Chapter 41
I had several final preparations to make for my invasion of the celestial planes, one of which was figuring out the final floor of the tower. Once I accomplished that, I could set a gate and begin to assemble the force I would use to invade the plane of the angeli.
Borrowed Strength
Active Ability
Shadow Slayer
Active Ability
Cooldown: 2 Minutes
The next enemy you slay releases a shade that fights on your behalf while also storing a duplicate of that shade with Shadows of Death.
Prerequisite: Shadows of Death
Echoes of War
Active Ability
Cooldown: 7 Days
Summon corrupted duplicates of the 10 strongest paladins you have slain.
Prerequisite: Shadows of Death, 200+ paladin kills
Borrowed Strength was a waste of followers. Shadow Slayer could be compelling if adding Loyalty Pledges reduced the cooldown. I had no way of knowing if that would work or not, though.
Echoes of War, meanwhile, sounded awesome at first, but then I reflected on the paladins I had slain.
Were any of them worthy enough to fight alongside me?
One angeli was likely strong enough to chew through 10 top-tier paladins, so what good did Echoes of War really do me when all of my enemies were well beyond the limits of the material plane?
Not much good at all.
So, I picked Plague Master:
Plague Master
Active Ability
Cooldown: 12 Days
Spend good-aligned levels to design a unique disease.
Prerequisites: Plague Bearer, Corpse Builder
When I activated Plague Master, I received a description similar to Solara’s Spell Forgemaster ability:
Design every detail of a plague to leave your mark on history.
Spend 100 good-aligned levels to have the system assess your disease.
System will assign costs and requirements for making your disease a reality, but the system may also reject incompatible suggestions.
You may only have one Plague Master quest active at any given time.
Perfect. That was exactly what I was hoping for.
I input my design for a disease I called “Abaddon’s Bane” and spent 100 good-aligned levels to have the system assess it.
To unlock Abaddon’s Bane, you must spend 10,000 good-aligned levels (one-time), forfeit 50 points of strength, sacrifice a living seraphim, and sacrifice a living sovereign. Sacrifices do not have to be willing and can happen asynchronously.
Do you accept this quest? Yes / No
Note: You may only have one Plague Master quest active at any given time. Abandoning a Plague Master quest after you have accepted it incurs a penalty.
I selected Yes.
-5 Progress to your fall.
Progress to Your Fall: 77 / 100 (Abaddon, King of the Abyss)
I knew Abaddon’s Bane was going to be expensive.
10,000 good-aligned levels wouldn’t be a problem in the next few days.
50 points of strength were negligible. I had 180 unused Loyalty Pledges sitting in my system to spend at that very moment, so burning 50 of those was easy enough.
I had access to several sovereigns, so that requirement wouldn’t be too much trouble either.
The biggest challenge on that list was sacrificing a living seraphim. Solara’s spell Seraphim Slayer would be the key there, so completing her Spell Forgemaster quest to unlock it was the immediate priority.
Speaking of Solara, I had given her and Podni an assignment to complete while I was busy climbing the tower.
Conveying the true power of the bomb that came out of Podni and Solara’s is difficult because of the scale of the destruction. Mortals have no frame of reference for a cataclysm of that size, so I’ll do my best to put this into perspective.
To flatten a structure as large as Hensewurd’s mansion in Flowst, we would need 4 of our existing Bolt bombs.
Podni’s Mastermind ability allowed her to apply 2 instances of a party member’s spell to 1 bomb, so each of those bombs was 2 of Solara’s base Bolt spells + her 70% bonus to damage from abilities like Specialist, and then Podni’s trap bonuses added another 20% bonus to damage.
Solara’s Absorb spell added stored Bolt damage to the base damage of her next Bolt cast. Say Podni detonated 10 bombs.
Solara’s next Bolt spell would have all of that damage + her 70% bonus to damage.
Podni captured that supercharged Bolt into a bomb with Silk Mastermind.
Then repeated this step, storing 2 instances of that supercharged Bolt into one bomb while adding Podni’s 20% bonus to damage on top of it.
For the sake of easy math, if we said that Solara’s base Bolt spell was equivalent to 100 damage, the resulting bomb was equivalent to 17,054 damage. A bomb with that strength was enough to level Borja, but that wasn’t good enough.
Podni used Abyssal Self-Construct to absorb this new bomb, earning her a new abyssal trait of pointed ears and vampire-like fangs, and repeated the loop.
Solara absorbed 10 of the latest bombs twice over, enabling Podni to create an even stronger bomb, which also included her 20% damage bonus.
Using the same 100 damage context that we started with, this final bomb was equivalent to 2,908,526 damage. That was big enough to level the Capital and a decent amount of the surrounding area. We nicknamed it a FAB bomb–or a “Fuck Abaddon Bolt bomb.”
To make all of this possible, I ran to the southern lands, needing about 10 hours of full-speed sprinting through the sky to do so, and set up a teleporter for Podni and Solara.
Maker’s Immunity made Podni immune to the damage of her traps, and Solara was immune to Bolt damage thanks to her Favorite Child ability.
No one and nothing else could survive the charge-up process and the resulting detonations, so they had to venture out by themselves to avoid hurting anyone.
We took 1 FAB bomb and 1 Unholy Apocalypse bomb, which we had a stockpile of since one spawned with every silk soldier we spawned, and strapped them to a dungeon-generated angeli.
I spent 2.5 million DP from the Flowst core to add the big-boom angeli to the dungeon core. Then I spawned 10 of them, took 10 of their FAB bombs, and strapped them to a Byron bot. I spent an additional 2.5 million DP to add that new Byron bot to the Flowst dungeon core.
The result: For the low-low cost of 400 DP, I could generate a Byron bot with 10 FAB bombs attached.
“I wish we could show you how strong the bombs are,” Podni said, sitting with Solara in the Flowst dungeon.
They both joined me in setting up the new mobs with my dungeon core to spawn to be certain I used the right bombs on the right creatures. We had so many variations floating around now, and I didn’t want to waste 2.5 million DP having to re-add an angeli with the correct bombs.
“They’re beautiful,” Solara echoed. “Sitting inside of them when they go off is something else. We should find a way to make you immune so you can experience it. All of that energy, all of that force… It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being a god. It’s amazing.”
That level of power would certainly be useful in our war against the heavens and the hells, but I had to clear the tower first.