So, The City was attacked…
Multiple dead corrupted humanoids invaded The City, blowing themselves up in a similar fashion to our guy, filling the place with toxic gas. Thousands died. Tens of thousands.
I mourned their death, I shed tears at the loss of so many innocent Souls. The news came days too late, and so all those Souls were wasted, dispersing into the air without being used.
A tragedy.
Needless to say, the Clan leaders were pissed. They suffered a direct attack on their soil, at the seat of their power. Considering how many Sky Realm Cultivators they had guarding the place, that was a direct slap in the face by the Drow. It showed them they were not as untouchable as they thought.
While they managed to contain the spread of toxic miasma quite quickly, the damage was already done. A great chunk of the outer City was completely destroyed. Stone structures were melted, corpses littered the streets, and large craters marked the once beautiful landscape.
I predicted the conflict would only escalate from there until one side was thoroughly decimated. And indeed, I was proven right.
It all started a few days later when thousands of Cultivators flew above our heads toward the Drow territory. I was busy staring at the newly formed toxic lake near our base when it happened.
At first, I thought it was a flock of birds, but then I realized they were all people. Strong, seasoned warriors who flew in a formation. They were going relatively slow, but the presence they gave off was anything but weak. Instinctively, I knew I couldn't take them all at once. Not even close.
Still, when I saw a group of them split off and head towards the direction of the Eclipse, my thoughts changed.
I slipped into the subspace and teleported on top of the Eclipse, crossing my arms and staring at the approaching group defiantly. The meaning was clear: The weapon is mine. Fuck off.
Beneath the Eclipse was a giant symbol of the Brotherhood that I burned into the landscape, and it was clearly visible from the sky. My clothes also carried the same symbol, so after a few moments of us holding a staring contest, the group turned around and rejoined the formation.
It was a good choice on their part because I was totally ready to start beef with The City over the Eclipse. It was mine, and nobody was allowed to touch it without my permission. Those who did were already dead. Most of them, anyway.
I looked down at another pile of corpses growing around the Eclipse. Some died by touching it, others were killed by those who died. There were always more fools who thought they could just take my stuff. No amount of warning deterred them from doing so.
I returned to the toxic lake.
The gases, being heavier than air, did not disperse and instead settled in the crater. The bottom layer of rock melted into a sort of sticky black goo that was just as toxic as the gases themselves, just less corrosive. Good thing too, because otherwise, the thing would just keep melting deeper into the ground.
There was so much of those gases and toxic goo, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to deal with it. For the moment, it just sat there, not doing anything. The gas was a deep green color, so there was no fear of anyone missing it.
Everyone in the Brotherhood knew about it, so that was not a concern. Actually, after thinking about it, I decided I was not willing to deal with all that shit and decided to leave it there. It became just another layer of defense for our base. Problem solved.
As for the war between human Cultivators and the Drow, I kind of wanted to get involved, but not really. I wanted the Souls, but the giant mess I would get myself into to collect them didn't seem worth it. The conflict was spread over a large area, so at most, I would get a small fraction of what was there.
I did observe from a distance, though. I flew high up, many tens of kilometers into the sky, and then zoomed in. It was quite far, and there was an atmospheric disturbance that slightly blurred the picture, but I was able to see the distant explosions just fine.
The conflict dragged well into the night, and while the two sides fought a bloody battle, my clones were busy producing more golem cores. I doubled my production capacity, and I was already close to two hundred Seeds in just a few short days.
I was quickly starting to run out of materials, though. The cores suitable for the Seeds had to be small but powerful, and the Souls required to operate a golem needed to be at least in the early stages of the Spirit Realm.
In the following days, I exhausted all the ingredients, but my Seed count rose to just over 250. Each core was the size of a basketball, so they were not small, but they packed one hell of a punch. They could each do only one of my beams and then be completely exhausted, but the combined firepower was crazy!
I had my own firing squad. A whole company of fiercely loyal automatons. If the Drow wanted a fight, I say bring it.
***
John whistled. "That's quite an army. Planning to take over the world?"
[Later. I'm not strong enough, yet.] I replied as I watched over the lines of rock golems rising from the desert ground. It was quite an amazing sight. There were so many of them, my heart fluttered a bit with excitement.
John slowly turned, staring at me. "I was joking…" He said with a deadpan expression.
Well, I was not.
"What do you plan to do with them anyway? A hundred was already overkill, but now this? What are you expecting to fight, the entire Drow empire?"
[An Empire for sure, I just don't know which one it's going to be.] I turned to John. [Remember that guy who tried to steal the Eclipse?]
"The Hei Yu guy? What about him?"
[I told you where he came from, right? The Holy Phoenix Empire? I almost killed one of their Grand Elders. Do you think they will just let that slide?]
John frowned. "I sure hope so. Those freaks are not to be messed with."
[You know about them?]
"A bit, yeah."
[You've got to tell me about that, man. You've been here longer than me, you know stuff.]
"I thought you would know? You absorbed so many memories…" John countered my demands.
[It's not that simple. Oftentimes, such knowledge is not considered important by the people, so it's really hard to find. I can't spend days looking through the entire life of a person. I'm mostly just skimming the surface thoughts and then digging deeper for Cultivation knowledge and stuff. Politics and geography are the last things I look at. If I ever do.] I explained.
"Fine, fine, I'll tell you what I know, but not now. Look. What are those?" He said, pointing.
I looked where he was looking and saw a familiar figure marching towards us. Actually, it was many similar creatures. I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes to make sure I was not just seeing things. I even scanned for illusions or mind-altering magic. But, no, it was all real, and I was thoroughly confused.
[What… What the hell are Orcs doing here?!]