Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 61

After we met with the Goddess in Jade, we took the express route home. I wasn’t interested in risking my life with those cultivator teleportation arrays any more than necessary.

I activated the anchor on my ring, tore open a portal to Sanctum, and then walked on through. The portal closed behind us, and soon we were strolling through familiar corridors.

I waved to the construction workers around us, who had done a good job with repairs in such a short time, though for them, twice as long had passed as it had for me.

Bridget’s cooks were in place dusting off their old equipment. They looked ready to feed an army. In the past, they’d done just that, but now they’d be feeding a lot more than an army.

Sakura’s people had secured a few buildings and organized the supplies I’d dumped in their lap. Checking in with them, I learned they were forming plans for housing people, livestock, and goods. I certainly appreciated that. Sakura had a talent for hiring the right people for any given job and putting them in a position to make their talents shine.

I wasn’t so good at giving job interviews, picking salaries, or anything of that nature, but I was happy to take advantage of any organization Sakura built. I’d have to get her to expand my enchanting operations in Shadefall when we had time, that way I could make better use of my new Kindling Architect bonuses.

I’d already handed out a bunch of blueprints, but the crafting divisions really needed to be an order of magnitude larger than they were if they were to crank out Mark Two power armor in enough bulk that nobody could touch us, even a nuclear-powered rump-state, which I was certain we’d run into eventually.

Given we were back in system space, I took the time to examine my fancy new robes.

Robes of the Enigmatic Scholar of Fate (Divine)

These robes are woven of dreams from the Cosmic Silkworm, and they defy reality in their vicinity. Most magical attacks that come into contact with these robes will cease to exist.

The robes were simple and effective. Like most truly valuable cultivator artifacts, the enchantments were messy ceremonial things that played second fiddle to the real value of the item, which was the exotic high-quality materials it was made from. I had no idea what a Cosmic Silkworm was, but if its dreams could defy reality, I imagined it was even more deadly when awake.

It would probably take an A-Grade to steal its silk and get away, which was likely why these robes were considered so valuable. It seemed almost a crime to get them re-tailored.

But I did it anyway. Plenty of tailors were looking for work in Mundwise, and given the number of cultivators killed here, this job was the same as hundreds of others they’d received. Clothes were valuable battlefield loot.

I found the highest-leveled tailor and commissioned the job from her. While I was there, I bought some decent new boots and other matching gear. It had been a while since I upgraded my wardrobe. A few of my usual trinkets, like my Spellsnipers Bangle, were massively outdated, though still held a special place in my heart because Myrina had gotten them for me.

Reluctantly, I put that gear safely into storage and got a few higher-level replacements. I didn’t pay them much mind, though, since the Goddess in Jade would hopefully be replacing this gear with even higher-level stuff soon.

I also took the time to check out my title change, which had been 'fixed.' Though the System might consider it the opposite.

Your title 'Holy Saint of the System' has been corrupted and transformed to 'Supreme Holy Saint of the Goddess in Jade'

Your affinity for divine aspect mana and holy alignment spells has increased.

Your new patron's reputation with the System has decreased.

By all accounts, it was an upgrade, even if the System considered it corruption. I would have to ask the Goddess in Jade how she'd modified my title when she kissed me.

I knew from personal experience that soul magic on another person required intimate physical connection. After all, that was how my magic cock drained levels. But the Goddess in Jade had managed something much more subtle with something as easy as a kiss. While not exactly useful in combat, that kind of soul magic might really help a lot. Maybe I could ask for a book on the subject as part of my rewards.

When I was done running errands, a few hundred of Myrina’s Amazonian warriors arrived in the Mystic Realm, all of them technically on leave from their current assignments. I greeted them, though I’d half expected Myrina to come herself from how excited she was. I should have known better, though.

While she might be a fun-loving, overly-excitable thrill-seeker, she could stick to a job when she absolutely had to. Though she was lucky, her family recalled her before she spent too long on Earth. I couldn’t imagine her holding down a regular job for a long while waiting for the integration to begin.

***

The actual war refugee rescue operation was rather straightforward. The Goddess in Jade instructed her most magically talented worshipers to construct a crude teleportation array. I would be visiting the best of them first. She’d already given me the coordinates, so all that was left was to visit, tell everyone I was their savior sent by their goddess, and take them to the promised land.

Perhaps that was what was irking me. The more distaste I had for gods and worship, the more of it came my way. I didn’t have the level of ego needed to be a divine messenger. But if people were depending on me, I’d have to dust off my hero persona and make it work.

After all, nobody else was coming to save these people. And if I didn’t rescue them, they’d have the miserable fate of dying from collateral damage during a fight between A-Grade factions. I wasn’t sure what the battle between the Eternal Spring Sect and the Vaust family of System overseers would look like, but I was pretty sure it would be bad for bystanders.

“Why are you wearing such shiny armor? And what is that written on your shoulder pads?” Mimiko asked as we stepped into the teleportation array.

“It makes me look more heroic. Just follow my lead and don’t tell anyone what it says,” I said.

What I was wearing was really a set of Mark Two armor. I’d thought about wearing my Doomblade armor, but that set was too sinister-looking for holy saint work. Every job had its own uniform, and this one required something silver and gold, with glowing lines of sacred scripture that drew the eye on each shoulder cap. Truthfully, it was a series of dirty jokes written in the Architect’s language, but to the uninitiated, it would look like a sacred text.

The teleportation array activated unstably at first, but I corrected the errors in the energy flow on my end. When we appeared, I ensured we did so in a flash of brilliant golden light.

“Penitents, despite your sins, your prayers have been heard, and your goddess has deemed you worthy! I come now to lead you to the promised land!” I proclaimed. The sky was filled with sunshine, and using Lightsculptor’s Brush and Mana Arsenal, I sculpted effigies of angels and mythical beasts out of light. My voice boomed with a volume and aura that would be unmistakably divine, at least to anyone below the C-Grade. The average person would see my ruse and think a heavenly host had truly arrived.

All in all, I thought I had rehearsed my entrance rather nicely, so it was a bit disappointing to discover nobody was there to see it.

“Isn’t this place supposed to be filled with refugees desperate to flee to safety?” Mimiko asked.

I looked around where we’d ended up, which was an open-air temple. There was a statue of the Goddess in Jade behind us, but otherwise, the temple was abandoned.

“Damn it. We must have missed the morning service. I could have sworn I timed things right. What a pain.” I grumbled, grabbed Mimiko, and took to the air to hunt down the local populace.

I scanned the area and soon found a few locals who looked somewhat like humans but with light blue skin, no hair on their heads, and odd ridgelines on their foreheads. All were E and F-Grade by level, which checked out with what the Goddess in Jade told me. Any faction that followed her and had a B-Grade or a few C-Grades could save themselves and wouldn’t need me to drop in and rescue them.

I flew down and grabbed the nearest one.

“Isn’t today a holy day? Where is everybody?” I asked as I hauled him into the air.

“Ahhh! W-what are you?” the alien man screamed and stared at me wide-eyed. Though I guess, to him, I was the alien.

“I descended to this place to save you from an apocalyptic battle that could see your world destroyed. I was sent by the Goddess in Jade to bring you and your people to a new world,” I said.

“W-wait... the Goddess in Jade? She’s real?!” the man asked in alarm. “Oh heavens above. My mother will never let me hear the end of this!”

I pinched my brows and sighed. When the Goddess in Jade said she wanted me to rescue her people, I had expected a deeply devout collection of monks and villages who spent more time on their knees in prayer than on their feet working their fields.

I set the man I grabbed down, and after interrogating a few more screaming locals, I realized what had happened. This culture had become much more secular as recently as a generation ago, all thanks to the new king. Where his father had venerated the Goddess in Jade, the new king had declared such worship a waste of time, and that holy days were better spent in pursuit of mundane knowledge. Or, from the looks of the nearby city, putting more hours into the local economy so the new king could build giant statues of himself.

My brows creased in a frown.

“This won’t do.”

“I agree,” Mimiko said. “It will be difficult to tell the Goddess in Jade that her people have turned their backs on her. But they will only have themselves to blame when they are destroyed in the battle between the Vaust family and the Eternal Spring Sect.”

But I was shaking my head. “I’m not giving back the fancy robes. They fit me nicely, and I’m in the middle of getting them tailored. No, these people are going to be saved whether they like it or not. Come on.”

***

It didn’t take long to find the new king. He was in the middle of giving a speech to commemorate his newest statue of himself, and most of the city was in attendance.

“--And this progress would not have been possible without all of you sacrificing what was formerly a holy day of rest to labor in my limestone mines to gather the materials that went into this statue. I’m sure you’ll agree, it was worth every moment of work. Which is why this year, I shall be suspending the silly and outdated idea of weekends entirely. Now, we can increase statue production even further!”

The king didn’t get any further than that, because I made the statue explode. I hadn’t planned on it, but the head fell off the statue’s crumbling body and slammed into the ground where the king stood. Pretty soon, all that was left of him was a red smear and a giant severed stone head.

Well, that was an ill omen if I’d ever seen one. Normally, I would have felt bad, but from everything I’d heard about the local king, I wouldn’t have liked him anyway.

Then, before the screaming could start, I descended in a burst of golden light, putting on the show that was supposed to happen as soon as I exited the teleporter.

“Penitents, despite your sins, your goddess has deemed you worthy! I come now to lead you to the promised land!” I proclaimed. Mythical beasts and figures filled the sky behind me.

Much screaming followed, but Mimiko silenced them all with her usual trick. She extended the power of her cultivation over the crowd. With the difference in power between her and these people, she brought them all to their knees.

“You all were supposed to be at the sacred temple of the Goddess in Jade today. Since you weren’t, I had to come get you. I planned a whole speech, but we’re in a hurry now. To make a long speech short, your world is ending. I’m here to save you and bring you somewhere else. This is the portal. Grab your things and get moving!”

“O-or what?” asked one of the more finely dressed members of the crowd. From his dress and where he was standing, I judged him to be a member of the nobility and a close friend of the former king, perhaps even a family member.

I snapped my fingers, and in the distance, another giant statue of the dead king began to crumble. “Oh dear, it looks like the apocalypse is already starting! Best get moving.”

Overhead, one of my light illusions shifted into the shape of an enormous dragon. Thanks to Mana Arsenal, I put a little real power into it, and when it swept low, a little telekinesis helped the illusion knock off the tip of a building. That helped sell the idea that my illusions were real mythical beasts that would really start swooping down and eating people if they didn’t get their asses moving.

I had to knock a few heads, mostly among the nobility, but eventually, people got moving through the portal. I found most of the Goddess in Jade’s most loyal followers languishing in the dungeon. From them, I finally got the reaction I’d been waiting for.

“We’re saved! Saved! Praise be the Goddess in Jade and her holy saint!” said a wizened old man with a beard so long it stretched to the ground.

“Yes, yes, I’m the holy saint. I’ve got the title and everything. In all my overbearing divinity I've descended to tell you mortals what to do instead of letting you think for yourselves. Now go and lead your people to a new world.”

While it was nice to finally get people who were ready to listen to me right away, all the groveling was going to get tedious fast. I picked a few of the most distinguished of the local priesthood. I had them point me in the direction of all of the major settlements of the Goddess in Jade’s followers.

Her influence was largely isolated to the single city-state I’d found myself in, but there were a few important towns and villages to rescue too. All in all, her worshipers were surprisingly few, considering how large this world was.

“Hey, high priest, why doesn’t the Goddess in Jade have more followers?” I asked the groveling, wizened old man.

He immediately fell to his knees. “A thousand apologies, holy saint! In this, we have failed her holiness, the Goddess in Jade! Her teachings demand much from those who do as she commands. They have not spread as far as we would like in these last two hundred years.”

I shrugged and nodded at the news that the Goddess in Jade’s religion wasn’t nearly as old on this world as I’d thought.

Now that I thought about it, I’d probably already saved many more people than the Goddess in Jade expected. She only wanted me to save her followers, and the true believers were little more than a few hundred people in this civilization, not the tens of thousands I was shoving into my mystic realm.

But in the end, I shrugged. Being transported to another world and meeting a real goddess was bound to make a few more true believers. Besides, a goddess like her probably liked that I was grabbing people off the streets and making them go to church. How many problems could going above and beyond expectations really cause?


<Note>
Whatever you do, don't picture Carter's Mark Two armor like Warhammer power armor! It's like that, but legally distinct.