The Power of Ten

Chapter 9-276: Pure Desires

His scarred lips pursed slightly. -But not for a Hellpact.-

“I’d rather assumed you don’t want a Pure Hellpact, oddly enough.”

The half a smile ghosted across and was gone. -I would love a Pure Heavenpact...-

“The only way to do that would be with a Good soul, of course. As I really don’t think you want to be Consuming a Good person, you’d have to do the logical workaround.”

He nodded slowly. -Someone whose soul had been Consumed by a Hungry Kiss or Poison Heart Warlock.-

“Correct. Since you didn’t kill them, you’d have the option of letting them go free, keeping them around, or actually dragging them Down with you. Keeping them around and away from the Shroud is actually a mercy, as long as they agree, and if they want to help out, well, you are the tool to do so.”

-It would be nice if I could just swap out my Hellpact for a Fire Pact,- he /said wistfully. -But that is not possible.-

“You shouldn’t have any problem with them being able to specialize in a Storm, Water, City, Stone, or Land Pact, however.”

-Why doesn’t Shvaughn have something like this?- he /asked, somewhat amused.

“It would require willing agreement, separate thought, and independent initiative to develop, none of which are possible. She assimilates aspects of those she Consumes into the gestalt persona she has developed after overcoming their resistance. After a period of time, she’s not carrying around any souls, there’s just people she used to be, and can be again if she needs to be.”

-Mmm. The power of the Hungry Kiss,- he /agreed. Unless the soul was warded by a contradicting Pact, of course. Thus, the only independent souls inside Shvaughn would be Pactbound, but she would simply erode them away by taking their memories and skills until there would be nothing left of them to pull that off.

Willing, independent, and still able to grow. None were likely for Shvaughn. Coercion was not the way to do this. How could you become a Pure vessel of belief for a Pact if you were coerced into it? That aspect was the most important here.

“Truly abusing the power of a Heaven-and-Hellbound Warlock. And have you decided how to abuse your Amazons?”

-No?- he /replied, giving me a look again.

“Combat specialists. Have them basically retrain everything, but this time, instead of reinforcing their Amazon side, have it reinforce THEM. So they get stronger, not their Amazon version. After all, you won’t get the benefits, and neither will they. So, all their Stat buffs need to go to them, and Stat Masteries and whatever, too.

“That way, they can actually Level up their souls, suck their Karma away from the Amazon side of things, and actually improve themselves, not their Pact.”

He nodded slowly. -And have them each focus on a specific martial discipline, and set of skills?-

“Amazons come with pre-set Skills, and they have to choose a few extra. Since they are borrowing Amazon brains to learn stuff, keep it for themselves. They may not be as good as an Amazon, but at least it’ll be theirs.”

-Is there a simple way to help them start this process?-

“Swap all their Amazon Pacts around. It will get rid of the defaults they’ve already set in place, and let them restart, such as it is.”

He shook his head and ghost-smiled again. -And I suppose you have recommendations for things they should learn?-

“All Amazon Pacts are roughly the same, with only the most minor deviations by goddess, usually in the mandatory Skills. I believe the defaults for Amazons of Rue is Intimidate, Bluff/Lie, Ride, and Athletics. They can expand beyond that, but can’t take anything that isn’t a Class Skill for an Amazon, meaning no high-tech stuff, unless their Class grants it to them. So their goal is to get a mental Stat to 14, enter the Helix paradigm, and Level themselves up alongside it, leaving their Amazon Pact to rot. After all, you’ve got the physical side taken care of. They just need to keep their own Levels, independent of being an Amazon.”

-That is a fine goal. Is it worth their time?-

“Rue won’t be able to make a devil out of them if they are truly repentant, even if she can mine their Sin. There’s planar and spiritual metaphysics involved, but it basically comes down to them wanting to do the right thing, as opposed to whatever they wanted before.” I could only shrug. “They’ve got a Heaven Pact right there. If they want to judge how they’re doing, there’s a meter. And, you know, all the Dark Amazon Pacts start with Eryl, which means they changed goddesses once. There’s no reason they can’t change goddesses again, right?”

-Indeed. I will speak to them about it, and see what they have to say. I suppose it is lucky I mostly burned out the Spontaneous Matrix first...-

“Clerical offensive spells aren’t the best, unless you are talking undead, although you can dish out Buffs if you use Healing Wrath,” I noted.

-It will be amusing to have them practice Casting by giving spells away through Wrath. I will have to make up some Wands for them to charge up for their practice.-

“It is a convenient way to use up travel time. It might be interesting to see if they have enough rep counts already to take a Reserve. Both of them dumping a 3d6 Fire Reserve into your Wrath could be a thing.”

He looked a bit stunned. -Is that even possible?-josei

“As long as you’ve got at least two Spell Slots, and even the dregs of a Casting Matrix, sure.”

He sighed silently. -So abusable,- he finally /muttered.

A Purified 11d6 Wrath, automatically maxed for 66 points, with +6d6 of Fire Reserve on the top, plus Banefire, Blessed, Vivus...

That would be some Heavenly powerful Wrath, without a doubt!

“Willing, able, and free of coercion. Not exactly something a true Hellbound would be able to do.”

-Or one advised by a Shroudborn on how to make a Faux Matrix,- he /added.

We were in constant Fellowship, so the Karma I was making was being shared. He wasn’t having much problem Leveling after the amount of Karma and Glory Awards from clearing out Cultivators.

-A last question. Can your Blessing be applied to their souls?- he /inquired calmly.

My turn to lift an eyebrow. “I don’t think so. For all practical purposes, they are bound to you. But, there’s no reason the Blessing itself can’t change, depending on who you let out.”

-Mmm. I was thinking of having the former Amazons start at Monk, and earn the Karma step by step with Melee, Archer, and Scout for the Stat boosts. I have the physicals all set, so they should have no problem if they Level and just focus on themselves and their mental attributes.-

“You’re going to be giving up a lot of time during the day, Master Fred,” I warned him.

-Meh. I, for some reason, doubt they’ll have a hard time Leveling.-

I considered his physical Stats, and had to agree. Even if all he did was a straight gender change to their original forms, leaving off the Amazon, he was still sitting on a Might of 52 or higher. The physical side of things was basically a moot point.

“Idiot willing to Morph and help them practice?” I asked.

-We’re all Idiots,- he /replied ruefully.

Well, wasn’t that true. “MY idiots,” I corrected, giving him a squeeze.

-Henchman to the woman saving the world!- He clasped his scarred and callused hand over mine, and Wrath and Sanctified energy traded hands in the most literal manner. -It is good to be with you, My Lady.-

“You told me once you used to like to sing. You sound like your own chorus group now.” We were coming up on another town, replete with little stinking lights that were due to be extinguished. “Why don’t you join me in a chorus of I Want to See the Sun?”

He thought about it for a moment, and then his flesh flowed as his hellscars went away, and the stunning blonde Amazon version of him took his place.

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Are you a mass murderer if you’re killing thousands of former humans at a time, who if they weren’t inducted that long ago, you might be able to Restore to humanity?

Alas, this was a race against time, and I didn’t have the time to go everywhere and anywhere. After all, I still had all of Indonesia to basically cover, as well as the countries south of China.

I expected Thailand, with a strong Buddhist culture, to be completely overrun by now. Vietnam had its hill tribes and wasn’t quite so dependent, but then the Daoists would have been purging resistance from them, too.

Keeping a Duskstopped Commune with Nature to REALLY map the Land out and stick it in The Map, as well as find targets for disposal now and later, Master Fred and I continued what was basically a murderous Cultivator-killing rampage along the coastal areas of China.

There were major cities and provinces with populations of over a million. There were minor Shroudzones. The major cities of Nanning, Hanoi, and Haiphong received our attention, and we did a full circuit of Hainan, too, as the difference between Vietnam and China was now pretty meaningless.

Qi-Converting Formations were the biggest reason for us to go off-track, but it was a given that wherever we went, Cultivators died.

The Buddhists had basically rolled up the peninsula, taking over Laos and Cambodia in addition to Vietnam. Phnom Penh and Saigon both required full storm assaults, and apocalyptic levels of slaughter, forcing me to wipe over a million Buddhists between the two cities, and half that number again as I rampaged through the scores of Formations spewing out slimy Qi they had strewn over the countryside.

Bangkok was even worse. They’d conscripted every possible human with meridians that could tolerate the Enlightenment, and obviously had years to work on them. There were over two million Buddhists in the city, some of them had advanced above Ten, and their defenses and combined power were incredible.

The massive Dome of force they had securing the heart of the city once they realized I was coming was effectively at 40^th when 1.5 million Enlightened were chanting their Mantras to reinforce it. Nobody on the planet should have been able to bring it down, and likely they could have maintained it for days.

My default Caster Level was 44 before any special bonuses, and my Dispel check was one of the more buffed ones, coming in at +53 minimum.

Now, the Dome was actually made up of hexagons, each hexagon supported by one batch of worshippers, and power could be quickly allocated between them by the controlling Lamas and senior Monks.

Not all of them made it inside the city, which was fine; they were my fuel for helping to bring it down.

I Paired the Spellflares I aimed at each of those hexagons, and the double-power, Sanctified-boosted Banefired discharge blew back along the links of those supporting it, dealing at least a 100 damage combined.

I had Cast Fury of the Zealot, which allowed Holy damage to apply to Neutrals, who normally had nothing to fear from it. It would only last minutes... but I could re-Cast it, and there were plenty of Buddhists dying to help me do so.