel they are better than everyone else.'

With the presence of the elves, the world within him flushed itself out at a rapid pace, expanding into the horizon. His Soul Strength provided the structure needed, nourishing the existence of the elves without a body. It gave them solidity where before they had none.

The queen looked around at her people arrayed before her, visible for the first time since they were killed, and her eyes landed on her husband. With a smile, they pulled each other into a hug, and a cheer went out through the rest of the elves, following in the example of their royals as they burst into song and dance. No matter how stickler they were for maintaining their positions, the elves didn't like sitting still for millenia.

With hundreds of elven settlers within him, he watched them for a moment as they coordinated with one another and got about using their bodies and somehow channeling mana. The entire world behaved exactly as they expected to, and his inner world was quickly becoming similar to the elven homeworld.

"There will be a time later when I need your help to convince other elves," Dei whispered to the queen alone when she'd extricated herself from her husband other than his hand. "But that is later. For now, I will leave all of you to create your homes, grow your crops, and hunt your animals. Prepare yourself though, as this world is made for the primal state of elves, it will be dangerous."

That only seemed to incense her, a grin spreading over her face as she nodded to the air.

Back on the elves' real home planet, the lights in the room went out as the power was cut. He and Perumah stepped out and returned to the eighth generation's room.

Peeking his head into the doorway, he saw Thadria curled up under Jacob's arm, the man looking both lost and teary eyed as he comforted the elf sobbing into his shoulder.

He shot the man an encouraging look and ducked out, giving the two their privacy. He wanted to give the elves within him some time to prepare for the next batch, so he would instead return to Earth for a bit so that he could both provide The Champion's church an update on his findings and potentially teach Victoria how to pierce the seams of reality, depending on if that's what they still wanted to do after learning about Cosmic Beasts.

* * *

Dei found himself alone in the Church of The Champion once more, and this time he sought guidance from the big dragon for help in cheating at the task Queen Number Seven gave him, saving all the elves.

"They descended from the sun, you say?"

"Yea, that's what Aias told me, the Titans came from the sun. I'm not gonna pry, but I think it's pretty obvious there's something in there you're guarding, and it must have something to do with protecting the physical world. My question is… could I use this to access dominion over all elves? Or all physical creatures? With the Titans remaining unopposed for thousands of years, I don't think they had any other dragons in that universe either. I imagine whatever is in the sun has some kind of administrative access, which let the Titans rule unopposed over the elves for so long."

"Hmm… your idea is not as realistic as you say. I recommend staying far away from the core of the sun, as you will only find death should you approach. I'm sorry, but this is not how you should go about saving those elves."

"Ah? With how you're saying it, do you have another idea?"

"Yes, but I will need your help, and the guarantee of their people's queen. You say there are no living things in the universe over there?"

"Uh… unless there are some on alien planets, then no. there's no life on Minerali because the mana is too toxic to sustain anything."

"Without my sibling dragons, there will be no alien planets, and you are correct in assuming they would not stand for Titans descending. No, there are no alien planets. In that case, I believe I have a solution."

"Really? What!?"

"The dimension is hopeless at this point anyway. Take two neighboring realities, and crush it between them."

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