Amazon Apocalypse 8: Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Fixing a world was no easy feat, and that was just what I had to do.

Lava Elementals roamed the land. The wilderness outside of Crownhill was a giant crater. Multiple A-Grade corpses were causing unnatural phenomena as they decayed.

On my own, I would have been at a loss. Thankfully, I wasn't alone. I had many companions by my side.

Many of the factions of Terranova, our newly integrated world, were accustomed to independence. But I was Emperor of this planet now, and this state of emergency was a good opportunity to show what that meant.

When I said jump, those that answered correctly were directed to Sakura. She was organizing rescue teams and distributing aid to make sure the hardest-hit areas weren't destroyed. Most of them had wisely listened to me and retreated into pocket realms when I told everyone to expect disaster, so they were in good shape.

The settlements in worse shape were those that hadn't wanted to listen to me. But just because their leaders were fools didn't mean their people had to die. That was where the aid ships came in.

Some of the foolish minor factions were in enough disarray that the local Shardlord was no longer in control of his populace. These were the places where it was easiest for the Nineteenth Legion to show up and restore law and order. Shuffling the existing Shardlord out of the picture was just a bonus.

But keeping the peace was only part of what disaster survivors needed. Food and shelter were also necessities, and that fell to Bridget. As a skilled cook and an even more skilled mother, Bridget was an expert at preparing food boxes of the highest quality. Her cooking could bring the nearly-dead back to life and give exhausted survivors the energy needed for hours of moving debris or getting themselves to safety.

The two of them were enough to manage most of what I was worried about, but not everything. There were always the rare few Shardlords who intended to go down with the ship, even if that meant taking everyone else with them.

These were the guys who would put up a fight and prevent my aid workers from helping their people fend off Lava Elementals or other types of planetary magical phenomena. The Nineteenth Legion could probably handle them in time, especially with help from my Astral Rangers. But they were already stretched thin, and there was no reason to send an army to do a job that could be done by one woman.

To that end, I had to call another Shardlord Forum, and with it another planetary vote.

I didn't initiate the full forum this time, the kind where the System would generate level-zero bodies for us to interact with. All I wanted was the vote, and as planetary emperor I had nearly enough to force through any resolution I wanted. Especially when I was holding all the aid I distributed over the heads of the few Shardlords who might vote against me.

"System, initiate a vote to amend the vote to expel all those not from an integrated world. The new restriction should allow anyone who has spent more than three months on our world to return."

I initiated the vote, which was shamelessly tailored to allow my people to return from the moon colony while forbidding those from other potentially hostile factions like House Kethril. Given how many votes I held and how many hostile Shardlords had bigger things to worry about than the latest round of planetary politics, the vote passed handily.

With that vote through, I was able to call on several armies' worth of reinforcements, though I was only interested in a scant few.

"Myrina, Cyra. I have a few cities in trouble. One is about to slide into a rapidly spreading sinkhole filled with lava, and another is going to be attacked by a mass of undead flesh forming from the corpse of a dead god. Normally, the Nineteenth Legion would evacuate, but these two cities have stubborn Shardlords who won't let them through the gates. Interested in saving the day for some innocent townsfolk caught up in planetary politics?"

There was silence on the other end of the radio channel for a while before the replies came back.

Cyra was first.

"I will deal with the undead, then reason with the local Shardlord. He'll open his gates one way or another."

Myrina came second.

"And I'll deal with the sinkhole!"

I felt my eyebrows climb. "You think you can fix it?"

"No, but I can get rid of the guy stopping your people from fixing it!" Myrina said cheerily.

I chuckled darkly. "Good enough. I'll leave it in your hands. Just keep the civilian casualties to a minimum."

Myrina's reputation for destruction was unrivaled. The old Shardlord's death warrant was already signed, and she would have a grand time carrying it out.

I continued passing along orders.

"Reluna, I need you divining the locations of the next crisis so that the Nineteenth Legion or the Astral Rangers can be there before it happens."

More affirmations came through one after another. I was amazingly fortunate to have so many capable people to help me. And doubly fortunate that each and every one of them was a dear and precious love of mine.

With them on top of things, I could rest easy knowing that things would turn out alright. Unfortunately, they weren't the only women in my life. There were two others I'd come to owe big favors. Both of them were doing as much to fix this world as I was, but the price for this aid was growing steeper by the day. These two women were not ones I could simply call. I left my office in Crownhill to meet with each of them in person.

The first was Jade, known to many of my more primitive civilians as the Goddess in Jade. Her legend had spread far and wide, and wider now with her work on my world. It was easy to find her as she took mountains in her hands and reshaped them. Behind her there were rivers and lakes of clean water and vibrant greenery. Ahead of her was a desolate wasteland of fissures and volcanoes.

The A-Grade battle we'd fought should have destroyed this world. And it likely would have if not for Jade and the other A-Grade holding it together with their power. Now that Governess had been initiated as the world's guiding spirit, the worst of the danger was over. But the world would still be uninhabitable for mortals if not for the work Jade was doing now.

"I like what you've done with the place," I said as I floated close to her. Both of us were hovering in the air like gods of the physical world. Truthfully, the title wouldn't have been arrogance, considering how many gods each of us had killed.

"I'm fond of bamboo groves and mountainside hot springs. Care to take a closer look?" Jade reached out behind her and her hand wrapped around mine. She pulled me along behind her as we descended to the side of a mountain. The jagged edges and pitted surface betrayed the fact that mere hours ago it had been a volcano. It had been forced into slumber and covered with greenery thanks to Jade's sheer force of will.

Jade guided me down to a massive hot spring, long and narrow across the side of the mountain. No doubt the locals would name it something like the Sword Slash Spring, for that was what it looked like. Some would sense both the acute sharpness in the air and the cold bite of the stone, and realize the spring really had been carved by the stroke of an A-Grade's sword.

"The water is a little hot, but that's how I prefer it," Jade said as she smiled at me expectantly.

I glanced down at the burbling spring that should have been boiling, given the river of lava running along its underside. The overwhelming quantity of water mana flowing through the spring forced it to remain liquid, against all physical laws. This wasn't the first time I'd noticed places behaving strangely, but that was only to be expected, thanks to the enormous influx of mana all the dead A-Grades had left behind. Their corpses were like fertilizer dumped in a pond. Jade's work could help the ecosystem stabilize in decades instead of millennia, but we would always be dealing with far more magic in the air than most worlds ever knew.

I looked between Jade and the steaming water. The offer was clear and tempting. Jade was a beautiful woman, even if she was taller than me by a head and shoulders. It was also a strategic ploy on her part.

"I'm afraid my duties as emperor are in the way today, Jade. Perhaps you can come to my palace for dinner later?" I suggested.

Jade's lips drew tight in an unhappy frown, which was a dangerous thing on the face of a woman who could level mountains with a single swing of her blade.

"You're going to see her after this, aren't you?" Jade asked with narrowed eyes.

I ran a hand through my hair nervously. I could reshape worlds and slay primordial beasts, but handling women was still beyond me — let alone more than one of them.

"I'm afraid I made two appointments today. Forgive me." I dipped my head.

"Fine. Just remember that you're coming back with me to the Eternal Spring Sect when we're done here." Jade tilted her chin up, clearly a little miffed.

Perhaps there had been a better way to turn her down, but leaving Jade a little upset was better than leaving Seraphyne very upset by skipping my meeting with her unannounced. I'd have to bring a present next time I came to see Jade.

I left Jade to her hot spring in search of Seraphyne, whose work was no less important than Jade's for saving the planet.

With all the ongoing natural disasters, her ability to reverse the flow of time was incredibly valuable. If either Cyra or Myrina failed in their missions, Seraphyne could show up afterwards and bring the dead back to life through her profound A-Grade powers.

She sensed my approach from behind. Like Jade, she was in the sky with hands extended as she worked her grand magic. Arcs of golden light wrapped around the landscape far below and turned broken magma-scorched rubble back into a town of stone and thatched huts.

More seconds passed, and dust gathered into bloody smears, and from those smears people took shape. They moved backwards, retracing the path they'd fled in terror as magma and Lava Elementals rampaged through their town and killed them all.

Resurrecting the whole town meant resurrecting the elementals, but that was easily dealt with. For these average people, even an E-Grade Lava Elemental lumbering through their streets could mean death for an entire town. But for people like me and Seraphyne, it was a problem solved with a snap of our fingers.

I snapped mine, and a thousand Mana Bolts descended from the sky, each aimed at the vulnerable core of every Lava Elemental Seraphyne's time-manipulation spell had dragged back into being. They died in one clean and quiet burst of light. I'd learned early on to use the minimum amount of power to kill these things; otherwise, they exploded in a way that was just as lethal to mortal bystanders as their rampages were.

With the Lava Elementals dead and the civilians restored to life, I raised my voice and spoke.

"This is your Emperor. The elementals are gone and you have been restored to life. A new administrator will be appointed to manage your kingdom. You may continue your day as you were." I nodded at the people far below, though to them both Seraphyne and I would be little more than distant figures cloaked in light.

I circled around to talk to Seraphyne. Both of us did our best to ignore the medieval peasants bowing with their foreheads pressed to the dirt far beneath us. Deification was an unfortunate consequence of wielding such world-shaking magic, and though I wasn't happy with being treated like a god, the fluctuations such activity produced in the Kindling Dimension were useful for me.

"You're a few minutes late. You were talking to the cultivator before me, weren't you?" Seraphyne asked with arms crossed.

I glanced at the mortals down below. I was glad they couldn't hear us. The picture of divinity we cast would have shattered the moment they realized the figures soaring overhead were plagued by something as mundane as woman trouble.

"She's been very helpful. Really, I thought surviving the battle against the Godhollow Faith Devourer together would have brought the two of you closer." I held up my hands innocently.

"That was a temporary alliance of convenience. Neither of us wanted an S-Grade monster here, and both of us need you. But now our objectives lie at odds," Seraphyne explained.

"You both need me, you mean?"

Seraphyne nodded. "Exactly. Just don't let her get into your head with her cultivator nonsense. And remember, you promised me a favor, and I plan to call it in as soon as your world is stable."

I dipped my head. "And I plan to honor that favor."

Seraphyne's aristocratic features softened into a genuine smile.

"Good. Now, if your schedule is free, I could use your help with a few other towns. My window for resurrections of this scale is rapidly closing. The mana cost grows exponentially the further back in time I reach. We shouldn't linger here talking."

Seraphyne and I rushed around the planet for the next four hours. All I did was kill the elementals accidentally brought back by her magic. I was nearly certain she could have managed it all on her own, but when I voiced these concerns, she insisted I remain by her side.

I was willing to play along, at least until it came time for dinner and to check in on Jade again. Jade's senses were keen, and though I'd seen no sign of her, I was certain she already knew I'd spent more time with Seraphyne than with her. Finding a good gift was looking increasingly important.

But all that was only a problem for the immediate future. The real one remained. The two of them had done a lot for me, and when my planet was stable it would be time to pay the price. I owed two very powerful women two very big favors.

How exactly was I going to pay both of them back?

<Note>

Hey guys! I'm excited to be back to writing Amazon Apocalypse! This is book 8, at least as it stands.

The schedule is going to be a bit unsteady until book 7 is published, but once it is we should hopefully go back to at 3 chapters sometime in September and 4 a week once I hit my stride with this novel.