The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

"New Kochi has fallen. The entire city has been wiped," Clarissa said to me. I looked up at that. That was the city in the West.

"And?" I asked calmly and with a touch of annoyance. The last couple of days was lowering my opinion of Clarissa even further.

"The government can no longer project power beyond the boundaries of Purgatory. We are cut off," Clarissa said. I just calmly just sat across the table from her. "Everyone, out." Her people began to file out. I gave a nod and a wave of my hand so my people did as well. Soon the doors were shut and we were alone.

There were double doors with an air gap to help prevent eavesdropping and long halls to this room. Since it was meant to be absolutely secure. "You have given up," Clarissa accused me and I shook my head.

"I am letting you be in charge. You wanted to be in charge, you are in charge," I replied.

"We have lost. Or I have lost," Clarissa finally said. I could hear the pain in every word she uttered.

"Really?" I asked with a bit of surprise, and she let out a scoff. I didn't expect her to give up that easily. It was honestly disappointing.

"Communications have been cut. And I just got a report that tax shipments have been destroyed. Not stolen, destroyed, through summoned monsters with attached bombs. There are also sightings of hybrids." The truth was a bitter pill to swallow. Clarissa was good at her job, but she wasn't a military leader. She only beat the Dragon Empire because the Divine Empress and her administration were terrible, not because of anything impressive Clarissa did.

I wouldn't call her incompetent, but she came from a corporate background. And while she was able to stretch her ability to manage a situation, she wasn't someone who was capable of handling a serious terrorist threat.

Maybe if the sphere hadn't occurred, maybe if a lot of people hadn't gone West, maybe if I was more helpful, then she might have been able to work out a solution. But she was clearly out maneuvered. Both by the overall situation and the lack of her ability to think outside the box.

"You are just giving up?" I slowly asked. Since I didn't want to deal with the ongoing crisis myself. I had been thinking heavily about what I would do over the last couple of days and it wouldn't be simple. And it depended on what the enemy would do.

For all the plans Clarissa or I could come up with, they would struggle against the foe we were up against. That was what Clarissa didn't understand. Back on Earth this kind of asymmetric conflict wasn't possible. In historical times, there might have been great warriors, but numbers mattered. A legend might have been able to win ten against one, but a hundred against one, a thousand? At a certain point it was just physically impossible to keep going, even if one could defend from every angle and make the most optimal defense and attacks.

In modern times, there was only so much damage an individual could do. The planes hitting the Twin Towers on 9/11 was a perfect example of terrorism and the damage it could cause. Which when looking at the entire infrastructure and population of the United States was incredibly small. That isn't to say the terrorist attacks didn't matter, but their shock value was far higher than their actual damage.

The fact there had been no terrorist attacks of that nature since I had been taken from Earth since 9/11 implied that the government had the resources and manpower to keep an eye for such actions in the future.

But here in the Systemic Lands, the power of one individual could be massively different based on stats and knowledge. While Clarissa understood this fact, her way of fighting had been the methods of the previous conflicts. Even I had gotten caught up in thinking like this. And thinking about the example of the Divine Empress didn't help matters in the slightest.

There were two possibilities. Either this person was insane, and they just wanted to cause chaos, or they actually had a goal in mind. While I had fought and met many people with questionable mindsets, I didn't think a truly crazy person could become powerful enough to cause all this chaos. If I was wrong, then I was wrong, but my gut was telling me all these actions were for a purpose.

I had been thinking about this heavily over the last couple of days while Clarissa tried to handle things like a headless chicken running around. She was fighting terrorism with administration. Trying to fight chaos with order.

That wouldn't work. The threat needed to be lured out. To be drawn out into a confrontation. To establish some kind of power base. Some kind of structure to work off of. That's exactly what I planned to do.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The true power of tax income from cities only happened over time and with organization. Where there was some kind of system in place to direct the crystals to a single source. That process was a nightmare in terms of organizational headaches. That was the reason to keep Clarissa around.

Everything else was just extra. Even my family. It was hard to admit that, but my heart had grown colder over the last couple of days. The shock had mentally disturbed me, but I had regained enough of my equilibrium to think clearly. Whomever or whatever was going up against me was trying to get me to react. I still wasn't sure how, but now that Purgatory was cut off it stood to reason, they would make some kind of demand.

They would also leverage my mother against me. To draw me into a situation where I would lose or be compromised in some way. Since at the end of the day, my opponent and I were the only ones who mattered in this battle. We were the Kings on the chessboard. The pieces once cornered could not be recovered no matter what.

Clarissa just gave up her value by admitting she had lost control over the situation. Any redeeming value she might have had was gone. She was depending on sentimentality, organizational knowledge, and talent to keep her protected. Well my sentimentality was gone, lost with her critical mistake. The governmental organization had fallen apart, having little to no value left. Finally, her talent was in question, clearly not being up to the task before her.

Once I had boiled things down, the main question had become, how to lure my opponent out into the open. Where I had cities, soldiers, and a government, they had just one minion as far as I could tell. It was a complete imbalance in terms of targets to strike at.

And for all their skill at terrorism, they had made a critical mistake in my mentality. They had given me time to think and stew over the situation. They should have focused more on Purgatory and less on everything else. That would have kept me off balance for longer. While the risk of me back tracking them would be higher, it would have kept me off balance and possibly created an opening.

Now, I needed to cut off the dead weight. Clarissa was talking about the current situation and how everything had fallen apart. She could only command within Purgatory and the surrounding zones, but even that was questionable. I held up my hand and she quieted down.

"You know Clarissa, even after your failure, and your arrogance, I can't help but appreciate the effort you have put in. I really am a bleeding heart. You can come with me," I offered.

"Where are you going?" she asked, and I shook my head.

"That is something I am not going to reveal. But you have a choice. You can stay and Purgatory is yours, or you can leave with me," I replied.

"What about your Empire, Church, everything here?" she asked. I just smiled and shook my head.

"It doesn't matter." I held up a hand to stop her from interrupting me. "The simple fact is that when a person has something they covet it. Gold, power, knowledge, they grab onto it with both hands, and don't want to let it go." I paused to take a breath before continuing.

"But here in the Systemic Lands, that kind of Earth thinking is a trap. The only thing that matters is personal power. It might take many forms, but once something no longer strengthens me, it must be cut off. That is why I am going to leave and allow a power vacuum to form. Things will descend into chaos, disaster, and who knows what else, but there are only two outcomes."

"And what are those?" Clarissa asked nervously.

"Either chaos continues, which I don't care about. Or order is imposed. Order has to come from strength. If someone else rises up in strength, I can just threaten them for tax revenue as tribute. If it is this new enemy, I can just kill them. That is the truth of this world, power is the ultimate decider," I replied.

"Just walk away?" Clarissa asked and I nodded.

"Yes. I don't need to fight whomever is causing all this trouble through proxies. Proxy fighting is not my strength. Try to counter their moves using you and your minions have failed. This will draw them out. If they want to have any chance of surpassing me they will have to build up a power base. If I leave for ten years and come back, well I will be a lot stronger than whomever is hiding out there," I replied.

Clarissa just sat there, head hanging down. With my departure she would no longer have the legitimization of my presence to back her up. The Empire of Purgatory died not in a climatic battle, but by my quiet decision to leave the dead weight behind as a strategy to counter this hidden opponent.

I was not going to dance to whatever tune they had planned. They would make demands of a city that did not contain me. And I would not use the threat of any hostage to compel my actions. In fact I didn't even want to hear what their demands were for the simple fact it would make me think about their strategies and plans, allowing them to get into my head.

The only things that could defeat me were myself, the sphere, and the System as far as I knew. The System was both too powerful and too useless at the same time. I wasn't overly concerned unless the Avatar jumped in front of one of my attacks. The sphere had been defeated, and if it was still around, then I would deal with it once it showed up again.

That just left myself. I was my own worst enemy. I had no idea how I would be mentally attacked, but that felt like my only avenue of weakness. Since that was the case, I would not allow a situation where it could be taken advantage of. I would let everything burn and just leave to get stronger. There was no time pressure either.

I could out grind anyone else out there. If my opponent tried to use the cities as a power source, they would reveal themselves for a counter attack and waste their time administrating. If they didn't, I would out grind them with my meta-point. To close that gap would take a long time and I was okay with using some of that time to force them to reveal themselves.

The cost of human lives would be horrific. But that did not matter in my mind. Thousands upon thousands of people would die. People who looked up to me and believed in me to save them. I would let them all die. The caliber of the opponent I was up against demanded nothing less.