Jake and Miranda met up inside the Prima Vessel as they both looked at the map that had more and more green flags by the day but also more grey ones as quite a few of the planets who had tried to face the Prima Guardian event alone fell to the attack. This was an expected outcome, as nobody had expected every planet to get out unscathed.
The appearance of the black flags was not expected, though. However, they had held on hope when they saw only one of them that it was some kind of anomaly. Jake had even theorized that maybe the creature had given its own life to somehow destroy the core or done something it could only do once.
Now, it was clear this wasn’t a one-off. What’s more, the creature known as ”I” had figured out how to destroy a core far faster than before. This also fully eliminated any possibility of it consuming these cores in any way, as there was no way in hell it had enough time to digest a Planetary Core this quickly. It was purposefully destroying them, dooming entire worlds.
One huge question still bothered them, though.
”Why is it doing this?” Miranda thought out loud. ”I checked the notes we had on the targeted planet, and it wasn’t just some random place. It was part of Ell’Hakan’s alliance, so unless this is some extreme plan to make us think they are unrelated to one another, I can’t see a world where this creature and Ell’Hakan are allies. This makes me think this targeting is indiscriminatory and random.”
”It likely is,” Jake muttered. ”This creature appeared out of nowhere. It didn’t hesitate to end its own planet and now moved on to do the same thing with a second one. I believe it’s just following its Path. There is no logic or reasoning behind the action besides just doing what it’s born to do.”
”So it’s a living calamity of some kind,” Miranda sighed, less than amused by the notion.
Jake slowly nodded, thinking that was entirely possible. Creatures like that could just be born anywhere randomly but tended to be in areas with powerful Records… and the Milky Way Galaxy was already a maelstrom of Records at this point. The unexpected was almost to be expected with their circumstances.
”Any idea what kind of creature it could be? Doesn’t seem to fit the description of a Plague Spirit or anything curse-based. It’s also clearly intelligent if it can teleport to other planets using the Prima Vessel or other system-provided magic circles... do you think it might be enlightened, seeing as it was the World Leader?” Miranda asked curiously, though Jake knew she was as much surmising out loud as she was actually asking.
”We simply don’t have enough information yet,” Jake shook his head. ”There is one more thing, though… why would anyone accept the creature’s request to teleport to their planet if they see it applying from a planet marked with a black flag?””A better question would be if its request even needs to be accepted anymore or if it can force its way in,” Miranda said in a grave voice. ”Either way, we should stay alert in case it somehow ends up going to Earth while hoping it chooses to focus on Ell’Hakan’s alliance. If we get lucky, perhaps your rival Chosen deals with it.”
”Not sure I count him as my rival,” Jake muttered. ”Who knows, maybe this creature ends up killing Ell’Hakan? That would sure be a plot twist of the ages.”
”A rather anti-climactic one after all the buildup of his story,” Miranda commented in a deadpan tone.
”Would be kind of funny, though,” Jake joked, fully aware it wasn’t going to happen. Ell’Hakan was definitely the careful sort, and he wouldn’t risk fighting an unknown entity like that without any information. He was way more likely to throw a few planets at ”I” to learn what he was dealing with before stepping up himself.
It was far more likely that should Ell’Hakan conclude this ”I” wasn’t something he could handle himself, he would try to find a way to make it fight Jake and potentially even kill Jake. Not only would that allow Ell’Hakan to get rid of Jake, but it would also minimize the backlash from having done so. Yeah, that was definitely something that orange fuck would gladly do.
What had happened on that scalekin World Leader’s planet was proof of how underhanded the other Chosen could be when he wanted, as Ell’Hakan had clearly been willing to sacrifice two World Leaders and every single person he had sent there just to get a recording of Jake. Speaking of that entire thing… Miranda hadn’t made any negative comments about Jake’s conduct, even when he explained what he’d done. In fact, quite the opposite. In her words:
”You were put in a situation with no good options. If you killed the World Leaders, you wouldn’t just have to slay them but many of their supporters, all of your actions getting recorded. Such a recording could quickly spread to the rest of the galaxy, and it would make our job much harder, even with Kindroth helping out. On the other hand, backing down entirely and letting them handle the Prima Guardian would make you appear incredibly meek and weak. Ultimately, I do agree your approach of killing the Prima Guardian while seemingly not being that interested in the two World Leaders was the best. It made you appear as nothing but a professional hunter just going around killing Guardians and not much else. As for that entire thing with your Fangs of Man skill… no comment. That is, in all honesty, far above my paygrade and something you’ll have to talk to the Malefic Viper about directly once that’s possible. No way I wanna risk saying the wrong thing, potentially pissing off a Primordial or two.”
So, yeah, Jake was pretty proud of himself for that one, and he had honestly expected a bit of scolding once he was back. Not to say Jake thought he had done things perfectly, but he hadn’t messed up enough for Miranda to make a big deal out of it. He just hoped that the moment he reestablished his connection with the Malefic Viper, the god wouldn’t instantly tell him he was a bloody moron while making fun of him for how much he sucked at scheming.
Returning his attention to the present situation in front of the star map, Miranda turned to Jake. ”What’s your next target planet? Anything particular in mind?”
”I’m undecided,” Jake said, shaking his head. ”How about all the others? Are they keeping busy?”
”The Sword Saint had some things he had to deal with here on Earth and took a few day’s break. Sylphie, the Fallen King, and the True Royal are taking quite a while with each planet due to their unique circumstances and lack of proper enlightened infrastructure. From what I heard, these planets also aren’t very stable and they were helping a bit there. Your brother and Maria haven’t been back here since the last time we spoke, and Casper is still working on the… I don’t wanna call it a reservation, but as things are right now, that is effectively what it is,” Miranda answered.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The ”reservation” she was talking about was the permanent presence the Risen wanted to establish back on Earth, and the solution they had landed on was to give them their own pretty large area to rule independently while naturally still being under the umbrella of Earth’s council and Jake.
As Miranda said, it did feel a bit weird to call it a reservation, but she also wasn’t wrong in that it was pretty accurate. The Risen had been given an island quite a good distance into the ocean, with extremely deep water all around it, which would serve as a natural barrier for all the miasma and death energy a land ruled by the Risen would release.
Water, in general, tended to be great at absorbing other affinities and mixing with it – hence its use in all forms of alchemy. This would attune the waters around the island to the death affinity, but they didn’t fear it spreading out into the wider ocean. While they would release a lot of death affinity energy into the water, a far greater constant infusion of life energy would limit its spread.
As for where all this life energy would come from? The big ball of life and flames hanging in the center of their little solar system, shining down its rays upon their planet and infusing it with life every day. As long as the Risen didn’t put up barriers also covering the water, the powers of the sun were more than enough to keep death at bay.
On a small side note, Casper informed Jake that death-affinity stars existed elsewhere in the universe. There were entire galaxies that only had stars like these, turning them into domains where the dead tended to live in great numbers. Countless undead monsters could appear, especially in the unique galaxies that happened to have both death and life stars at the same time, leading to a balance of constantly giving birth to powerful like that in death tuned into powerful undead. It was definitely the kind of galaxy Jake would one day want to visit for recreational and leveling purposes.
Either way, it was good to hear the Risen were settling in. He just hoped the rest of the population wasn’t being too dickish about it.
“Have there been any issues due to their presence yet? Lots of complainers?” Jake asked, knowing that the Risen was still a very unpopular race.
”A few dozen protests, false alarms that the Risen kidnap people to turn them into zombies, conspiracy theories and fake news everywhere, as well with a few nearly-violent encounters with Risen just minding their own business. Not really any problem from the Risen side, though. Casper and Priscilla have been good at controlling the ones they sent and making sure to properly vet and inform them of issues they could face returning here, so they are handling it like champs,” Miranda said with a sigh. ”And before you ask, I have considered several times taking off a few weeks to go kill a Prima Guardian or two with a few others for a damn holiday, but I fear that by the time I come back, everything will have gone to shit.”
”Look on the bright side, this has to give a lot of experience,” Jake grinned.
”I’m in no way concerned my profession won’t reach peak C-grade first. It’s class levels I really need, and I’m not sure trying to get more class levels through this conflict will help calm things down,” she sighed.
”You could always rain down frogs on the protestors. That ought to make them stop and think,” Jake shrugged.
”What makes you think I even know how to make a frog rain? Learning to do something like that is in no way simple, and actually using such a skill isn’t practical in the slightest and pretty much useless,” Miranda asked with a raised eyebrow.
”Are you saying you don’t know how to make a frog rain?” Jake asked, seriously questioning if Miranda was even a real witch.
”… I hate that I do know how,” Miranda sighed. ”My Patrons insisted it was a vital ability to learn despite it having no use-case. Would you believe me if I said they even want me to learn how to make the frogs yell insults at people?”
”What good frog rain doesn’t also include a rain of insults,” Jake said as if it was obvious.
Miranda just stared at him for a moment before gladly changing the subject entirely as if the prior conversation had never happened. ”Of those who left Earth, I have yet to hear anything from the members of the Holy Church. Not that I necessarily expected them to come back and visit, but their silence is a bit surprising.”
”We already know they work with Ell’Hakan or at least have some kind of agreement,” Jake shrugged, allowing Miranda to change the subject before she decided to throw frogs at him. ”Speaking of their allies… heard anything from Carmen recently?”
”Nothing since the message that Valhal put together a team to roam the galaxy to kill Prima Guardians,” Miranda said with a shrug. ”I did hear from third parties that they aren’t only killing Guardians on the planets under the thumb of Ell’Hakan, though. Even went to two Kindroth had been in contact with and we had to remove them from the list due to that.”
”Great, more competition,” Jake sighed, not actually that upset. ”Is Arnold and-”
”I’m sure they’ll let you know first thing once everything’s ready,” Miranda cut him off, knowing full well what he was about to ask, considering Jake had asked the same question more than a dozen times already over the last couple of months.
”Alright, alright,” Jake muttered, a bit down. If only he could teleport to the red planets that weren’t part of the system-made Prima Guardian Alliance, he would have so many more bosses to kill. More than that, he would be able to speed up the end of this entire system event. Alas, he would have to wait a bit longer. Not too long, hopefully.
Jake considered if he wanted to go and visit Haven or something like that, but ultimately landed on just keeping up the good fight. There were still so many planets on the list created with the help of Kindroth, even if he and the Sword Saint were pretty damn efficient. Once Caleb and others were done handling their own matters, they would likely also come help. If not them, then Sylphie, Vesperia, and the Fallen King shouldn’t be that much longer dealing with all the planets with an Endless Empire presence.
Going over the list of planets, Jake quickly found the ones that looked the least complicated to handle, as he really wasn’t in for any more complications. He especially wasn’t keen on finding himself in another situation where he felt like an unwilling marriage counselor who just sat in the corner listening to the couple fight before randomly making up and making out.
Luckily, the next few Prima Guardian kills happened quite uneventfully. The planets he visited were relatively stable. If you ignored the fact they were dealing with a potentially planet-destroying invasion of powerful monsters, that is.
The point is there was no huge drama or involvement from other large factions, just extremely grateful World Leaders and military personnel. Sure, there were a few minor incidents where arrogant ”heroes” who were still scared shitless of the Prima Guardian tried to play tough and cause trouble, but a good staredown tended to be good enough to handle most of those.
Jake also made sure to mark down another important number. He had a bet going with the Sword Saint, who would get the most marriage proposals or just proposed concubines thrown at them during this entire event. So far, Jake was at eleven, with eight women and three men… which was still behind the fifteen the Sword Saint had the last time Jake checked in with the guy. This was despite Jake killing more Guardians, thus also getting more opportunities.
Both of them were losing hard to Miranda, though. Most factions didn’t dare try to make such propositions to people like Jake or the Sword Saint, but Miranda, the political figurehead in all this, seemed a lot more approachable, allowing her to now sit at more than fifty such offers. Luckily, she wasn’t part of their bet.
Over the next two weeks, Jake got his number up to fourteen as he killed nine more Prima Guardians. Between every kill, he returned to Earth to quickly check in on how things were going before heading off again. After killing number eight Guardian – and thirteen days since the last one – another black flag appeared on the galaxy map.
The planet this time was one that hadn’t been part of Ell’Hakan’s alliance, nor one Kindroth had any particular contact with. This only gave more credibility to the theory that this targeting was random.
When Jake returned after killing nine Guardians, ready to quickly go and kill number ten, he met Lillian once more in the teleportation room, taking notes at the galaxy map.
The two of them locked eyes for a moment, and as Lillian spoke, Jake already knew as he couldn’t help but grin.
”Arnold asked to see you… he said they are ready for beta testing.”