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The push of the World Council to not only allow immigrants and freed slaves to settle on Earth but even beasts to live among humans had naturally ruffled some feathers, and the recent return of the Risen had only made things even worse. While they had done much to address these people, it was hard to do anything toward people merely harboring negative thoughts or acting in the shadows.

No one wanted a society where you could get in trouble for thinking the wrong thing either, so they’d ended up with a lot of people carrying resentment and a lot of bigotry toward anyone who wasn’t a human while naturally also hating other humans who didn’t share their beliefs.

This was a problem Miranda, Arthur, the Fallen King, and the Sky Whale had discussed extensively, with the shared sentiment that nothing but time could fix these issues. The old generation had to die off and be replaced with more progressive people who weren’t used to a world before the system but what the multiverse had now become.

Anyway, insidious actors had found plenty of people to take advantage of, and many jumped at the opportunity to seemingly do meaningful damage to Jake and his allies, who were ”actively destroying the planet.”

These insidious actors naturally included allies of Ell’Hakan. Quite a lot of them, in fact. However, when looking into them, Miranda and Arthur were perplexed at some of the things they found, and with the assistance of William, they discovered everything wasn’t as simple as they looked. Rather than finding one group… they found two.

One was the agents of Ell’Hakan, who had seemingly gone into sleeper mode for the last pretty long period, likely doing nothing more than reporting things to the other Chosen while not taking any actions. A few had even gone as far as to spread rumors about what had happened actually when Ell’Hakan invaded the planet so long ago, how it had all been a misunderstanding caused due to the Order of the Malefic Viper, and some even claimed it had been a good thing as it ”opened the eyes” of the Viper’s Chosen to what his Patron truly was.

None of them did anything overtly harmful to Earth and weren’t really threats at this moment.

This all seemed to track with Ell’Hakan’s recent official stance where he no longer ran any negative propaganda campaigns toward Jake. Instead, he didn’t seem to say much about Jake at all, and what was said was neutral at worst. Truly, it did seem like he was trying to spin a tale of Jake and Ell’Hakan being enemies due to their respective Patrons and having no personal animosity toward each other… meaning that should Jake ”break free” from the Malefic Viper, they would have no reason to oppose one another. Should he join Valhal, perhaps they would even be allies.

When it came to these people who loyally served Ell’Hakan and acted according to his will, Miranda just kept an eye on them and took notes. Taking any actions would ruin their own plans. Also, keeping an eye on them while not doing anything would instead help Jake’s cause, as she was sure the people she sent weren’t all competent enough to not be discovered, and the fact that Earth’s intelligence network knew and didn’t act against his agents would certainly get back to Ell’Hakan, only further strengthening his delusion that Jake had softened his stance toward his fellow Chosen.

As for the second group, also made up of Ell’Hakan supporters, they were quite a bit… different. These people seemingly were no longer actually in contact with the other Chosen but acted entirely on their own and had made their own small groups and plans, entirely – and purposefully – separate from the true followers of Ell’Hakan.

Of course, ironically, these people believed they were the ”true” followers. As for their exact beliefs… Miranda couldn’t figure them out, and it soon became clear it wasn’t because she was shit at her job but because they truly didn’t have any collective belief outside of thinking that Ell’Hakan was some kind of godlike being and that Jake and the Viper were evil incarnate. They had a flimsy cohesion at best, and all the true fanatics were immigrants who Miranda suspected had also been immigrants on the planets they had arrived on Earth from.

These fanatics had then found allies among the natives of Earth, making wild promises that Ell’Hakan would save them all from the evil snake cult, eradicate all the beasts and monsters, and return the planet to its rightful owners: humanity. Truly, it was all bullshit and didn’t even track with what Ell’Hakan would actually do… but it was good enough to convince the desperate morons who let anger and fear of the foreign rule them over logic.

Miranda truthfully didn’t even want to get into the complexities of the delusions at play, and there was a good reason she called them fanatics. They acted illogical and with intense emotions to the level it was irrational, making her form quite a few theories she had no proof of but would certainly keep in mind. The predominant one was that Ell’Hakan had perhaps wanted to create followers with absolute loyalty and it had gone wrong somehow, and yes, the vast majority of her theories included Ell’Hakan having done something extreme with his Bloodline that had then ended up backfiring.

She would think he knew what they were up to if not for all the evidence speaking to the contrary, and while William still wasn’t the most reliable source, he had proven himself honest in all matters so far. Her view of William was a bit odd, as she naturally didn’t know him from back in the Tutorial. She had never really interacted with him or even heard about him until he came and began to actively help around Haven, which did make it hard for her to see why she had to be so damn suspicious of him all the time. Because right now, he just seemed like a kid trying to desperately make himself useful.

Then again, she did realize he had been blessed by Eversmile, been a terror and absolute psycho during Jake’s Tutorial, and even sided with Ell’Hakan afterward, again due to Eversmile. Casper and Jacob had also confirmed pretty much everything Jake had told her, making it clear she had to be wary even if he had supposedly changed. Caution was never a bad thing in her book, but she didn’t want to be overly cautious and not make use of a valuable tool due to preconceived notions either.

The young metal mage had also come by after having proven himself useful that day, having investigated a group of fanatics. They ended up not really being that problematic or worth dealing with and had only been in contact with someone they’d already gotten rid of a week ago.

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”How many more of them do you estimate there are out there?” Miranda asked with a raised eyebrow. ”Of these real fanatics, that is.”

”It’s impossible to tell, at least for me,” William shook his head. ”I can see the karmic connections people have and even glean some insight here and there, but I wouldn’t call it an exact science, and we would undoubtedly catch many innocents in the net if we wanted to cast it based on people’s karmic connections.” �

”What if we just limit it to the people who have been directly influenced by Ell’Hakan? Those with a direct connection to the Chosen?” Miranda asked, these people being the most important to address.

”Easier, but we still need individual investigations,” William said after thinking a bit. ”Many high-level diplomats or World Leaders who were part of the Prima Guardian Alliance met Ell’Hakan at one point or another, but that doesn’t mean they are loyal to him. Kindroth should be proof enough of that.”

Miranda nodded and sighed, annoyed that the karma mage was right. Kindroth – also known as the Voice of the One – was still a weird figure. By now, Miranda was pretty sure he had his own plans, but clearly, those plans didn’t include helping Ell’Hakan. Quite the opposite.

Time and time again, he’d proven himself useful and even helped the investigation significantly. The elf still held a lot of sway over many of the other World Leaders and used that to try and out any dissidents. Plus, he was really good at what he did, which, more than anything, was being a conman. He even made people who usually only liked humans like him. If he had been a political opponent, Miranda would have found him frightening and she was happy he appeared to remain an ally.

Still, she kept an eye on him, even if she did believe they would remain allies for now, as their interests did seem to allign. Even if he was useful and competent, he still wasn’t as effective as William, though, as karmic magic was simply overpowered for outing spies, and it was good to have the heretic of a Primordial specialized in karmic magic on their side.

She had also considered and knew asking if using karma to look just for those Ell’Hakan had messed up with his Bloodline wasn’t possible. At least William couldn’t do anything there, as he couldn’t use his skills to track anything Bloodline-related due to how the system worked.

The problem with karmic bonds was also that while they went two ways, one side could have a far more powerful bond based on individual perception or understanding. It was honestly all a mess.

”Would you meeting directly with Ell’Hakan help your efforts? Even if you are only observing him from afar,” Miranda asked the mage, as William instantly shook his head and shut the idea down.

”I… don’t want to find out,” William said as he looked at the floor and hesitated before elaborating at least a little. ”Meeting Ell’Hakan would simply be too risky. With his Bloodline… no, I can’t risk it.”

Miranda just kept quiet, prompting Wiliam to continue on his own. “I already don’t trust most of my emotions. They still feel foreign at times, and I’m uncertain what influence of Eversmile still lingers. I’m such a fucking mess Ell’Hakan is bound to find something to take advantage of…”

“It’s alright,” Miranda just said with a smile. “Having met him myself, I can’t fault anyone not wanting to be in his vicinity.”

The mage likely had a very good point… he wasn’t suited to confront Ell’Hakan or even be in his presence, and Miranda should have known so, given his history. He had a track record of being used and manipulated, so it was only understandable he had developed some level of trauma towards someone who had a Bloodline all about manipulating the emotions of others.

It was a dangerous Bloodline to everyone. Miranda had to be extremely careful while around him, always keeping her own emotions in check, and even so, she wasn’t certain it worked. How could she be? If she felt

like she hadn’t been influenced, that could easily just be because Ell’Hakan wanted her to feel that way. No, the only people Miranda knew of who had managed to remain unaffected were the Sword Saint and Arnold.

The Sword Saint because he had a mind trained with discipline and had an “old soul,” so to say. He knew himself, he knew his emotions, and he knew how to calm them in an almost meditative state, not allowing them to affect him. His mind was like a serene pond that would instantly notice if any ripples formed from outside influence. It was something Miranda admired about the man and certainly one of the biggest reasons he had come as far as he had and even managed to become a Transcendent.

Meanwhile, Arnold was Arnold.

Anyway, William left the office soon after, and before he left, they switched the topic and discussed his next job, leaving Miranda alone with her work once more as she quickly went down to the cellar beneath her office. Well, rather than a cellar, it was more like a large cavern she had Hank help construct a long time back, also making use of the coffins from the Treasure Hunt and many other natural treasures to help enhance her abilities as a witch.

She had some targets to take a look into and a few who had to meet unfortunate ends, and quite honestly, it was easier for them to simply disappear, consumed by the swamps of the Verdant Lagoon, rather than make a big show of killing them. Plus, this meant they didn’t have corpses to clean up, saving a bit on the city budget.

Miranda sat in the center of the large magic circle as the runes lit up all around her and sunk her counciousness into the land beneath her as she became one with Haven and started her little hunt.

“It truly stopped… they must have done it,” Jacob said with a smile as he looked at the map of the Milky Way. He had been keeping a close on it over the last weeks and noticed something… the spread of dead planets had stopped entirely. He’d tried to divine why already but found himself unable to.

“It can’t really be anyone but them, can it?” Bertram, who stood with him, agreed. “I just hope they’re all still fine.”

“They should be. Jake is the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, and while desolation is incredibly dangerous, it’s one of the concepts the Malefic One is incredibly potent with,” Jacob said. “Of course, nothing is certain…”

Jacob had discovered the nature of the creature a while ago through his divinations. He’d recognized the signs of desolation within his dreams and visions and realized what kind of creature it was, though he naturally didn’t know everything. He’d kept a close eye on it, but then, suddenly, it had stopped doing anything, and he could no longer divine anything regarding the creature of desolation.

Ell’Hakan had also noticed this and questioned Jacob, who’d decided not to share anything he didn’t have to. Despite having developed the teleporter that allowed him and his allies to travel to planets not even part of the Prima Guardian Alliance, he had not once shown interest in confronting the living calamity sweeping their galaxy.

Jacob had even begun to suspect this was because Ell’Hakan had something to do with this creature, but reality proved to be far more simple… he just didn’t care. He didn’t see the creature as any kind of priority. The Chosen didn’t even believe killing some unknown menace would help his discourse, as no one really knew about it, seeing as everyone who’d been terrorized by the creature of desolation was dead.

He would rather “save” more planets and have them integrated into his alliance than actually do something good, and Jacob did find it hypocritical that the “evil” snake cult Chosen and his allies ended up being the ones doing a good deed.

Speaking of good deeds…

Valhal had been quickly making a name for themselves across the galaxy, all with the support of Ell’Hakan to help spread their name and influence. The Holy Church also helped Ell’Hakan – Jacob even being there proof of that – and the Church had even hired the Court of Shadows and some mercenaries, making their progress of killing Prima Guardians even faster as they began teleporting all around the galaxy, even to planets who hadn’t asked for help.

As they stood there, looking at the map that outlined the state of their galaxy, Bertram spoke. “I can’t even begin to imagine how this all ends…”

“Neither do I,” Jacob confessed. “I do truthfully hope for a peaceful solution… one that limits needless bloodshed. We can only pray that Jake will be open to diplomacy and peace talks or at least that Miranda will push for a mostly conflict-free resolution. Perhaps Ell’Hakan will need to leave the galaxy for good, but his followers should be fine.”

“Maybe such a thing can be achieved,” Bertram shrugged. “Jake isn’t the most caring of guys, so as long as no one really close to him is killed, it should be possible to negotiate with him.”

For some reason, when Bertram said that, Jacob felt an odd premonition and a shiver run down his spine but quickly shook it off. Yeah… that wouldn’t happen, right? Because if it did… Jacob had a hard time seeing this entire galactical event end in anything but bloodshed.