Chapter 1940: Sovereign Powers

Quinlan Elysiar stood at the altar in Miri Town’s square with ten empresses holding onto him and a sky coming down in pieces over all of them.

The shards of the Heavenly Restriction were still falling.

Panes the size of provinces turned over in the noon light, thinned to clear, and were gone before they ever reached his daughter’s white canopy. Beyond them the blue went on forever.

The square was screaming. Ten thousand throats, every cub, every dwarf, every elf along the aisle, and under all of it a deeper roar rolling in from the streets, from the towns, from a whole continent watching the same sky. ℯℯ𝘭.

Then a child’s voice came up out of the cobbles.

"Rosie’s turn!!"

It came out of the stone under the altar and out of every road on Iskaris at once, solemn and delighted in the same breath. Every soul standing on one of those roads heard it in the same moment.

"The Eternal Tree keeps her promise!"

High above the falling glass, the light changed.

A second pane laid itself across the sky where the first had stood, green-white and thin as breath, and it spread outward from the point above Miri Town in the same shape the crack had taken, until it covered the continent from horizon to horizon. For one heartbeat it caught the sun like a soap bubble.

Then it went clear, and there was nothing up there but blue.

"It’s back?!"

"No, look, you can clearly see this one... it’s-"

"Was that the princess? That was the little princess!"

Quinlan knew exactly what it was.

The Eternal Tree had promised him a barrier of her own in place of the old one, and the promise had come with its purpose written into it.

Whoever had laid the first wall over Iskaris, hundreds of thousands of years ago, would look at this continent from wherever they sat and see their claim standing exactly as they had left it.

Rosie’s wall was a mirror facing outward. It held nobody in, it capped nobody’s level, and it stood up there to lie to the outside world.

’And just like that, my daughter became the greatest fraudster in the world,’ the Primordial Villain grinned inwardly, swelling with pride.

Then the window opened.

[Ding!]

[The prior claim over Iskaris has been dissolved.]

[The prior claim’s domain has cleared. Suppression of sovereign faculties: lifted.]

Quinlan’s eyes stopped on that line.

’There’s more?’

Yesterday, at the beastkin fire, the universal system - the systemic interface all people were privy to - had notified him that the continent was his, and all he had felt was the land under his feet.

Roads like veins, cities like warmth, a coast he could point at with his eyes shut. He had taken that for the whole reward.

It had been the part of the gift that fit through the barrier of the hostile sovereign.

Now that it was gone...

The messages began bombarding his mind one after the other.

[Ding!]

[New title gained: Sovereign of Iskaris!]

[A Sovereign stands above a land’s administrator. A Sovereign is the land’s mightiest shield, and the land’s sharpest spear.]

[No two Sovereigns rule the exact same way. This is reflected in their Sovereign Powers.]

[The Sovereign of Iskaris rules: One Land. Four Races.]

One land.

He read that line twice, and the grin that had been building since the sky cracked settled into the one his enemies knew.

’Only the beginning, huh?’

The way it was said told Quinlan there were other Sovereigns with more than one land to their names. ’What’s the limit? Is there a limit? What are the rewards for holding more?’

The Primordial Villain’s heart began pumping with pure excitement for the unknown.

[Ding!]

[Sovereign faculties initiating.]

[Sovereign Source: 100%.]

[The land tithes to its ruler. The Sovereign Source slowly refills on Sovereign Soil, and fills yet slower beyond it. Every active Sovereign ability cast draws upon it.]

[Ding!]

[New abilities gained!]

[Land’s Strength: On Sovereign Soil, the Sovereign of Iskaris gains +25% on all attributes. The strength extends to those who carry the Sovereign’s Bloodfather mark at +20%.]

[Domain Gate: Within Sovereign Soil, the Sovereign of Iskaris may open a gate to any point, at any size, in any number, whether or not the Sovereign has ever stood there.]

[Reign of the Undying: While the Sovereign of Iskaris reigns and the Soul Reaper endures, his Elite Souls return from destruction without [Awaken]. One return per soul per minute. When the Sovereign stands beyond his land, returned souls carry a 10% reduction with every resurrection until he sets foot on it again.]

[Boundless Dominion: On Sovereign Soil, the budget of [Subjugation] is limitless.]

[Elemental Host: The Sovereign of Iskaris may imbue one element over every soldier under the Sovereign’s banner. There is no limit on their number. The Sovereign Source is drained 10% every minute Elemental Host is active.]

[Fire: every blade burns. Water: fatigue and thirst do not touch them. Earth: skin holds like stone. Wind: they move as the wind moves. Ice: whatever they strike slows. Lightning: they strike before the enemy finishes moving. Magma: their strikes gain unnatural weight.]

[Interdiction: Within Sovereign Soil, a rival Sovereign’s faculties are throttled. The Sovereign of Iskaris may also raise a focused field of Interdiction at a cost, upon his own land or upon a Declaration.]

[Masked Seat: The Sovereign of Iskaris may mask himself. While masked, no domain reads the Sovereign of Iskaris as a Sovereign, and the concealment extends to those who carry his mark. A Declaration drops the mask.]

[Declaration of Conquest: The Sovereign of Iskaris may name a Sovereign’s Land and declare his intention of conquest. The named sovereign is notified.]

[Upon a Declaration, the named Sovereign is granted 24 hours to prepare. Once those 24 hours have passed, the benefits of Declaration of Conquest manifest upon the targeted Sovereign Soil for 72 hours.]

[The named land’s strength will be negated against the Sovereign and his marked; the Sovereign of Iskaris’s Domain Gates open onto the named land; Interdiction may be raised upon it; the Sovereign Source fills rapidly upon it; Land’s Strength is activated.]

[Should the term end before the named Sovereign falls: Land’s Strength inverts across the Sovereign’s own land; Domain Gate and Declaration are sealed; the Sovereign of Iskaris loses the Primordial Villain class. All of it holds until the named Sovereign falls.]

The barrage of windows finally stopped.

’Holy fuck.’

Quinlan stood under the white canopy, ten women holding onto him, ten thousand people screaming at a clear sky.

He was entirely speechless.

"Quin..." Ayame whispered, but her eyes weren’t on him.

<You’re seeing it too, huh?> Quinlan asked.

<Yeah... It says I’m recognized as your Empress.>

’Is it because of the Bloodfather class involving them?’ Quinlan wondered. But he didn’t care enough to mull on this. The more involved his girls were in this sovereign system, the better.

He would involve them either way. But having the system do it organically made everything that much better.

’Okay,’ the Primordial Villain finally thought, having read his abilities a third time. ’Things just got real.’

The land answered in his shape.

Every power on that list was a power he already owned, grown to the size of a continent.

’All Sovereigns will wield unique powers...’ Quinlan realized.