Chapter Two Hundred and Eleven – It’s all about the Time...

Those people outside the fourth Ring were just here to listen, as they were operating at a fraction of Sama's time and couldn't contribute effectively. They had to know what was going on to coordinate, but the decisions were being made here by among the most powerful people people in the whole Alliance effort... and a direct blow against the Hags that were behind all of this.

Members of the Brotherhood had gone into the Fifth Ring, and used Veilwalking to progress through the thousands of miles of territory to all the magical trouble spots, drawn by their Voids as none of us could equal.

There were massive Obelisk formations laid out through all the accelerated time zones, guarded by literal empires of humans and non-humans under the command of Hag servants. What these were intended to do precisely wasn't obvious, but they had obviously taken a great deal of time to get into place accurately, and the races of the inner realms were completely bent to them.

Close to the central ring, the areas were dominated by Aberrant monsters, cultists, inhabitants of Leng, and a whole lot of dark elves spun out on psycho-spores, and not a few being ridden by cerebrovores.

What was far more interesting is that there were ten zones around that central hole, and only six of them were fast time, varying between three and six hundred times normal speed. The slow time zones also varied by that ratio... in the other direction.

"Going from a fast time zone to a slow time zone at that level of temporal velocity is effectively impossible. The route that the Hags set up and that we are on is the only 'safe' way to reach the inner ring. Any other route involves detouring sideways multiple times to avoid slow zones in the way. Trying to breach a one thousand or greater temporal conflict is impossible even for me," the Shadowknife said.

"So, this awesome master plan of theirs, putting up obelisks in a grand formation across multiple empires... isn't complete, despite having millennia to work on it... because the slow time zones aren't letting them complete it fast enough," Hazé observed. She pointed at the slowest of the time zones. "One six-hundredth normal time. It hasn't been even two years since Yle Tyorm fell in there. Even if they used Grand Rituals to send in monstrous amounts of people to set things up in there, the internal distances involved mean that there's no way they could be set up to the degree they truly need inside there."

"Correct," Brother Firesword agreed with her. "Notice the layout of the formations, and how irregular they are once they take into account the slow time zones. Their formation is quite vulnerable at all the junction points that cross the slow time barriers. We don't need to crash them all... we only need to take out these four in the zone that we have access to."

All attention naturally devolved on those. They were obvious conduits to and through the slow time areas to each side. I could imagine the cost in forces and materials that had been spent to run obelisks across the slow time zones over the centuries. The inner zones narrowed down some, but they were still a thousand miles across. They would have had to get those Obelisks up in the equivalent of only months, stretching across thousands of years of their own time, probably by flooding it with massive amounts of manpower to succeed. If the forces inside also suffered temporal shock, it also meant they were going to be advancing over the inevitable bones of those who died before them.

"What are we looking at there?" Sama asked briefly, and tactical maps as scouted out by the Void Brothers materialized at all four locations, there to be zoomed in on and details downloaded.

Now, there was no thought whatsoever of just hacking their way into the city. The populations of the places numbered six zeroes and higher. But that didn't mean they couldn't reach the places.

"Site one, descendants of Hagspawn and half-ogres. The primary power is a legendary Green Hag. I believe she is Verd's grandmother," the Firesword answered calmly. "Site two are dark elves with fungoid traits, commanded by a legendary shellycoat. Amber's grandmother, I am presuming.

"The last is Jotunbloods, trolls, ogres, and swamp giants with mire dragon blood and Hagspawns among them, definitely the toughest of the three. I believe Tusk Annie herself is defending that obelisk, with a Mire Wyrm consort."

"Huh," was Sama's only comment. She pointed. "What's with the monkeys?"

"It's an ape kingdom. We expected a lot of demonic influence, as the Pits love intelligent apes, but these stayed surprisingly neutral. That led to some poking around..." Brother Firesword cleared his throat, and two locations on the map lit up.

"Oh." Everybody mentally bent forward to look at what was brought up. "Oh..."

"I don't know if that's good news or bad news..." Briggs commented to nobody.

"Given their nature, they won't even notice or care until something impressive happens," Ancientaxe spoke respectfully. "That being said... there is known to be an Elder Mu Spore down in that Hole, and if it's been taking advantage of the time dilation, it is very old, indeed."

"I really don't think they care," Sama pointed out, and everyone laughed softly, despite themselves. "So, what we've got to do is punch an Interdiction route all the way to Ringzone Five, nine hundred miles, and then crack open that four hundred-fold dilation and make it their last year of existence while we race to those obelisks." I glanced at the dragons, who were watching all this in fascination and great interest. "You can see the reports, lots of dinosaurs, drakes, and rocs in the air. Still willing to come?"

"The cost of us not assisting you is too high," the oldest Shield dragon demurred firmly. "We will be there!"

"Then we crack the barrier here tomorrow, and make the run overland starting then!"

-----------------

Three days, she'd given the Brotherhood back then. Three days to get into the inner zone, and get stronger.

Over a thousand days. A time skip, a time acceleration capsule, something their opponents had been using, and they could take advantage of.

Because Sama said they were weak, and they weren't getting strong fast enough. The fastest way to get strong was slaughter, and there was a whole lot of powerful stuff in the fifth ring that had an early appointment with death. All of the Brothers could feel it, and they all went in on their 'scouting missions.'

The Fire and the Sword held up the blade of Weep, a QL 40 adamant, Zehn-Slot Weapon. The parade of recent dead carried over with the dead held by the other two Swords that had borne its name.

None of his elders had racked up a kill total quite like he had. Everything in this shard of reality was an invader, barely real; killing them was like wiping film off the eyes of the Land. There were so many aberrant and foul otherworldly bloodlines, reaving through them had been a pleasure and a duty.

The Brotherhood had killed millions between them in those 'three days.'

They had raised the Names of their reforged Weapons to Zehn Slots. They had gained Levels. They had applied Masteries. They had picked Feats. There was enough Karma for them to do all that, the numbers of their foes so vast that it still didn't matter.

They had moved from assassins picking off targets to becoming agents of slaughter, slicing through hordes and armies, killing everything in their way, tanking in a way that no Void Brothers ever had before. Always clean, surgical, precise, killing and moving on to the next problem.

Nothing clean or surgical about this. A dirty butcher's shop, living in blood and slaughter.

He lifted up his hand, and the glowing spirals of his Helix swirled through his palm reflexively. Unseen, the Runes on his Endoskeleton glowed with power.

Magic to increase strength, dexterity, and toughness wasn't uncommon, but Sama had doubled down on the concept with her Heavy Gravity training method, a variant on the same thing the Heavenbound Errant had used. As they were all grown men, there was no problem with it, other than it taking two and half years to take effect. One Heavy Gravity belt with a slow self-healing effect to offset the damage the training did, large amounts of Karma, and putting up with ever-increasing gravity while wreaking havoc on a scale he had not imagined he could do before.

Sama had sunk the strands of gold and platinum into their bones, dancing delicate wires between muscle and sinew, setting them in place to soak up magic and Karma, binding ever tighter, to lock in the gains of the heavy gravity training... and to internalize the physical enhancements normally gained through gloves and belts, welding them directly to their bones.

An Endoskeleton. Biomagic, she called it.

All combined, +5 Enhancement to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, sacking all their magic items that did the same for the originals, then feeding the Endoskeleon with slaughter. A +5 racial bonus to the same Stats, with an effective +12 for Might on top of that to reflect the x6 gravity boost.

Four times stronger, more precise, greater endurance. All of the Brothers were now far, far beyond any of their elders in their records. They were capable of a type of open combat that was simply impossible before. They didn't NEED to be stealthy all the time. They could simply be blunt instruments, if they so chose.

They could just go up to their targets, cut through all their guards and minions and traps, and kill them. No need for shirking or stealth or too much cleverness.

Not that they didn't still prefer that style, and certainly wouldn't forget it. There were still things it was best to approach with every single advantage possible.

But he was very, very powerful now, far different then he had been before he had met Sama Rantha.

Sama and Briggs weren't full grown, and couldn't do an Endoskeleton yet, nor could the other Hagchildren. Soon enough it would be their time, and they would be going into the accelerated time zone, and picking up those years, for the last 'three days' had been transformative of many, many people.

Errant's group of fellow Heavenbound had all their arrogance smashed out of them repeatedly dealing with the monstrous attacks in the 100x zone. They'd had to get better fast, or die, and had been tempered faster and harder than they'd believed possible. Everything in this shard wanted to kill them, was coming for them, and there was always fighting. Without vivus, this place would have been piled with hills of corpses from the dead.

That Amazon was so ridiculously strong it was hard to imagine, at least twice as strong as any human he'd ever met. He'd watched her catch an ankylosaur's tail and then club a King saurial with it. With her Endoskeleton up, she was rocking a Strength of at least 40...

A good reason not to mess with Aethran Amazons, he considered wryly.

He had gone through fortunes, looting gems and jewelry and valuable power comps that didn't weigh too much, burning them into extra Gear to cement his defenses, utility items. Gauntlets, Bracers, Amulets, Belt, Boots... they all had to be Invested by standard means, and they required a lot of goldweight to do so.

The wealth of kings and emperors had sifted through his hands, and blown away as their power was Invested into his Gear.

As Sage Sama said in her unique way, he was now a strong character. There was still a lot of Levels he could take, advancing as a Ten was no easy feat... and there was always Eleven, and that first step on the road to the Eternal.

There had been multiple Legendary Hags in their own little Empire worlds around the pit, but they were irrelevant. As long as the key Obelisks were toppled, the whole Formation was worthless, and the oldest and the most powerful naturally guarded the most essential of the Obelisks.

Fighting a Legendary Hag. If what the young Heavenbound told them was correct, and Hazé had pointed out, they would have loads and loads of Health Qi. Tusked Annie had taken a shot from her of more than a thousand points to the face, and lived through it. The storm crone Zouma's pool must have been even larger... perhaps expanded when she found it difficult to grow her power in other ways?...

He would have to live long enough to hew through all that Health Qi, if he fought them.

He visualized a mental lever in his mind, a Feat called Beyond Law and Chaos. With a half-smile, he flicked it.