The Power of Ten: Book One: Sama Rantha, and Book Two: The Far Future

I could imagine it, and then I could see and feel it; the Emperor’s reaction when suddenly every single timestream he was looking at was wiped clean, superseded by something He didn’t possibly think could happen.

Naturally, he was an inhumanly fast thinker, and was able to rapidly go back to the point where everything was lost, and then what was going to happen.

His Will came down to grab at the Thronebreaker Keystone just a wee bit too late, realized it, and then could only claw for the personal power to protect Himself as the Thronebreakers blew.

Precise subatomic-level forcewaves poured into all the right stress points on the Crystal Throne, and blew them apart. This naturally disrupted the flow of power through the Crystal Throne, as well as the containment of the souls, and then the Sunburst Effect, fueled by all that leaking power in the Throne, lit off, with just that hint of Vivus to make things final.

This was a 20d8 blast, Topped off for 160 points of damage to every undead within range, and to every trapped soul, with a +1d6 kicker of Vivus to make things final.

The Light swept through the Imperial Palace, and the billions upon billions of undead, necroborgs, and Death Legionnaires there, and through and then out into the many Portals into Gloom manned by millions of other undead.

The Crystal Throne gave forth The Light, as the negative energy inside it burned, and collapsed in its entirety.

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Our psions would see it every bit as quickly as the Demon Princes would. The Celestial Beacon, that incredible, unbelievably powerful display of the Emperor’s eternal might, collapsing in a raw rush of vivus, and the ignition of trillions of souls setting off a great firestorm in the Warp.

As one, the Princes turned their fleets and hurtled for the Sol System, knowing that now was the time and the moment to get their revenge.

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The Emperor didn’t die, and neither did His most elite troops. But over ninety percent of them had, and the necrotech power sources he had put into the place had ignited and exploded, depowering huge swathes of the Imperial Palace’s defenses.

He stood up from where He had been blasted against the wall, the stained stone blasted purest white, save for a stretch of darkness where The Light had slammed Him back, held Him, but was unable to complete the job.

I clambered up out of the rumbling pit where the Crystal Throne had sat, and was now rumbling and roaring continuously as it collapsed, eaten away from within, and fracturing into inert quartz crystal veined with glowing impurities from the residual psychic energies ripping it apart.

His eyes glowed like black stars as He stared at me from the other end of the room. He might have been just a little bit pissed at me, and He certainly wasn’t going to mistake me and my swirling cloak of scarlet hair for anyone else.

I didn’t say anything. I looked up at the new hundred-meter hole now bored through a quarter-mile of tempered durasteel, now showing the stars outside wheeling past.

Chalice hummed, and I Linejumped away.

The Interdiction couldn’t stop me, and I wasn’t going to fight Him and His surviving minions alone. That was a sure ticket to death, and I had taken the game this far with great patience. I wasn’t going to throw it away quite yet.

I didn’t throw off a pithy one-liner, because there was no need to. I was going to be back, and He knew it.

In the meantime, He had to get on the ball and transfer as many troops from his little graveworlds across the remnants of the Imperial Sector, because His kids were coming, and they were calling for blood!

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I stopped one light-second away, which got me past the Interdiction effect around the Palace, now wonderfully accentuated by the much stronger Veil resulting from trillions of burning souls.

His incorporeal Spirit Host, probably the single most terrifying thing to any mortal force that had to go up against him, was basically gone like a bad dream. Five or six thousand years of plotting had gone up in The Light, and the fucktard deserved every bit of it.

But if His kids thought He was done, wow, they were indeed stupid.

Half of the rebelling Princes had died before the rest fled. What exactly did they think the Emperor had done with them? Let them rot? Burned them?

Oh, no, no, no. It was almost a certainty that the living brothers were going to run into their undead kin, and they had better be prepared for it.

I cut open a random Portal to Gloom, and stepped out onto the center of a shadowy plain with nothing nearby... except some fanged, tusked, horned grass-eating shade-beast that decided charging me would be a good idea.

Chalice shed two notes as I turned to glare at the elephant-sized, umbral-infused beast, annoyed at having to put up with its shenanigans.

Tremble...

The ground quivered, the grass laid flat, the shadows were chased away in terror all around me, leaving me sitting instantly in a patch of white as the Rift behind me sealed up.

The beast desperately dug in its feet, tearing up ridges of loamy soil whose particles refused to get any closer to me when they got into the air. Deep furrows ripped through the dirt as it ground to a halt with nearly-lethal effort, staring at me in total shock, nearly ready to fall over as I stared at it.

Soul Essence flowed into the Whiskers of the Wild. “Shoo,” I told it, staring up at its empty white eyes.

With agility impossible for something without neofluid flesh, it spun and raced away for all it was worth, howling a deep and very carrying cry that carried for miles and miles as it did so.

The other creatures around promptly turned and fled just as fast as it did when they heard the sound. That kind of fear just doesn’t happen every day, after all.

Chalice hummed again as she drew PP’s from me; a Teleport folded around me, and whisked me away to Spidey Base One.

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Celestia was there waiting as I popped in on the Greater Focus there. We bumped hips, Marks connected, and the blessed silence inside my head was replaced with a few tens of billions of people eager to know what had happened and how things had gone. My social thoughtstream cheered and immediately went out to catch up on all the gossip, while the rest of my head started fielding specific requests.

I dumped it out there for general review before anyone could ask, a zillion minds went all over the data, and exulted at my final view of those crystal bones with utter darkness fluttering in their marrow staring at me as I got away.

Yes, the fucker deserved everything that had been done to Him, and what was coming.

The Legionnaires were going apeshit on the Warped in their Worlds, while the Thunder Companies were actually operating in Gloom and finding no end of Warped or undead to shoot there, either. Unlike the normal Legions, they were fully Geared to take that shit on, in both personal skills and Gear. The Legions had a lot of work to do to get where the Thunder Legion was now... and the Thunder Legion wasn’t going to stand still, either.

On the other hand, they knew better than to run off and face the Emperor, too.

I skated through Spidey Base One, casually moving as fast as most of the ground cars would, turning my eyes to the refit docks over there.

The Dojo was being refit once more, moving from White Fleet status to ass-kicking the Warp and Undead status. Mom’s Finder was sitting right next to it, getting a few things swapped out, and making space for some Natural Gunners to do some real damage.

There were going to be a LOT of Ranthas in the fight that was coming up. A lot of human Tens and higher, too, probably more than had ever gathered in one place in the Galaxy, ever.

Fighting juiced-up undead made from the best fighters in the Empire for millennia, the elite fighting forces of the Demon Princes, and doubtless loads of demons happy just to wreak havoc on everything; only the best and most Geared of combatants were going to be allowed into this fight.

Among other things, that meant over ten thousand Coronal Knights, there to take on the undead that we were sure had been made from their predecessors. Umbrans, Mentats, even Mechanists of the God of the Machine in gleaming Angeltech mech-suits and walkers...

What there wasn’t was a sign of non-humans, as this was, in the end, a fight between three different factions of humanity. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t be paying careful attention, as there were literally thousands of them watching out the eyes of their chosen Ranthas at any given moment, and that could spike to millions if things got interesting. If they happened to be lending ever more eyes to Strategos to plot strategy, pick things out, and use prescience against our enemies for funsies, that was just how the ball bounced.

There were occasional salutations from those passing, but seriously, there were so many Ranthas around that I didn’t really stand out. I was always Right There in Markspace, my physical presence was just a startling occurrence to most people, as I could be halfway across the galaxy and feel like I was right next to them most of the time.

Millions, billions, trillions of people moving, praying. A quadrillion and more of undead sent off to feed the Land. Gods and titans taking notice from places beyond the mortal world.

Even the Warp was roiling in some agitation. Excitement? Nervousness? Could the Warp Gods even picture that this might be the event that broke them?

They couldn’t die, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be broken. It was time for them to lose their marbles, and feel things that they never imagined they could.

It was going to be so sweet when they got tossed into the Abyss and were just one of the minor players there. Or maybe Azathoth would take them as a snack, who knew? That was beyond my pay scale.

I was just setting the stage for the final play.

Briggs wasn’t bothering to gather the fleet in any one place, because why? Markspace meant instant communication and coordination, no matter where what was gathering. The ships were getting worked on right up until the last moment... or staying on station in certain systems to stare down those who might be having violent ideas.

Not that such was as much of an issue anymore. The Emperor had everyone’s attention, and if we were going to be the ones to take Him down, stopping us from doing so was silly... not that opportunists wouldn’t be true to form.

But if we could take on the Emperor, we could certainly take on them. That thought did manage to percolate through some of their orange and blue logic processes, and self-preservation did its thing even for ageless beasties.

But the Celestial Tribute would be there, and so would the Dojo. The final pieces were moving, the board was up and tight with the last of the players, and it was time to bring things together... and hopefully the Emperor wouldn’t run away in the meantime.