Chapter 7 - The New Age Dawn

The time of relative rest had ended. The forces of the civilizations were now again on the move, aiming to re-establish their territorial boundaries after the cataclysm that had shaken their world yet again.

The fall of the great Demon Command, Ballom, had affected the morale of the darkness forces capable of 'feeling', leaving the Dark Lords to rely more on some of their more obscure allies and creations, such as Devil Masks and Chimeras, to continue scouting and combat. The newest addition to their ranks, a Human that had turned to the darkness on the battlefield before, now rose to power, commanding the Dark ones to salvage the newest discovery in the black oceans of the Dark... the Battleship Mutant, a job that was happily taken on by his Ghosts, the Dream Pirates. The dark experiments into the evolution of Chimeras continued as well, in hopes of creating one capable of aerial combat that could fight directly in the sky Towers of Light...

The Light civilization focused most of its attention on the recent developments, and revelation of the Water Civilization's alliance with the Darkness. Guardian technology built specifically for combat within the poisonous darkness, was developed, and energy was set aside for investigation into weather control, specifically the activation of a certain stratospheric Angel Command, one they believed would be able to combine its power with their other recent troops to bring them almost unconditional victory. In addition, there was also some subterfuge, as the Light gave Water a new 'system' to install in one of their Cyber Clusters, and also deployed the Aqua Agents that had been training in the sky towers, now loyal to the Light Bringers... to keep watch over the activities of the Cyber Lords.

For once, the incessantly scheming Cyber Lords were up to very little. Until the project to drill to the planet's core was complete, there was not much to do but regroup. They amused themselves by tinkering with the hardiest denizens of the sea, the Sea Hackers. Only Emeral continued work on Gel Fish, but it seemed more to pass the time, than for any other reason. In the end, the only development of note in the waters was the evolution of a new Cyber Virus program capable of learning at a rate far beyond that of any before.

Even the new Nature lands were mostly quiet. The Beast Folk had gone into meditation and prayer, augmenting their spiritual powers in hopes of awakening a new force, and in response to the strong feeling being given off by the World Tree, Yggdrasil. Recently, Yggdrasil had been showing signs of greater power and consciousness, causing powerful Totems within the forest to come alive. There were rumors amongst the Beast Folk that the image of Yggdrasil itself had sometimes been seen in battle, its power channeled through other living plants...

The Fire realm's creatures were generally inactive, by their own standards, as well. A few new creature warriors had popped up, their power having been revealed during the stresses of battle, and the other races of the realms of Fire were currently training them for further combat. Besides this, the Humans worked on new destructive technology, and restored the Armorloids they found as best they could.

No one could know that the drilling undertaking of the Water Civilization could draw the attention of an evolving Rock Beast greater than even Doboulgyser, capable of heat so intense that it could travel easily even through the seas. No one at all could predict exactly what the other effect of the drilling would be either, but it was not long before it began to make itself apparent...