The acid shot out rapidly one after another. Two multi-cast upgrades allowed me to spam the skill like I hadn’t before. Even the mental trigger took a bit of time. Like pulling the trigger on a gun one bullet at time.

This let me go to full auto on the skill. The energy cost was immense, but I had enough Spirit stat to spare. The Mistress with me dried to dodge away, but I followed her even as she disappeared. You couldn’t alter your trajectory in mid-air, and I had aimed around her first, so as to not trigger her danger sense and hem her in.

I had learned that trick from her. Not targeting a person, but where they could move. Danger sense was fickle and weird like that. Not the monolithic ability I had put so much trust in all this time.

“Ahhhhh!” There was a brief scream as she was melted and killed. Several women appeared and various energy blasts and beams shot at me. Aqua Sphere. The attacks were intercepted, none of them strong enough to punch through my defenses. I moved towards the closest woman.

They did not have the stats to even think about escaping. Acid Shot. She died screamed as her torso and legs melted away. I moved from one assassin to the next. They had thought themselves so clever. But one thing I learned from the Divine Empress, is that absolute power is absolute power at the end of the day.

You can do tricks and strategies, but just overwhelming power and a lot more stats was impossibly hard to counter. With the women dead I raced back towards the city. Cries went up and then city shield appeared around the city.

Acid Shot. The attack just slid right off the glowing white outer shield. It made it hard to see the monochrome environment inside. But it was not a problem. It was unfortunate the shield had been activated, but it was always a possibility.

I wanted my soldiers and the knowledge to get away and I would end this threat before it got out of hand. They might have even been expecting this or had a City Shield building near each gate. I would have to talk to Clarissa about that when we rebuilt Purgatory.

One City Shield seemed like too much of a point of failure. Having four or five instead seemed like a much better idea. Have the main one that we would upgrade in the city center, then a lesser one at each gate in the event of an emergency.

Still, I didn’t think these women had multiple City Shields. Instead, it was most likely the Avatar meddling once again. It was exasperating. But she clearly had an agenda I didn’t understand. The fact she wanted me to go to the Astrologer was getting into my head.

Best thing to do would be to ignore her, but I wanted to unravel the trickery she was trying to pull. While I thought on how many levels deep, she was thinking, I retreated out of sight of the city walls. I could barely see the glowing dome as I began patrolling and killing anyone I could find in a zig zag pattern between the retreating soldiers and Normandy.

There were men out her grinding. Really a completely female controlled society but they loved the Astrologer? That was weird and there was clearly some backstory there I was missing. But my thoughts soon went back to the Avatar even as I continued to scan my surroundings.

To communicate at a distance like that was concerning. I hadn’t seen any airships, so if this Fifth Caliphate had arrived, they had to do so on foot. That was a shame, I would have loved to have captured an airship. Clarissa would have loved it as a present.

I mean I would want it back once I got out of the tower and would use it before then, but the ability to hide up in the air at a height would be quite useful. But the Avatar had probably guessed I would steal one. If there had been an airship I would have just stolen it right away with the information in hand.

That was when it hit me. I was stupid. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was being. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the Avatar could talk to multiple people at once and she probably didn’t say the same thing. Another distraction and misdirection that had fooled me.

It had made no sense for the Council of Shadows to hand over the knowledge and not get the Astrologer’s location. Only that one woman who had followed me insisted. It was a conspiracy, or a mistake.

I hadn’t cared at the time, happy to be out of there. The Avatar had played me again. I considered the woman following me. She had been real, but the rest of the Council was alive, and I would probably not find them. Even when the City Shield dropped, they would hide in the wilderness just like my forces were doing against the Divine Empress.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

That meant they would be the future rebels to my possible empire. I let out a sigh as I killed some more grinders who were camped outside the city, while looking for any pursuit. I scanned the sky, no airship.

I had been tempted to go for the tower after this, but the Avatar was no longer just an annoyance. She was actively conspiring against me and had a separate agenda. I didn’t like that at all.

It would be a hike to get to her nation, but it was something I felt should be done. That was what the Divine Empress had probably done and it could be a trap. The Avatar would see me coming ahead of time. If she could communicate at that precise moment in the Council Chamber then her claims about seeing what the Almighty System could see were probably true.

I was stuck into precisely the situation I had wanted to avoid. Confronting a schemer who I didn’t understand their goals or objectives. I shook my head as I raced through the forest looking for people towards the Southwest.

The best option and course of action was to pick the one that benefited me the most and not going after the Avatar or taking her words into consideration at all. I wanted to kill off the city of Normandy and the New United City States before it could become a threat.

The City Shield would only last a few days at most, but that was a long time. I would check back in a day to see if it had dropped and then I would either kill everyone in the city or leave and focus on my skills. The Astrologer could wait in his tower.

His deadline was the one that mattered and rushing off to deal with it was not going to happen. I wasn’t worried about the Divine Empress showing up either. The preparations Clarissa had taken were immense.

The Divine Empress would have to scour zone by zone to try and track her down and she would be moving as well. I had no doubt she had fall back points in level 3 zones.

Clarissa would be fine along with Qi Ji Long. Research might be an issue, but they could be moved as well. There would be deaths, but the Divine Empress was one woman. She could kill everyone, but she could not be everywhere at once. Even her demonic babies weren’t that much of a threat. Since I could handle them before my upgrade.

They were dangerous in large numbers, but she couldn’t make more of them with the Forbidden City being destroyed. That meant she might come after me, but good luck finding someone running around in the wilderness.

It was impossible to track someone down like that. I had considered the problem myself and the headache with the Ritualist had proved that searching for someone was exhausting and time consuming. Even if the Divine Empress had a map, hiding out in the wilderness was an effective strategy.

In fact, I wanted her to look for me. Waste her time running about and not getting more powerful. It would be a blood bath, but how long could she go around murdering everyone she found? I mean eventually she would get mentally tired as new arrivals showed up with no idea why this old Asian lady was blasting them into the stratosphere.

The Divine Empress was a threat, but I just had to avoid her, which I had confidence in doing. What would be more annoying were these other factions, which is why I had wanted to kill them off. So after a day, if the shield hadn’t gone down, I would level up my skills in preparation for going to the tower in the area.

After that I would enter the city and kill everyone once the shield dropped and then be on my merry way. Then I would deal with the Astrologer. I had no idea what he had done to me, but I was thinking it was most likely a bluff of some kind.

To put a living bomb inside of me without my noticing? Possibly, but to time it so precisely just seemed off. I would assume there was a possession kind of thing that was waiting to happen in that tower. Perhaps some enchanted blankets would not be out of the question.

I nodded to myself at that idea. Just as another surprise in my pocket to teach the Astrologer a lesson. When his spirit or whatever nonsense he had cooked up leapt out to posses me, whip out a blanket and disrupt his form and then unleash Acid Shot everywhere.

If anything I was more concerned about the tower and the monsters and traps inside. The Almighty System was a lot more devilish than people. Its Avatar only confirmed this in my mind. I saw my soldiers running away in the level 2 zone in the distance and they were all fine. I nodded at this.

I scanned more of the terrain for anyone chasing them or nearby and there was no one. Well, the shield would stay up for a day, so I would follow them at a distance. Perhaps the Avatar would send someone out to get the information.

It was like a lightning bolt in my brain. Tell the women to rush me away, I was dangerous and unstable. They give me the information, but they are idiots. The Avatar would know that her making her presence known would annoy me and I would lash out.

The shield was to delay me and might not even be part of the Avatar’s plan. But if I was her, I would go for the most valuable item. That chest of books. Her faction had airships and her people had much higher stats than mine.

She could swoop in and take all that knowledge. If I followed my soldiers she would notice and just not have her airship go after them and ‘rescue’ the Council instead. I just had to think what a conniving person who could spy on everything would do and I got my answer.

The trick was to not lose no matter what. I would follow my soldiers behind them. Perhaps the Avatar might take her gaze off of me or she might have some kind of limitation. Regardless, the best ambush spot would be the level 3 zone with the stonelands.

And if my troops were ambushed, she would just point the finger at the assassins. Before I was Champion, I was a fat asshole who thought a lot. I hadn’t been working my brain too much lately, but the Avatar was making me stretch out those brain muscles. The one nice thing was that I couldn’t be personally countered, so she had to plot around me.

No wonder why the Divine Empress just went around on her own. It would be impossible for anyone to plan against and drive people to madness.