Chapter 102: Contemplating Conflictions

Red ran a deep orbital diagnostic across the entire eastern hemisphere. The holographic map pulsed with expanding green topographical lines, penetrating the ash plains and the southern swamps. He searched specifically for the massive, high-density calcium signatures identical to the Leviathan or the Pre-Calamity Hydra.

The scan returned absolutely nothing.

Red leaned forward, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. The remaining fragments might not even require a colossal guardian. If more pieces of the dark stone existed, they were hidden somewhere across the western, northern, or deep southern quadrants of the continent.

Those regions were completely obscured by the thick, digital fog-of-war.

Red possessed absolutely zero vision beyond his established borders. The newly planted Omni-Spore network was growing rapidly, but the root cables would take months to physically breach those hostile territories.

He swiped his hand across the console to pull up the archive of the Conclave meeting. A quick review of the attendance roster confirmed his immediate logistical problem. That diplomatic gathering had mostly included the regional deities of the eastern hemisphere.

Red had absolutely no intelligence regarding the ranks, technological advancement, or domain sizes of the gods ruling the rest of the landmass.

Sending an envoy of Shell-Kin or a scouting party of Mud-Skippers across the border carried a massive, unacceptable risk. Any rival deity could simply drop a localized smite and erase his followers out of existence the moment they crossed the territorial threshold.

Red needed a different type of leverage.

He opened his primary resource tab.

[ FAITH RESERVES: 14,850,000 ]

[ VASSALAGE TRIBUTE: +52,000 / DAY ]

He had deliberately stockpiled his followers’ worship ever since the brutal war with Aurelius. The sheer volume of raw belief had been pooling in his account for months. The vassalage contracts alone generated a massive daily tribute, automatically siphoning ten percent of the faith produced by a combined population of over four hundred thousand mortals across the allied territories.

Red moved his cursor over the conversion icon. The System immediately highlighted his stored temporal advantage.

[ CAUSALITY CHARGE: 10/10 ]

[ AVAILABLE MULTIPLIER: 1000x ]

He currently held ten full charges. By dumping his entire faith reserve into the matrix and burning all ten charges simultaneously, he could trigger an unprecedented thousand-fold conversion rate. It would instantly flood his account with an astronomical amount of Divine Points.

Red hovered his finger over the execution key for a long moment. Then, he slowly pulled his hand away from the console.

Flooding his DP pool to that extreme level would instantly trigger a massive System evaluation. The game engine would forcefully promote his Divine Rank to match his accumulated wealth. Ascending to a higher tier too early would permanently lock him out of the lower-tier milestone rewards and sequence-breaking achievements he was actively farming.

He needed to extract every possible localized benefit, stockpile his raw materials, and finish the continental highway before allowing the System to push him into the global matchmaking bracket against the true heavyweights of the server.

Red minimized the resource conversion tab and opened his master logistical docket. The physical realm was currently saturated with simultaneous, massive-scale projects. Gorak and the Crag-Goliaths were entirely consumed by the continental highway expansion.

Down in the southern swamps, Krug directed the structural upgrades for both the Bastion and Onyx Hall. Farther north, the newly conquered golden capital of Sun Spire was undergoing a brutal, ground-up restoration to become the City of Spiral.

His entire labor force was stretched to its absolute physical limit. Launching another military campaign right now would inevitably shatter his supply chains. Sitting alone in the Void and simply watching the progress bars fill up felt like a complete waste of his existence.

Red needed to secure his borders without firing a single shot. He reached across the console and opened a heavily encrypted diplomatic file.

It was a profile he had deliberately ignored for months.

[ TARGET PROFILE: SYLARA – THE MYCELIUM QUEEN ]

[ DIVINE RANK: 17 ][ DOMAIN: EASTERN FUNGAL HIVE-MINDS ]

A holographic projection bloomed above the terminal. The figure floating in the digital light was woven entirely from bioluminescent fungal fibers, translucent mushrooms, and softly drifting spores. She wore a delicate dress crafted from living silk-moths and kept her face hidden beneath a thick spore-veil, leaving only her massive, completely black eyes visible.

Red stared at the projection, feeling a familiar edge of discomfort. Sylara was the absolute highest-ranking deity in the eastern hemisphere. Gorr had explicitly warned him about her during the Conclave, stating the Mycelium Queen could turn an entire forest into a compost heap with a single sneeze.

Her immense power barely registered as a threat compared to her highly unpredictable psychological profile.

During the annual Conclave, the System had prompted Sylara to ascend the Apex Throne and preside over the gathering. Instead of seizing the absolute political advantage, she had visibly panicked. She shrank into her chair and pulled her veil tightly over her face while the lesser gods chanted her name in support. She had even outright rejected Aurelius when the Golden King attempted to flirt with and intimidate her, softly stating she preferred the shade over his blinding sunlight.

Red had comfortably subjugated the rest of the eastern deities through calculated violence and economic leverage. He knew exactly how to negotiate with greed and how to break arrogance. He possessed absolutely zero framework for leveraging extreme social anxiety.

Handing a standard vassalage treaty to a Rank 17 hive-mind ruler equated to logistical suicide. The rapidly expanding Omni-Spore network, however, forced his hand by pushing directly against her territorial borders, rendering his strategy of total avoidance entirely obsolete.

Red tapped his fingers against the console, staring into the Mycelium Queen’s dark, digital eyes.

He decided to rip the band-aid off and handle the massive variable directly. He selected Sylara’s profile and initiated a private, encrypted comm-link.

[ OUTGOING TRANSMISSION: SYLARA – THE MYCELIUM QUEEN ]

The console buzzed quietly. The connection icon pulsed a steady yellow on Red’s monitor for sixty seconds before fading into a flat, dead gray.

[ CONNECTION TIMED OUT ]

“Yeah… it’s going to be a hassle getting through her…”

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A/N- Hey guys, I know it’s late but we have hit 100 Chapters! Yay! Yesterday, I was sick and fell asleep after taking my meds.

Thank you for all your support and I hope you keep supporting Red in his journey to become the strongest God with the Strongest Civilization!

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