I had noticed tribes people in the swamps fighting the monsters there. They didn’t look that good and were in smaller groups or alone, but this was probably the dumping ground for tribal rejects. There is always someone in a worse position and I was glad I wasn’t one of those people.

Exiting the swamp into some shadowlands, I continued to make my way to the Northeast. Fuyuka had really helped out with the exact terrain. The rebels knew it all. Bao Wang, or the Butcher, had been less informed surprisingly. Or not surprisingly since the evil empire was run like a decapitated chicken.

Honestly, I couldn’t imagine a worse possible government. Even anarchy would be better. At least there if you were the Divine Empress you could just go around killing people for the crystals they had collected. Or set up a fighting cage in your plaza.

That was when it hit me. The Divine Empress had roads built and Hitler had built the autobahn in Nazi Germany. Both made travel a lot easier. I had never thought of that before. Evil empires got to have those roads.

I couldn’t chuckle or shake my head at my own realization but I just grinned a bit. It was nice to make connections like that sometimes. Ahead of me I saw the level 1 flowerlands. I was making good time and the tribes people were staying away.

At least the cities were easy to find in the Systemic Lands. The zone layout made things very easy to figure out where cities were located. Just had down level. Huh, I should make that a term like deek. Down level, it had a nice ring to it.

I saw some forest up ahead and kept going. There were no monsters now in the afternoon. The tribes had swept up everything which was nice and made travel easy. Not as nice as the road though which was flat.

A short time later I saw the city wall ahead. I went over as gently as possible and landed on the other side. No soldiers on the wall top. That was surprising. But it would be a nightmare to climb without equipment.

I made my way across the roof tops and saw the fighting in the plaza before I heard it. There were people fighting in melee and some skills. It appeared to be the Black Talons holding off the regular soldiers. Well, this was surprising. Luckily the fight was happening in the North part of the plaza, and I had come in from the Southwest.

Landing near the pillars many people gave me looks. Fu Ge quickly cashed in the level 3 crystals I had collected for him from our campsite so he could get a restoration. He looked a lot better after he got one and instructed Qi Ji Long to get one as well.

I kept an eye out but no one bothered us as I refilled up our supplies. I also purchased another backpack to wear on my front. I could put Qi Ji Long like a child carrier. Fu Ge was just going to have to hang onto my back and wear the supply pack.

“Hurry up,” I told both of them and they quickly got moving. I swear, you see one battle, you have seen them all. This was nothing new to me and I didn’t want to wait around and be pulled into the drama.

Well they could keep fighting, it was no longer my problem. Time to get out of here and back home. Once my two passengers were set, I took off towards the Northwest. I passed near the fight, but they were too busy to bother me just as I hoped.

We made our way out of the city and went back to traveling. I couldn’t wait to get an airship of my own. I would fly everywhere. No more running. I didn’t care if it burnt up a million points per zone, I was mentally tired of dragging other people around and having to run everywhere.

Our course Northwest, to get the East road out of the Forbidden City. The South road lead to Nanjing. I did not want to go near the Forbidden City. They had cannons on their wall that shot energy beams. They had terrible aim, but against a large group or airships, I could see them maybe working.

The fact the airships had penetrated to the plaza showed that offense was the best defense. One couldn’t just turtle up. Well with the City Shield it would be possible. Three dimensional combat made the walls a barrier for low level people or larger monsters, but not something that would stop a single person.

Even monsters could break through, like the golems that had chased me from the tower. Well I would be going to another one with the Astrologer. It would be interesting to see if they both of them had golems.

It was getting dark by the time I reached the East road which was perfect. I set off as quickly as I could go without hurting either of my passengers. It was a pain to focus on my exact footing out in the wilderness. I had never realized what a mental burden it was until I ran along the roads.

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Purgatory would have all the roads. Make travel a breeze, for the poor people. I would be riding in my airship. One day, airship, one day.

There was no traffic on the road either which was nice. The tribes would stay away, and the evil empire was in turmoil right now. Honestly, I was surprised things had devolved to a civil war so quickly. But it also made sense.

The evil empire had to be hemorrhaging troops in the war with my faction and me killing off a bunch. The rebels had taken a city drawing more soldiers away. Then the capital had been robbed, blown up, and the attackers had escaped.

The Envoy was probably up to his ears trying to stabilize the situation. So either the population was fed up or the Lords were making a play for more power. Either case, I had no objections. It would weaken and hopefully break the Divine Empress’s tribute train she had running.

I had always thought the Dragon Empire would collapse if I robbed the treasury and the Divine Empress wasn’t around, but in a single day. I was honestly impressed with myself. I knew I couldn’t take all the credit, but I was no longer a slayer of people, but a slayer of nations.

Everyone had all these titles, and while Champion was good, I needed to add a couple more under my belt for my own Empire. Dragon Slayer Michael sounded about right, since I killed off the Dragon Empire. The Black Dragon herself was still around, I had been told that was what Hei Long meant in Chinese, but hopefully I could up my dragon slaying count to two.

The road transitioned to a level 1 zone and I estimated we would reach New Beijing around midnight. I had taken two breaks already with my passengers, but the kid was dozing right now as best as he could. Fu Ge was barely hanging on. I hesitated but called it a night. I couldn’t have him falling off and I got a lot further than I hoped for today. I picked a spot near the road, but in the forest. No monsters or people nearby and let them pass out from exhaustion.

I took the time to stretched while my two traveling companions crashed. I wasn’t going to sleep. I had my rest, and more than enough.

I also didn’t feel sleepy either. The stats kicking in. It was annoying that I had to stop, but it was for the best. Michael express was not torture express. I needed them functional just in case something happened. Well if something happened, Fu Ge was getting tossed and I would run on with the kid.

That was the power of stats to keep going and going. It made me wonder if there was a true limit to what stats could do. Where was the power cap? I knew the Divine Empress was strong, but could she beat a level 6, a level 7?

And what was beyond that. The point drops from different level monsters made it appear that level 10 was the maximum. But I was hesitant to agree with that. I had been wrong about a lot of other stuff. The stats needed to fight at that level would have to be insane.

I would need to set up my own tribute system or taxes as proper governments would call it. No Immortal Council. Just me at the top, getting fifty percent of the budget. I would label it defense spending.

My thoughts drifted to Earth. If my family could see me now. Destroyer of nations. That was another good title. I would be stacking them up. I wasn’t sure about the title of Emperor. It sounded very self centered and had connotations.

Champion Michael, Slayer of Dragons, Destroyer of Nations, it had a good ring to it. Keep the Champion title so people didn’t expect me to actually do any paperwork or management besides taking in the crystals for myself.

I could already imagine Clarissa just sighing and giving me a look. Then she would respond with her deadpan voice asking me how we should implement such a thing and what portion of the budget to allocate.

What I really needed was a teammate to train with and bounce ideas off of. I liked that with Naran. He was always level headed in his own way. He had his issues, but he was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Well don’t worry friend, I left a present for the Divine Empress, and I hope she found it when she returned. The look on her face would be priceless and also a death sentence. The Avatar could probably see it. I might, and this was a big might, forgive her if she was able to show me it somehow.

I thought about the tower and anything I would need to do to prepare. I would like to get some more upgrades for Acid Shot and maybe take it to the next level. I had time. I had a lot of time. It was probably better to do it, since once I entered the tower I wouldn’t be able to leave according to the Astrologer.

That also meant I would haul in a cart of supplies. I could leave it at the entrance maybe and take a full pack or two. But I would bring a cart stuffed to the brim just in case I needed to fall back and resupply. Maybe I could hall the cart up, but no. The giant steps up to the tower indicated it wasn’t cart friendly.

If there had been a ramp leading up to the entrance then I would have been more inclined to believe it was cart accessible. Oh, a group was moving along the road. I counted 10 people, and they had decent stats.

Around the 6,000 mark if I had to guess. Perhaps Black Talons coming back from a mission. The kid was chained to me, but I didn’t want to wake him. I pulled apart the metal handcuff and put it into the side of the tree, wedging it in there.

It was a bad solution, but it would take at least a moment to get free. I also kept one eye on the kid as I moved to the road to confront the group. If they were from the evil empire, I would get information and then kill them.

“Ahead!” I heard one of them all out in English. So not the evil empire then.

“Identify yourselves,” I called back as I stepped out onto the road, while still keeping one eye on Qi Ji Long.