"...On their behalf, I submit."

Bath had already sent wisps of essence into the air and into the space surrounding Juserin. As he monitored the verdora's motions, Bath noticed that Juserin's limbs were shifting nervously under his robes. He'd discovered, after performing tests on verdora while initially visiting Illusta, that verdora did not, as a species, have a clear biological quirk that indicated lying. Bath had been mildly miffed by this, especially after relying on lie-detecting to interrogate human kursi and keep Lepochim in line. However, seemingly to compensate for this strength, verdora were terrible liars.

'He seems increasingly nervous,' Bath noted. 'Submit?' If anything, he wondered if the Waymaster was planning some kind of attack. Bath was certainly sympathetic to the sapient's plight: any situation that forced you to do anything, let alone join a religious organization, was sub-optimal. Moreover, Bath knew that to Juserin, he and Lisa were still representing Earth, a planet that was truly at the very fringes of the civilized universe. Give up his own holdings and vastly superior technologies, just because he lacked the military might to contend with a planet of barbaric warmongers?

Bath couldn't believe that Juserin would give in so easily. The man had at least 500 years of experience under his belt, Bath was sure of it. With this being the case, wouldn't Juserin have defenses in place? Bath simply couldn't fathom a world in which a seasoned Waymaster like Juserin was so...careless.

As he thought about Juserin's mental state, Bath caressed Lisa's face with his essence to read her emotions without physically looking her way. 'Why the diplomatic route? For Juserin...and us?' he wondered to himself, essence tracing over her statuesque face. 'Why bother?' While he'd put Lisa in charge of "diplomacy" and expansion strategy, Bath still didn't fully understand the point. Why not just...conquer Illudis with brute force, no warning? That in itself would convince Juserin that they weren't messing around when they claimed they would expand COTD out over the universe. 'Why would self-proclaimed deities engage in diplomacy?'

Bath mentally shook his head. They wouldn't. He hadn't paid much attention to Lisa and Nevis' diplomatic plans, but now, facing Juserin, Bath realized that he needed to step in. Lisa was going about conquering planets and gates like a human, not like the Church of COTD.

'Is this her idealism, or her inexperience?' Bath sighed inwardly to himself, intentionally preventing his features from breaking into a wistful smile. 'She's grown in the past month and a half.'

"Juserin," Bath said flatly, intending to dispel any doubts the verdora held. "No doubt you have some contingency planned. Perhaps even a suicide contingency, where you detonate this entire evacuated city to kill us." Bath sighed, then took a long blink. When he reopened his eyes, his imperious expression caused Juserin to flinch.

"Don't ruin this beautiful mountain on misguided notions of pride, or honor."

Juserin visibly spluttered as, the second the last syllable dropped from Bath's lips, everything in the room was saturated in a viscous red mist. The mist, in turn, was suspending everything within its semi-gaseous, roiling curls. Bath was impressed by how quickly Juserin recovered his composure, only taking about two seconds to return to his previous level of agitation.

"What is this?" Juserin asked, voice elevated slightly, pupils expanding outward.

Bath's imposing face cracked into a darkly chilling grin. "Human blood." Bath wondered idly what blood translated as in Juserin's native tongue.

Lisa kept her self-assured facade with great difficulty. She couldn't help but feel a sense of ingrained repulsion as she felt the blood mist patter over her skin. At the very least, the mist was unable to discolor her white robe. Juserin, on the other hand, was starting to drip red, his previously blue robe turning a brown-violet.

Without waiting for Juserin, or Lisa, to properly react, Bath waved a hand towards the door in a large gesture. In a vicious torrent, the gas condensed somewhat into a veritable river of blood that carried Juserin out the door. Lisa had the reflexes and foresight to levitate herself above the river as it appeared. She followed Bath as he, too went outside, his feet and lower legs submerged in the gushing blood as though he were a god rising from the blood of a decimated army.

Lisa shivered involuntarily, but shrugged off her unease and joined Bath over the water. Realizing that they needed to be seen as a unified team, Lisa clamped her mouth shut and clenched her fist. Then, she lowered herself into the blood so that she, too, stood next to Bath in the river of flowing blood. If she didn't look, perhaps...

'But it feels warm,' Lisa protested internally. 'Why blood?'

Truth be told, Bath had gotten the idea from watching and reading horror and fantasy movies. Understanding what made humans frightened was of critical importance to his human persona. While Bath didn't have a deep understanding of verdora culture, he assumed that being washed away by a flood of alien bodily fluids would freak most sapients out.

'As expected,' he thought. Juserin was flailing in the steadily-growing torrent, his eyes now seeming to pop out of his skull.

"We aren't here to scare him to death," Lisa breathed under her breath so that Bath could just barely hear. However, even if she hadn't spoken audibly, he still would've been able to read her lips with his essence.

Bath, taking the hint to speed things up, snapped his fingers. Then, the river of blood compacted into millions of beads. The compaction left Juserin exposed to open air, allowing him to fall awkwardly on his side without the buoyant blood on all sides.

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Bath moved Juserin's face with his essence, ensuring that the sapient would watch the incoming display. "This is why you never had a chance," he boomed. Bath then raised his hands, causing the beads to soar upward in a unified, fluid motion. They quickly took on a new shape, the spheres forming a massive figure in the blue sky above. Within a few seconds, the creation was complete: a devastating, flesh-and-blood dragon.

Bath smiled devilishly, the gesture falling short of his icy eyes, then said, "Welcome to the Church of the Dragon."

Juserin just looked up in humble awe, the action now completely independent of Bath's influence. The dragon's blood-red wings and tail cut like scythes through the air, sending tendrils of bloody mist out onto the wind. Its numerous spines appeared to bleed a scarlet liquid that dripped over its body, pooling along the talons terminating its arms and legs. Additionally, though its mouth was closed, Juserin could see numerous wickedly-curved, blood-drenched teeth poking out. Finally, the dragon's nose exhaled a mist of blood with every breath, while the dragon's eyes were completely red, with dark pupils on red-pink corneas.

The fact that the dragon's wingspan alone covered more than what Juserin's eyes could see further enhanced the impression. Bath realized with satisfaction that Juserin seemed...convinced. Convinced of what, Bath wasn't completely certain, but he doubted, now, that Juserin would try to pull something uselessly destructive.

'Is this a win for diplomacy?' Bath wondered to himself, sending his attentions to the essence around Lisa. 'Well, nobody died...and blood rituals are realistically religious.' Or so Bath justified. He would be enormously shocked if anybody, after seeing the blood spectacle alone, pegged him for a World Devourer.

"I see that I was wrong to doubt you," Juserin muttered softly, voice saturated with the kind of disbelief that follows the untimely death of a family member.

"Where are the rest of the verdora?" Lisa asked, seeing that Bath was finished with his spectacle. 'While I did tell him to let me handle everything...' Lisa sighed inwardly. 'He did a better job than I could've by far.' Self-doubt began to plague her psyche in full force. 'And I really thought I was improving...'

Lisa really had improved in the past weeks on Gray Land with Bath. Bath certainly recognized this; however, to Lisa, Bath was her perpetual yardstick. To her, the gap between them was essentially the same as it had always been.

Juserin gave her a stoic expression. "They're hiding in various locations on the planet. I evacuated all cities, not just Illusta. Illudis is somewhat smaller than Earth, and verdora reproduce slower than humans, so in total there are ten billion." Juserin didn't bother mentioning the verdora off world, as their numbers didn't exceed one million.

Lisa blanched. 'Ten billion?' Earth was still a few billion short. When the verdora joined COTD...they'd actually outnumber the humans.

"Excellent. First things first," Bath began, "we're going to refurbish your capital city." Bath revealed a city-seed, then used his essence to place it in front of Juserin. "Plant this at the base of the city." While most city-seeds were planted miles away from major cities to avoid terraforming cities populated with millions of fragile lives...if Juserin was being truthful, all of Illudis' cities were vacant, providing an excellent opportunity to dragonify the planet's population centers.

"What will this do?" Juserin queried. "How can a seed refurbish anything? It's a plant." He sounded, to Lisa's ears, hopelessly confused, further locking in her image of Juserin as a proud, olden-days-loving noble that didn't understand the modern world. Lisa knew that this assessment was completely inaccurate, especially considering the fact that Illudis' technology far surpassed that of Earth...even so, the grandpa-noble image was one she vehemently latched on to, if only because she needed more humor in her life.

"Do you question the Dragon?" Bath asked calmly, raising an eyebrow. Juserin stood slack-jawed, his somewhat-emaciated form cowering under the still-flapping dragon above.

"I'll plant the seed."

"Can you give him food?" Lisa grumbled softly.

"Juserin, halt for a moment," Bath called out. "I'm going to restore you to health."

"Wha-" Juserin began, only to grow silent a moment later. A weak, dog-like whine came out of his throat as Bath began to work, forcing nutrients, muscle, and fat into the verdora's body. A second later, satisfied, Bath withdrew.

Juserin, reeling, looked ahead with an even--if it were possible--more shocked expression. He immediately felt the vigor in his body, surpassing that of what he'd felt even before he sent away his servants. "This..."

Bath gave him a slightly impatient look. "Now go and complete the first task for the verdora."

Juserin bobbed on his legs, as though giving Bath an odd half-bow, before scurrying to the nearest lift down the mountain.

---

Kayt was exhausted. Taking over the duties of Kray Cities services was, even with the help of countless human and quasi subordinates, far more difficult than she could have imagined. Part of this she attributed to the fact that Susan and David had disappeared into thin air.

'Why don't you have the pack track him down?' Nimesh suggested for the umpteenth time. Kayt rolled her eyes and stroked the white wolf's mane.

'No point,' she transmitted back. 'They aren't worth it.'

Nimesh snorted. Kayt wasn't oblivious to the fact that Nimesh desperately wanted to see some action. Kayt did feel somewhat guilty that Nimesh, through being tethered to her, was forced to remain on Earth, despite being a wolf alpha. 'It'll just be until the city can exist on its own two legs,' she thought privately. 'Then I'll take Nimesh as far as we can go.'

The two of them were currently patrolling the city's border. While Kayt's primary duty was to deal with everything non-combat and non-religious, both she, Edgewood, and Anne took turns patrolling the city limits. This was a job that they wanted to ensure was done right, especially after the spearrows shed light on how deep Kray City's corruption had grown in little over a month.

'Stop worrying about humans,' Nimesh relayed, interrupting Kayt's train of thought. 'Not your job.'

'It is when we're tasked with the cleanup,' Kayt replied, sighing. Moving so many thousands of bodies, even though she secretly encouraged predatory quasies to eat the more mangled ones...had left its toll. There was something about dealing with the aftermath of the bird attack that was fundamentally different from killing people in a two-sided battle, as Kayt had done previously. The worst part was, Kayt couldn't pin down exactly what about the former scenario left her disturbed.

'Perhaps,' she thought, 'the difference is intent.' The majority of deaths, after all, were opportunistic retributive slayings...fueled by festering hate. The battles that she'd been in so far had lacked that kind of blistering passion. She wondered to herself how it would feel to look into the enemy's eyes and see not just the desire to kill, but the desire to violate.

She ran her hands over Nimesh's velvet ears. Kayt knew the answer, and it comforted her: Nimesh would simply rip their face off.