In reality, these twats should have had a combined Realm twenty to thirty percent lower in radius, that had been obvious to me. The whole edge of it was basically swarming with souls past their due dates, just wanting oblivion to take them and unable to cease existing.
The Netherlords knew it, and were basically ego-stroking themselves by keeping it so big.
Big Boy seemed a bit disconcerted with my words, as not a word I’d spoken had been un-True. It was plain as soon as I arrived here that there was a planar imbalance, and in the eyes of Heaven I was meant to correct it. That He probably thought I was from another nether realm with my disguise was His problem, and so He was considering exactly what to do.
His gaze finally turned back down to me. “YOU ARE NOT A REALM LORD AND DO NOT TRULY HAVE THE POWER TO DEFY ME IN MY DOMAIN,” He pronounced with certainty as He raised His free hand. “I WILL TAKE YOU BACK TO MY ALLIES AND WE WILL CONFER ON YOUR WORDS AND PURPOSE.”
“An attack on me will also constitute formal rejection of my help,” I intoned without the slightest change in my voice. “I was being discreet because you are involved in a political rivalry I have no desire to be forced into, and any manner of capture will end with attempted subjugation and involvement in said politics. Proceed with your attempt, and my services will be lost.”
And I stared at Him, making Him pause again, and consider if what I was saying was actually serious.
But He had no proof of greater powers, and even with my Domain, He held the absolute advantage here. My words seemed like a true and massive bluff, even though He could find nothing untrue about them at all, like He was being mocked for being finite!
Space collapsed in the area about us, the ravaged landscape compressing under the might of a Realm Lord into something impassable. Even if I could trade spells with Him for a time, I would not be able to get away, and in a battle of attrition, everything was in His favor.
“I SHALL TAKE MY CHANCES,” He pronounced confidently, leaning forward.
I just snorted, and flicked my hand. “Your choice is made, then.”
His finger had just pierced the edge of my Domain when His eyes fell upon the nearly ninety glowing Soul Diamond Pearls floating around me, which promptly doubled to one hundred and seventy of them.
His eyes widened just slightly as Fae’s Mass Refinement of Stars and Fae’s Mass Distillation of Stars were followed by Fae’s Mass Tempering of Stars, and I instantly applied one hundred and seventy-four Tier-9 Stars to my Matrix, blowing through millions of Mana to do it, and not caring a whit as I did.
Even in the Netherworld, perhaps especially here, time seemed to pause to watch. Space trembled, and an ancient dirge rumbled around us as a Sublime Chord tuned to the dour, somber nature of this Realm rose around us in bass tonals to shake the firmament.
For the first time in maybe ever for this place, and definitely for the Mortal Realm of Earth, a Tier-9 Star, its Diamond Pearl distilled from the spiritual essence of millions of powerful if mindless undead, twinkled into being.
A Realm Lord-level Star.
The first one shattered something. I could feel power swelling and gathering to me, barriers broken through as my Human/29 ascended instantly to Human/30, and the ultimate evolutionary stage of a High Exemplar swelled inside me, turning me into the apex of natural Human evolution.
Gave my Casting another instant five-level Boost, too.
The other thing that happened was the entire Pyramid poofed into vivic flames, which shot in all directions with lightning speed.
Pure surprise gleamed in His lambent eyes as He watched a baby Realm Lord ignite right in front of Him, an event that could not be hidden from anyone watching, especially His fellows... and His rivals.
However, the surging rivers of vivus exploding across the landscape distracted Him from grabbing for me. He watched the unwhite fires tear through His spatial lock and devour it, the energies actually helping the vivus move even faster as it swirled and raced through the ground of the netherworld, shooting off with unearthly speed and hunger in some great Pattern before reaching two hundred miles out in all directions and flashing into a massive Circle of magical power.
The Chord around us dipped impossibly to an even lower bass of rumbling expectation, and the Realm Lord realized that something was coming. The circle of vivus out there flared high, miles into the sky, racing together to form a dome of hungry energy... energy that instantly began to compress and race inwards!
Every undead creature upon the landscape was ignited and fed the flames. The not-soil was Burned completely free of necroic energies. The air and the sky rang with impossible purity and shining grace...
His Head whipped around back on me. “YOU ARE NOT OF THE NETHER REALMS!” He shouted, even as He was trying to raise His defenses against an attack that was consuming tens of billions of undead and the very essence of His own Realm to hit Him.
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The Spellflare crackled into existence next to me, and countless Patterns wound about it, brighter than the sun as I fed it with over one hundred and sixty-eight million points of Mana. His eyes grew very wide as I sent it at Him, trying to raise His hand to intercept it as the horizon closed down upon us, and then the Spellflare hit the power He was raising to defend Himself.
The whole nether-realm lurched as the magic went wild, and then the exultant vivus came down and devoured it all. His scream was lost in the explosion as the mindless undead did indeed take their revenge, and He got what was coming to Him.
---
I came out on Earth’s moon, smoking a bit from the fallout of the Realmlord’s defenses being fried right before He took a hit from a Forbidden Ritual executed at the level of a Realm Lord.
He wasn’t dead, that much I knew. He was, after all, on His home plane, and the nature of vivus was changed to reflect that. However, the vivus had fed on His power on all levels, stripping it away and sending it into the cycle of reincarnation.
He was wounded, massively so, probably more terribly than He had ever been in His entire existence.
Furthermore, the explosion of vivus and wild magic had rippled across the Netherworld when it all collapsed on the Pyramid there, and the Pyramid exploded to add to His woes.
Countless more undead had died. Innumerable adjustments and reinforcements to the combined Underworld had come apart, ripping apart its seams and accelerating the degradation of its borders, the outskirts now being assailed with aetheric storms that were obliterating large sections of the realm and the Damned upon it.
It had also clearly revealed six Realms conjoined, and all six Netherlords inhabiting the place.
Number Six, who had likely been charged with maintenance of the Realm to keep Him busy and concealed, was now massively wounded, exposed, and had been removed as a threat. Number Five was also clearly exposed, which alone would temporarily cool any urges of the Lords of Light to start the final battle. Five Dark Lords against four masters of Light could actually be said to be even odds, as the Light would dominate them one on one.
A sixth would have totally thrown matters to the Dark side, however. I had no doubt the Lords of Light were realizing that they had just been saved from utter disaster, and were wondering just how and why it had happened.
There were two hundred thousand miles of empty space between good ol’ Luna and the Earth. There was no natural life on the satellite, and the Elementals here were old and very sleepy, slow to wake up and likely not even wanting to do so if they even sensed what was happening atop them.
I was on the opposite side of the Moon from the Earth as I Sang into the Void, and waterfalls of Mana gushed down from the stars. The connections one in ten million humans at best might make to the true sources of Mana opened up like a spigot, and the purest Mana in all Creation came down upon me.
I had a new Multiverse of Stars to fill. 117,649 Stars, of which over a hundred thousand were absolutely empty and needed to be Tempered from the ground up.
But first, I had 16,807 of them, my base Sage Universe, to advance to Tier-9 and Temper.
My new Caster Level was default 90 with the advance to High Exemplar, with a base of 48. 90 Stars at a time with Mass versions of my Spells, Paired, Echoed, and Fastcast twice now. 1080 Stars blazed to full power every six seconds.
Level Feat, Open Epic Valence XXIII. Paid Feat for Sorc Level 29, Open Epic Valence XXIV.
Human Bonus Feat for level 30, Multispell III, triple Fastcast. Human Paid Feat, Metamagic Efficiency II.
All Metas of +III or less were basically free on all my spells now.
My Syzygy had naturally grown with my increase in Stats and Levels. I still had the Classes themselves to advance, but that was fine. I was sure I had the Karma for them after obliterating billions of powerful Doomed undead at once, cracking a netherplane, starting the process of trimming it down to size, and almost killing a Netherplaner Realm Lord in His own home plane.
Sama’s Cleave Train tracks winding the proper path for the Forbidden Ritual had basically doubled the power of the attack straight off, giving it a power and potency, as well as vastly increased speed, it wouldn’t have had without her. She’d be getting a huge chunk of this Karma, and between the two of us, we’d pass up a lot to Briggs, so efficiently keeping the Realm Lords focused on his valiant mortal effort of chopping down Pyramids.
I received a ping from Reynard, cautiously noting that Flowing Silver High Emperor wished to speak with me. My Eidolon Companion had also just received a huge infusion of power, his Ninth Tail firmly in place, and was growing in size even as he Messaged me in amazement.
They all knew something big had happened, and with senses trained on the interplay between the invading Realms, they’d immediately felt the tectonic effects in the Netherworld.
I waved the Portal open next to me, and Flowing Silver’s great pale blue eye studied me through it, watching the nearly solid and utterly pure Mana coming out of the sky, descending upon me, and being Refined, Compressed, and Applied like I was soaking in raindrops. Thousands of Soul Crystals were appearing around me and being absorbed as I ran through 1440 of them every six seconds, spending millions of Mana with utter abandon as I did so.
Because I could.
“You are a Realm Lord now, Healer Fae,” He said softly, unable to keep a note of awe out of His voice. “Truly, you Humans are the strangest of all Beasts.” He actually leaned in to look at me closer, which would be considered quite cheeky in their protocols, but He knew He could get away with it. “Did you not grow even an inch?!” He protested with His tongue out.
I reached out and shared with Him what I was doing, making Him flinch a moment at the newly advanced power of my mind. Another +4 to all Stats at this level was just monstrous, but nothing compared to the sight of the Multiverse inside of me, and the massive display of the Syzygy sprawled about it.
Mok Fan had eleven plus two full-blown Inner Universes, which actually meant more Stars than I had here. But his were all separate Universes, so Flowing Silver was the first to be treated to the view and display of an unleashed Multiverse.
It had taken less than two minutes to finish treating my existing Stars to Tier-9. Now he watched the Tier-1 Stars igniting across my inner void, Soul Crystals Consumed to temper them as they appeared, over two hundred every second.
It was going to take less than ten minutes for every Star to be lit, and then ten minutes for every sweep after that!