The Systemic Lands

Chapter 330: Day 764 (2) – The Road West

Chapter 330: Day 764 (2) – The Road West

It was nice not having to kill low level monsters. Road travel was the best travel. I hadn’t flown in an airship or knew how expensive it was, so it wasn’t on the list. The road made terrain and zones completely trivial.

The road had gone a little bit North before turning sharply West. It was a straight line, which was incredibly jarring. I could see carts and soldiers in the distance fleeing. There was still the obscuring effect, but there were no obstructions.

The road was completely flat. The nearby terrain sloped up to feet the road. Apparently, cities had the highest elevation points besides special terrain. I had never really thought about it before, but it appeared to be the case since the road didn’t go up or down.

When we reached the swamp terrain the road remained elevated, but the base was like the wall. Just sticking straight up out of the swamp water with the road resting on the top. There was about half a foot or a quarter meter from the edge of the road to the swamp water.

Occasionally I would catch up with a collapsed soldier who had been running and couldn’t run any more. I killed them and kept advancing. Bao Wang and the pet rock were right behind me. It was getting on towards evening when we crossed into a level 3 zone. Our pace would have been much better, but the stupid pet rock was slow.

I called a halt a short distance into the level 3 frostlands. It was only slightly chilly on the road, not the freezing cold that was normally felt. Bao Wang took first watch while I slept. He would wake me up if anyone approached.

No soldiers or carts came from the East, since I had just come that way and killed everyone. The alarm had gone up to the West and the empire would not advance until they could do so in force and someone motivated them.

What would have been near impossible for anyone else I had easily accomplished and changed the entire course of the war between the evil empire and PIE. The name was stupid but it brought me a chuckle.

Maybe that was the Divine Empress’s weakness, laughter. Well, I would hopefully not meet her ever again. I didn’t think away I would survive a second time. Even if I stole her treasury, I wasn’t counting on even being able to escape. That is what happens when your stats reach ludicrous level. Other people just gave up on fighting you.

I woke up in the middle night without any interruptions and we set off again. I wouldn’t be able to sleep again until we were done with this assault. Ahead used to be the official boarder between East and West.

There was a road the next zone over that ran North to South. The crossroads had Tung Chung Fortress, which was named after a famous fort near Hong Kong. Bao Wang didn’t know the history of the name beyond that I wasn’t that interested in it.

What was important, was that this was a structure built out of carts on top of a square of roads, and a resting and staging point on the old war front. It was about 100 miles or 160 kilometers after the fort to New Beijing. There was another crossroads further West, that led from Wuhan to the North to New Beijing to the South. This meant the road I was currently on would eventually make a sideways ‘T’ after getting past the ‘+’ where Chung Tung Fort was located.

We entered the mistlands. The mist stayed away from the road forming an eerie tunnel. We didn’t run into any soldiers as we continued or trek to the West. Chung Tung Fort was hidden in the mistlands of the level 3 zone where it rested.

I saw them far before they became a threat. There were at least 40 demonic babies all dressed in white and racing at me. Of course the commander of the fort, would release something like this to try and kill me.

At least it would be an idea of any trump cards the Forbidden City might have. I had no doubt it kept all the good stuff as the last line of defense. It was also the base of the Master Fleshcrafter and Inquisitor. Both names indicated they were up to some depraved nonsense, even more than demonic babies.

I looked at them with my Sense stat. They were brimming with energy. From what I had seen of my own forces, I had to guess consumption. There was something off about their energy. It was hard to put my finger on, the coloration, the way it moved, or just the feel.

Still, it made sense they would have consumption. They were disposable shock troops, meant to kill and demoralize. There was something else going on with their heads, but I had no idea what. Probably related to whatever sick and depraved stuff they had come up with to make them killing machines.

If I had to be honest, it was impressive, how the evil empire was trying to go out of its way to be super evil and a complete mess. It was like watching an intersection where car accident after car accident kept piling up, but everyone couldn’t be bothered and the person in charge should be in a nursing home.

I didn’t know if the Divine Empress was insane, hated the world, or was just amused by how she ran things, but I was more offended more by the sheer waste and inefficiency than the demonic babies rushing at me.

This place and then the Ritualist had desensitized me to the horrors of the flesh. After his assembly line of hybrids, I felt like there was nothing left to shock me. The Divine Empress proved me wrong with her evil empire.

I mean build a bigger bureaucracy to manage things in your absence. Delegate a bit more, why don’t you. Instead, the entire thing was a very narrow house of cards. Without her to manage everything it was coming apart at the seems and just moving on through inertia and the Envoy.

Why have only one Envoy? That was another thing that was messed up. If you could have immortal soldiers, I am sure you could pick several of them and get them up to his level to better oppress people. Instead, it was just him.

I honestly felt bad for the guy. Not being able to quit and having to constantly run around by himself. He couldn’t even escape in death. If it was me running the evil empire, I would have had 10 or 20 people like the Envoy in a team. They wouldn’t be a threat to me, but they could handle more complex situations.

The gap between the Envoy and the Divine Empress was just too big. There was space in there for a person like me to come in and wreck everything and the only response the evil empire had was the Divine Empress. Now that she wasn’t around, they were getting desperate. That might change in the Forbidden City, but out here I was invincible.

Get 20 Envoys to run around and put out fires. I guess the risk was them teaming up, but the Divine Empress, was so far ahead, she just never stopped to think about how a little change could make things run so much more smoothly and take the burden off her.

Maybe she liked running around fighting strong people? That seemed crazy to me. I could get monsters or fighting for benefits and territory. But it was like she wanted strong people to show up so she could fight them. Maybe she was bored after having become so strong and getting points to fight the next level of monster was taking too long.

But what got me at the end of the day, was not her power, or evilness, but the inefficiency. It just hurt my data analyst soul. I know I would never be able to tell her, but I wanted to explain to her in detail what an idiot she was and the fact that her evil empire was so poorly run was what allowed people to resist it in the first place.

She was just one woman and couldn’t be everywhere. Maybe these demonic babies were the answer to that, but they weren’t strong enough. They were below the Envoy and far below my stats. Even with 40 of them, it was not even a challenge.

They didn’t have skills. They had teamwork, martial arts, and their small size. I just unleashed wave after wave of acid. The few that survived were easily killed with a sword thrust to the head. With my Body and Mind stat so high, they were just too slow to keep up with me effectively. No skills meant no mid-range attacks.

Whoever was in charge of these demonic babies just wasted them to demonstrate how strong I was and maybe slow me down by a couple of minutes at most. I noted that the road was only slightly damaged by my acid skill. It was clearly made of tough stuff.

We continued forward after beating the demonic babies. I saw a structure blocking the road off in the distance. Melting the fort down might be a good idea. It would be a pain to build back up and make it hard to send lots of low level troops to the East.

Clarissa would send elite forces to the West and while a level 3 zone would be thought it wouldn’t be impossible with consumption stats. Also, it would be easier for high level people to fight on the road.

Several soldiers in white uniforms appeared on top of the structure and in front of it. Oh, this was not good. “Stay back! Move to the side!” I shouted out and raced forward. Energy began to gather, and ten beam attacks came at me head on. Air Burst. I shot up to the sky.

Aqua Sphere. The bottom of the water was blown away as the Elite Black Talons, tried to track me. The white armor was a giveaway since I had seen it before from the soldiers on the airboat. My boots were a bit singed and thankfully they kept their aim on me like I suspected and not on Bao Wang and the pet rock way in the back.

Air Burst. I shot forward. Air Burst. More beam attacks were unleashed, but I was in the mist, and I flew through the air dodging around them. My Mind stat allowing me to adjust my trajectory much faster than I normally would. Air Burst.

I couldn’t keep this up for long with how energy intensive it was, but I could rapidly close the distance. I was almost above the outer edge of the fort. “Acid Shot,” x50. “Acid Shot,” x20. “Acid Shot,” x20. One main forward wave and two waves of acid to the sides and slightly overlapping the main one to catch people trying to dodge.

Plummeting out of the mist, I slammed into the front of the fort, a bit off, but my Body stat over for me, even if my armor was a bit messed up from the impact. I pulled myself from the rubble and raced into the fort.

It was another massacre. There were Black Talon soldiers in black armor, with decent Body stats, but they didn’t have the skills to counter Acid Shot. The Elite Black Talon soldiers struggled with their Body stat since they clearly had invested more into energy focused stats like Spirit and Regeneration to spam their long range skills.

“You will face me!” A man in black and white armor with some gold markings jumped forward. An officer of the Black Talons and what I would consider a sub-boss. Well time to get a bit more serious about this fight and see how strong he was so I would rate his fellows in the Forbidden City better.