EPILOGUE I: THE GREAT SPIRIT

BLACK HILLS

WAKAN TANKA

A massive Golden eagle the size of a ten-story building looked out over the black hills in what used to be South Dakota United States of America. She had golden feathers that glowed in the morning sunlight. While her wings were wrapped around her, below them were a pair of long slender arms ending clawed hands. Wakan Tanka commonly known as the Great Spirit was perched on a mountain next to the Crazy Horse’s head monument. She was livid, and this monument was the only thing that brought her some semblance of joy. Her people were scattered and lost, but they were resilient. She had come back to a land of Merchants, and slavers. It was not surprising, even in her time humans were lazy, and power-hungry, two very toxic traits when combined. As the memories of her followers flooded back into her, she grew even more angry. They offered these explorers gold, food, and shelter, and they gave them disease, hate, and enslavement. She wept for her people. But the time for tears was over. Action was the next step for the powerful. She used her powers to awaken the other gods of her pantheon, which weakened her at first, but it had to be done, there were not enough shamans left after the Breaking to bring them all back in time for the uncommon horde. So she used her own power losing a Rank in the process, she then sent them out to all of her tribespeople who had survived and had them come together.

She told them to find everyone with her people's blood in them and make cities for them, and she tasked her Clergy to protect them while getting them ready for the trials to come. Humans always disgusted her. They were selfish, petty, and hypocritical. That was until she met her chosen people in her youth. She had never seen people who were one with their land. Sure they fought over stuff, but it was from a lack of knowledge of the abundance of resources, more than just the senseless killing of the others she had met before them. She had learned love and patience from them.

Natives as they were now called were as diverse as any group, the hundreds of tribes that she took under her wing, lived in harmony for many years in her day. But as the world started to shrink after magic was sealed by those stupid Legacies, she had to take the long sleep. They came into conflict with each other after that. Still, even then they weren’t nearly as petty, conniving, and power-hungry as the others. There were no empires that conquered for conquering sake. They still lived and communed with the land. They followed the old ways for much longer than many of the other groups, Even the Mayans and Aztecs never pushed north out of respect for the great spirit's chosen people.

When the people from the east first came. Vikings they called themselves came the natives had tried to communicate with them, but the Vikings were violent, aggressive people who thought 'might make right.' They learned quickly that the chosen people weren’t pushovers, they were still humans, and they had a propensity for survival like any other group. The great purge was formed, and the Vikings were pushed out violently. The ones who survived were sworn to secrecy before they were allowed to leave.

In retrospect that may have been her people's biggest mistake. If those warmongers had gone back, and spread those stories, the next group that came probably wouldn’t have played them so easily. Natives were trusting to a fault. But every group depending on their history thought very differently.

The people who came next had been fighting so much over the hundreds of years that had passed, that they were scared of everything, because of that, they had created crude weapons of powder, and came up with tactics that seemed idiotic, if you weren’t in command. They forced men to stand in lines, and fire at each other for glory that most of the men never saw.

Not in one piece at least.

They didn’t gain any EXP, or anything really, levels, tiers, nothing. They just killed each other because they could.

They didn’t know how to grow things so the chosen people taught them before they took the land from them. They brought huge ships to take more land. They didn’t need more land, but their fear of retaliation lead to them fighting, and killing helpless tribes that were mostly minding their own damn business.

Even with all of that ‘firepower’ they still didn’t have a chance. The natives outnumbered them one hundred to one at one point. But diseases carried by these newcomers were the ultimate killer of her people. Smallpox ravaged her people like nothing seen before. The newcomers were convinced that their god had blessed them with those victories. Like a god would ever be that disgusting, more like a devil. They just had immunity from living in filth for so long either in their walled cities, or on their large ships. Either way, they took advantage of that immunity by killing, and conquering her people like animals. They didn’t even consider them human when they surrendered they killed, or worse enslaved them. They then forced them onto reservations in a place that was undesirable to them. But when they made those places desirable they kicked them off that land again, sometime they poisoned the land like her people were the ones that started the war in the first fucking place.

Petty, so damn petty.

She will never understand humans, she was born a golden eagle and grew strong during a mana-rich time on Gaia. She chose her people because they didn’t fight each other as much as the other humans, and worked with the other creatures instead of hunting them, beyond what they needed for food. Well the ones that weren't sentient enough to communicate with them. They cleared Dungeons together lived together with the beasts, and fought monster hordes together, some even had children, but that was rare.

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Once the Mana levels started to fall she trained her Clergy and gathered all of the tribe protectors into a great creature pantheon. She could ascend but she was tired. She didn’t know much about the other pantheons across the world, but she wasn’t aware of any creature only pantheons. Her people were numerous and she felt when the time came again, she would come back to a beautiful continent. Instead, she came back to a metal-filled monstrosity. The land that had once belonged to her people was mostly not in use by anyone, and if it was they were exploiting it for crude-

Her musings stopped as she felt something enter her Domain, ever since she woke up she had been expanding the Jade rank cultivator’s most powerful CORE technique.

The Heavenly realm gave many different techniques, but a Gold Cultivator’s Aura Technique, which transitions into a Jade Cultivator’s Domain Technique was one of the most powerful Techniques in the GREAT GAME. It allowed a Master Cultivator to sense anything within their Domain, and even use Skills, and other Techniques anywhere within it for a larger cost. It was suicide for any non-master to enter another’s Domain. But while the being that entered her Domain was suicidal, he was also her friend, even if he was a very annoying one.

“My Lady Tanka, it is good to see you doing well, my old friend.” The being in question was next to her, much to her surprise. Her Domain was at least sixty miles in radius grown at the rapid pace of ten miles per month, and it should have weakened any human that entered it without her permission unless it was her chosen. But this person crossed it, not just fast but in an instant and not with stats but a power, maybe a movement skill or spell., that should be impossible for anyone in the Mortal realm.

She looked at the human scanning his power.

“Judas," She began, her voice a little confused. "You have changed in the time I have been asleep.” She looked him in the eyes, he was a simply dressed, dark olive-skinned man, and nothing particularly stood out about him. His beard was neatly cut, and his hair was a big loose curly afro, but the wind blew it around messing it up. His threadbare silk shirt and pants also fluttered in the wind. The only thing out of place was his smile. Judas was a broken man usually, his smile was always a sad one. The Great Spirit’s eagle eyes widened when she saw a hint of seven concentric circles in his eyes, the last circle pulsed into a triangle. “You are a Sage?” She said surprised.

Judas grimaced. “You can see that huh? Still so perspective. Nothing gets passed those eyes.” He looked into her eyes and he could see the circles around her golden eyes a hint of a seventh circle being formed.

She wasn’t sure what to think, she was much older than him yet he had surpassed her in power level. She had no fear of him, Judas wouldn’t hurt a soul who didn’t deserve it. But making it to Authority Realm in anything in the GREAT GAME was beyond even her. Most Cultivator’s foundations can’t even handle the power of the early heavenly realm, and stall at Silver rank which is when they either live out their couple thousand years of life or become rogue gods or devils. Those cheaters are annoying but are no match for a Jade like her. She planned to deal with them once her people were safe. But Judas had become a Saint rank Cultivator, and that more than anything made her laugh. She just couldn’t help herself. She knew this child so well, she knew he must hate it. “Judas, a Saint. That was... hilarious.”

She laughed for what seemed like hours by the time she had stopped to catch her breath as the sun had set.

Judas stood there the whole time. When you had lived as long as them ten minutes, or ten hours didn’t matter. But instead of the red-faced youth, she thought she would see, when she looked up at him, he still had that smile on his face. To her surprise it was genuine. “I see why she sent me.” He finally said after hours of waiting.

Wakan’s smile lost some of its luster at that statement. She hadn’t had much to laugh about since her return so she wasn’t going to let it bother her too much though. “What does she want?” The only entity a Sage would be taking orders from was Gaia herself. Wakan wasn’t happy with the Celestial so she hadn’t been communicating with her. All gods had a connection with the planet, but cutting that communication was definitely possible. Most human gods wouldn’t, but Wakan was far from those weaklings.

“This is the Sage of Redemption speaking. Not your friend Judas.” He started, “Gaia will like a timeline on when you will allow cultivators to rise in your lands. The first Rare monster hordes are coming, and she is afraid of losing the continent, there are some very high potential individuals on it. She does have a precedent with Jotunheimr”

Wakan sighed, she wasn’t petty enough to let all of the humans die while she mourned. “How long do I have?”

“The waves have already started, but most are away from cities these Americans are surprisingly good at fighting monsters, and clearing Dungeons so any major city will be safe, but the world grew incredibly fast so there is a lot of open wildness.”

“Is that why my Domain doesn’t seem to be making any progress?” She asked comprehending.

“Yes, even with your speed of growth which is higher than most Sages by the way, the world is growing faster than you can imagine and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. More than likely until the Platinum threshold, maybe even the Diamond.”

“So this is a Breaking huh?”

“Yes, very different from what we are used to.” He answered. While the world always grew when magic was active, it was always slower than most master cultivators’ Domains could expand. In a normal magic age, a single Master Cultivator could easily rule the whole continent in the Mortal realm.

She sighed again. “I will raise my people once they are ready. Everyone else will have to wait.”

He closed his eyes for a second, then looked at her with a smile. “That is acceptable. Since it is your people in charge of clearing the unaffiliated wilderness, The demonic influences are rising in the north and west. Thank you, my friend.” He bowed to her.

“What would Judas have told me by the way, also ‘Sage of Redemption’” She rolled her large eyes “It is appropriate I guess, if not a bit on the beak.” She tapped her beak.

“Judas would have said let them wait until the Epic horde in seventy years.” He smiled. “At least you could add to your pantheon as the beast took over, and one day get off of this rock, free and clear.” He winked at her.

The ground shook Gaia clearly not happy with the statement, but Wakan flexed her power and calmed it down. “Oh, you are a still bad boy Judas, bad boy.” She said with a grin on her face and in her eyes. Maybe it was time to get back into playing the Game, and not living it, maybe that was why she had been stuck at Jade, she didn’t want to give up her immortality for her own path. She had a lot to think about, how did she want to shape the continent? She called for all of her gods to convene with her. It was time to start building the Skyways and for them to ascend, the Sky realm is the only place she can get any challenge, but she was not in any rush, it was a Breaking, even after the Legendary horde, she and her chosen will survive, and she didn’t care if the others Lived or Died.