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”Well, don’t you look radiant this morning.” Envy commented as Karna entered what they’d titled the ‘war room’. The war room wasn’t really a particular place and more of an idea. Every time they stayed somewhere overnight, they designated a place where those present would gather every day to discuss important matters, exchange information, and make plans. Or in many cases, just crack jokes at each other’s expense. This time the war room referred to a smaller tearoom with plenty of snacks and drinks from the nearby kitchen, as well as soft seats and couches to lay on when tired.

“I think I can say with confidence that my night went well. How about the three of you?” Karna asked Envy, Hope, and Tsumi, who were the only ones present at this moment. The rest would trickle in later.

"I did quite well," Hope said a little smugly. "I had a great catch last night."

“I noticed you with the elf girl. And while you aren’t quite as radiant as Wrath, you clearly had fun.” Tsumi commented.

"Yes, the 'elf girl' as you called her was very good company. She was one of the representatives from the Magus Collective, one of the bigger economic factions. Did you know that the elves don't have a unified faction in the Divine Planes?" Hope was quite happy to talk about her date.

“I didn’t know as such, but I suspected. Elves are one of the more common races to reach Immortality after all, only beaten by humans due to sheer numbers. Humans are the most common species around, and by a rather large margin at that, but the long lives of elves even before immortality does come with some advantages.” Karna replied, happy that Hope had found someone nice as well.

“It’s almost a bit of an indictment that the humans aren’t a bigger majority in the Divine Planes despite their numerical majority.” Envy pointed out. “As for my evening, I obviously didn’t do as well as you two. I picked poorly and his performance was…soggy.”

“As in…?” Tsumi made a gesture with her finger that imitated a droopy noodle.

“Quite. Let’s just say that even being an immortal doesn’t guarantee performance. It was better than nothing, but only barely.” Envy grumbled. “Shows me that picking based on pure looks isn’t always the best choice.”

"Well, you clearly didn't have that issue," Tsumi commented while looking at Karna.

"No. No, I didn't. It seems titans make for good lovers, and I'm quite pleased with my choice. It's a bit early to tell, but I think I might have taken a good start on the heir production front. If not, I'm happy to get in more practice with the same partner, and he indicated the same." Karna didn't even bother denying it.

“When did you even find someone?” Envy asked a little confused. “The last I saw you, you were still wandering the rooms and mapping out the possibilities. The next thing I know, you’ve disappeared. He was obviously a titan since you mentioned heirs and mentioned their performance as lovers.”

“He found me while I was taking a breather outside. Anyway, much fun was had. What about you Tsumi?” She wasn’t going to go into details for now. They had time for that later, and it would’ve been a bit mean with Envy’s misfortune.

“Eh.” The Alpyran woman waved her hand noncommittally. “You may or may not have noticed that I was aiming for Valor. Anyway, suffice to say I didn’t quite get there, but I do think I might have chipped away at his emotional armor at least. This is going to be a longer-term project. The man is gorgeous, but he seems a bit wary of accidentally developing feelings.”

“Any word on the others?” Karna asked. As the center of yesterday’s party, she didn’t have all that much time to keep tabs on her allies.

"Kensei picked a fight with some young chap. Don't know if she picked anything else with him, but she was back to practicing the next morning." Hope commented.

“Wisdom was socializing the entire evening, trying to form connections. He was still at it by the time I left, talking with the Grand Marshall.” Envy shrugged. “Oh, speaking of, he’s coming.” She pointed at the other side of the open door that led into a hallway. The room was protected by wards that prevented sound from leaving, so the door wasn’t necessary for privacy in that regard, and they could see Wisdom walking towards them in a way that could almost be considered running.

“I’ve got news!” He announced as soon as he entered the room and the sphere of the wards.

“So you did get laid!" Envy exclaimed as a joke. Or at least Karna assumed it was a joke. With Envy, it was hard to tell sometimes.

“What? Oh, yes. That too. But no, I’m not talking about that, and that’s none of your business. The scouts from the Netherworld front have returned. The scourge had pulled back from the entire contested area. All of the worlds not already absorbed into the Netherworld have been abandoned, and the process of absorbing them interrupted. They’ve also severed all connections with at least Divine Planes, and as far as we can tell, all the other planes as well. They’ve isolated completely!”

“That’s…huh. Not a bad idea actually.” Karna muttered.

“Why?” Envy asked suspiciously.

“Well, the method I use to punch holes through space to reach anywhere is almost impossible to stop through normal means, but there is a catch. I need to be going somewhere. Even if the target is relatively random and vague, I still need to be going somewhere. I can’t just fly around looking for a target. When we entered the Netherworld the last time, I just picked a random spot of what I knew to be part of the Netherworld relying on karma. But even if the spot was random, I knew the spot was within Netherworld somewhere. However, now that Netherworld has severed all connections, they could theoretically move, and I don’t have a target anymore.” She explained.

“What do you mean move?” Tsumi asked with a frown. The idea of moving something like an entire plane was foreign to her.

“Well, the Netherworld is a conceptual realm the same as the world of the spirits. It strictly speaking doesn’t exist in any single physical place. As long as it’s connected with the Divine Planes, then it’s grounded into a single spot, but now that it isn’t anymore…” Karna allowed the rest to sink in.

“Meaning you can’t make a path there?” Wisdom clarified.

“I would have to test it first at least. This isn’t exactly standard for me either. I suspect that I can’t though. At least not in the same way. Theoretically, the connection could be remade, similar to how we connect to the spirit world to form connections with spirits, but that’s easier said than done, and it might be a one-way ticket.” Karna speculated.

“Not ideal for starting invasions.” Wisdom pointed out the obvious.

“Which I suspect was the point. The gods of that realm might not be able to effectively replicate what I did, but that doesn’t mean they can’t figure out some basic methods of working against it.” Karna shrugged. It wasn’t the first time an important ability of hers was countered. Quite literally everything in the multiverse could be and eventually would be. Magic and wars often were a race of finding the best methods that didn’t have a counter yet, and they had used her ability rather liberally during the crusade, giving the enemy plenty of opportunities to come up with ways to counter it.

“You mentioned that they’d severed the connection and that the place doesn’t have an actual location until it’s connected again. Would the Netherworld be able to reconnect anywhere on the Divine Planes? Could they use it as a method of attack instead? Could they attack the Assembly for instance?” Tsumi suddenly thought of another possibility.

Karna shook her head a bit. “It’s not quite that simple. The Netherworld is fundamentally a realm that is repelled by planes that make up the formation. They can only connect to the fringes of the formation because of that. Even if they could, it’s not like separating the realms and re-connecting them is something that can be done on a whim. I suspect it took quite a bit of power from their side to sever the connection this quickly.”

“You think they’re planning on isolating until you’re gone?” Wisdom guessed.

“That’s a reasonable guess, though not necessarily right.” She pursed her lips a bit. “From what I can tell, the Netherworld has always had the longest view of the involved parties. They can afford to. Whatever faults they have, impatience is not one of them. They can afford to wait out a few generations of immortals rather easily. They need to do a bit of rebuilding after our crusade anyway. That said, it’s a bit dangerous to just assume that and not take any precautions. We don’t want to be blindsided either.”

"It does make things somewhat easier though," Hope said while making a humming sound. "With one of the scourges now isolated, and another one busy assaulting the Selendil's city ship and failing miserably, that mostly leaves just the Inferno and what remains of the Underworld for the Host to deal with. A rather large improvement from being assaulted on all fronts. An improvement that we can claim credit for.”

“She’s right.” Envy went along with Hope. “Glory in battle is great, but the ability to directly improve people’s lives by bringing peace is much more tangible. It’s a direct benefit we can point to. Something that wouldn’t be possible without our presence. That’s not something most can claim despite having been gods for eons. Heck, I’d argue that’s more than the current Heavenly Emperor can claim to have accomplished in his entire reign.”

“Makes for a rather powerful claim towards getting the throne.” Wisdom nodded before frowning. “However, it might turn out to be ultimately pointless.”

“Why?” Tsumi asked with a surprised look.

Karna replied instead of Wisdom. “Because of the terms of becoming the next emperor. The first way was to eliminate all the other contenders, or force them to acquiesce, which this doesn’t really help with, aside from maybe giving political clout. The second way was to get the majority of the other candidates on your side, which again, this won’t help with. It’s only the third option that this might have any weight on.”

"Getting two-thirds of the Grand Assembly to vote for you as the next emperor." Wisdom nodded. "This will gain some votes and solidify our hold on those we already had, but it won't get us anywhere near two-thirds."

“We’ve vaguely talked strategy about this before, but what exactly is our plan here? So far, we’ve only focused on building support and power while taking advantage of situations as they arise, but we do need a more concrete plan. Are we going for the Grand Assembly condition? Because if we aren’t, then we can mostly focus on just ensuring none of the other candidates can make it happen either.” Envy asked.

“I believe we’re going to have to go for a combination of all three as ignoring any of them might bite us in the ass, and not in the fun way. Eliminating other candidates will reduce the number of votes necessary to achieve a majority in either the Assembly or among the other candidates. Either of them is going to be hard, however, I think it's going to be easier to get the Assembly on our side if it becomes obvious that we’re the only real candidate. After all, it’s not a yes or no vote per candidate. Everyone in the Assembly is going to have to vote for someone. We just need it to be for us.” Wisdom suggested.

“That means we have to get rid of some of the others. Who are we going for first?” Envy asked.

"Hoeth," Karna said firmly. "He's currently the most popular when it comes to political support apart from Khaine. He's also the weakest link."

“I would’ve thought Hekarti was the weakest link?” Hope questioned, referring to the Goddess of Dark Magic that even most of the Royal Family shunned. She was also the only candidate that didn’t have another candidate as an ally.

“Politically she is, but not when it comes to power. She also hates her family and is very unlikely to be swayed to vote for either Hoeth or Greed. In fact, I might be the most likely one to get her vote as I’m only part of the family in name. However, Hoeth seems like the type that could be forced to vote for Greed if he gets outmaneuvered badly enough. And as he effectively controls Vaul’s vote as well, that would be enough for Greed to win. We need to remove that possibility.” Karna explained what she’d picked up on from her brief encounters.

“When it comes to swaying the Assembly, if we manage to form an alliance with the dragons, then we’ll mostly have the magical beast bloodlines swayed. If two of the three biggest magical beast houses are voting for us, then the rest will mostly follow. The problem is getting the humans and other humanoid races to vote for us. These recent gains and the retreat of the Netherworld are going to help, but not enough. The fact that you’re not truly part of the House Asuryan is both helping and hurting us, as the current ruling house had both supporters and detractors.” Wisdom theorized.

“The Harpy might be able to sway a lot of people our way.” Hope pointed out.

“If we got his support.” Karna retorted. “So far it seems he might not mind us winning, but that’s a lot different from him actively swaying people to our side.”

“In the end, I think it’s going to require either eliminating Greed as well, or something else major to gain a two-thirds majority." Wisdom summarized.

“We need to deal with Greed then.” Envy said simply. That was her preferred method anyway.

“That’s not so easily done though. I’m confident in beating him in a fight, but not in killing him. He has too many tricks when it comes to surviving.” Karna knew that Greed’s ability to bring treasures from one life to another meant that he was loaded with treasures that could save his life. And even if she could beat him directly, beating him and continuing beating him until all the tricks he had up his sleeves were exhausted was another matter.

“It might be enough if you beat him in an official duel, with the stakes including stepping out of the race.” Hope suggested.

"The trick is to get him to agree to such a fight. He would need to be cornered pretty badly for that to work. He’s not silly enough to fall for simple provocations.” Karna countered. “On the other hand, we might want to take our time and just build our power base and votes and let the problems solve each other.”

“The others are attempting to do the same math we are.” Wisdom agreed. “We might not have to deal with both Hoeth and Greed. Especially if Greed believes we might be up to being swayed to vote his way.”

“That…might not be all that hard actually.” Envy said hesitantly. “Greed has a sort of soft spot for Wrath. Partially due to fear, but also because he wants to win her over.”

“We might be able to play along with that if necessary.” Karna also agreed to an extent. “However, he’s not stupid. We might have to go to certain lengths to show our willingness to cooperate if we choose to go that way. We would also need to come up with a plausible reason not to just cast our vote for him, as our vote with Khaine’s would be enough for him to win. So, this plan won’t be viable until the math of the situation changes. We can keep the option open, but I doubt it would work as things are.”

"Well, any path we choose, the actions we need to take for now remain the same. Gain more power and connections and try to keep our eyes open for opportunities." Envy clapped her hands as a signal to close the topic. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to try and find better company than last night. Many of the guests are still around, and as Wrath has already tested, titans make for pretty good lovers. If you'll excuse me." She got up to leave.

“I think I’ll follow your example. I might not have yet succeeded in making the heir the titans wanted, and I think I’d like more practice just in case.” Karna also got up with similar thoughts. Hyperion would likely be up for it as well.