Even Further Beyond [Complete]

Wolfy said:

>implying that Monarch wouldn't fucking wreck Zang Kong

Lmao

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Kong would kill the Monarch before it knew what happened, yes. It isn't durable enough to withstand even a planet destroying fist that hits before it can think, which is merely Stage 7.9 .

Even its Wake and Fallen Flame aren't sufficient esoteric defense for it to survive a good hit, and it has no precog. I give it 90% odds Dragon gets eaten for dinner unless Fallen Flame can pull some shit out of its ass as a persistent unbreachable passive defense.

I mean, Kong would almost definitely lose to high tier Ordinal Spiral user as he is right now probably (assuming Ordinal guy gets an attack in before Kong's fist reaches them), but Terrascape people weren't even halfway through the (exponentially easier half) of the Ordinal Spiral- couldn't even cast 12th Ordinal.

That doesn't detract from Terrascape as a setting, of course, just like how Apocalypse isn't cooler than Ishida despite being vastly more powerful.

Unelemental said:

Wiping out the institution of the Empire can be done in a myriad of ways that have nothing to do with killing Kong or Shen. No Emperor? We're fucked. The Oath Artifact is destroyed or lost? We're fucked. The Empire is overrun by the Overgrowth? You get the drift. Thinking that the Empire is safe just because Kong (who is asleep) and Shen (who is doing fuck all) are alive is the worst sort of complacency, about on the same level as thinking that the Fates don't pose any threat to us anymore.

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The empire design for continuity of mandate of heaven ,Even namelss can become Emperor if the emperor abdicated the throne or by force of arm.

They design to withstand and even encourage violent over throw.

The throne give boost to power of the emperor and no mere titan can defeat him.

And winter artifact force him to follow empire law and continuity despite lack any power in governance.

Chronic said:

Don't underestimate Zang Kong. We know the Overgrowth was a comparatively recent development made by him because it was the trigger for the end of the Age, so combined with the length of cultivation stages we can confidently state that he needed it to cultivate through his Titan III or Titan IV stages. If the Overgrowth was intended to help with that, it would honestly be strange if it only contained RF and GS level beasts. Treasures dropped by those would be barely a drop in an ocean to a Titan III.

We know that the Deep Overgrowth contains RM and GS level beasts, but we do not know if the Deep Overgrowth is truly the deepest part of the cultivation realm Zang Kong has created. There may be much stronger beasts lurking within... And now that Kang Zong is asleep and hunts them no more...

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I think the Overgrown as we know it already benefit Nameless?

I don't have evidence to support about "No beast stronger than grand sophism" so I don't have anything to argue with that position.


I just think that as long as Yong Shen or atleast Kong can survive whatever fate can throw down at the Empire.


And remember that us currently defend elven empire.

As long as Nameless sitting around and ogling his wife in Elven empire then the age don't end either.


And if you allow me to guess...I think our step-dad know this.

He know that Fate will pull something like this and ask for us to defend the elven empire for one year.

One year pass then the beast and situation will be stabilize enough.


Now the question is "Do you think the beast can kill Titan+winter artifact like the emperor?"

That is condition that can destroy the empire.

skaro said:

The empire design for continuity of mandate of heaven ,Even namelss can become Emperor if the emperor abdicated the throne or by force of arm.

They design to withstand and even encourage violent over throw.

The throne give boost to power of the emperor and no mere titan can defeat him.

And winter artifact force him to follow empire law and continuity despite lack any power in governance.

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You're talking as if the Fates are going to call out the Emperor to fisticuffs and throw down with him mano o mano. Which would be funny, but no, they would rather do things like tangling him up in contradictory laws or suddenly helping him find an escape from the Oath. Seriously, I can understand thinking that training stuff is more important (even if I don't wholly agree), but that doesn't mean we're safe from all consequences of ignoring the Empire.

Unelemental said:

You're talking as if the Fates are going to call out the Emperor to fisticuffs and throw down with him mano o mano. Which would be funny, but no, they would rather do things like tangling him up in contradictory laws or suddenly helping him find an escape from the Oath. Seriously, I can understand thinking that training stuff is more important (even if I don't wholly agree), but that doesn't mean we're safe from all consequences of ignoring the Empire.

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I see it as Fate suppose to kept appearance of balance,that mean Heroine still not full bloom and they can not do anything to kill Kong that not break their rule.

Even heroine in fullbloom can not scale enough to kill Kong in time limit.


The oath is one of their own that build it with intention to made the winter empire last forever...I don't think Fate can pull that on artifact of one of their own.

About conflict situation " when ambiguous situation happen then you know which side you are on"

Our job is pretty much defend the current system.

If we want to use morality debate then we are pretty much already lose because the heroine is more moral than us.

She want to create kinder world as befit of spring,Not the brutal realm of winter that cultivator kill each other to advance themselves.


I can believe beast of Jotunheim can destroy the empire if let loose but Overgrown ....frankly we don't see anything on Titan level yet.

Chronic said:

U woot m8.

Going by current powerlevel escalation Zang Kong mass scatters galaxies with a twitch of his finger. The Monarch is tough, but not that tough.

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I'm not sure why would you think that galaxies mean shit to being with transfinite power.

Like, Monarch is slow as shit, but he still tanked millions of Ashcloak/First Sword strikes without giving a damn.

Current vote count?

Wolfy said:

I'm not sure why would you think that galaxies mean shit to being with transfinite power.

Like, Monarch is slow as shit, but he still tanked millions of Ashcloak/First Sword strikes without giving a damn.

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Strong defenses against esoteric attacks doesn't necessarily mean he can tank galaxy-busting attacks. It also took Arthur thousands of sword strikes to level Toronto, didn't it?

Tally

So... personal analysis.

We really are completely unstructured this time. Feels more like a CK2 quest than not. I'm not much of a strategist, but I suppose if we can't say Just as Planned at the end then we've done it wrong.

I think we can all agree Kong Zang and the Heroine are the only threats we care about. But that doesn't help all that much: Kong Zang's numerous powers have been spoken of at length but the Heroine's means of support have only been mentioned in snippets. Our intel isn't enough to hold water, so any grand strategies made around it would be only useful as rough guidelines. Not that we couldn't use some guidelines, though...

I can think of two distinct plans off the top of my head.

George said:

Strong defenses against esoteric attacks doesn't necessarily mean he can tank galaxy-busting attacks. It also took Arthur thousands of sword strikes to level Toronto, didn't it?

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Arthur had infinite cutting power. Turns out surgically cutting the city was not the best way to go about destroying it. Likewise, Monarch could tank his own transfinite power, which is why his Shadow was capable of throwing him around.

Monarch is still slow as shit, but he is way stronger and more durable.

Monarch doesn't have transfinite power, because then Arthur should have had transfinite power through having all his abilities at 33% of their normal rank, and getting 1% or 100% of Monarch's abilities were meaningless since he would anyway have transfinite power.

This does not feel like a sound assumption since Coldbriar was still a threat to supposedly transfinite power Art.

Additionally, if there was a limit on what 33% of the Monarch's power could let Arthur endure, it follows logically that its power is large but finite.

@Rihaku out of curiosity provided that nothing explodes will we be seeing the Xiaoling loyalty event over the timeskip?

Wolfy said:

Arthur had infinite cutting power. Turns out surgically cutting the city was not the best way to go about destroying it. Likewise, Monarch could tank his own transfinite power, which is why his Shadow was capable of throwing him around.

Monarch is still slow as shit, but he is way stronger and more durable.

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We don't know much about how Zang Kongs reality effects work, but it has been frequently suggested that he has similiarily broad conceptual control over Space as Nameless has over Death. If Arthur had infinite cutting power and the Monarchs hide blocked this, then by definition the conceptual cutting power of Arthur was overpowered by the Monarchs hide. This means we know that conceptual effects from the Terrascape verse can be overpowered.

Given that Zang Kong has the power of an entire infinite universe backing his conceptual spatial effects, i don't see why the Monarchs hide would fare better against him than Arthurs sword did against the Monarchs hide.

And another thing, this is Rihakus tier list:

Rihaku said:

Hadrian, Rufus, Hektor, Abyssal Ulyssian, Haigara, Wu, Infernal Uly, Ryoshu, Nathor, Ishida, Seram & Control, Dr. Apocalypse, Solar Ulyssian, Arthur, Old Seram.

Odyssial
<Five Power Gaps>
Dr. Apocalypse
<Power Gap>
Hadrian
Monarch Arthur
Ishida
Solar Ulyssian
Infernal Ulyssian
Abyssal Ulyssian
Haigara
Hektor
Wu
Nathor
Ryoshu
Young Seram
Rufus

Probably something like that.

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If Monarch Arthur, who had 33% of the Monarchs power, was an entire power gap beneath Dr. Apocalypse, who had no access to particularily potent conceptual effects and became a mere Stellar tier character mostly on the power of his comic science biggatons, then there is no way the Monarch is above Zang Kong, who is as far above Dr. Apocalypse as... well, as you'd expect from a Titan.

RedV said:

Monarch doesn't have transfinite power, because then Arthur should have had transfinite power through having all his abilities at 33% of their normal rank, and getting 1% or 100% of Monarch's abilities were meaningless since he would anyway have transfinite power.

This does not feel like a sound assumption since Coldbriar was still a threat to supposedly transfinite power Art.

Additionally, if there was a limit on what 33% of the Monarch's power could let Arthur endure, it follows logically that its power is large but finite.

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Here's what's meant by transfinite strength btw:

Rihaku said:

'And obstructions are out due to transfinite strength. It can punch through any type of terrain as easily as vacuum.'

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Though we, um, may want to relate this more firmly to the topic at hand or drop it >.>

One apt thing to bring up is the no limits fallacy, though. While his strength may well work just fine against us, it's possible the Soul Chrysalis Stage gives us some conceptual weight based on our Essence that lets us resist it.

Mhm. Amplification may allow us to further improve our first 3 stages...

EFB equivalent Ego barrier?

George said:

Here's what's meant by transfinite strength btw:


Though we, um, may want to relate this more firmly to the topic at hand or drop it >.>

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Oh, I thought it was some kind of omni-applicable physical boost. So that's what it was. Anyway, will drop the tangent now.

DkArthas said:

Mhm. Amplification may allow us to further improve our first 3 stages...

EFB equivalent Ego barrier?

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I'm essentially certain we won't be getting EFB effects from it, but we don't need anything near that for it to be well worth it. Those 3 Stages represent the three fundamental types of attack in this verse and strengthening them is likely to be excellent for our defenses. It's also possible strengthening the Soul Chrysalis Stage will impact our casting stamina and that strengthening Ego Barrier could improve cultivation speed.

DkArthas said:

Mhm. Amplification may allow us to further improve our first 3 stages...

EFB equivalent Ego barrier?

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Supercharging previous Stages might let our Ego Barrier / Organ Refining / Soul Chrysalis stages give us additional power per Stage like All Paths let Stageless double the power of every subsequent "stage". An additional 0.25 per Stage (or even 0.1 per Stage) would be neat.

Rihaku said:

Nameless vigorously scrubbed his back with a brush while taking in the waterlogged lich before him.

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Also, man Nameless cuddling the Lich affectionately was super cute. This thing is adorable.

[X] Pursuit of the Truth
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Open the Way
[X] Palimpsest - Form of the Elder Beast [1 Beyond Point]

Truth and Diligent gives us what we need most to win. We shouldn't be distracted by other things when we are this close to victory. I'm less sure about the spells though.

Wolfy said:

Arthur had infinite cutting power. Turns out surgically cutting the city was not the best way to go about destroying it. Likewise, Monarch could tank his own transfinite power, which is why his Shadow was capable of throwing him around.

Monarch is still slow as shit, but he is way stronger and more durable.

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It is the same for dragons, surgically cutting them isn't an ideal way to defeat them. We were told that they function at full capacity with no visible injuries until their "hp" runs out.

The monarch was said by the Strategist to have finite strength ("Though its strength is finite, no force may resist it"), but even if it wasn't (which George's quote above might indicate), the amount of energy transfered to a target should probably be limited by the speed of the attack and the mass of the target anyway, so being able to tank it isn't strange at all. We also got an estimate for how resilient it is, which was that it would require roughly a thousand times as many strikes to kill as a normal dragon.

George said:

Here's what's meant by transfinite strength btw:


Though we, um, may want to relate this more firmly to the topic at hand or drop it >.>

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That is likely a governance member misunderstanding the attribute referred to as "no force may resist it" in the Strategist's analysis, though I guess it is also possible that the Strategist was mistaken even though that analysis was more specific.

Wai

Chronic said:

We don't know much about how Zang Kongs reality effects work, but it has been frequently suggested that he has similiarily broad conceptual control over Space as Nameless has over Death. If Arthur had infinite cutting power and the Monarchs hide blocked this, then by definition the conceptual cutting power of Arthur was overpowered by the Monarchs hide. This means we know that conceptual effects from the Terrascape verse can be overpowered.

Given that Zang Kong has the power of an entire infinite universe backing his conceptual spatial effects, i don't see why the Monarchs hide would fare better against him than Arthurs sword did against the Monarchs hide.

And another thing, this is Rihakus tier list:



If Monarch Arthur, who had 33% of the Monarchs power, was an entire power gap beneath Dr. Apocalypse, who had no access to particularily potent conceptual effects and became a mere Stellar tier character mostly on the power of his comic science biggatons, then there is no way the Monarch is above Zang Kong, who is as far above Dr. Apocalypse as... well, as you'd expect from a Titan.

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Wait, there was an Abyssal Ulysses? Can I get a link?

Crawling Chaos said:

Wai

Wait, there was an Abyssal Ulysses? Can I get a link?

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Behold!

The Sword At The Throat Of Creation!

Rihaku questing, AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING.

I really don't want Face My Self. If I'm being honest our current level of trying to change? Pretty much exactly what I was hoping for! We've got our petty revenge on Extrusion to the point where its now somewhat ill at ease, and we did so by being 'nice' to boot! Plus we got self reflection in the sense of 'I don't want to lose all of my hedonism, but working hard for two years so you can slack off for the next 1000 is pretty much a no brainer even in the context of being lazy' which is right where I think Nameless should be.

Also all the worries about Maya leading to the end of the empire? It's important to recall the massive scale that we're working on. Our maximum range is indeed a galaxy... but our minimum range is a single city. And the Empire is on Asia times 60! Single provinces are the size of large nations back on earth! A single city that makes up less than a millionth of the area or population getting a 50% boost to pleasure isn't going to meaningfully effect the empire.

[X] Strategic Complexion
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Open the Way
[X] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point]

In the end I do not want to miss Strategic Complexion at all. Time moves forward. Remember how we could have gone to the Tombs or the Captial, and thus would have missed entirely the fact that Xiaoling's dad was deposed and the elves were going to be broken? We are given a warning here, one we really should heed. Much much harder to prevent a situation from cascading failure than simply halting its initial spiral out of control. Plus I want to go home, you know? I want to show off to dad, have mom meet her new daughter-in-law, maybe check to see if we now have a baby sister?

Working extra diligently in this case leverages the previous choice while also gaining something valuable. Time. Resurrecting Liches is something that works much much better if we do it earlier after all, raising Avolen for example means that every month we did it early is an extra five years bare minimum to prepare. If we can do it and get the Lunar Crown just a month before the Heroine wakes we'd have literally doubled our time.

Pursuit of Truth is a good next choice, but my main concern is the fact that we don't actually get to chose which one we achieve so strategies revolving around one are incompatible to some degree with the other. Can't focus on building up defenses while relying on Azure Flare for esoteric offense if we get True Incarnation instead and end up with great tanking but no way of keeping her down, and vice versa.

I'm not interested in getting a Grand Diagram of Essence at this juncture simply because we don't have the Beyond Points I'd want to spend on it. It's an Ascendant Sign, we'd very likely want to go FB on it once we actually see the effects. Essence Grands were pointed out as amazing places to pour beyond points into. The opportunity cost is just too high here.

Open the Way for the reasons I outlined earlier: the ability to jump to other universes located by either elven summon targeting or Cerebration in order to function as Joutenhiem for us with all the scaling and none of the moral responsibility. Also its an incredible asset against Kong since its straight up described as a way to 'neutralize Zang Kong's spatial Extrusion effects' which when you think about the fact that a the bulk of his Dao seems to be spatial in nature is a massive deal. Plus imagine! What if Kong hits us with a thing that strands us in some sort of blue void? Without Open the Way True we'd have jack all ability to actually leave! We're the one who BFRs other people, not the one who should get BFRed!

Form of Balance isn't quite the cultivation multiplier we were hoping for but becoming a True Elder Beast is probably a very bad idea. And becoming a Truely Balanced person is very likely a good idea. Remember that truespelling increases its parameters in a way that makes it more 'absolute' so improving our bodyplan in an 'absolute' way is very likely a boon we won't get elsewhere. Increasing our bodily actions as well is a benefit that stacks on top of every single stage. A Titan with a significant buff to any action he takes with his body on top of his own innate strength is much more impressive than an Organ Refiner with the same boost after all, and its an avenue of improvement that we mined dry.

Tally incoming