The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

I sat in my room onboard the airship. I looked at the red envelope in front of me. We had reached our planned destination very late last night, or early this morning. Michelle had given it to me and I was hesitating before I read it.

After about ten minutes of sitting and staring at it, I finally picked it up and opened the envelope up. I then pulled out the sheet of paper inside. The first thing I noticed was that the writing was print not cursive and a bit messy.

Emperor Michael of Purgatory

You are reading this after you have run away in your airship.

I mentally reeled back at that line. My hands trembled. An enemy who could see the future or a very educated guess. While someone who knew me well might know I would leave, they wouldn't easily know I would delay reading the letter. Was it a magic trick or was an actual skill in play?

An enemy who could see the future implied that they had two meta-points. One to control Jacob, the other to see the future. How had such a person escaped my notice. I looked back down at the letter.

I wanted to let you know that all of this is your fault. Just as you destroyed my life, I will destroy yours. So run, hide, but know that it was I who destroyed your Empire, ruined your subordinates, and captured your flesh and blood.

You will die like the worm you are.

There was no signature. I read through the letter a second time. I hadn't wronged anyone this much who was still alive. It was clearly a personal grudge or a trap to make me think so. I folded the letter up and put it away as I thought about people who hated me.

I had killed countless people. Who knew if I killed the relative of someone or led to them being killed. The list was nearly endless. There were loads of people that probably want me dead. But the skill and everything else was too much for any regular person. Was it Jacob all along?

Shaking my head, since that didn't make any sense. I knew the man personally. He was a scum bag, but he was a self-serving scumbag. I couldn't see him antagonizing me and I knew his skills and stats. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the energy manipulation skills I had seen so far and the possible meta-points.

I was a big believer in sitting down to think through things properly was a good way to handle a difficult situation. It wasn't enough just to recognize the situation, but everything that brought it about and to consider all options.

The problem was, that I didn't have all the information I needed. It was the massive information asymmetry that was making things incredibly difficult right now. There was nothing to target and destroy. That was the real problem I was facing.

There had been no further attacks or signs that the Crystal Vortex had been followed, but that didn't put me at ease. Captain Francis and Michelle didn't have any concrete ideas either when I had asked them. Even with all the information we had, the most I could do was make myself a target in a city. But that was just pointless as a long strategy and would leave me more vulnerable compared to hiding out in the wilderness on my airship.

Thinking about all the actions taken, this was worse than the sphere. At least the sphere had been clear cut in terms of what needed to be attacked. That was when it hit me. The golems I had just faced reminded me of the sphere's golems that it used. Except for the tiny golden symbols on the outside and the difference in energy. There were also minor differences in shape as well. But the general construction and base material were similar enough, that there was a correlation between the two.

A meta-point skill to take control of another being's energy. That would work both on Jacob and on the golems. It made more sense than multiple meta-points. That just left long range observation and control. The unique airship could easily be done in a city where the governor had been compromised.

If a person had enough knowledge, their summoning range could be longer and they could observe at a distance. The main issue for long distance summoning was energy control. But if a person had god tier energy raw manipulation skills, they could act at quite a distance and hide the tethers.

The same with observation. This airship was massive so it would be easy enough to track in low energy areas through divination. That skill had fallen into disuse and was considered not that useful, but it was a known ability.

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A clearer picture was forming. Someone with god tier energy manipulation along with a single meta-point ability to alter a person's energy. That would explain the golden energy. They could capture some golems before the sphere was defeated and repurposed them.

It felt like a waste to use them in the attack, but the person I was facing was probably much weaker compared to me. They could ambush the golems in some way and take control one at a time. But they weren't confident in fighting me directly.

There was a big difference to experiencing different combat levels of strength and being told about the different combat levels of strength. Attacking me with as little interference as possible wasn't easy. And those golems were probably meant to disable the Crystal Vortex. Once I lost my airship, I would have a much harder time moving around and it would be insanely difficult to grind in a high level zone.

It was too much of a trek to get back to a city to cash in points, that was why an airship was useful to ferry a lot of point crystals at once. Also speed in terms of traveling. Traveling on foot was a nightmare in terms of speed and other complications. I could do it and had done it in the past, but it was sub-optimal in almost every possible way.

Now I had a clearer picture of the enemy I was facing, I felt much better about the entire situation. I still didn't know who they were, but they had revealed too much about their capabilities. If I was in their shoes, what would be my next action?

That was the trillion point question I needed to answer. I had put them in a very tough spot by running away, limiting their options while increasing mine. It was a good choice and while there were issues with this choice, I didn't regret it. Running away had been the best option.

But I wanted to try and predict their next move and compared it to what I had learned about them. If I could predict it correctly, then I was modeling their mindset in the right way, which would hopefully produce more insights.

Their hatred of me was real, but they weren't suicidal or delusional. Their combat ability was probably around combat level 4 to 5, so they would never face me in the open. That was too much of a risk. Their energy control was off the charts as well. So, a veritable genius. Or it could be an individual with a mental issue that allowed them super energy control.

That had been something of a minor research avenue in the past. Could people with divergent necrologies have greater control of energy. Would autism grant someone the ability to hear energy or skills, something weird like that. There were only a small handful of people like this who arrived and there had been some investment into their stat points.

Ultimately, no advantage had been found. But what if there was someone who arrived that we didn't know had some weird brain structure. If my memory wasn't completely wrong, it was possible to have half the brain removed but still survive. If there was someone like that, would a regeneration impact their ability to manipulate energy?

That question had not been fully answered and it was deemed as a minor research project that was ongoing. Nothing had come of it unfortunately. Still, that seemed like the most probable scenario to explain what was going on.

This person also lucked into a meta point and hated me. That was three major events all lining up with the same person. I didn't believe in coincidences, but it was possible. A divergent brain and getting a meta-point weren't completely separate events. Being able to manipulate energy better would make it easier to grind monsters and earn a meta-point.

As for hating me, I was the Emperor and a divergent brain could explain delusions as well. On regular Earth these people would often be in a mental asylum or have difficulty functioning in society at the very least. But in the Systemic Lands, they could reach the rank of Super Villain, since their personal power could be increased.

I felt ill at how stupid that all was. A super villain was the stupidest thing I could think of. There was very little logical sense regarding super villains, and now I had to believe that one had been created in the past couple of years who could match up with me? The unfairness of that made me want to scream. I might not be a good person, but what did I do to deserve a super villain like opponent.

The more I thought about the possibility, the more I realized that it was probably the case. It all lined up with everything that had happened so far in one simple explanation. While there could be other explanations, I was a big believer in Occom's Razor, the simplest explanation tended to be the correct one.

I was facing the Joker or whatever variant there was for the Systemic Lands. Why couldn't they work with me? It wasn't like I went around tossing people into acid. I had tried to make this hell a bit more bearable by allowing civilization to take hold. But some people just wanted to see the world burn. Now it was all burnt down.

They would target me. With my location narrowed down, they would probably launch a massive assault within the next ten to twenty days. Destroy the airship and then attack me in a constant battle of attrition from a distance to eventually wear me down and kill me. That would be the best route to defeat me.

If you could attack form a distance without risking yourself, then it made sense. The sky battle had been a test to see how much resources needed to be put into an attack to make me take it seriously. Well I was confident in Michelle and the soldiers with a summoning focus on board.

They would provide enough of a screen around the airship to spot any attacks against it far in advance. And getting out here would be a massive headache for anyone.