Chương 366: Chapter 8-364 – Souls set Alight

I left a hundred thousand Soul Crystals of each Tier in the internal bins inside the Pyramid, just in case moving to Realm Lord meant another Stars expansion. The rest was all combined upwards, aiming for Tier 8 now, and my numbers of Tempered Stars there began to increase. It was amusing that there were far more Warrior-class Soul Eggs than Servant-class Crystals. I was guessing that the undead fed on one another and absorbed one another until they reached a certain level of minimum power.

I was aware that there was some significance to the Tier-8's, as the Spellcraft check and Concentration required to use them to Temper my Stars was around 100, which was Emperor territory. A normal person simply would not be able to follow this path, and indeed most Emperors would have had troubles doing what I was doing. Someone with hundreds of Tier-8's like I'd had was unprecedented, let alone over ten thousand Tier-7's.

There simply hadn't been efficient enough collection of the objects which could do such things to allow it to happen, at least not without wiping out everything on the planet. Things were made much easier in this respect with only one Element to improve, really focusing on what needed to be done, and of course having vivus here. Millions of Soul Crystals, Eggs, and Gems became mere thousands of Jewels... but Jewels and Star Jewels were what I needed. If my Universe had to blow up into, what? A Multiverse?

Well, it would be a long time before I got 7's in that. 6's were still doable...

"Whoa." Sama reached out and brushed her hand in front of me.

"That... is freaky weird." I'd just come back from the Netherworld and was about to head to the Broom Closet Pyramid to test out Fae's Excitation of the Heavens.

"Oh?" I asked, interested in her perspective. I'd stopped in to see what Sama was doing with the other Light of Souls that she had collected. All seven of the Light of Souls that we knew of were in Sama's hands now, stolen from their previous owners with no hint of how or why. Although the Synod was turning things upside down trying to find out where they were, the most important fact was that they had been stolen from the people the Synod had bribed to support them...

people who had not only lost their bribe, but somehow had been discovered to have been bought off to act against those they were supposed to be supporting! Only three of the six had made it to Rome. Sama offed two of them, including Senor Caliente, and another was put down by his own uncle in the Bourdeaux Great Family in France. That left the nine Sages who had profited from the things, and were secret or not-so-secret rabid supporters of the Synod and its Magic Court.

Mexico's had already died, as had the Smokey Mountain Sage, one of the three 'secret' Sages in America who'd tried to avoid being on the Sage's Council for the country. He hadn't been happy when I revealed that he existed, and the American Sages had been searching for the concealed Sages for some time as a consequence.

Sama had offed him in a little mountain hidey-hole in Kentucky, collected a tidy bounty on the kill, and inspired the also-hidden Bright Cardinal Sage to step forward before the same thing happened to him. Seven Light of Souls and nine Sages meant one hundred and sixty thousand souls flayed to create those things. Faithful souls who had believed in the Church of Light, and then were killed or sacrificed or allowed to die without intervention in order to gain the souls needed to build the things.

Who knew how many more had been sacrificed over the centuries to create the things. It also explained a good deal of the Synod's grip on power when they could just make a Sage and command his utter loyalty, and through them exert their influence over the Sage's people!

"Yes. Your Mana is really, really dense. It's always had an odd weakness about it, because you don't have the raw number of Stars of a mage-Sage, compounding so much Mana together. But now..." She waved her hand in front of me again.

"Plus there's your Syzygy. I can't read it, but I can feel the incredibly dense Mana ripples from something that's not your Stars."

"I completed a full Commanding Stars to 7-tiers, and am working on 8," I admitted to her. She whistled in approval.

"Good. That gives you a big hop forward in preparing for the End Times, right?"

"Hopefully. I still don't know how to cast Realm Spells, but I can definitely Cast High Imperial Spells with the Orb I have... and I can Cast Low Imperial without one." Sama had returned to her work on a crystalline mount and casing accented with adamantine and mithral around a glowing gem. It took me a moment to identify its Aura as similar to the Light of Souls.

"Your Stars, I reckon? With a full Seven and a handful of Eights, you are actually a Low Emperor?" she asked without looking at me, continuing with her Runework, taking place at the level of ki and spiritual attunement, the golden Soulclaws arched over her fingers meshing right in with the transformed Light of Souls as she worked. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"That was my guess." I tilted my head.

"What exactly are you doing here?" I had to ask.

"Glenn and Ruronalee did a wonderful job tracking the Lights and identifying the Sages who used them," Sama said, with an awful gleam in her heavens-blue eyes that promised Hell for the people who'd done this.

"However, having the Lights just represents a vulnerability and a temptation. Punishing the souls who were so misused by vivisizing them didn't seem at all fair to me, so I called up Red while you were busy down below, and had him go for some temporary enlightenment on another Word of Creation." Red had managed to comprehend Hope, which I was very proud of him for.

I didn't know what he'd try for next of the three he might learn, but when I looked down at that Light of Souls, moved to a Life Diamond of startling size and purity, suddenly I had a real good idea.

"Justice," I could barely whisper it, but a thousand tiny lines of runefire lit up inside the glittering stone as every shattered soul within burned with the knowledge of what had been done to them!

"Oh, very fuck yes," Sama purred, all eight canines on display.

"This is a Judgment Gem Upon the Light. Anyone wielding the magic of the Lords of Light is going to find themselves horrendously vulnerable to this little rock and the faithful, betrayed souls inside it."

"Isn't that just like a Hag. Take a great tool of the enemy, and make it their greatest nightmare." Curse Magic at its finest, especially when based upon Justice and true betrayal! Sama just glanced at me once, a wild fury in her eyes that flared and vanished.

"I'm gonna mount these things in the skulls of those Sages who took the others. Let's see what a combined Judgment Gem and Dreadskull does to The Lords of Light when it comes time to fight!" I could only smile. When Sama got nasty ideas, she just ran with them!

"I know you killed two of the bastards. What about the rest?" She flicked up four fingers.

"Wu Zenshi in China, the Ghost Moth Sage. Pavi Anjaesilim in India, the Many Wonders Sage."

"Anjaesilim?" I repeated, blinking. That was the Sage who, along with the Sama-deceased Sage DuPont, was responsible for the disaster at Bophal?

"He never would have made Sage without the help of the Church, nor..." Sama flicked her hand twice, and two more Light of Souls were placed gently on the table to the side of her, "would these have been made without him." I glared at the things. Souls of the dead from the disaster at Bophal, obviously!

"The Synod got the Curia to do the dirty work, the Curia claimed it eagerly, and the Synod profited all around," I mused, staring at them as she put them back away in her Portable Hole.

"Is there any wonder we love them so much?"

"Two of them were made by Jehudiel personally. One of the jobs of him and his Whispers was to go to war zones, like ongoing littoral raids, and sit there like leeches collecting the souls of the faithful who fell. Uriel made one off a massacre in Brazil he oversaw. The rest are collections from various times and places by assorted Angels or Archangels." I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"I imagine a lot of this came out while I was down below, aye?"

"Nobody sane is going to bug you when you are concentrating like that," Sama confirmed, continuing to mess with the crystal at microscopic levels.

"Also, I love telling you, so that when I say that you don't get to handle ANY of them, I can see your expression!"

"Hmmph!" I looked away in frustration, and she just grinned. Yeah, we had other people who could handle this stuff. But emotionless shit from the Church of Light? Those bastards deserved everything that was coming to them!

"The other Archmages who partook?"

"Funny thing. Three of them have fled to Rome, and the other two were captured and are under guard by their host countries. Britain and Finland, respectively."

"The Duke of Grafton?" I hazarded. There'd been some talk floating around the Markspace of him going missing.

"That's the one. The Brits are already looking really hard into his affairs, and not liking what they are finding."

"Surprise, surprise. There's only two Sages in Finland, and only one with the Light Element. The Witchlight Sage..."

"They found a Soul Jar in her possession with the souls of thousands of faithful Finns who died in the littoral raids. They were not impressed by her explanations."

"And so the ants fight amongst themselves, while the great Powers clap at their antics and are amused..." I remonstrated.

"I was also the one who told Miss Afione. It's one thing to be told your Church is doing wrong and has betrayed you, and another to be confronted with ten thousand screaming faithful souls harvested to become a drink to enslave a Sage.

"She cried for ten minutes. She really is a sweet person, and had no idea they were doing anything like this," Sama growled softly, pausing to pick up the Jewel and stare at it. Infinitesimal lines of Runes seemed to pulse and stare back at her.

"This one is for me and Tremble. I'm going to be reaping Archangels with it.

"The one made by Uriel is going to the Avenging Heavens Sage. The former Gabriel is determined to kill him with it." Which actually meant, Don't you go squishing him when Miss Afione can have a proper dramatic show-down and beat his ass with the Silver Magic you taught her.

"You are such a miserable Hag, stealing all the FUN stuff to do!" I whined, throwing up my hands. She Cackled knowingly, her eyes staring back at ten thousand souls staring at her, waiting for some proper justice!

"Good that you realize that!" she agreed with great grim cheer, her eyes glowing with reflected Rune magic. She did, however, chin-wave my way.

"You gonna want one of these things?" While I would have dearly liked to have one and administer proper Justice for the souls inside, I slowly shook my head.

"I don't need one. Give them to the people who do." Sama nodded solemnly, glancing as I laid the one Light of Souls I had on the table for her to take.

"These people are going to find some champions all too happy to avenge them and show the Light they ain't all that." And since I only wanted to be one of them, I had no problems with that at all.

"Convenient they are all heading to the same place, then?" I asked, not being a total idiot. Sama's smile grew even more merciless.