Chapter 467: Day 908 – New Dhaka

Chapter 467: Day 908 – New Dhaka

Looking at the melted soldiers in the plaza, they hadn’t even stood a chance. The city of New Dhaka was just as easily defeated as New Jakarta. I shook my head. I had been hoping for a bit more of a fight. It was getting late. Time to find somewhere to hole up and then head back tomorrow.

I noticed an older man approaching me from across the plaza. He didn’t have much energy, so I walked towards him without hesitation, curious if this was a trap.

“Greetings,” the old man said and got down on both knees to kowtow.

“You can get up,” I said, wanting to look at the man’s face as I spoke.

“Thank you, I am called Sandeep. The ruler of this nation while the High Priestess or her honor guard is not present,” he replied. Oh, the leader himself had come out.

“I am Emperor Michael of the Empire of Purgatory. Slayer of the Divine Empress. Custodian of the Avatar. Successor of the United City States,” I declared unleashing title after title. I had given it some thought and decided that if I ever needed to throw down titles, to whip them all out. I could tell it worked as Sandeep looked surprised.

“So, the great war is over?” he asked.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

“The Dragon Empire is no more. The Avatar, or as you call her the High Priestess is in my custody and well taken care of.” I grinned at that. Just thinking about her eternal torment doing pointless paperwork never failed to bring a smile to my face. “The Astrologer lies dead and all that he had claim to now belongs to me, including the remnants of the United City States.”

“We surrender unconditionally,” Sandeep said. I shook my head.

“The Avatar said such things as well. But she was a liar. Conspiring to have me killed. If you surrender unconditionally, then a requirement is to kill nine tenths of your populace and to kill any new arrivals until my soldiers arrive. Let’s just call it two hundred people will be spared.” They would be used to make a statement to the Avatar to send her spiraling into even more despair.

None of them would be living for long, but if I could take the cities without losing my own people, I wouldn’t complain. I could see Sandeep silently crying. How weak, how pathetic. He was dead the moment Avatar betrayed me and failed to kill me.

The Free City of Hong Kong would escape such a fate for now. But no locals would ever be given a position of authority. The same went for all other governorships. While a few of them were Asian Americans, I would not allow my absolute control to slip in the slightest or any of the governors to get ideas.

Even worse would be someone holding a grudge. Only people that had proven themselves and Clarissa had confirmation of their loyalty would ever be allowed to be a governor. That meant soldiers who had willingly served and fought on my behalf. Everyone else could eat dirt or die for all I cared.

“Please have mercy Emperor Michael,” Sandeep begged.

I knew my limits, unlike others and was happy to delegate away authority. I didn’t need to micromanage everything. I considered the number of crystals that were flowing in my direction and how that amount would increase over time. Millions of points per day would accelerate me forward. I could only hope that no one else had secured passive income from so many cities.

That had been another thing I had discussed with Clarissa. We weren’t going to be aggressively looking for new cities. If they hadn’t found us by now, that meant they were past level 4 zones at the very least. I would be doing the poking, but there would be no large airship expeditions planned. Better to focus on building up and not alarming any other powers.

It had been a hard decision. Since it would be invaluable to get information on how far along any other nations were, but the risk of another confrontation any time soon would put too much pressure on my empire as it was.

We needed time to stabilize and ensure that there was long term stability before I started up another war. Clarissa had been insistent that I don’t start another war until day 2,000 at the earliest. Since she planned to focus the Empire of Purgatory’s efforts into getting the economy up and running. The goal was people grinding level 4 monsters.

Once that happened, we would have a much more secure power base to draw from and take actions. There was also another long-term consideration we had discussed. The issue of a person getting a meta-point and if that knowledge should be spread.

As the Inquisitor proved, a meta-point did not make them invincible, but it did give them a massive power boost. After much back and forth it had been declared a state secret. Anyone getting a meta-point would be invited to have a discussion to assess their personality.

At that point they would either be killed or sworn to my personal guard. If they asked if I had a meta-point, I could just smile and not have to answer that. It would be assumed I had one, and if it was secret it would make anyone thinking about causing trouble that much more hesitant.

That way if another nation showed up, there would be a powerful and loyal team around myself ready to act and crush any opposition. At least that was the plan. Clarissa’s had her auditors informed about meta-points and told to keep an eye out for anyone who gained a lot of power without a corresponding number of points going towards them.

Eventually people would get meta-points and be invited to speak to Clarissa and myself. I would then offer them the right to challenge me for my title and then beat them down. I wasn’t that worried. My stats would only increase in time. And having a meta-point loyal minion like the Divine Empress was a powerful trump card to hold in reserve.

The fact was, while I could operate by myself, a team would make things much safer. But finding competent people would take time. People with meta-points would get a power boost without be having to invest points into them, which made them perfect.

Hopefully none of them picked stupid things. I could just imagine some idiot asking to be a furry. I didn’t plan on kink shaming anyone, and while there were many good options, that would be a clear bad option to choose for a meta-point.

It was frustrating I hadn’t earned one yet, and I had tried to come to peace with the issue. But it was still rage inducing. The best would be if I could get a bunch of people with meta-points. Then I got a meta-point that could take meta-points, and then take all of their meta-points. That seemed like what the Astrologer had in mind.

It wasn’t a bad idea, if he had actually succeeded. But there was value to having them spread out. In a fight a team could be a powerful force multiplier. The one thing I agreed on with Clarissa was to wait and see who got a meta-point and what they picked before making a decision on what to do with them.

It never felt good when other people were ahead of me. In the end, stats were key and the Divine Empress proved that. Just pile on enough and meta-points didn’t matter. At least that is what I told myself to deal with the frustration.