Chương 509: BECMI Chapter 500 – They are Total Arseholes

Ta-da! Its the quincentennial talk about posting upvotes and reviews. Coming off a great review yesterday by Diodaba, I'm hoping for some more to kick the story back under 100, and hopefully offset the drive-by. 5 that put us where we are. I'd love to see it finish 50 or higher, but that would required a LOT of upvotes from everyone!!

Remember, if you aren't supporting an author on Patreon, the best way to help them out is to upvote them (vote above their Quality Level) so more people see them when searching for top stories! Well, also to talk about them online to other people and leave links, but that's marketing and superfandom! Also, this is the longest single story I've had to date.

It's going to 569 chapters, so there's another two months of story left for everyone after this huge event that was the pinnacle of the Wrath of the Immortals Boxed Set back then. Yeah, we got three thousand more years to cover yet! So buckle in, upvote if you can, the story is still going! =============="Killing all the mortals on Nown will bar the Immortals from Nown forever… and then you can bring the survivors that are here back once they are gone," Briggs nodded slowly, thinking the problem through.

"Assuming the Portal remains open and intact… ah, you might have to collapse it to prevent the spread of the Purge to this line," he also realized, "but Heaven has already stabilized an alternate connection. You would just need Confluence…" he trailed off. Three thousand years of time on that side!

"We could simply colonize from this timeline back to that one, as needed. One might even say the existence of the Other Shore is a massive safety device set in place by truly higher powers to thwart the very kind of play we believe is going to happen," I pointed out leadingly. Both of them considered that aspect of things, and drew the proper reference.

"These Old Ones that Tek and you have mentioned. The beings who might be Ascended Immortals, beyond the Fifth Dimensional Wall?" Sama said promptly, considering who would do such things.

"Ones able to freely look up and down a timeline, see a very bad thing going to happen, and poke things into happening that should not… like, perhaps, a free-standing Portal through time strong enough to generate and sustain an alternity. Something not even a Hierarch of Time knows how to do, or surely they would have replicated the feat again, even multiple times to have fun and explore alternate versions of the world they could create on whims.

"Instead, they simply considered it an accident, and then completely forgot that it was here, giving a mortal who could travel it four thousand years of potential information on them," I pointed out with my own knowing smile. Sama's answering smile was eight canines of death.

"Dame Adama pointed that out, didn't she?" she challenged me.

"I didn't catch it," I admitted ruefully.

"She recognized there were hands behind the curtain. It's entirely possible the alternity might cease to exist at True Confluence, its purpose done, and it merges back into this world as the timelines link up."

"And your Pyramids existing in the same places in both worlds would drive the merger, as would natives from one on the world of the other," Briggs deduced slowly, then shook his big head.

"Wow, this is the scale gods play at? I feel so damn small right now…"

"Taking the long way around through Heaven would allow powerful Forsaken to get around using the Portal between Alternities, forming an alternate venue for reinforcements as well as visitation." Beat. Their eyes popped open.

"I could visit my son?!" Briggs blurted out loudly, fists crashing down and denting the table that Sama had just put eight gouges in, too.

"Might need you to, depending on the scale of the fighting. Might need every Eternal and Master-class Aspirant from here for that fight, if Dame Adama is right."

"Fuuuuuck…" Briggs said with great emotion, clenching his fists hard enough to make his knuckles pop like splitting rocks.

"I've got grandkids, great-grandkids, and more I haven't even seen over there. I know he's nearly a millennium older than me, but I still want to hear him call me his old man, I want to spoil my grandkids…"

"I want to utterly fucking kill anything threatening my family like that," Sama breathed, heaven's-blue eyes almost glowing.

"Dame Adama repeatedly emphasized that this fight will be apocalyptic," I said softly.

"We've never been in a fight like this is going to be. Directly or not, there are going to be gods and Immortals involved. Tens are going to be like line infantry. Teens are just officers. Masters are just company champions. Eternals like us are going to be the ones who have to stop the unearthly shit that's going to be happening…"

"The threat only makes me want to go over there more," Sama's smile was utterly undeterred, and Briggs looked so grim and immovable a mountain could have tripped over him.

"Good," I sighed.

"We determine the pace coming here. Another subtle evacuation is totally possible to here starting now. Assume a minimum of three hundred and a maximum of seven hundred years on the Other Shore. What exchange speed do you want me to use going back and forth?" The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. They looked at one another.

"One to ten or higher?" Sama suggested first, and Briggs nodded agreement after a moment.

"I mean, one to one would be nice and give us even more time, but doing that just increases the chance that the same catalyst will happen on this side." I nodded again.

"That horrific fight is happening so we can determine what it is and hopefully stop it from happening here." There was a poink as my black fingernail punched through the table.

"There could be planar and temporal ripples coming out from this event. Once it starts and we find the source, the first thing that you have to do is shut it down from happening on this side. THEN you can perhaps come to our rescue. Otherwise the Hierarchs might well sense something is happening, go looking, and potentially find the Other Shore after all this time."

"Which would be an utter disaster," Briggs understood. Even if they couldn't enter the other timeline because they had counterparts there or something. The alternity could well break entirely under the metaphysical weight of multiple versions of Hierarchs extant at the same time and meeting one another.

"You limited our intervention to Masters and Eternals?" he prodded.

"We're assuming at some point the Portal gets severed and dimensional access to Heaven destabilizes. Thus the only way to get back home is Confluence, and either the worlds merging or a simple Plane Shift allowing a return after that point."

"After over two thousand years," Sama breathed.

"Masters can aspire to Eternal and endure the wait. Otherwise, they'll die of old age over there."

"Ten minutes after they leave. Going the Heaven route to get there, the temporal acceleration of the higher planes will actually absorb the temporal shift without a problem. But every assumption is that those planes are going to be severed and Interdicted from interfering at some point. There's too many reserves and alternate food and materials production in them for them to be allowed to keep reinforcing us."

"They could produce enough food and materials to reinforce and sustain the living population even if farming on the rest of the planet is impossible," Briggs said slowly, picturing the logistics of everything.

"You've had centuries more 'normal' time to develop them, thousands or tens of thousands of years and more, preparing for this, but we're talking Immortals with access to up-tempo planes and long years to build up their own forces, armies, and surprises. It isn't an advantage, it's attempting to get to par. Naturally the other side will attempt to cut them off."

"And, it's implied, the other forces won't be mortal and require those resources," I said grimly.

"No specific foe to optimize against?" Sama asked thoughtfully, planning out what they could do on this side.

"The nature of the calculations are implying that all the 'specific foes' are likely to get involved, because the Immortals are going to treat this entire fight like a Petri dish and built-in entertainment center to test all their crazy ideas on," I answered that.

"Apocalypse and Armageddon and Ragnarok and End of Days all at once, eh?" Briggs murmured, his pale violet eyes flashing.

"All the things the gods normally protect us from, unleashed upon us just to stop the gods from being able to protect us from them in the future…"

"Yes. Dame Adama says we can win the war, but we're going to lose the planet in the battles doing it." I took a deep breath.

"I don't want to think how bad it could be if the gods aren't going to be stopping the worst of the shit from happening." That managed to put all of us to silence for a moment, contemplating that.

"Wouldn't be a planet left to save. They'd kill Nown for daring to help us out, succor us, back us up," Briggs finally admitted.

"It's huge, but it's only one planet. Immortals mess around with planet-sized masses all the time. Nown can't possibly withstand the numbers of them. Just look at what it's had to tolerate from them for all this time."

"What, literally having to put up with Annelids eating holes in it and coring it out like a watermelon?" Sama snarled.

"Give us some intermediate goals here, then."

"More Forsaken," I said without an eye-blink.

"There's going to be so much magic flying around, magical plagues, magical curses, magical beings, magical attacks, psychic assaults, horrifying carnage, and apocalyptic levels of violence." I paused a moment.

"And things to survive random overwhelming attacks. At the level of Surelife and more, both living through something and getting out of the area of effect. I think everyone will need those."

"Randomly dying to another Doom of Darkmoor going off on top of me does not sound at all fair," Briggs agreed solemnly, nodding slowly.

"I'm Eternal. I think we can bend the rules for us."

"There's a discipline for Forsaken we're researching on the Other Shore, which should be possible now that the Radiance will be in effect. If you remember the Radiance spells, there are two spells that can have deadly effects. One institutes a penalty to the save against the next spell you Cast, equal to the Radiance sacrificed to boost the spell. The obverse builds up a store of Radiance that can be used to alter your luck on random events, including Saves, to the limit of the Radiance you have stored."

I paused for both of them to remember that.

"There are Immortal Power equivalents to both of those spells and disciplines." Sama looked right at me and said, "Fuuuuuuuuck," with a heartfelt emphasis.

"That means tapping the Radiance is going to become a necessity for survival, not just a cute supplement! What's that got to do with Forsaken?" she asked narrowly.

"Radiance is a quasi-magical gammathaumic energy. If Powered can carry it around, Forsaken certainly can, since they can carry a Nexus," I pointed out.

"But… we couldn't spend it?" Briggs asked, his brow furrowing.

"Could sure make an Amulet or Bracer or something that could spend it for you though, right? Maybe have Endure or Tremble do it for you?" I hinted.

"We'd be turning ourselves into living Receptacles!" Sama blurted out.

"Can we survive that? The Wasting Sickness is no joke…" It was a horrible radiation-based magical affliction that affected those using the Radiance too much, and a true pain in the arse to get rid of. The best method involved forced reincarnation, as it would transfer between Clones, being an effective disease of the soul and Aura, not just the flesh!

"The consensus is that you'd need to be very resistant to or immune to Radiant damage," I agreed with her. They both blinked and looked at one another.

"Diamond Vajra!" Briggs exclaimed at the same time as his wife.

"Apex Forsaken with a Diamond Vajra should be starting at like 60 Resistance to the second tier of energies!" Sama added quickly. Said Tier consisting of Divine, Primal, Eldritch, Radiant, and Necroic damage, with another tier for Force, Arcane, Psychic, Spatial, and Temporal damage that all of them took.

"So you could store Radiance up to the limit of your Radiant Resistance," I nodded.

"That is what they are thinking of, and putting some work in on the Other Shore. If they discover how it works, I will naturally bring it here and pass it on."

"I have the feeling more Forsaken will be meditating frequently in Zanzyr!" Sama smiled knowingly. Even if it never got used, it was absolutely something the Forsaken would want to have available!