Chapter 155: A Million Followers, Global Chat

The bulk of his empire consisted of eight hundred and sixty thousand mixed-race followers. It was a massive melting pot of various humanoid and beast-kin species, comprised of the original western armies, assimilated wild tribes, and global refugees. Together, they formed the backbone of his industrial and military sectors.

The human population had seen a sharp increase from the original Sun Spire survivors, reaching one hundred and ten thousand. Entire mortal battalions and displaced farming colonies had defected from the fringes of the global wars, risking the ocean crossing just to reach the absolute stability of his localized grid.

His original subjects had expanded as well. The registry showed fourteen thousand, eight hundred and forty Kobolds. The former mud-village scavengers were now a heavily armed, highly mutated standing army that commanded respect across the Vanguard.

Down in Onyx Hall, six thousand, one hundred and twenty Troglodytes operated strictly in the deep-core mining sectors. Their physiology remained perfectly adapted to the crushing subterranean pressure required to harvest Star-Iron.

Along the borders, four thousand aquatic mutants, which was a mix of oceanic refugees, Lizardmen, Mud-Skippers, and River-Stalkers, patrolled the Continental Moat and managed the new island forward bases.

His heavy frontline shock troops, the Shell-Kin, numbered one thousand and thirty-eight, their natural carapaces now permanently bolted and reinforced with heavy Star-Iron plating.

The rarer, high-tier species rounded out the bottom of the list. Forty-five Treants had steadily grown to fortify the Bastion’s inner walls, their slow awakening accelerated by the Omni-Web enriching the soil. And deep in the southern vaults, the lone Elder Ash-Drake, the tamed Pre-Calamity Guardian, remained in hibernation.

And finally, resting right on his lap after having a meal was the single hyper-mutated, six-legged Void-Weaver, named Glitch.

Red closed the registry. He had nearly a million active, fanatic followers, backed by a continent-spanning industrial machine and defended by orbital artillery.

He stroked the silver fur of the Void-Weaver, his gaze drifting back to the macro-server map hovering in the center of the room. The crimson marker on the Fourth Continent pulsed quietly in the digital void.

“Aethelgard.”

The mortal kingdom that had sacrificed him was sitting right there, operating under the banner of the Radiant Monarch. Red had the numbers now. He had the infrastructure, and he had secured his borders. It was time to stop waiting for the global server to send probes, and start figuring out how to build a bridge across the ocean.

Red closed the population registry and pulled up his personal status interface.

He was still registered as Rank 14, holding a treasury of around 1.1 billion Divine Points. But his accumulated Faith Points revealed a vastly different reality.

Three years ago, right after the Void-Eater had been dealt with, his unconverted Faith Points had already exceeded 50 million. He hadn’t touched them. By the end of his first year of continental reconstruction, that number had surged to nearly 1 billion. By the end of the second year, as his direct population swelled to six hundred thousand, his total accumulated Faith Points reached 3.5 billion.

Now, at the close of the third year, with nearly a million fanatic followers supplying him daily, his unconverted pool sat at a staggering 5 billion Faith Points.

If he finalized the conversion, his SSS-rank 100x multiplier would immediately inject 5 billion DP directly into his treasury. He would instantly shatter the 2.5 billion DP threshold required to ascend to Rank 15. It was a massive milestone.

As told by Sylara, reaching Rank 15 would grant him another trait pull ticket, assign him a new trait, and shatter several high-tier system locks on the global board.

But he hadn’t touched the button. Over the past three years, his sole focus had been on infrastructure and development, not personal glory.

Stockpiling his Faith Points was a deliberate, calculated strategy. By keeping his official rank stagnant at 14, he projected the image of a newly ascended, struggling sovereign who had exhausted his resources unifying a deadland.

It made him look significantly lower-ranked and weaker than he actually was. The apex predators of the macro-server would look at his public metrics, underestimate his threat level, and turn their attention back to the central continents.

It was the exact same trick he had used to blind Aurelius and the western pantheons. It had worked flawlessly in the local engine, and as long as no one else knew the truth, it would keep working against the global server.

Red dismissed his status screen. He had the troops, the industry, and a massive, hidden treasury waiting to be detonated the moment he needed it.

Before he could pull the macro-server map back up, a sharp, dissonant chime echoed through the Void sanctuary.

It wasn’t a localized alarm from Sylara’s network, nor was it a physical breach on the eastern coastline. The primary console in front of the obsidian throne locked up entirely. The standard interface vanished, overwritten by a dense, shifting block of heavy encryption code.

Someone had completely bypassed the physical borders of the Seventeenth Continent and routed a transmission directly into his private command terminal.

Red placed a hand over Glitch, calming the fox as the encryption unscrambled itself. A wall of silver text projected into the air.

[ SYSTEM ALERT: ENCRYPTED MACRO-SERVER TRANSMISSION DETECTED ]

[ ORIGIN: THE SECOND CONTINENT ]

[ SENDER: RANK 19 – THE IRON ARBITER (SUMMIT WARLORD) ]

Red leaned forward, his eyes scanning the data. The Second Continent hadn’t sent another Vanguard General or a retaliatory orbital strike. They had sent a direct message.

“I guess they are pissed and now want to wage a war or something.” Red sighed. “Same old, same old.”

[ TRANSMISSION LOG BEGINS ]

Sovereign of the Seventeenth.

I acknowledge the vaporization of my Vanguard General. A costly, yet informative miscalculation on my part. The regional lock shattering broadcasted your continent as an exhausted, newly unified deadland. We assumed you would require immediate subjugation before another empire claimed your resources.

Clearly, we were wrong. Your localized grid is highly lethal.

I do not waste assets on petty vengeance when larger campaigns are at stake. My empire is currently engaged in a total, server-wide war against the Fourth Continent. We sought to annex your territory to serve as a secure naval staging ground and resource battery for our eastern front. Since force has proven inefficient, I offer diplomacy.

I propose a formal parley. If your industry is as robust as your orbital artillery implies, an alliance of mutual benefit can be established. Reply within one planetary cycle if you wish to negotiate.

[ TRANSMISSION LOG ENDS ]

Red stared at the glowing silver text.

The Second Continent was at war with the Fourth Continent.

He had just been sitting there, trying to figure out how to cross an uncharted ocean and bypass the global server’s defenses to reach Aethelgard. He had considered building dreadnought fleets or finding a way to reverse-engineer spatial rifts.

He didn’t need to do any of that. The bridge he needed had just delivered itself directly to his terminal.

If he accepted this alliance, he wouldn’t be invading the Fourth Continent as a rogue, isolated threat. He could integrate his Vanguard into the Second Continent’s existing military logistics. He could use their spatial gates, their naval routes, and their global-tier infrastructure to deploy his armies right into the Radiant Monarch’s backyard, completely legally under the rules of the macro-server war.

It was the perfect Trojan Horse.

Red let out a low, cold laugh. He tapped the console, opening a blank encrypted return channel to the Iron Arbiter. He didn’t need a full planetary cycle to think about it.

He began typing his response.

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