[A/N: What do you guys feel about taking time away from MC? I don't normally like novels that spend too much time away from the MC, and I don't like writing it. There is this novel that spent over 50 chapters away from the MC. I'm not trying to do that. 1 or 3 chapters at most is what I'm thinking, but I don't know if you guys are cool with that
Anyway, this chapter is extra long since I got carried away in explaining Golden Lion's abilities. As you might have noticed by the stats, I cut them to make things simple.]
[Name: Steven Walker
Race: Primordial Lion Bloodline
Talent: Lion Crown (SSS Rank)
Title: [Blessed By The Mother Of All Lions], [One out of the 18 people with an SSS rank Talent], [Born Sovereign]
Tier: Tier 1 (100 million/1,000,000,000 XP)
Combat Power: 4 million (+50% with Gear/+100% in Territory/+100% Within the Element/ ??? With Power)
Lion Crown - A normal lion can say, 'Everything the light touches is our kingdom.' What about a mighty primordial Lion? As a Primordial Lion, everything is your domain. Conquer it, and it shall be yours to command. Be it the elements, life, death, concept, and so on. All is yours to rule over, for you're the king of all, it's your domain, so conquer it.]
***
Yeah, Steven had been a huge fan of The Lion King movie growing up, which directly led to him dreaming about becoming a primordial Lion when the system asked for his deepest wish.
His incredible powers also allowed him to take on the physical form of any element he had conquered and commanded, which is why he could transform his entire body into pure light to move at the literal speed of light itself, or turn into a walking sun that burned everything around him indiscriminately.
Thanks to his unique ability called Lion Crown, which bypassed normal combat power calculations entirely and operated on a different system, what could the sun itself do but obey his direct commands?
The Earth beneath his feet? It was his to command and control completely, and the list of things under his dominion and control went on and on endlessly. The only things he had found so far that existed beyond his command and control were Chu Yin and other SSS rank tier abilities and their users.
Because their abilities were also beyond normal combat power calculations and operated on higher principles, it meant that they could directly counter his own ability effectively. Chu Yin's Omni Ice ability was honestly the single most annoying one to deal with personally, since she could outright create any type of Ice she pictured in her mind, even types of Ice that existed completely beyond his domain of control and couldn't be commanded by him.
She was easily the strongest amongst all of them gathered, a position that was undeniable based on pure capability and demonstrated power, thanks to the fact that she could easily become a perfect counter to anything they threw at her without much effort, her versatility and adaptability making her nearly impossible to overcome in direct confrontation.
Hell, she had even created a type of Ice which, upon freezing something, gave her the exact same level of authority over it as his ability gave him, matching his conceptual dominance through her own creative application of power.
She was overpowered beyond measure, possessing abilities that seemed to have no real weakness or limitation, and it wasn't fair at all, the sheer scope of her capabilities dwarfing what most others could accomplish.
What sucked most was the fact that, thanks to his powers and natural charisma, he became the public face of the empire against his preferences, thrust into a role he would rather have avoided entirely.
They had him do all the work of talking to the people and handling public relations, the endless speeches and appearances becoming a significant drain on his time and energy, thanks to the fact that he had naturally high charisma stats that made people trust him, his presence alone inspiring confidence and loyalty in those who encountered him... of course, the work paid off size he got the most benefit.
Golden Lion suddenly paused mid-step, his movement freezing as a new threat emerged, as a beam shot through the air at incredible speed, the attack covering the distance between attacker and target in a fraction of a second, stopping just inches from his face and hovering there, the deadly attack held suspended in space, before it stopped completely and shot back towards the attacker who had fired it, reversing its trajectory with perfect precision.
After all, why would the beam attack its ruler and master when it recognized his authority over it? Beams of energy were also part of his kingdom and domain, falling under the same absolute control he exercised over so many aspects of reality, meaning said beams were his to command and control, no matter their original combat power or source, regardless of how they had been created or what strength had been invested in their formation.
The beam shot directly through the head of a giant spider, the redirected attack striking with lethal accuracy, which had originally shot the beam from one of its many eyes scattered across its body, the creature's own weapon turned against it with devastating effect.
But the beam didn't die out or even grow weaker after the kill, maintaining its full potency despite completing its lethal purpose, and as if it were alive and sentient, moving with purpose and intelligence, it pierced through the many remaining eyeballs of the spider one by one, destroying each of the creature's visual organs in sequence.
Before flying around the battlefield freely, piercing through every other monster around them systematically, eliminating threats with scary efficiency.
What you just witnessed was the skill called [Lion's Charisma] in action, the ability demonstrating one of its many applications. A skill that functioned as a passive defense mechanism, operating automatically without requiring conscious activation.
At level 1, it had simply increased his charisma stat substantially, boosting this particular attribute far beyond normal human ranges. If he defeated someone in battle, proving his superiority through combat, he would be able to subdue them completely regardless of the circumstances, their resistance crumbling in the face of his demonstrated dominance.
It didn't matter what their combat strength was or how powerful they were; the numbers and rankings became irrelevant in the face of this ability's effect. They would develop 100% loyalty towards him automatically, their allegiance becoming absolute without any conscious choice on their part, and even gain a significant boost in power thanks to the overwhelming loyalty they held towards him, the emotional connection translating into measurable increases in capability, making them capable of fighting beyond their normal limits, achieving feats that should have been impossible given their baseline strength.
At level 2, it allowed him to conquer that which has no will of its own, extending his dominion beyond living beings and into inanimate objects. For example, by conquering a sword as his domain, claiming the weapon as part of his territory, he gains the power to sharpen the sword to become sharper, enhancing its cutting edge beyond its physical limitations, make it longer, altering its dimensions according to his desires, and so on as he wishes, manipulating the weapon's properties freely.
The only limitation to this ability was that something massive like the entire Earth was something he couldn't conquer due to being too weak currently, since his influence couldn't cover the whole planet.
At level 3, it allowed him to partly conquer something too large to conquer all at once, providing a workaround for objects that exceeded his level 2 capacity. This allowed him to, for example, conquer just part of the sun initially, claiming a section of the massive stellar body rather than attempting to dominate it entirely, and since the sun wasn't actively fighting back and didn't have the means to resist his ability, lacking consciousness or defensive mechanisms to oppose him, that partial conquest would spread like a cancer through the rest, the conquered portion expanding to encompass adjacent areas.
It would swallow the whole sun bit by bit until it was fully under his command and control, eventually bringing the entire celestial object within his domain. The only limitation to this ability was how much of something he could actively command at once, his capacity to simultaneously control conquered territory having practical boundaries.
Trying to will the whole sun to do something specific used up a huge amount of mental energy and concentration, the effort required to direct such a massive object straining his mental resources significantly.
Level 4 simply gave him a passive charisma shield automatically, providing constant protection without requiring any action on his part, which meant that any attack that tried to hit him would be countered automatically and gain sentience upon contact, the hostile action becoming aware and self-directed in the moment it touched his defensive field.
This meant they no longer grew weaker over time and could exist indefinitely as long as he allowed them to exist, the attacks maintaining their strength without the normal decay that would reduce their effectiveness.
At that point, the now sentient attack could either attack its original creator, turning against the one who had launched it, or stay by Golden Lion's side as a companion, remaining with him as a permanent addition to his forces.
Level 5 was a universal strengthening of all previous abilities, enhancing every aspect of what had come before, boosting the capability that [Lion's Charisma] gave him across the board, improving all functions of the skill simultaneously, while simultaneously dropping the energy cost required to use its abilities, making the various effects more efficient and less draining to employ.
So yeah, Golden Lion was genuinely overpowered as an SSS-tier talent, his capabilities far exceeding what most others could achieve, mainly since even formless attacks like pure energy couldn't bypass his charisma shield defense, the protection extending to threats that lacked physical substance.
So, with ease, he reclaimed the land that Thor had lost, the process taking mere minutes where it had taken Thor and his entire army days of brutal combat to hold, and conquered a group of monsters he saw as useful, selecting creatures whose abilities would serve practical purposes in defense and surveillance, and had them return to shield the city and act as lookouts, positioning them around the perimeter.
From there, he went to see the place and ordered the injuries inflicting everyone there to disappear, his voice carrying the weight of absolute command as he addressed the wounded warriors and civilians alike.
Yes, even injuries were not free from his charisma; the concept of harm and damage fell under his domain just as surely as physical objects and energy. With an order, they disappeared, the wounds closing and healing as if they had never existed, and those missing limbs found themselves growing new limbs, flesh and bone sprouting from stumps in defiance of normal biological processes.
Back to Chu Yin, one could see her rocketing through the air, her body launched backward by tremendous force, slamming hard into the barrier that surrounded the area, since she was fighting the region boss.
The impact creates spiderweb cracks across the magical boundary. She coughed up a mouthful of blood while sliding down the wall, the crimson liquid staining her lips and chin, but with an annoyed look, her expression more irritated than pained, she picked herself up, refusing to stay down despite the violence of the impact.
Ignoring the Ice lizard claws, which were frozen inches from her face, dying from the blizzard that covered this place, the supernatural cold claimed victims by the millions… yes, millions. Before, she was fighting, but here she was fighting millions.
"Annoying," She said softly, her tone carrying frustration rather than fear. After casting her spell, things were supposed to be easy. The battle concluded with overwhelming force, not drawn out by some stupid lizard somehow withstanding the cold and snow, defying temperatures that should have flash-frozen it solid, and lasting long enough to attack her, managing to land a blow that actually connected.
Sighing softly, she ignored the notification that she had cleared this place and became its new overlord, dismissing the system message without bothering to read the details.
She looked deeper into South America, her gaze turning toward the unexplored territories that stretched endlessly before her, realizing that the deeper she went, the stronger the monsters were becoming, the power scaling upward at an alarming rate.
Towards the heart of the rain forest, she was sure some powerful monster with a combat power of over 10 million existed, a creature that would dwarf anything she had faced so far.
She wasn't scared of the thing, her confidence in her own abilities remaining unshaken. She would defeat it, but with the territory sizes increasing as she went deeper, the regions expanding to truly massive scales, it meant she needed to push herself even more to have her spell over a greater range to kill all of the monsters, extending her power across distances that would strain even her considerable capabilities.
And she didn't want to risk it, the potential danger outweighing the immediate benefits, as seen now as she was injured by the lizard, a reminder that overconfidence could prove fatal.
At the end of the day, this was as far as she could go without an army, her solo conquest reaching its limit. Any more, and she is just putting her life on the line, gambling with stakes too high to justify, but this brought to attention how dangerous South America was, highlighting a threat that couldn't be ignored or postponed.
She would return home and start making plans to have those from South America move to North America, organizing a massive evacuation effort. South America shall become a battlefield, one which the world had to unite to ensure the monsters here didn't grow too fast, requiring coordinated international effort.
"I wonder what Seth is doing… I should have gone with him." Chu Yin said softly, a note of wistfulness entering her voice as she thought about her love.
Tapping away at the Overlord window before her, navigating through the various menus and options, buying the city she planned to place here, making the purchase that would establish her foothold. It would be the first line of defense against the monsters of South America, a bulwark against the tide of creatures that threatened to spill northward.
What was Seth doing right now? Well, Seth was currently in a bar, the establishment filled with warmth and noise and bodies pressed together, his hand wrapped around Alara's shoulders, holding her close in a casual embrace, while the other hand was over a black haired male elf with pale skin. That male elf also had a hand over another elf, creating a whole chain of dozens of elves.
They danced on top of the bar tables, their feet moving in rhythm to the music, with the whole bar joining them, the celebration spreading to encompass every patron.
"One, here comes the two to the three to the four
Tell 'em, "Bring another round, we need plenty more."
Two-steppin' on the table, she don't need a dance floor
Oh my, good Lord
Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey
They know me, and Jack Daniel's got a history
There's a party downtown near 5th Street
Everybody at the bar gettin' tipsy."
The whole bar sang as one, voices rising in drunken harmony, just about everyone was drunk, the alcohol flowing freely, and inhibitions long since abandoned. But how couldn't these elves party like crazy? Such amazing music was welcomed by them, the songs speaking to something deep in their culture, and they wanted nothing more than to drink and party, to lose themselves in the moment.
"Shut Up!" The music suddenly stopped as an elf standing at the counter, who had had enough of everything, finally reached his breaking point. Instantly, everyone turned to look at him, the sudden silence heavy, frowning and annoyed at him for getting in the way of their fun.
"You pieces of shit, how do you expect me to work when all I want is to join you all! Look at the mess you made me do!" He said angrily, his frustration boiling over as he gestured at the evidence of his distraction, showing them the trash which had the glass cups he had destroyed trying to wash, but thanks to the music he had started dancing, unable to resist the infectious rhythm, and destroyed them.