Easier said than done. While the possessed zombies all had level seventy-something, the flesh golems powered by fragments of my soul reverted to their original levels. Which meant Arista was level one hundred, awesome. Lakerta came second at eighty-two. Snowdrop, seventy, Rosewise, sixty-eight, Apricot, fifty-nine, Alloralla, fifty-seven. But Lily was only level twenty-three. Now that I went through the trouble of giving them the closest thing to life I could, I didn't want to lose any of them. Just to test, they could go into the item box just like any other golem, another proof they weren't truly alive.
The first order of business was to grant everyone that needed it {Dragon Slayer V}. I had a billion HP and Energy and even though making the flesh golems cost me two hundred million permanent MP because of the drop in my Magic score, I still had a lot in the tank.
Rosewise speculated.
The mermaid put her arms akimbo,
Everyone laughed at Arista's dark humor.
Lily sighed and lowered her head.
I flew next to her and raised her chin.
She seemed to cheer up.
The petite teen girl nodded. While we all shared our memories from Earth, our biology and hormonal levels guided our behavior more than we wanted.
I made sure I had a {Spirit Contract} set with each one of them. That would make 5% of all my Exp awards go to them straight away, then the quests and the Exp share. I made a mental note to get a Perk that allowed me to make repeatable quests.
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The Broodmother really wanted us to kill all dragons. The fight was generating an enormous quantity of Faith for her, as the dragons' fervorous struggles increased their Faith and sent that energy to her. More for each dragon we killed and failed to keep the soul from drifting away on her potent pull. My expectations were correct. Only Lakerta and I could keep the dragons' souls from being collected by their deity.
We broke into five groups. M&M with Alloralla and Rosewise went to the frontline, then Nenandil, Lakerta, and Snowdrop with the two weakest members flew around giving support where needed. Arista used her {Spell-song} to control the battlefield buffs, hindering the dragons and supporting the other two. The former [Emperor] was a wildcard, using his [Mastermind] Perks to distract the dragons and make them miss charges, dive into illusions, waste their dragon breath and spells on dummies, and call the shots. His long experience with troop position and battlefield awareness paid off...
Since I couldn't kill the dragons with ranged attacks, I activated my {Lightning Elemental} form and literally zapped from dragon to dragon as I charged, blinked as I stabbed with the spear, killing them one by one in glorious melee combat for the [Emperor]. Which was me, I guess.
It was utter chaos. The dragons would fly up and then dive-bomb one of our parties. In their savage fury, they eschewed any tactics, instead favoring biting or clawing on their flybys. Rosewise kept placing Force walls on their path, to break their charge, their necks, or just divert them from their intended target. Then a stealthed were-cat would pounce on them and {Vorpal Something} their heads off.
The Exp-sharing strategy was working wonders. Lily was almost done with the second rank as Apricot and Alloralla had just reached the third. The loot collection was ridiculous too. Too bad I would die in this fight, or I would equip everyone in Raswaria with enchanted dragon leather boots.
Some souls escaped us, with all the separate fights going on, it was impossible to gather all of them. It felt like one of those scripted events where you had to try and keep as many souls away from the dragon-whore as possible but it wouldn't make much difference in the final outcome.
Or not, because she picked up some speed and was now about ten minutes away. Enraged, she chomped on a red dragon flying next to her and swallowed the poor fellow in three bites. That sent the other dragons as far away from her as possible but she gained even more faith from them.
A deity gained Faith if they were worshipped, no matter the shape such worship took place. Exalted hymns of praise by choirs of children were just as effective as the screaming pleas of mercy from chained victims dragged by their hair to a sacrificial altar. The dragons just assumed it was their fault their goddess was angered and acted to rectify it.
Which meant more suicidal dive-bombing lizards for us.
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This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The first casualty was Lakerta. The dragons focused on the lamia and smashed her from both sides, clawing her tail and trying to pull her apart. I lost sight of Lily for a moment and I almost panicked but then I remembered I didn't need to see her to know her status. The little girl felt fine and Lakerta was one tough snake-lady. Lily reappeared in all her black panther furry glory and literally clawed her way through one of the dragon's neck.
I was mesmerized. It was like looking straight at the past as she did exactly what I would do in her place. She gained three levels from the dragon, breaking past level sixty, ranking up to the third rank, and finally picking a dragon-slaying Class. She spread her fur-covered dragon wings and soared to the next dragon as it tried to chew on the steel-hard scales of the lamia.
The dragon tried to disengage and bite the incoming pest but Lakerta was just playing dead. She sprung to action and wrapped her arms around the muzzle of the dragon as her tail stretched and caught the dragon's wrist in a loop. The wyrm struggled to break free but Lily had reached them already and landed on the dragon's snout. She yowled her angst and went for the eyes. The dragon closed the eyelid but it was useless. With {Dragon Slayer V} boosting her attacks by six hundred percent, she burrowed through the eyelid and into the gigantic eye, shifting into her kitten form as she went inside. The dragon gagged, convulsed, then vanished into the item box, leaving a dragon-winged black kitten covered with brain-gore behind.
Lakerta healed herself and caught Lily in an embrace, smothering the feral kitten in her ample chest. I saved the scene in one map slot and blink-charged at another dragon with my spear.
Mona had finally embraced her spellcaster Class and swapped her greatclub for her staff. She was controlling six giant golden paws as they flew in the air to slash the incoming dragons. The fact she was cackling while she ripped the wyrms apart was unsettling, to say the least. The sun was low in the west and soon it would be night. I worried about Madge who would turn into a were-cat when the moons came out but it would take me more time than we had available to revert her change. Time we didn't have. She didn't seem to mind as she flew around Mona, defending her from any dragons that survived the summoned claws.
Alloralla was with them, in her were-cat form as she pounced from dragon to dragon, softening them when she didn't kill the lizards. She was on the final climb of the seventies but was slowing down as the Exp requirements doubled with each level. From my estimates, all of them would break into the fourth rank at the same time, more or less. It was inevitable when the exp for the next level was almost the sum of the amount required to reach the current level.
But we ran out of time. The Brooding-dudette was less than two kilometers away and the few surviving dragons stayed clear of her path.
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"YOU DIE TODAY, ANOMALY!" The Goddess with several hundred fewer followers screamed.
"You're not wrong, but that will be after I trample over your overgrown butt! Seriously, it would take a Japanese bullet train to fuck an ass that large. You spent seven centuries putting up weight, bitch. And it shows. One of those fat drumsticks can feed a nation for a year! If they don't die of heart attack from all that bad whore cholesterol first!"
> > Contested Charisma test lost.
Damn, it was a good taunt.
She dove. I readied the UK's Spear. She was gaining speed so fast the tips of her wing barbs created trails of condensation behind her. She opened her maw and I wondered if she could eat a small castle with a single bite. Then an ominous brown-purple light gathered deep in her throat. I figured out what it was. If the bitch could have any breath possible, why settle for anything less than disintegration?
Nonetheless, I flew up straight at her. She breathed the beam of disintegration magic straight at me and I parted it with {Tsunami-Splitting Kata}. If my spear wasn't literally indestructible even without the System, it would be gone as the energy split at the tip. I sensed a huge amount of Divinity gathering inside the Brood-cow and then it was all expelled into the environment, rapidly floating up into the sky and vanishing.
I couldn't see but the beam suddenly ended as she banked to the left and rolled out, causing hurricane-force turbulence and blowing me away. I spared a glance the way the party went and saw the group going down and away, westward toward the Imperial Capital. A few dragons gave chase but with seven clones of my previous incarnations and Nenandil with them, I wasn't worried.
As I controlled my spinning form and turned to face the titanic dragon final boss, I noticed a subtle change. Her HP pool had skyrocketed to ten billion and she no longer had any divinity in her. One of her claws held a golden orb, not unlike Pandora on a good day.
Then she shattered her own Divine Core. Another pulse of golden light spread out from her like an Auric Nova, washing above the land and catching every dragon in its path. As it threatened to wash over me, Pandora glowed brightly and a silvery sphere surrounded me, saving me from that terrible fate. The ground only survived because of the sleeping curse. I didn't doubt it would've destroyed everything. Expanding at a breakneck speed, it was about to catch up with the group. I desperately tried to stop it but nothing I tried could affect the halo. It was all the divinity the Broodmother had accumulated in thousands of years plus the sacrifice of all her followers. Even as it killed the creatures not affected by the sleeping curse, it only grew in power.
> > You reached Emperor level 100.
>
> > You gained 3 Attribute Points.
>
> > Ultimate Surpasser granted you 10 Attribute Points.
>
> > You gained 1 point in every Attribute. Attributes above the cap redistributed.
>
> > You have two rank 4 perks.
>
> > For reaching the level cap, you gained 50 Attribute Points.
>
> > You cannot select another (capstone) Perk.
>
> > Your familiar has died. You cannot summon her again for 24 hours.
> * Divine Will (ultra-rare): Add your full Faith Score to Willpower to determine your spells' effects.
> * Faith Pool (very rare): Add half your Faith score to all Resource Pools Main Attribute
>
> Strengthened Health, Attribute-Energy Synergy, and Faith Pool combined into,
>
> * All-Resource Booster (combined): Add half of all Attributes to all Resource Pools' main Attribute.
> Level 100
>
> Strength*: 188+97 (285) - Dexterity*: 188+128 (316) - Endurance*: 188+115 (303)
>
> Mind*: 188+96 (284) - Willpower*: 188+116 (304) - Charisma*: 188+105 (293)
>
> Magic*: 460+123 (583) / 940 - Faith*: 161+38 (199) / 940
>
> Ego*: 188+108 (296) - Luck*: 188+120 (308) - Soul*: 188+120 (308)
>
> HP 1.586.283.635 (15.261.670 HP/s)
>
> Energy 1.655.493.725 (2.690.721 E/min)
The golden wave of Divine energy the Broodmother released killed the last of the dragons and went on, beyond the horizon. Far to the south over Fulgen, a massive pillar of green energy rose and the two powers collided. Divine energy fought divine energy as the green barrier flickered as the golden force tried to push past but steadied itself. The golden halo shattered into thousands of splinters that rained all over the continent, destroying everything it touched. Only the Empire survived because of the curse. My little hack to keep Madge and Mona from being affected by it backfired ridiculously.
Maybe if we hadn't denied her so many dragon souls, Fulgen and the realms beyond wouldn't have survived. I would never know the answer, but I hoped.
Pandora shone with silver light. We were the Goddess of Protection and we wouldn't falter in our Divine Mission. I could hear them. Far to the north, they cowered as the ominous golden light soared to reach and devour them.
"I won't let it," I said and my Word was Truth. "My people can rebuild their land, but they won't be lost."
A beam of silver light instantly connected me to the highland plateau. All my faithful followers, all the people I nurtured and loved were embraced by it and in my Divine Light, they were saved.
> > Raswaria has been destroyed.
The land, not the people. We would rebuild, I swore.
All the power from the kills her halo caused went to her though I denied her my people. The souls of Raswaria came to me and Pandora accepted them in her {Sheltered Hearth} aspect. I grieved for them even though they would be reborn.
The Broodmother was no more. She'd sacrificed her divinity in a mad attempt to kill everything. It also deprived me of my {God-Slayer} bonus. She'd caused the death of millions of creatures and monsters along with thousands of people, including Rhiannon, Marion, and everyone else in Raswaria. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," said the proverb. The massive dragon before me wasn't trying to win, she was doing her best to make me lose. She'd thrown away her brood, her status, her followers, everything. She would self-destruct if it meant defeating me. Not even death would quench her souls' lust for my downfall.
At that moment, I understood and accepted her willingness to kill herself and end her existence once and for all just for the brief satisfaction of avenging her bully of a husband. I let that outrage wash over me and let me reach the same mindset she did. Still unmovable from her spot over my solar plexus, Pandora resonated with my anger and evolved.
> > Your Wisp of Creation gained the Aspect of Divine Vengeance.
>
> * Aspect of Divine Vengeance: Searing Holy Wrath fueled by thousands of innocent victims' screams. Destroy the world, cleanse it in divine flame, and rebuild it anew without the iniquitous.
Guess what? Two can play that game.