Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 68 (Patreon)

I had my reasons for sparing Zathalia. I was intimately familiar with how many life-saving items I'd loaded up Sakura, Adrian, my other girls, and everyone else important to me. An ancient Architect family with thousands of years to make plans and acquire exotic items would have just as many surprises, if not more.

On top of that, while I could handle Zathalia herself, I doubted the rest of her family was as unpracticed in the art of war as she was. I had a feeling some of her older siblings were more skilled than her. And even if they weren't, two or three A-Grades like her could turn a planet into a graveyard either way.

An escalation wasn't what I needed right now and it would be far better to leave myself with options. Unlike the House of Vaust, I suspected the House of Kethril was a neighbor here to stay. I'd still be dealing with them a thousand years from now. I couldn't afford to ruin our relationship beyond recovery.

After dealing with Zathalia, I ran around and handled several emergencies of a similar nature, including the unexpected return of Rodrigo and a few other minor Shardlords who had means of figuring out what was going on and getting back home in a hurry.

For Rodrigo and a few others I had to show up myself.

"Look, Rodrigo. You need to stay in your city for a few hours. Crack open a beer and relax. Everything that's yours will be returned to you before the day is over," I promised.

"I sense an 'or else' in there," Rodrigo said as he looked up and down my armored form.

"Would it help if I threw in a few recipes for drugs from other worlds? Maybe some seeds too?" I asked.

Rodrigo shrugged. "Alright, you're the boss. Just tell the others I went down swinging."

In the end Rodrigo was one of the easier Shardlords to deal with. I didn't think he was completely uncaring about his dead men, just that them dying in the line of duty was expected of them.

Several of the other Shardlords were more stubborn and refused the carrot, so they got the stick. Two of the minor Shardlords found the stick was too much for them, and I ended up killing them. We were able to move in and claim their capitals then, further increasing my shard count.

Soon enough my highly aggressive negotiating tactics proved their worth, and my estimated votes reached the number I'd been waiting for.

Would you like to initiate another Shardlord Forum?

I returned home, selected yes, and soon was waking up in an open field with everyone else.

I sat up, and when I did so I noticed more than a few groggy-eyed Shardlords glaring right at me. This Shardlord forum probably came as a surprise to all of them by my design.

I debated making another announcement, but then remembered there was no need for that. The entire point of my recent activities was to make it so their opinions would be irrelevant.

For the next few hours, I had vastly extended political power. The first thing I did was ensure it would last a lot longer.

"System, I would like to initiate a vote to make myself the final and important decision maker for our planet."

A few seconds ticked by before a notification popped up.

Vote High King Carter Smith for Emperor of Terranova?

Votes processed...

Motion passed with a 50.1% majority.

High King Carter Smith has been promoted to Emperor Carter Smith. All his votes now count for double and he has veto power over all resolutions. His votes will also count for twice that of other Shardlords.

Just like that, my leadership had been secured. Though most people would have celebrated declaring themselves Emperor of the world, I had mixed feelings about it. I'd never wanted power, but it had wound up in my hands anyway. Making myself Emperor of the world was merely a means to prevent a much worse alternative.

Naturally, declaring myself Emperor of the World hadn't gone over well.

"Just what the hell is going on here? How in hell did something like that pass?" demanded David. He was one of the smaller Shardlords I'd identified early on alongside Jaxon and Rodrigo as people who gained their Shards through raw personal power.

"I'll tell you how he did it. Three of my cities went dark and the governors aren't responding. Our High King has been trying to conquer me by surprise! My votes are down by three from before," said another Shardlord.

"Mine too!"

"Me as well."

The Shardlords continued to talk among themselves. The downside of bringing them all together was that they'd realize the true scale of my recent operations.

It wouldn't take them long to figure out that the mysterious attackers they were dealing with left and right were all my people, and that I was stretched extremely thin taking on half a planet at once.

I kept half an eye on a few faces in particular. I paid some mind to Jean-Jacques, who was quietly whispering in a few ears. Leon was also there with arms crossed and looking at me with an extremely unhappy expression.

But none of that mattered anymore. It was too late to stop me from passing whatever I wanted.

With my votes secure, I issued what I'd set all this up for.

"System, initiate a vote to kick off world all those except the integrated and any immediate children."

Vote to expel all foreign factions and powers from Terranova

Votes processed.

Motion passed with a 75.1% supermajority.

All foreign powers will be expelled starting immediately.

Nothing changed, but I knew back in the real world everything had. House Kethril should be completely gone. Unfortunately, many loyal mercenaries and allies from other worlds in Crownhill would be gone too, but that was still to my advantage.

While every other faction would have their people scattered across who-knew-where, all of my off-world allies should already be on the moon by now. It would take some time to get the moon livable, but with Crownhill's resources and construction technology and easy access through Sanctum, it would be easy to build up a functional colony that would grant me the biggest foothold on the moon.

Just like that, our world's future was secured. Now, I could finally take the time to talk to the others and soothe some bruised egos.

"What is he plotting? Kill the tyrant before he passes anything else! We'll reverse the votes when he's gone!" David said.

I looked around to find David wasn't alone in looking for violence. The others were all also glaring at me with hateful eyes. This might take more than a few kind words to smooth over.

"Charge!" David yelled, leading the pack as dozens of people rushed me all at once.

Having nearly fifty people running toward me should have been a scary thing. But given everyone here was level one, it struggled to tingle any danger sense at all.

Unfortunately, I was also level one, or at least this body was. My familiarity with the Kindling Dimension and my power set granted me a few options the others lacked.

"You really shouldn't do that," I chided as David swung for me. Ducking past the sideswipe took far more effort than I was used to.

When somebody else took another swing for me, dodging grew twice as hard. And as the others surrounded and formed a ring around me, it became unsustainable. At this rate I'd die.

Eventually, someone got ahold of my leg. The others followed shortly thereafter, and then several people piled on top of me to restrain me. They grabbed my arms and legs and pulled them taut.

David loomed over me.

"Someone find a rock," he said, then looked down at me. "Well, you were Emperor of the world for a few minutes. Hope it was worth it. Once you're gone, we'll reverse that vote and come up with a plan to deal with you in the real world. If you've got any last words, now's the time."

I smiled and looked around, taking in every name and face in the mob here to kill me. I would remember these faces.

"I helped you when we first arrived, didn't I, Arabelle?" I asked the beautiful woman standing toward the back of the crowd. She hid her face and glared at me.

"And you, Rodrigo. It seems like you'll always take what you think of as the winning side." I stared down Rodrigo, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Jean-Jacques, our visions of the future aren't so different. If you'd been willing to work with me, all this could have been so much easier," I said to the leader of New Brussels, who was toward the back.

"And Leon. Don't think for a moment that your contracts and deals will last a second past when House Kethril thinks they're no longer convenient. You were playing with fire by inviting them into your lands." I shook my head sadly.

Leon, at least, had the decency to reply to me.

"I'm well aware of the risk, Emperor Smith. They were going to set up shop in my lands anyway. My only option was whether or not I could extract some benefits for me and mine from it." Leon shrugged at me.

Someone eventually found the rock David asked for and handed it to him. David raised it high over his head and prepared to smash it down.

But when the rock came down, it found nothing but empty stone there. I was gone, vanished as though I'd never been there.

I stepped out of space a few paces away. Using my Kindling Dimension abilities from my real body was taxing, even for me. But what few abilities I had access to were more than enough to deal with some level ones.

Someone tugged at my arm, and I glanced down to see Donovan.

"Remember the cave? Let's go there and collapse the hole behind us. There might be a few Deep Dwellers to fight down there, but it's better than this!" Donovan said.

I shook my head. "You go, Donovan. These guys wanted to pick a fight with me. I'm going to teach them why that was a mistake."

Donovan cast a wary glance at the others with his fists balled by his side.

"You saved me once. I'm going to repay the favor," Donovan promised as he prepared to fight to the death with me against the angry mob.

I smiled again, this time for a much better reason. "I'll remember that. But not today. I'll take care of this one."

David pushed his way to the front again. "How did you slip out? Grab him again!"

I put my hand on Donovan's shoulder and used my Kindling Architect abilities to pull him out of this dimension and reinsert him somewhere else. The process was somewhat exhausting, but worth it to keep the only friend and ally I'd made here safe and out of the way.

None of these bodies were real, but the memories of what I was about to do would be.

"Everything I've done has been to build a better world. I've explained myself and given all of you plenty of chances, but still you won't see reason. You've left me no choice." I shook my head and squeezed. Blood gushed from my hand.

"Take this you--" David staggered as he was about to throw the rock at my head. He clutched his chest, where I suspected there was a hollow feeling and throbbing pain.

I held up my bloody hand, where I had his gushing heart. It pumped a few times, dumping the last of the blood it held onto the ground.

People went still, first in confusion, and then in growing horror.

David collapsed to his knees, then fell face-first in the dirt. He clawed at his chest with his fingernails and squirmed. I tossed his beating heart on the ground in front of him, and he grabbed it and cradled it in his hands.

It wouldn't do him any good there though, and eventually the light left David's eyes.

"Why do you all look so scared? Just moments ago you planned to bash my head in with a rock. I promise I'll be quicker and cleaner with all of you," I announced.

"How are you doing this? No one has access to any of their abilities here," Jean-Jacques said.

I chuckled. "I'm not just anyone. I'm this world's Emperor. And I plan to make sure all of you never forget that."

Ordinarily, using my Kindling Architect abilities for something so lethal would have been impossible. But the difference in strength between me and the other Shardlords was so massive they were helpless before me. These level one bodies they were using were nothing more than very realistic puppets, and I could do whatever I wanted to them.

What followed could hardly be said to be a fight. After David, I picked another at random and ripped his heart from his chest in the same way. He collapsed, coughed blood, and died. Then I struck a third.

They realized with dawning horror that I planned to kill them all.

"We have to kill him before he kills us!" someone said, though this time they were more panicked than bloodthirsty.

I bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt. As I passed through where the Shardlords were standing, I stepped past them and slipped an extradimensional hand around their most delicate parts.

They were looking around for me, but I was just on the other side of the Dimensional Barrier. I could see them just fine, but they didn't have the senses to look back.

I returned to the pocket dimension a moment later after depositing the dirt and stones I picked up.

When I turned to face the angry mob, a dozen of them were clutching their heads or on their knees. Even a tiny pebble could be lethal when deposited in the wrong part of the brain.

Those who survived ran at me again, and I bent low, dodged them, and killed another dozen of them in the same manner.

When I returned the third time, those who survived realized fighting me was hopeless. They broke ranks and fled, at which point the real hunt began.

Arabelle panted in the forest, gasping in terror.

"I helped you more than most, and you still joined that mob. How sad," I shook my head.

Arabelle tripped, falling face first on the forest floor.

"Don't bother getting up. You're missing the part of your brain responsible for balance." I pointed to a slimy pink mass on the ground nearby. Then I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to her feet. "When you get back to your real body, remember I can do the same thing to that one too."

I slid a tiny rock between Arabelle's spinal cord, putting this body out of its misery. Then I moved on.

Jean-Jacques met a similarly gruesome fate alone in the forest.

"I really do want to build a better world, Jean-Jacques. Maybe I was too subtle by just talking about my intentions the last time we met up. Hopefully this can make things clearer. I can be a great friend." I kicked him in the stomach and loomed over him. "Or a terrible enemy. I hope you'll make better decisions going forward."

I killed him a moment later, along with a dozen others who deserved worse treatment.

Eventually, I found Leon.

"Leon, there you are. I'm saddest about you, you know. We were getting along well and then you went and stabbed me in the back by inviting House Kethril to our new world. You're not stupid. You had to have known that inviting them to our planet would inevitably wind up with them in charge and the rest of us as their servants. So why did you do it?" I asked.

"I didn't," Leon replied.

I scoffed. "I expected a better excuse than that from you."

"Believe me or don't. By the time House Kethril showed up, they already had a bigger presence on our world than I could afford to contest. Maybe if everyone on the planet threw their lot in together we could get rid of them, but on my own I wouldn't have stood a chance." Leon shrugged.

"Who's your contact? What's the nature of your dealings with them and what do they want with our planet?" I demanded as I caressed his heart.

"I don't know any of that. All my deals were small scale. I bought books on magic for extradimensional energy we didn't even know how to harvest. My dealings went no further than that," Leon said.

"You're lying. I know House Kethril has a local liaison," I hissed.

Leon laughed. "And you think it's me? Piss off."

He leaned back, even though I knew he could feel my hand on his heart. The organ came free from his chest and gushed blood. Leon coughed a mouthful of blood and died on the forest floor.

A few minutes later I was practically alone in the Shardlord Forum. There were a few toward the edges of this pocket dimension I hadn't hunted down, but they were mostly the dryads, elves, and other spirits who had been shunning the whole political scene from the beginning. They hadn't joined in to kill me so I'd return the favor by letting them be.

I sat down again among the largest pile of corpses and got back to work.

"System, initiate another vote..."

<Note>

Sorry for the late chapter guys. I pulled an all-nighter while flying yesterday and thought I could finish this chapter then, but it just didn't happen. Then I woke up super late today and wasn't able to finish in the morning.

It's done now though! Hopefully next week we'll be fully back on schedule until the end of the book.

Anyway, this is probably one of the darker scenes in the series. Things will brighten up a bit soon, but Carter needs to come off as slightly scary here.

We are in the home stretch for this book now though. Just a few things to wrap up. We've actually already exceeded my intended word count, so we do need to tie things up soon. My goal is to finish hopefully around or before chapter 75? Depends on how long things go though.