Chapter 56: The Seven
“Welcome to Atlas, Sovereign,” The bull-man sneered arrogantly. “It seems that you have managed to gain control over many of the capitals on the planet. Our communications with our people spread across the globe have ceased or occasionally provided startling news. I see you are human. Typically, I can view the stats and skills of those around me. But with you, I get static and blank screens. Before we fight to the death, tell me what your end goal in the Subsystem was. I will remember your goal even as it dies with you.”
“Greetings, to you as well,” Trint nodded his head slightly as a show of respect. “In answer to that question I have one singular focus and to get there I will hopefully help you and the others here while I accomplish it…” He was interrupted before he could say more.
“How gracious of you! The conquering savior then,” Condescension and contempt dripped from the Bull-man. “Surely you can’t hope to win. I am equal to many in the System’s i2 and often those in iteration 1. How do you plan to challenge me let alone the other six?”
“As I was saying, my goal is to see my family again. They are in System iteration 1. I will get to them someday and I don’t intend to waste time getting there. As to how I intend to beat you, I simply have a singular advantage over you while in the subsystem. I will exploit that but do so with grace and am willing to let you live. I will allow you to govern as you have if you submit to my overall rule. In exchange, I offer freedom from the System trials and access to Spirit while here. I imagine you are also familiar with Spirit and Soul power when you enter the System trials. I have seen others of your level and power gain that same access while here. But before I grant that power you will need to agree to a System contract.”
“You are young Sovereign, and we hardly think you can outmatch any of us, so we have chosen the least of us to battle you in single combat, to the death. Good luck, we will happily take up your rule after you are gone.”
Unsheathing two battle axes a reptilian humanoid dressed in full plate armor stepped around the right side of the other leaders.
“What is your name?” Trint asked of his challenger.
“You don’t need it; you won’t be here to speak it. Why waste time on introductions? But you may know weapons, they are Swift and True. They will grant you a quick and final rest.”
The male lizard dashed forward and leaped at Trint with surprising speed. agility was higher than anyone Trint fought before. Trint had been gaining levels rapidly while the rest of the world’s population loyal to him raised their professions and class levels. His 10% harvest of all that Exp was netting him incredible gains. He had been too busy to bother assigning his unspent stats, so he was outmatched by orders of magnitude. The only saving grace at this moment was that the abundance of Spirit was a boon to his processing power. He was godlike in his connection to the Spirit surrounding everything. The very air and every molecule in the Subsystem were infused with it. Unfortunately for the others, they were reliant on their skills and stats and not on the greater power of Spirit or Soul.
Trint had but to flex his will and quicker than and thought the executioner’s exceptional speed was instantly stopped as if he was frozen in time. He hung suspended now fixed, unmoving save for a tiny bit of movement that allowed his chest to intake a little breath.
“Now I know this seems unfair as it is not available to you yet, but I have complete control over this realm’s resources. I can sense the movement of everyone here. Yes, you are higher level than me and have great stats. But they are of no use to you if you cannot breathe.”
Trint willed the very air in the seven leaders' lungs to freeze. Not a single molecule of life-giving oxygen entered through their lungs. They were now trying to gasp, a couple clutched at their throat, and the bull-man just stared with incredible rage. Trint didn’t know how long they could go without air and knew this was just a display of power that might frighten them but wouldn’t end the encounter. So, he used his control over the Spirit and lifted them three feet in the air. Pushing the lizard man back towards the other six.
“What say you now?” Trint asked, not arrogantly but with confidence in the situation.
Suddenly Trint sensed nearly 50 archers drawing back their bowstrings. All arrows aimed at him, from all angles. In a single moment, Trint decided to take the hit rather than just stop them. He was overdue for a fight but didn’t want to kill them. Summoning his armor and Alpha form he rose in height to nearly ten feet and outfit his form in gold and black armor, topped with his crown of flowing gold.
The arrows flew, as Trint allowed, but they all bounced off his Spirit armor. Their highest-level archers stood in awe. With the leaders suspended and suffocating, Trint decided to continue the discourse.
“I say again, what now?” His voice boomed and sent chills down the spines of all present. Only a few archers bothered shooting again after the first volley resulted in nothing more than wasted arrows. Trint released the leaders' lungs to breathe but tightened his pressure holding them in place. Making it both uncomfortable and infuriating for them. The former seven powerful in the Subsystem were reduced to immobile floating puppets.
“Why don’t you fight us without the Spirit?” The bull sneered.
“Would you fight me without your arms and legs?” Trint challenged. “Why would I give up my advantage? It is a part of me as connected as your arm. I could destroy this city and all in it. But I don’t wish any here to die. I am here to set you free. I ask only for cooperation. Therefore, the contract is necessary and a part of the process. I promise in the contract to not abuse my power, but I don’t want to see division or others harm those I free. I am offering a chance to level both new and powerful skills, professions, and classes.”
“Ha,” the bull spit out a contemptuous laugh, “How can you match what we have fought to level and advance for millennia? How can you even begin to offer anything other than your freedom to System trials? Even then, don’t you know that many of us benefit from those same trials? If you want to help us leave. We have things under control with our current system and rulers.”
“I’ve tried to reason with you. I will continue to discuss this but know that I am not giving you the option to stay and rule without submission to my rule. If you refuse, I will banish you. If you rebel or fight my people, I will have you killed. I would rather have you join me.”
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“Join you doing what? Ruling a city, we already ruled but now under your command?”
“Yes, but I will also give you the option to join me as I leave this planet?”
“How? And where are you going?”
“The temples and the System, indicate that if I capture and command the Prime temples on the planet, I will have access to teleport to the other planets in the Subsystem.”
“That can’t be possible,” the leaders all spoke their surprise.
“Now I offer you the contract to consider but for you seven I will not free you till you sign this contract or a nonaggression contract. Either way, you will not move till you sign one or the other. I will leave you to discuss.”
Trint staying in his Alpha emperor form took to the sky slowly at first then accelerating swiftly. He arrived shortly at the tower. He sensed that his people were all covered in their armor and surrounded by the city and temple guards. Trint froze the guards in place. Then sent the same contracts to everyone in the Atlas territory, including the present guards.
“Pneuma, please send the video of my encounter with the seven leaders to the territory inhabitants.”
“Of course,” The video went out. Within a few minutes, the guards in front of Trint one by one began agreeing to the contract and terms. After agreeing they were given new instructions. And the 24-hour countdown to their transformation began. That timer would also be the first deadline to accept. But within a day all would either accept or become foreigners in all of Trint’s claimed domains.
“Let us secure the temple and make our necessary adjustments. Would you do the honor?” Trint asked Pneuma. Nodding in agreement, the old temple guards were lifted forcibly and removed from the temple, exits were sealed for the remodel and Trint’s entourage relaxed as their armor retracted to their chest pieces.
“That went about as expected. I suppose it is time to finish our conquest of the planet,” Trint smiled, surveying his group.
Trint flew off the ground and rose till he was in a good position to create another Throne. Instead of a throne, he created a table and chairs like what he imagined an Arthurian king’s court would look like if it was crafted in Spirit to accommodate his team of advisors and friends. It lacked the famous round table but was made to resemble three interlocking circles with a triangle running to the center of each circle.
Pneuma initiated Trint’s Sovereign claim over the temple. As the final temple of the planet was claimed Trint’s entire being was flooded with new energy. With all his team surrounding him, he was uncontrollably drifting into the air as his body became translucent with an internal light flooding out of his body.
All of Trint’s attention was focused inward. His external body seemed to shine with light as the surrounding environment began drawing Spirit from the entire planet. At every temple connection, Trint had claimed over the planet Spirit condensed and flooded toward the temples and teleportation locations.
In Atlas Temple, the enclosed area was bombarded with so much Spirit the others with Trint were being buffeted by the Spirit density swirling around them. They would have been swept up or even destroyed by this overwhelming power if not for there being a tightly condensed stream flowing the Spirit into Trint, bypassing everything else.
Internally his Spirit Plane was a vortex spreading high above and far beyond Trint’s normal area of control. Trint’s channels were burning, and his core was growing but after reaching a sphere diameter of ten inches it stopped expanding and began to grow in mass and density. The surface of the core developed cracks, the cracks splintered and with a grinding sound that turned to that of cutting glass, the core shifted its shape. It transformed to mirror the image of his external cage. There were pentagons and hexagons. Trint felt led to try to align the internal cage and the core. He felt his control over Spirit increase, and he slowly turned his core into alignment. With great effort and force of will the core turned, millimeter by millimeter. When the core finally shifted Trint’s will had reached near exhaustion, but the vortex of Spirit had only grown with no place to go the vortex increased further in diameter, density, and velocity. The swirling tornado suddenly stopped when the core fell in perfect alignment.
Like an inverted mountain, the vortex stood frozen, but a flood of the world’s Spirit continued to increase in the Spirit plane. The frozen vortex began to turn to liquid then to a slurry then more and more solid. Flowing like a glacier. Even now the solid was gaining mass and density.
All the while Trint felt the weight of the Spirit bearing down on him. The mountain of Spirit rested on his core, and he was feeling sick, exhausted, and uncertain. His Spirit form most often relaxed was now forced onto his knees. The weight of the mountain bearing down on his back and threatening to crush his core and very being. Whatever was happening he didn’t understand and yet he felt a hunger from his core. In some new way, he felt a voice speaking to him. But it didn’t sound like Pneuma. It was a faint thing. As if a child distantly crying for help.
Trint strained to hear the call. As if delayed understanding finally clicked, he used his Spiritual strength and power in this place to pull with all his core. It was like lifting a weight that was just heavy enough that you can’t quite get it off the ground. The resistance was stretching him, he felt like an unknown spiritual muscle would tear if he pushed it harder, so he resolved to maintain his pull. Maybe he could wear it down.
“Pneuma, can you hear me?” Trint strained to cry out. But no response was heard. The only sound in this place was the inverted mountain sounding like a moving glacier, compacting, shifting, grinding, and slowly moving to crush Trint.
Trint’s core had undergone massive qualitative and quantitative changes. It was much more, and his channels were flooding and cycling through Spirit in ways he couldn’t grasp. His attention split between observing all the changes, and he couldn’t stop the increasing speed of the spirit flooding his channels. It was like too much electricity flooding through a wire. The excess power was burning through the walls of the channels, they were growing larger and the finer channels that reached the ends of his Spirit body were bursting like broken blood vessels. Like a bursting dam, Trint felt the tearing and there was a shocking pain as his channels were rapidly tearing themselves apart.
With a sudden burst, his channels tore through, and the Spirit flooded his body. Like internal bleeding, he was flooded but with the force and speed of the break, Trint expected to die or destroy his Spirit, but the sudden burst crashed against the walls of his Spirit Body.
The internal pressure inside his body ramped up and he felt changes happening at a molecular level, or whatever Spiritual equivalent made up the very building blocks of his Spirit Body. He was being remade.
The Spirit Core within him began to pulse and grow again. The core itself was solid and fixed but his entire body began to take on a density equal to his core but remained flexible. When the entirety of his body had transitioned to becoming as dense as his core the changes stopped.
Trint’s attention returned to examining his body and the Spirit Plane. He felt a definite increase in his power in this place. Something was missing and he felt a pull in his core still. With his Spirit hands, Trint grasped his core. The surface contained all the shapes of the cage around him, and he felt the cage around him was linked to the core.
Trint reached with his Spirit hands out towards the cage and felt the urge to pull. He began to use his new Spiritual strength to pull the cage inward. The mountain of power crushing down on him was used to fuel his transition and made this possible. The effort became a time and endurance-consuming process of incremental progress.
After what felt like days or weeks, Trint brought his cage into direct contact with his core. As they made contact the two fused and became one. With that, a void formed inside the core. A blackhole that needed to be fed and the vast mountain of dense Spirit above and around Trint collapsed and was rapidly devoured by the core void.