Miranda hadn’t stopped her investigation into what had happened to the Fallen King and Sylphie even after the situation had seemingly been resolved. She refused to believe there weren’t more traitors on Earth, perhaps even some high up in the system. A few more administrative staff were identified over the next few weeks who had all been incredibly suspicious. Some weren’t even immigrants from other planets but natives of Earth.
Arthur took the lead in many of these investigations, as the vast majority of these people were from his prior base of supporters. The United Cities Alliance had been formed by the people who opposed the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and, in general, people who wanted to preserve Earth as it was before the system. In other words, they didn’t want any immigrants or non-humans anywhere, and rather than live with beasts in a semi-synergistic society, they would rather see them all killed. They simply refused to see them as the sapient creatures they were now.
The push of the World Council to not only allow immigrants and freed slaves to settle on Earth but even beasts to live among humans had naturally ruffled some feathers, and the recent return of the Risen had only made things even worse. While they had done much to address these people, it was hard to do anything toward people merely harboring negative thoughts or acting in the shadows.
No one wanted a society where you could get in trouble for thinking the wrong thing either, so they’d ended up with a lot of people carrying resentment and a lot of bigotry toward anyone who wasn’t a human while naturally also hating other humans who didn’t share their beliefs.
This was a problem Miranda, Arthur, the Fallen King, and the Sky Whale had discussed extensively, with the shared sentiment that nothing but time could fix these issues. The old generation had to die off and be replaced with more progressive people who weren’t used to a world before the system but what the multiverse had now become.
Anyway, insidious actors had found plenty of people to take advantage of, and many jumped at the opportunity to seemingly do meaningful damage to Jake and his allies, who were ”actively destroying the planet.”
These insidious actors naturally included allies of Ell’Hakan. Quite a lot of them, in fact. However, when looking into them, Miranda and Arthur were perplexed at some of the things they found, and with the assistance of William, they discovered everything wasn’t as simple as they looked. Rather than finding one group... they found two.
One was the agents of Ell’Hakan, who had seemingly gone into sleeper mode for the last pretty long period, likely doing nothing more than reporting things to the other Chosen while not taking any actions. A few had even gone as far as to spread rumors about what had happened actually when Ell’Hakan invaded the planet so long ago, how it had all been a misunderstanding caused due to the Order of the Malefic Viper, and some even claimed it had been a good thing as it ”opened the eyes” of the Viper’s Chosen to what his Patron truly was.
None of them did anything overtly harmful to Earth and weren’t really threats at this moment.
This all seemed to track with Ell’Hakan’s recent official stance where he no longer ran any negative propaganda campaigns toward Jake. Instead, he didn’t seem to say much about Jake at all, and what was said was neutral at worst. Truly, it did seem like he was trying to spin a tale of Jake and Ell’Hakan being enemies due to their respective Patrons and having no personal animosity toward each other... meaning that should Jake ”break free” from the Malefic Viper, they would have no reason to oppose one another. Should he join Valhal, perhaps they would even be allies.
When it came to these people who loyally served Ell’Hakan and acted according to his will, Miranda just kept an eye on them and took notes. Taking any actions would ruin their own plans. Also, keeping an eye on them while not doing anything would instead help Jake’s cause, as she was sure the people she sent weren’t all competent enough to not be discovered, and the fact that Earth’s intelligence network knew and didn’t act against his agents would certainly get back to Ell’Hakan, only further strengthening his delusion that Jake had softened his stance toward his fellow Chosen.
As for the second group, also made up of Ell’Hakan supporters, they were quite a bit... different. These people seemingly were no longer actually in contact with the other Chosen but acted entirely on their own and had made their own small groups and plans, entirely – and purposefully – separate from the true followers of Ell’Hakan.
Of course, ironically, these people believed they were the ”true” followers. As for their exact beliefs... Miranda couldn’t figure them out, and it soon became clear it wasn’t because she was shit at her job but because they truly didn’t have any collective belief outside of thinking that Ell’Hakan was some kind of godlike being and that Jake and the Viper were evil incarnate. They had a flimsy cohesion at best, and all the true fanatics were immigrants who Miranda suspected had also been immigrants on the planets they had arrived on Earth from.
These fanatics had then found allies among the natives of Earth, making wild promises that Ell’Hakan would save them all from the evil snake cult, eradicate all the beasts and monsters, and return the planet to its rightful owners: humanity. Truly, it was all bullshit and didn’t even track with what Ell’Hakan would actually do... but it was good enough to convince the desperate morons who let anger and fear of the foreign rule them over logic.
Miranda truthfully didn’t even want to get into the complexities of the delusions at play, and there was a good reason she called them fanatics. They acted illogical and with intense emotions to the level it was irrational, making her form quite a few theories she had no proof of but would certainly keep in mind. The predominant one was that Ell’Hakan had perhaps wanted to create followers with absolute loyalty and it had gone wrong somehow, and yes, the vast majority of her theories included Ell’Hakan having done something extreme with his Bloodline that had then ended up backfiring.
She would think he knew what they were up to if not for all the evidence speaking to the contrary, and while William still wasn’t the most reliable source, he had proven himself honest in all matters so far. Her view of William was a bit odd, as she naturally didn’t know him from back in the Tutorial. She had never really interacted with him or even heard about him until he came and began to actively help around Haven, which did make it hard for her to see why she had to be so damn suspicious of him all the time. Because right now, he just seemed like a kid trying to desperately make himself useful.
Then again, she did realize he had been blessed by Eversmile, been a terror and absolute psycho during Jake’s Tutorial, and even sided with Ell’Hakan afterward, again due to Eversmile. Casper and Jacob had also confirmed pretty much everything Jake had told her, making it clear she had to be wary even if he had supposedly changed. Caution was never a bad thing in her book, but she didn’t want to be overly cautious and not make use of a valuable tool due to preconceived notions either.
The young metal mage had also come by after having proven himself useful that day, having investigated a group of fanatics. They ended up not really being that problematic or worth dealing with and had only been in contact with someone they’d already gotten rid of a week ago.
Meanwhile, Arnold was Arnold.
Anyway, William left the office soon after, and before he left, they switched the topic and discussed his next job, leaving Miranda alone with her work once more as she quickly went down to the cellar beneath her office. Well, rather than a cellar, it was more like a large cavern she had Hank help construct a long time back, also making use of the coffins from the Treasure Hunt and many other natural treasures to help enhance her abilities as a witch.
She had some targets to take a look into and a few who had to meet unfortunate ends, and quite honestly, it was easier for them to simply disappear, consumed by the swamps of the Verdant Lagoon, rather than make a big show of killing them. Plus, this meant they didn’t have corpses to clean up, saving a bit on the city budget.
Miranda sat in the center of the large magic circle as the runes lit up all around her and sunk her counciousness into the land beneath her as she became one with Haven and started her little hunt.
“It truly stopped... they must have done it,” Jacob said with a smile as he looked at the map of the Milky Way. He had been keeping a close on it over the last weeks and noticed something... the spread of dead planets had stopped entirely. He’d tried to divine why already but found himself unable to.
“It can’t really be anyone but them, can it?” Bertram, who stood with him, agreed. “I just hope they’re all still fine.”
“They should be. Jake is the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, and while desolation is incredibly dangerous, it’s one of the concepts the Malefic One is incredibly potent with,” Jacob said. “Of course, nothing is certain...”
Jacob had discovered the nature of the creature a while ago through his divinations. He’d recognized the signs of desolation within his dreams and visions and realized what kind of creature it was, though he naturally didn’t know everything. He’d kept a close eye on it, but then, suddenly, it had stopped doing anything, and he could no longer divine anything regarding the creature of desolation.
Ell’Hakan had also noticed this and questioned Jacob, who’d decided not to share anything he didn’t have to. Despite having developed the teleporter that allowed him and his allies to travel to planets not even part of the Prima Guardian Alliance, he had not once shown interest in confronting the living calamity sweeping their galaxy.
Jacob had even begun to suspect this was because Ell’Hakan had something to do with this creature, but reality proved to be far more simple... he just didn’t care. He didn’t see the creature as any kind of priority. The Chosen didn’t even believe killing some unknown menace would help his discourse, as no one really knew about it, seeing as everyone who’d been terrorized by the creature of desolation was dead.
He would rather “save” more planets and have them integrated into his alliance than actually do something good, and Jacob did find it hypocritical that the “evil” snake cult Chosen and his allies ended up being the ones doing a good deed.
Speaking of good deeds...
Valhal had been quickly making a name for themselves across the galaxy, all with the support of Ell’Hakan to help spread their name and influence. The Holy Church also helped Ell’Hakan – Jacob even being there proof of that – and the Church had even hired the Court of Shadows and some mercenaries, making their progress of killing Prima Guardians even faster as they began teleporting all around the galaxy, even to planets who hadn’t asked for help.
As they stood there, looking at the map that outlined the state of their galaxy, Bertram spoke. “I can’t even begin to imagine how this all ends...”
“Neither do I,” Jacob confessed. “I do truthfully hope for a peaceful solution... one that limits needless bloodshed. We can only pray that Jake will be open to diplomacy and peace talks or at least that Miranda will push for a mostly conflict-free resolution. Perhaps Ell’Hakan will need to leave the galaxy for good, but his followers should be fine.”
“Maybe such a thing can be achieved,” Bertram shrugged. “Jake isn’t the most caring of guys, so as long as no one really close to him is killed, it should be possible to negotiate with him.”
For some reason, when Bertram said that, Jacob felt an odd premonition and a shiver run down his spine but quickly shook it off. Yeah... that wouldn’t happen, right? Because if it did... Jacob had a hard time seeing this entire galactical event end in anything but bloodshed.