Amazon Apocalypse 6: Chapter 7

I needed to stay on call in case one quest I’d issued triggered, but that didn’t mean I had to stay at home. There was still a lot to do getting my staff and armor battle-ready again, but I had another errand to run first.

I needed to see if I could get in touch with the Goddess in Jade. I still had several thousand of her religious zealots in my mystic realm awaiting delivery. Thankfully, I didn’t need to go off-world for a meeting. The Omykir shrine would do just as well if I could contact her through it.

So I went down to the Omykir villages, knocked on some doors, and was promptly let through into the heart of the shrine.

“May you engage in most holy communion with the goddess, holy saint,” a monk said, bowing his head.

I nodded in return as he closed the door, leaving me alone with an enormous jade statue. It was twice the size of a normal woman, but after meeting the Goddess in Jade in person, I knew it was actually to scale.

“Knock knock,” I said, and the statue’s eyes lit up.

“Carter, I see you are safe,” Jade said. Her voice was sweet, as always. Just hearing it, it was no wonder the Omykir considered her a goddess. Only I knew the truth. In reality, she wasn’t a goddess, just an extremely powerful cultivator with profound magical abilities most people would consider godlike. For the worshipers outside, it didn't really make much of a difference.

I remembered watching the battle between her and Vayly Vaust. That had been a titanic clash between A-Grades wielding weapons so powerful entire worlds could get caught up in the backlash. I'd gotten caught up in that fight and it had nearly been the death of me.

“I should say the same to you. That fight you were in looked like a tough one. Since we're talking, I assume you make it out in one piece?” I asked.

“Not in one piece, but I have received no permanent injuries. I owe you thanks for that. That fight could have gone very differently had you not intervened with that spell of yours. What was that?” Jade asked.

I shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure.”

The System had taken over my body when I used a powerful life-saving ability, and it had used my body and magic to cast a powerful spell that trapped Vayly Vaust long enough for the Goddess in Jade to drink a healing potion and drive her sword into the enemy A-Grade’s back. It had been a lucky break for Jade that turned the direction of the fight decisively in her favor.

“I see. Forget I asked. I will not ask you to divulge your trump cards to me,” Jade said, sounding apologetic.

I didn’t think the trick I’d used was repeatable, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

“Anyway, I’m glad you pulled through. I still have a few thousand of your followers awaiting delivery. Can I still reach you at the previous location?”

“Unfortunately not. I must seclude myself for some time to recover from my injuries. Cultivation is not as straightforward as using the System, and recovering from this battle will not be as easy as refilling a mana pool. There is damage to repair, heart demons to subdue, and a soul sea to quell. Beyond that, there are many newly liberated worlds in need of guidance. Many of them would be far better off under the Eternal Spring Sect’s control than that of the Black Beast Sect.”

“Understandable. Then I’ll await your convenience for this last batch. I had one other question I wanted to ask you, though. What do you know of the Chaos God titles? Like the Chaos Serpent, Chaos Raven, Chaos Wolf, and the like?” I turned to her curiously.

“I heard you came into conflict with them. It is no surprise that you are curious. Once, all god titles under the System existed as a way to surpass the limits of A-Grade. The System can only empower a soul so far. All System users hold the potential to reach A-Grade, but few cultivators can say the same. The path of cultivation is filled with bottlenecks and roadblocks that few can surpass. The end of A-Grade is the same for System users.

“The Chaos God titles were special. Originally, they were meant to be given to powerful entities affiliated with the System who could do what the System could not. It was they who would venture into the primal chaos, the realm known as the Kindling, to repair, rebuild, and update the System. But now the System is in such disrepair that they hardly follow their original directive at all.”

I stroked my chin contemplatively. The Chaos Gods were troubleshooters, then? But why name them after different beasts?

Still, it made sense that the System offered me the Chaos Dragon title now. It had tried to reincarnate me as an architect, solicit me for repairs, and rope me in for all manner of technical work. If it had its way, I’d be busting my ass repairing crumbling infrastructure as much as I’d been doing for Sakura back when I worked in her office.

“This has been illuminating. Anyway, I’ll speak to you again in a few weeks, when you are recovered. Your followers should last that long.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully as I spoke.

“Before you depart, I have a warning. I used a powerful fate formation to check on you after the battle and ensure you still lived. The formation proved you were still alive, but it also revealed something else. Something is growing very close to you. A great nexus of fate accumulates like the eye of a storm. It is small for now, but the great ripples that it will make can be felt even now. Be wary, Carter Smith of Earth.”

And with those cryptic last words, the connection cut off and the goddess' statue went silent. I took her warning seriously though.

Something important enough for the Goddess in Jade to notice was starting near me. But what was it?

I scratched my head in thought, but there were simply too many possibilities to narrow things down. I had so much going on both on-world and off that I couldn’t even compile a list of likely candidates.

At this point, all I could do was keep the warning in the back of my mind and hope it didn’t grow into something dangerous. The Goddess in Jade didn’t say it was innately hostile to me, just that it was powerful and close to me.

Maybe it was a good thing, like me making an important alliance, or somebody in Crownhill besides me reaching A-Grade in the future. I could easily see Bridget, Sakura, Myrina, Cyra, Mimiko, or Reluna setting off Jade’s magical danger sense if they were going to grow more powerful rapidly. Only time would tell.

***

After my meeting with the Goddess in Jade, I returned to my farmhouse to get more work done around the house and on my personal projects. My Robes of the Enigmatic Scholar were soon battle-ready again and adapted to a more modern style for the Arcadia Multiverse, and Doomseeker was empowered with a new focusing agent and monster cores to be useable by me even into Early A-Grade.

The Dragon Bone I’d gotten from Jade was also now a lot pointier and had a real handle on it. The metals in the handle and along the length were a bit experimental. I’d been trying to reverse engineer the magical alloys I’d discovered on Prince Herius’ world, but without all the chemical impurities medieval processes included in smelting.

Figuring out what was supposed to be there and what had been included accidentally was a bit of guesswork, but by the time I was done I had something that was roughly twice as good as the original samples I’d obtained. I was confident I could make further improvements beyond what I’d done, but for now, I was happy with what I had.

My mind went to my ladies more than once. I wondered if they were thinking about me as often as I thought about them.

If she were here, Reluna would no doubt be humming along over my shoulder printing off more talismans and declaring she'd developed yet another genious invention.

She was definitely the biggest appreciator of fine craftsmanship out of my companions. No doubt she'd be very impressed with the cradle I'd made. When nightfall came and I was still working, I thought of the other things she liked. I'd recovered the massage chair she'd been using like a throne while I was gone.

She got a lot of work done from that thing. My mind went back to how much work I'd gotten out of her when she and Mimiko had been competing. Maybe I ought to make a few modifications to the chair to bring that work ethic back. I began drafting a few modifications that would be a bit naughtier than anything a normal massage chair ought to have.

And so I started working on a personal project. Several times, I was interrupted by notifications that one of my quests had been completed. I had my System notifications on to alert me for just that sort of thing.

Your quest ‘Make Contact with an Outsider Along the Eastern Border’ has been completed!

10,000 Crownhill contribution points have been distributed.

Your bonus objective, ‘Hold the Outsider for Fifteen Minutes‘ has activated.

I raced off in the direction of the completed quest to get there before my people stopped being able to hold onto their guests peacefully. I set the bonus objective for only fifteen minutes because more than that would likely require less-than-peaceful means to hold them.

Thankfully, at my top flightspeed, I could make the trip in half that time, leaving me several long minutes to circle the area and make sure it wasn’t an ambush or some other trick. That ambush on Ladwick had made me paranoid about this sort of thing.

I touched down to find Frank already waving for me. He’d spotted me from afar and was waving me down. I landed to find him and a group of powerful C-Grade adventurers from Crownhill ten minutes into a drinking contest with a very flustered oni and a Japanese salaryman in a ragged suit.

Frank cupped his hands and whispered to me. “We were able to challenge the horned guy to a drinking contest, but I think the guy in the suit knows we’re up to something else. He’s been trying to get his oni friend to take off, but his partner won't have any of it."

“Hear anything useful?” I asked.

Frank shook his head.

I walked up to the group, laughing along with Frank like I was a friend who just happened to also stumble across the same ruin. This was an old gas station from before the integration. The condoms and candy bars weren’t worth coming to blows over, but the fuel might be, so it was best to be friendly.

“Guys, guess who I found? Carter!” Frank said, also pretending I stumbled upon them by accident. He introduced me to the pair they’d encountered, and I lowered my level a bit as they examined me.

Oni Beserker (Level 181)

Human Scout (Level 96)

“Hmf. Your human drink is decent. Too bad there won’t be enough to go around by the time I’m done!” said the oni beserker.

"We truly should go, sir. We were told not to keep to ourselves during this expedition..." the human scout said, wringing his hands nervously while his oni partner ignored him.

"Bah! What do you humans know? Let me share with you some wisdom from Onibushi. If a stranger hands you free booze, you take it!" The oni laughed uproariously, and a few of Frank's adventurers joined in, though they were looking nervously at the nearly-empty bottle.

“Well, it’s a good thing I brought more!” I brought out a few more drinks I kept in Morgathor’s Satchel for just this sort of situation. The one berserker’s eyes lit up, and he soon got to drinking. I let Frank and his allies entertain him while I eyed the human scout. I could tell he was by far the more wary, so I figured I’d approach him honestly.

“You’ve probably guessed this already, but we’re not from the settlement you’re from. I think the System has put us down as rival factions, but it doesn’t have to be that way. How do you think your leaders would feel about me dropping in to discuss some sort of treaty?”

The Japanese salaryman eyed me warily but eventually shook his head.

“What’s left of the city government likely wishes for peace, but they are not what you should concern yourself with. Our alliance with my alien companion and his clans have lit new fire into various major families in Kyoto. These alien warriors are eager for battle, as are their kin who spawned among our number. Some opposed the great clans, as they are styling themselves, and it did not end well for them. Truthfully, I am surprised your friends were able to convince my companion to drink instead of fight. In the past, I could never hold him back,” the Japanese salaryman said.

He and I spoke for a while. He was guarded enough that he didn’t even tell me his name, but let a few things slip in making polite conversation. The city was a large one. Kyoto had been many times larger than Crownhill before the integration and much more densely populated. As a result, far more people had gone into the integration.

I had to guess at their logistics from vague questions about the salaryman’s favorite foods after the apocalypse, but from the answers, I guessed they had a population of at least in the tens of thousands, depending on how much food they were getting from the world of their oni friends. In other words, Crownhill was starkly outnumbered for perhaps what was the first time since the integration began. Now, I was doubly hopeful things wouldn’t come to a fight.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get an invitation back to their settlement, which complicated matters. Going in uninvited would be a lot more difficult.

***

We parted ways with that group peacefully, and I returned home. I left again for excursions on another dozen similar quests, but almost all of these were false alarms. There were plenty of lone wanderers caught camping or in the middle of hiking or driving through wilderness. Such people found themselves alone in a very dangerous new world, and some few of them had thrived.

Meeting them was nearly as valuable as my encounters with the larger survivor groups. While these solitary wanders were just one or two people at most, to survive so long they were powerful fighters immediately equal to all but the highest ranks of Crownhill's elite.

All expressed interest in visiting a friendly human settlement, and a few even looked like they would be interested in moving in. Only time would tell how well they'd settle into our existing group, but I had high hopes for a few dozen more high C-Grade guardsman and adventurers.

There were a lot of smaller factions too, and most of them were humans, likely due to the sheer population of old Earth compared to the more feudalistic societies the System had put us up against. Absorbing more of them a few dozen at a time would strengthen the core human forces of Crownhill.

I wanted to ensure we stuck to our roots as a society based on old Earth. That was what I’d promised the survivors of Crownhill I would rebuild, after all. Though, if push came to shove, I wasn’t against bringing over a few hundred more Amazonian warriors. Or perhaps a few hundred spellcasters from the Dragon Lodge, depending on how things were going for the Nineteenth Legion now that the crusade was over.

I would make preparations one way or another. With a child on the way, I found my resolve stronger than ever before. Crownhill would not fall to outsiders, no matter what.

With that decision firmly in mind, I decided it was time to finally see this other city for myself. I approached Sakura. Given the high number of oni warriors among the other settlement, I would blend in best with her at my side. I told her my plan, and she agreed to join me.

“Let’s go, Sakura. It’s time to figure out what we’re up against.”