Alistair tested out his rusty muscles as he ran through the city. He still felt stiff from his five-day-long coma, but his [Carmela’s Happy Pies] and his substantial amount of Endurance worked wonders. Even after only a few minutes of moving around, he was close to 100%.
Alistair went over his status screen like he was supposed to before he passed out after fighting the Devil Kings. The first thing on the docket was a hefty 225 Upgrade Points to allocate.
A ninth Badge slot would cost 400 Points, while 225 would go a long way for any individual branch of his Talent Trees. But Alistair instead invested them in a Badge—“Deliverance of Justice.”
That put the Skill at 290/500 Upgrade Points to leveling up. As far as he could tell, the Badge refused to grant natural points at a reasonable pace. Like a Skill, “Deliverance of Justice” upgraded itself over their course of ordinary usage, but it was far more stringent than a Skill. But with the requirement of the next Tier jumping from 100 to 500, Alistair assumed that the benefits would be astronomical in kind.
Urgent messages flooded his inbox from a variety of sources. While without a specialized Class one had to enter the Soulnet to receive or send mail, it was possible to spend a hefty amount of drachma to prioritize a message, meaning that it would appear as a notification.
Alistair checked them over, getting a read on the situation. The earthquakes and lava golems affecting the thousand-subregion zone around the capital was mostly dealt with. By slaying the enormous boss golem at the center of the rift, he had reduced the power of the natural disaster and the subsequent aftershocks. His top operatives dealt with the remaining zones in the intervening days. There were still small echoes that popped up every so often, but nothing major.
That left an apprehensive atmosphere over everyone. It was obvious that this was not the end—but no one knew when the next disaster was coming. They were not alone. No area on the planet had been hit with a second storm yet.
But that was just the capital. The outer regions of the Northeast Order Freehold were a massacre. Alistair’s heart dropped as he read that a rough estimate said that almost ten percent of his freehold’s population died in the first assault. It was an unconscionable amount of death and suffering.
The web of seemingly unimportant decisions he had made all led up to this point, where he had been unable to place Land Store protections for his border territories in time. His map of territories was ablaze, thousands of subregions seized by the enemy. Hordes of demon-blooded men and beasts assaulted his lands. And he didn’t even have it the worst.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Dev’rox offered. “Just put a fist through George’s face and everything will be fine.”
“Like that’ll be easy,” Alistair grumbled. He had pushed himself to his limits fighting Dragonus, who was merely the Third Devil King. Oracle had to be stronger than Dragonus, and the leader of the Devil Kings had to be unfathomably powerful.
At least he had Dev’rox to help. The imp was proving to be more than just an auxiliary combatant. In the last fight, he had summoned giant magical arrays that could displace vast quantities of Mana. But perhaps the more interesting development was his ability to swap places with a chosen target. If he had direct eye contact with an object within a twenty meter vicinity, he could snap his fingers and swap places with the target instantly.
Alistair cooked up all kinds of ways he could take advantage of the ability, while also setting goals for himself to grow capable of defeating George Moulin. He still had to gather enough insight to create his finishing Skill. A proto-Domain was also something he had been considering. If George had a proto-Domain himself, it would be difficult for Alistair to win without one.
But as he came upon the collapsed buildings and makeshift rescue centers, all his other thoughts ceased entirely. Despite the long break, [Ghost Whispers] still tingled with remnant spectral energy, filling him with extra power. It was a testament to the scale of the atrocity.
Over half the buildings in the area he ran through were at least partially destroyed, and half of those almost fully destroyed. From the obsidian that stained the pavement and parts of the buildings, it was obvious the rift hadn’t been closed before the lava golems had run rampant.
However, despite all the damages, people remained vibrant. That was how it was these days. Anyone who had survived had lost family, friends, and colleagues. Constant death had become an unavoidable fact of life.
Alistair ignored the streams of air and space Mana that served as their public transportation. They seemed to be fully functional, but he was faster, jumping onto the roofs of the buildings and running at near full speed.
People stood and stared at their fearless leader speeding over the skyline. Alistair’s blood pumped and adrenaline rushed through his body as he became one with the wind. With the airwalking aspect of [Dash], he could shift from a solid starting point through the sky. This wasn't that close to true flight, something that Alistair really wanted. Based on what he knew of the higher realms, even cultivators without wings or fire abilities could fly through their own power at a certain point, perhaps Visionary, he wasn't sure.
He landed on top of a new structure, right where the old headquarters used to be. All signs of a destructive earthquake were gone, including the rubble of the previous building. In its place was a dome that appeared to be made from frosted glass, with one tall spire in the center.
That tower was the antenna of Celesta Mendoza, the head of communications. Alistair could feel her electromagnetic waves oscillate through him, spreading out into the world as she picked up snippets of information from all across the lands.
Alistair chuckled as he saw that the tower served a dual-purpose. There was a chimney at the top, with a small hole. Felix had a sense of humor, knowing his boss was wont to go on aerial escapades. Alistair leaped over half a football field onto the spire, which he had already known was quite tough. The frosted glass material was ambrosic glass, an addition to the Land Store that appeared during his nap, which was even stronger than valyrik.
Hoisting himself down the hole, Alistair already felt the attention of everyone inside the building turn to him. He was used to it by now. All the watching, hopeful, grateful eyes.
The chute led right to an oval office. It was spare, only containing the bare necessities. His most important officers were already in the room, having sensed his presence.
Oliver was the first to speak up. “Look who finally got out of bed? Who would have thought I would be the first one up and going out of all of us.”
“Bah, you were the least injured. Not all of us can have a personal attendant made out of bones.”
There were fewer people than Alistair was expecting; it was only Oliver, Caren, Celeste, and a few of the less physically capable officers.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
“In the field,” Celeste replied, flipping her long, black hair braided into a ponytail. She was obviously still at work even as she talked to him, weird gadgets sticking out of electronic ports all over her body. “We’ve stabilized this region in your absence, but there are still ongoing disasters elsewhere.”
She used her eye beam projectors to show Alistair the situation. Floods, hurricanes, landslides, and wildfires assaulted civilization. He glimpsed some of his allies, like John and Blaise, or Lily and Robert, dealing with the disasters.
“For our three highest population centers, which would be here, Ricciton, and Carmen’s old capital, we have the situation under control. In terms of population, the rifts are under control for 80%, but 20% of the people are still in unevacuated lands.”
“Where is it the worst?” Alistair immediately asked.
“The Wasteland,” she said.
Alistair raised an eyebrow. “Wasteland?”
“I thought you would know that already. You really need to keep up with your geography,” Celeste said, though after realizing how her words could be interpreted, she hastily added, “sir.” “Uh, sorry, the Wasteland is an area across what used to be the western United States, around the Rocky Mountains. It’s over a hundred thousand square miles large, created by the destructive rampage of Vritra.”
“That snake? Shouldn’t be a problem,” Alistair said, remembering the Reptile Emperor. At his pace, he should have leapfrogged the beast entirely.
“Well, he shouldn’t be an issue, regardless. Since the start of [Armageddon], he hasn’t been spotted at all in the Wasteland. His former subjects are going crazy trying to find their master.”
“That figures. They teamed up during the last Quest. I wouldn’t be surprised if George made them Devil Princes… which would be problematic to say the least.” Alistair stroked his chin. “What happened during the Devil Kings’ attack?”
“We weren’t their only targets,” Celeste said. “They hit everywhere. In fact, we probably got off easy compared to Lucius and the United Polities. We still don’t know where Lucius’s whereabouts are. He’s probably dead, and we know for certain Carmen and Richard are dead.”
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“No way!” Alistair exclaimed. While he had his share of difficulties with the Spanish mage, he never even imagined that she would have died. Come to think of it, it was the first death of a top 10 ranker that he knew of for certain, besides Anthony. “Are you positive they’re dead?”
“The Devil Kings posted a video on the Soulnet with their bodies. I can you show you, if you want. Oracle publicly took responsibility.”
“How crude,” Alistair muttered. “So Oracle is the one in charge now?”
“Correct. She seems to have taken over Dragonus’s duties as the primary Devil King active in the world. And from what we’ve seen, she’s far stronger than Dragonus. Her abilities include Karmic cultivation and its resulting control over Fate, prognostication, and bodily puppeteering.”
“Bodily puppeteering?” Alistair knew those other two powers, but the third was new to him.
“Based on your sister’s research and your needle, we now understand that all Devil Kings have a level of control over anybody they give their blood to. But her control goes far beyond that.”
Celeste changed her eye hologram to a fuzzy video of Oracle. She had long black hair and tan skin, her eyes green pools of fire. That made them similar to Alexandra’s, but Alistair felt like the true Devil King had a more sickly, evil hue, slightly lighter and less welcoming.
In the footage, Oracle looked like a mad marionettist, forcing a group of people to dance via slim green strings attached to her fingers.
“I see. I’ll keep an eye out for that. Anything else?”
No one else had anything to say, so they adjourned the meeting there. Oliver stayed after to catch up with Alistair.
“How’s everything going?” Alistair asked. It felt like he hadn’t talked to the Necromancer in forever. Oliver was an important asset of the freehold, and he had his own missions and tasks.
“Good,” Oliver said, reclining in his chair as one of his zombies fed him potato chips. “Goddamn, it always feels like you’re two steps ahead of me. Just feeling your aura now is sickening.”
“What can I say—I’ve been lucky.”
“Luck’s something to do with it, that’s for sure,” Oliver jabbed. “But we’re not even in the same category, so who cares. I’m a support, and you can bet I’m the best support in the world.”
Oliver gave a thumbs up. “You like my new trick I used in the fight with the sword in the portal? Got the idea from G—nevermind, you probably wouldn’t know it.”
“Guess I’m not cool enough for that,” Alistair shrugged. “But I did think that was a really neat idea. You’ve been practicing it?”
“For sure,” Oliver said. “I have tons of weapons in storage now. I was the one who brought the idea to the build manual, but the build manual adapted fast and it helped me unlock a plague-related Talent Tree. So now I can throw my corpses on people and infect them with virulent plagues.”
“Remind me to never piss you off.”
“You’re headed out to the Wasteland now? Mind if I join?” Oliver asked, doing his best to sound innocent despite his aura of pure death.
“Yeah, I was just about to. You don’t have anywhere to be?”
“Nah, remember I just got out of the hospital, too. I’m itching to fight again. I have to replenish my zombie stores after Admiral re-killed most of them. Is Alexandra going to come too?”
A lonely image of Alexandra sitting on the meadow entered his mind. She was still dealing with the effects of her transformation.
“Let’s give her some time.” Alistair brushed off some dust from his shirt. “Wait,” he said, looking down at his outfit. It wasn’t his Mammothskin Raiment, but a white hospital gown. “Where’s my robe?”
----------------------------------------
It turned out that Felix, the weapons master and crafter, had seen Alistair’s torn raiment and wanted to improve it. And so he had.
Alistair gingerly accepted the folded outfit from the Kenyan man. His work was only getting better, the clear mark of a crafting Dao imparted within his clothing.
“I gave them a little extra.” Felix smiled.
“I can see that,” Alistair replied. The fluffy and somewhat cumbersome robes now looked sleek and sexy. Black with laminated dark gray trims, it still retained its characteristic puffy cuffs and collar that felt nice and cozy against his skin. But more than the appearance, its nature changed. When he scanned the item, it had skipped all the way from Uncommon to Legendary rarity.
“For general protection, it’s better than anything that’s not been specially crafted or dropped by a Quest. The heat and cold insulation should be more than doubled, and it will heal itself as long as you’re wearing it. You’d have to completely demolish it in order to break it.”
“Thank you,” Alistair said, unfolding the item. There was a badge sewn onto the area above the heart that he noticed. An insignia of a tri-colored fist of gold, coral, and baby blue that made him grin uncontrollably. It was his freehold’s emblem, a visual representation of his path. The badge’s three colors were that of his three Dao Nodes. “That’s a nice touch.”
“You did my boots too?” Alistair asked, seeing his Fall of Fleet on the crafter’s worktable.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot,” Felix said, grabbing the pair of boots. “There’s not much you can do for an item like that, but I added a jumping effect which complements the falling. You should be able to jump around twice as high now. Good luck on your journey, sir. I should be getting back to work now. Have a stack of spears as tall as this building to take care of.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t want to hold you up.”
Alistair took in a last look of admiration at Felix’s workshop. It was a hot, humid chamber full of bronze machines and steam that rose up for stories and stories. There was a conveyor belt that slithered around the room, containing everything from fully finished products to mere prototypes. It made Alistair bashful to see such genius. He had one skill—fighting.
Though perhaps Karma can count for another skill, Alistair bargained. When he wasn’t in combat, his positive Karma sat unused within him. All that accrued merit going to waste, since his natural regeneration would have gained it back, anyway. He decided to burn a little over his regeneration rate, just to see what it would do. Maybe he would get lucky.
Alistair hummed over some ideas for other talents he could develop as he walked out of the workshop. Talents as in actual talents, not from the Talent Tree. Singing or playing an instrument would be nice. There had to be cultivator musicians thousands of times better than a mortal could ever be.
He headed straight for the nearest Teleportation Circle, when Dev’rox whispered in his ear, “Watch out.”
Alistair snapped to attention, his [Fighter’s Instinct] taking over. The Skill was his highest Tier, at 4, and even close to upgrading once more. But he was too late to intercept the attack.
By attack, he meant a girl stabbing him. The rusty knife shattered upon hitting his robe, the young girl falling over. Alistair grabbed her hand before she hit the ground, hoisting her up. She immediately began to cry.
Dev’rox snickered and commented on his failure to detect her. “Looks like that confirms my theory of how a danger sense would react to a weakling.”
Alistair focused his attention on the girl, impressing a light amount of his aura. Not enough to be harmful, but enough to impress his power upon her.
“What is this?” he asked.
“You killed my mom!”
Tears ran down the girl’s face. A quick [Eyes of Truth] revealed her name to be Julia. Looking at her closely, she wasn’t as young as he initially thought, maybe about ten or eleven.
“Julia, you can’t go around stabbing people. Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I know you,” she said in between sobs. “You killed my mom!”
“Sweetie, what are you talking about?” Alistair asked.
“You left us behind. My mommy got stuck under rocks in that cave. We were trying to get her out. Daddy was calling for you to help, but you ran away. But then Daddy let her die too.”
Alistair started to piece together what the girl was talking about. It had to be from when he fought Johnny Choi, the fire wielder that attacked when he was evacuating the tunnels. The shelter partially collapsed, killing some and trapping others under the debris. Alistair didn’t have enough time to go back and save everyone, as he already had to deal with everyone else who was fleeing.
From what he parsed, Julia’s mom got trapped under the rocks, and her family tried to get her out. Most likely, after seeing the futility of their task and the imminent danger of the situation, her father had picked her up and fled.
“Where is your daddy?” Alistair asked her.
“He’s dead too,” she said, more solemnly than he thought possible for a girl of ten. “In the earthquake.”
Alistair was at a loss for words for a moment. Thoughts raced through his mind. Should he try to defend his actions, which he didn’t regret? Should he apologize, empathizing with Julia?
“Who are you living with?” Alistair ended up on.
Julia pouted and tried to run away, but he kept his grip on her hand. Eventually, she relented and answered. “Ms. Richards with the other kids who don’t have parents anymore.”
“And what would Ms. Richards say about you stealing a knife and trying to stab someone?”
“I don’t know,” she said with some attitude.
Alistair raised an eyebrow, waiting for a proper response.
“I guess she’d say that you shouldn’t do that. But she’s not my mom.”
“She’s the closest thing you have to a mom now,” Alistair retorted. From the way she flinched a little, he could tell that statement got to her. “Everyone’s lost someone by now. My mom is gone. We have to cling to what we have left. I’m sorry about what happened to your family, but I didn’t kill them. They did.” He pointed at the sky. “And I won’t rest until they’re gone. Does that make you feel better?”
“No,” she said.
“I didn’t think it would. You can blame me if you want, but I think we both know that’s not what you really feel. You’re not stupid. You knew that you wouldn’t hurt me at all, I wager. What do you really want?”
Alistair peered into the vicissitudes of Fate as he drew upon his Karma to look at the girl. It was his first time utilizing Lesser Samatha, which allowed him to see inner truths. What he saw was a person with vast potential. A temperament not so dissimilar to his own, in fact.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. In Alistair’s vision, he could see that she wished to say she wanted her parents back. But even at her young age, Julia knew that was impossible, a juvenile dream befit of a toddler.
She said she didn’t know, but as Alistair looked into her soul, he felt a change.
“No more messing around,” Alistair said. As he was talking, he barely picked up a quiet sound of chattering children in the distance. “If you stab people, you go to jail. You know that, right? Even if they can’t be hurt by it. Go back to Ms. Richards and behave yourself.”
Alistair let go of her hand and sent her off. He wasn’t sure if he had done the right thing. Then again, he wasn’t expecting an attempted assassination from a ten-year-old girl.
“I say you should have smacked her,” Dev’rox said. “Just send her flying in the air. Regicide is punishable by souldeath where I’m from.”
“Forgive me if I don’t model my society based on Hell,” Alistair shot back. “Offense intended.”
“Touché.”
Alistair decided to take the public streams instead of running on the rooftops, not wanting to receive unwanted attention. The tunnels of space and air Mana were quite efficient and brought him back to the headquarters in no time.
Alistair snuck through the building with the Dao of the Ghost. While the ambrosic glass was naturally resistant to both Mana and the Dao and they had extra enchantments, Alistair didn’t need to walk through walls. He passed through every point like a normal person, but no one saw him.
He unveiled himself right in front of the Teleportation Circle room. There were five of them in a row, with enough space in between them for a group of people to get on or off at once.
Oliver was waiting for him, and in fact, he had his eyes locked straight for where Alistair was even before he uncloaked.
“Ghost is similar enough to death. I could feel you,” Oliver explained. “Let’s go.”
Alistair looked at the directory near the entrance, finding the one that would bring him closest to the Wasteland. Many of the options were grayed out in the aftermath of Earth Asunder.
He pressed his destination and stepped on to the platform with Oliver and closed his eyes. The blue light of the circle washed over him. The city was nice, but it felt cramped. In the wilderness, he was truly free.