The helping Purgers were delighted to get the golden fruits of their labors, of course, with the caveat that they only got to use the gold to Burn magic items into existence, and only while they stayed in China. They could keep what they made, of course, but only as long as they fought every day.

A goldweight a day to Burn away was a damn good reason to fight or be moving to fight every day.

There were plenty of Daoist Sects and strongpoints left to kill, and the Shroudzones were still everywhere. There was no end of work to do, but more and more Sixes ready to go were showing up every day.

I made my obligatory transport runs, bringing in new weapons and ammo for Chinese ready to start Shroudzone clearing and gain their Levels, Named Weapons, and some long-stewing revenge.

I did visit my erstwhile family, who had finally gotten their fill of seeing me blast through a lot of undead and cultivators over the last few days, and had revised their standards of how they should treat me accordingly. I was plainly far, far more powerful than they were, they weren’t quite sure how to treat someone at my level of ability, and more to the point, someone who was motivated at the levels I was.

My hunger for personal power was completely skewed to the need for that personal power. I had a much better idea of what was out there, and all the bad fantasy novels, games, and video games were all inspirations for some of it. I wasn’t looking to rule the world. I was just trying to prepare through the best means that I knew how.

This was especially true since I was 99% sure I wouldn’t be here to enjoy any long-term fruits of my labors. The only thing I was taking was what I was taking with me.

Thus, there was shit I had to get done before all that happened, as I didn’t know how much time we had. Getting rid of the Cultivators was only the start of it.

People got into my Allegiance because they believed in me. Once they realized what I was trying to do, the goal grew past me, because it had to. I wasn’t going to be there to save them when it came time for something to happen.

It was kind of odd being the doomed heroine, and having no fear of that fate other than a mild irritation.

I was going to be fighting against stuff that deserved to die, check.

I was going to be fighting against stuff that I was really good at fighting against, check.

I was going to be seeing a lot of new places, worlds, and realms, check.

I was going to basically be on an endless Karmic Buffet. In terms of raw power, who knew where that would lead? Check...

I was doing the work of Heaven, and inspiring a whole lot of mortal people on Good roads to greater power, which could only help Good in the long run. Check.

Would I be freeing souls from the Shroud? I looked up from the back of the Old Steed at the Haze above.

There were souls in there from other worlds that had died to the invading undead. They came with the Shroud. When the Shroud was broken here and had to relinquish its grasp, would their prison be shattered, or would they be taken away with it?

What I could discern about the Shroud was not encouraging me in this matter. If I wanted to get Elrii free of the Shroud, I would have to resort to other methods.

Happily, there was an Immortal Planetar here who could employ some very powerful other methods, even if the Shroud didn’t like it, because he wasn’t reliant on Miracles. Valence IX’s were not wimpy.

The anti-Wish power of the Shroud would stop me, but as a personal favor at the final moment, I was sure the Commander would do this.

I was now back in northern India, moving across the landscape with magical speed, every bit as fast as Sleipner on non-Veil cruise, or about 300ish kph. My Lived-Line was extending, I was cleaning up Qi-forming Shrines, occasionally wiping Buddhists who didn’t know enough to run, and spreading the word among the survivors I ran into who were either fighting back or had hidden enough to keep their free will.

I noticed the numbers of urgobs were increasing here. They were treated as little more than muscle slaves by the Buddhists, and were naturally ornery and not very susceptible to the Mantra, so they often ended up heading lots of resistance efforts. They were smart, strong, and had a definite talent for covert ops despite their size. I knew they were naturals for Special Forces teams in Europe and North America... and they also made brutal enforcers and gang lords, too.

It didn’t matter to me at this point. I passed out high-QL Weapons worthy of being Named, I gave them crystals on my speeches and the Helix Method and The Human Tongue and stuff, and continued with my killing of Cultivators as they urgently headed towards Shroudzones to begin the climb to real power.

If there were Good people, they could swear to my Banner. If not, I could pass out a few Blessings to bring them into the communication loop and coordinate with other forces nearby.

There were more than a few who had Warlord aspirations about taking over areas for themselves after all their hard work. They were going to be severely disillusioned about such things.

There were Thuggee assassins venerating Skulos and Shoul among these groups, too. Much to their dismay, I revealed their loyalties, revealed that I had a very personal beef with the latter’s Faith, and I slew the lot of them. As they tended to be among the more skilled of the survivors, this was not much appreciated, to which I told the survivors to hie their asses to the nearest Shroudzone, which I pointed out to them, and get stronger so they didn’t need murderers acting as guards and exploiting them.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

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The Buddhists had learned something with their Domes and Summons, and that was that neither tactic was going to stop me. Thus, fighting or fleeing was what was left to them, and since I couldn’t stop so many in all directions, at least not very quickly, that meant the bigger cities had to be hit with a waiting army, one strong enough to take on the Buddhists and the human waves of their Enlightened slaves.

So passed the rest of February. My Lived-Lines were tracking all through India and China, I was making daily deliveries, and when Sama or Briggs got their forces in position, I was shuttling in helpers for the big fights... and the numbers of those Traveling Knights began to grow, because that was some brutal fighting and Glory to be measured.

If the Shroud hadn’t been there, Commander Haru’Ara could have just whipped up a Portal and brought thousands of Sixes and higher back and forth between the major battlefields. I could Mass Teleport a bunch of people as long as my Lived-Lines were on point, and with Mass Reduce, really increase their numbers by shrinking them.

The Traveling Knights ended up getting in a lot of the most brutal fighting. They definitely loved it, as it was the best opportunity to keep gaining strength. South America/Amazonia’s countries were getting protective of their own Shroudzones, Leveling their people up, and didn’t want outsiders coming in to help.

The Chinese were far less reluctant. They had a lot of rage to work out, and the Cultivators were already massacring those normal people who were not fleeing from them, or at the very least scorching the land and abandoning them to their fates. All this fighting could not get over with quickly enough for them.

The Indians weren’t much different. The sheer scale of sacrifices the Buddhists had made of their people meant the more fighters helping them the better, and if people wanted to help, they were happy to take them.

Everyone being able to speak the same language helped immensely, of course, and if customs were a little different, all the gods were also the same, so getting everyone on the same page wasn’t all that hard.

Sama being Right There to pummel the recalcitrant into obedience was useful, too.

It was grim work, steady work, and if you had breached into Seven, it was The Place To Be. There were soon combatants from all over the world clamoring to come here and join some truly nasty and large-scale fighting against things that had to die, and witness for themselves the things from Outside the Shroud that these Cultivators were bringing in to fight us, or the beasts they’d raised, Formations they’d deployed, or anything and everything.

In China, there were fewer things brought in from Outside than increasing numbers of enslaved spirit beasts being driven out to fight on behalf of the Cultivators. This was considered wholly acceptable by the Purgers, as they got in the finest damn eating on the entire planet as they took down packs, swarms, and hordes of beasts that had been raised or encouraged to grow by dozens of Sects. That many of them had been fed on human flesh and blood was naturally considered a given, and their hunger for the Powered was perfectly obvious the way they swarmed at and concentrated on any within range of their senses.

The Powered noticed it, and instead of resenting it, exploited it properly. Briggs turned them into tanking bait, while the ignored Forsaken tore apart the attacking beasts ferociously.

That so many of those Powered were foreigners was plenty amusing to the native Chinese, but for a goldweight a day, facing down five hundred Blood Thorn Apes charging in to kill them was considered part of the job.

As a bonus, they got really, really good at the tanking side of the job.

The Buddhists were naturally still bringing in Arhats and Anagani to reinforce themselves, and more to the point, started Binding asuras and rakshasas into service aggressively.

Finding out there were large numbers of rakshasas in the world was a total pain, although killing them wasn’t actually difficult if you knew how. One Blessed crossbow (or autobow) bolt, and the lesser rakshasas would die instantly, while the more powerful ones would be gravely wounded. Hitting them was another problem, and harming them any other way was annoying.

I sent a note off to HH, and Gregorigori got back to me soon. The Sect that had visited and left behind the vampires and rakshasa-blooded tiger hadn’t been fought by the Chinese Purgers yet. I sent out a note to them that they were probably allied with native Rakshasas, and Briggs gave me a thumbs-up for the warning.

The biggest problem for me about rakshasas was that even the lowest tier of them was immune to all spells of Valence I to VII. That naturally meant ALL my magic at this point. A rakshasa lord could tank Valence X or Legendary spells, shutting down even Commander Haru’Ara.

Even the most powerful Weapons couldn’t do permanent damage to them, except for those damn crossbow bolts. If said Weapon was less than +III, it didn’t hurt them at all. +III to +V, they took half damage, but none of it was lethal, they were only knocked out. An Eternal-Class bonus of +VI or greater did full damage, but still couldn’t kill them.

This naturally made the bastards great assassins, since they could strike and live to get away. Happily, the arrogant bastards were nowhere near as powerful and skilled as they thought they were, with thousands of years of avoiding the notice of humans save in legends and myth behind them. They were VERY surprised by the pure skill of these new humans in combat... and come to find out, although all rakshasas had some minor magical ability, in pure combat they really weren’t all that impressive.

Crossbowmen suddenly got some real favor in India, and no doubt would continue to in the future. Watching Sama go through an attacking group of rakshasas with Fall in one hand and Stand just pushing them around in the other, plinking them down with one shot after another, was actually pretty funny. I naturally was happy to Bless her crossbow bolts... and literally thousands of others.

Having a panther assassin come out of the shadows and try to slit my throat, not so much, but he got really frustrated when he couldn’t seem to hit me with his poisoned curving knives held in his reverse-fingered hands. Then I pulled a hand autobow out of my Masspack, handling it with the skill of an Archer, and as he tried to flee and tripped over the TK’d chain wrapping his feet, nailed him with a Blessed bolt insta-kill.

One day later, Morphing was added to hundreds of Guns, and oh, the look on the faces of those rakshasa brute troops running out into that gunfire that couldn’t hurt them when all those firearms suddenly morphed into Crossbows, and Chain Bless went down on a score of them at once...

Asuras, in contrast to rakshasas, were Soulborn blasphemers against the gods, and worked very well with both Daoists and the Buddhists, both of which they recognized as being anti-Divine, and so were perfectly happy to go along with their schemes to rebel against all the gods, ignoring how the deluded fools cloaked themselves in self-righteousness to do so.

Unfortunately for them, they were still considered Fiends, Evil Soulborn, and they shat silver twinkies when they saw Commander Haru’Ara with us... not realizing he wasn’t the one to be scared of. Holy magic of all kinds was on the Weapons facing them, and the wielders of them were perfectly happy to unload on them, no different from a Demon or Devil...