There’s a four-month time skip. During this period, Sama is indulging in repetitive grinding, akin to the previous chapters. Go out, kill a whole lot of stuff, harvest, burn Power Comps, power up new Gear, rinse, and repeat. I didn’t write it out, but in the back of my head I was picturing anyone being able to do that for so long without human contact, and having fun doing so... and that’s exactly what it meant to be templated by your PoT game character. You created this inhumanly focused leveling machine, whose only purpose was to make things and get stronger. Not having people around to take your Karma was a Good thing, why would you feel lonely?
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Month Five of the New Calendar, The Montana Charlands, an Obelisk construction site...
-Argos!-
The Monarch of the Eternal Helm turned around as Drekzun's /voice came through. The Archer was standing sentry duty and scouting out the local terrain, which was infested with minor Fireborn that had to be dispatched to keep the work on the Obelisks going up uninterrupted. He was also part of the early warning system for random attackers, which had thankfully been far less intense in the Charlands of what used to be Montana and Idaho than they’d expected. The Obelisks to tame the ash output of the active volcanoes venting off here were going up without a hitch, surprising everyone who expected rather stiff resistance to their presence from the Fireborn that had been spilling out of all these calderas.
Still, he was the Monarch of the Eternal Helm, and the Helm's biggest thing was steady, ongoing work, coupled with unstinting vigilance. The endless Bug Wards of Hivergreen had guaranteed that to thrive there, you needed traits like that...
-Incoming?- he /replied instantly, keeping up with his Stone Shaping as he did so. Allegiance Magic was flowing through him even as he pulled volcanic basalt upwards, empowering the stone; the carvers were already setting to with adamant tools, carving in the Runes that would draw in the power of the Land and precipitate the ash billowing upwards right back down out of the sky, staving off the nuclear winter sure to be coming if they weren't handled.
-No! Ummm, it's more like… outgoing?- the Archer /replied. There was no panic or expectancy in his voice, more like… confusion?
-Explain.- Argos constantly had /tells going off in his head, but had no problems dealing with them all with speed and panache, courtesy of his impressive 32 Charisma score. The Ring on his hand, granting him ceaseless energy, was also reflecting that energy in his efforts, and increasing his other Stats slowly but surely. As far as he knew, he had the highest Charisma on Terra, and his ability to deal with people and magic had benefited thereby.
Still, he definitely wanted a 28 Intellect and a third thoughtstream, so he could handle all these /tells as a completely separate thing from his Casting, like Ael, Mul, and Weird all did. The bastards.
-Well, I think I found out why there's so few Fireborn around.- A note of awe had crept into Drekzun's /voice. -Someone's been killing them!-
Argos blinked, and realized that explained a lot of things, actually. Sir Justin's knights were engaged in constant skirmishes with waves of Fireborn coming out of these areas, but the creatures were mostly lower order stuff, certainly not equal to the formerly vast numbers of the undead.
However, the four volcanoes his people had Obelisk'd hadn't had any of those problems. Indeed, the calderas seemed rather subdued, despite the burblings of ash heading skywards from them. As cookers went, they were rather mild, all in all. The ground didn't even tremble all that much.
-Relay?- he /ordered, and found one of his eyes looking out the eye of the concentrating Archer as Valences were spent. Drekzun's eyes were leaping forwards across miles with the Zen Discipline of Falcon’s Eyes, allowing him to see something at the next volcano to the south of them.
There was a long line of white extending across a lavafield, and what seemed to be a line of moving flames on a thin strip leading up to it.
He knew that 'white, everyone did now: the unwhite of vivic fire. Someone was killing things, Feeding them to the Land, and butchering enough of them to cover a lava lake in burning vivus.
That was a lot of killing... and it was heading towards the volcano. He wondered just who the heck was active out here, hundreds of miles from any land under Claim of an Allegiance. Nobody wanted a charland with hostile Fireborn in it, although having an active Karma source to blood noobs on was actually fairly desirable, even if Fireborn were a dangerous lot for newbies. But there was a whole planet of undead to kill; nobody was going to take up the task of something like that right now, right?
Still, a Senior Team had punched this far in? Drekzun could see a lot of fliers in the vicinity of that active rumbler, with a thick ash cloud boiling up from it; it was their next target and way more energetic then any other cooker close by.
-Investigate. Sentries, readjust arcs and cover for him.- He had a fairly unique ability to send out /tells to exactly however many people he wanted to at any time. Other Monarchs had to focus on one person or all Vassals or perhaps Fellows. He was fairly sure it was an effect of his Charisma thoughtstream, a counterpart to the multiple thoughtstreams of a high Intellect score.
Drekzun didn't waste time; he directly Linejumped south towards the fighting, burning a IV Valence to cover the miles quickly, and still allow him to appear in midair.
The Archer quickly scanned the area all about himself for fliers, but they seemed concentrated around the fighting taking place ahead of him about a half mile away.
At this range, the magnification of his Falcon’s Eyes brought the fighting in to less than a virtua hundred yards away.
Argos stopped bringing the basalt up. His Crew, startled, were about to say something when he /fed them all the view.
That wasn't a team; that was a woman, and she was soloing the fight!
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
It was taking place on a causeway, a road formed above a lava lake, the magma sustained in its liquid form by a real abundance of pyromana in the air. The road wound across the lake in scenic curves, not straight, clearly following some existing hill line, but also obviously worked on, given the scars of great tools and molten hands upon it. It was about sixty feet across, twenty feet above the lava, and there was a burning horde of Fireborn advancing across the crude roadway with urgent purpose. Their brimstone and burning eyes were fixed on the one woman advancing against them… but only for seconds.
Because basically as soon as they laid eyes on her, they died!
She had a full suit of adamant skinplate on. Adamant. Yes, blue-black, that was adamant, and the Runes scribed upon it were making his eyes flinch to look at them. True to form, it was clinging to her like a second skin, emphasizing rocking long legs and an ass to kill for, narrow waist, broad shoulders, an hourglass figure to inspire knuckle-biting, topped off by golden hair that was like a living flame as it swirled in the light of the lava, had to reach at least mid-thigh on her, flowing around her like it was alive.
Only a Ten would dare keep their hair so long in a fight...
-Valus, she's got a Tail!- someone /swore.
Frak, that wasn't all.
She was murdering them!
The Sword in her hand seemed to be vibrating, and the Runes on it were so hard and full of anathema to Fireborn Argos could feel it on the back of his teeth. He had never felt such a pure, lethal killing power, seen a Sword done up so hard it was hurting him to look at it, but he couldn't tear his eyes away. It was tearing space, a fact which left them all mute with shock. Nobody had seen any Weapon capable of doing that yet, it would have to be +VIII at a minimum, Craftsmanship 40, 45? Who had time to make a Sword like that?
The Sword swept out, and anything in its arc died, towing her along as she moved like she didn't have any bones, so fluid, and totally in control of the flow of combat. Each time something met her Sword and perished, an arc of force sheared off her Blade, trailing severed space behind it, and where it met Fireborn, they died.
For fifty yards in whatever direction it swept! The Sword just kept moving, ungodly fast, visible only for the instant it might pause and change direction, and Fireborn were exploding in vivus before her.
Her other arm was touching a kite Shield floating in front of her. As she spun, it shifted from an external blue-black, studded with glowing spikes and polished to a mirror-smooth reflection, to a perfectly transparent, almost invisible thing one could see right through from the direction of the wielder. Anything that wanted to lunge at her ran into the Shield, impaling themselves on those long spikes that were dripping icy red baneflames, and fell away with massive terminal wounds upon themselves. She wasn't even holding it, just touching the inside of it…
Two arms of phantasmal force, semi-transparent, clearly not real, were extending out from her armored hips; grasped in their hands were two hand-autobows, black as obsidian, with drawstrings of force-light. These devices were emitting leyser aiming lines, and following those lines was a non-stop stream of banefire bolts, dripping frozen carbon dioxide from the air as they were sent out ceaselessly. The bolts reached out to pick off those below in the lava, those who might have somehow dodged the Shardblades she was ceaselessly hurling out, and those who might try to flank her. About one per second from each of them, a continual stream of firepower… or icepower, as the case might be. Their accuracy was terrifying, popping skulls and blowing necks apart, cratering chests and sending limbs spinning away with their impact.
Her Tail rose up behind her, a thing of Artifice, of careful gears and cables girt in a golden light, the end of it gleaming with a sinister triple array of gleaming gemstones, while around it spun five spikes of ghost iron a foot long, burning with the same flames as her Sword. They were following yet another leyser, this one white, batting clean-up on whatever her Sword’s Shardings hit that didn't die, ceaselessly flicking this way and that to cover the arc around her as if it was an eye itself.
In addition to this rather unbelievable amount of firepower were continuous streams of Shards, one darting out of a jewel on her Sword's guard every two seconds, wrapped up in magic and banefire. It matched the one coming out of her Shield; which matched one coming out her Tail, and another one coming out of the crystalline horns that were floating around her head like a glowing crown.
It was like seeing an entire Fellowship of killing power all wrapped up in one person!
Argos could see the Soul magic at work. The Arms Arakne; the Halo Crown about her helm; the Manticore Tail lighting up around her waist and feeding down into her Tail; the black Mauler Gauntlets and middle white fingers of the Archer Gloves; the burning white bars of Philosopher's Might under the bracers on her forearms; the way her helm was split white on one side and black the other in a Mask of Clarity.
She had SEVEN Soul Bindings going full-bore. That much Essence... who had that much Soul Essence?
It was terrifying to watch. She had driven across a mile of that open causeway, leaving the ground burning white behind her. The vivic flames were spilling out onto the lava and cooling it rather rapidly as the pyromana within was refined away and purified, leaving a broadening arc of white stone behind her.
Nothing flying was getting close to her. He zeroed in on a swooping jinn diving towards her, suddenly flailing and dropping out of the air a hundred yards away from her. As the hapless lesser genie fell, two ice-trailing bolts found its head and chest, and it didn't hit the lava pool alive.
None of the fliers remained alive within two hundred yards of her. Whatever the range of those little Autobows was, it was more than enough to earn terrified respect from even the most powerful fliers ringing her. Notably, nothing was trying to fly over her, no matter how high they were.
A living Stillflight Field, moving with her… and she was doing all this right in the face of a constant bombardment of fiery magic, missiles, and fanatical attacks.
It wasn't much to be immune to fire; Argos had done the Ritual of the Burning Heart himself, and no non-Pureflame could do any harm to him, making this trip to the Charlands a literal walk in the park from a comfort standpoint. But she was advancing into the teeth of swarms of minions and the bulk of mighty beasts and monsters, and killing anything dangerous before it could possibly reach her. Whatever magic was being hurled at her and surrounding her in explosions, Rays, Lances, Bolts, Bursts, Walls, Comets, Storms, and whatnot of fire, none of it had the slightest effect on her. Arrows, spears, and javelins rarely found her, and when they did, they simply bounced impotently off her armor, although her Shield dealt with 99% of them.
She heaped up the dead before her, and Wave-Skated over their burning corpses, never stopping her fusillade of offense.
Argos had never seen anything so terrifying in his life. He could Siege Bursts and Lances; he had seen Aelryinth and Flechette spend endless Shardlances and Shardbursts stronger than anything he could Siege or Reserve. He had seen Seven Dragons executing endless multi-Dragon Techniques that could tear through a hundred feet of enemies and more at a time for hours on end.
He had never seen the sheer amount of firepower on display he was seeing here. Fireborn were being mowed down with a speed that was simply appalling. Nothing lived within the first hundred feet of those space-shearing Shardings, and rarely within the next fifty. Sure, they only cleared a path a few feet wide, and the causeway was only sixty feet wide, so she had to spread them out to catch everything. But the supporting fire from her Crossbows, Tail, and Shards was proving more than sufficient to contain stragglers before she needed to adjust her arc of fire.