CHAPTER 212: THE OUTERPLANAR

The Outerplanar

Osho was silent for a moment, then he spoke.

"The Outerplanar aren’t a singular group. It’s just a term used to generalize, but to summarize, the Outerplanar are a group of extraterrestrial species that appeared on Azure Star not long after Mana descended." Osho looked around the room carefully.

His friends weren’t surprised, which was to be expected. After all, they’d learned of the Outerplanar a bit during their time in Stellaris. They’d also met some of them while they were there as they weren’t super rare.

Fredrick was also unsurprised. After all, he’d spent a large amount of time and resources looking into these specific beings.

Everyone else, though, showed varying levels of surprise. Aaron just looked excited at the prospect.

"Of them, they can be divided into three types. Those who want a positive relationship with our planet and its inhabitants. Those who have nefarious intentions, like wanting to take over the planet with force for resources and slaves. And those who are indifferent towards our existence." He explained.

"So it’s safe to assume that the ones behind the corruption are also one of these... Outerplanar?" Major Thompson asked after a beat.

"That’s correct. In fact, it’s very certain that it’s them due to the means they employ," Osho nodded. "As it turns out, Corrupt Mana is a form of Mana that isn’t even native to our planet, or a lot of planets, and it only forms under specific conditions in unique environments. Not only is it rare in the wider universe, it’s quite difficult to acquire normally as there are apparently many restrictions on its use in virtually any context." This caused more frowns.

"In that case, shouldn’t finding out the ones behind this be a simple as narrowing down which Outerplanar species has access to Corrupt Mana?" Aaron asked the obvious.

"That would be the case... in theory." Osho sighed.

"The issue is, the definition of ’rare’ differs quite a bit depending on where you go and on the context. In this case, while Corrupt Mana is rare in the grand scheme of things, the number of civilizations that have access to and actively use it numbers in the thousands."

Silence.

"... So it’s a dead end?" William rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Not exactly."

"Will you get to the point?!" Stephen couldn’t help but snap, and Osho raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay." He said quickly before sighing.

"While pinpointing the specific civilization/race is difficult, we were able to make a few steps in that direction." Osho tapped on his watch, and a list containing over a hundred different names appeared, all of them in languages none of them understood. But luckily each one had its meaning translated.

"These are the Civilizations we know of that are quite ’close’ to our planet while also having access to Corrupt Mana. They are also the ones who have the most obvious intentions towards Azure Star, none of which are kind." It was Fredrick who spoke up at this moment.

"After a lot of cross-referencing with Osho who had access to a larger database when it comes to knowledge on these guys, I was able to trace numerous of the odd and suspicious movements I discovered back to some of these civilizations. However..." Osho tapped his watch again, and the names gradually faded as he continued.

"We couldn’t attribute our findings to any civilization," He tilted his head. "Any ONE civilization, that is." This piqued the interest of everyone.

"... You’re saying that multiple civilizations are behind this?" Timothy asked with wide eyes.

"That’s correct." Fredrick confirmed.

"The issue is that what we are fighting against appears to not be the ’main’ forces of these civilizations, but simply proxies of them." Hearing this, Sam’s eyes lit up.

"I can complete that actually!" Her sudden interjection made everyone turn to her, and she cleared her throat.

"Alright. Similar to how Citadels aren’t equal, these civilizations also have clear distinctions between who is and isn’t stronger. As such, it’s very possible for higher-level civilizations to utterly crush lower-level civilizations. Because of this, at some point in the past, newly emerging civilizations were getting wiped off the map too easily whenever they appeared as those stronger ones would swoop in as soon as they were discovered, destroy any resistance they might put up, and then plunder the planet while enslaving its inhabitants." Her face turned grim.

"Due to this, the strongest civilizations created a council of sorts, and they enacted a rule where newly emerging civilizations couldn’t be touched, even after they were discovered, until they reached a certain stage of development. This way, they actually had a chance to advance and explore the wider universe." Osho picked up from there.

"However, in the same way humans find loopholes for everything, so did many civilizations. One such loophole they discovered was that there was no stopping civilizations at a similar level as the one they sought to conquer from attacking it, only that multiple civilizations couldn’t gang up on a single civilization.

As such, what we are facing right now aren’t even the true powers, just their proxies." Osho shook his head.

"Proxies they are able to send ’gifts’ to which just so happen to be particularly good at subjugation fellow low-level civilizations." Fredrick said with a frown.

After that, the room fell silent for a bit as everyone digested their words. It was a lot, and why wouldn’t it?

They just figured out that their planet is actually a small force whose resources are being coveted by forces of unimaginable power and influence.

In comparison, forget the whole planet, they were just one Citadel, and not even a very high-ranking Citadel at that.

It was like an ant staring at a Super-Massive Black Hole. The difference was staggering, and quite frankly, despairing.

"... How come we never see them, though?" After a while, Haggai suddenly asked.

"As in?" Osho raised a brow.

"You made it sound like we are in a constant battle with these Outerplanar entities. But so far, all we’ve needed to worry about for the longest time is beasts. If the Outerplanar are as threatening as you imply, surely we should have more knowledge of their presence as a whole, no?" Hearing this, there were several nods of agreement.

If the Outerplanar were such a problem, why did it seem like they barely had any impact on their planet?

"Ah, well, this is where things enter the very conceptual/propaganda territory." Osho said with a wry smile.

"We want information. Tell us everything." William said flatly.

Osho and Fredrick shared a look, then the latter sighed.

"Well, in regard to not having noticed them. Well, we have, in the early days, that is. Back then, there weren’t any Mythical Rank Beast Tamers or known beasts of that rank. Back then, Legends were the strongest existences we knew of.

However, beasts weren’t the only things they faced off against. Remember Australia?" Fredrick asked.

"Yeah, it was wiped off when Lady Aurora who, at the time, was still a Legend, fought against the White Pengu." Simon answered with a frown.

"Yeah, turns out that’s a lie," Fredrick said flatly. "Lady Aurora was indeed involved, but it wasn’t the White Pengu, it was an Outerplanar creature. The information was altered. The White Pengu was, for lack of better terms, killed off-screen and then had its body dragged over there to play pretend." This made the faces of several people go pale.

"You mean..." Jane swallowed.

"Yup. The Arctic Circle, the southern part of Africa, Greenland, all these places where catastrophic battles took place in the last weren’t due to human beast tamers fighting beasts, but Outerplanar entities." Fredrick confirmed.

"The information was fabricated because, well, the significant figures of humanity believed that most people already had their plates full dealing with beasts, so learning that there was an even more dangerous existential threat would probably be detrimental. Hence the propaganda part I mentioned." Osho added.

"H-Hold on. If that’s the case, why aren’t there more cases of large landmasses getting eviscerated? We have way more Legends now compared to back then. Not to mention the 5 Myths, but things seem a lot more... tame, in comparison. But theoretically, the Outerplanarshould be fwr more active." Timothy asked while sitting up.

"Which brings us into the strange metaphysical part of things." Osho rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"God, saying everything at once makes it sound so much more insane." He mumbled before looking up.

"Okay, let me make this easy to visualize." He snapped his fingers, and a sphere of Mana appeared with several smaller spheres within.

"Let’s say this is our universe, and the dots can be stars or galaxies, up to you." He created another sphere, but this one seemed a bit less corporealthan the first one.

"You see, these civilizations don’t detect each other in the way you are thinking of. Far from it, in fact, the way we think about space travel is far more different from how it actually happens." He stared at each of them carefully.

"This is where something called the ’Warp Dimension’ comes in."