There were more void zones to the South of the two level 3 zones I had already cleared. I hesitated and then turned to my East. I wanted to check out another level 4 zone and to just check if there was another level 3 zone.

There could be a city hiding in the Northeast for all I knew. I reached some darklands in front of me. It was mid-day and I was a bit tired, but I could take a look at the monster. I entered the darklands and floating clear pyramids floated at me point first.

“Acid Shot,” the skill was dispersed to either side of the monster. I could see more of these Scatter Pyramids approaching. “Seriously, are you kidding me.” The monsters didn’t respond as I retreated out of the darklands.

This was frankly annoying. “Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” I kept using the skill over and over and finally some of my attack landed on the monster slowly melting it. That was when the other pyramids arrived.

“You know what, screw you. And you, and also you!” I pointed at the monsters and then raced off. I could win, but it would be a long drawn out fight that was pointless. I could easily outspeed them instead.

I felt a sense of danger and dodged. Now the pyramids were shooting beams at me. Yep, time to get out of here. I raced over a hill and the next. I had to go half zone before they were finally out of sight. That had been very annoying.

If I had a multi-shot upgrade, I could have won that easily. Upgrades were clearly becoming more important than they had in the past. That was something I needed to seriously consider when upgrading my skills in the future.

Well, with any luck I would be able to reset my skills once all my enemies were dead and I could raise them up to level 5 before getting the silent and gestureless upgrades to keep the cost low. What an evil tradeoff.

One needed those upgrades and wouldn’t care much about cost at the start. But later on, it would be critical otherwise the skill would be way too expensive to use. Once you got the silent and gestureless upgrades you couldn’t change them unless you gave up the entire skill and started all over.

Every increase in grinding level would require getting the skills all over again along with all the upgrades. I guess that would be one advantage of having an empire I controlled. I would just slot myself into the dungeons to get those upgrades myself.

I suspected the Divine Empress had done the same thing. Get good skills on the cheap and then upgrade them to the level you fought at. For her that meant level 4 or level 5 skills. Probably level 5 skills if I had to guess with all upgrades.

Well at least she was still missing and I had time to get things sorted. Even if she showed up there would be no way to find me. I almost stopped running at that thought and then scowled before going back to running.

The Avatar would have a way to track me or the kid down. The Divine Empress just had to capture her again. But the Avatar wouldn’t let that happen. The one thing she had gone to great lengths to accomplish was getting herself free and out of the Forbidden City.

So, she would definitely not allow herself to be captured a second time. She would hide in her airship if necessary. The Divine Empress would probably wreck the Fifth Caliphate but the important people would already be hiding outside the cities like Purgatory and Clarissa were doing.

Cities were choke points and key ambush spots. While they made life convenient with the store right there, that was also a trap. It was much better to stay out in the wilderness and only occasionally go back to the cities if you weren’t the strongest.

Without the Avatar, there would be no easy way to track me down. The Dragon Empire was fracturing and being captured. I also doubted the Divine Empress would have the patience to rebuild everything. That raised the question of what she would do.

Clarissa was sure to be moving about along with the good doctor, and the kid. So, there would be no easy way to find them. I was off running around to various dungeons, so it wouldn’t be easy to find me either. No Avatar, so the Divine Empress wouldn’t be able to use her.

What would she do exactly? I tried to put myself in her shoes. Completely unstoppable, god or in this case goddess of combat, and with the goal of finding my child. Go through the soldiers and commanders one by one, until someone knew something.

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That would lead me towards the Avatar. But the Avatar was missing, so I would wreck her cities to make a point, but I would need to investigate. Maybe switch out a skill for a disguise skill? No, the Divine Empress was proud.

The fact she just strolled around her in regular outfit was a clear sign she wasn’t afraid to throw down. Even if she did change clothing, her appearance was quite memorable.

It was a tough question to answer, and I had no good answers. Oh, dammit. I then realized what would happen. The Avatar was the queen of assholes, so she would point the Divine Empress in another direction most likely.

Probably Clarissa, dammit. It made sense. The Avatar wanted me to free the Astrologer, so I was off limits, but she would target my power base. That meant taking out Clarissa. If she died, there would be no empire and it would be the perfect move to make as well.

If the Divine Empress was killed, then everything would be up for grabs. I had struck at the city of Normandy and the New United City States for this very reason. I couldn’t allow such a power base to exist for an opposing faction. But the Avatar had her own faction, couldn’t defeat me, and didn’t want to kill me.

But Clarissa was a weak point. I considered going back to warn her, but she could figure this out herself. If she couldn’t then she didn’t deserve to be in charge. That was why she got a big salary. She was also moving around to various bases, so she wouldn’t be easy to find.

Clarissa rolled dice to determine her movement pattern to ensure it was completely random. I had honestly been impressed when she came up with that idea. Getting to her messengers would also not be easy. Clarissa could handle herself.

What a mess, but at least now I had a picture of what the future would look like. It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was workable. The Divine Empress would be forced to resort to investigation and questioning people. That would take time and there were a limited number of people she could interrogate at once.

Even if she questioned and killed a person every minute, it would be a struggle for her to find any information at all. I didn’t see her waiting and hiding in a city to follow someone back, but she could do it if she was stalled out long enough.

That would be the most dangerous situation and there was a chance she would be able to track down Clarissa that way. While a lot of this was conjecture, it also felt right as I imagined how the conflict would go.

Without internet or real time updates, I had to imagine what my opponents would do and what was the worst possible outcome. That would be randomly running across the Divine Empress in the wilderness. That would be the ultimate bad luck, but the chances were quite small.

I considered my armor. It was time to change to another set. While I had been back in my Champion Set which was dark blue with golden dragons, it was too conspicuous. I needed something different, like one of those brown and green uniforms my soldiers used.

But it was important that I hide my movements and myself from casual long distance observation. I had no way or idea how to counter what the Avatar did, but if the Divine Empress was a few miles away I wanted not to be a target just by sight.

The Sense stat would reveal me, but there was nothing I could do about it. If she got close enough for it to work, then I would be in trouble regardless. I should have made the outfit change earlier, but that was the hard thing about a conflict like this. I had to figure things out without perfect information.

It was a total guessing game and the fog of war was quite real in my situation. Without instant communications and satellite images I just had to guess what people would do. Would the Avatar point the Divine Empress towards her kid was the real question?

I considered that as I ran back towards Normandy. It was not an easy question to answer. The Avatar wanted the kid safe, or the Almighty System did, so giving up his location to his mother would be fine, but the Avatar had me kidnap him in the first place.

No, she wouldn’t. The superweapon was more questionable, but sending the Divine Empress after Clarissa seemed like something the Avatar would do. As a way to strike back at me. It was honestly annoying having to deal with someone I couldn’t kill and with her abilities.

It was all scheming. I honestly sympathized with the Divine Empress and mentally agreed it was the right move to cut off her limbs, eyes, and tongue and throw her into a pit.

As I approached Normandy there were no guards. I entered the city and made my way towards the plaza. When I arrived, I saw several of my soldiers there. I was quickly pointed towards Commander Abdullah.

“Commander Abdullah, you just arrived?” I asked. He saluted me which I returned. The fact he was back here said good things about him delivering the information safely.

“We have. The information was delivered safely to Clarissa without incident, and we were sent to take the city and the nearby zones over.” I let out a sigh of relief, at that. It was honestly good to know that the assassin cult would not rise again.

Those women had been terrifying with how willing they were to die. I had my money on brainwashing since it was the only thing that made sense. Or perhaps some weird group had come to power and self-selected, not that it made a huge difference right now.

“But we are actually leaving and spreading out to the nearby zones. The city and all cities are being declared high level danger.” I closed my eyes, there could only be one explanation for such a move being made by Clarissa.

There were contingency orders she had given the higher level officers in the event of certain situations when it wasn’t possible to contact her for long periods of time. I had looked over the paperwork she had written up, but didn’t have much input. She had things well in hand.

For the cities to be declared high level danger areas meant one thing. It was nothing good and now there was a huge pressure on me to get things done.

“We have a report that the Divine Empress has returned.”