Chapter 84: HEGEMON OF THE EAST

Red watched the glowing map of the Eastern Sector shift. Golden boundary lines dissolved across the holographic display, replaced by a uniform crimson grid connecting the thirty vassal territories directly to the City of Spiral. The terminal flooded with incoming data packets as the localized System Nodes booted up across the continent.

[EASTERN ALLIANCE: DATA SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE]

[ALLIED POPULATION: 412,500 COMBINED UNITS]

[PROJECTED MONTHLY TRIBUTE: 80,000 TONS RAW IRON, 50,000 TONS TIMBER, 4,500 BEAST CORES]

Red tapped the screen, scrolling through the staggering numbers. The supply chain was officially secured. The Ash-Forge Crucible would never lack fuel again. The incoming beast cores alone would allow him to mass-mutate his standing monster vanguard without draining his own DP.

A golden notification icon flashed at the top right corner of his vision.

[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: HEGEMON OF THE EAST]

[CONDITION MET: SUBJUGATE 30 INDEPENDENT DIVINE FACTIONS]

[REWARD: +50,000 DP, 10% ALLIANCE PASSIVE FAITH SHARE UNLOCKED]

“Hmm… with this, I got back the DP I spent for the summit. I think I should just start farming the achievements…”

The passive share meant Red would automatically siphon a micro-percentage of all Faith generated by the massive populations within the vassal states. He did not need to actively manage their prayers or build their temples. The infrastructure simply fed him currency while the minor gods did the administrative work.

With that, he would never face the risk of deletion like Aurelius, as long as the other gods and their followers remained.

He dragged the regional map wider. The digital fog concealing the deep forests and mountain ranges burned away, revealing the absolute topography of his new empire.

The path to the Northern Sector lay entirely exposed. The encroaching corruption of the Void-Eater appeared as a pixelated stain on the upper edge of the continent.

Red opened a direct channel to the command spire in the physical realm.

“Gorak,” Red said.

“The vanguard is standing by,” the Warlord replied over the connection.

“The trade routes are opening,” Red told him. “Thousands of tons of raw materials will begin arriving at the southern gates within the week. Expand the armory. I want every single monster unit outfitted with heavy star-iron plating by the end of the month.”

“It will be done. I will depart for Onyx Hall right away.”

Red severed the link. He leaned forward and studied the pixelated glitch eating away at the northern borders. His civilization was armed, fed, and united under an absolute dictatorship. It was time to test his war machine against the anomaly.

“I have no information regarding the void eater, and it’s not something that’s supposed to happen so the other gods, who are the actual players of this game, also don’t know what it is. And that’s not something that can be won or stopped by an army.”

Red put all the screens to the side and opened a new screen. A glowing [ ! ] had been in the corner since last month.

He had locked the ant colony on auto-mode for 90 days, but nearly 150 days had passed since then. However, since he was busy with the City of Spiral and other things, he didn’t want to distract himself and take another work in the middle of it.

And now that everything was settled, he was ready to explore what he had abandoned at the start.

“It has been more than 90 days since I locked the ant colony. Let’s see what changed.”

Red tapped the locked icon on his interface.

[AUTO-MODE LOCK EXPIRED: 150 DAYS ELAPSED]

[SYNCHRONIZING SECTOR 5 DATA]

The digital fog over the Fungal Deep cleared. Red expected to see a graveyard of dissolved chitin. The map was updated with a chaotic spread of new data. The single green marker representing the Corpse-Mandible Ants had fractured.

Three distinct territory clusters now dominated the region. Two markers pulsed green. The third marker, sitting directly over the original hive entrance, flashed a violent crimson.

Red magnified the visual feed on the first green cluster deep within the yellow moss forests. A massive swarm of ants moved through the fungal stalks. They looked fundamentally entirely alien compared to the original vanguard. Their abdomens glowed with a toxic, translucent orange light.

An Amber Ooze slid across the moss to intercept them. The lead workers reared back on their hind legs. They opened their mandibles and sprayed high-pressure streams of acidic amber directly onto the predator.

The Ooze boiled and collapsed into a useless puddle under the concentrated chemical fire. The surviving ants had dragged the crystallized ooze back to their queens, dying and rebirthing over months until they integrated the weaponized acid into their own biology.

[ NEW SPECIES CATALOGED: CAUSTIC-MANDIBLE CASTE ]

“Interesting…” Red rubbed his chin.

Red dragged the camera feed to the second green marker near the rocky borders of the sector. This splinter colony had taken a completely different evolutionary path to escape the acid.

They abandoned the organic surface entirely.

The ants patrolling the crags possessed bodies of jagged black glass and heavy ore. They had consumed the toxic minerals and volcanic rock of the deep earth to shed their vulnerability.

A rogue Amber Ooze dropped from a ledge, landing directly on a worker. The corrosive liquid splashed across the ant’s back and slid harmlessly off the inorganic silicon-chitin shell. The Obsidian ant turned and crushed the Ooze’s core into dust with heavy, stone-like mandibles.

[ NEW SPECIES CATALOGED: OBSIDIAN-CARAPACE CASTE ]

“Two separate survival routes,” Red observed the screen. “The hive mind broke. They split the colony to test multiple evolutionary theories.”

He shifted the focal point to the original main hive. The crimson marker indicated a massive population density.

[POPULATION: 80,000]

[WARNING: PARASITIC AMBER-HIVE DETECTED. FACTION HOSTILE.]

Red zoomed in on the central resin bridge. Thousands of ants marched across the span. Their chitin plating was cracked and hollow. Glowing amber liquid filled the empty cavities of their bodies, spilling from their eye sockets and joints. The Amber Ooze had successfully digested the original colony and learned to pilot the dead husks as armored vehicles.

The parasite wore the ants like mechanical suits.

The original Queen was gone. A gelatinous nightmare pulsed deep within the central chamber, directing the infested horde.

Red leaned back in his chair. The 150-day Auto-Mode had turned Sector 5 into a localized warzone. The two mutated ant factions were currently locked in a brutal territorial dispute against the parasitic Ooze hive.

“I left them to die,” Red said to the empty Void. “They weaponized their own extinction. Everyone should learn to survive from them…”

He opened the command menu. He now commanded two specialized, hardened biological armies, and a new enemy faction sat right in the middle of them.

[ FAITH GENERATED – 0 ]

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