-Set up a conference for representatives of the major forces and nation-states. I specifically want the heads of state for Canada and America invited, as this is going to be critical for them... Oh, and probably Mexico, too.-
-Wow!- Gregorigori /said, thinking about how to do that, and getting excited that, on behalf of Traveler, he definitely had the power to do so!
-If they don’t want to come personally, tell them not to send anyone, as it won’t be worth their time.-
-Ouch!- And cruelly direct, too. The gnome patted himself on the back for swearing in early and getting in on the ground floor for all this. Just the natural adjustments among fellow Vassals had left him in charge of tech support for most of Heavenbound Hall, to the astonishment of some of the former managers here who were now relegated to support roles.
He still personally took care of anything from their Monarch and Master Fred, without fail. -When are we scheduling this for, Lady Traveler?-
-The day of the Solstice Celebration.-
His breath hissed out. -You’re going to participate?- He could hardly imagine what the Solstice Ceremony would be like with Traveler at the center of it.
-Indeed. And show some truths to the world that are going to drive some to despair, and inspire others to fight.-
He knew that she was in Sylune’s temple here right now, administering Blessings to members of the Allegiance and Heavenbound Hall, some of whom had traveled across the Atlantic to get here for this. The fact that Markspace links worked across the planet, and Allegiance links nearly as well, was quietly transforming communication among the Good faiths and active powers very nicely, indeed.
He had thought email and telephones and texting were a huge step up...
Marks and Blessings were a ‘temporary’ way to get Stats high enough to make Four. They could be taken away by other powers. The people who got them had to make the commitment to Level up fast and get their base Stats up to a point where losing a Blessing wouldn’t instantly cripple them.
The lucky people, anywhere from one to nine a day, got the Inherent bonus from a Wish instead, which could not be lost, and guaranteed that they could start their Helix Climb.
Both methods worked. Marks via Tattoos were actually the better option of them and Blessings, but the slowest to take effect. However, the fact others could potentially learn to make the Tats and accelerate their spread was a thing that people wanted to work on, instead of only having two or three people alive being able to spread them.
Hundreds, if not a couple thousand, people would be leaving Heavenbound Hall with those Blessings, and their lives would be changing. Vivus was eating at the borders of Shroudzones, slowly and patiently and carefully.
But now, it was getting close to time, and Lady Traveler would be heading back... and the Cultivators, Daoist and Buddhist, in the Guangzhou area were going to get one of the most horrible surprises of their lives.
Would they ally to stop a Powered invader? Most certainly. They would ally, and then they would break alliance when it was convenient. Benefits of the moment were all that truly mattered, and they were competitors in the end.
But the Powered were a common enemy. Killing them was certainly something both wanted, and it really didn’t matter who did it, only that it was done.
So, what do you do when facing two foes who might potentially ally to fight you, but who are enemies?
Naturally, you only attack one of them at a time, and just watch their little alliance of convenience writhe in protest as lack of trust and willingness to have the other party eat all the losses did their thing.
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There was another storm coming in, and the Cultivators couldn’t stop it. The lightning was seething within it before it ever arrived, with its annoying rain, visibility reduction, howling winds, the terrible ringing heavenly Thunder... and the lightning coming down.
That horrible, hammering lightning, mightier than tribulation bolts, full of Primal and Divine power, and none of their lightning resistance or protection worked against it.
And then came the Shards.
They knew enough of Powered magic to identify the spell, and could even duplicate it to an extent. But the power of those endless volleys and salvoes that came streaking in around all cover and obstructions to find their targets and blow them apart in holy fire, that was quite something else.
They wanted to Challenge the Heavens. To get past Six, they needed to pass a Lightning Tribulation, Creation itself rejecting what they were.
This was not like Heaven was punishing them as they waited prepared to resist such. This was Heaven actively hunting them down like dogs!
It got even worse when she started adding Chain to her Call Lightning spells, and the falling thunderbolts started blazing out to everything hostile in the surrounding area, too.
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The weaker Daoists were dying in droves, driving the Casting Loop of Metas and Pool Points that was fueling everything here. Great Formations designed to ward off the Wrath of Heaven were Spellflared, ignited, and then blown into oblivion by ringing Thunderbolts coming down, raging with Primal and Divine contempt for them.
There were a lot of Cultivators on both sides here at Six and higher, hardened by factional conflicts, their opposite numbers, and the presence of the defiant Powered hiding behind their corrupt Ward. Still, they had never seen anything like the level of offense being mobilized here to kill them, and the desperate stories from the north they had scoffed at were all now seeming far, far too real.
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Some of the wiser and less brave Daoists did run for it, and naturally there was too much ground for me to cover it all. However, I was looking for mass exoduses, and when I saw them, I simply Linejumped into their paths, they came to me, and I obliterated hundreds before they could get out of my way.
Those who split up and fled alone were far more likely to get away, but that’s the way things worked out for rats who were running.
But, this was a numbers game, and while I could track them all pretty well within an area, I couldn’t track all of them, all the time, and also couldn’t go after them. In the end, killing them all meant mobilizing a lot of people, empowering them one way or another, and corralling and killing this infestation.
And boy-howdy, were there a lot of Chinese who wanted in on that game. They were finally aware, after the slaughter of the millions of people needed to create a buffer zone, of just how small the value of their lives were in the eyes of those bastards. They could either be slaves and die at a whim of heartless butchers who would spend them like sand, or they could fight!
Naturally, there were a whole lot that chose to fight (and Sama and Briggs being around just miiiiight have had a holyshittinski big effect on their fighting spirit). Incredibly enough, yet another convenient place to gain Levels and power up a Named Weapon had just been created by their enemies, and the undead there were just about at the right level of power for them to challenge themselves.
The rare hidden Powered, new Warlocks, and Primos with Racial Class Levels all gathered to first get stronger, which they could do with frankly startling speed to any Cultivator watching.
After all, it only took eight days to get a Weapon to Ki-Bound and Vivic, and there were plenty of Cultivator Skulls to make Baneskulls...
Shvaughn Swore more Warlocks to Land Spirits, and the numbers of Landbound exploded, even as the first efforts were being made to clear the urban sprawl of the first murdered city. Over a million now-undead inhabitants had risen up there, their first Dark Ministers were already consolidating power and battling it out for a Bishopric, and were surprised and pleased to see living people they could make into Congregants.
Their pleasure didn’t last too long when they were blasted with vivus, but until then, they were as happy and excited as undead could be.
Sama and Briggs were churning out cold Weapons of high enough QL to at least advance to Six Slots, of which they could make dozens a day. Sabers, axes, and glaives were the most common requests, with spears and swords coming in after. There were martial artists eager to turn their mundane skills into something greater, and there was definitely no end of work for the two of them... or people they were recruiting to help them, using Skill Ranks from Leveling to get rapidly better at the smithing that needed to be done, with no resistance to the suggestion.
Production of high-quality Weapons was going to skyrocket in no time with the two of them there, Marks were proliferating under the two of them, and unless the Cultivators acted fast, they were going to be in for a bad time.
However, the assault had been so devastating and overwhelming that the Daoists in other areas were paralyzed as to what to do, and when they learned of how I had simply moved down to Guangzhou with great speed, they were extremely leery of rapidly pressing any kind of an attack.
They were also extremely dismissive of the native Chinese, even the Taiwanese, and didn’t really have any kind of a read on Sama, Briggs, and Shvaughn. They thought they had time, and the fact the Chinese were just wasting time and fear on killing the undead only confirmed to them that it was the outsiders who were dangerous, particularly me, and we were manipulating and taking advantage of the Chinese for our own purposes. Surely they could turn the fact that we were not Chinese, mere outsiders, foreigners to their closed culture, against us...
The Taiwanese played oversight, rapidly bringing in more of their own people to exploit this opportunity to Level, too. Shvaughn/Windwise watched over them, her Pacts enabling her to move around with great speed, if not Teleportation, and she definitely had the firepower to mess with any of the enemy, the endurance to outlast them, and the frame of mind to make them suffer if they got in her way.
------
Guangzhou was a wreck, pounded apart by lightning, lashed by cyclonic winds, raging rain, and Daoists who had not fled burning. What humans were left were cowering in shelters, unable to come out to help... but that was fine. This time, I didn’t want their help, because of the dual forces here.
I turned around on the force of Buddhists who’d been harrying us, trying to trap us half-heartedly, and now that the Daoists had fled, somehow became much more coordinated and moved faster and surer to envelop us and get off their attacks.
They had those wonderfully confident and patronizing smiles on their faces, even as the first Spellflares went out, converted their precious defensive shields to some excitable wild magic feedback of the spurting-eye, spewing-blood variety (the extra Banefire kicker probably felt particularly good), and then the Shards and Thunderbolts were reaving them.
They had naturally thought that numbers and unified effort through a Formation could do what they lacked in raw Caster Level, and found instead that their numbers weren’t high enough.
I was every bit as merciless to them as I was to the Daoists, but these guys had thought I was running from them, when in reality I was saving them for last and setting them up.
Also, those Formations took a lot of lower-Level Buddhists, who couldn’t move very fast. That meant the Buddhists couldn’t flee quite as quickly when they realized that something had gone horribly wrong.
Multitudes of chanting, packed Buddhists lifting up their voices to subjugate the world to their Mantra ate the feedback of their defenses going off, dropped their Chanting, and then the sky fell on them as salvoes of Chained Shards tore through a thousand of them at a time.
If they were in this mess, they couldn’t be human anymore, and there was no just popping Dantians for them. There were doubtless plenty of acolytes who hadn’t fully been brought into the Mantra that might be saved, but I just did not have time to heal them when so many others existed, groaning under the weight of the Mantra and the Dao.
Bonfires of vivic fire raged upon shattered corpses of Daoists and Buddhists, eating away at the slime of the Qi in the air. The storm I brought with me surged south, and the Buddhist enclave there could only chant and smile beatifically when they saw it coming, turning the skies black in the day and seething with a Heavenly Wrath that their Nirvana had nothing to do with.