Chapter 1377 - Taking Advantage of the Situation

Nearly every top-tier early B-grade genius of the multiverse was in the Central Domain, aiming to enter the Palace of Abundance. However, there were some exceptions. People who believed they would accomplish more by staying on the outside and expanding their Territory.

One of these people was someone many were surprised to even see at this event in the first place, given how protective her faction was of her. Understandably so, seeing as she was the sole method to restore the Vespernat Lineage of the Endless Empire.

Vesperia had heard reports of the Central Domain, and while the place seemed interesting, it wasn’t somewhere she believed particularly suited her. It appeared to focus heavily on stealth and acquiring treasure, and whatnot. All things that Vesperia could do, but that she also knew she wouldn’t excel at.

Primarily because she had quite the footprint when moving about, and because she wanted to avoid exposing herself too much. Even if she were a competent combatant, True Royals had never been known to win wars by stepping onto the battlefield themselves. Instead, they would utterly crush any opposition with sheer quantity.

While many were working on summoning armies using the NPCs, she didn’t need any of that as she marched on a nearby major Territory. She could summon tens of thousands of soldiers on her own already, and given that so many were in the Central Domain, this was the best chance to go on a conquest and take advantage of the absence of many experts. That, or at least force them back from the Central Domain.

The Territory in question was led by the Holy Church, which, as expected, was the faction with the largest presence in this system event. They were the faction with the most members in the entire multiverse, after all, and their way of operating made many reluctant to attack their Territories. The Church was known to take care of its own, so Vesperia knew that if she destroyed a Territory Beacon belonging to one of their Territories, their allies would quickly come for her to exact revenge and save their comrades from elimination.

Unless doing so was judged too risky and not worth it, because while the Holy Church cared a lot about unity and all that, they were also incredibly rational. If it would require too much sacrifice for relatively little gain, they wouldn’t bother doing it and would instead compensate the ones who’d suffered and sweep the entire situation under the rug.

That was the response Vesperia expected from the Holy Church as she and her army soon broke through the first layer of defense set far from the Territory Beacon. Likely meant to serve as a warning that invaders were on their way.

“Your Majesty, we have detected movement ahead,” one of her Queen’s Guards, who was leading the scouting regiment, reported. “Estimated to be another scouting party of the enemy.”

“Eliminate them,” Vesperia commanded, receiving a mental affirmation in return. Her Queen’s Guard moved with the fifty other high-tier soldiers, who were all focused on speed and stealth. They descended on the scouting group from the Holy Church soon after, the humans taken entirely by surprise when the ectognamorphs exited stealth and attacked.

The soldiers did well, but as could only be expected, her Queen’s Guard was the true terror of this attack. Each of them would be considered a top-tier genius in their own right, and few could stand against them, much less one supported by fifty drones mostly there to empower her Guard.

Similar to how the lack of agency in NPCs made them ideal for large formations where individual thought was a downside, the drones and soldiers of the Ectognamorph race were equally ideal for carrying out such strategies. In fact, of all the factions in the multiverse, the Endless Empire was likely the one with the most sophisticated and powerful formations, allowing their armies to loosely combine the power of sometimes millions of ectognamorphs simultaneously.

After disposing of the scouting group, the advance continued towards the Territory Beacon, which appeared to be heavily fortified. Usually, one would hope that the powerful Administrators belonging to a Territory had fallen in the Central Domain, making it an easy conquest, but Vesperia was quite the opposite. She knew that one of her greatest flaws as a True Royal was a lack of proper experience, especially after reaching B-grade, so she wanted to get into as many fights against other factions as she could.

Fortunately for her, this particular Territory ended up being led by a powerful party of five, and clearly, they’d gathered plenty of Prima Credits in the Central Domain based on the defenses and the army they could field using NPCs.

It was honestly perfect, and Vesperia smiled as her seven Queen’s Guards took to the field, leading her army in a clash where her side still outnumbered the enemy more than fifty-to-one. However, given that nearly all of her soldiers were still only around peak C-grade, and only smaller elite groups like the scouting regiment were all B-grades, her numerical advantage wasn’t that extreme.

Still, it did matter, as every drone served, at the very least, as an energy battery to power other ectognamorphs. Vesperia stayed back as her Queen’s Guard engaged the opposing army, the sky and land both filled with explosions as they clashed a moment later, more than a thousand of her soldiers dying within the first minute, with more than a hundred gone on the opposite side.

The party of five from the Holy Church was by far the biggest issue, holding back four of her Queen’s Guards at once while continually dealing damage to her army. The defenses around the Territory Beacon also tore through her army, though the army itself fired plenty back.

Losses were accumulating on both sides as the fighting continued, and while her Queen’s Guards were performing as well as could be expected, they were the only ones present truly powerful enough to fight the more elite NPCs and Administrators from the Holy Church. They were significantly outnumbered, and the home-field advantage was very noticeable as they often had to retreat back from powerful attacks fired from beyond the barrier defending the Beacon.

Still, given enough time, Vesperia had already concluded this would end in her victory. Despite thousands upon thousands of soldiers dying, she simply summoned more, her internal hive storing more than enough.

However, that wasn’t all she did.

Vesperia was fully aware she had one character flaw her fellow True Royals had pointed out many times before. A trait that didn’t suit her station, but that she nevertheless couldn’t deny. It was likely something she’d inherited from her Sire, and while she did also believe it to be a flaw... it wasn’t one she saw herself fixing either.

As for what this flaw was?

While the leader of the Holy Church party pressured a Queen’s Guard, trying to bring her down, he suddenly felt an intense sense of danger from above. A lance descended upon him, and he failed to fully defend as he was blasted back by a fully armored ectognamorph that quickly followed up by shooting out a barrage of stingers that struck the healer of their group.

The man tried to recover, and the leader stepped in to defend his comrade, but another Queen’s Guard took advantage and landed a blow on a third member of the party. The sudden assault from above had broken their formation, and not long after, the leader hung listlessly on the tip of a lance as the venom pumped through his body, quickly taking his life as he turned into wisps of scattering blue light.

From there, the Territory Beacon quickly fell under the assault of the army, Vesperia herself leading the charge as she shot out powerful beams from her lance to shear away at the barrier, before ultimately destroying the Beacon and claiming yet another Territory to add to her own.

This was Vesperia’s greatest character flaw as a True Royal. She was meant to guard her hive, lead her army, and have them handle matters for her. All her combat skills were meant to exist only for self-defense. At least that is what her sisters kept telling her.

Alas, when she looked at a battlefield and saw powerful opponents, she had a strong desire to engage herself. To test her might against them and prove herself the superior being. This trait naturally worried her sisters quite a bit, as Vesperia entering the fray personally naturally put herself in far more danger than she had to. The issue was that she didn’t hate feeling in danger. Instead, it felt right, as if she was meant to be in the midst of the fight, slaughtering her foes and getting stronger in the process.

A flaw for a True Royal, no doubt, but a trait she doubted her Sire had any criticism towards.

--

“See, this is why we can’t have nice things,” Jake muttered as he stood atop the clock tower, looking back in the direction of the Outer Gardens. Smoke rose from several buildings, and he saw several people fly into the air as giant cyclopes gave chase.

Jake had hoped that the sneaky stealing time would continue at least a little longer, but nope, people were too shit at staying undetected, especially when more of those Investigators got involved. The only good part was that, unlike the Outer Gardens, the chance of a fight chain-reacting and involving others was significantly reduced, since all the fighting happened on the streets, with tall buildings on each side.

The buildings in the Inner City were all roughly as durable as the wall surrounding it had been. In other words, all the buildings were nearly entirely indestructible, save for certain weak spots, such as windows or existing flaws in the construction that the far smaller Administrators could take advantage of.

He also reckoned that a lot of beasts that were usually on the larger side had been busy with their Polymorph skill to reduce their own size as much as possible. Fortunately, most monsters that visited civilization already had a small form prepared, as most places were built with roughly human-sized individuals in mind. Even if they hadn’t already prepared anything, as B-grades, it really shouldn’t be that difficult for them.

Not that reducing your own size helped a lot of these idiots to remain undetected, based on the chaos rapidly starting to envelop the city. At least some people were smart and made use of the vast sewer system beneath the Inner City. A place that also seemed to house treasures and pretty much be its own small territory, with monsters down there to fight and all, but honestly, Jake didn’t care enough to even investigate it. He did like massive mazes, but this particular one seemed a bit boring.

In fact, his interest in this Inner City area was pretty limited overall. He would take advantage and rob as many items as he could before things got too bad, but as the chaos spread, it would eventually reach a level where he would be forced to fight things. At that point, Jake would prefer to attempt to enter the Palace of Abundance, or at least have discovered and be working towards whatever one had to do in order to pass this Gate of Abundance that served as the entrance to the Palace.

After shaking his head one final time at the situation unfolding closer to the wall, Jake turned and continued towards the Palace of Abundance while stopping by stores and robbing them on the way.

As he progressed through the city, Jake had expected the level of the cyclopes to increase, but surprisingly, that didn’t seem to be the case. What he did notice was a slightly higher presence of Officers, and a few of the stores now had in-built security systems, all of which Jake easily bypassed. Entirely expected, honestly, as if they could detect Jake and cause trouble for him, everyone else besides a very select few would be absolutely fucked.

Constantly using Pulse, Jake didn’t see a lot of people this far into the city, though he did notice a few who seemed to have the same thoughts as him. Most of them moved alone, some in small groups, but surprisingly, he spotted a group that was moving through the sewers, quickly making progress towards the Palace of Abundance. Despite the sewers being a massive maze, they navigated through it effortlessly, and while the size of the group slowed them down, compared to those having to constantly avoid and hide from Investigators above ground, it wasn’t too bad.

As for how they were navigating through it so easily...

Jacob is also here, huh? Jake mentally noted, surprised he’d made it this far into the Central Domain already, but then again, the group he was with seemed powerful. There were more than fifty people moving together, and while Jake couldn’t sense the power of anyone in the group, just going by their equipment, they didn’t appear weak.

As if on cue, Jake had another set of familiar figures enter his Pulse range; this group moving above ground. They were led by the familiar Ghost King Azal, the leader of Casper’s Nevermore group, and he was pretty sure two of the people with him had also been in that Nevermore group. Casper was nowhere to be seen, but Jake reckoned they just hadn’t been fortunate enough to meet up yet.

Jake didn’t doubt most of the people he knew had already made their way far into the Central Domain, and even if they hadn’t necessarily entered the Inner City yet, it was only a question of time before they would do so. He also already knew that figures like the Demon Prince and Chosen of the Heartsoul Daolord were in the Outer Gardens and had no doubt made their way into the city, and were now aiming for the Palace of Abundance.

Perhaps the smartest thing would be to just bee-line straight towards the ultimate objective, but Jake didn’t, as he instead still kept taking the time to rob several dozen more stores, at some point kind of just doing it because he could. Granted, he did have a feeling that he should continue robbing, but it was one of those vague, intuitive things that didn’t feel super important. It was more than he had the feeling he wouldn’t lose out on anything by continuing to steal stuff.

As he continued, the vibe of the city only got worse as he heard muttering among the cyclopes, with many speaking to the Officers, asking what was going on. Security also increased, and Officers seemed to appear out of nowhere, raising the number of guards everywhere and making it harder to steal anything.

The closer one got to the palace, the more cyclopes were also around, making it more likely to be spotted while in the stores. People did slow down their shopping as the explosions drew closer, and Jake feared that the entire Inner City would soon go into lockdown.

More than that, he feared that the cyclopes would field more than simply Investigators and Officers to handle the situation. Something like the Blademaven would absolutely cleave through the Administrators, though hopefully even such an entity would have to restrain itself from damaging or harming its fellow cyclopes.

Not that Jake planned on fighting anything if he could avoid it, and in truth, maybe the situation turning fully chaotic would actually benefit him, as his superior stealth skills and Bloodline made him ideal to take advantage of the situation. At least it should eliminate much of his competition, and since it was a simulation, he didn’t need to worry about people he knew getting caught in the crossfire.

In either case, being a sneaky archer proved to be a very beneficial thing for this stage of the Central Domain... though not the best, as he would soon come to learn that there were some Paths that were just outright cheats in a setting like this.