The Rise Of A Porter

"Master, I strongly urge you to not do this!"

For the first time in his life, Talos yelled at Arnold and he wasn't the only one on to do so either. All of Arnold's Elite summons were trying to make him change his mind about entering within the world tree's range. Even Tiamut was amongst the ones trying to persuade Arnold to walk away.

However, her worries were mostly because of Scylla and less about Arnold's safety. She knew the Dragon referred to Arnold as her parent and if anything happened to him... she would get to know instantly and all hell would break loose over the planet.

Then there was Cetus. No one truly knew what she would do when her new master dies. As usual, Cetus would change her owner and adapt to their wishes accordingly. Thus if the World tree actually managed to kill Arnold... Cetus would then become used to the tree's consciousness and then might even do something she had never done before... to harm the humans.

On top of all that, Tiamut was formerly a goddess, a lesser one before her downfall but she was there when the world tree was planted between the realms. Thus she knew it was da.mn near impossible to kill the world tree unless the one wanting to destroy it happened to be a higher god with colossal universal presence. That is if this tree was indeed a part of the world tree.

She had her doubts ever since Arnold informed them about what the parasite actually was. Firstly, she didn't believe for a second that the demon managed to push the tree all the way to the realm of mortals. She had two reasons for believing that.

Firstly, if such a thing would have been possible, the gods would have already taken care of it as their hatred for the demons was unparalleled. And second, it had been a long time since the demons were annihilated by Zeus and his army because their then king Lucifer, 'dishonoured him' by calling Zeus a needle di.ck after he had tried to court the queen of hell and pleasures, Natasha.

She had also made Arnold and Talos aware of these facts. But having this new information only made Arnold's resolve to get rid of the tree stronger than ever because then the world tree he was about to face was a fake one.

"Guys, I hear you. I know you're scared about it all but what are we supposed to do?" Arnold turned around once all of them started barking at him, "I did try to do things your way, didn't I? Did help us in any way? It didn't. As much as I don't want to go anywhere near that da.mn thing, I have to. If I don't do something now, the entire world would be in danger and I don't want to happen."

"But Master, that's no reason for you to-"

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"Natasha, Talos already told me we can not keep evacuating people forever. Given the rate at which the roots are spreading soon, it will cover the entire continent. and what will we do next?"

No one had an answer to that. After all, everything plan that they had come up with had resulted in failure. That was what prompted Arnold to try and take care of things himself. But it wasn't as if he was going in there without a plan. His plan was more like a hypothesis and nothing more, but it was the only chance for them to take the tree down in one shot.

If they failed this time, then the world was doomed either way.  Arnold quickly handed the summons their new weapon that would hopefully be effective against the roots. There was a high chance for the weapons to work against the trees. Still, Arnold wasn't sure because it was all a theory.

However, someone was yet to chew Arnold out. Just as he was about to enter the restricted area along with his summons, he received a call. Arnold couldn't help but sigh when he saw the caller ID of the person calling him. 

"You just had to call, didn't you?" Arnold mumbled before picking up the call, "Yeah?"

"Don't yeah me, you moron of a brother!" Nicole yelled from the other side of the call, "If you are so eager to die, then come meet me, I'll kill you myself!"

"Of course you would. That's why I'm staying away from you."

[I thought you were avoiding her because... she is a bit cracked on the top.]

'Keep talking and I'll crack you instead.' Arnold rebuked.

[Those days?]

'...'

"Are you sure about this? You know I could come and help you. Yeah, that would be a better plan." Nicole rambled on and on.

"You know what it would be? A stupid plan, that's what. Don't worry, I'll be back sooner than you know it." Arnold shook his head, "If you're so worried about me, go and give Nina some company while I get back."

"... Just be safe and if you think for a moment that things are not working-"

"I'll get out asap. I'm not called Deathless for nothing you know?"

"If you have already made up your mind then... good luck. You don't need it but still." 

Arnold shook his head and disconnected the call. He contemplated calling Nina as well but ultimately decided against it. She already told him to do what he needed to and that was all he wanted. It wasn't like he was planning on dying in there. He had void travel as his ace. If things went sideways, he would simply conjure a portal and disappear. And in case that didn't work, he would simply exit to his domain and then escape from there.

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"Alright, let's do this." Arnold walked past the restricted area, followed by thousands of his summons.

A plethora of greasy looking roots sprung out of seemingly nowhere as soon as Arnold got within their range. His summons rushed in to stop as many of them as they could. However, quite a few of them still made their way over to Arnold. He quickly pulled his handguns out and open fire on the incoming roots. Surprisingly, each bullet tore through the roots with relative ease. But that wasn't all, the new gears Arnold had provided to his summons, easily tore through those da.mned roots as well.

"How is this even possible?" Tiamut asked Arnold while she ripped yet another strand of root that made its way to him, "We tried doing everything to them and it didn't work. But now it does!?"

"All of your gears and bullets are made from an alloy of the god slaying bullet and other metals. I thought if those could kill a god, they should most definitely be able to take care of these things. It was a risky move to use them, but I guess I got it proportion right." Arnold smirked as his plan was working, "Ignore all that and push forward! We need to locate the source of this and take it down as quickly as possible!"

Under Arnold's leadership, the summons were more energetic than ever before and tore down through the roots like a hot knife through butter. For once, their plan seemed to be working against the world tree. The only problem was... how long could they manage to keep it up?