Chapter 240: When to Play (Patreon)

Former Prime Commander Zalanth was lying on her side, unsoldierly and pacified, with her elbow on a luxurious pillow and her jaw resting on her knuckles, smooshing her cheek. Her tightly bound battle braids leisurely rested over her shoulder and across her collar bone. If any of her former subordinates witnessed her current state, they would assume she had been defeated in battle before being disgracefully captured and contractually enslaved. Nearly 16,000 years of dedicated military service had hardened her mind and body, but life wasn’t as simple as she had believed. That much had become clear.

She was draped by sheer golden mana-weave silks, gently caressing her pale blue skin with every slight movement. The soft fabrics accentuated the muscles and scars that she had been so proud of before, but made her seem out of place when compared to the other noble guests. If not for her garments, she would most likely be mistaken for security, as she clearly hadn’t lived the soft life of the rest of the crowd. She used her free hand to reach into a bowl of delicacies, causing the charms on her new bracelet to clink pleasantly, and selected one of the fruits that she was already growing fond of. She chewed on beads of the extraordinarily expensive namanin fruit as she contemplated the strange twists of fate.

Zalanth shifted to her back, flinging her braids away from her skin, and stretched her long limbs beneath the canopy of delicate hanging gossamer veils. Thin sheets separated her reserved section from the others on the plush floor within the main lounge of an opulent pleasure barge. The vessel calmly floated among the gaseous seas of the Lankir Sector’s galactically famous comfort moon, drifting with the currents without any guidance.

She gazed beyond the transparent ceiling, watching the patterns in the star clouds as they shifted beyond the moon’s thin atmosphere, glowing with beauty that she had never believed she could appreciate. Honestly, she didn’t. Military service had been her purpose, as it was for everyone in the Endless Empire. Anything else, and especially leisure, was for lesser beings that lacked the divine blessing of the God Empress.

She hated to admit it, but exile from the Endless Empire had resulted in extraordinarily good fortune. Her trajectory from lowly dragoon to Prime Commander was unlikely enough. It was an inspirational story for those in training, but to rub shoulders with those in an echelon of wealth that surpassed established settlements should have been impossible without drastic cosmic intervention. The other guests weren’t quite rich enough to gain independence from factions, but they were able to position themselves into ranks that afforded them such leisure that she found it obscene.

The God Empress Ministry had decreed that the Prime Commander be removed from her post in disgrace due to the poor performance of their Chosen Humans on the planet Earth. Exile from the Empire was the ultimate insult for a life of dedicated service. In fact, execution would have been more reasonable and a fate that she would have accepted with her head held high.

Frankly, Zalanth thought exile was completely uncalled for. She had merely done what she was told. She reported the obvious failings of the humans, then when her observations were proven correct, she was sentenced with the ultimate punishment. The blame was placed on her shoulders rather than admit the failings of the God Empress’s judgment. Humans had revealed the fallibility of the divine individual that had gifted her species with access to the system. Supposedly gifted them with the system, she amended her belief.

She scoffed, shocked that her mentality had shifted so quickly with regard to the quintessential being that led her former faction. It was such casual blasphemy she found herself smirking at the stars, waiting to be torn from the system in retribution. She interlocked her fingers behind her head as she watched.

The only explanation for the change in her thought patterns was that she had been infected by human mentalities when she was exposed to them during their brief encounters in their orientations. Their personalities were like a virulent disease. It was even their disgusting demands for leisure instead of diligently following her directions that had planted a seed of curiosity that led her to test the amenities of Lankir Sector’s comfort moon.

The Endless Empire lost untold riches in winning sponsorships for humans before their assimilation began, possibly even more than those who occupied the pleasure barge could claim to have stashed away. Ignoring that the Primal Constructs had been the planetary sponsor, when a third of the humans simply declined the faction’s generous offers, the Empire should have known that nothing would go the way they wanted and abandoned their fanciful hopes of passive conquest. The humans of ‘Florida’ proved to be recalcitrant, to say the least. In her opinion, they were positively feral and uncontrollable.

Even those humans who accepted the sponsorship and became Chosen of the Endless Empire were obstreperous. They squawked in the faces of their betters, ignoring the obvious power disparity in an effort to demand explanations, justifications, and rationalizations for every action the Endless Empire engaged in. Did they not understand that with a flick of her finger, she could have decapitated any one of them?

If not for the regulations of the system, she would have willingly demonstrated the disparity of power on dozens of individuals, but alas, she never crossed that line. It would have been satisfying, she was sure, no matter the penalty. The system could have completely reset her level with experience debt, and she still would have gone through with it. The faction would have protected her while she spent centuries working through the deficit, though a demotion would have inevitably followed. Compared to exile, a demotion was a slap on the wrist.

And yet, it was those same humans that she had to thank for her current luxurious lifestyle. She had been sent beyond the limits of the Endless Empire, transported to a subordinate faction, and ferried to neutral planets through a series of contracts before the last one released her. Due to her sentence, it was only a matter of time before some other faction forced her into an eternity of subservience. She was strong enough to cause the weaker factions to hesitate, but it wouldn’t take long for a larger force to have the resources to subdue her.

It was then that she hit rock bottom, anticipating hell on the leash of some high ranking aristocrat, thanks to those vile humans. She took the paltry quantity of credits she had collected during her service, and bet them on the results of the first settlement event of Earth. She went all in on the Unchosen, deciding that those bastards should be the ones to repay her for her disgrace or otherwise be the ones to put her out of her misery once and for all.

Of course, the odds were overwhelmingly against the Unchosen, as they were always simply the fodder for those guided by the wisdom of factions during an assimilation. They never had what it took to survive even beyond the initiation phases. Betting on the Unchosen was throwing credits away, but she was already as good as dead. Her best prospects were among the dregs of the galactic community where she might be overlooked for some time.

She plucked another namanin fruit bead and placed the tiny morsel between her teeth, popping the seed and letting the juice swirl into her cheek. Each individual berry cost 1,000,000 basic credits. That’s what the Unchosen had done for her. Never again would she underestimate them. In her opinion, those deranged humans had already proven themselves worthy of a sort of twisted respect, or at least diligent circumspection. She would certainly avoid making any one of them an enemy, at a bare minimum.

The assimilation of Earth was already drawing enough attention elsewhere. The most recent gossip was of a feat that she herself had witnessed thanks to her continued curiosity toward the heathens. This Coop creature was becoming a force to be reckoned with, so she watched with fascination, crediting him with her fortune as he had been the top performer of the first event. She was probably the first in the entire universe to bother learning an Unchosen’s name in order to treat it with respect, regardless of positions on the leaderboards.

But more recently, the primary leaderboards had revealed an early move from the Chosen of one of the most feared factions in the community, which alone would have been enough to become central to entertainment news. The Chosen of the Unspeakable, one of the premier Undead factions, had revealed an incredible amount of development, already rising to levels that could rival lesser veteran soldiers of established factions. In the blink of an eye, a mere 100 days, and a power had appeared on Earth that could survive within the broader community. It was incredible. The Unspeakable had clearly invested significantly into taking Earth, seeing what her God Empress and so many other factions had seen in the planet, and their expenses were bearing fruit unbelievably early.

It was an unusual situation, as most of the Undead factions typically sought to sweep assimilations completely, quietly setting themselves up for grand moves while the field settled, and yet this Chosen Lich had revealed himself extraordinarily early. Not only had he shown over 5,000 levels, enough to cause the betting markets to flip on their heads with the sudden expectation that the Unspeakable had become the clear frontrunners in the Chosen competition, leaping past the Abundant Grasp that controlled the most settlements, but then, the Lich had also been promptly defeated immediately after flaunting his power.

For a few hours, the talk of the galaxy was the Unspeakable faction’s incredible strategy. Zalanth felt herself smiling at how quickly it had ended for them. Their fall might have been worse than her own.

Trillions of credits vanished as the system exchanged the winnings and losses of bets made within hours of the Unspeakable jumping ahead of the pack and joining the favorites, second only to the Primal Constructs. Suddenly, Earth’s assimilation had more credits moving than any other assimilation in living memory. It was more than enough action to draw the attention from even the most casual spectators of the fringes. Zalanth hadn’t even had a chance to take her own position, still considering how to hedge her bets against what she believed to be the most likely scenario of an incomplete victory shared between tribes of rebellious humans.

She fully expected Earth to end up split between dozens of factions given the contentious nature of the humans she had encountered. They would never agree upon a superior faction to submit to, leaving the planetary sponsor as the only chance for a complete claim. She knew that not even the Chosen of the Unspeakable would be able to tame them all, no matter how much power he demonstrated, but there was no chance of her anticipating his fall so quickly. The Lich was killed before she had fully considered the different odds.

Of course, it was the Unchosen that undid the Lich. Obviously, he had done it with a level gap that would have been enough to immediately demand subservience anywhere else in the galactic community. Why wouldn’t the humans of Earth completely ignore the well-established rules understood by all those in the broader universe? Ignoring rules seemed to be what they were best at.

After the rise and fall of the Lich, Earth’s assimilation had become the most interesting active event in the galactic community. It had already been separating itself from the norm with excessive levels, unusual settlement volatility, and an abnormal number of secondary leaderboards for those who knew to look, but it wasn’t particularly fascinating from the start.

When the Primal Constructs were revealed to be the planetary sponsor, many believed the final layout was already certain. With them in control of the game, it had been a foregone conclusion that it would be an uninteresting assimilation. Attention was on the upcoming assimilations instead, where those seeking entertainment hoped for more interesting configurations. The Primal Constructs were experts in claiming planets through assimilations, and only those factions unfortunate enough to stake their own resources watched Earth with trepidation as their investments were lost and their Chosen failed.

With the destruction of the Lich, the other assimilations were ignored in favor of discussing the best positioned factions on Earth. The ongoing inter-faction conquests around the galactic community lost their intrigue as the spectators also turned their attention to the humans that appeared to be making the feared Primal Construct invaders into food for their progression. It was an unheard of situation.

Still, Zalanth was ahead of the rest. No one seriously considered the Unchosen as anything more than silage for the Chosen that battled on the planet. Leaderboards were discussed based on the factions that were represented. They actually removed the Unchosen from the lists when analyzing them, in order to get a clearer perspective on the layout of the assimilation. Conventional logic couldn’t be applied to humans, but it would be difficult for others to recognize that fact. It took Zalanth’s exile and subsequent jackpot before she could accept it.

She knew Earth was different. Only Zalanth had made note of the one called Coop, despite his position at the top, and here he was again. Winning the individual leaderboards of the opening event of the assimilation as an Unchosen wasn’t enough. He was also the one that had defeated the Lich and been granted the maximum experience bounty allowed within the system, topping the primary leaderboards despite his lack of sponsor.

Coop was a name that was quickly becoming one to be spoken of in whispers, lest speaking it would draw his ire in the future. Levels be damned. The simple fact that he had dueled anything that outleveled him by a factor of 25 demonstrated the ultimate in stupidity, but the fact that he won meant that he should be feared. The fundamental rules did not apply to Earth and its Unchosen. Zalanth fell into old thought patterns, hoping the God-Empress would save them all once humans like this Coop were unleashed. Existence would become far too unpredictable.

She gazed at one of the other passengers of the pleasure barge from between sheer silk curtains, distracting herself from the creatures of both her dreams and nightmares: humans. The other passenger’s disgusting tongues lolled out of his mouth as he stared into the abyss, blissfully ignorant that their shared reality had a hole poked into it on the planet Earth.

She followed his eyes, seeking to recapture that feeling. The lights of millions of stars created a swirl of patterns in the moon’s sky, visible through the crystal clear ceiling high above. Single chimes echoed through the barge. They were delicate, ornamental sounds meant to compliment the view of the stars and the other guests kept their voices down out of respect for the atmosphere. Zalanth was distracted by the golden beams that held the anchors for elongated curtains. They were wasting the vast majority of the sheer fabrics where no one could reach.

Zalanth shifted to her feet, planning to return to her quarters, still preferring the workman like atmosphere of a barracks to the sterile refinement of the affluent. It had only been a few months. She was sure she would grow into it eventually.

As she left the floor, weaving her way around small parties and individual revelers with her mana-weave silks drifting behind her, a rare Galactic Notification appeared. Her eyes widened while her pupils dilated as the message settled into her mind. Earth and humans had done the impossible.

[The Lighthouse Faction has claimed a Core]

[Territory - Ghost Reef]

[World - Earth]

[Principal Species - Human]

[Founder - Coop]

“That name again!” She hissed from between her clenched teeth.

A high pitched whining sound came unbidden from her throat as the other passengers stirred themselves. An announcement such as this would cause all sorts of actions, many of which would be opportunities if they were connected in the right way. Excited conversations erupted all around the pleasure barge as individuals sought to confirm whether or not they had missed an assimilation announcement and inquired what Earth and Humans even were.

“Earth appears to be a mudball.” A Thraxon muttered to his companion, researching the announcement in real-time as Zalanth gathered her senses and the posh lounge buzzed with growing conversation. 

“Disgusting.” His companion responded. “The species is bound to be incredibly primitive. Whoever takes control will be unable to become worthy trade partners if the world is already saturated. Disappointing.”

“I think it’s fascinating!” An excitable Nylodian butted in. “What incredible luck for this Human to discover a novel way to establish a faction! Too bad it’s on a backwater world only now receiving the enlightenment of the Paragon-Deity.” She added condescendingly. “That much luck is truly wasted potential!”

“Not luck.” Zalanth mumbled to herself, voice shaking with a confused mix of fear and awe as she left the growing conversations behind. There were too many consecutive achievements to be simple luck. This was a monstrous individual of a monstrous species.

She shifted a diminutive bipedal creature out of her way as she picked up the pace to her quarters, exerting the hierarchy of her level while it still meant something. Other aliens parted from her path, recognizing that regardless of wealth disparities, she was powerful in a multifaceted way. It was only the well-paid contracted bodyguards that felt no need to avert their eyes as she passed. She left the lounge and followed the plush halls toward her room.

The privacy gateway cleverly slid into the wall when she pushed it, closing behind her after she stepped through the threshold, sealing her in the personal compartment. She accessed a complimentary system terminal shortly after entering her silken suite, rushing to strike first while the rest still looked at the new development as a simple curiosity. If there was one person with the right information to take advantage of this new development, it was her. Disgraced Prime Commander Zalanth, factionless and wealthy, was going all in on the Lighthouse and this creature called Coop.

Knowing exactly what the other factions of the galactic community would try, she shivered as she imagined the horror of facing the humans of Florida as enemies of equal progression. Cooperation with them was bad enough to ruin lives. She couldn’t imagine what that said about the rest of their planet.