Chapter 148: Sylara’s Offer

Sylara kept her gaze focused on the lower edge of the digital frame. Her translucent fingers twisted the living silk of her dress. “Are the deadlands… stabilizing? The ambient temperature across the western grid must be fluctuating wildly after the anomaly. How is your… recovery progressing?”

Red leaned his elbows on the console. The silver fox on his lap shifted, wrapping its thick tail tighter around itself. “Your moths are fluttering erratically, and you haven’t looked at the camera once. Skip the pleasantries. Just tell me why you went out of your way to open a comm-link.”

The tight grip on the glowing silk loosened. A slow exhale parted her pale lips, and the frantic insects around her shoulders settled. “Thank you. I greatly appreciate the efficiency.”

She finally tilted her head up slightly, though her eyes remained hidden behind the shifting veil of white wings. “The four warlords are deleted. The anomaly is permanently purged. With the immediate threats neutralized, what are your intentions for the continent?”

“I just concluded a virtual summit with the surviving pantheons.” Red stroked the fox’s ears. “I distributed thirty-four mythic blueprints to the vassals. The Vanguard is officially transitioning into a reconstruction force. Every faction is spending the next decade excavating the deep strata and upgrading the continental infrastructure to the next tier.”

Sylara pulled a glowing strand of mycelium from her sleeve. “A continental summit.? My terminal never received an invitation.”

“You ignored the emergency conclave before the war.” Red rested his chin on his knuckles. “You explicitly requested your canopy be left in peace. Sending a notification you would inevitably decline seemed like a waste of system bandwidth.”

The glowing spores drifting around her physical form pulsed a brighter shade of blue. “I have resources to spare. I can assist with the terraforming. Forward me the infrastructure schematics, and involve my domain in your logistical planning.”

Red stopped petting the fox. He studied the reclusive deity through the monitor, cross-referencing her sudden offer with her established behavior.

“You are currently hiding behind a screen, physically shrinking away from a simple conversation.” Red kept his posture perfectly still. “Stepping out of your canopy to coordinate a ten-year industrial revolution contradicts everything you just did for the past few months. Why volunteer for a public project?”

Sylara retreated a half-step from her terminal. The thick shadows of the forest canopy deepened around her glowing silhouette.

“I occupy a seat on this landmass as well.” She pulled the edges of her living dress closer to her chest. “Contributing to the survival and development of the bedrock is simply… the bare minimum expected of my rank.”

“Yes, you occupy a seat, but you have ignored every territorial dispute since my arrival.” Red rested his chin on his knuckles. “You are suddenly eager to join the network. Why?”

Sylara paused, her fingers twisting the silk-moth fabric. “Perhaps… Perhaps it would be more efficient if I formally integrated into your hierarchy. Do you require another vassal?”

Red stopped stroking the fox’s ears. The silver fox whined softly as his hand went completely rigid.

He stared at the digital feed. The system math instantly flared across his internal interface. He had just breached Rank 13 by crossing the half-billion Divine Point threshold. Ascending to Rank 14 demanded a flat one billion. Rank 15 required two and a half billion. The requirement for Rank 16 jumped to five billion.

Hitting Rank 17, her current tier, necessitated a staggering ten billion points.

Even with his SSS-rank trait generating two million points a day, his growth had effectively flatlined. The entire landmass was unified. No rival pantheons remained to conquer, and no more apocalyptic achievements existed to farm. Reaching ten billion points on pure passive income would take a few years of unbroken stagnation.

A deity holding ten billion Divine Points just offered to kneel to a Sovereign holding barely half a billion.

“You are a Rank 17 entity.” Red dropped his hand from the fox and leaned closer to the monitor. “I sit at Rank 13. The power dynamic is inverted. Submitting your pantheon to my banner breaks standard game logic.”

The Mycelium Queen remained silent, her gaze still fixed on the bottom edge of the screen.

“I do not have the patience for hidden variables.” Red kept his voice level, stripping away the diplomatic pretense. “You handed me the Omni-web. You gave me the Aegis spore. Now you are trying to hand me your sovereignty. Drop the act. What exactly do you want, and what are you planning to do?”

The fluttering silk-moths around her shoulders slowed. The living white wings parted slightly, revealing her pale features. For the first time since the connection established, Sylara tilted her head upward and locked her translucent eyes directly onto his.

“The system operates on thresholds.” She released her tight grip on the dress, letting her hands fall to her sides. “Breaching Rank 15 removes the regional lock. The game engine automatically flags high-tier entities for cross-continental warfare. The Summit tracks the highest accumulations of wealth.”

Red stilled his hand on the console.

“I hold Rank 17.” Sylara stepped a fraction of an inch closer to her terminal. “The warlords from the central landmasses monitor my passive resource generation. They are preparing to breach this continent strictly to harvest my canopy. I refuse to lead an army. I despise the Vanguard and the noise of the battlefield.”

“So you want a shield.” Red leaned back against the obsidian throne. “You handed over the Omni-web and the Aegis spore to build a competent border wall and network. You wanted to owe me a favor so when you ask for a favor in return, I wouldn’t say no. And now you want to dump your cross-server aggro onto my territory?”

A slight nod shifted the moths resting on her collarbone. “I offer my entire treasury, my territorial output, and the raw power of my hive-mind in exchange for your military protection. You fight the wars. I fund them.”

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