“Do you have enough Crystals to Temper all of this?” the ancient Nine-Tailed Silver Fox High Emperor asked, gazing about at the display and the sheer amount of power represented by all those Stars and False Stars. His bushy silvery Tails wagged when He remembered He had been the inspiration for developing them.
“Through Tier-8, yes,” I replied, while a bunch of new and exulting thoughtstreams balanced gargantuan Concentration with calculations and algorithmic understanding, magic swirling about me in amounts that would have overwhelmed and likely burned out any other Humans in the area, and any Beast below a True Emperor.
I was doing all the Stars first, as they would allow me access to the full Realm Lord capability of unleashing Mana, from 2.4 million for ‘normal’ High Imperial spells to 168 million points for Realm spells at one time. Of course, that would deplete my Capacity with incredible speed, even with as much as I had...
But then I was going to start on my Capacity, the potential of which had just increased a bit more than tenfold.
“There weren’t enough undead to make Tier-9 for all the Stars,” I admitted, “even with the final surge and harvest. I’ll be about halfway up, a True Realm Lord, when I’m finished.”
“Skipping right over the initial level to that of an established master,” Flowing Silver murmured in disbelief and delight. “You will be able to speak to the Beast Lord now. He cannot ignore someone of your power.”
“Yes, I know. I am hoping to make an alliance with Him for both our worlds, but I have a lot of work to do in a short period of time to consolidate my position here.”
“I would like to watch, if I may.”
I glanced at Him, and at the spatial pressure around. I didn’t so much push the rejection of this universe away from Him as rewrite it in the immediate area to harmonize instead of repel.
“Come.”
His ears perked up as the Portal expanded slightly, but He took the hint for what it was and Compressed His own size down to something not so intrusive or overshadowing to me.
Another Portal popped up, and Reynard popped out of it just as Flowing Silver passed through the Veil of the Mortal Plane for the first time, setting foot on the moon. The lack of air and hostile environment meant nothing to a High Emperor, of course, nor to my Eidolon. Reynard hastily shrank himself down to a bit smaller than the size of his ancestor, both of them sticking with about the size of a horse as they sat down on either side of me and stared at the utterly magnificent exposed heavens and void of the Mortal Realm, the blue and white planet sitting out there in their Awareness in the middle of nothing, the vastness and emptiness of it all... and the seething chains of Mana extending across infinities, the tiniest and most minute drops of which were coming to me now.
The overwhelming might and authority of a Realm Lord... is still very, very small!, both Foxes realized, complicated thoughts and emotions running through them as they considered that vastness, and had sudden inklings on what it meant to be non-finite, to be the Divine Powers I had spoken about with them, and not to have the limitations of body and form, only thought, will, and power...
It was a terrifying and awesome kind of enlightenment, proceeding as the heavens came to my call, and my power grew by the second.
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-So, what’s it like up there on the edge of godhood?- Sama /asked with her usual lack of decorum.
Which was gratifying.
-I think this is more Titanic than Divine. I don’t have any form of intellectus activating that I can sense, but then, I haven’t officially claimed a Realm, either.-
-Ho, good point,- she /acknowledged. -That’s going to be really funny when we are all living on your planet.-
-Patron Titan of Terra, sure, that’s me,- I /muttered back to her, definitely not enthused about that. Being bound to a Realm was... restrictive. I had the power to wander and explore everywhere, the idea of being tied to the planet didn’t sit well.
Also, being the ultimate authority there. Like I wanted to ride herd on the entire world. I knew I could do the job, and I’d be fantastic at doing it, but I didn’t want it.
The best people for a hard job seldom did.
-I gather this doesn’t really change anything.-
-Nine more Realm Lords against me. No, it does not. I can take on any two Nirvanans and any three Nethers with pretty good certainty of winning. It seems to leave me a little shy.-
-Ouch! Beast Lord’s help?-
-I’m guessing he’s just a one for one. Still outnumbered.-
-But you can play the stalemate game.-
-Yeah, whoever we help wins the fight, or there’s no advantage and we’ll clean up whoever is left.-The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
-Mmm. Even if you’re under a time limit of the Sixth’s recovery, that should buy enough time to do what is needed, right?-
-I can pretty much guarantee that if one side takes me out, I’m going to kill one or two of them... in which case they lose straight off. They’d have to team up to kill me, and I’m still pretty sure I can kill one of them and decide the victor.-
-That sounds like a good position to be in? No, wait, they’ll just harry you down and force you to expend Mana faster than you can get it back, and eliminate you eventually that way.-
-Got it in one.- Running back to their own Realms after any real counter-attack from me, daring me to hit them in their home when I was lower on power and they had the territorial advantage.
-That’s if they can actually do that. Your tactics should be commensurate with theirs. I imagine that you regain Mana at a simply unreal rate now, whereas I doubt they do the same... and you have tools to make it even worse for them.-
Sama could be such a sneaky, underhanded bitch at times. -Curse Magic is also an aspect of Justice and punishment, not malice,- I /murmured. I just tended to use Shards and other direct impact spells first after my Counters and Dispels set them up, and didn’t soften up my opponents ahead of time because there wasn’t time to.
If this was a war of attrition, the way to get ahead of that was to have the attrition hit them harder than it was hitting me!
-And exactly how are they going to deal with your Caster Level? A proper Curse is hard enough to get rid of at the best of times. One you earned for your misdeeds with all your bad karma coming back to own you?-
The bastards really had no defenses against Holy energies. Heaven just wasn’t a thing to them, and they didn’t know how hideously vulnerable they could be to Heavenly energies and the Wrath of the Just.
Harse was going to enjoy the show I was going to put on...
I began to spin out some new scenarios and exchanges between me and the forces arrayed against me, with definitely a more cunning and underhanded basis to them. Having three layers of Fastcast Spells was going to be VERY important...
It also meant I was going to have to launch a preemptive strike. Which meant picking the moment before they were going to launch their first attacks and hitting them first.
-I’m really going to have to talk to the Beast Lord now,- I /told Sama.
-How much longer do you have?- she /asked reasonably.
-This might come as a surprise to you, but filling a 170 billion Syzygy the first time takes a while.-
She just laughed at me.
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Time passes on the moon, Fae relocates once to stay on the other side...
The Veil to the Beast World shimmered right in front of me. It was simplicity itself to arrive at it, because I could still access the Summoning Element and pull its denizens to me wherever I was.
I had the power and influence to bring in not just an Emperor of the Beast Realm, something that would normally required a Forbidden Ritual for a Sage, but a High Emperor, something completely impossible for a Sage, even an Imperial Sage.
Naturally I couldn’t Summon the Beast Lord, Himself a Realm Lord. But there was nothing that said that I couldn’t knock!
I could breach the Veil here by force if I liked, although I’d instantly be restrained by the force of another’s Realm, basically being reduced down to High Imperial status in this case. The Realm Lord who had invaded before had thus established a Conduit to push the Netherworld into the Beast Realm and so maintain some of His power there. When vivus magnified the restraints of the plane, He’d been forced to retreat as the Beast Realm closed in and began to reject Him.
I wasn’t going to be that impolite, so I knocked gently.
He felt it instantly, even if the High Emperors of His Realm remained completely unaware, save for a certain Fox clued in and watching from the distance.
I sat back and waited.
I could actually see the totality of His vast Realm, possessed of a surface area greater than Jupiter, although it was only barely arching, and certainly not a planet. There were complex Elemental and magical interactions going on to support it and sustain it, with simple things like retaining an atmosphere and flows of water requiring much more work than using a planetoid form.
I wasn’t going to admonish Him. If He liked massive vistas to gaze over and landscapes with features a dozen times greater than those of Earth, bully for Him. It was His Realm.
I sensed Him in the distance first, His Awareness sweeping out cautiously, looking for signs of hostilities or an ambush. I put my hand on the Veil, and He zeroed in on it instantly. I lowered my Astral Ward from that direction, and allowed His Awareness to sweep over me without barring it.
I could also feel the quiver of recognition in it. He knew who I was, which wasn’t a surprise. My magic was spread throughout the Pyramid blocking that Conduit from the Netherworld, which was still operating just fine. I may have left years ago, but He couldn’t fail to recognize me.
Flowing Silver had never spoken to the Beast Lord about his visits to the Broom Closet, but I assumed He knew all about them, as High Emperors vanishing and coming back via Summoning Magic so often was just too unique a circumstance for Him not to have taken notice of it.
Likewise, the increased communication among High Emperors and between Emperors of Earth and the Beast Realm was a level of interactivity that had never existed before.
I’d soon find out if He’d noticed the Broom Closet at all.
Satisfying Himself that there were no tricks and nothing else was lying in wait in the Aether around me, a dot of gold far in the distance increased rapidly in size as the Beast Lord Rode the Light across a million miles of space and swept up grandly to me.
He wasn’t holding back any of His glory, despite me still being the size I naturally was. He stood two thousand feet tall, His build roughly equine, although the tail swaying behind him was more leonine, the bushy ending scintillating and metallic. His hide was a mixture of fantastically ornate scales dominated by golden hues, but with iridescent hints of metals across the spectrum on them in profound patterns. What fur He had was also golden, but the feathers of the great wings He had spread were more crystalline than metallic, shimmering through many hues as they caught the light.
The great spiral horn rising from His forehead was gold and diamond, equal parts metal and crystal, a focus of incredible energies, much like the Unicorn Horn that made up Noble. His mane and beard looked incredibly silken and soft, swaying in the currents of magic about him, and His cloven hooves glittered like stars prancing upon the firmament itself!