I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 11: The Golden Bribe
The clearing reeked of melted stone and rotting flesh. The Plague Abomination was dead. The multiplied magical strike of Lucifer completely shredded it. Dying did not mean the monster went quietly.
The core of the Abomination detonated to unleash a violent expanding shockwave of highly corrosive acid and localized kinetic force. Lucifer had teleported out of the immediate blast zone. His firing line had not been entirely so lucky.
"Hold the perimeter!" Elara shouted. Her celestial wings flared outward to shield a cluster of Elven snipers from a wave of flying acidic bone shrapnel.
Lucifer landed smoothly fifty yards away. His boots skidded across the dead grass. He opened his mouth to issue a tactical redeployment command. A horrific tearing agony ripped directly through the center of his chest instead.
He did not scream. The air vanished entirely from his lungs. Lucifer dropped to his knees. His hands clawed at the dirt. A thick dark stream of blood instantly poured out of his nose to splatter against the ground. His vision swam with blinding white spots.
The system interface violently flashed with red warning runes deep within his Soulbound Arcanum.
[Warning! Critical Soul-Link Damage Detected!]
[Summoned Unit: Cryo-Vanguard Sniper (Tier-A) has been destroyed.]
[Summoned Unit: Cryo-Vanguard Sniper (Tier-A) has been destroyed.]
[Summoned Unit: Cryo-Vanguard Sniper (Tier-A) has been destroyed.]
The system physically tore the corresponding magical upkeep cost directly out of the soul of Lucifer every time one of the heavy acidic boulders crushed a member of his Vanguard.
The Warlord class granted him an army. It bound their lifeforce strictly to his own mana reserves. He was their general, their summoner, and their living battery.
[Soul-Drain Penalty Active: -500 Mana per Summon Death!]
[Mana: 4,700 / 15,000]
[Mana: 3,200 / 15,000]
[Mana: 1,200 / 15,000]
"Withdraw!" Lucifer choked out. His voice was a ragged bloody rasp. He forced his right hand up and ignored the trembling muscles in his arm. "Return to the Void!"
He triggered the mass-unsummon command. The remaining Cryo-Vanguards scattered across the clearing instantly dissolved into streams of harmless blue light.
They retreated safely into his Dimensional Vault. The battlefield instantly emptied. The deafening rapid-fire drain on his soul violently halted.
Lucifer knelt in the ash and gasped for air. His chest felt hollowed out and entirely scraped raw from the inside.
The resulting Soul Backlash would rupture his internal organs and render him completely incapacitated in the middle of a hostile zone if his mana hit zero.
He wiped the thick blood from his upper lip. The physical cost of his Warlord class was completely terrifying. He was a walking god of war. A single well-placed enemy Area of Effect attack could instantly kill him through proxy damage. He needed a solution. He needed a massive mana buffer.
Lucifer forced himself to stand. He walked slowly toward the steaming acidic crater where the Abomination had died. He drew a spare iron dagger from his boot and drove the blade into the largest intact chunk of the rotting flesh of the monster.
He twisted the steel to collect a pool of thick black fluid into a heavy glass vial. He corked it tightly.
He turned his gaze toward the Lumina Chapel. The golden holy barrier had entirely collapsed. The white stone walls were heavily scorched and cracked.
Lucifer walked up the shattered stone steps and kicked the remaining pieces of the oak doors aside. The surviving Church Paladins slumped against the wooden pews inside.
They were heavily bleeding, completely exhausted, and staring blankly at the floor. The air inside the sanctuary smelled heavily of cheap incense and blood.
Commander Brady sat heavily on the raised altar steps. A young priest frantically wrapped white bandages around the deep bloody gouge in the golden chest plate of the Commander.
Brandon gritted his teeth and looked up as Kaelen walked down the center aisle. Elara followed closely behind. Her celestial presence caused the holy symbols in the room to glow faintly.
"The Abomination is dead," Kaelen stated flatly. He tossed the glass vial containing the Corrupted Blood onto the stone altar. It rolled and clinked sharply against a silver chalice.
Brandon stared at the black blood. He let out a harsh rattling breath. "You have the eternal gratitude of the Light, Warlord. We were completely overrun. My scouts failed to detect the massive spawn rate in this sector."
Brandon slowly stood up and winced violently as his armor shifted against his open wound. The veteran Paladin still carried the arrogant unyielding posture of the Lumina Order despite nearly dying just minutes prior.
Lucifer was merely a highly capable minor noble who got lucky with a powerful celestial summon to Brandon.
"I will send a missive to the Holy Capital immediately," Brandon said. His tone shifted back into a formal bureaucratic drone. "The Order will officially recognize your assistance. You will receive a standard bounty of five hundred gold coins and a Bronze Medallion of Valor. It is a high honor for a developing territory."
Lucifer did not laugh. His chest throbbed with the hollow agony of his depleted mana. Five hundred gold coins would not even pay for the rations his army consumed in a single week.
A Bronze Medallion was a pathetic trinket handed out to loyal disposable foot soldiers. He did not need a pat on the back. He needed absolute unrestricted access to the classified healing resources of the Church to fix his fractured soul.
"I do not want your bronze, Commander," Lucifer said coldly. He stepped directly up to the altar and completely invaded the personal space of Brandon. "And I do not need your pocket change.
The Church is losing this war. Look at your men. You are fighting an ocean of darkness with a leaky bucket."
The face of Brandon flushed a deep angry red. "Watch your tongue, boy. You stand on consecrated ground. The Lumina Order holds the ultimate wealth and power of humanity."
"Not anymore," Lucifer whispered.
He raised his right hand. He accessed his dimensional storage to actively link his spatial magic to the massive pile of loot he had acquired from the Void Merchant hours ago.
Lucifer selected a modest pile of basic healing supplies and low-tier gold bars. It was exactly 30,000 gold worth of resources. It was a solid heavy donation but nothing world-breaking on its own.
He projected the items directly into the physical space above the altar.
"Multiplier," Lucifer commanded mentally. "Apply to Church Donation."
[Ding!]
[Action Detected: Direct Donation to the Lumina Order Faction.]
[Base Value: 30,000 Gold.]
[Divine Talent: ’Apex Multiplier’ triggered on specific category ’Faction Reputation & Resource Value!’] 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂
[Multiplying absolute value and physical volume 10,000x!]
The air inside the chapel violently compressed. A blinding golden light erupted strictly from the altar.
The wealth then poured out.
It was not a simple pile. It was a localized avalanche. Massive heavy bricks of completely pure polished gold slammed onto the stone floor and shattered the ancient tiles.
Thousands of glowing diamond-cut vials of High-Tier Holy Water rained down and crashed onto the wooden pews. Massive iron chests filled with rare glowing gems burst open and flooded the aisles with blinding light.
The gold kept falling. It completely buried the altar. It spilled down the steps. The massive wave of heavy wealth physically pushed the stunned Paladins backward against the stone walls.
The jaw of Brandon dropped completely open. He instantly forgot his bleeding chest wound. He stumbled backward. His iron boots slipped wildly on a literal river of gold coins. The sheer suffocating magical pressure of the absolute wealth radiating in the room was heavier than the fear aura of the Zone Boss.
"By the Light of the Star-Weavers," Brandon choked out. His eyes were wide and completely bloodshot. He fell entirely to his knees and dropped his heavy broadsword into the massive pile of gold.
The system interface flashed rapidly in front of the eyes of Lucifer.
┏━━━━━━━[ Faction Status ]━━━━━━━┓
│ Level: 15 | Class: Apprentice Mage
│ Mana: 1,200 / 15,000 [CRITICAL WARNING]
│ Active Summons: 9,850 / 10,000
│ Soul-Drain Penalty: -500 Mana per Summon Death
│
│ Donation Processed: 300,000,000,000 Gold Value
│ Host has earned 300,000,000 Church Contribution Points!
│ Current Faction Standing: Absolute Exalted
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
The human mind could barely process a few million gold. Three hundred billion was a number strictly reserved for the GDP of entire continents.
The Lumina Order was fundamentally built on extreme greed and political power disguised heavily as faith. Lucifer had just bought their entire religion in a single transaction.
Lucifer stepped squarely onto the massive pile of gold. The heavy coins shifted under his boots. He looked down at the kneeling trembling Paladin Commander.
"I am not a minor noble looking for a bronze medal, Lucifer," Kaelen said. His voice echoed loudly in the silent glittering chapel. "I am the bank. Now set up a communication link with your High Bishops. We are going to renegotiate my standing."
