Lilly started to call the wooden-man Stretch. John liked the name enough he adopted it too. John brought Lilly to all the snake-women so she could drain them and strengthen herself in that way as he fulfilled the bargain she made on his behalf to clear New York City of dark ones.
Stretch would go into murder-mode when he caught up to John trying to subdue a snake-woman, and his inability to listen or understand or do as he was told annoyed John greatly. He would have to restrain Stretch while keeping Lilly safe as she fed, and it wasn’t an easy thing to do.
Lilly tried using the mind power on Stretch. It didn’t work. She scanned Stretch as best she could and said, “There’s no mind to touch within Stretch. All constructs have something – either runes running scripts or a processor. This is just wood and some sort of goop holding it together. The only explanation is someone is controlling it from a great distance using some means of telekinesis. But then how does it drain crystals like it does? And how does it have a soul? Constructs can’t have souls. It defies explanation and I’ve never heard of the like.”
And Stretch did drain crystals. Eight of the ones from the snake-women. If John snatched all the crystals up, Stretch would lose his mind until at least one was given to him. Once crystals were hidden from sight or placed in Lilly’s soul storage, Stretch would immediately stop whining.
Stretch advanced to Copper right in front of the couple, and the ascension seemed instantaneous. Neither rank ups nor ascensions were instantaneous. Both events took time and effort, but not for Stretch. And he didn’t need his foundation to settle, or care about his foundation at all. It seemed he became more proficient with draining crystals too, as he was mid-high Copper after he drained all of the snake-women crystals.
John got to use and practice with [Drain Essence]. In his opinion, the spell didn’t drain essence quickly enough, but he just learned the spell and it had plenty of room to grow. The spell also filled his dantian with the essence of his foes. The downside of that was if his foes had weaker essence, his own essence would weaken, but wouldn’t weaken below his [Min. Power].
The snake-women were easily dealt with as they barely tried to unbind and their main power seemed to be a mental one that didn’t work on John, Stretch, or Lilly. The metal discs of the snake-women could no longer pierce John’s skin, and only Lilly had to worry about those.
Once the snake-women were dealt with, they had over two hours before the evac was scheduled to arrive. Both John and Lilly knew Stretch would steal much of their wealth, but they didn’t want to leave all the crystals John earned on the street near the VA hospital.
John and Lilly madly collected all the crystals they could as Stretch drained one after another. The construct needed more and more of the lower-tiered crystals to rank up. Once John and Lilly collected all they could and no more where on the road, Stretch was a mid-low Bronze. John also found his Fireblade.
While the three were collecting or draining crystals, the couple received a World Quest. It was the same message they both received before about Stretch, but this time it was offered to every inhabitant of Terra and included pictures.
Sadly, most humans near the thump ritual were killed. Some people did make their way to the area and asked if things were safe and asked about Stretch and the World Quest. Lilly begged John not to talk to them, so John yelled, “It’s safe,” before grabbing Lilly and jumping onto the roof of the VA, leaving Stretch to do the rest of the talking. Stretch joined them soon after and didn’t seem to find the sight of Lilly drinking John’s blood strange at all. After Lilly was done feeding, she and John talked about the old days, the old cities, the good times they had together.
John assumed they would just get on the helicopter and ride it to DC, but the helicopter wound down and people exited. An older looking soldier approached, one that looked exactly like the type of man Lilly enjoyed toying with. The soldier nodded to Lilly and said, “Meghan. It’s John, right? Colonel Stoddart. You were supposed to fly to DC and have a news conference then meet with President Gillis. Plans changed. The President isn’t flying back.
“She does have a request for you. We tried reproducing the ritual you made. Big operations in Brazil and France. Rituals didn’t work at all, and shit went sideways quick. Sorry about the language, ma’am, but I was told you’re much older than you look, Meghan. I hope I didn’t cause offense, ma’am.”
“Swear all you want, Colonel. I take no offense.”
“Well, those rituals failing made us…we lost some standing, if you know what I mean. The kaiju are really pounding our allies. We need you to fly to France and Brazil and make new ones. Get the kaiju issue handled so we can focus on the demons.”
Lilly smiled widely. “Colonel, I’m most definitely willing to save America’s reputation along with the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians. For the right price, of course. Are you allowed to bargain or is there someone important I should be talking to?”
Lilly told John something like that would happen. John disliked it, and thought it was their duty to help. And the ruler’s duty to give them fitting rewards for their victories. Lilly laughed and got him to consent to let her bargain on their behalf, including on the behalf of Amber and Hubaba. She currently earned three percent of all the crystals farmed from the dark walker she trapped. She said that was only to get them to agree and prove it worked and that they needed her. She would now want much more.
A deal was agreed upon, and John and Lilly boarded the helicopter. Stretch wouldn’t enter the helicopter, instead he jumped back down to the road and ran to a patch of grass and disappeared underground. John wasn’t overly sad to see him go.
John and Lilly flew to a military base where they met up with Amber and Hubaba. Lilly went straight up to the invisible Amber and said, “I’m so sorry for the insults I called you yesterday morning. I haven’t seen my husband in thousands of years, I’m in this child’s body I know he doesn’t find attractive, and he was in the company of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
“It’s hard to control my emotions as I am now. I’m not fully myself yet, and this body’s mind is young and still developing. My jealousy got the best of me. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. And I do hope we can be friends. But, first, I need to thank you for all the times you saved my dope of a husband. If not for you, I’d be a widow at only seven years old. I’m too young to be a widow!”
Both Lilly and Amber laughed. “It’s okay. You’re just adorable. I’m sure you’ll make me look like a toad when you…your body gets…when you, you know, like, when it…when you look my age.” Amber laughed embarrassingly. “Sorry, I couldn’t get that out right!”
John saw Lilly’s hand reach up and hold something, he assumed Amber’s hand, and his wife led Amber onto the waiting plane. As they walked and talked and giggled, accompanied by Colonel Stoddart, John heard Amber ask Lilly, “Why doesn’t John have eyebrows? And how come you can see me?”
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John gave Hubaba a look meant to indicate all women were mad, and he knew Hubaba didn’t understand as the demon just smiled at John very creepily. He held a phone out to John and said, “I am a famous Instagram model now. Let me show you my photos. They’ve only been up for four or so hours as measured on Terra and I already have twenty-two million followers. I ask you to please follow me and like and share.”
John looked at the pictures as Hubaba held out the phone and scrolled through them. While walking up the ramp to board the plane, he stopped short and bid Hubaba to stop too. He asked, “These pictures are meant for others to see? Others you do not know? Including men?”
Hubaba replied, “Yes. And females. All magals of this planet. The more that do, the better. It is the whole point of it. I think the photos came out wonderfully. Notice my new makeup? What this world has for makeup is far superior to what Amber used on Esau. I look very beautiful, though no one has said so in the comments. The drone…what is it called? The movie the drones made of our battle with Second Point’s forces is very popular. Most just thank me in the comments and completely disregard my great beauty.”
An apprehension spread throughout John. “So, Amber made these photos knowing many men would see them? Strangers? She was hoping strangers saw her dressed so and in these positions? Looking as she does?”
“Yes. The two photos of her as a bear were my idea so terrans would know she is the one that battled in the movie they’ve seen. She didn’t want to waste the essence, but I thought it was worth it. We will make longer movies for TikTok. I have more followers on TikTok, but Amber said Instagram is more important for models such as us.”
John felt a strong emotion he couldn’t fully describe. He also felt a little anger, a good amount of disappointment, and some other emotions, including something like jealousy, but not jealousy as he understood it to be. He didn’t understand why Amber would do that on purpose.
John knew Amber was unmarried and would never have a husband, but why she did as she did still didn’t make sense to him. It conflicted with how he saw her and thought her to be.
None of the pictures really showed anything overly untoward, besides one where she showed nearly all her legs. She wore the top of a cultivation robe with a hem that went only to the upper thighs, but not the bottoms that accompanied the top.
John thought all the pictures were as Lilly said – Amber highlighted and purposefully emphasized all that set men’s desires aflame while she smiled sweetly and pretended like she didn’t know that was exactly what she was doing. Like she was an innocent and naive farmgirl unaware of what it did to men to see her so.
Since Amber didn’t have a father to set her straight, John thought about telling her to stop making such pictures or men would think she was loose. He knew it wasn’t his business, and he knew she knew what she was doing and seemed to want men to think that, so he decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
The hand Hubaba held the phone with had the storage ring on one of his fingers. John asked, “Hubaba, why do you wear the storage ring I gave Amber to hold?”
“When you exited the helicopter to fight the dark ones, she handed it to me. She did not seem pleased with you.”
“The ring is mine by right and I’d like it back then.”
John got on the plane and immediately started to meditate, ignoring all around him. He didn’t go deep, and kept an ear out, and listened to his wife charm Amber and Hubaba. She even took turns pulling each into her Mind’s Eye for a quick moment to show them what she looked like during her first life. Amber said, “Oh my God! You’re dressed as Jessica Rabbit, right? You were so beautiful.”
John thought they should’ve spent the time meditating. He wondered why his wife didn’t sleep after saying she was so tired and how important it was for her child’s body.
Once the ring was fully unattuned from Hubaba, John put it on his left hand and attuned it to himself. He checked inside for his shield. He thought about asking Hubaba for the bracer-shield he liked, since his bracer slot was freed up. He decided to just use the shield he had before. It was a good shield and Hubaba looked disappointed when he asked for the ring back, and he didn’t want to anger his friend by asking for equipment back he gave out willingly.
John could unattune an item and planned on doing so to the belt of hiding and re-equipping the belt that increased physical prowess some, but he noticed the bracer in the ring was attuned to him still, and he couldn’t unattune it. He clamped down on his frustration. The bracer could go on either his left or right forearm. He had a hard time deciding which arm would be better. Both had merits.
With his mind wandering back to Amber’s pictures, John decided to hold off on any equipment decisions for the time being. He a few rune ‘points’ to spend but decided he would save them up for a damaging and low essence spray-type spell. He avoided spending time in his Mind’s Eye because all Avatar seemed to care about was Stretch and harassing John to find out everything he could about the strange man-puppet.
At some point, Amber gave John a phone and tried to instruct him on its use, but he told her he needed to fill his dantian, though it was already full.
The four companions arrived in France. The dark walker there headed to Luxembourg after it left Paris, but suddenly stopped and headed south, then stopped and headed west, then north. The military was rushing to get Lilly to draw the trapping ritual before the dark walker reached Châlons-en-Champagne as the plan was to trap the thing south of that city.
Once the dark walker was trapped, Lilly would create a thump ritual outside of Reims and then another outside of Paris, as both places were filled with dark ones. The one in Reims would be powered by the only man on Terra known to have cleared all his dantians, and they were to meet up with him near Châlons-en-Champagne.
Every population has outliers. It was projected that without the aid of crystals it would take most terrans two weeks to clear a dantian, and six weeks to clear all three. The man they were to meet up with, Petar Kostov, a personal driver from Bulgaria, cleared all three dantians in just under six days. And he did it without crystals increasing his speed.
Petar was thin and in his early forties but had all white hair. He had never excelled at anything in his life up until that point.
Hubaba learned how to do the giant ritual needed to trap a dark walker. Dark ones never went in the NetherRealms, and scabs rarely left the NetherRealms, so he knew little of dark ones, but he did know much about rituals, and wanted to learn more. Hubaba then infused the trapping ritual Lilly made since he had the strong and long-lasting essence of a Gold.
The military used helicopters to attack the dark walker and led it directly over the trapping ritual, and many other military members were set up around the ritual and would kill dark ones as they were shed, the same setup used for the dark walker in the US.
John was amazed at the size of the dark walker. It looked to him like a mix between a wyrm of legend and a praying mantis but walked like a man did and its face was on its belly. It stood as high as some of the giant buildings he saw in New York City, and it was filled with vital essence but had no soul. His info function said it was an early-stage, low-grade dark walker.
Then, with Petar, the companions were flown to just outside of Reims to do a practice thump ritual with low-level essence. This thump ritual was a test to see how the event was supposed to go in New York City. It went well, and Petar and the military had no issues killing dark ones as they exited Reims or came from the surrounding area. The dark ones were different from the ones in New York, but the military had knowledge of all known merges. There were no surprises as the dark ones slowly made their way to the ritual.
The companions watched for a time, ensuring the military was able to handle dark ones. None of the companions needed to intervene or help once things got going, so bid farewell to Petar and left for Paris. The G40 wanted footage of normal soldiers fighting back. And highlight footage of Petar fighting, the normal man who did something extraordinary.
After Lilly created a thump ritual south of Paris, she and Amber flew to Brazil to trap the dark walker there.
The military dug in deep near the ritual outside of Paris and had many great machines of war and troops on hand. Paris was filled with dark ones. Like New York City, Paris was overflowing with them, and had many more of them than Reims. Still, many people were alive and sheltering in the city. What happened in New York City was a mistake, but a mistake that could be learned from and its lessons applied purposefully.
Hubaba infused both thump-ball and ritual. The overly powerful thump-ritual was meant to clear all of Paris and the surrounding areas of dark ones quickly. Hubaba was a Gold and deft at both unbinding and protecting against unbinds, and together with John, they were confident they could handle what was drawn to the ritual at any pace, even if the military were absent.
Seven hours later, Paris was mostly free of dark ones. John and Hubaba flew back to DC to meet with President Gillis and to hold a news conference with her.