Chapter 116: The Continental War (4)

“Your turn, Iron-Scale,” Red muttered.

Deep beneath the eastern banks, the pitch-black tunnels violently collapsed inward. Iron-Scale dropped from the ceiling, leading a dozen Kobold Inquisitors. The metallic scales of the Harbinger scraped against the stone walls as he fired his Clockwork Grappling Spools. Thick iron chains shot through the darkness and impaled the lead Shadow-Weaver through the chest, pinning the assassin directly to the dirt floor.

The remaining infiltrators tried to scramble backward into the collapsed tunnel. The Inquisitors raised their Pneumatic Bolt-Throwers and flooded the confined space with alchemical fire. Bright violet flames incinerated the stealth magic, exposing the trapped assassins.

Iron-Scale stepped forward and raised his scythe. He brought the bladed limb down, cleanly decapitating the pinned Shadow-Weaver. The entire server watched the live execution render in high definition on their screens.

Up in the Void, a prominent god named Black Death the Just tried to rally the terrified server against the broadcast.

[ Do not bow to this tyrant! ] Black Death typed in bright golden text. [ His timer is a bluff! If we unite our remaining forces, we can breach the southern— ]

The text stopped generating.

Red watched the continental map as a massive wave of gray static tore across Black Death’s territory in the central plains. The game engine physically stuttered. The Void-Eater completely consumed the golden towers of Black Death capital.

The glass-ash storm turned the god’s followers into feral, mutating anomalies in a fraction of a second. The anomaly ignored alliances and grand speeches entirely.

The server emitted a cold, mechanical chime.

[ System Alert: Black Death the Just, has reached 0 Followers. Entity permanently deleted from the registry. ]

Red dragged the deletion notice and pinned it to the very top of his forum post, right below the ticking countdown timer. The numbers shifted to forty-one minutes.

“The Glitch does not negotiate,” Red typed into the completely silent chat room. “Keep walking across my bridges.”

The server master clock ticked down to twenty-eight minutes.

Three crimson borders flared on Red’s primary monitor. Direct transmission requests flooded the private channel, bypassing the global forum entirely. The system recognized the digital signatures immediately.

A Rank 8 beast-tamer, a Rank 9 elementalist, and a Rank 10 war deity. These were the apex powers of the western and central plains.

Red tapped the accept prompt. Holographic windows materialized in the dark space. A massive man wearing a pauldron of forged dragon-bone glared through the feed. A pair of twin spellcasters stood in the adjacent window, surrounded by floating runic circles.

“Thirty percent is economic suicide,” the Rank 10 war god stated. He slammed a gauntlet against his own console, fracturing the stone. “Lower the material tax to ten percent. We bring two million elite units. We are the sovereign powers of the west. Treat us as equals.”

Red leaned over his keyboard. “The tax is thirty percent. It funds the Leviathan-asphalt under your boots and the bio-gas in the foundries.”

“We offer a strategic partnership,” one of the elemental twins added. “We will never sign a contract of servitude.”

Red dragged Black Death’s deletion notice to the center of their shared screen. He expanded the continental map overlay. A massive wave of gray static devoured the central plains, eating the landscape at an accelerated rate.

“The Glitch is currently digesting Black Death’s capital,” Red said. He pointed at the screen. “It will reach your northern borders in exactly four hours. Sign the contract. If you stall, I lock the bridges right now.”

The three high-tier deities stared at the tactical map. The glass-ash storms ignored their defensive spells and deleted their outer territories in real-time. The war god ground his teeth together. He pressed his thumb against the digital seal of the Vassalage Contract. The twins followed a second later.

The three high-tier deities stared at the tactical map. The glass-ash storms ignored their defensive spells and deleted their outer territories in real-time. The war god ground his teeth together. He pressed his thumb against the digital seal of the Vassalage Contract. The twins followed a second later.

[ System Alert: Three High-Tier Factions Assimilated. ]

Red watched his master console as the numbers skyrocketed. The population counter jumped by 2.4 million citizens. His passive Faith income spiked by an additional 240,000 points per day. Deep within the Onyx Hall industrial hub, the teleportation nodes flared to life. Millions of tons of refined titanium, enchanted timber, and monster cores flooded directly into the Bastion’s storage matrix. The tax siphon operated flawlessly.

The server clock hit five minutes.

The global chat feed froze. The endless stream of surrender notifications stopped. The weak had crossed the bridges. The stubborn had turned into ash. Only the true apex predators of the Seventeenth Continent remained outside the firewall.

A massive, frost-rimmed window shattered the center of Red’s primary screen. The Glacial Sovereign stared through the feed. The Rank 12 deity wore a crown of absolute zero ice. Three other gods stood behind him, all radiating Rank 11 and Rank 12 signatures. They represented the extreme northern and western edges of the map.

“You collected the garbage,” the Glacial Sovereign said. Ice crusted his lips and fell onto his armor. “You bloated your borders with cowards and peasants. We will never kneel to a swamp rat.”

Red picked up his obsidian stylus and spun it between his fingers. “Your territory is freezing over. The glass-ash is two regions away. You have nowhere to run.”

“We go East,” the Glacial Sovereign stated. He drew a massive blade forged from blue glacier-ice. “We carve through your moat. We take the Bastion and use your Digester to power our own shield. Your industrial toys will fail against absolute power.”

Red placed the stylus down. He hit the execution key on his console.

The server clock bypassed the final five minutes.

It snapped to zero.

Down at the Continental Moat, the massive bronze Siphon-Locks engaged in reverse. Hydraulic pistons fired. The steel bridges retracted across the entire western border, slamming against the eastern bedrock to form a sheer iron wall. The bioluminescent teal water churned violently in the trench.

Red dismissed the communication window and opened the tactical overlay. “Prepare the artillery.”

“We are in the endgame now.”

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