“Are you insane?”

John’s question was met by an unwavering grin. The addressed person sat on a massive pillow-throne. It was every bit as red as the tips of her otherwise greyish black hair. She stretched and the muscles under her caramel skin shifted. It was a wonderful colour, crafted by the South-East Asian heritage under the sun of those same lands.

Vinh showed all of it readily. Only her breasts and her womanhood were covered by a halter top and a loincloth, respectively. The elaborate tattoos that covered all of her arms were similarly visible, disappearing from view over the swing of her shoulders, where they continued over her back. John remembered the depictions of the Phoenix and its exploits well.

“Are you going to bother me?” Vinh asked in return and very slowly raised one of her legs. Thick thigh and smooth calf stretched into a line, before coming back down for her legs to be crossed. “Because I’m not so sure you have the power to do that anymore, Gamer.”

John stared at her, hiding that he knew the truth to that statement.

The spike in her level did not make sense. Fianna not getting straight to Lu Zhi’s level was a threshold of his game mechanics, so he understood that a discrepancy existed. That Vinh went to a level notably above Lu Zhi’s, that was the nonsensical part there. The ritual was supposed to create 4 generals of roughly equal parity – and that roughly had undershot every time throughout recorded history.

The rebellions of the Red Phoenixes, if they were successful, managed to win out on over the chosen of Tianlong at any time due to allies or external pressures. Usually the threat of war from a Cardinal Chosen was enough that certain reforms had to be made, beneficial or not, and that was how those tales ended.

So how was it that Vinh was stronger, in raw Stats, than Lu Zhi?

Another question were the two guards that stood behind the Robber General. The members of the Robber Army had been decently strong for Abyssals, averaging level 20, which made them an upper-class Abyssal force. No doubt they could have defeated the forces of most guilds on the planet, short of the Divided Gates.

Now the lowest level John saw around was level 50 and the average that seemed to go was around 100. Going for the simplest representation of the figures, he was dealing with a striking force of 500 level 100 individuals. That was not a striking force to threaten a Divided Gate, that beat the current fighting forces of most Divided Gates.

How did any of this make sense?

There was only one answer.

“Let’s put aside what I have the power to do and what not.” The statement made Vinh turn her head, exchanging a knowing snort with one of her guards. It ticked John off something fierce, but he had enough control over himself and the Creator Puppet not to show it. “You’re aware this is Izha’s doing, right?”

Vinh’s left eyebrow, the one not covered by her swept hair, shot up sharply. She opened her mouth in immediate refusal, only to stop and consider. Fiery nature competed with suddenly gained Intellect, digesting his statement. “You’re saying he helped me become the Phoenix so I would stir shit up?”

“That is the only way this makes sense.”

“Which also means that I’m stronger than you expected.”

John had calculated for that response and simply shrugged his shoulders. “You may be, you may not be. What you are is insane if you think I will help you fight Lu Zhi in the middle of an existential war that has already wiped out a third of my people.”

“What about after?” Vinh asked. “You get my aid in this war and in exchange you assure me that there will be a duel between me and Lu Zhi. Whoever wins it, Fusion will acknowledge as the empress.”

“No,” John responded immediately.

“Figured.”

Vinh was staring at him. Her orange eyes still lacked the savviness and wisdom to make for a smart politician. She was asking for what she wanted, not for little bits and pieces to move her towards a hidden goal. Raised Intellect changing that part of her was doubtful. Some parts were too strong to be defeated by reason. Previous conversations had shown that becoming anything else than her fiery self was considered dying to her. Her deeds had backed this up. She had been willing to charge into the belly of the beast, all for a chance to get what she now had.

“I guess this was my mistake for asking a guy to decide between what’s fun and imperial pussy,” Vinh stated crudely.

At other times, John might have laughed. Problem was that he… did not like Vinh a whole lot, if he was being honest. He could appreciate a tomboy with thick thighs, as Observe had pointed out, but her evident lack of wisdom bothered him. ‘Bit interesting considering my favourite woman in the world is severely lacking in that department as well… must be the simple bias of her threatening one of my current women.’

“You can talk, you know?” Vinh teased him. “No reason to stand there like a robot.”

“I’m weighing my options,” the Gamer told her flatly. “Are you this committed to rebelling?”

“Obviously.” Vinh gestured at the room around them. It was decorated in a manner that John would almost have called tribal. There was little overarching design philosophy and the trophies on display were from dozens of different cultures. It was the innermost chamber inside the barracks erected inside the World Turtle – a turtle that also had been supercharged by the phoenix revival.

John rubbed his chin, then sighed. “Alright, you want the honest and simple truth on what will happen when you do?”

“Finally, we’re having my kind of conversation!” Vinh leaned forward, the pillow throne under her shifting.

“I will side with Lu Zhi and there’s nothing you could offer me that would change this.” John met the orange gaze of the rebellious tomboy with his own. “Put aside my personal relationship with the Heavenly Jade Empress and consider what she has done for me. She had no obligation to help me, yet she summoned the Cardinal Beasts and raised a great host, all to aid me in my vengeance. I will repay this, because honour demands it.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh!” Vinh nodded along excitedly. “What will you bring to the party?”

“Everything I can,” John told her. “You would be crushed.”

That only made the Phoenix General drum her feet on the floor with greater excitement. “You’re threatening me with a good time, John Newman!”

“You are insane,” John remarked with a long sigh. He found himself smiling at the end of it. That simplicity was infectious. That part of her, at least, he did like. “Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands could die because you’re willing to push this line of thought.”

Vinh turned to one of the guards behind her. “What do you think of that?”

“If there’s a death I can choose, then I will choose to die in a war for my convictions.”

“You hear that?” Vinh smirked and turned back to John. “Honest question, what makes it so good that everyone lives in a peaceful world that they loathe? You rose to the top by violence, you try to monopolize violence, and yet when I try to take over by violence, I am in the wrong?”

“It’s not the violence that makes you wrong, inherently, it’s what you put it in service of.”

“Destiny, glory, honour, freedom,” Vinh listed. “What’s so wrong about these?”

“In a vacuum, nothing. The devil is always in the details.” John scratched the back of his head. They were going back to the part that he did not like about her. “What happens after you win?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“You think that’s fair to the people that you will then govern over? Just ‘wait until I figure it out’?”

“Yeah, it is.” Vinh’s answer was immediate. Elbow on her knee, she made a vague gesture. “I’ll take nothing from them and I will give them nothing in return. That’s the definition of fairness.”

“You will have taken from them the government that works.”

“It doesn’t work.”

“It – does.” Insistence was put behind those words. “I can appreciate misgivings with an outdated power structure that has entrenched itself. It does still function. The difference between having a poor government and none is stark.”

Vinh just yawned. “Cool.” The single dismissive word ticked John off again.

“With an attitude like that and the power you now wield, you will burn Asia to the ground in the name of liberation.”

“And then something better will rise from the ashes – what part of that is confusing to you?” Vinh teased.

John pinched the bridge of his nose. “The single-minded foolishness of it all. You will be used in the goals of others. You already are. I cannot conceive a different reason that Izha spared your men the corruption than the fact that you will be a disaster for everyone else down the line. Do you really want to be the plague ship of another, a poisoned arrow aimed at the future?”

“I don’t care about the schemes of others. What I care about is that I do what I want. You want to try and control me, go ahead and try.” Vinh extended her hand to her side. In a burst of heat, a spear manifested within her grasp. It was the quintessence of a spear, a red-wooden shaft with a gently curved tip, almost emulating a feather. The only ornamentations to it were the gold metals attached to the base of the blade and the butt of the spear, each sporting light carvings.

Slamming the butt of that weapon on the ground, Vinh rose off her pillow. The Spear of the Phoenix vibrated with power. Air around it distorted with a heat that the Cardinal Chosen prevented from affecting the wooden furniture. John wasn’t affected either, this body of his had plenty of elemental resistances.

“There is no world away from the schemes of others. Yours, Izha’s or whoever else’s. I will not be cowed by the chance that I am acting in someone else’s benefit. I alone write my destiny.”

“And no threat nor reason will deter you,” John said with a degree of honest admiration. “If you weren’t so fucking stupid about it, I would find that lovable.”

“You’re cute too, would be cuter if you weren’t holding back what you actually think all the time.” Vinh turned away from him. She sauntered with deliberately long steps towards an empty weapon rack. Her round butt, practically naked with nothing but a loincloth’s back string digging between the cheeks, was an eye-draw. “Also, I did give you the offer to make this a simple duel.”

“Duels are a poor way to decide the head of state. Relying on an actual god and traditions of selection is a bit better.”

“Didn’t Lydia get into power through duels?”

“There was a tournament as a tiebreaker at the end of a long series of events and it was stupid – very, very stupid.” John had his fun with that tournament, looking back at it, but fighting each other between bouts of random games was quite surreal.

“You got no imagination. Anyway, you have delivered your refusal and I received it. I’ll just challenge her directly when she lands then.”

“Of course, you will… and then?”

“Then I am taking my things and leaving,” Vinh responded simply. “We’ve already defeated one enemy elite and that victory was bought with the old life of my army. The Robber Army has done all the damage the empress could have asked for and now we’re under her command no more.”

“Will you at least have the decency to wait with your rebellion until this is wrapped up?”

“Hey, I’m not going to bleed more for you, but I am not the kind of selfish that will jeopardize killing the Lorylim.” Vinh strutted back to and then fell into her throne. “I’m returning to Vietnam and setting up for the war. I’ll tell the little sister myself on how I want this to go. After that, the ball is in your court.”

John sighed again. “Do whatever you want to, I suppose.”

“I will,” Vinh answered with a broad grin.

John vacated the room afterwards. He was not guided out, nor was he observed. If he had wanted to stay on the World Turtle, he no doubt could have. What he saw as he passed was enough to reinforce what he already knew.

The Phoenix Army was sparring. It was a chaotic affair, bereft of the discipline and formation of a proper fighting force. In their place was a comradery that went deeper than shared drills and doctrine. Fighting pits saw people test their newfound powers. Others did not have the convenient tool to measure who had gotten the bigger Stat boosts and clashing with one another was the quickest way to find out. The weaker people were laughed with when they fell, no one was mocked, the order of command was rapidly re-assessed on the basis of strength and charisma.

This army had been forged in a tradition of resisting a much stronger neighbour. It was a supremely powerful force welded together in generations of struggle and with a long history of various doctrines of asymmetrical warfare in both numbers and might. They had loyalty only to themselves and enough trust in their leader that they had already died for her. The marks of that loyalty were on everyone’s skin – black marks shaped like falling feathers.

This was an army that could change the Abyss forever. John wasn’t sure if Vinh was quite aware of the strategic nuke she had been handed here.

He made his way down the ramp that connected the World Turtle’s back to the LA shore. He glanced over his shoulder at the head of the giant creature of granite and magic. Glowing lines of orange crystals webbed through its surface, glueing back together what the Lorylim had broken. The eyes were massive, spherical gems of red and black.

‘I learn that Remus is not my immediate enemy and instead find a tomboy with an attitude who gets to command one of the strongest military forces in the world. What a day… I need to put my head on Eliana’s thighs for a bit.’

He went to do exactly that.