The Gamer Chapter 1486 – Early World Power Diplomacy (Patreon)

The suit sat in a camping chair, placed between a luxurious coffee table and a wall-spanning flatscreen. Various segments of the image did not quite harmonize with one another, but neither the disguised Horned Rat nor the harem around him cared.

John sat on the other side of the table and, for the first time, felt the slightest bit of satisfaction in having sex in front of another person. Claire and Delicia (back in her regular state) knelt on the floor, constantly venerating his cock with the lavish attention of their tongues. The presence of the god of impending calamity did not faze them in the slightest, they were wholly devoted to their task.

Rave and Aclysia had taken their typical places as his right and left hand women, cuddling up against him, while the rest of the harem had maximized the distance they could have between themselves and the ‘guest’. Only Nia remained close to her adoptive father. This showcase of unity and of prioritizing physical and mental affection over the literal god in the room was ecstatic. It made his heart and his ego swell, a duality of emotions that the Gamer loved.

A sniffling sound echoed through the room. One of John’s eyebrows shot up when Richard brushed an ephemeral tear away from under his eye. “What’s this about?” John asked.

“I’m just so proud. I remember the lanky, unworthy creature you were. Now you’re on your way to become a puppet worth pulling the strings of, getting serviced by women that themselves could kill any and all demigods.”

“With words alone!” Delicia threw in, before taking her turn going down on her Master’s manhood.

“Like I haven’t been a puppet worth stringing along for a while.” John rolled his eyes, while simultaneously giving an approving head pat to Delicia. Claire puffed her cheeks up in an adorable little pout, leaving him no choice but to do the same for her. “May I remind you that you own a Sylkarion because of me?”

“A fair point, a fair point indeed,” the suit responded in his standard baritone.

“Also, may I remind you of the time you used Thana’s awakening to pressure Romulus into returning your full powers to you?”

“A happy circumstance.”

“One that you plotted from the start. ‘When this prophecy comes to an end, she shall ascend’ – Remember this little bit?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re still angry that I didn’t warn you about Herman.” Richard snickered, while John simply stared. There was plenty he had to be thankful for and plenty he had every right to be angry about when it came to the chimeric god before him. In the end, all John could do was maintain cautious trust towards the enigmatic entity. “Speaking of Nazis…”

“Ah, getting to the topic of your visit, are we?” John asked into the teasing quiet.

“Why yes, yes indeed. I take it you have taken note of recent shipments between the west African coast and the Purest Front?”

John nodded and glanced over to Momo. “We found out initially through shared trade partners. We tried to dig into the matter, but even Scarlett was unable to find anything. Seems like they are keeping this to physical documentation or closed servers.”

“How about you, seer?” the suit asked.

Lorelei shook her head. “My vision is clouded when it comes to those threads. The seers of the enemy obscure everything of my sight, as I am certain it obscures yours, unbaptized one.”

“That is an interesting choice of title.” The Horned Rat’s voice dipped into the interplay of squeaks and demonic deepness that his true form spoke in. Immediately, it switched back, “I don’t like it. Use another one in the future.”

“Understood, scheming one.”

“That’s more like it,” Richard hummed approvingly. “So you know nothing beyond the fact that the boats have been going back and forth?”

“Nothing beyond that and whatever you are about to tell me,” the Gamer responded. “Although there are other moves the Purest Front has been pulling lately. Primarily, their attempts to use middlemen to buy Fusion metals have hit a sudden decrease very recently.”

“Interesting… Now, now, much as I would like to boast that I know all about this, I sadly cannot share much with you.” The suit folded his hands in his lap. “The Purest Front is difficult to infiltrate even for me.”

‘Yeah, I’ll just take that on faith,’ John thought, sarcastically. ‘More likely you’re hiding something from me again… then again, he is fallible. I hate the unreliability with this guy.’

“I found something else, something that may or may not be related to the recent moves,” the Horned Rat continued. “I overheard, in one form or another, that the Purest Front will themselves be sponsoring a new admission to the Divided Gates.”

John furrowed his eyebrows. Rapidly, his mind went through any and all contestants that the current world had to offer. ‘India? No, not unified enough and they wouldn’t align with the Purest Front anyway. No one else of note exists in the Americas. Australia? No, too few people, no one noticeable? Japan? No, I have my fingers in that pie, I would have noticed something.’ “This has to be related to Africa just by virtue of the rest of the world offering nothing. It’s either that or Oceania.”

“And I quite doubt that the Majapahit will suddenly rise again,” the Horned Rat stated.

“Majapahit?” Rave asked.

“A thalassocracy that governed in Oceania between the 12th to the 16th century. They held much of modern day Indonesia,” John gave her the quick rundown. “On the Abyssal side, they were a major competitor to the Mandate of Heaven for that stretch of time, but internal conflicts eventually pulled it apart. You know what they say about an empire that dies from within.”

“The clans that made it up turn onto each other and declare each island its own realm,” the Horned Rat added dismissively. “The Europeans did not help, taking over Australia and erecting New Atlantis in the Banda Sea. Most importantly, they do not have the gods to unify them again. The Hindu pantheon has long since been scattered to the winds.”

“A realm led by gods would be ideologically opposed to the Purest Front anyway,” John stated. Part of the tenets of the nation was human supremacy, which was part of the reason why they had experimented to create a human capable of absorbing Faith in the first place. If it wasn’t human at its base, it was unworthy of leadership. “But what realm could they be sponsoring from Africa? I haven’t heard of any impressive individuals rising there recently.”

“I do not know. Perhaps they have been gathering and grooming people with potential to found a new nation in Africa that is aligned with them. It would serve them, serve them a lot, to expand their reach there.”

John slowly nodded. Personally invading Africa would be rebuked by the rest of the Divided Gates and cut-off before the Purest Front could establish more than a foothold. However, if they managed to legitimize a carefully selected cadre of Abyssals by making them part of the Divided Gates and setting them up on the African west coast, things could easily go from there. People would be attracted to joining this new state, just because it was acknowledged as powerful, and expansion would be simple from there. Mounting a resistance against Africans taking over Africa was much harder, even if that guild would be a de-facto vassal of the Purest Front.

It was unlikely to work, the other Divided Gates were going to look through the manoeuvre with ease, but the attempt cost the Purest Front little and success gave them an entire continent to expand into.

‘Which is the last thing I want,’ John thought. Coming to blows with the Purest Front was inevitable, and the more he could weaken them before it came to that, the better. “I suppose the recent buy-up of metal was to arm those new forces?”

“Whether their plan succeeds or not, the armaments won’t go to waste. The forces will join the Purest Front openly afterwards or be established in Africa as a direct vassal, with less opportunity to expand.”

John sucked on the inside of his cheek, before ultimately shrugging. “The Purest Front making their own moves is ultimately expected and they have even fewer friends in the Divided Gates than Fusion has. They’re there out of an acknowledgement of power, nothing else.”

The suit nodded. “I reckon, reckon indeed, that there is little we can do besides prepare.”

“Do the Illuminati have designs on Africa?” John asked.

“I have designs on seeing Mengele’s efforts thwarted and his ideology destroyed,” the Horned Rat responded simply. “Tyrants and dictators are ever ill-equipped with what is to come.”

“Wouldn’t you count yourself among them?” John asked, genuinely curious.

“I arrange for what I want becoming done,” the Horned Rat responded, a mild tone of annoyance rumbling under his deceptively human voice. Even that annoyance was difficult to trust. “When you commission a new building, do you declare yourself a tyrant? A tyrant of the builders? No, the opportunities and successes offered are claimed by those most capable at achieving what I want done.”

‘Still a top-down approach,’ the Gamer thought, but decided to have a conversation about government philosophy another time. “I am wondering about something else…” He spent a moment just marvelling at how beautiful the two maids below him were. Then his eyes wandered up. “…if I destroyed this part of you, would the memories reach the whole?”

The suit simply smiled. “Whatever would I have done for you to even contemplate such drastic action?” he asked in obviously faked sweetness.

“Snuck onto my ship, under the guise of a reporter or support staff, I have to assume.”

Still, the suit just smiled.

It ticked John off something fierce.

The Horned Rat’s capability to be in multiple places at the same time was easily explained by his ability to splinter himself into the various parts that made up his greater whole. All Abyssal monsters that reached sapience went through a stage of being a Legion entity or were the descendant of such an entity. Nathalia had once been one and so had the Horned Rat, albeit the assembly of ill omens had retained part of that splintered base, while the dragoness had fully consumed all other personalities that had once existed within her skin.

So, he really was contemplating finding out whether Richard would have a convenient memory gap if he killed the shard. The problem here was that the Horned Rat was too smart to let him know even if he did. If this even was a shard. For all John knew, this could have been the actual god.

And so the suit smiled, definitely knowing that John couldn’t win this poker game.

“Get out of here,” the Gamer demanded, pointing at the door. “Thank you for the warning, but spare me your sight, please.”

“I’ll come talk to you again tomorrow,” the Horned Rat decided for both of them, making John’s left eye twitch. His annoyance was pronounced enough that Clare shifted her primary occupation from sucking him off to staring at the suit. The god smugly folded the camping chair, and stared back.

“Are you a shard?” the vampire asked, her voice swinging with mesmerizing intent.

Richard’s motions grew groggy. Almost mechanically, it put the folded chair under its arm. Lips twitched. “Yes,” it responded dully. The eyes of the suit went wide, then the lids grew into a dense layer that covered the oculars with pale flesh. Dropping the chair, the shard hasted towards the door.

Beatrice appeared in the way. The teleportation nearly had the blinded shard run into her. Growling, the freshly grown skin was peeled back, revealing more and more of a skull that gradually shifted into the four-horned appearance of the Horned Rat.

The attention of the room was pulled swiftly to an alien presence that appeared next to Beatrice. Utilizing her own teleportation ability, Nia had manifested by the door. Gently, she put her hand on the dragon maid’s shoulder. “Let him go,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion, her blank face as threatening as a cracking frozen lake.

Beatrice’s eyes glanced between Nia, the Horned Rat, and John, who nodded. The passive maid stepped aside. “Please enjoy your stay. Reminder: the Gamer’s personal quarters are off-limits for unauthorized personnel and uninvited guests,” she calmly stated, while gesturing at the sliding door.

“Noted,” the Horned Rat growled, his skull reverting to the nondescript face of the suit.

The door closed with a soft whisper, turning everyone’s attention first to Nia and then, when the pariah calmly returned to her spot on the couch, to Claire. For her part, the vampire maid seemed more interested in giving her Master’s cock continued attention. “He annoyed me,” she said between kisses to the shaft. “Presumptuous, continuously teasing you like he’s your better.”

“He’s acted the part of the mind controlled pretty well,” Scarlett stated.

“I don’t think it was an act.” John’s opinion caused some general surprise, for the obvious reason of his typical overthinking. “The Horned Rat could have only been vaguely aware of Claire’s abilities, until just now. Beyond that, if that truly was just a shard, which I believe is the case, she would have the ability to overpower its mental defences.” Claire nuzzled into the hand he put on her cheek. “There will be a time when each one of us is stronger than him. It’s not that far away now.” The words filled the room with a bristle of excitement. It was always different to know that they were going to be more powerful than almost anybody else and to be given goals that could be eclipsed. With a flick to Claire’s forehead, he pulled the room back into the here and now.

“Owww… but why, Master?” she pouted, theatrically rubbing the spot.

“Don’t play our cards against our current allies,” John chided her. There was no bite behind those words, not with the smile on his lips. Aligned with the Horned Rat as he was, getting even the tiniest of revenges on that god was immensely satisfying.

“I regret causing you discomfort. I regret making an unwise decision. I regret absolutely nothing,” Claire kept appearances up for two sentences, then ended the topic on her terms – by taking his entire dick down her throat.

John could not stay mad at her.