Chapter 13-374: Feel the Force (2/2)

That shut them up. I did. I really did.

-No wonder the focus on cold Weapons and you not clearing more Shroudzones,- Briggs /groaned. -Why the delay?-

“There’s plenty of time, and you need those Caster Levels for the support magic, healing, and recovery... plus, there’s a whole lot of shit to kill yet that offensive magic is very good for, and all that offensive magic is going to be VERY useful after the Shroud comes down.”

That was true. There was freaking heaps of shit to do. I was doing runs every day around the world, bringing Sevens here to fight the Cultivators who still dominated over half of China, and hundreds to Level up in the Chinese and Indian Shroudzones, steady and sure before they upgraded.

The high-Level Forsaken were heading to Tibet, first to get acclimated, and then to pursue the fight there. As the Powered couldn’t endure there, that also meant they had to be their own recovery and healing specialists, unless they pulled all the way out of the place. I understood Healing Edge and Revitalization were extremely popular Greater Arsenal choices, and they were upgrading to beat the band.

Void Brothers from all over the world were converging on China, too.

All that, and the Hollow World and Hyperborea were still sitting out there.

There was tons of shit to do!

I was perfectly aware that at the national level, the existence of the Hollow World was raising dreams of colonization, industrialization, and exploitation. Expeditions were already being planned by the mercantilely-minded to see what they could find in the Hollow World to exploit. They were only being held at bay by how hard it was to actually get down there and get back out with any wealth.

Still, dreaming of conquering and owning a jungle kingdom was dancing in the minds of many. Finding out firearms and war machines were going to go away was already spurring an interest in the martial past of all our peoples. National armies, in addition to sending soldiers to Shroudzones, were breaking out very old field manuals and having to completely retrain the basic non-magical soldier from a technological era back down to a more primitive one.

That aside, steam-powered war machines were going to be a thing, that was certain, although that wouldn’t help the individual soldier, and alchemical firearms were never going to be as widespread or as strong as firearms were now.

The mass recruitment of horses and training of cavalry was now underway, too. There were no more wild mustangs left in the United States now, among other things.

Still, all that stuff was going to take years to accomplish, and clockwork stuff would be used to some degree... very carefully, since Axiom and magic tended to look at such things very opportunistically, which would again skew those who could own such things towards the elite.

And naturally all of it would take a LOT of money and gold. Just the retooling costs were back-breaking to the machines of industry, as all that investment in prior tech was going away.

“But, then, what is your role in all this? You are certainly not incapable in personal combat, but it is not your strength,” Legion had to ask. “Yet, knowing all this, you are not focusing on personal combat skills more?”

“Because the destruction of the Shroudzone is not my job,” I reminded her. “That’s your job. What is my job?”

Glowing Tats moved on their face. “Ahhh. The psychopomp...”

I nodded slowly. “My job is to prepare the way, remove threats to when the Shroud Falls... and that is biggest threat of all.”

“Understood,” they agreed. “Do you have a plan?”

I looked off into nowhere. I was every bit as intelligent now as Aelryinth had been, but I was suffering from lack of a knowledge base. The Akasha would help, but that was Level-based, and in any case, dependent on what humans knew around here. The Shroud would interfere with Divine-level knowledge, so the Angelos and Haru’Ara weren’t useful, as I’d already confirmed, and Graf Mochtal and Bey Azzar had not been helpful, either.

I could parse everything I knew very, very well, but if I couldn’t refer or reach it in the Akasha, welp, it didn’t matter.

I needed someone or something that knew more.

“I have potential plans. It depends on the nature of what is coming. I can only change them as they take place.”

“Understood. We are sorry that the information we have available is not of more help.”

The knowledge of a lilitu was naturally quite deep, but was running into the same problem as Commander Haru’Ara. Higher Levels of knowledge that touched on the Divine were currently forbidden them, and as Soulborn Outsiders whose knowledge basically was granted them by the Outer Planes they were linked to, there was nothing they could do about it.

That meant I had to find natives with the knowledge.

An option was in Tibet. I was pretty sure the King in Yellow would know what I wanted. I was also sure that the price He would demand was not something we would be able to afford unless we were in a completely dominant position, and the Void Brothers were aware of this.

That left Hyperborea, or the Hollow World... or if Aelryinth could come up with something when I wrenched the Shroud open at the Summer Solstice celebration.

Let’s see what Legion’s Dragonsire came up with after they finished advancing and could throw him around like a toy. If that was a dead end, or even if it wasn’t, well, I had to go to Hyperborea to do the Ice and Fire Ceremonies for more people. There were some Old Gods there I could pay a visit to, and I didn’t doubt they’d want to talk to someone holding the skulls of three Old Gods...

In the meantime, I had a dragon I could visit, too...