Chapter 494: The holy city

Jeong almost smiled when he found demons assaulting his capital. Dozens of portals dotted the landscape, their destructive magic sucking the life from growing fields and wild grass.

He could see them with his Eternal Gaze—a kind of passive, general identification of the magical world power, without specific identification. He could also see hundreds of players formed in loose packs defending the city’s borders. They looked haphazard and hard pressed, but holding their own.

He stopped and debated how to proceed. He may lose players if he delayed, though likely only the weakest. Still, in the coming war against the west, every soldier may matter.

On the other hand, he knew there’d be disloyalty and betrayal in his absence. For the past several days, the city would have been wondering who was in charge. They may have wondered if Jeong was gone for good—if they needed him at all.

So a demonic invasion butchering a portion of the city may be exactly what was needed. A few hundred dead civilians and thousands more with the visceral memory of terror. That ought to remind them how things really were.

Then they’d see Jeong saving their lives. He would return not with the stink of shame, but as a conquering hero—the savior of the city, his absence forever associated with disaster and fear.

Jeong smiled and circled the city, watching for the weakest sections, the most overwhelmed with demons. He watched, and waited. A part of him wanted to find the Swede in the chaos. Now might be the perfect moment to be rid of the man. But he needed all his key people for the Nexus. After that…

When the final conflict came, and Jeong killed Mason with his god gift, almost nothing else mattered. After that, he would tear the rest of the strongest players apart. Both in the west,

and

in the east.

What he would need were loyalists and bootlickers; he’d need greedy cowards and fools to cause no harm while he waited for a new generation—a generation with no direct memory of earth. No memory of a time before Jeong and his vision for a new mankind.

He put it from his mind and circled, finding the smallest defense on a rear bridge to the main merchant quarter. It was narrow and protected by a high wall—a logical place to leave only a handful of defenders.

Jeong raced out amongst the nearby portals. He gathered up and pushed or slapped a handful of demons, laughing as he easily outpaced the confused and enraged creatures.

The stupid creatures followed him with hatred and bloodlust in their inhuman eyes, filled with something more like beastial rage than a man’s cunning. He ran them straight to the bridge.

When enough had gathered he sprinted down the bridge. A defender spotted him, then another. One even cheered.

Jeong leapt at the wall and climbed in seconds. Then he was up and over, the few players gaping or smiling or bowing like the sniveling fools they were.

“Lord Jeong,” said the oldest looking. “Are we glad to see you. There’s demons attacking the city everywhere. Not sure where your captains are, but we can send a runner or…”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Jeong formed his Finger of Death, shivering as the cold feeling inside him intensified. Killing demons wasn’t likely to fill him much. He needed living creatures in the prime, the more powerful and full of life the better. And even

weak

players were quite powerful.

He drove the spike through the young man’s chest. The surprise was total, the confusion tragic. Jeong removed it and slipped past, ramming the weapon into the next player without a word. The third managed to cry out before Jeong killed him.

He shivered as the cold hole filled with indescribable warmth. As the young men died, Jeong felt truly alive and safe and right for the first time in years. He wept at the beauty of it, thanking his god for such a gift. For such

pleasure

.

In no hurry, he opened the gate wide and showed the cautious, snarling pack of demons the path with a welcoming hand. Then he turned and ran towards the city, and the many civilians who thought themselves safe inside.

Finally, he thought, a way to truly hurt and kill civilians inside the rules, and without using other civilians.

He would watch many die with great enjoyment before he intervened. He only wished it could be him that drove the blade. But he supposed one couldn’t have everything.

**

Things had been hard for Kwarta the spice vendor. Not joining the guilds had been nearly a fatal choice. But then the neutral zone had happened. He had met the blonde angel from the west, and sold all his stock in an afternoon.

It had given him hope, as well as enough points to level up and get new inventory and options. And after a little more struggling, he had gained access to the common system market that made no distinction of where he was from, and bypassed any ‘rules’ inside the city. He had been able to sell direct and ignore the guild for the first time, no one knowing where the goods came from.

For a week now he had been comfortable, safe, with a little more food in his belly. Then the alarm blared.

People were running in panic and saying demons were attacking the city. But Kwarta wasn’t afraid. He was a civilian, and this was the business of players. He huddled together with a dozen other civilians from his quarter, their usual rivalries forgotten in the strange circumstances.

Kwarta smiled at Hun, a seller of fabrics, giving the young man a small display of his genuine optimism.

“It’ll be alright, you’ll see.”

The first crops were almost grown outside, or so said the farmers. All kinds of fruits, nuts and berry trees and bushes from the west were being planted. They just had to hold on a little longer and things would get better.

This was what Kwarta was thinking as something ripped open the wall. Some kind of bone white blade pierced the wood and plaster and sliced in a line. Then the whole thing lifted, broke, and came apart.

Kwarta stared with everyone else in stunned silence. Then a man stepped inside, short and familiar and someone who looked a lot like…

“Lord Jeong!”

Young Hun stood with hope and relief flooding his eyes. Even Kwarta saw the mighty emperor and felt surely now they were as safe as anyone in the city.

Jeong looked at them and smiled. He ran straight through the hall, crashing into the far wall and breaking through it without slowing down.

Kwarta and the others stared after him, no idea what to make of it or why the man should be knocking down walls instead of using the door like a regular…

Something growled outside the hole. Dark mist, long horns and red skin came pouring over the wall like some nightmare. Kwarta ran like all the others, bolting for the door or the hole made by Jeong. And like the others, something grabbed him and pulled him down.

He screamed in panic, begging to see the emperor come smashing back through the wall. And then, incredibly, he did.

His smiling face was the last thing Kwarta saw.

**

Erik ‘The Swede’ Alberg, Minister of Knowledge, and key leader of the Arcane Order, stared off the edge of the outer wall of the ‘holy’ city. He observed a dozen demonic portals with various identification spells, using Far Sight to look at them as if standing nearby.

He’d sent most of his colleagues out to help battle the invading monsters, but as usual, he was trying to understand before he acted.

The source of the magic was plain enough—he could identify a swirling mix of planar energies, Abyssal primarily, but combined with a subtle note of Arcane. He mapped their physical locations and looked for a pattern. He observed the ‘demons’ exiting them and did his best to identify leaders, common behaviors.

The city’s defenders were doing well. They’d been competently organized by the military officers, and the training programs for their teams for the Neutral Zone showed their wisdom yet again. The demons didn’t seem like brilliant tacticians. They attacked the gates with wild abandon and without much coordination.

Erik expected the city to hold without a breach unless things got much worse. But they had to actually

close

these portals, which meant figuring out how. He was nearly ready to go take a closer look. He knew he was too much of a perfectionist, that he gathered too much data before he acted. But one couldn’t help but be what one was.

He didn’t watch the fighting, really, though he hoped the battle went well. If it did, then perhaps the council and the prominent citizens of mankind’s last city would realize they didn’t need Jeong.

Erik knew the man was still out there. Somewhere. He would return soon and take back control, Erik accepted that. He only wished for the man’s power to be…diminished.

Men like Jeong were inevitable—he knew that. The most ambitious always rose, regardless of their suitability or morality. It wasn’t goodness that made men kings. It often wasn’t even competence.

It was the

will

to power. The obsession with rulership that inspired old sayings like ‘he who cares most, wins’. And Jeong had endless will for whatever ridiculous vision he had of the future.

Erik himself had no interest in rulership. He cared only about reality. Will and ambition might make a man king, but it didn’t grow food. It didn’t painfully map the new rules of physics, or analyze the workings of a being so powerful it could re-shape a galaxy.

He would focus on what mattered as the stud rams of man bashed their skulls together. One ape king was as good as another, that’s what Erik had always thought. He and his colleagues would do the real work, the

important

work.

He was about to step off the wall when he saw a line of dust in the distance that soon became a man running at the speed of a car. He knew instantly he was seeing Jeong return to ‘his’ city, and did his best not to feel a deflated sense of impending hardship.

All he wanted was an ineffectual leader. A figurehead to sit on some ornate throne and feel important. Jeong had fit the bill well enough so far.

But Erik was beginning to suspect it was just a front—that the man’s ambitions were more than just sitting atop the heap of mankind. He intended to shape it. To

warp

it.

If the timeline were long enough it might still be tolerable. But Erik watched Jeong stop in the distance and see the demonic siege. With his Far Sight he saw him stand there thinking, plotting, circling, until he came running for a specific side of the city.

Erik watched the ‘emperor’ enter the city gates. He watched him kill the guards, and open them for the invaders. He watched Jeong lead the demons through the walls. His blood ran cold, even in his icy veins.

Men of ambition and will thought themselves all important. That their prominence in the hierarchy meant they were somehow

better

. Somehow

deserving

. That they were the best and brightest and wisest man had to offer. That whatever they did was correct, and justified.

Before the apocalypse, Erik had been trying to show the world a new kind of physics, to put aside the costly rabbit hole of string theory for greener pastures. He had worked day and night, taken no wife and had no children.

He had devoted himself entirely to knowledge—to the future. He had done these things because he believed in the possibility of human beings. That they belonged amongst the stars. Not because he despised them or thought them unimportant.

As Erik watched Jeong’s handiwork, and heard the screams of yet more innocent people, he knew he was going to destroy this man.

The work had already begun. Now he’d re-double his efforts. Jeong’s power, vast as it seemed, was based on rules. Laws. The new reality. And Erik was already beginning to understand it.

He stepped off the wall, walking calmly towards the closest gate, to see the portals as intended. There were many chances coming to kill the emperor.

The Nexus would need taking. The western players would come. The phase would change. There were always opportunities.

One thing at a time

, he told himself, gesturing for his guards and assistants.

One thing at a time.