"Well first of all, capturing that many safe zones across an entire world in two days doesn’t sound possible at all," I said. "And even if we somehow manage it, what stops them from taking everything back? How are just three of us supposed to hold that kind of ground?"
Lyrate didn’t seem bothered by it, if anything she looked like she had been waiting for the question. "Good," she said. "That’s exactly what you should be asking. And the answer to both of those problems is the system."
She shifted slightly, her tone turning more matter-of-fact. "The influence panel isn’t just there to look pretty. It’s designed to lock control. The more safe zones you capture, the more influence points you generate, and those points go right back into reinforcing them. Barriers, defenses, automated responses, layered control, everything you need to make sure once you take something, it doesn’t just slip out of your hands."
I frowned slightly. "And covering the entire world?"
"That’s where you stop thinking small," she replied. "You grow faster, you spend your points smarter, and you use the system properly. Upgrade your map to cover the whole world, unlock teleportation, link your safe zones together, reduce travel time to nothing. You don’t walk across the world, you move through it."
I exhaled slowly, but the doubt didn’t fully leave. "Even then, it’s not fast enough. Not in two days."
She nodded once. "Exactly. Which is why we’re not starting with the world."
Her gaze sharpened.
"We start with this empire. The Empire of Heavens. Once we take full control of it, the system promises a unique advantage. It didn’t specify what, but it made one thing clear, that advantage is enough to shift the pace in our favor."
Knight let out a short breath. "And we’re just supposed to trust that?"
"Do you have a better option?" she snapped back immediately, not even giving him time to think. "Because I don’t see one. Sitting around won’t get us anywhere. We move, we take control, and we use whatever the system gives us."
She stood up then, the earlier irritation sharpening into focus. "So get up," she said. "We go all in from here. No holding back, no slowing down. We roll over everything in our path."
She looked at me.
"There are 4378 safe zones in this empire. We take them in one day. The second day, we hit the other two nations. That’s the plan."
I stood up as well, resting the axe across my shoulder as the decision aligned in my head.
"Our goal was never just to clear this," I said, meeting her gaze. "We wanted to finish it at the highest level possible, get enough leverage to demand what we want from the Crimson Authorities."
I tightened my grip slightly.
"My parents’ souls... and a way to stop the Crimson Zone from expanding."
"If we pull this off," I continued, "that kind of result should be within reach."
"All right, so where do we start?" Knight asked.
"We start with this province," Lyrate replied without hesitation, already shifting into planning mode. "This empire is divided into thirteen, and you already control zones here, so we build from that instead of spreading ourselves thin. Also, Billion, you should push to level one hundred as soon as possible. There will be an upgrade at that point, and if it’s anything like I expect, it will make the rest of this much easier."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same," I said as I opened the system. "Let’s see what we can work with first."
The interface came up instantly, and I moved straight to the influence panel, scanning through the available upgrades before making the calls quickly instead of overthinking them.
Two thousand influence points went into expanding the map, pushing its range out until the entire province came into view, the blank sections filling in with zones, terrain, and scattered markers that gave a much clearer picture of what we were dealing with. Another thousand went into a binding token, a system utility that would allow me to directly link myself to any safe zone I captured.
The moment I confirmed the purchases, the map adjusted again.
"Done," I said, closing the panel.
"So what’s the next target?"
"A medium city," Lyrate said, her eyes already scanning the layout. "Not too large to slow us down, not too small to be irrelevant. We take it, clear the surrounding safe zones, and use it as a forward anchor."
"And everything between here and there gets taken along the way," I added.
She nodded.
I glanced at both of them, then added, "We’ll also need speed. Covering this much ground on foot will slow us down. We should capture something strong enough to use as mounts."
Knight raised an eyebrow. "You want to tame monsters now?"
"Not tame," I replied. "Control."
Lyrate didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she lifted a hand slightly as if signaling us to wait, her attention shifting inward as she accessed the system.
What followed was... unexpected.
"No, that’s not what I asked," she said flatly.
Knight looked at me.
I looked back at him.
"...Is she arguing with the system?" he muttered.
"Yes, I am," Lyrate snapped without opening her eyes. "And no, that option is useless. I’m not wasting points on something that gives me a ’chance’ when I can just get a location."
She paused.
"...Don’t give me that tone."
Knight pressed his lips together, clearly holding back a laugh.
"You absolutely have a tone," she continued, her expression tightening slightly. "And it’s annoying."
I crossed my arms, watching her with mild interest as she kept going.
"No, I don’t care about your ’recommended path.’ Just mark the location. That’s all I’m asking."
A brief pause followed.
"...Thank you," she said, though the way she said it made it sound less like gratitude and more like she had just forced a concession.
Her eyes opened, and she exhaled lightly.
Knight finally let out a short laugh. "That was the most one-sided argument I’ve ever witnessed."
"It wasn’t one-sided," she replied dryly. "I won."
I shook my head slightly. "Did you get what we needed?"
She nodded and pulled up her map, marking a location a short distance away from our current position. "There’s a region here with high-tier creatures. Strong, fast, and more importantly, durable enough to carry us without collapsing after one fight."
Knight, meanwhile, had already opened his own system and purchased a pair of medium curved blades, testing their balance briefly before nodding in approval as he slid them into place.
"Good enough," he said. "These will do for now."
Lyrate stood up, brushing her hands lightly as she looked between us.
"Let’s go," she said. "We’re getting ourselves some proper rides."
I picked up my axe and rested it across my shoulder as we moved out of the sanctuary again, this time with a clear direction, the map guiding our path as we left the golden boundary behind and headed toward the marked location, the next phase of our plan already in motion.