John looked one last time over the ceremonial contract that formalized the annexation of the majority of the southern small fry by Fusion. It had only taken two days to get the boots on the ground and the parliament to sign off on the decision. The guild masters were still being processed by the justice system and it would take quite a while until the integration was complete.

Because there was no central authority to hijack this time around, Fusion had to build everything from scratch. Government buildings, law-enforcement, bureaucrats, administrative apparatuses, businesses, Protected Spaces, Fateweaver offices, all of them needed to be erected or hired. Until then, those territories would be part of Fusion, but likely still suffer from quite a bit of crime. It would be fixed in time.

Since there was nobody who could give the land to John, the contract was mostly a ceremonial manner. The signatures given were by the three strongest guild masters of the territories, the Speaker of Commons, Horace and four other members of the House of Exceptionals and, the only one still missing, John. The imbalance between Fusion signatures and those of the conquered spoke to this being a subjugation rather than a peaceful acquisition.

John didn’t mind. The tyrants were conquered in a tyrannical way. Those who lived by the sword died by it. It was all as one could expect things to go. He put his signature on the dotted line and was rewarded with a new Achievement.

‘Jesus… I mean Gaia almighty, that’s a pretty big one,’ John thought, dismissing the window for now and continuing the ceremony. Grabbing the signed contract, he stood up and held it high for the people to see. On his elevated position in the parliament, he could see the entire floor, and watcher’s area. Both were filled to the brim. For the historic occasion, the floor had been opened to allow more regular people to pour in and watch the ongoing with their own eyes. Now everyone raised their hands in applause. A few triumphant whistles could be heard as well.

John grinned, basking in the energy. The more successes Fusion had, the more prestigious it got and the more wealth its members enjoyed, the more people developed a genuine bond towards their government. Being at the helm of something like this was a pleasure quite different from physical ones. It made him feel wholesome, as if he was moving along to complete his destiny. This was what made people get addicted to success.

“Fusion controls the east coast!” he declared, when the applause started to die down. It caused a secondary wave that lasted until he continued talking. “In historic terms, the speed at which our great federation expands will likely be deemed ludicrous. To me, it has been a turbulent ten months. Since I returned to America in February, I have steadily worked in seeing the continent I come from liberated. I have set the first stone, but the values and functioning of Fusion are not mine alone to take credit for. It is all of you, your hard work,” he looked directly at Horace, “your oddities,” Alice waved in response to his gaze, “your blood and tears,” Chemilia and Ted nodded their heads, “your traditions and principles,” Ahanu and Elu smiled, “your wealth,” the representatives of the Amaca Coast bowed in their seats, “and your love,” he put an arm around Rave, who was up there alongside him and the rest of the harem, “that made all of this possible.” He picked up a glass filled with champagne that sat waiting on his table. “Sadly, we don’t have enough beverages here for all of you, but I trust you are all with me in toasting to our success. Cheers!”

Those who had something to drink raised their glasses in unison to him, those who didn’t were happy enough to cheer once more. John emptied his glass in one go. Then he looked at the screens all around the room. They showed two images in sequence, one replacing the other every ten seconds.

One was the map of the east coast as it stood. Fusion was the absolutely dominating force in the area by every dimension. Size was a purely superficial one, there were plenty of times in history where the smaller country had defeated the larger one. As somewhat of a perfectionist, John still loved painting the map with his influence. Seeing the way the word stretched across the display reminded him just how vast his realm was now. Between planes and teleporters, the distance of things was pretty easy to forget.

The second was a map of Fusion’s internal situation. The newly added state had been given the name South Meltpot. The old Meltpot had been titled North Meltpot and been given the lands east of its previous territory. There were two reasons for this decision. One, it split the burden of building new institutions between the federal government and the North Meltpot state and, two, the North Meltpot got coast access out of it.

“It’s a good day for all of us,” John declared.

________________________________________________________________________________

The parliament session came to an end about an hour later. It had evolved into more of a party and John was all fine with that. The building could use a bit of charm created through drunken accidents. A bit of scratched wood here and there would go a long way in making the building feel less new. That aside, he wanted Fusion to be a guild that was built on being civilized and still allowing the harmless ecstasies in life.

For his part, the Gamer wanted to be with his girls rather than continue attending a party. With all of the rewards he had just gotten, he had a number of new opportunities and choices to chew through.

“How’s the Charisma growing?” Rave asked, once they were back at home.

“Pretty well,” John responded, while punching all of the newly available points into that very Stat.

“I am past level 300 now… the incremental growth just keeps going.” He grinned.

“So, you got two Class Levels available right now, is what I am hearing?” Scarlett asked, while opening the alcohol closet. After taking out a bottle of red wine, she walked over to Aclysia. “Open, please.”

“As you wish,” Aclysia diligently responded, her left index finger transforming into a corkscrew. The transformative abilities of the two Artificial Spirits were seldomly used for more than clothing changes, but they still had the capability for them. If John had skilled them differently, they would have doubtlessly made for absurdly good infiltrators. As it was, neither Aclysia nor Beatrice (especially not Beatrice) made for good actresses.

“Yup,” John answered the question. He wasn’t surprised they had read the window. They had all been right beside him when it had popped up and there were very few secrets between any of them. He had one extra Class Level from the Achievement and one regular one from having gotten to level 300. “Which means I can get the Gamer Class to level 9 now.” He opened the Class Window to check what his current Challenge was.

‘…Well, that’s one hell of a Challenge,’ he thought with a grin. “Alright, Gaia wants me to absolutely screw all of you girls’ brains out using the Overclock thing.”

“Is that finally happening?!” Rave asked, obviously excited.

“Yup,” John double-confirmed. “In the Sex Dungeon no less. I’ve got extra Room Slots and I will put them to good use.”

“Oh fuck yesssss!” Eliza hissed. Everyone was naked already, they were home after all, but now the excitement properly rose. John had saved the first usage of the Lover Boy Overclock for a special occasion. The unification of the east coast was very much up there in terms of things to be celebrated.

“Imma go call up Lydia and let her know. Don’t think she’ll want to miss this,” Rave announced, walking to where she had left her clothes.

“You do that. I, for my part, want to see if I can make this day even better.” The Gamer reached into his inventory and pulled out a smooth piece of obsidian, polished to such a degree that it could be effortlessly used as a mirror. “Maybe this will finally get her back.”

_______________________________________________________________________

“Still not good enough,” John’s hopes were smashed in an instant.

Nathalia was sitting on a throne of obsidian, her image framed by the shards of the Vision of the Ashen Lands, conjuring a connection to her realm through fiery magic. Her legs were crossed, covered up to her thighs in obsidian scales. Between them glowed orange-red light, her godly energy steadily manifesting as the colour of magma. More scales framed the gemstone embedded in her collarbone, covered the sides of her neck and the sides of her face. They went past the base of her incredibly long, pointy ears and finally stopped under her eyes. Orange at the outskirts and golden at the centre, her gaze was the complete spectrum of heated iron. Her eyelashes were sharp like thin strands of glass and, like natural mascara, the eyelids and their surrounding areas appeared to be covered in ash.

Three black horns extended from her head. Two grew from just above her temples, growing backwards and then curving outwards on the last third of their length. They were a lot thicker at the base than the tips, lightly segmented and offered numerous positions for hands to take hold of them. The third was shorter, thinner and sharper, growing from the centre of her forehead. All of them were surrounded by her magnificent, orange-red hair. A mane that no comb could ever create, it was wild, silky, long, and glowed with divine power.

Usually, scales would have also covered her arms, the sides of her torso and half of her breasts, leaving only a V-shaped cut-out from below her navel up to her collarbone visible. Three spikes, larger the closer to her head they were, would have covered her shoulders. As it was, all of her delicious, light-brown skin was visible. Her athletic midriff, her large breasts, the dark brown, reddish nipples, all of it was on open display.

Her dark red lips were contorted into a scowl, revealing displeasure and her extremely sharp teeth. Despite this, her face was absolutely gorgeous. For all of her wild and monstrous features, John found Nathalia to look noble first and foremost. She had an older appearance to her. Even though it was completely without blemishes, she had the aura of an early-thirties woman, where the rest of John’s harem fit more into the early to mid-twenties category. The appearance of age was nothing but a visual thing for her, disjointed from her actual age by several millennia, but John enjoyed this particular flavour nevertheless.

“I lament this quite heavily,” Nathalia assured, her expression mirroring John’s own feelings.

“I unified an entire coastline,” John complained. “I am level 300!”

“This is not a thing you can negotiate or reason,” the dragoness told him with a sigh. Switching her crossed legs, she revealed her cunt for a moment. She was absolutely drenched, even more so than she had been at the start of this call. It was John’s sight and voice that had such an effect on her. Sex-starved as she was, the horny dragoness was fidgeting the entire time that they talked. If he had been there, it was highly likely that she wouldn’t have been able to use her mouth for anything else but beg for or suck his cock. “You will be worthy when you are worthy. My intuition will decide.”

“Do you at least have a hunch when that is?” John whined, then took a slow breath and wrestled his frustrations down. He didn’t want to sound like a spoiled brat that had his toys stolen. Not when it was so rare that he got to talk to her. “I miss you, Nathalia. I love you. I need you by my side again.”

“I… love you… too,” the dragoness responded as quickly as she could, using her mediocre English skills. John had no idea about what Draconian actually sounded like, but it must have prioritized very different lip movements given how much she struggled with his language. Her husky voice, deep for a woman, was completely accent free regardless. It was an odd combination of factors. “I want you to mate with me,” she gasped, one of her slender hands wandering down to her cunt. Her control was quickly waning. “I want to live with you. Be with you. Wake up next to you. I want you to fuck me whenever you can. I want to embrace you and your other women. I have all of these desires for you even beyond lust to just be around you.”

Her naked chest rose and fell quickly, while she struggled to keep herself from getting lost to her desires. The Gamer himself was stuck between the absolute lust he felt for her body and the love he felt for all of her. Standing up he walked toward the vision and extended his hand until he felt the heat of the projected image on his fingertips.

“I want to know you better,” the Gamer said. “You are so many things. A nymphomaniac, that much you wear on your sleeve. A goddess of destruction, both your kind and your category are self-evident. A dragon, a proud one at that, for many reasons. A beautiful woman, one that I cannot believe loves me. There are so many other things that you are and that I want to help you become. A guardian of my people, perhaps. An icon of fertility, maybe. A mother, definitely, if I am to be your mate.”

Nathalia shivered and moaned. A last one, exorcising her overburdening lust for the moment. She withdrew her hand, let the scales cover her arms, shoulders and torso. Somehow, she managed to ignore her desires and became the aristocratic beauty she would normally be. “You have grown so much since I first met you,” she said, allowing herself a slight smile on her red lips. “What a chance meeting that was – provided the Horned Rat didn’t meddle in it.”

“Who really knows,” John sighed and looked over to the clock. He had spent so much time talking to Nathalia about what happened since they last met, they were almost out of it. “We will see each other again soon. Albeit it will be more to indulge than to talk…”

“John,” Nathalia’s serious tone ripped him out of the melancholy he was feeling, “it will not be much longer…” She closed her eyes, as the image began to fizzle out. Her face disappeared first, the energy dissipating from the centre outwards. Her voice, formed into English words with beauty only loving dedication could create, continued to reach him for a little while longer. “…you’ll have the power to forego my protection. Then I can return. Not for you to be my mate yet, but for us to be together again.”