Chapter 10: An Empty Throne, Nicholas POV (Patreon)

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Chapter 10

An Empty Throne

Nicholas POV

As The Pantheon travelled towards the border of Sector 3 and the transit station the Horde stole from us, I sat on my throne staring at my absurd number of followers.

You have 3,536,928/10,000,000 followers needed to reach your next milestone.

My Domain and Power now let me see and influence seven systems simultaneously. That meant I could see every system the Horde had destroyed and project Jack’s voice to the survivors. Jack had been converting people into followers on every planet, doing his job as diligently as possible to butter me up and win me over.

I let him think that it was working.

Through my Domain, I could see him giving orders to the converted on the lowest deck, separating the skilled from the unskilled, as he built the crews for his fleet. Jack had managed to successfully commandeer all the frigates and destroyers in the Horde’s second fleet.

He considered this a problem because none of the vessels were powerful enough to be a flagship. Having roughly three hundred vessels under his command with no flagship to keep them all in line looked suspicious to pirates.

I didn’t tell Jack I could fix this problem by converting one of the destroyers to an F-6 destroyer. He was far too good as a recruitment officer for me to remove the main reason he couldn’t leave. So, all I had done was convert the Horde vessels into human vessels that were even more ostentatious and luxurious than the cruiser I’d made for Ripper.

It was my way of showing Jack that bringing me ships was worth it. He completely agreed.

I drummed my fingertips on my armrest, going back and forth over whether or not to bring my Domain up to S-1 grade. I didn’t have the energy to power that large a Domain, but the +1 sub-grade buff called to me. It made me stronger. It made Pan stronger. It made the technology of the people on the planets stronger. It wasn’t nothing. But it also wasn’t the best option for me anymore.

“Pan, what would you do with my transcendent points?”

Pan adjusted his lace cuff. “I thought you summoned me to discuss the changes I want to make to the Pantheon.”

“I did, but I would also like your advice.”

“Invest in Power.”

“Why?”

“You said your lack of Power limits you to seeing seven systems. That means you’re limited to buffing seven systems with your Domain. If the number of systems is directly proportional to the number of sub-grades you’ve invested in Power, then you will be able to see and influence ten more systems by investing in Power. You will also drastically reduce the size of the crew, allowing us to offload half of them when we make port, making it much easier for us to maintain control.”

“But?”

“But nothing.”

When no other advice came for twenty seconds, I dumped all 10 points into my Power, raising it from F-1 to E-1.

“However,” Pan said the moment after I accepted, “this might be the last milestone you gain for a while, so you may want to shore up some of your other weaknesses.”

My mouth dropped open. “Why did you wait to say that?”

“Because you wouldn’t have learned otherwise,” Pan said with a slight smile. “You keep making choices impulsively. You need to take your time with these sorts of decisions, or you might find yourself in a fight you can’t win.”

“I know when people are lying to me, Pan.”

He chuckled. “I may have also wanted to see you panic.”

“This wasn’t a bad decision, was it?”

“Far from it, my Liege. Your Domain is your most powerful tool. Expanding its range now takes priority. However, you weren’t sure of that when you invested in Power, which makes it a bad decision.”

That sounded like something my old economics professor would say. I wasn’t interested in starting a debate, so I changed the subject. “So, what are you going to do to The Pantheon?”

Pan waved his hand, and a 3D schematic appeared before me. “The Pantheon currently has two decks under the main, which serve little purpose beyond suiting the ascetics of a pirate ship and providing a place for the crew to sleep.”

The schematic changed, growing longer and more ornate near the bottom. The cannons shifted to the main deck and the one directly under, becoming absent from the second deck, which also lost the staircase leading to it.

“I want to double The Pantheon’s length and turn the bottom deck into space for your followers, making that area inaccessible to the crew. It will turn The Pantheon into a fleet carrier capable of carrying hundreds of regular-sized battleships and thousands of smaller vessels, along with the player population of Sector 3. We’d be a little over thirty kilometres long.”

“How many crewmen will she need?”

“Only ninety due to our increased Power output.”

“That’s seems more manageable.”

“It is, but we’ll lose firepower because of the smaller crew. This design only adds to our ability to help your faction. I haven’t increased our speed or improved the hull.”

“Why not?”

“That’s too Power intensive. I want to shrink the crew into something we can safely manage until one of them becomes loyal enough to ascend.”

“How will the crew react to these changes?”

“It’s good to see that you’re learning. They’re going to be angry. Losing a deck to beings they consider insects is not something they will take lying down, even if they don’t lose any space. After they return from shore leave, announce we are going into battle and then hit one of the factions surrounding the transit station. A bit of loot and plunder will cool off the calmer heads, so when the hotheads mutiny, there won’t be as many.”

“How long will shore leave last when we get to the transit station?”

“An hour or two at the most. We’ve barely spent a half day sailing, so the crew doesn’t have enough plunder for more than that.”

“Is that enough time to upgrade The Pantheon?”

“Plenty.”

***

I stood on my balcony, staring at a spaceport so advanced that my Domain couldn’t pierce its exterior. It was built inside a mountain-sized spike that sat on the exterior hull of a Dyson Sphere. Pan had told me that the sphere was called Biolin and that it was the Bionoid homeworld. He had also warned me not to try anything here. Our crew comprised the weakest members of their society, and we wouldn’t survive drawing the attention of their strongest.

I was more than happy to play nice after seeing their technology. The spaceport had opened a wormhole for us when we approached the transit ring that led to the transit junction the Horde now occupied. It was an invitation to visit, which also showed exactly how powerful they were.

We obviously accepted and exited the wormhole right next to the spaceport. A platform immediately emerged from the spike, automatically connecting to The Pantheon’s main deck, allowing the crew to disembark and enter. It was a second simple yet clear invitation, exactly like the wormhole.

Dozens of vessels as large as The Pantheon or even bigger were connected to the spike. They looked nothing like our ship, but their crews were all human bionoids. With my Domain, I could see into their vessels, even though I couldn’t pierce the spike. I could also see into the vessels connected to the other spikes.

It made me understand why Colin had politely told the Nargus not to leave the ship. This was a human bionoid spaceport. There were thousands of other bionoid spaceports, most belonging to one subspecies or another. Only about a tenth were mixed subspecies, and even then, it was only mixtures of specific subspecies.

They really were obsessed with their own superiority.

Beams of light came from the spaceport, slowly sweeping over The Pantheon, changing it with its passing. The ship grew at a visible pace, slowly transforming to the new specifications as drones dropped off raw materials to fuel the growth.

The sheer scale of what I saw humbled me.

When the Peacekeepers first took over Earth, I’d been one of those people grumbling about the unfairness of it all. I’d watched the videos of the first rallies while I looked after the elderly mother, sending money to support the protestors, financially joining the cry that there had to be some way to fight back. Then, at the end of the 2nd Cycle, Morgan Mars healed the world, and I thought maybe living at the whim of this unknown race might not be so bad.

The truth that there was no fighting back hadn’t been clearer than over the past few hours. We couldn’t fight them. They had turned me into a God so I could play the Game. I could see entire solar systems whenever I wanted to. I could raise tens of thousands of people off the surface of a planet and pass through a wormhole I created just by thinking about it. I had unimaginable power. And that power was just a part of a game they let the Collective play.

How powerful did these Peacekeepers have to be?

Were they actual Gods? Could they do what I could, only on a much larger scale? Trying to fight that sort of power was impossible. We were ants, and I needed to accept that.

“The weight of dreams grows greater under bonds of silent restraint,” Nargus said, stopping beside me.

Nargus had a strange way of speaking, but I always understood his meaning. Pan did, too, but the rest of the crew didn’t, which made his relationship with them testy.

“I’m trying to come to terms with living at the whims of others.”

The strange minotaur creature nodded, placed his palms on the railing, and took a deep breath through his large nostrils. “Flowers smile when their gaze rest upon the sun’s eternity, never fearing a blaze that nurtures.”

I paused to consider his words and then nodded. “I didn’t think about it like that. You make a good point.”

“The winds whisper when the snow rests upon the mountainside.”

I chuckled. “Where were you when I was a teenager?”

Nargus chuckled bullishly.

I turned, taking in his barely dressed appearance. I’d asked him if he wanted clothes, and he’d said he was comfortable with what he was wearing. He was a rather straightforward individual. So, I decided to be straightforward, too. “Will it upset you if we attack the Horde’s sector? Before we came here, I saw they had a fleet next to the transit ring that led to their transit junction. It’s a fleet that will be worth a lot of doubloons.”

Nargus snorted. “What is claimed cannot sit in another’s hand, so when mountains wander, goats tremble. The song of war seeks all tongues, chasing the harmony of the choir. Children hide from mental phantoms that hold real claws, seeking that which they cannot reach.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Burdens spoken can leave repaired.”

“I’ll try to be deserving of such trust.” I clapped him on the shoulder.

His hand shot up, knocking mine away. “The duet of owls seeks all but finds few.”

I choked on my words, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. “I am so sorry. I didn’t realise I was making a pass at you. It’s just a friendly gesture among humans.”

Nargus threw back his head and roared with laughter. “The duet of owls seeks all but finds many.”

I chuckled at his joke. “I’m not a prude. You just aren’t my type.”

Nargus laughed harder. “Words on the wind as night falls.” He shook his head, still laughing as he turned and walked off.

“Who knew you had a sense of humour.”

“Harmony in owls.”

“No one needs that many wives.”

“Harmony in owls,” he repeated.

I shook my head.

***

“Of course, we’re upset,” Bracken shouted from the main deck an hour later. He was a rugged-looking fellow with a large scar down one cheek. Ripper, the man who had been going to stab me in the back earlier today, stood behind him, offering encouragement. “You gave an entire deck to the insects. You deprived us of space.”

Pan turned in the middle of the crowd and took two steps, casually decking Bracken and knocking him on his ass. “I can’t abide idiots questioning my work. I made sure we had just as much space as we had before. The lowest deck might be devoted to insects, but now we don’t have to look after them.” He turned, facing the much smaller crew. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my time managing insects. So, I fixed it, so I didn’t have to make any of you do it. If you got a problem with that, bring it up with me, but if I hear one more word slandering my work on this ship, saying I shortchanged the crew on space, you best be ready for a fight.”

“I’m done discussing this,” I said, noticing Pan’s signal. “Pan, prepare The Pantheon for battle where going hunting.”

***

Cannons fired as I landed on the deck beside Pan. I pivoted, raising my pistol, and fired at a destroyer, taking it out of the fight. “There’s a lot of them,” I said. “You think they knew we were coming?”

“I’m not sure, my Liege,” Pan replied, grinning fiercely. “They might have realised we were in the neighbourhood when their fleets went missing.”

Nargus laughed like a maniac as he shot another cruiser from the helm. “The wind blows gentle, bending trees until they break.” He turned, lashing out with his cutlass, launching energy blades that stripped the weapons from destroyers and incinerated frigates.

“What the hell is he babbling about?” Porter shouted from the main deck while lining up his shot.

I turned. “He said, never pick a fight with a bigger bull.”

“And that’s meant to make sense.”

“Die insects.”

Porter grinned. “I understood that.”

“I’ll try to use smaller words from now on.”

Porter laughed, drawing and swinging his cutlass, sending waves of destructive energy at a frigate. “Fuck you too, Captain.”

I glanced at Pan and grinned. “Well, my shield has recovered. I’m going back in.”

***

You have converted all the enemy vessels to doubloons.

A chest filled with small coins rose out of the deck. The crew eyed it hungrily.

I cleared my throat. “Distribute all of the loot to the crew, Pan. Hold nothing back for the ship.”

Nargus looked down from the helm and nodded. “Wealth squandered, buys fleeting joy that springs from other’s misery. Resting Bull seek water.”

You have improved your relationship with Nargus.

+10 loyalty.

60/100

I stared up at him as he looked away. Could it really be that easy to gain his loyalty? Did I just need to kill the Horde and give the crew the loot? Well, there was an easy way to tell.

“Load the cannons, prepare to attack a space station?”

The crew looked up.

“You heard me. Let’s get some more loot.

***

You have improved your relationship with Nargus.

+10 loyalty.

100/100

Nargus is now loyal to you.

Through my Domain, I watched our skeletal, thin minotaur blink his star-speckled eyes as he was momentarily startled by the portal that appeared beside him. He gathered his wits, called another crewman over to cover him at the helm, and stepped through, entering my throne room. He stood before me as the portal closed behind him and inclined his head ever so slightly in my direction, showing respect.

Nargus was my crew's only loyal member, making him the only candidate for godhood. Pan and I didn’t wait for a better option. So today was his lucky day.

“Nargus would like to join my pantheon?”

His body stiffened. “Water follows the curve of the river.”

Without any fanfare, I made a God. “Then I name you Nargus, God of Death, Speaker to the Dead and Navigator of the Endless Seas.”

Darkness, my Domain couldn’t penetrate, enveloped his flesh, flowing over his skin like tar. A throne of bones grew out of the floor to my right, radiating power. Nargus stalked towards it and claimed his place in my pantheon with terrible finality, becoming as stiff as a statue.

Congratulations, you have elevated Nargus to Transcendence.

Congratulations, you have expanded your pantheon.

Transcendent Minions: 0/1

Power enveloped Nargus.

***

In a faraway sector, a Horde pirate frigate burned, falling apart under the combined firepower of the Krint fighter fleet. Shrapnel flew through the hull as horde pirates were sucked out into space or collapsed to the ground, succumbing to their wounds. For every one of those at death's door, time slowed, and a figure appeared wearing a simple black loincloth and otherworldly headdress. He stood over them with pity in his star-speckled eyes and offered his hand. “Death circles the weary heart, for the new moon rises as the day ends.”

Some looked on in fear, understanding his words but denying their own end. Others took his hand, gratefully letting go of their burdens. One took his hand, seeing an eternity of peace laid out before him, only to be pulled away at the last moment.

The Horde pirate captain opened his eyes on an escape pod, with a nanite recovery injection stabbed into his chest. His ship's doctor fussed over his wounds, oblivious to the presence of the God of Death looming over them, as he tried to put his captain back together and stop him from dying.

The captain only had eyes for Nargus. “What is your will?” he whispered, too weak to speak any louder.

Terrible knowledge filled him.

“It will be as you wish, my Lord.”

***

Pan smiled at Nargus’s still form as he entered our throne room. The sudden appearance of a second throne meant it wasn’t really my throne room anymore. He walked over to Nargus and circled him twice, gazing at every inch of him.

“He should do nicely, my Liege.”

“I hope so. When do you think he’ll be ready?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”