Year 234

The kingdoms ramped up their counter for the guilds’ financial strength. Religion. As they were quickly reminded, zealots and fanatics are not easily tempted by money, and the Hawa, Gaya, Aiva and Neira faiths all have fairly deep pockets of their own. Worse, some zealots took their money and went to the other side anyway.

Secretly, the triumvirs were quite concerned about the conflict, and through our private channels, they relayed their feedback. Our line of thinking remained, this is a private affair undertaken by the new corporates of the Central Continent, accordingly, we will not interfere, and we will not protect them. If the Aivan faith wishes to retaliate, they are free to do so.

If I didn’t intervene in conflicts between kingdoms of the Central Continent, it certainly didn’t make sense for me to intervene in conflicts between a kingdom and a kingdom of another continent.

I reiterated my commitment to the overarching framework of non-interference, to the disagreement of quite a significant portion of my ruling class. As long as the rules of engagements were obeyed, I would uphold my part.

Royals rise and fall over time. Was corporatised royalty any different? If they have imperialist ambitions, they are free to test it, and see whether they succeed or fail. If they fail, they die. It comes as a package with their position.

The rise of higher level zealots, in the range of level 50s among the defending nations and templars, spurred the counterattack against the merchant kings, their superior equipment, financial wealth and higher level employees.

The defenders had some success, but the merchant’s wealth seemed limitless to the defenders.

The guild territories expanded some more.

Based on my artificial mind’s data collection, of the fifty or so guild-groups that set out on their imperialist ambitions, all managed to conquer at least one city on another continent. About half managed to fully take over an entire kingdom or nation, but all of them encountered fierce resistance, guerilla warfare and rebellion throughout the past few years. They deployed mercenaries liberally to crush the resistance, to varying degrees of success.

Of the half of the guilds that conquered entire kingdoms, about a third managed to suppress the resistance, mostly at great cost that the financial returns from the lower labor costs and resources collected barely compensated for the sums expended to wage the war. But of the third that managed to control the resistance, half of them should be able to make a profit within another two to three years, as the costs of managing the resistance began to dwindle, and the population adjusted to the new regime.

A few luckier guilds actually generated a profit already, but all of them faced the prospect of more prolonged wars, as the temples ramped up on their propaganda against these capitalist entities.

My spies soon discovered that a few of the guilds seriously debated pulling out of their vassal kingdoms.

For some, the profits from their vassal kingdoms were impressive. Some managed to get hold of large gem or gold mines that meant they were able to recoup the cost of maintaining their far larger defensive force, especially when these gems and precious minerals were sold back on the Central Continent, where prices and demand was naturally higher and more sophisticated.

But fanatics were one of the factors they were not able to fully mitigate. The guild’s rulers, became the target of the religious propaganda from the temples, and this led to fanatics, and covert assassinations.

Even if the guilds still had the advantage, this was frightening to the guilds, because of how ruthless they were.

The guilds needed a counter, and so, some of the guilds began to form alliances to attempt to develop counters.

But ultimately, they realized loyalty, a problem they always had, could only be resolved with fanatics of their own. They could hire mercenaries, and soon realized mercenaries would change sides if the other side offered more.

Fanatics were different.

Inspiring loyalty to the point of death wasn’t something guilds excelled at. They’ve always known that, but it’s not as if they lacked references. There were some kings among them, those who got the title through their conquest of the kingdoms on the Central Continent, and they leveraged their position to create-

“A Royal Cult.” Lumoof rubbed his head when the spies gave the briefing. Back on Earth, kings used to wrap their position with pseudo-divine references, as if they were anointed by some god or descendants of some legendary hero, to enhance their position in society.

“Yes, Patreearch. We’re very concerned that these cults, whose existence entirely serves to reinforce the throne of these merchant kings, may threaten our faith.”

The gospel of prosperity, with a merchant king at the top. A cult of money.

An act of desperation, simply because I refused to support their outbound conquests, while the defenders had the support of the defending faiths.

Lumoof paused for a moment, and thought. “We are no stranger to cults. We were a cult, once. I suggest we leave them be.”

“But we’re different, Patreearch! Surely you see the difference!”

“Eh. From my vantage point, it is just system levels that differentiate a cult and a religion.” Lumoof answered. “If they can ascend to the level of a religion, that is a good thing.”

“But we’ll be displaced?”

“Are we that inferior as a faith?” Lumoof challenged. “That we cannot tolerate cults? Aeon is not a god that cannot deal with challengers! If anything, we will emerge stronger from their attempts to usurp our position. These pretenders are but polishing stones in our path for ever more greatness. If they are strong, we will crush them, and emerge ever stronger”

The spies nodded, and indeed, if I wanted choice, I had to allow it. “But let them know this. If they try to attack us, we will crush them. If they leave us alone, obey the rules of engagement and leave innocents alone, we will do so too.”

It was only fair to let these nascent little cults have their chance. In the way of nature, if I couldn’t compete, I surely don’t deserve my position at the apex of this world, and how do I even claim legitimacy to push outwards to other worlds?

When you break it down, every cult is just a form of association between a group of people, with stronger bonds, with a set of shared beliefs. A fanclub could easily be a cult. A group that madly chased after money was a money cult.

The issues with a cult was not the cult itself, which could easily be benign. It is often the negative activities undertaken by the cult, in the sense that they had their own set of laws, and acted beyond the scope of what they could.

There was a separate discussion among my clergy.

My patreearchs and matreearchs had their own set of views.

“But who is innocent? A child brainwashed from young by a cult is innocent, but because he embodies the beliefs of said cult, he doesn’t know it.”

“Let’s think of this in extremes. What if there is a cult that seeks to destroy us? Is Aeon going to tolerate that?”

“No.” Lumoof said after I expressed my feelings through him. “We will crush those that go past the boundaries that we set. We were more than willing to coexist with the other temples, but it was their attacks, their crusades that forced our hand. Likewise, we’ll set certain terms. Terms to ensure reasonable conduct.”

“I do feel this still cuts too closely to our faith.” Matreearch Hoyia was also present. “All religious cults we’ve seen have been fairly hostile to our rules.”

We’ve seen cults. Blood cults, secret cults, but again, all of them did crazy things so we clamped down and crushed them. But these corporate cults and royal cults were different. They were not that different but merely existed to support their kings.

In fact, I consider them to be a return to the olden days, when the kings maintained a huge myth around themselves. They were not just men, but more.

The guilds merely adopted them. To instill loyalty. It was extra pomp and pageantry meant to inspire those serving them into believing they were part of something greater. More rituals, more little ceremonies.

And it worked to some effect.

The system acknowledged rituals. Symbols. Those who go through the process, usually get a modified version of their class to acknowledge their rituals, and this only reinforced the necessity of the process.

[Knights] and [soldiers] became [Blessed Knights] or [Ritual Soldiers].

Some corporate guild employees, from regular [royal merchants] transformed into [Royal Cult Merchants]. They used their new skills to convert the people of their new territories.

All to secure their position.

A natural evolution, and just looking at it, eventually these cults will grow.

Again, I feel it is right to let them grow. If they didn’t turn against me, I could co-opt them into our structure. If and when they turn against me, I would crush them, and my people would gain levels that way.

Or do I have to?

Discontent towards my hegemony would rise over time, that was expected and normal. No empire lasts forever.

I called on Lumoof and my patreearchs, for an idea to consider.

“Vanish.” I suggested. I’ve seen enough superhero and spy movies to realize that all villainous organizations are invisible, but somehow everywhere.

Could we achieve this, using the cloak of the vassal wars? Could I use these cults to my advantage?

“But- why?”

“It’s just something to think about, whether we could switch away from the pervasive super-state, and become the Illuminatree, with our agents at every major institution and players. Our Valthorns then transform into folk champions and heroes, crushing injustice wherever they go. It would allow us a far wider latitude of action.” I was not sure whether ‘invisible’ was the best way to achieve my goals, but it was something to consider.

“We already have that latitude of action.” My leaders responded. “If we want to, we can do it. There is no institution, perhaps except the heroes, that can stop us. And they certainly don’t have our breadth and reach.”

There’s also the possibility of just having Freshka disappear from view, but that didn’t seem particularly useful, since our threats mostly come from demons who somehow could see through illusions. Even if locals attempted to hexbomb Freshka, we have ample defensive measures.

For now, the thought of existing entirely as the hidden hand of the world was shelved.

***

Even though the vassal wars pretty much swept through all the continents, there were still some concerns on the delayed demon king. We defeated the demon king thirteen years ago, and it was already late.

Aivan Triumvirs naturally asked for updates.

“We defeated the demon kings.” That’s all we said.

“But there was no notification.” The triumvirs challenged. Their knowledge of our affairs on the other side was extremely limited, and till now, we didn’t share what we are truly capable of.

The local rulers themselves had a worry or two, but for them, it wasn’t a problem until it became a problem.

“Their reaction to not having demon kings is more muted than expected.” Edna commented.

“What- You expect them to be grateful?” Roon responded. “We’ve seen how our people generally think.”

“True.”

There was extensive thought analysis for my Valtrian order and Valthorns, at each step, they were mentally evaluated by my artificial minds before they took the next step.

Loyalty. Compatibility with my beliefs. The evaluation only stopped truly incompatible or potentially dangerous individuals from getting further benefits, but otherwise, I allowed disagreements. But that meant bickering happened a lot, mostly friendly. It occasionally escalated into rivalries between factions. Ultimately, the goal of defeating the demons trumped them all.

We still don’t know what sort of countermeasures the demons have, despite the void mages best efforts.

On Threehome, now that we have our own little corner of the world, I sent my void mages here to spy on the skies above, and see whether there was somewhere we could visit.

***

“I still don’t get how there’s trees in this demon world. Never seen it.” Edna said, but then she stopped. “But then again, Ularans managed to have some underground farms, I suppose being a demon world doesn’t totally exclude the presence of trees”

Borealworld, or iceworld. I haven’t quite settled on the name.

Roon, Edna and a continent of level 100 Valthorns were sent to this demonworld to scout out the location. Their last invasion was the Mountainworld.

The rift gates still worked, since our void mages were already locked to their rift gate’s locational codes. We’ve largely cracked the ‘planar’ element of the code, but we’re stuck on the last few digits. It appears to be some kind of checksum character, but we’re not exactly sure.

The Valthorns were a party of druids, mages, and some other researchers. Here, they collected samples and performed studies.

There was a smaller team that came earlier to deploy the listening devices, and we noticed it was still untouched.

Data collection was a really long affair, and even when we knew what we were looking for, the somehow low frequency of transmissions meant that Stella’s endeavor was pretty much looking for aliens with super large radio dishes.

There’s a lot of waiting, and there’s a lot of nothing.

Meanwhile, the druids harvested and collected the plants of the borealworld. These were unique species to the world, not found on any of the three worlds we were at, but not entirely alien. There are similar plants.

They are surprisingly tolerant of ice, and I wondered whether Aria and Aispeng would love this iceworld. It seemed like the perfect place for them to make use of their talents.

Once we could reclaim it from the demon mother of this world.

I decided to bring the idea to Aria and Aispeng, whether they would be keen on moving to this world.

“I’m immobile.” Aria and Aispeng said. “I’d be relying on the summoned creatures and the ice monsters to fight for me.”

“That’s like me.” I responded. “All the combat could help your levels.”

“Hmmm...”

“It won’t be immediate. We’re still working on creating the larger rift gates, and that’s taking a lot more time than expected-”

“Why do you need a large rift gate?”

“You’re big?”

Aria chuckled. “It seems you forget that I can shrink. I’m an ice-crystal with a soul. All these are just excess appendages that I can shed and regenerate.”

“Huh.” I paused and considered the implication. She technically could be deployed anywhere, though icy environments are most advantageous to her. Just like how Zhaanpu would probably excel in a desert, sandy environment.

“Again, let me think about this, I should be able to provide an answer within a few years.” Aria said.

They had specialized skills that worked in such environments. As for myself, I consider myself mostly a generalist, but I excel in forested or grassy environments that are more temperate or tropical in nature. This is partly because my beetles perform best in these environments. In colder and sandier environments they needed specific adaptations, which took up some space for other types of ‘skills’.

Domain holders like Edna, Roon and so on had tremendous advantages in combat. They are mobile. They can hit really hard.

But that’s also part of the problem. They do not excel in building ‘safe’ spaces for lower leveled folks to live.

Lavaworld relied massively on my tree’s presence to suppress the demons, and act as a ‘safe’ anchor for my forces to retreat to.

For domain holders, it’s not an issue. But it is a critical one for those in the level 100s to 149s, and these are the group of people I really want to get to the next level.

We needed ‘forward’ bases, backed by domain holders.

“You’re suggesting that we become an invasion force?” Zhaanpu sat and stewed on the question.

“Yes.” I responded. “Let me be clear, this is an idea that we are considering, given our limitations. I’ve stretched myself as far as I could, and we have clones on a few worlds, and one active demonworld. But realistically, if we want to strike back at the demons, we need more.”

Zhaanpu’s golden eyes sat and mulled the question. “It's certainly an interesting proposal. If we succeed, we essentially have the entire world to ourselves, and many of my servants would gain levels. But given my size, that would be-”

“It’s something we can solve. The demon kings can move their large bodies through space. We should be able to do it too.”

Zhaanpu stretched, and cracked his mummified fingers. “There are some lingering concerns, especially how it affects my pact with the old gods. I would have to revisit the terms and study them.”

I agreed. “There is no urgency. Not yet, anyway. It is an idea I’m floating with other immortals.”

“it is something that needs much more deliberation. I must contemplate this suggestion a little longer.”

***

Lilies mulled the idea, though I sensed it was fairly lukewarm. If there was another lake or parasite-type world, Lilies, as a being that could spread roots across the entire lake could be a candidate. Any swampy environment would do.

That said, the chances were low. They’ve never left, and they survived so well in their current state. Why would they change?

But in any case, they didn’t reject me outright. Just like both Aria and Zhaanpu, they needed time. Relocating to another world, a demon world just to wage a war wasn’t a simple decision. It was a commitment.

I remembered I didn’t like moving. I hated it. My fellow domain holders would agree that moving sucks. Our presence was all about permanence. We existed, and the world warped around us.

If they rejected the offer, that was fine. We are already developing countermeasures and bases that do not depend on my presence.

I’d probably consider Reefy as well, if there’s some waterworld out there. I believe there should be some waterworld, though I’m not too sure whether Reefy would even let me move him. Reefy’s very, very touchy about his core.

That said, Reefy’s probably too low leveled to reach that stage. The Valthorns worked on smaller, more compact and self-sustaining bases. Little independent outposts on these demon worlds.

We’ll find a way.