John had found a nice position to be frozen in place in. Legs scissoring with Eliza’s, he was standing above her, using the one that was reaching up in front of him as handle. The blood mage was underneath him, upper body curved against the surface of the table. It was an awkward way to have sex; thrusting felt more like he was repeatedly dunking his dick into the honeypot. Nevertheless, it worked and he could even properly step on her face in the process.

Which was exactly what he did when Aclysia came in. “You need to work on your discipline, Master,” she informed him. “Magoi says the preparations are complete.”

“You could have just told me that mentally,” the Gamer stated, struggling to reign in his sex-drive and call it quits there.

Aclysia getting naked did not help that endeavour, the clothes withdrawing into her body and leaving the athletic curves of the weaponized maid completely exposed. “In that case I couldn’t have helped providing you with some release, Master,” she informed him, seductively biting her lower lip as she looked at her creator wantonly. “We have five minutes.”

For once within the time limit, the duo of Eliza and Aclysia managed to make him cum. Although Aclysia was certainly just the support squad there, as John simply switched the position to something less awkward and fucked the masochistic woman he was already inside of, in a way that he would get to the edge as fast possible. The white-haired artificial lady at his side just worshipped his body with kisses and pleased his ears with coercive moans and comments of her love.

Blasting his cum inside Eliza’s eager pussy, John then put his clothes on per inventory and they went out. “Eliza, you will need to close your robe for once,” John told her as the blood mage simply threw the black piece of cloth over herself, together with the short scarf that she seldomly activated but usually wore.

“Why the shit would I do that?!” she wanted to know; as far as she was concerned, she was wearing as much as she had to. “You said you found me sexy, are you a liar? Do I need to set your fucking house on fire?”

“You most definitely are,” John looked from her nice and thick thighs, over her athletic stomach, up to her odd hair, white until the neckline from where on downwards it rapidly became an azure blue. The sick, blueish white of her skin and her shortness did nothing to distract from the fact that she was a stunning woman. Definitely breeding material, which was exactly what she wanted to be in John’s eyes. “Problem is,” he cleared his throat, “we are about to go in front of a livestream and you are leaking downstairs.”

The leather thong she wore was enough to cover her pussy and the hair surrounding it, but with John’s particularly large load, it was just too probable that some of his three times average load would trickle out. He wasn’t afraid of the scandal, but he also didn’t want to invite it. Particularly because there was at least some chance there were minors watching.

“Either that or don’t appear on the broadcast,” he told her.

“And be as bored as an armless nympho on a deserted non-fucking island? Leaving you to be seen with all your other whores?!” Eliza shook her head and began closing the black robe. It was a bit of an unusual process since she practically always wore it open. The strip of cloth at the waist had always just been dangling uselessly, now it actually had a purpose. Like a monk’s robe, the thing basically held in place with just that. Nevertheless, the blood mage frowned. “I HATE clothes,” she growled.

“Get used to them, unless you don’t want to meet my mother,” John reminded her. “We also need to give you a replacement for that scarf.”

Eliza gently touched the soft accessories around her neck. “As nice as this thing was, dumbass idea to make it a scarf,” she mumbled as they went out of the yacht and onto the main island. “Anything in mind already?”

“Something small, thinking either necklace, ring or some small piercing… although you don’t have a good history with those, so I guess you wouldn’t want a piercing?” John vividly remembered ripping the hook-covered nails out of her body as she retold the summary of her tormented existence up to that point.

“No piercings,” she agreed, tapping on the ring finger of her left hand. “Guess what this piece of psychopathic gargling wants from you?”

John made a face as if he had just bitten into something sour. “Eliza, you know you aren’t getting an engagement ring. Especially not first,” he tried to deliver that as clearly as possible. “If I ask someone to marry me, it will be Jane, and if she is fine with multiple marriages, that will happen after that.”

“Fucking fine,” Eliza crossed her arms, hidden underneath the wide sleeves up to the wrist. Her fingers, ending in the dark-red nails that were actually crystallized blood, danced over her sleeve. “I don’t like any of that though.”

“Give her a choker,” Aclysia suggested.

“Oh, this bitch loves chokers,” Eliza enthusiastically agreed.

“Choker it is then,” John nodded; he would place that order on the Abyss Auction later. Either that or he would ask Lydia who made the scarf and see if he could get it cheaper there. He split his attention to contact Beatrice. ‘Everyone already there?’ he asked her.

‘Affirmative,’ came the usual answer. ‘Only waiting for you. Magoi is ready. Scarlett is ready. All girls are assembled. Only you aren’t.’

‘No need to underline the point that much,’ John complained and cut her off before he could get a positively factual but sassy tone-deaf comment back. He would see her in a moment anyway, all he needed to do was step on the Transport Station.

The Tier 1 upgrade had increased the range by quite the margin, and with the maximum outpost counter having gone to three, John had placed the third teleporter right on the edge of that increased range. The blue circle underneath him flashed up and the three guild members were teleported right into the former Thorne HQ.

Currently, the wreath of cables and thorny branches was still in front of the slightly damaged skyscraper, but work was already being done for transforming this building into the administrative heart of Fusion. Congress and John’s Council would be held elsewhere, but basically this was where the bureaucrats would do the necessary paperwork.

At least for now, as Fusion grew, John was highly certain they would need more of a government district than a single building. Congress and Council were just a start. The courts would need their own building, if not multiple, same for the secret service Scarlett was already designing (under the watchful eyes of basically everyone). Many, many things to be done.

‘Speaking of Scarlett,’ John thought as he stepped off the platform. The Transport Station had been placed in an inconspicuous room in the skyscraper. There was nothing special about it, just a red carpet with walls covered in a dark wood and boring, plaster white ceiling with long lamps stretching over it, connecting to the ones that went around a corner and enlightened a long hallway.

The reason why this room specifically had been chosen was twofold. One, it was directly under the roof. Either up the nearby stairs, accessible through a simple glass door, or via the elevator one could relatively simply get up there, granted one had the proper security clearance on them. Being the new owner of this building, John was running around with a card that could unlock all electronic locks.

Unless Scarlett decided to finagle with them, of course. The Technomancer was the second reason why this particular place had been picked, as this was the floor the redhead had been living in for years now. Underneath the wood rested machines that could redesign or shift rooms inside the building how she saw fit. Scarlett preferred staying in the area where she had total control over everything, for understandable reasons.

John also liked this, because, even if she had total control of everything inside, she was still sitting inside an easy to find location that he could break his way into if need be. Trusting her, as much as he wanted to believe she really meant that she wouldn’t backstab him (as long as he stayed her best protector), would not be wise.

He was tempted to knock on the wall to signal he wanted to be let in and see how she was doing, but her job right now was to regulate the livestream that they had set-up as a way to relay this event. She was doing so through multiple filters and there was a crew actually responsible for keeping that thing running, but Scarlett was keeping everything smooth from the background.

‘Her life would be much easier if she didn’t hide everything she did,’ John thought. He was wondering just how strong he needed to be for her to be comfortable with revealing her existence to the broader public. Then again, a secret weapon everybody knows about was not particularly effective, so maybe they just ought to not use her abilities for trivialities like this. ‘Once I get a normal Technomancer team, this won’t be a problem,’ he told himself and headed for the stairs.

Moments later, he emerged on the rooftop. The white-tiled floor had been recently cleaned, leaving no remains of the time John had dumped more than a bit of dirty water into it. From up here he had a good view over the surrounding area, or at least what the Illusion Barrier’s borders fooled him to be the surrounding area.

That was all about to change.

Scattered over the roof were numerous things and people. Most domineering of all were two groups, namely John’s affiliated (he would have said harem, but Richard was amongst them, in his whole three-metre tall vainglory) and the camera crew. It was a hastily cobbled together arrangement of people with know-how and others that first held a camera two days ago. While them being able to film anything of high value was unlikely, John didn’t need it to be perfect. As long as people could hear what he was saying and see him in decent quality, everything would be fine.

The cameras were set-up as such that they were filming a construction in the middle of the roof. Several platforms stacked on top of each other like arches, made from simple concrete at the core but inlaid with runes from several, highly refined elemental metals made for a display like a modern art project.

That wasn’t meant as a compliment. It had rough, uneven corners, was asymmetrical and looked generally like somebody had taken the top of the empire state building, sized it down and lost a fair chunk of pixels on the way, only to fix it by badly drawing over them in MS Paint.

On these several arching platforms stood Fateweavers. Eight on the lower levels, four on the middle and on top stood Magoi adorning his typical mask and suit. “Mr Newman, Sir!” somebody called out to him and hurried over, a sleek looking man whose backwards gelled hair had several strands unruly falling around his face instead. “We can start whenever you want!”

“Good to hear,” John nodded thankfully. “Just give me one more minute, then we can start.” The media man made the OK sign with his hands, and the Gamer manoeuvred his way towards the construction. Once there, he looked up to Magoi and shouted. “Everything alright up there?”

“I’d rather be somewhere else to be honest,” the High Fateweaver answered. “Standing at the highest place on top of a skyscraper without railing isn’t great.”

“Afraid of heights?” John wondered.

“Hardly, the Fateweaver home barrier is at the peak of Mt. Everest and then double that height for the highest point,” Magoi joked. “Just saying, not where I would like to spend my afternoon.”

“Alright, I will make it short then… will this work?” John somewhat doubtfully looked at the clearly third-rate construction.

Magoi noticed and beratingly raised a finger. “I am working with novices here, John. You don’t get a high-quality IBMA under these circumstances. Once the academy runs properly and I got a bit more time, we will replace it. It will work until then,” the raptor-faced man stemmed his hands into his hips and heroically puffed out of his chest, something that had a limited effect due to his lean build and English gentlemen clothes. “You have my word as a High Fateweaver!”

“That’s a pretty good word,” John admitted and dropped the topic. Distrust of the clearly bad construction remained, but if the craftsman told you the bad solution would work long enough for the good one to come about, then one could do naught but trust him. An IBMA was a must have for any guild that strived to be a middle-tier power. He would just have to swallow that not having a perfect one would lessen the amount of prestige this would grant him.

With a pre-arranged signal of his hand, John let the media management know that he was ready. Final adjustments were made, the girls stood in position watching their boyfriend and lover from the visible background. Only Rave, Lydia and Aclysia were right next to him. The former and latter were standing right and left of him, while the queen stood at an arm’s length. “This is kinda exciting,” his girlfriend whispered while Aclysia was pulling John’s suit a bit more into position at the last possible moment.

Wearing his usual suit in the usual casual manner, John was not looking as formal as he perhaps should have. Foregoing the tie, as well as leaving his black vest and the upper buttons of his shirt open, showing just a bit of collarbone, was definitely not how politicians usually went about presenting themselves. However, he didn’t feel like much of a politician and he didn’t want to create an image of himself that was different from how he behaved in private. At least he was attractive enough that he could get away with it at this point.

John made a grimace as the countdown was called, “Personally would prefer a less public life… but this is part of what I want to do, whether I like it or not.” They were robbed of a deeper conversation by a red light switching on behind the cameras to indicate they were live. The cameras had their own bulbs to let people know which one was currently in use.

There was a moment of awkward silence as John wasn’t quite sure how to start, no amount of Charisma in the world would fix that. Then, with no idea what else to do, he just started talking. “Greetings to all who are watching this stream. I am John Newman. Many of you will have heard of me at least in passing. For the few of you that haven’t, let me tell you what you need to know.

“I am a late-bloomer with a very peculiar, video game themed power. Through one thing or another, I ended up in the service of Lydia Augusta the Fourth of the house Hohenzollern of Germany, but that agreement has ended, and now I am pursuing my own goals. Foremost of which is to bring better times to my home.”

This part he had to word very carefully; too aggressive language and the neighbouring guilds would understand it as a declaration of war against them. However, he also couldn’t pull his punches, lest he was deemed disingenuous down the line. “I find the lawless state I know many parts of the USA to be in disgraceful. Poverty, slavery, a powerful elite waltzing about the place without any rules to them. Under my government, this won’t happen.

“The guild I head is named Collide, but rather than control everything, we aim to unify. Therefore, I announce hereby that the federal arrangements of guilds under my leadership shall be called Fusion. Those who come to accept the laws of this new federation shall be left largely to their own devices. Much like the real USA, state rights are of high concern to me. That is, however, a topic for another time.

“Today, I want to speak directly to you, my people. I find you under my leadership at this current time due to the death of Thorne and its alliance of aggressors. The anarchistic, unchecked grinding of economic forces is over. Now, we enter a time of prosperity for everyone,” he stopped to look up to Magoi.

“Here we go then,” the High Fateweaver rubbed his hands together. The runes on the construction of arches began glowing. Purple, golden, blue, red, green and brown, all the elemental colours and mixtures in-between were spreading their influence on the beckoning of the 13 Fateweavers.

IBMA, an Illusion Barrier Mass Anchorage, that was the construction Magoi had built and charged over the past few days, with help from his very first pupils and other Fateweavers in the area. The purpose of this device was quite easy: it maintained barriers of massive size and made their destruction improbable.

Several messages popped up in front of John, but he dismissed them for now as the landscape around him changed, just the slightest bit, as the large barrier around the Thorne HQ became gigantic and gobbled up every smaller barrier in the area that had no overlap protection.

There were three categories of Abyssal cities. Type ones were those where there were no permanent barriers of significant size, only residential zones or small guild halls. Type twos were the ones that had several big barriers inside the city. Type threes were then finally where the entire city was located in one giant barrier.

“New York is now a type three city,” John announced as the cameras went back on him. “Fusion has been initiated and the last rebellious elements still hiding inside the city will soon lose their homes. We are a new player in this game…”