Chapter 482 - Far Future Ch 192 – Everybody Needs Something to Do (1/2)
It meant that simply sailing through deep space as if it was a wide-open ocean was actually extremely dangerous... and although the things seemed to avoid the gravity strings the Phlos represented, it didn't mean they HAD to. If they parked on top of one, well, even a Rantha wasn't going to survive that.
Since they also tended to fill a cubic light year around themselves with the mad psyche waves of non-baryonic life, sending the average psion or non-Forsaken out there without some real protection was also a pretty bad idea. Can't imagine why the psions avoided deep space, strange, strange...
Therefore, finding a route was actually pretty important, if we wanted to fly it repeatedly.
We were also getting a rather horrific view of the galaxy, as we started filling in all the empty systems between the worlds and systems that were part of the Tellurian Empire. Needless to say, most of those systems weren't empty at all...
Infested nest-worlds of the Mi-Go. Hollowed sterile eggs of the Grays. Overbuilt grandiose cities of the Great Race and their bio-slaves. Silent systems devoid of almost all life, with the faint background necroic presence of sleeping Tekrons. Systems stripped to the mantles of organic life by passing biovore fleets of whatever species. Systems inhabited by the explosively breeding populations of goblins, forming up for their eternal territorial expansions.
Pastoral systems seeded long ago by the elvar, and sometimes inhabited by their scattered tribes, as well. Occasionally one with one of their rare Starhomes orbiting a lonely sun, flotillas of sailed ships like deadly butterflies flitting through the system. Systems inhabited by alien races, some of terrifying psionic power, some completely primitive, and others making their first tentative steps out into the stars, and still others local hegemons of stars off the beaten path, thinking they were powerful and expansionistic, and not realizing just how big and dangerous the galaxy was.
Ruins of worlds, seared and shattered by long ago wars... or perhaps just environmentally devastated, and never resettled.
Lot and lots of those...
They'd stumbled across half a dozen lost colony worlds, most of them regressed to the atomic age or even the medieval age, the lost glories of their ancestors forgotten, warring with one another over territory or other minor differences. These would be resources and bases for us, and Rantha teams were already engaged in taking them over, with mixed levels of violence required. Rifts shuttled key supplies and personnel, and development was proceeding, much to the dismay of the former ruling and wealthy classes who couldn't adapt to the new paradigm.
What could I do personally while I waited, that was worth involving a Thirteen? Anywhere any of the Rift-cutting kids reached I could reach in basically less than a minute, so finding places to stretch my legs and butcher enemies en masse was literally a stroll away, no matter which side of the galaxy it was on.
Technically, I didn't need to be anywhere in particular, and going out and finding stuff was something the kids were doing. I was either an emergency response team, or a big heavyweight invited in to have a little fun.
On an individual basis, that basically meant being involved in a ground fight. Ground fights that didn't involve being bombed from orbit or by overwhelming firepower were just as easily pursued by my kids, especially if they didn't involve Greater Demons.
Which meant I wasn't busy, and the kids got to do everything. I found myself smirking.
Well, if that was the case... I was going to have fun wherever and whenever I wanted. The kids simply weren't going to be allowed to have all the fun.
Perhaps it might be time to really start building a myth, in the funnest way possible...
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And that was how I started a legend.
Hair black, a tattooed mask on an eyeless face, a singular soulsword the drow of Gloomheart could all recognize... and tricked out to the nines to kill.
The smart ones, once they saw all my Tails, the Arakne Arms, and the stylized Phoenix Cloak, might have realized that I was going very, very easy on them in the arena. Some others would only get spurred to greater efforts to fight me.
Unfortunately, they were having a devil of a time. Temporal tiddlywinks got them nowhere, either forwards or back. Using psionic divinations literally slammed into the mountain wall of a Null. Hypercognitive calculators kept spitting out errors.
Most annoyingly of all, I kept moving around!
By the time the drow got wind of where I appeared, I was already gone, walking off through a slit in space rapidly sealed by the vivus reinforcing the Veil behind me. Behind me, I left a lot of stories, and bodies burning away.
My preferred sites of battle were Warp Incursions, biovore invasions, drow raids, and goblin fights, largely in that order.
Ranthas were traveling the galaxy as fast as they might, getting those planetary coordinates, moving on to the next ones. Each planet was a place to set up shop and start expanding influence... or a place to fight, to gain Karma and claw your way up to a place of prominence over the bones of invaders, insurrectionists, madmen, and your allies shooting you in the back.
A golden blade with a black edge, a trembling note signing inspiration to those who heard it, and doom to those it targeted. I entered battlefields, and I had fun.
Yes, it was butchery, slaughter, and massacre. There was no other word for it. The Akasha began to scream with my kill totals, as vivus fed them and their last thoughts into their racial collectives.