Chapter 235: 232. Muddled Pools

Year 235

The vassal wars raged on, and the long war drained both the many defending kingdoms, and also the merchant guilds. 

The larger merchant guilds, even with their greater risks on the Central Continent, still commanded respectable market power and thus were able to continue to fund the war.

It helped that the central continent was far more prosperous, and with higher populations. The prospects of achieving greatness conquering other continents led to some uncomfortable propaganda, which I asked my spies to quietly suppress. 

The smaller merchant guilds were feeling the strain on their finances, thus, began to sought out some financial assistance from the larger guilds, and that led to a string of ‘takeovers’ by the larger merchant guilds.

It felt like I was witnessing the start of the conglomerates, as smaller entities began cobbling together into a larger whole. 

A [Guildmaster]’s [Skills] and [Abilities] interacted in guilds and corporations in the same way as a [King’s] skill, but it clearly strained with the massive number of members. We spied a few instances where certain skills ran into limits. 

Most times, hitting those limits triggered class evolutions. The [merchant kings] and [Guild Kings] emerged as an upgrade, to reflect the growing power of the guildmasters over their members. 

Their powers were stronger on the weaker members, but less so on stronger, higher leveled members. This matched my own control over my Valthorns. 

With souls, what mattered is the gap in levels. The higher the level, the stronger the soul’s ability to withstand outside influence. So it’s fair to say, I have fairly little actual ability to ‘force’ anyone above level 100 to do what I say, though I do have the weight of the entire institution behind me, which often compels them to obey. 

As the guilds expanded, we also observed the guild’s have upgrades of the typical [administrator] classes to [executive] and [manager] classes. 

To be fair, the massive Valtrian Order as an institution already had [manager] and [executive] classes for quite some time, so these weren't totally new, but it was just interesting to note that the guilds finally got them too.

The powers of [contracts] were heavily invoked, and [Guild Contracts] that served as the foundation of alliances in their outward war.

Kings and nations had the ability to form alliances, and sign contracts with each other for a while, but the nature of kings meant, under the system, they existed above petty [contracts]. The [King] class, due to the feudal nature of being above mere men, refused to bow to a [contract].

So, normal [contracts] died when they reached a [king]. Thus, alliances of kings, based on trusts and relationships, were frail, brittle, and prone to abrupt dissolutions. 

That was not the case for a [guildmaster]. A well written normal [contract] was a chain that a guildmaster cannot easily shed, unless his class changed. 

A guild, by constitution, exists because the law permits it to exist. A guildmaster could never be above laws and contracts. Thus, each guild is bound by [contracts], even if their members could leave the guild. Leaving a [guild] usually imposed penalties, even if temporary. 

So, the ascension of their members to Kings, led to some interesting shenanigans, and vulnerabilities. 

A [merchant king] and a [guild king] did not have the ability to shrug off the law or the contract as easily as normal kings. In short, they were inferior. 

Our observations of their abilities also soon revealed they were weaker than the typical king, at the same level of power. 

Last year we noticed some guilds experimenting on cults, as an attempt to shore up loyalties, especially when faced with fanatics from the other continents.

The need to increase loyalties was magnified by the increasingly united defenses of the four temples. The four temples selected high leveled kings and queens, and backed them strongly. They engineered mergers of the smaller kingdoms into the larger kingdoms.

It surprised me that the temples were willing to do so. They’ve never mounted a coherent response against the demon kings, but were strangely united when invaded. 

Still, the merger of the kingdoms, and the quasi-holy state of these now larger kingdoms created class upgrades for the defenders. 

It was my first encounter with the [Holy Emperor] and [Holy Empress] classes. 

I’ve never managed to actually create [Emperor] classes, despite collecting multiple [King] classes over the decades. Just like mages, there were some strange things about these royal and noble classes. 

The first [Holy Emperor] of the Southern Continent rose to the throne of the empire as the first of kings, cobbled together from twenty-two separate kingdoms. A union forged by the church of Gaya and the church of Hawa, they initiated a grand ceremony to invoke the greater blessings of Gaya and Hawa. 

They merely hoped to upgrade the chosen king’s class to that of a [blessed king], but I suspect because of the scale of the land and followers involved, and perhaps a bit of desperation, they somehow created a [holy emperor]. 

I watched and felt the moment when the King’s presence warped and changed, from a set of trees within the palace’s compound. The first [Holy Emperor]. 

“On this great day, we, the archpriests of Gaya and Hawa, grant and bestow all of the blessings we could muster upon King Erranuel, for the great Erranuel shall be a king above kings, and lead our combined empire against the foul advances of the greedy guilds.” The archpriests of the two temples declared, and I felt a great power emerge from within that Erranuel.

His voice changed, as if he had the force of the gods behind him. I knew it wasn’t, but to any lesser man, it would certainly feel as if one was standing before a god. His body suddenly radiated an incredible oppressive aura.

He was silent for a moment, as that strange twisting presence settled. 

“I am [Holy Emperor] Erranuel, and I evoke the [Emperor’s Edict]. We wage a holy [crusade] against the guilds and the foul enemies that lead them from the shadow.” 

His followers throughout the continent experienced a sudden surge of power, which we estimate to be close to a ten level boost. A blessing, the [Fury of the Crusaders]. At the same time, an [Emperor]'s blessing was stronger than a [King], and I witnessed the empire’s financial and economic might seem to improve out of nowhere. 

The retaliation of the new Holy Empire of Erranuel, as the ten level boost seemed to compensate for the technology and level drawbacks they faced against the guilds. 

The weaponization of faith forced the guilds and the [merchant kings] to adapt, and try to develop their own. 

I thoroughly disallowed the use of my faith in the conquest. Anyone who did was promptly punished, and thus, the guilds had to seek out other faiths, or in their case, invent their own. 

The guilds then found a fundamental issue with faith, especially one that sought to elevate a single person into some kind of reincarnation or blessed by the gods. 

A guild is a union of various merchants, working together, thus, each merchant has a stake, a shareholder. Due to the fractured ownership, these merchant guilds had structured ways of decision making, almost every guild often resolved and made decisions through committees and councils, and a guildmaster was often elected from the merchants themselves, even if he was the leader.

But a King was different. A King was not ‘elected’ from a selection of merchants. It was not the nature of the [class]. Not in this world. 

Mixing the feudal structure of a king with the enterprising, raucous nature of the guilds. Then add the worship and idolatry present in cults, and that made things complicated.

One of those elements would prevail in the end. For better or for worse.

Some guilds tried to make things into a two-tier system, where the cultish behaviors and messaging was applied only at the lower levels. This seemed to be the smartest solution from some of the guilds.

In some guilds, the feudal elements they introduced proved too strong, and these guilds then faced strong factionalism between those who wanted to hold onto the guild’s more ‘democratic’ roots, and those who converted into a master-servant relationships with the kings.

In others, the cults did bring in loyalty, but again, gnawed at the corporate structure. The ordinary methods of guild decision making were abandoned, and the cult leaders became those who could do no wrong. It was a slippery slope that many merchants didn’t even see coming. After all, even in ordinary guilds, there were always dominant figures. 

As a result of the fraying internal forces of the guilds, and the stronger, united response from the defenders, the vassal wars that were fairly one sided all this while, began to seem more ‘balanced’. For now, the guilds still had advantage. Tremendous financial advantages, seemingly limitless manpower due to the central continent’s stability and prosperity, and better quality equipment meant many guilds still held onto their conquered territories.

The four temples, rushed to replicate the creation of the [holy emperor] in the Northern Islands, the Eastern Continent and the Western Continents respectively. They succeeded in creating two more. 

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***

With the Valtrian Order, there were a lot of discussions about the latest developments. For my senior Valthorns, most understand my position that the conflicts of the world are irrelevant. 

People fight wars all the time. It’s not for me to step in, unless they crossed the red lines. For most part, wars remain feudal wars where two armies meet on some battlefield. My Valthorns, as far as I could tell, understand that these empires would fade in time, and they all recognize the progress being made on defending the world from the demons. 

But the question of “When is Aeon going to do something about this?” just gets ever so loud, and my priests had to go on overdrive to explain my inaction to the general populace and the increasingly unhappy nobility. 

The heroes were not unaffected by the war either.

Some of them maintained small kingdoms, and harems. For now, the guilds were smart enough to avoid attacking them, since that was suicide. A hero could level a kingdom overnight. 

Instead, the guilds approached the heroes for tech. They offered to pay them for hero-items. Superweapons to deploy against the other side. 

I had to step in and stop the transaction, and reminded the heroes that they shouldn’t get involved. 

The heroes didn’t quite like it at first, since it meant they didn’t get big amounts of money, but they understood that hero items would be tools of mass slaughter. That wasn’t the reason why hero items were made. They were designed to be emergency tools, not super weapons meant for conventional warfare. Even defensive hero items meant the defenders could have a solid base for expansions and counterattacks. So, the only winning move was to not sell hero items. 

The heroes also got tremendous pressure from the four temples, demanding that they support the defenders with hero items. The temples argued that their powers, their presence in the world was all because of the gods, and so they should support the [holy emperor] in their crusade.

Again, the only possible move was to abstain. 

At this point, it was increasingly clear that if the defenders win decisively, a retaliation and a crusade against the central continent was almost a certainty. 

Buoyed by the high of winning, they would try to reassert their strength, as vengeance. 

***

I asked my domain holders privately what they would do, if placed in the current situation. Edna sighed. “I’ve been actually getting that question from my knights’ order. Many are itching for a fight.” 

“An unnecessary fight.” Lumoof said. “But this war seemed to have helped create more high level individuals on both sides of the conflict.” 

“That’s a horrible thing to say when people die.” Stella cursed. “Aeon, you should stop it. Wars are bad.”

Stella, as an earthling, naturally didn’t think wars are a good thing. People died, even if the death wasn’t as crazy. This was simply because of the conventional nature of these feudal-type wars. 

Killing citizens that produced goods, operated the mines and generated resources the conquerors needed didn’t seem like a good idea. Too much death in a certain area tends to generate death energy which triggers the spawn of undead and ghosts, and creates cursed lands. 

This still wasn’t the world of bombs and missiles, even if there were some equivalent-tier weapons. Mages, even if they seemed like they were everywhere, were not so many that they could use their abilities without restraint. 

Alka shrugged. “It’s appropriate to remind everyone that our goal is stopping the demons for good. If this leads to that goal, indirectly, by leveling everyone, I say that it’s fine to leave with it.”

“Surely there are better ways to level people up than wars!” Stella protested. 

“On a large scale, without a large institution that we have to control?” Alka responded. “Wars are the best way. Second best are demonic incursions into our worlds.”

“Maintaining an institution of that size would be better than this.” Stella said, and then eventually, she had a long sigh. “It just sucks that the sheer presence of levels and magic meant the playing field would never be equal, and so the concept of equality frankly is laughable. It’s like trying to say a fish is equal to a man.”

“Exactly. On some scale, this is just the natural order of conflict. Your world may have the concept of equality, but it exists only within humans. Can a human ever be equal to an alien with far superior strengths and intellect? Can a human ever be equal with a dolphin or a lion? There must be some kind of shared understanding in order for equality to exist, and to some extent, a narrow range of abilities. With such great ability differences, it is only normal that kingdoms value the level 100 general way more than the level 10 soldier. Because they are NOT the same.” 

“So large power gaps create feudal societies.” Stella cursed. “But I suppose you are right. A chicken farm, even in the millions, cannot prevent man from chopping them off. A higher being with far greater intellect than ours would consider our intelligence no more than that of a farm-raised chicken, and thus would slaughter us for food if they find us tasty.”

“Thus, it is not beyond Aeon to consider Aeon’s decision as the equivalent of a human watching two large armies of ants slaughtering each other. Does a human stop ants from fighting?”

“But these ants could one day grow into something on Aeon’s level.”

“And only then, will Aeon treat them as another of them.”

Stella scratched her hair, and Edna sighed. “I don’t quite like that.” 

“Choices have consequences, Stella. The choices of the guilds, and the choices of the kingdoms.” Lumoof intervened. “Our goal is to enforce the scope of engagement, to limit the damage. Let the children duke it out in the sandpit.”

The knight commander nodded in agreement. “That, we will do.”

***

Stella, of course, was soon distracted by other pursuits. She and a group of void archmages were now on Cometworld, hoping to figure out how to manipulate the Cometworld’s trajectory through the void sea. 

It’s not an easy task. It certainly doesn’t have any clues.

My attempts to quiz and communicate with the Will of Treehome was greeted with nothing. It had returned to sleep. The other domainholders had no clue either.

So, we had to experiment. 

The void mages tried injecting void mana into the world, or into the void sea. They suspected that manipulating the void sea was probably how ‘worlds’ drifted on them, so they tried using techniques similar to the astral tunnels created by the demons, and use the tunnels as some kind of oar. 

Then, a group of void mages observing the Cometworld would then monitor for any shifts against expected trajectory.

Nothing.

They tried different shapes of those void tunnels, or more power. 

They weren’t sure what they needed, even if we knew what was the end goal. For now, they had to keep on experimenting. 

It’s possible that we may not be able to control a world without the Will of the World, perhaps via a system. If that is the case, we would need to create a new domain holder who is able to merge with the Will of the World, and then send that world on a suicide mission.

That seemed like a far more daunting and horrifying prospect. 

The void mages didn’t give up, though.