The Inquisitor appeared again. Air Burst. “Acid Shot,” x20. She disappeared for a moment and reappeared as the acid passed through her position. Her sword came in at my face. I was forced to twist out of the way. The sword flew by me.

A blow struck my already wounded side. I dropped the child and staggered backwards. The Inquisitor caught the child, kind of, but was in an awkward position. She stood in front of the child as I stared at her on the roof top. There were screams in the distance from the ruined plaza.

“Leave. You got your points,” the Inquisitor said.

“Not without the child,” I replied and raised a hand.

“Can you risk it? I won’t use my Blink skill and you don’t use Acid Shot?” She offered. That was a losing deal and I didn’t agree with it.

“Nice try, but if the child dies, then so be it. Shield him with your body! Acid Shot,” x20. The Inquisitor scooped up the child and moved. She whipped off her cloak with one hand and used that to intercept the acid from her body and the child. I closed the distance.

Suddenly the Inquisitor let out a scream and tumbled to the ground. She cradled the kid to protect him as she rolled on the ground. I approached carefully, but she was coughing out copious amounts of blood and seizing as well by the looks of it.

I walked over and punched down at her head. She disappeared as my fist hit the ground. I couldn’t see or sense her anymore. Whatever had taken her out it wasn’t me. If I had to guess, she pushed herself too hard. We fought, I won, she clearly got a restoration, then got into another fight.

There was no way of knowing how much energy her Blink skill cost, but there might be a drawback of some kind. It pissed me off she kept escaping at the end. That skill was annoying me to no end.

Well, it didn’t matter anymore. It was a win for me in our second match. I ripped off my armor. The Edgelord set was no more. Rest in peace with Abs and Fuyuka, causalities of the Forbidden city. I looked at my side. It was bad. Good sized chunks had been removed from my flesh. There was blood and dead flesh oozing out. I winced at the pain and the sight now that I had a moment to breath. My stomach hurt as well. Something in the attacks must have done something.

I had been on edge the entire day, getting the points, the Avatar, the Inquisitor, and everything else. I needed to think through everything, but first I needed to get to safety and out of this city before mama Empress came back and got upset, I took her son.

I scooped up the kid and winced at the blows I had taken on my sides. The kid was bruised heavily but breathing and nothing seemed to be broken.

Time to do a disappearing act of my own. I quickly ran across the rooftops. It was time to get out of here. I got the points, so while almost all the secondary objectives were a fail, I still considered the operation a success.

It was a shame about the books. Those would have been useful to have. I needed a restoration, and I was in hostile territory. The kid needed a restoration and food as well. I could last a while with my stats, my recently increased stats. I smiled at that.

Despite everything, I had done it. Plan audacity had been a roaring success. That is why you get someone else to invent complicated rules for moving funds in and out of the treasury and don’t put it all on one person.

I needed to make my way back East, but I didn’t want the Divine Empress hot on my tail either. Well there was a city in almost every direction, when I cleared the outer wall, I would figure out which way I would be heading and keep going that way. It was still nighttime.

As I ran across the roof tops, I couldn’t help but have my mind drift to everything that had just happened. I had screwed up. I should have never rushed my meeting with the Avatar or agreed to anything.

This child was a mistake. He would be the anchor around my neck, which would drag me to my doom. I could feel it. I shouldn’t have gotten greedy after the Avatar. I had tried to take too much. After the success of the heist I had been riding high.

Also my fight against the Inquisitor had gone terribly. Everything was off with my movements. I wasn’t used to using the full range of my massively boosted Body stat. The fact I had not blocked physical attacks and they had dug into me, was a failure on my part.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Next time I get ten billion points and full off the heist of all time, I needed to be more focused. I let out a sigh at this thought. Now I needed to focus on the aftermath.

The first priority was getting back East and finding Clarissa to hand the kid off to. She would know where she could tuck him out of the way safely. That was really irking me. The Almighty System wanted the child of the Divine Empress and the Astrologer saved.

It was incredibly tempting to crush him in my hands. But I refrained. I wouldn’t risk my life, but I would make an effort. Perhaps he could be raised properly and trained to fight the Divine Empress. She wouldn’t be able to kill her own child, right? I had no idea about this, but it was a plan.

She had a second meta-point. Unfair, completely and utterly unfair. What did she do? Fart and the Almighty System rewards her? It was enough to make me sick to my stomach. The blows to my side had set off something fierce and my body felt like it wanted to cramp up. I just needed some restorations as quickly as possible.

I cleared the mid-wall easily enough and kept moving. I had really wanted an airship. I should have just gone for it and ignored the palace. Before that battle, it would have been perfect. “If she wouldn’t rip out my spine and beat me to death, I would trade your for an airship,” I muttered at the child.

I tried to recall his name. Qi Ji Long, if I recalled correctly. Well hopefully he wasn’t a completely spoiled brat. I might have a soft spot for children, but this one was the son of my most hated enemy. I couldn’t even claim the same, since what the Astrologer had done to her would have pissed me off as well.

Well, I would do my best. I saw the outer wall of the Forbidden City ahead of me. There were soldiers on top of the wall. Some of them noticed me. Air Burst. Air Burst. Air Burst. I cleared the top of the wall. Air Burst. Air Burst. I adjusted my force as I landed on the road outside the wall. Danger!

I moved to the side, being careful with the kid as beams of energy struck the ground behind me. Unlike the golems the humans could actually track. As I zig zagged off the road and into the forest, the trees giving me some cover.

They must have been on edge. I needed to make tracks, get restoration, new clothes, and then away from all of this. Just carrying the child made me feel stressed since he didn’t have any stats. It confirmed in my mind that stats weren’t inherited.

All the women who had gotten pregnant in Purgatory had no stats at the time or so few that it didn’t really matter. The kid would have to grind his way to power.

My mind drifted to the people who had shown up and the assassin. There were clearly other factions out there and they had made a move. A big move at that. They weren’t rebels either, but clearly organized factions.

I hadn’t realized until now, but they had enchanted gear. That could only come from cities. That meant there were at least two other cities outside the Dragon Empire and Purgatory that I did not know about. It would have been too easy to find a map lying around in the Divine Empress’s apartments.

Nothing was ever easy. It was all super hard mode around this place. Why couldn’t people stay in their own cities? I considered the assassin and those soldiers to be separate groups. They clearly had widely different outfits and goals.

One wanted the Avatar and the other wanted the kid. I could see the Avatar being considered some sort of holy relic of the Almighty System. It made sense. But the kid was something no one knew about. At least Bao Wang and the rebels hadn’t said anything.

That meant he was locked up safely in the palace. Which made sense. He was the reverse scale of the black dragon, that was the Divine Empress. Her critical weakness. Since she was unkillable in any other way.

A weakness of the mind. That was the biggest load of garbage I had ever heard. It was like meeting a celebrity in real life. You envisioned them to be one way. Then they were completely different when you finally met them. That was what had thrown me off.

Looking back, it was obvious the Avatar was messing with me. That chanting, singing, and other nonsense was to make me annoyed with her. I didn’t even need to sleep on it. Just getting out of that situation made me realize how well she had manipulated me into throwing her away at that critical moment.

There could even be some kind of mental manipulation going on. I would never allow myself to meet with her again and only through proxies or letters. No more of that insane mental speech going right into my head.

That was a neat trick or skill, and I wondered on the range. It was hard to say, but the Avatar was clearly packing. That golden shield she had used to block that skill from the Master Fleshcrafter was something else.

It made me wonder what type of energy was gold? Why did the Almighty System use monochrome energy for the shards I had found with the Astrologer and the City Shield, but nuke things and give its Avatar golden colored skills?

First, save the kid. Second, save the Astrologer. Third, profit somehow and not get killed. The fact the Divine Empress was so rich made me realize I needed to come up with a comprehensive tax plan and expand the cities I controlled.

Just pay a little bit more than the slaves got in the Dragon Empire to make them employees and then hoover up all the crystals. Fees for restorations. Taxes on anything below a level 4 crystal. Taxes for enchanted gear. Fees for having your own property.

Give people hope if they got strong enough, they could get out of the taxes, but no. The Immortal Council never really took off. This place rewarded a single person consolidating all power to themselves. That person was going to be me if I could survive this crisis and the Divine Empress was somehow killed.

It was killed, not defeated. No nonsense about imprisoning her or trying to make her see the error of her ways. In fact if she was killed, I would be willing to pay any price to make sure she stayed dead. I did not want her ever coming back. One stratospheric trip with a hole in my chest, was one trip too many.