“Let’s keep looking for now, but remember this one just in case.” Charles decided after a moment.

He didn’t want to rush into helping the town when there was no clear fallen god involvement. At the same time, he didn’t want to let Jeremy Bagwell die either. He remembered the fellow being rather interesting when they had met the last time.

After another minute, they had covered all the towns within the country and found only one more destroyed.

“I’m not sure if those are good odds or bad odds for the rest of the world,” Sierra whispered, holding her throat.

The few towns in Canada were holding well. The cold had encouraged many of the monsters to go into hibernation. While down in South America, the opposite was true, and several of the towns were getting swarmed. There were still no signs of any gods or other powerful beings getting involved, at least. The lack of their involvement was allowing the the towns to barely keep up with the numbers.

At least that was the case until they reached one of the kingdoms claimed by a fallen god or pantheon. In this case, it was the entire Inca pantheon that had banded together once more.

Charles would have been impressed if it wasn’t for the utter war happening at their border.

“Where are all those monsters even coming from?” Sierra gasped.

“The warmer, tropical climate has been encouraging them to breed like mad,” Kira told her with a disgusted look at the area below. “Something that I think they have taken to reckless heights.”

The goblins spread across the ground in a green swarm. Every perceivable inch of space was taken up by one of their bodies. Unlike their brethren in the colder climes that needed to think about where they would sleep and get food, these had nothing to quell their beastial urges. Every thought was consumed with food and the desire to fight.

It was a desire that Dantanian had taken full advantage of in stirring up. Not to mention the other fallen gods who were working with them to take on the Incas.

From above, it all looked like one large mass of confusion and death. It wasn’t the sort of place that any of them were looking forward to wading into and helping.

“Um, they can take of themselves, right?” Kate asked, somewhat timidly. “I mean, that’s their kingdom. What good are they if they can’t even keep their own people safe?”

While they were watching, a god descended from the Inca side and began laying waste to the opposing side. Within moments, he had reached one of the fallen gods who was attacking them and had joined battle with her. Despite the outdated weapons he was using, he gained the upper hand within a few swings of his obsidian-tipped club.

“Whoever she is, it doesn’t look like she was a god of battle,” Kira muttered.

Charles shook his head and instinctively looked around for his sister. Charlotte would have been able to tell them who the two gods were, or would have at least had an educated guess. Except she wasn’t there at the moment. She was off with their mother working on creating a new runic language.

Something that he wouldn’t have minded being a part of as well.

He glared at the screen, wishing he could identify people through it. Except that wasn’t how his ability worked. He wasn’t sure if it was distance related or some other limitation. Either way, it didn’t work through the observatory screen.

“No, it certainly doesn’t, and I agree with Kate on this one. It looks like they can take care of themselves.” Charles pulled the telescope back, so they weren’t as zoomed in, and began looking for a new location.

Along the way, they noticed a couple of islands that looked to be almost untouched by monsters that didn’t come from the sea. Which meant that some of them had only lost a few people.

“How did we miss these people this entire time?” He whispered in horrified awe at their own incompetence.

There were dozens of islands down there that were full of people.

“Have we just been ignoring this part of the ocean until now?” Kira asked, searching for an answer.

“I didn’t think we had, but we must have.” He felt more than a little sick at the prospect.

What else had they been missing, whether on accident or because they had simply been unaware? This was exactly why Charles no longer wanted the responsibility of saving everyone. Knowing that they had failed these people was an emotionally crushing experience.

He wasn’t strong enough to deal with that, not yet, at least, and probably not ever.

The screen moved on and the resurfaced island of Atlantis came into view. It was completely empty save for the monsters inhabiting it. No one knew it was there yet, save for the people in that room and a couple of others. Kate and Beth had wanted to explore the ruins when they first appeared, except Gaia had been maintaining a barrier around the place.

It was similar in nature to what the Chinese gods were doing, except this one didn’t obscure their vision. It only blocked access to those who hadn’t been invited inside. There was no mention of how one got an invitation.

Charles was sure he could create a doorway inside if he really wanted to, but he didn’t. This was something put in place by Gaia or the gods for a reason. Who was he to ruin their fun? Even if he was intensely curious about the Atlanteans and what had happened to them.

The view continued to change as the space station drifted high above the planet. They had yet to try changing their orbit, but the day for that was soon coming.

One kingdom belonging to some fallen pantheon after another came into view and drifted away over the course of the next several minutes. Each one without fail was under attack by a large horde of enraged monsters and a deity with a bone to pick.

“Where are all these monsters and fallen gods and demi-gods coming from?” Beth asked, in concern.

“I assume the monsters are all being controlled in some way.” Silvi pointed out how the different groups were working together, even in their crazed state. “That must be nearly their entire population for those regions.”

“And there has never been a shortage of gods for Earth. I would guess that most of the attackers belonged to pantheons that were mostly forgotten. Or were otherwise too fragmented to create their own kingdoms.” Kira explained with a guess of her own as they watched how the wars raged.

“Doesn’t it seem odd though? All of these fights that are concentrated on the kingdoms are avoiding the humans for the most part.” Sierra pointed out with a quizzical tilt of her head.

It was something that none of the others had noticed, but she was right. Everything going on below at the kingdoms was engineered to fight the gods, not the humans.

“They want their potential worshippers intact and alive, maybe?” Charles guessed. “Either way, that makes things easier for us. That means we don’t need to focus on any of the kingdoms.”

“Right, we just need to concentrate on the more vulnerable human settlements and towns.” Kira agreed with his assessment. “Should we head down to Harvard to help and then come back up here to look for more locations?”

Each member of the group nodded in turn, and Sierra made sure to retrieve her bow from her inventory. Now that the system was back up and working again, she was taking no chances.

“Alright, let’s do this.” Charles opened a doorway down to where they had seen the kraken attacking earlier.

The outside of the town was in shambles, while the wall itself looked to be on the brink of giving out. At least there were no other monsters attacking the town. It was just the one giant, oversized sea monster that had decided to creep onto land.

The people of the Harvard-based town were trying their best to attack the monster without getting too close. That meant they were limited to projectile and throwing based weapons. Arrows and throwing spears it appeared for the most part.

None of which seemed to be doing much damage against the rubbery texture of the octopus-adjacent monster’s body. Most of them were bouncing off ineffectively, while a few had gotten stuck in the layer of blubber that protected the being from the cold waters it lived in.

Regardless, the amount of damage it had taken from their attacks was negligible up to that point. Without Charles’ group interfering, there was no doubt this town would eventually fall to its efforts.

As soon as each member stepped through the spatial doorway, they began their attacks. Inara flung her quills, hanging back to guard Kate and Beth. Both girls began their own attacks while behind them, Sierra pulled back on her empty bowstring. An arrow made of pure mana formed upon her command and flew upon her releasing the taut string.