The situation was tense.

Battle had gradually relaxed as priorities shifted from getting first to a new position to holding that position. Since each side was doing so, the skirmishes reduced to potshots reduced to hostile glaring.

Both John’s forces and the Azure Tribe had decided to take up position in the northeastern quadrant of the new stretch of the Glory Road. If they had known about each other, they probably would have tried to be more aggressive in claiming the territory. There had been a hundred metres of dense jungle between them, however, and both sides had taken precautions not to be seen that were only counteracted by the time they had the basic fortifications up.

By that point, neither side was willing to give up their position, resulting in their current predicament. Where forest had been between them, there was now a no man’s land filled with craters and scorch marks. Arcane energy hung in the air, never allowed to fully disperse, as both sides sent the occasional volley of attacks towards their enemy.

John had sheer firepower on his side in this engagement. The Azure Tribe had preparation and numbers. Some kind of mana shield generator was keeping their encampment secure. On John’s side, Gnome was reinforcing and expanding the walls. They still chose to locate their actual chambers underground, spread out by lengthy tunnels like a human-sized ant burrow.

All this long range harassment did was keep the other side on their toes though. Short of a full engagement, they wouldn’t be able to dislodge each other. ‘Guess this is just the next 24 hours,’ he thought.

“This was awesome!” Rave wandered into the room. The feline Lightbearer had been skirmishing for as long as had been available to her.

“For once, I agree fully,” John said. “Except for the part where I had a hand in my ribcage.”

“You got better,” his first fiancée joked and hopped onto the couch. “What level do you think Glory is at?”

“Like 900?” John answered. “That was completely ridiculous and I believed him when he said he was still holding back somewhat. So was Xipe-Totec though.”

“I love all about this.” Index and middle finger of the pink haired woman tapped over the Gamer’s naked collarbone. “So, Sally and Sylph are still above ground?”

“Yup,” John groaned.

The fingers wandered down his sternum. “And Aclysia is in the kitchen?” Another confirming grunt. “Scarlett, Hailey, in their workshop?”

“Gnome is still helping them shape it up,” John detailed.

The fingers had made it to his navel by now. Like an Olympic jumper, they gathered speed and then leapt up to the white head currently bobbing in the Gamer’s lap. Ehtra reacted to the touch with a moan. A second, deeper one followed when Rave clawed into the low-braided white mane and began to guide the up and down of the grey angel’s bobs.

“Where did ya leave Undine, Siena and Momo?” Rave asked.

“Taking a bath, taking a stroll, reading a book,” John listed quickly, then groaned again when the tongue of his current submissive worked the underside of his shaft. “God, Ehtra, you’ve become really good at this,” he complimented her.

The First of Hatred was too engaged in the serving mindset to react with her usual bashful disdain. Instead, she redoubled her effort. John’s head slowly tilted back, while she sucked on his cock as if trying to get his soul alongside the cum that pumped up his shaft.

Almost a minute of him and Ehtra dwelling in climax later, the grey angel cleaned his cock off and then sat on the ground. She panted, swallowed, and blinked, visibly focusing on getting out of the horny mood. “Hope that was all you needed, Master?” she asked, a hint in her voice that she hoped the answer would be no.

“For now,” John answered, to both of their disappointment. Soft vibrations shook the chamber. They were more than ten metres below the surface, but Salamander throwing meteorites left a harsh impact. “In an hour or two, both sides will get tired of throwing things randomly and then we’ll have some quiet.”

“They should know their place.” Ehtra rose from the moss-covered ground and planted her butt in a similarly cushioned seat Gnome and Undine had created by manipulating plant seeds. “All of this is a waste of time. Can your people have less bothersome traditions?”

“How do you say, uhm…” Nahua, who had been sitting in the corner of the room, looked up from the smartphone, smiled, and then answered, “No.”

“Tsk.” Ehtra clicked her tongue, then directed her eyes to the Gamer. “And what is so important you made me sit like a normal woman again?”

“Prefer to be treated like a sex slave?” the Gamer wondered.

The First of Hatred tugged at the tip of one of her side braids, directing her gaze to him and back. “I know what I like,” she said.

“Like your large breasts?”

The dark-skinned maid pressed her lips together. No answer was given, which was already more than the usual denial. “Answer my question, insolent Master,” she demanded instead, arms crossed under the pair of squishy mounds.

“I am putting together a threat table,” the Gamer answered. “And I want to have that sorted first. Also, I have a Class Level to get and then we have to decide what to do with the next 24 hours.”

“What does that threat table look like?” Rave wanted to know and so John pulled out his smartphone to show her.

“To explain the numbers, I had used myself as the middle point on a 0 to 10 scale. 0 is ‘couldn’t kill me even if I did absolutely nothing to stop them’ and 10 is ‘I can’t conceive of a way where I would win a 1vs1 situation’. I decided to use this instead of levels since I can only guess at those for most of our enemies.”

Rave was scanning the table and soon so were Ehtra and Nahua. “If I sold you my virginity, would you give me more power?” the demigoddess asked simply.

The temptation was fleeting. A short moment of consideration that any man would have, immediately dispersed by his Wisdom, current sexual satisfaction, and abundance of available haremettes. “My bargain stands as it is. If we leave this situation as allies, I’ll give you the Stats.”

“According to these numbers, most of the enemy armies could defeat me and that’s, like, sooooo wrong,” Nahua pointed out. “Buuuuut, I guess even I am not enough of a ditz to get wrong that these are numbers for you, not for me.”

“You’re way more effective against many weak targets than me.” John was pretty confident that he could keep up with Nahua’s damage in any area situation, likely even exceed her. The problem there was that this cost him the same resource he used to fend off the volleys of attacks. Nahua, meanwhile, had her poison passively and would only spread more disease as they tried to get through her absurd Endurance.

“What are the colours for?” Rave asked.

“Degree of hostility,” John answered. “Obviously we are friendly to ourselves. Norahnon is adversarial but not ultimately an enemy. The Grim Reaper and the Azure Tribe are both enemies but I don’t think they want to kill us. The Aztecs, Xipe-Totec especially, will certainly gut us given the chance.”

“Blood must flow on sacred grounds,” Nahua said.

“Ya got typos,” Rave pointed out.

“If you find them, keep them,” John answered. “For now the biggest mysteries are the true extent of Norahnon’s ability and Ares. All the red rider has done so far is swing his giant sword around and be a physical menace. I don’t think that’s it. Even Famine had more abilities and apparently he’s the weakest of the three.”

“Could ask him?” Rave suggested.

“Tried that, but he’s not that forthcoming. He’s a dry-voiced smug asshole, but he’s not a traitor.” John tapped on the Azure Tribe next. “Fusing with pieces of Orkos has obviously given them quite the power boost. Singed is doubtlessly around your power level now. Karia I can only estimate is around the same level, maybe a bit stronger. Liakan worries me.”

“She fought Metra during the tournament, correct?” Ehtra asked. It had been just before he had contracted her, so she had only heard about this.

John nodded. “It wasn’t a particularly close fight, but neither was it easy for her. In a direct confrontation, Metra should still have the edge, but this whole situation is everything except direct.”

“Should we call for reinforcements?” Ehtra asked.

A quick shaking of his head answered that question. “By total power, we are the favoured party. If we call more people into this situation, everyone else may band against us. They won’t even need a formal alliance to do so, it’s just reasonable to gang up on the biggest threat. Plus, we still have Nia floating around.”

“Wonder when she will show up again?” Rave hummed. “She’s gotta get horny or hungry sometime, right?”

“It’s Nia, she’ll do what she wants,” John just waved off, then opened the next window for consideration.

John had crossed into the level 700 range three days ago, which had been an event without any fanfare. ‘Not that 700 is a particularly important number,’ he thought. ‘Just getting closer and closer to that max Level…’ He dismissed the window and then went to the Classes.

The choice was between Silver Arcanist and Tamer. Velka was slowly approaching her new level ceiling of 100. He did not have the luxury of sending the Magryph back home at the moment, so getting her even stronger may be advisable.

‘Unlikely that she will have the time to realize that level though,’ the Gamer thought and instead pressed on Silver Arcanist. It was the 8th Level in that Class, which also fulfilled the current Starforger requirement. That was for the next Class Level, though. For now, he had this selection to consider.

Rat Cage was still interesting. Argent Lance was probably alright. Neither offered John anything he couldn’t do in other ways. The Companion Cube did. With increased scaling it operated as another Ego Blade, except it could be respawned if shattered and he could use it to a vast number of other effects. Also, this was just John’s personal bias, it was just too cool having this object he could freely manipulate with his will.

Freeform magic was great.

John pressed the button. His first act of using the newfound flexibility of the Companion Cube was to turn it into a restricting harness that enveloped Ehtra. The silver construct of magical energy mimicked the shape and texture of leather well. In rapid succession, John switched from a harness to BDSM tape and then ropes. All of them worked nicely, although there were two restrictions. One was that the harness was one continuous piece, no matter how much John tried to emulate rings and straps. The second, more bothersome, restriction was none of the materials were flexible.

On his mark, Ehtra struggled against the bindings. She only needed to flex for a few seconds before shattering it all. The majority of the mana was dispersed harmlessly in the air. The biggest chunk of it all returned to John’s side, where it gradually regenerated. After 30 seconds, it was back to full capacity.

“I can work with this,” John decided. “Just got to treat it like glass or metal toys, rather than rubber or such.”

‘Was wondering if I would get something like this,’ the Gamer thought and read on through. The list of people he was asked to defeat was peculiar in a few ways. Glory and Liakan as the respective leaders of their factions made enough sense. He could only assume that Gaia was telling him that Malady was the strongest fighter in her faction. Why he had to defeat all three of the god-warriors was anyone’s guess.

Then, he went through the rewards.

Line by line, his eyes went down. One SEP was okay; a Legendary Weapon could fill one of the empty Hand Slots; Levels were never bad; another SEP put him back at 0, which was nice; Epic Crafting Materials he would take; and then there was 1 Mythical Ichor.

A Mythical Ichor.

The Gamer slowly but certainly began to grin. It was the same kind of grin he had worn earlier in the day. By his nature, John avoided unnecessary conflict. It was just unwise to seek out danger when it wasn’t needed, no matter how fun fighting may have been. If he was offered the most valuable upgrade material in the entirety of his system, well, then he had no other choice than to go on the offensive, right?

“Maybe it’s time I throw my weight around a bit,” the Gamer added a justification where none was really needed. He knew he wanted it. Whether this would be beneficial or detrimental to his reputation in the long term did not matter that much. He pressed on ‘Yes’ and then the decision was made.

“Yessssss,” Rave hissed, anticipating the fights that would come out of this as eagerly as he did.

“Why does it say we did not break the seal?” Ehtra complained. “We shed the most blood there, I am certain of it!”

“No idea, but let’s shed some more tonight.” The Gamer rubbed his chin. “Who to target first?”

Another explosion shook the room.

“I suppose that was a stupid question.” Reclining, he put his brain to work. Gazing at nothing in particular, he contemplated moves and countermoves. He half-noted Nahua staring wide-eyed at him across the room. He felt her awe. She respected strength and in this moment the whole of his mind was exchanging intel with its attachments like a server with its intranet through optic fibre. Those without the necessary faculties to keep up with the speed could only provide their own sensory data. Momo, Delicia, and (to a lesser degree) Undine weighed into his calculations actively, providing counterpoints to his plans. In the span of twenty seconds, they simulated every common outcome of the plans. Over the forty seconds after, they added a vast array of uncommon situations that could result. After that, they were lost in the minutiae of ifs and buts that not even the most erudite mind could predict.

Rave wrapped her arms around his neck. The pink-blue eyes of the cat girl were glassy from arousal. “Gaia, you’re sexy when ya sit there all pondery.”

“Usually, you just call me a nerd when it happens.”

“Usually, you don’t plan the most fun evening I’ve had since the Iron Domain,” Rave retorted and pressed a kiss on his neck. Hungry love bites got her up to his lips. At the same time, he pulled her over his lap. His cock ached to be inside her. Dripping wet lips rubbed against the tip. Her hand kept him steady. She descended. “Oh, tiger,” she moaned. “Ya planned with this in mind, yeah?”

John smirked. “We strike before dawn.”