I should have seen this coming... I really should have.
Sotis, I tend to forget the influences that these guys had back in their pasts and who exactly they were.
I was the summoner of the Tyrant Empress and the Pyre Saint. One was a Conqueror that made nations tremble and defeated the church by destroying an entire Empire.
The other was a Grand Inquisitor who slaughtered thousands for the sin of not believing in the King of Gods during the golden age of the church before the fall of the Zharic Empire.
Both operated on a continental scale. I had to ask myself how exactly I wanted to keep people who operated on continental scales in my pocket.
Not that my pocket was that big of a size.
But still... conquering a nation? More so, that was rely the beginning for them?!
I chuckled... it was dry.
"Wait, I think you need to calm down for a mont..."
Kassie tilted her head slightly. "And why would that be?"
I let out another dry laugh... this ti I was trying not to break.
"Conquer a nation? All for what exactly? I’m sorry if I may seem a little unambitious to you but I am not on so save the world shit... I rely want to—"
"You want to destroy the Eternal Light church..."
Kassie completed my words, her gaze pinning in place.
"Do you think you can do that while being small?"
Her question lingered in the air for a mont.
"Tell , summoner. Do you think you can defeat an organization that dictates the movents of entire kingdoms... alone?"
I forced a laugh and looked at the two of them.
"What, are you both going sowhere? Besides, I have three more villainesses waiting for . Who knows what type of catastrophe they’ll be. No, I’m not going to do it alone."
Kassie’s gaze darkened. And for so reason I felt like I was being held at gunpoint.
"I told you, didn’t I? There is more than one way to win a battle. It’s not wrong to think we are defeatable... in fact we don’t even need to be defeated for your agenda to be thrashed. Right now, there are several systems hovering above your head that will stop you when the ti is right. And unless you stand as a single entity... capable of determining the fate of nations yourself... it would all be useless."
She paused. Sothing in her expression shifted, like she’d tasted sothing rotten.
"No matter how much I hate to say this... you need political power."
Her rigid posture loosened, just barely, as though the admission itself had cost her sothing.
"If you want to defeat the church, that is... although I have a feeling we will be doing much more than that with how rotten the world has gotten."
I sat there for a few monts. My face was blank and my eyes registered nothing but the ground while I turned over what she had said. The worst part was that none of it sounded wrong.
Then I raised my head, shaking it slightly.
I paused and breathed coolly first.
"I understand what you an... but conquering a nation? Do we even have the manpower for that? Are you going to tear your way forward across armies for no justifiable reasons and just sit atop their throne while tearing away their king? What about the people, innocent lives... I couldn’t care less about optics. But it sounds like stealing. Stealing soone’s woman and all sounds nice, but I do not want to indulge myself in stealing a nation."
I let that settle for a bit and added, "I am not averse to creating my own nation though."
I leaned back and grinned.
"But managing people is the one thing I suck at."
"You’re overthinking this... Recimiras, for example. We can simply..."
My gaze went blank as I stared at Kassie.
It was beginning to be less funny now.
She went silent with the look in my eyes. Then I exhaled.
"We are not going to steal Recimiras. Let’s say we do that... What happens next? We force people to beco soldiers? Or force their soldiers to fight for a cause that does not concern them? Or better yet, you take their own resources to pay them for their effort and their lives? Can’t you see the unbridled effect that you speak about playing out here?"
Kassie was silent for a mont, her expression unreadable.
Then she grinned.
Her grin caught off guard and I narrowed my gaze suspiciously at her.
"Wait... is this a test?"
She scoffed. "No, it isn’t. But it’s reassuring to know you aren’t too far gone." She crossed her arms. "I wasn’t joking about political power, and should the only possible way be taking a nation to have it, I do not mind."
"So you’re pretty much still saying the sa thing?"
"You may not be too far gone. But you are far too naive." She held my gaze without flinching. "Because war is the best thing I can do does not an it is the only thing I can do. I was an Empress. I governed a nation and wielded its military power against it. I tore the influence of the Light church from them and I used the political power of the empire to wrench them to pieces, after which I destroyed the Empire itself with its own power."
A small smile graced her lips.
"The first day I stepped into court... Many were convinced I was in the wrong place." The smile didn’t waver. "I made sure those people were the last set of people I killed. They needed to watch how far I went."
Her gaze held mine.
"I’m not asking you to do the sa thing. But there’s a greater vengeance than simply destruction. It is rising above your enemy and making them watch as you tear apart their limbs, and they cannot lift a finger to stop it."
The way she said it, there was no bravado. No posturing. It was mory.
I sat with that for a mont. She made so much sense it was almost uncomfortable. The image of an empire eating itself from the inside because one woman decided it would... that wasn’t ambition. That was architecture.
The atmosphere seed to dissolve after that... but just when I thought it was all over, Kassie spoke again.
"Now let’s talk about the imdiate effect that has been caused by tearing down Manhattan."
’Oh... goodness, how much will I have to deal with?’
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