At this time, the Power Faction of the NPC which was formed by all the forces Draco declared to be on the chopping board were shocked at the sudden change.
The world seemed to have expanded suddenly and their living space had almost doubled. Many new continents and factions had emerged in this new space, and some of them even had True Gods among their fold!
On these continents, every kingdom above the Empire Tier had True Gods, which was what made them Divine Empires. This was an actual rank for kingdoms, but on the former Main Plane, it was a rank that was achieved through upgrades without having the requisite power.
For player owned and NPCs owned territories, the rankings were as such;
Tier 0 - Settlement
Tier 1 - Village
Tier 2 - Town
Tier 3 - Small City
Tier 4 - Medium City
Tier 5 - High City
Tier 6 - Capital City
Tier 7 - City State
Tier 8 - Small Kingdom
Tier 9 - Medium Kingdom
Tier 10 - High Kingdom
Tier 11 - Small Empire
Tier 12 - Medium Empire
Tier 13 - High Empire
Tier 14 - Divine Empire
The Ancestral City of Dragons had been rated as Tier 25, which means that in the past there were Tiers in between. As for Tier 26+ if even the Dragons did not possess the qualification to achieve it, or even see the qualifications in the first place, then it either didn't exist or nobody would ever have to bother about it.
In the mapped zones of before, there were big differences in power from the earlier Tiers that became murky at the later Tiers. For example, a settlement was ruled by a Rank 1 Adventurer, a town or city by a Rank 2 Lord, a kingdom by a Rank 3 King and an empire by a Rank 4 Emperor.
These ranks hadn't been named as such for fun, they were based on the qualifications of each Rank on their capability to rule a territory.
Around this point, things became murky. Some kingdoms could have Rank 5 Demi Gods, whereas a new settlement might be overseen by a Rank 6 Godling.
Those were extreme examples, but the more common occurrence was that between Tier 11 to Tier 14, they were ruled mostly by Rank entities whose Rank would lie somewhere between Rank 4 and Rank 7. A High Empire and a Divine Empire were not so different on paper, only separated by a Tier and the system's recognition.
However, these newly discovered continents broke that assumption. Along with the Tier of the territory, there were hard caps on the maximum power it was allowed to wield, enforced by their Continental Councils or whatever equivalent there was.
Not to mention that high empires were to be manned by Rank 7 while Divine Empires were led by True Gods, becoming almost theocratic states!
And unlike the Main Plane's True God situation where they were locked up in battle, these True Gods were present in the world and could interfere as they pleased.
Of course, there was a reason the AI had initially made Tue Gods unable to interfere, but introducing these new ones would break that balance. So the moment they were revealed, the faces of all the new True Gods who had evil thoughts in their heads changed as they were forcibly teleported into the Divine Realm.
They were to go and aid the fight against the Grey Rot, and they had no option to leave. However, while the True God NPCs were sent away, the True God monsters that came with these territories were untouched.
That was obviously because unlike True God NPCs who would interfere, True God monsters mostly kept to themselves and their various territories without disturbing anyone, so it was unlikely for them to break the balance.
This change happened so suddenly that the various Divine Empires had no chance to react. They were left in a panic as their biggest backers had suddenly disappeared without even leaving them a message, when such a chaotic situation had occurred.
After suppressing their continents, they now had the same power as High Empires. It was obvious that such empires would start having fanciful ideas if this news got out so it was forcibly and brutally suppressed by these Divine Empires.
However, before they could regroup, they suddenly got waves of players and NPCs from the former mapped zones rushing into their territories like refugees from war.
When they interrogated these fellows, they found out about Umbra, its history, its power and the current conquest. The new powers were left speechless by this, wondering if this was a blessing or a calamity that they had 'joined' with the mapped zones.
Many of the smaller powers shrunk their heads and began to wonder if the greedy Umbra would try to take over them as well while the top powers were not too bothered.
After all, what made people fear Umbra was not their military might per se, but the fact that the Evil Trio could easily slaughter the formerly assumed to be unkillable Rank 7 powerhouses.
However, the reaction of these new powers to such a claim was full of mockery and derision. They lived in a society with True Gods, and below a True God, all are ants. Rank 7 is still a mortal rank and just a bigger ant, so the deaths of such fellows were often heard of and not at all shocking.
Even with the True Gods gone, they still had various methods in their foundations that they could take out to clear any Rank 7, not to mention that things like 'Titled Gods' which they simple called Semi-True Gods, were aplenty in their forces.
Semi-True Gods could also kill Rank 7 blokes, so they assumed that Draco and Eva were at this tier. If this was so, while they would be formidable foes, they were nothing to panic about.
Seeing their nonchalance and confidence, the Power Faction were like drowning people who had seen a rope. They tugged on it with full force without the intention of letting go.
They directly sold everything they had to these new powers to protect them and deal with Umbra. After all, if they lost, Umbra would take everything they owned along with their lives, so where was the shame in doing this?
These new factions wanted to say no, but were overwhelmed with the benefits. As such, they officially joined the Power Faction and got tied to this boat, but to the dismay of the powerhouses, these new factions did not plan to strike immediately.
In the eyes of the old factions, they should strike now while the iron was hot and suppress Umbra with their full force. If they gave them time to consolidate their gains and grow stronger, it would become harder and harder to deal with them.
Not to mention, the land they would consume to expand belonged to their forces!
However, the new forces did not care about such worries. They had to stabilize their own situation and check their foundations after their top echelon had disappeared.
As for Umbra, they recognized the threat and the danger. If their top echelon had not disappeared, they would have definitely descended upon them in full force.
Right now, they had bigger fish to fry. Not to mention, they only regarded Umbra as a serious opponent but not an unstoppable force like these old factions knew they were.
Not to mention that since they had sold themselves to these new factions, thye practically did not have rights or a say again, if they dared to push too hard, they would get slapped about like dogs.
Being slapped about like this, the faces of the powerhouses of the old factions changed greatly. They lowered their heads and felt endless pain in their hearts.
Previously they had been like gods in the world, able to decide the fate of races and had entire continents moving to their will. How did they fall from that to this level?
Meanwhile, the core members did not stop, nor did they plan to. They continued to bulldoze through the sea area and cleared the path towards the next few continents. When they reached land, they began their previous act of purging the land of any faction that did not submit fully.
As for the loot drops from the clearing of the sea and the areas, they had ways to collect them. The Rank 7 Warehouse of Vita Kingdom that should have the capacity of a black hole was filling up rapidly.
The core members noticed a problem though. Their experience gain rate had dropped drastically after the Update and they found that it was only them as the other members of Umbra did not feel it.
This caused their expression to become ugly as they could guess why. Their feedback was much stronger and instantaneous compared to players who received a percentage over time.
In order to prevent them from overloading and giving it difficulty, the AI had simply artificially limited how fast they could grow and stifled them. That way, it could control how much power they took away at all times.
The core members did not dare complain because this was the AI's world. Who knew what wicked method it could think of next to suppress them? In fact, they had a sinking feeling that the AI was watching them with a sharp glance, just waiting for them to slip up and give it an excuse to get harsher.
They felt like the current limitations placed on them were the maximum the AI could do at this time with its programming. If they dared to be even more audacious, it could add more on top of that. While it overlooked practically everything its darling Draco would do, they were not him, so crossing the bottom line would end up badly for them.
The other members of Umbra were fine though, Draco had made them custom sets that were all upgradeable, so most of the experience they gained from the slaughter was invested into these sets to raise their ranks as soon as possible.
In the meantime, now that Cario especially had been cleared and conquered, it was time to rebuild. There was a reason why the Evil Trio had confidently allowed the core members to slaughter as they pleased without caring for 'subjugating' or 'converting' the captured populace in order to maintain their forces.
They had a repopulation plan that was perfect for them to use. The first thing was to use the Aether Conversion Orb to expand the territory to cover the entire continent and the conquered seas in all directions.
As you could imagine, the plan of the Evil Trio was not to have multiple cities and a capital like how most territories progressed but follow the path of top territories like the Ancestral City of Dragons and maintain one super large territory with endless power.
This would allow the benefits of Vita Kingdom to cover the entirety of this expanse freely. However, even though they were good, if the Evil Trio were planning to rely on this, then it would take centuries to repopulate such a landmass even if they forced everyone capable to procreate.
So the only way to achieve their plan was to have literal centuries pass in only moments, which was easier said than done. Thankfully, there was someone among their party who could do just that.
The first step was to take some samples. They couldn't just take anyone, but only the best of the specimens they wanted. Around 300 of each race were taken into Draco's Morningstar Universe and placed on different planets there.
Then they were given a mental suggestion by Shuangtian through their souls to procreate endlessly and multiply as much as they could. Eva would then casually flip forward time on these planets by a minimum of a hundred or so years.
With the limitless energy of the Inner Universe and the planets that were free of danger and could be molded by those who lived on it to suit their survival needs, Eva only needed to fast forward time by around 500 years to find the entire planet almost congested.
Draco would then walk to an empty part of the continent and open a portal, sending all these fellows out. Shuangtian had already planted the necessary soul seeds that told them what to do next, and Draco would move to another area to 'repopulate' it.
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