The Portal closed behind him, and I broadcast my Voice out, “All surviving mages, please gather on me. I’ve something of import to say.”

Slowly, somewhat hesitantly, the Adepts and Mages who’d found themselves in the middle of a clash between a Sage and Archmages gathered to me. The fact was I’d won that fight, with the help of the Mighty Turk, Reynard, and the Roses, the latter of which had formed a deadly ring about the Ritual Site at the moment, in case of any Curia reinforcements.

Also, Grandfather Cloudcatcher had darted over and snared a bunch of them one by one, and what could the hapless dolts do about that?

“Ladies, gentlemen, mages all, I have a request to ask of you,” I began calmly, watching their faces screw up. I was a Sage, all I had to do was give them an order and they literally had no choice but to obey, especially after the sky-shattering, ground-sundering show that had just happened. “It concerns a little vengeance you might want to take on the powers behind all of this.”

That got their attention. Vengeance was a personal thing, and they’d all watched friends and colleagues trying to save the world die in the wild frenzy of the Curia’s sudden attack.

“Under the center of where the Formation was arranged is a nasty powerful artifact, a link to a powerful Netherlord that was supposed to help open a portal to the Netherworld here and turn it into a Death Zone, not incidentally killing the many mages gathered here to remove The Great Flood from South America.

“I’m wondering if you might not want to help me destroy the thing. If you don’t want to, all I can do is send it back where it came from.

“With your help, I can blow it to Hell and gone, and really punish the sunuvabitch for what it was trying to do here!”

“Count me in!” was the instant reply from one of the male Mages who’d survived the fight, a deeply-bronzed Brazilian who’d kept at least one member of the Curia busy during the fight.

More shouts rose up, fists in the air, calling for blood and revenge against the masters of the bastards who had done all this.

“Excellent. We’re going to be using a new Formation, and filling it with Mana. It will also scoop up the corrupted Mana you’ve gathered so far, and make of it a weapon to blow the ever-loving mercy out of that Dark Toy down below.

“Come! Let me show you to your positions and get you set up.”

There were still hundreds of surviving mages, and they were all spoiling for a little payback. My Firefrost healing had already dealt with any injuries they might have had, and they followed me very willingly into new positions to take up the task they’d been doing for weeks or months out here, only this time for some more immediate results.

-------

Time passes...

The time of the Edict of the Emperors was coming up, and the nations of the world were bubbling as their people traveled to the Ritual Sites to start empowering them. The fact Ruler or Emperor-level Beasts were actually guarding the Floodbreaker Sites was both awe-inspiring and incredibly affirming as to the purpose and intent of the Emperors.

The situation in the seas was still boiling, according to Leviathan Emperor. Some of the Tribes attacking the Tainted Tribes had made the mistake of eating them, and rapidly become Tainted themselves. That had happened to a great many Shark Clans, who had formerly managed to stay remarkably free of such corruption.

Now there were countless Sharks and their Finmen traveling the seas killing everything, gorging on the remains, and getting stronger wildly through the power of massacre, including their own tribes if they couldn’t find something to eat.

There was more food to eat in the sea than on the lands, however, so the slaughter continued in the deeps, and the Sea Emperors were busy.

The Whales were not silent nor absent in this fight, but they were also clustered around Leviathan Emperor’s Domain, and attacks on the area were ramping up. Alas for them, the whole area was basically under the ice, and the Land Emperors of cold had trundled over to give the Whales some help... armed with vivic fires on claws and teeth and setting the whole ocean on white fire when their bloody slaughter was done.

Leviathan Emperor not having to travel far did mean I got a lot more work done on His Pyramid, and if He wasn’t around, White Death Wolf Emperor usually was.

Still, it was a big double Pyramid, there was a lot of work to do, and it could only be done so fast because of the size of the thing.

It was fine, because when it went up, it would be the most powerful Pyramid in the world.

The Broom Closet didn’t count, of course. It wasn’t ‘in’ the world.

I healed a lot of injuries on the fighting Whales and White Death Wolf Emperor’s underlings. It was fine, that was what I did. If they called for some help in the fighting, I could zip over and help out with that, even underwater as it was.

Thunderbird Emperor was not averse to swooping over, grabbing huge amounts of Sharks and Finmen who were burning vivic, and gulping them down. Plenty of His descendants, plus fishing Raptors of all kinds, joined Him in the feasts, their beaks and claws burning with unwhite fires to make sure they weren’t Tainted by doing so.

As for Sama, she had been on a silent and deadly tear. The complete lack of outside information about what was really going on contrasted sharply with the slaughter that was taking place as she hunted down Black Curia members across the globe with a devoted team of Diviners helping out.

She did not care who they were in society, or how protected or exalted their places and how noble their backgrounds were. If they were members of the Black Curia, or supported it financially, they died, typically disappearing from the face of the Earth with their most devoted supporters and loyalists.

The Diviners working with her were basically there to confirm the locations of their targets through the most subtle means possible, and left it to her to deal with them. Sama began to dismantle their organizations through the use of that old instrument called terror, and none of them even knew who was killing them, or even if most of them died.

If someone linked the abrupt vanishings and ‘going to ground’ of so many prominent people to the one-by-one revelations that all the Floodbreaker Ritual Sites had been infiltrated and corrupted, that was on them.

Most amusingly, there were several Black Curia bases, ‘training centers’, and storage sites that were outside current Human territory. When we got word of those and Sama confirmed them, I basically only had to contact a local Emperor, ask if they wanted to kill off some corrupted Humans serving the Netherworld, and within a day a Beast Tide of unmitigated savagery would fall on them, root them out, and slaughter them all. Somehow, they had plenty of Vivic Braziers to light up the dead and Burn them clean, too. However did the Beasts get their paws on so many of the things?

===========

Sama is busy, of course...

“The Great Mother of the Acropolis. The High Hierophant of the Black Curia. Who would have thunk?”

The woman in Sama’s grip didn’t respond. The head of Golden Knight Zeus, one of the most powerful of the Golden Knights of the Acropolis, slowly fell over as his head tumbled free of his stiffened body.

Two attending Muses also dropped to the floor with plops, their heads also rolling free. Yet their stumpy necks didn’t pump out any blood in the wake of the crimson trail of Tremble.

“We have the complete financial trail of the billions you’ve leeched off the Acropolis over the years, helping build up the power of the Curia, the computer systems you’ve put in place are already getting purged and reprogrammed under the direction of the Divine Ascendant.” There might have been a twitch from the older woman in her grip at the news. “There’s a purge list already in place of your followers, and those with Dark Magic. Some are being eliminated as we speak, some will be quietly moved out of power and sent away if they’ve done no overt evil, but Dark Magic will not be allowed among members of the Acropolis by the end of the month.

“I’m sure you’ve put some horrible plans into effect which will come to fruition now that you’ve been exposed. It’s fine, we’ll deal with them, together with the noble Great Beasts you’ve also been scheming against. No, no, don’t even try to defend yourself. Too many innocents worth far more than your shriveled soul have died at your hands and your direction. You have no defense. You’re dead.

“Goodbye. Your name will be stricken from all records of the Acropolis, and your deeds never remembered. Nobody will remember who you are, or were, the crimes you did, or the false glories you accomplished. You won’t even be revealed for the grandiose traitor to humanity and the name of Healers that you are. You’re just going to vanish as the miserable waste of dust that you are.”

There was a pulse of vivus, and the soul of the Great Mother of the Hall of Muses of the Acropolis shrieked as it Burned, the three Compacts tied to her enough to render the annihilation of vivus upon her complete.

She wouldn’t be making it to the afterlife to be rewarded for her power and status, that was for certain.

As for those many surprises of hers? Sama had taken her Bloodhounds down into the roots of the Acropolis and found many, many extraordinarily dangerous things put in place there that might have kicked off with the death of the High Hierophant, last ploys to both safely send her to the Netherworld while still alive to claim a place of power, and to bring utter ruination upon the ancient institution she had betrayed and corrupted so completely.

In had come the devout Argent Mages, led by Driver Sam, and they had slowly, meticulously, and thoroughly cleared out all the blood-driven, greed-forged, and nether-powered surprises active down below, even slaughtering multiple Nether Creatures so efficiently and thoroughly they didn’t raise any alarms up above.

There would naturally be a section of the Curia’s Muse adherents who would be caught, sentenced, and executed publicly for their corruption, as the people had to see Justice done, and know what had been done to them.

Zishia was already gone. The clever aspirant to the Divine Mother position had seen the powerful people who supported the Black Curia vanishing and deduced what was happening. She hadn’t been a member herself, but hadn’t been above using them, and had quickly realized what was coming for her.

Had she known the High Hierophant was the Great Mother of the Hall of Muses? Probably not, but who knew? If the woman was smart, she’d emigrate right to the Netherworld, as the Diviners were looking for her, and they were going to catch her if she stayed on the planet. She might be in a very powerful shielded location right now, but all that would do was give Fae a location to send Sama to and crack open.

Sama withdrew Tremble’s Ruby Blade, limned in an edge of Golden soul-light, from underneath the chin of the Great Mother, whose skull was already on fire and burning cheerfully. The bone of the Sage’s skull was already starting to crystallize, and Sama kept an easy grip on it as Tremble flickered to Roasting mode, and seven different kinds of fire became a +7d6 inferno of multiple energies. Holy and Elemental powers devoured the rest of the flesh and bone of the Great Mother with incredible speed, turning her and her decades of service and treachery into heavy unwhite mist.

Her Patrons in the Netherworld were likely going to be somewhat incensed when those Contracts burned and they didn’t get the Great Mother’s soul, as they should have. Pity.

Sama pocketed the Shield and Armor that popped out of their Soulbound status, as well as some other Trinkets the woman had on her. She would deliver them to Sakura, who was nearly ready to take the Divine Mother Oath, the clear winner of the competition to become the leader of the Acropolis.