The Power of Ten

Chapter 10-307: The Gamers and Thrones

-Nice to hear you’re approaching sustainability,- I /congratulated Sama. The number of Chinese entering the fight was only increasing, and with Commander Haru’Ara there to help with emergencies, while also churning out tons of high QL stuff, it was only getting better.

-Thanks! The lack of unity among the Cultivators is helping, as is the disjointed nature of our attacks... and the fact that every time they launch a major assault, you seem to be in the way.-

-Strange, that!-

The same thing was happening on this side over here, with the native Indians wiping out remaining Buddhist strongpoints in the areas I wasn’t in. I was bringing in high-QL Weapons for the Junior Levels to use, and the many Shroudzones about were helping them Level themselves and Feed the Names of their Weapons. Perma-death of the undead was finally starting to happen, and the engine of Levels was on the way, with the Double Helix method proliferating as fast as we could make it.

It would be literally twice as fast if people could just straight Level, but that was almost impossible. Cheat-cheat-cheat was the way to do things.

The word was going out. We knew the enemies in front of us. We knew who we had to kill.

We didn’t know who was coming afterwards, but they would all have the potential to be like these foes, and the world had to be ready.

People, you just gotta Level...

-So what have you and Briggs decided upon?- I /asked them both calmly.

-I’m going to stay here,- Briggs /stated firmly, with all that Source weight behind it. -Which you probably figured out pretty fast.-

I eyed the explosive growth of their Allegiance, which was literally adding hundreds of people every minute now. The Chinese were throwing themselves at the Banner of Briggs and Sama... and me, but in their eyes, I was the Empress, and these two were the local Kings.

The Chinese WANTED the two of them to stay. Their respect for martial traditions and the fact that their Powered were severely under-represented meant the two were a ‘common man’s’ pair of leaders, and that appealed to all of the Chinese.

The fact the two could browbeat even the best of the Taiwanese without a problem only confirmed the fact. The fact they were not Chinese was, at this point, inconsequential. It was funny how heritage didn’t matter when you could see someone’s soul.

-China is the stepping stone to taking over all of Asia,- I /observed, -and potentially Europe, too. They may have different Mother Lands, but it’s all one continent in the end.-

-Yes. I’ve been in contact with the Allegiance members in India, and I’ll be able to gut their Bannersworn without effort. If they want to fight about it, I’ll do that, too,- Sama /agreed.

They wouldn’t be able to stop the two of them. Give Briggs time, and he was just going to be unstoppable, and all that Karma from being Emperor and Warlord was just going to drive the whole system further and faster.

-Your recommendation for Northam?- I /inquired, having my own ideas... but the support of the world’s strongest Source could only help make it happen.

-Sir Pellier,- both he and Sama /said together. -Right now he’s the highest-Level Paladin in North America, and much more, besides. He will have the Divine backing, and getting him Landsworn should not be an issue. He has the backing of Heavenbound Hall, and is known among a LOT of the Powered and those Leveling up as the guy driving the death of the Shrouds and helping coordinate the general rise to power of everyone,- Briggs /concluded. -We just have to make him strong enough to fend off any challengers.-josei

-I want you putting some form of succession mechanics in place,- I /told the both of them. -Generating successors who are good for the job is as necessary as getting the first one.-

-Truth!- he /agreed. -Happily this being under you for now is going to partially sidestep the Rule of Kings once you become absentee. You only need to appoint a stand-in.-

Which we both knew would be him. All I had to do was have all the Kings for the relevant continents under The Jet and Silver... and he would be a de facto Emperor without needing to go through Conquest to become that way.

I stroked my temples. Yes, working out who were going to be Kings for Africa and South America would be nothing at all, surely...

It was hugely arrogant, and doubtless there were a lot of people who were going to have their own ideas on the topic. At the same time, if we were going to unite the planet, this was an optimal time to make it happen. It was going to take a very long time, if not forever, otherwise.

But the strongest Source in the world was getting fully behind me, and the Chinese were basically all Nulls and Sources and Voids, now. They would fall in behind him, and their combined Destiny was going to be VERY hard to stop.

Which was the whole idea. A world of states which could be brought easily to war was entertainment for the darker elements of the Divine, but shit-all for people to live in.

It was a very different situation from Terra-Luna, and I didn’t know if it could even be done, having my doubts.

No, scratch that. Too many scenarios I was running ended up very badly if we actually did it. We basically had to leave some places for Evil and Neutrality to dominate, or the consequences would be pretty horrible within a generation or two.

I could only sigh. So much shit was going to happen, and Good was going to have a hard enough time on its own, let alone deal with the crap that was going to go down in other places.

But that was the job. Level, make your people stronger so they could deal with the crap coming down from outside and inside. China had already seen the consequences, an entire two generations of Powered and more wiped away, leaving them weak and exposed... and only those surviving could close the hole, or they would be swept away and enslaved once more.

Enslaved by things that had sprung forth from the deepest beliefs of their own people. The blow to their history and culture was not something that would survive this. Every Cultivator slain was a blow against their own past, cutting the chains that bound them down.

Sama and Briggs burned with motivation, the fact that you didn’t need magic or Chi-wielding to be strong, and that they were rocks and pillars of the Land, the grit and foundation of the Human Race.

They were the strength that had to endure, to eat the attacks of inhuman things, and defy them. This time, there were no Powered of their own to save them... and they were now desperate with determination and pride that, having found the right way, they would not need them to complete this job.

Oh, the Chinese knew they couldn’t take on massive numbers of Cultivators... but that was a time thing, not a strength thing. Every one of them who finished their training against the undead the Daoists had made of their countrymen was someone with the strength to defy the Cultivators, join the fight, and do what needed to be done.

Their numbers, despite their losses, were only continuing to increase, as more and more Chinese graduated from the purging of undead to the purging of the Daoists who were definitely the greater evil here.

My own role was evolving with the increased strength coming from below. Even if it cost some lives, I had to hold off doing the jobs the people could do. They had to get stronger, they had to believe in their strength, not MY strength. They had to take responsibility, and be ready to risk their lives against things happy to kill them... and let those things know that they were risking death, too!

No, my job was reversing the Shrines and their Qi-Making Formations; taking on the most powerful threats they couldn’t handle, such as the arhats and their entourages; and cracking open fortifications to shatter their condensed forces.

There were still plenty of Powered in India, but there were even more Nulls and Sources starting to arise, and they had very different ideas on who should be in charge. Sama’s attention had shifted, and she was now handling Warlording for many of the Forsaken and Primos Indians, who were happy to learn that not having magic was a strength and power all its own...

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Of course, while all that was happening, the week since I’d presented to the Leaders and Opened the sky had gone away, the longest Hole In The Sky evah had still closed up in the end... and Heavenbound Hall had released my video of the talk with the world leaders.

How to make and form Allegiances and Kingdoms was now on the table. Furthermore, the existences of the Mother Lands and the likely consequences if people didn’t get their acts together was also going out. Whether they would take the latter seriously was important, but naturally it paled compared to the exploding interest in people creating all the Allegiances-Guilds-Clans-Alliances-Cooperatives-whatevah fancy names they wanted to, trying to suck in others, build up their power and Acclaim and get some sweet free pass-up Karma to help them Level.

Their Allegiances tended to have real problems with Loyalty and Duty, as naturally the most ambitious powermongers promising all sorts of shit actually had crap-all for Duty... and their followers could feel it, and so naturally reciprocated with crap-all for Loyalty.

That naturally meant no pass-up Karma to speak of, which also naturally meant the whole Allegiance was little more than an invisible identifier symbol only someone else sworn to a Kingdom or Allegiance could see. Nothing more than overblown Fellowships, really, and since they didn’t have a foundation under them, they didn’t even get the free /tell system, although the boost to Messaging worked just fine.

Of course, I had the advantage of an early start, and I had Duty AND Faith at incredible Levels. Combine with Charisma, Levels, and incredible support Stats, and yes, I did make a good Monarch, following in the footsteps of others, but Aelryinth never had quite so many people to pick from to follow him as I did.

While there were some protests from people about getting all the Churches behind one person as far as an Allegiance went, those died as soon as the speaker got Blessed or Marked, and the Allegiance began to churn with the influence-building like nobody’s business.

Entire countries were starting to rock. It was a bloodless revolution, save between would-be Monarchs going off on one another for egos, but there was no doubt the standard system of government simply could not survive the level of transparency that the Allegiance system gave the people, and if the politicians or existing militaries didn’t like it, it didn’t matter.

Briggs’ following was exploding in China. Sama’s was growing in India when she transferred over. Sir Pellier’s was blossoming wildly in North America. Mine... was basically growing anywhere there were Churches of the Gods of Heaven.

There were cases of people swearing false Oath, thinking they could game the system, or maybe even deluding themselves that they were free to swear to whoever they liked. People being blown apart for doing so by bolts from the blue, er, gray, made it very, very plain that swearing an Oath was a Big Thing, and they’d damn well better be certain they and their Monarch were going to be a good fit.

Swearing to a Banner was a lot easier, but naturally meant you were just a peon, belonging to belong and get the benefits. It was likely your Loyalty was crap, and so the Duty returned was equally as ambivalent.

I did watch Allegiances pop up across the world as Powered went grabbing for power, and the games of influence-peddling, bribery, and manipulation began.

However, the games they played were now apparent to those who followed them. Those bonds of Oath worked both ways, and insincere Monarchs could not hold people to their Oaths at all.

Allegiances by the eager and power-hungry rose, and then almost as quickly collapsed under the weight of demands going both ways that all parties involved hadn’t realized. People began to understand that being a Monarch was not a casual thing, not a job they could pawn off on others, and the popularity contest that might start it faded away quick when you didn’t know how to run such a thing.