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Chapter 964: Keeping Up the Good Fight
Chapter 964: Keeping Up the Good Fight
Jake and Miranda met up inside the Prima Vessel as they both looked at the map that had more and more green flags by the day but also more grey ones as quite a few of the planets who had tried to face the Prima Guardian event alone fell to the attack. This was an expected outcome, as nobody had expected every planet to get out unscathed.
The appearance of the black flags was not expected, though. However, they had held on hope when they saw only one of them that it was some kind of anomaly. Jake had even theorized that maybe the creature had given its own life to somehow destroy the core or done something it could only do once.
Now, it was clear this wasn’t a one-off. What’s more, the creature known as ”I” had figured out how to destroy a core far faster than before. This also fully eliminated any possibility of it consuming these cores in any way, as there was no way in hell it had enough time to digest a Planetary Core this quickly. It was purposefully destroying them, dooming entire worlds.
One huge question still bothered them, though.
”Why is it doing this?” Miranda thought out loud. ”I checked the notes we had on the targeted planet, and it wasn’t just some random place. It was part of Ell’Hakan’s alliance, so unless this is some extreme plan to make us think they are unrelated to one another, I can’t see a world where this creature and Ell’Hakan are allies. This makes me think this targeting is indiscriminatory and random.”
”It likely is,” Jake muttered. ”This creature appeared out of nowhere. It didn’t hesitate to end its own planet and now moved on to do the same thing with a second one. I believe it’s just following its Path. There is no logic or reasoning behind the action besides just doing what it’s born to do.”
”So it’s a living calamity of some kind,” Miranda sighed, less than amused by the notion.
Jake slowly nodded, thinking that was entirely possible. Creatures like that could just be born anywhere randomly but tended to be in areas with powerful Records... and the Milky Way Galaxy was already a maelstrom of Records at this point. The unexpected was almost to be expected with their circumstances.
”Any idea what kind of creature it could be? Doesn’t seem to fit the description of a Plague Spirit or anything curse-based. It’s also clearly intelligent if it can teleport to other planets using the Prima Vessel or other system-provided magic circles... do you think it might be enlightened, seeing as it was the World Leader?” Miranda asked curiously, though Jake knew she was as much surmising out loud as she was actually asking.
”We simply don’t have enough information yet,” Jake shook his head. ”There is one more thing, though... why would anyone accept the creature’s request to teleport to their planet if they see it applying from a planet marked with a black flag?”
”A better question would be if its request even needs to be accepted anymore or if it can force its way in,” Miranda said in a grave voice. ”Either way, we should stay alert in case it somehow ends up going to Earth while hoping it chooses to focus on Ell’Hakan’s alliance. If we get lucky, perhaps your rival Chosen deals with it.”
”Not sure I count him as my rival,” Jake muttered. ”Who knows, maybe this creature ends up killing Ell’Hakan? That would sure be a plot twist of the ages.”
”A rather anti-climactic one after all the buildup of his story,” Miranda commented in a deadpan tone.
”Would be kind of funny, though,” Jake joked, fully aware it wasn’t going to happen. Ell’Hakan was definitely the careful sort, and he wouldn’t risk fighting an unknown entity like that without any information. He was way more likely to throw a few planets at ”I” to learn what he was dealing with before stepping up himself.
It was far more likely that should Ell’Hakan conclude this ”I” wasn’t something he could handle himself, he would try to find a way to make it fight Jake and potentially even kill Jake. Not only would that allow Ell’Hakan to get rid of Jake, but it would also minimize the backlash from having done so. Yeah, that was definitely something that orange fuck would gladly do.
What had happened on that scalekin World Leader’s planet was proof of how underhanded the other Chosen could be when he wanted, as Ell’Hakan had clearly been willing to sacrifice two World Leaders and every single person he had sent there just to get a recording of Jake. Speaking of that entire thing... Miranda hadn’t made any negative comments about Jake’s conduct, even when he explained what he’d done. In fact, quite the opposite. In her words:
”You were put in a situation with no good options. If you killed the World Leaders, you wouldn’t just have to slay them but many of their supporters, all of your actions getting recorded. Such a recording could quickly spread to the rest of the galaxy, and it would make our job much harder, even with Kindroth helping out. On the other hand, backing down entirely and letting them handle the Prima Guardian would make you appear incredibly meek and weak. Ultimately, I do agree your approach of killing the Prima Guardian while seemingly not being that interested in the two World Leaders was the best. It made you appear as nothing but a professional hunter just going around killing Guardians and not much else. As for that entire thing with your Fangs of Man skill... no comment. That is, in all honesty, far above my paygrade and something you’ll have to talk to the Malefic Viper about directly once that’s possible. No way I wanna risk saying the wrong thing, potentially pissing off a Primordial or two.”
So, yeah, Jake was pretty proud of himself for that one, and he had honestly expected a bit of scolding once he was back. Not to say Jake thought he had done things perfectly, but he hadn’t messed up enough for Miranda to make a big deal out of it. He just hoped that the moment he reestablished his connection with the Malefic Viper, the god wouldn’t instantly tell him he was a bloody moron while making fun of him for how much he sucked at scheming.
”What good frog rain doesn’t also include a rain of insults,” Jake said as if it was obvious.
Miranda just stared at him for a moment before gladly changing the subject entirely as if the prior conversation had never happened. ”Of those who left Earth, I have yet to hear anything from the members of the Holy Church. Not that I necessarily expected them to come back and visit, but their silence is a bit surprising.”
”We already know they work with Ell’Hakan or at least have some kind of agreement,” Jake shrugged, allowing Miranda to change the subject before she decided to throw frogs at him. ”Speaking of their allies... heard anything from Carmen recently?”
”Nothing since the message that Valhal put together a team to roam the galaxy to kill Prima Guardians,” Miranda said with a shrug. ”I did hear from third parties that they aren’t only killing Guardians on the planets under the thumb of Ell’Hakan, though. Even went to two Kindroth had been in contact with and we had to remove them from the list due to that.”
”Great, more competition,” Jake sighed, not actually that upset. ”Is Arnold and-”
”I’m sure they’ll let you know first thing once everything’s ready,” Miranda cut him off, knowing full well what he was about to ask, considering Jake had asked the same question more than a dozen times already over the last couple of months.
”Alright, alright,” Jake muttered, a bit down. If only he could teleport to the red planets that weren’t part of the system-made Prima Guardian Alliance, he would have so many more bosses to kill. More than that, he would be able to speed up the end of this entire system event. Alas, he would have to wait a bit longer. Not too long, hopefully.
Jake considered if he wanted to go and visit Haven or something like that, but ultimately landed on just keeping up the good fight. There were still so many planets on the list created with the help of Kindroth, even if he and the Sword Saint were pretty damn efficient. Once Caleb and others were done handling their own matters, they would likely also come help. If not them, then Sylphie, Vesperia, and the Fallen King shouldn’t be that much longer dealing with all the planets with an Endless Empire presence.
Going over the list of planets, Jake quickly found the ones that looked the least complicated to handle, as he really wasn’t in for any more complications. He especially wasn’t keen on finding himself in another situation where he felt like an unwilling marriage counselor who just sat in the corner listening to the couple fight before randomly making up and making out.
Luckily, the next few Prima Guardian kills happened quite uneventfully. The planets he visited were relatively stable. If you ignored the fact they were dealing with a potentially planet-destroying invasion of powerful monsters, that is.
The point is there was no huge drama or involvement from other large factions, just extremely grateful World Leaders and military personnel. Sure, there were a few minor incidents where arrogant ”heroes” who were still scared shitless of the Prima Guardian tried to play tough and cause trouble, but a good staredown tended to be good enough to handle most of those.
Jake also made sure to mark down another important number. He had a bet going with the Sword Saint, who would get the most marriage proposals or just proposed concubines thrown at them during this entire event. So far, Jake was at eleven, with eight women and three men... which was still behind the fifteen the Sword Saint had the last time Jake checked in with the guy. This was despite Jake killing more Guardians, thus also getting more opportunities.
Both of them were losing hard to Miranda, though. Most factions didn’t dare try to make such propositions to people like Jake or the Sword Saint, but Miranda, the political figurehead in all this, seemed a lot more approachable, allowing her to now sit at more than fifty such offers. Luckily, she wasn’t part of their bet.
Over the next two weeks, Jake got his number up to fourteen as he killed nine more Prima Guardians. Between every kill, he returned to Earth to quickly check in on how things were going before heading off again. After killing number eight Guardian – and thirteen days since the last one – another black flag appeared on the galaxy map.
The planet this time was one that hadn’t been part of Ell’Hakan’s alliance, nor one Kindroth had any particular contact with. This only gave more credibility to the theory that this targeting was random.
When Jake returned after killing nine Guardians, ready to quickly go and kill number ten, he met Lillian once more in the teleportation room, taking notes at the galaxy map.
The two of them locked eyes for a moment, and as Lillian spoke, Jake already knew as he couldn’t help but grin.
”Arnold asked to see you... he said they are ready for beta testing.”