[Be Gone] Ch 46 – The First Pyramid is Up!

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            The demons’ grand army of attackers never made it to the Pyramid I was making. They even had some forces try coming out of the sea nearby, which was entertaining. I Teleported back to intercept them after Bear scouts rang out the alarm. As they came up out onto the shores in their hordes of slimy-skinned oni and dripping undead, I proceeded to rake them down both above and below the waves, uncaring of where they were or the fact I shouldn’t have been able to track them down there.

            The dark and polluted waves surged blue and white as vivic flames burned above and below the waters, consuming countless numbers of evil Spirits, undead, and oni as heartlessly as they had been made, and the Land and Sea were grateful for their losses.

            The fight also broke a cornerstone of the hold the undead had on that part of the oceans, and their realm out there began to shrink as I Fed those keeping it intact to the Land. The Cursed waters, inclement weather, wandering Spirits, and mutated monsters were going to find it harder and harder to exist here as the influence of Jigoku was eaten away.

            Because I could, I also found several anchor points, submerged altars, sunken ruins, and deep holes with fell things within that were also contributing to the nastiness here. The Tigers sent down some specialist teams with the Gear required to work freely down there, the skills to do the same, and helped keep the ball rolling.

            Then I went back and finished up the Pyramid.

            The last thousand blocks only took a few hours, the levels they formed coming together, linking up, and then sliding up, over, and down atop those that had gone before. There were rooms inside them, so those levels weren’t all solid, and so the last ten tiers went by pretty quickly.

            Twenty by twenty, minus nearly two hundred in the middle. Eighteen by eighteen. Sixteen by sixteen. Fourteen...

            They were assembled in their rooms and corridors and tiers and fell into place, sealing into the greater structure as the vivically-purified flowstone circuits assembled.

            The top level, the last four blocks, basically a stepped capstone with an altar at the peak, came together with heavy pressure, synergized, and the altar, carved separately and placed atop the intersection of all four of them, was put into place.

            Slowly, the magic of completion hummed in the air, and came down on the capstone to seal the deal.

            While I was pretty sure this world had made pyramids of one kind or another in the past, it wasn’t anything like this Pyramid. They were probably just heaps of cut or poured stone labored into place with far too much manpower and loss of life, and given a special status because of the sacrifices that had gone into them.

            I suppose that could be said here, but the sacrifices had all been before its construction, instead of during it.

            Everything actualized, and the Karma from the deaths of the Tainted who’d died here combined with a whole lot of vivus to turn the Pyramid on.

            The Runes on the blocks lit up in series, lowest tier to highest, glowing and shuddering as they poured up, draining the Pit of the last of the residual energies there. A beam of The Light went shuddering up into the sky, and the clouds peeled away into suddenly burning blue heavens above, while the Sun came down to Bless what was being done here.

            Thunder cracked and boomed, lightning arced and danced around the descending skyfire, plunging into the accepting Pyramid below as a vortex of light and clouds ascended towards Heaven, and brought down Rightness into the world.

            The watching korobokru could not, in the end, keep their eyes on it all. The Light stabbed at their minds, making them question grim decisions they had made in the past, and might have to make in the future, and the reasons why they had made them became obvious to them in an unflattering manner. The feeling that they were unworthy to look upon the Light of Heaven was overpowering, at the same time the knowledge that Heaven was coming Down to help them nonetheless was equally as pervasive.

            There was also an invitation right out there. If they could climb to the top of that Pyramid, then they were worthy to do so!

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            “Quite a view, Ael,” Korbald said, coming up next to me where I was sitting on my Disk in front of the altar, four hundred and twenty feet above the landscape.

            The vivisized landscape had a strange mix of riotous green and empty places where only stone showed, but there was no sign of the Taint of Jigoku anywhere. The border had retreated well past this location, and any oni coming here were walking into a hungry landscape eager to Eat everything they were.

            While demonic things were accumulating in the Shadowlands to the west of us, none of them were venturing past us now. They were holding position out there, building in numbers, watching and waiting to see what the horrible presence and threat they could feel building on the horizon was going to do.

            Feature was out there having some fun with them, drawing on my Wrath and Burning the shit out of anything that got greedy enough to try and mess with him.

            I could Recall him or ‘port to him at any time. I wasn’t worried about him getting into trouble, and he was coldly patient and analytical, not seeking out anything particularly strong, totally happy to wipe chaff in large numbers.

            It all added up, and the Land liked snacks as much as gourmet dinners, endless appetite and whatnot.

            “Eh, boring. Nothing feeding me Karma in sight,” I replied, knocking him on the shoulder. “Sixteen. You should make Eighteen, Nineteen if you ride this thing to the middle with me. Finish the work, Eternal for sure.”

            “That’s the idea,” he sighed, reaching out with his own expanded senses. A chi-user at Sixteen naturally had levels of Awareness I did not. “Damn, Ael, the Land is hungry. She really wants to get moving on this!”

            “Meh. She’s not in a hurry, She’s just woken up to the sensation of having a really appetizing meal and She wants to experience more. We’re cool.” I looked back and down the forty-five-degree slope behind us, and the teaming numbers of korobokru and elves down there. “Any problems with the other Houses?”

            “There probably would have been, until they saw the four-hundred-foot Pyramid floating ten feet off the ground on sacred flames. If they have issues, they can’t come up the Pyramid... solves a lot of problems right there.”

            Alignment-sensitive Wards were a new thing to these people, and we didn’t really care. There weren’t a whole lot of natives who could step above the twenty-fourth level, so it was almost by default the exclusive territory of the Tigers.

            Most of the fighting was going to be done at lower levels, of course, but the higher Levels were prized by the Casters and Archers with ranged attacks, naturally enough.

            The other Houses of the Empire had been invited to send ranged combatants to staff the Pyramid for an epic attack into the heart of Jigoku. If they didn’t want to come, no harm, no foul; we literally did not care... although it was certainly taken note of.

            The Cranes had actually sent the Hurricane Company from the Eblis, probably the most elite and powerful group of Archers on the continent. Master Archers and interested Shugenja from many Clans, as well as wandering ronin, had signed up to join an effort that would definitely go down in legends.

            There was room for cavalry riders, too, the lowest internal levels totally usable as stables, in addition to warehouses for supplies.

            That’s what was going on below, loading up supplies for all those who had arrived.

            Of course, everyone had to be vetted, and there’d been more than a few infiltrators discovered. Hells, I’d picked out a number of them from up here without much difficulty. Black Cats swept them up and they disappeared somewhere. King Gravity’s Pit getting more business, I suspected, your one-stop location for all your disposal needs...

            Battlements and shield walls were being set up along entire levels and lengths of the Tiers, just to be on the safe side. The officers talking about being attacked were basically agog at the idea anything could actually get aboard the Pyramid unless it was totally freaking huge... and wasn’t that exactly why the Tigers and the outlander Alliyinth were here?

            It was, indeed.

            A floating, flaming mobile fortress. It was giving the Jade Empire conniption fits with the very idea. It was no great stretch that they were sincerely hoping that this was a journey of final destruction for such a terribly impressive weapon and fortification.

            I was aiming to disappoint them. Korbald had been fully briefed on how to use the Pyramid, and was certainly going to make use of it as he toured around and got rid of the last of the oni bosses.

            It should also serve as a nice launchpoint for stepping into Eternity, but we’d see.

            “Your course is already locked in?” Korbald asked me calmly.

            “Yes and no. I’m always flexible. But the destination is pretty fixed, since it’s right under the Vortex, and I’m gonna Burn the shit out of that thing.” I paused significantly. “And I’m gonna Burn down that damn forest!”

            Korbald smiled thinly. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” His people had their own terrible memories of the living woods and hacking their way through them. It had killed more of their people than any other region in their escape after arriving here.

            Payback was going to be a bitch, and that Demon Tree I’d seen on the horizon was going to watch it all coming for it!

-------------------

            The following days as the Pyramid got into motion were basically a slow montage of advance.

            The Pyramid didn’t move very quickly, because it wasn’t designed to, and a thousand Warlocks or something weren’t pouring juice into it to speed things up, either. A couple miles an hour was easily matched by men marching on the ground, and it generated a lot of ‘tortoise passing by on the outside, move over to let it pass!’ jokes.

            But unlike men, the Pyramid could advance continuously. Fifty miles a day was more than could be expected out of any marching army, and would even wear down a cavalry force over time.

            It was steady, it was inexorable, and the oni forces couldn’t stop it.

            I Shaped a lot of disposable arrows out of obsidian and stone, and the archers shot a lot of arrows, all of them brimming with vivus and Feeding the oni to the Land. Even the oni received the Pyramid effect of Vivic Weapon, which meant if they accidentally damaged one another, they killed one another forever... and it meant little oni with tempers could really hurt the bigger oni who liked to dump on them. It was entertaining watching knots of internal conflict as little oni being whipped or herded along suddenly turned on their taskmasters and tore them apart before trying to flee.

            Elite units of archers received Mass Bane Weapon, and black-and-white flaming volleys of arrows dripping Taofire targeted the tougher demons with merciless accuracy.

            Through it all, the Pyramid advanced. Walls of Holy Primal Fire at CL 50 roasted the oni if they tried to get up onto our ride, charring most of them instantly, and burned even the toughest and most fire-resistant of them with impunity. The lowest tiers of the Pyramid still got some nasty fighting, but I was there on overwatch and to heal, as were members of the Tigers, and the burning swathe of purified ground we left behind seethed with the vivic remains of dead oni.

            A mobile base with supplies was like the dream of every army commander, and the cavalry forces of the Horse had field days, always having somewhere to retreat to, and even able to ride right up into the interior stables of the Pyramid if they pulled in a really strong enemy.

            If not, there was a ton of overwatch fire, support, and Healing Right There to top them all off, and all of their weapons were glowing with unwhite fire to help harvest the oni, goblins, and other Tainted creatures, only making them even more effective.

            The Bear engineers got in more ballista practice than they’d likely ever dreamed, big crystalline shafts arcing out like comets to impale and bring down their targets. I was very promptly their favorite human ever, because they never had to worry about running out of ammo!

            We rapidly outran our supply train, which was totally expected. I could easily Teleport back and Widen Tapestry a twenty-foot cube of supplies to bring back, so it wasn’t an issue. It was more an issue to assemble the supplies than it was to return with them, but the Bear were eagerly all over that problem.

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