Chapter 312: Day 682 (2) – A Plan
I had two options. The first option was to attack the Empire and the Divine Empress by extension. To weaken it and drag it down. To become a rebel and fight every moment of every day, with my life on the line to find some way to kill her.
That route was one of hardship and suffering. There was only a small chance of winning, and even that chance sounded more like wish thinking. Trying to crush an evil empire sounded great in the movies, but in reality, it was daunting. If I was stronger or matched evenly to the Divine Empress, then it feel realistic.
But one thing those movies didn’t convey was the sense of hopelessness. I could grind with the best of them, but fighting this Empire was a task of a lifetime. The only way to win was to kill the Divine Empress, which was completely impossible.
I had ideas that might get around her absurd stats, but none of them were that useful or practical if she survived that golden light explosion.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.
And that was the flip side. If she was dead, now would be the time to act to shatter her Empire and ensure another Empress or Emperor did not rise up in her place. It was headache inducing, with no good options.
On the other hand I could completely ignore the situation with the Divine Empress. No matter how powerful she was, she was just a single woman. There was an exponential curve to stats. In 200 days, she would earn about 18 billion points, maybe more with new cities under her control.
I could earn about 400 million points. That was about 4,000 stat points for me and about 18,000 more stat points for her if she had 180,000 stat points. I winced at those numbers. Even with the cost increase, she would still be massively out pacing me.
That was just counting her passive income from her cities. The tribute that endlessly rolled into her Forbidden City according to Bao Wang. That was the third option, steal all her crystals and then run away.
The problem was that at a certain point stealing crystals was like stealing large amounts of any kind of physical currency. Moving it would be a nightmare. Bao Wang had described how the tribute was carted to the city under guard, inspected, counted, and recorded.
It was then transferred to a massive vault to await the Divine Empress’s return to the city where she would take in all the points at once. One of the few allowed rumors, or at least tacitly approved of, was talking about how powerful and amazing the Divine Empress was.
This in turn led to talk of the tribute and everyone imagining the Divine Empress’s mega-vault that was constantly being filled with crystals. It was also a process to get everything out for her every time she returned. A massive assembly line was made to transport the crystals to the plaza so she should just stand there with her hands on a store pillar, cashing in chest after chest. That was the main time anyone besides her personal guards or her inner council actually saw her.
It was frankly ludicrous how much wealth she was accumulating. Hei Long, or Black Dragon. It truly was a fitting name for her and her massive treasure horde she kept.
It was impractical unless I killed everyone in the Forbidden City and her palace. Otherwise, there would be no way for me to cash in the crystals. Even if I did kill everyone, I would need to get people to move them all and allow me to cash them in. To make an assembly line for me.
But she was the property owner and would get an alert the moment a building was damaged. I had no doubt she would arrive, very, very quickly. Just like I would when Purgatory had been poked. If I wrecked her crystals and stole from her, I would be on her radar.
I had no worries about the Envoy suddenly turning up a lot stronger than he was previously. With the increasing cost of stat points, there was no way she would be willing to invest in anyone else with diminishing returns.
The fact he was second in the Empire was mind boggling to me with how many crystals she had. She just had to give a single day’s worth of crystals and he would be juiced on stat points. But she didn’t and he didn’t go behind her back.
The main worry I had was the Divine Empress herself and any traps she might have. Then there was the fact that her Capital city was level 5. The only city above level 3 in her evil empire. I was permanently demoting it from the Empire or Dragon Empire, to the evil empire for how poorly it was run.
It didn’t even deserve caps. The Divine Empress did, since she was the real threat. Her mooks and minions were nothing against me unless they pulled a Ritualist and used a trap to target me. But creativity had been crushed. So the only real traps were probably going to come from the Master Fleshcrafter, Inquisitor, or Chief Diviner.
Those were the people I had to be careful of in case they had crazy attacks. “So, no standing up to this Divine Empress?” Hope asked.
“Well, no one can stand up to her. Her stat points have reached ludicrous levels. Instead, I will get you started with some stat points, then we grind up. Around day 800 or 850, we go into her Empire and steal her treasury,” I said. Bao Wang looked like he was having a seizure with how wide his eyes went.
He muttered something in Chinese which I didn’t understand. “Really? You want to sneak-“
“Not sneak. I will confirm her absence, then a direct assault. I will raise the Forbidden City to the ground.” Then after that I would run right to the tower the Astrologer was trapped in. The only place I envisioned escaping the Divine Empress. Since the real Astrologer was inside and trapped in one apparently.
“Also, we take the vault.” I had been robbed enough times, that my plan to kill the Divine Empress was to give her a stroke from pure rage. Blow a blood vessel and just keel over. I knew that would never happen, but it was amusing to think about.
“You might have beaten me. But I have almost no stats. Her Envoy alone-“
I cut Bao Wang off again. “I have already fought the Envoy. We are evenly matched.” His mouth hung open like a fish before he slowly closed it, and he looked contemplative.
There were good reasons I was going to power level Bao Wang and Hope up. For Bao Wang, I wanted someone who could speak the language and know the procedures, where to go inside the evil empire. I considered this a way to pay his debt for all the crimes he had committed.
For Hope, she had stuck around and saved my life. I didn’t want that debt hanging over me. So, I would at least get her enough stat points she could survive and hide on her own. It would be hard, but it wouldn’t be impossible.
The tower would be the perfect place to escape to and lay low after the heist and I needed to go to the real Astrologer anyways. If I had 50,000 or so more stat points when I paid him a visit, I would feel a lot more confident about surviving any shenanigans he might try to pull. And there were going to be shenanigans, I had no doubt about that.
