Back at the capital, we spent the rest of Spring with social functions and visitors. More like solicitors, as the nobles tried to get me to join this or that faction, or make me take their daughters as my concubines.
By summer, news of House Nelwell’s fate reached us. The fief was razed to the ground and nobody survived. Seyham wasn’t attacked and my young hostages traded letters with their families every week. The impact of the Matriarch’s miracles was hot gossip around the Capital and a few temples decided to embark on a crusade to retain their importance. More like their donations as they had little divinity to spare. I recalled my [Priests] in the capital (except the three living with me) and told all of them to pilgrimage to Seyham.
Whatever that stupid invading Pantheon was doing, they surely were neglecting the world. Moral fiber decayed as a result. The only silver lining was that the world had zero cheaters, I mean [Saints] at the moment.
But the temples’ reaction was troublesome. These priests had a lot of influence and they were using that to get the Empire to shun the Matriarch’s church. I decided they were to be eliminated. However, doing it myself might cause some ill will between me and the deities. Despite caring little about them, I still cared a bit so I delegated it to Leodec and the rebuilding Assassin’s Guild. I hired them to kill every priest in the Capital. It cost a lot but it was money well spent.
I prepared to lead the expedition that would take us to Raswaria. Some of the soldiers would drive the black wagons there, pretending we were inside while I would take everyone via the {Sanctuary Gates}. I knew some nobles would try to stop the wagons but the drivers could call me if anything happened.
The families I took from Nelwell were well-adapted to the underground town. Their reception of the news regarding their former masters’ fate was bittersweet. On one hand, they’d won the survival lottery, on the other hand, they had people and relatives they knew and loved.
*
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I fast-traveled to Raswaria and set a fairy ring in a forest in a valley to the south of the plateau. With that, everything was set to complete the quest. Flying high above the surface, I paused a bit to see the sunset. It was every bit as beautiful as Rhiannon said. I wish everyone was here to see it. But the Universe had other plans for me.
> > Beware, your ancient foe has descended from the heavens. Fight well, for only one of you will remain.
Ominous as fuck and also true. I felt a wave of outrage wash over me. Why did this stupid dragon bitch choose to descend now? What did she expect to get? She had another three centuries to prepare, dammit!
I used {Tree Stride} to quickly move back to the capital. It was faster than flying through the Ethereal and allowed me to sample the state of the land every time I surfaced inside a tree.
A horde of dragons poured from the Wyrmspire mountains. It bloated and devoured the noon sky, like a swarm of insects but impossibly away. Tens of thousands of dragons cast a shadow over the Empire.
I felt like one of those movie zoom effects as the land blurred underneath me without moving. Then I saw her.
Towering over the swarm, a wingspan reaching hundreds of meters in each direction, radiating Divinity, the Brood-Whore soared. Our eyes met and I could feel her promise to eradicate me and everything I held dear.
At least Windemere and other places would be dragon-free for another three centuries. I expected her to delay her descent until she could send her minions to attack those places and distract me. I even discussed contingencies with Marlowe.
“Fate has bound us, Anomaly!” She screeched from an impossible distance.
She was right in front of me. Standing on top of a mountain, I called for my spear and it came to me. The [Unicorn King] agreed that the dragon goddess had to die.
“My daughter Snowdrop,” The fae noble clopped next to me. “The dragons feasted upon the world’s magic and engorged themselves. Beware, they are ready to sacrifice themselves to empower their goddess.”
“That’s madness!” I protested, clopping my hooves on the stone we stood on. My tails flailed wildly along with my raging emotions. “I should fight her, not an entire species!”
“This world deserves its freedom back,” Nenandil said on my other side. “You will be the one who will set us free. That’s why I pledged myself to be one with your soul, my love.”
“Hear hear,” The Unicorn King proclaimed. “The fairy speaks the truth. Though the Trickster brought you here for his own reasons, Fate has another plan. You are worthy, my daughter.”
I looked up and saw the three moons decorated by the starry sky, their light combining with a pretty Cyan. It was an event that happened only once every twelve years, the conjunction of the three full moons. When my powers were at their biggest. She was a fool to descend this early. Wait, wasn’t it dusk when I looked at Raswaria?
“I will teach you to unlock the full power of my spear,” the ancestor of all equine creatures said.
I looked at the Unicorn King. “You are not supposed to be here. You died.”
“So did you, many times,” he chuckled. “But I guess we are running out of time.”
Nenandil snickered, “At least you didn’t destroy a city this time. Wake up!”
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I stood up with a spinning head and short of breath. Me, short of breath. I focused and calmed my magic, then took in my surroundings. Madge was softly purring-snoring next to me and {Detection} told me everyone was fine and no dragons were within range. I had wasted all of Spring with social interactions and networking.
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She blew me a mental raspberry and went silent.
I was running out of time. This was not about Percival’s social life, this was about the fate of the world. Fixing the Empire could wait. I had to take the stage and kill a goddess.
An idea came to me. I could hit the level cap by using the two high-level [Princes] as Exp donors. Kidak was level 93 while Gwillim was level 87 when they died.
I left the bed and went to the underground workshop behind the Secret Garden. To keep them from suffering, I enchanted two stone tables to anesthetize and sedate anyone strapped to them. Then I placed one on each and raised them from the dead. It would take three days to finally farm enough Exp out of them to reach the level cap. After I had enough Exp for level 100, I purified both souls and granted them a few advantageous perks. {Head Start III} and {Skill Prodigy} would help them in their new lives. With a clean conscience, I sent them on their way to the wheel of reincarnation.
> You reached Amina Lancer (5-fused, ultra-rare++++) level 20.
>
> You gained 3 Attribute Points.
>
> Ultimate Surpasser Granted you 9 Attribute Points.
>
> You gained 2 Strength, 3 Dexterity, 2 Endurance, 2 Mind, 3 Willpower, 1 Charisma, 3 Magic, 2 Ego, 1 Luck, and 1 Soul.
>
> You gained 2 rank 4 Perks.
>
> Congratulations, you reached the level cap. As a bonus, you gain an extra 40 Attribute Points and may choose one Capstone Perk.
>
> You gained the Perk, The Four-Leaf Clover (capstone): You bend the laws of causality. You gain +10 Luck and the ability to turn one bad event on its head, one time per day, plus another time for every 50 points of Luck. You do not choose when this Trait triggers.
Look at that, some freebies at the level cap. Forty Attribute Points were a very welcome. With these two last Perks, I think I should go for some endgame spear techniques.
* Thousand Thrusts (ultra-rare): Your spear attacks multiply into one extra quasi-real attack for every 30 points of Dexterity and may target these attacks at multiple enemies in range. Defense takes a -50% penalty. Regardless of how many attacks connect, you deal damage only once to each target, an automatic critical with 100% bonus damage. You can use this perk once every 20 seconds.
Despite the wordy description and totally misleading xianxia name, this basically stymied the enemy’s defenses, giving me an instant critical strike with great accuracy. And I could use this to finish several foes at once. The cooldown was problematic but I shouldn’t use it every time it was off cooldown anyway. The enemy would catch up with this and focus on evasion at the moment I trigger it. But it was perfect for a finisher when I could not miss.
I browsed the list. Imbue elemental attacks were something I could do on my own, Conjuring hundreds of spears to rain down on an area was also a non-issue for me, what I needed was a raw damage multiplier with some fancy attachments.
* Spear Soul (ultra-rare): Imbue your soul into your weapon, gaining (Soul)% Accuracy and (3*Soul)% extra damage. You deal 25% damage to the target’s Special non-MP resource as well. You can damage targets immune to normal weapons. Your weapon gains 50 points of hardness while this Perk is active. Any damage to your weapon deals 100x damage to you. It costs 1% of your SP pool per minute. The use of this Perk cannot be concealed.
When it says this Perk cannot be concealed, it is because of the visual effects. An aura of raw killing intent was attached to the spear and it enveloped the weapon with a visible halo. It was impossible to not notice it. Next was the SP cost. That one percent per minute meant nine million Energy for me. It was a heavy cost but since the damage bonus scaled with Soul, it was worth it. Damaging the spear was a non-issue since I would use it with the indestructible [Unicorn King Spear]. At my current Soul Attribute, it would deal 856% more damage and it wasn’t additive with Strength the way the Dexterity bonus was, which was very good.
> Level 100
> Strength*: 170+97 (267) / 188 - Dexterity*: 180+128 (308) / 188 - Endurance*: 170+115 (285) / 188
> Mind*: 170+95 (265) / 188 - Willpower*: 188+115 (303) - Charisma*: 188+104 (292)
> Magic*: 188+97 (285) - Faith*: 119+12 (131) / 188
> Ego*: 188+107 (295) - Luck*: 148+119 (267) / 188 - Soul*: 149+119 (268) / 188
> HP 821.260.724 (12.035.419 HP/s)
> Energy 936.737.502 (1.647.519 E/min)
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I was running out of time. What I needed to do was to make sure my people were safe, and ignore these stupid Byzantine political games of the Empire. When the dragons arrived, it wouldn’t matter unless I was the [Emperor]. And then only to get a bit more power to fight back the dragons.
“Madge, wake up. We have an urgent situation,” I shook my wife.
She stretched lazily and blinked some of the sleep away, “What’s happening?”
“We are moving to Raswaria today. Everyone, we are abandoning this Place.”
She hugged me, pressing her breasts against my arm as she rubbed the back of my neck, “What happened?”
I sighed. “A horde of dragons will come to destroy the Empire. I told you about my fight with the dragon goddess, didn’t I?”
“But that’s three centuries from now!” She protested. “What changed?”
“I think she grew tired of waiting, or she doesn’t want me to get more powerful. I don’t know. I’m opening the {Sanctuary Gates} and moving everyone inside. Let’s go.”
I helped her suit up in her armor, then we parted ways. I went to wake up the servants and get them ready while she went to wake up Mona and the other women in the private wing. In half an hour, I had everyone in the throne room.
I summoned the red torii behind me. “Everyone inside. You don’t need to carry your belongings, I’ll take the Palace with me.”
They gave me puzzled looks but everyone obeyed. Rhiannon and Mona stopped next to me. Madge had explained the gist of it to them but they seemed to want to talk.
“You’ll explain everything to me later, won’t you, my son?”
“I will, mom. Tonight, we’ll sleep in Raswaria and I’ll be its new King.” I hugged them. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. Though you have another place to go, I have to hurry. It’s going to get cramped in there because I’ll take everyone from the underground too.”
The servants entered and I closed the gates. Madge, Mona, Marion, Amina, Rhiannon, and the Seyham sisters went to the Refuge with Nenandil via the tree I had in my apartment.
I used {Shadow Warp} to move to the underground town. Issuing everyone a Quest to evacuate the settlement (I had no other use for Exp now that I was at the cap), I gave each family a minor storage ring from the ones Haru crafted back in Windemere when she was training Enchanting. That allowed them to quickly gather their belongings and enter the gate. Two hours later, I emptied the cavern and removed any trace of enchantments. I did the same with the underground farm where the Peapura and Silk Cattle lived after we had to remove them from the surface. The sanctuary was packed as I expected but soon we would be in Raswaria.
I cleaned every underground chamber and removed the Secret Garden by cutting it from the planet with Force barriers then sending it to the item box. I did the same with the whole palace, by cutting straight down close to the walls on the outside, then horizontally at a depth of thirty meters. It vanished, leaving me standing on a Force platform and a bunch of stupefied Imperial servants on the outer wall (the one they built when we were shut inside).
I should’ve turned invisible before I stored the Palace but I didn’t remember to. I activated it anyway and went to the nearest tree. From there, I did exactly as in the dream. Hopping from tree to tree, I moved roughly forty-two kilometers with each teleport. Seventy-two jumps later, each taking around five seconds because I stopped to scan around each tree, I was at the foot of the Raswaria Highlands.
The Empire wasn’t kind when they destroyed the whole country. After they burned everything, their Mages conjured a deluge of seawater and let it evaporate with the heat, leaving a crust of salt behind. In the twelve years since then, nothing grew here.
But the place wasn’t deserted. The former inhabitants rose as undead. Raswaria’s capital, Planitisburg, became a necropolis. The burned dead shambled around in a mockery of real life. Thick Blight covered the area, making it most unwelcome for the living. They seemed mindless and I went to the geometric center of the city, intent on cleansing it.
As I landed on the square and prepared to use the Manastorm to cleanse the dead, I saw a pair of red eyes staring at me from a shaded building. Shadow magic gathered in there, protecting whatever dwelled there from the sunlight.
I felt a pulse of primal, unstructured Blood magic. The way a monster would. I immediately thought of vampires. A magic circle sprung before me and I intended to vaporize the building and dispel the Shadow magic. If it was really a vampire, it would expose him to the deadly rays of light.
“Wait! Hold your fire, Your Highness,” a well-modulated male voice came from the shadows. “I mean you no harm!”
His words seemed sincere and I was pretty sure he couldn’t bluff to me. I spent one of the daily charges of {The Leader} to make sure of it. I paused my diagram drawing, holding the incomplete circle. I remembered Alloralla when she wandered the Labyrinth (called Dungeon at the time). I had nothing to fear from a vampire.
“Who are you?”
“A vampire seeking to recruit some sentient undead to my cause,” he answered. “I’m sorry if I don’t go to meet you but I’m rather trapped in here.”
I surrounded the building with a bubble of Force that extended below ground and blocked teleportation with {Dimensional Stability Aura}. Walking through the boundary with {Force Phasing} I made it opaque. It also became pitch dark but I believed neither of us needed light to see.
“Dispel your Shadow magic. I blocked the sunlight.”
“I am at your mercy, my [Prince],” The vampire said and walked out.
Nobody could tell he was one by his looks. He was a bit pale but he looked like a healthy adult man, in his forties on Earth years. He wore a gambeson with some heraldry I didn’t identify, trousers, and had an arming sword on his waist. A dark red embroidered cloak finished his outfit.
> > Level 74 male vampire [Undead Lord].
His Class was like a [General] but specialized in commanding undead. “I am Vladimir Kolaczenko at your service,” The vampire bowed with perfect etiquette.
“Percival, [Imperial Prince].”
He seemed afraid of me but it could be an act. Here on the blight, he was greatly strengthened. But then again, I could just drop the barrier and he would burn.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. I’m willing to attempt to buy my way out of here if you are open to negotiations. I don’t believe I could win against you, with the power I sense in your blood. I’d rather not die, again, today.”