Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 348: Power Plays

Miranda had no choice but to go this far if she truly intended to one-up them the way she currently was. After all, the men and women seated in this hall had hundreds of millions to even billions of years more experience than she did, and this wasn’t a situation that could be handled by raw power alone.

Sure, power played a significant role in forcing them to quiet down and not try to pressure her. It also helped her pressure them and deter them from acting out without fearing the consequences of her retaliation.

Still, she couldn’t deal with this matter with raw power—at least, she didn’t have that much power to brute-force everything.

If she had tried to handle everything through raw power alone, things wouldn’t have gone nearly as smoothly. After all, while Miranda was stronger than most of them individually, if they had chosen to band together against her, she would’ve found herself in quite the pinch.

That old saying—there’s strength in numbers—didn’t exist without reason.

But while power alone couldn’t completely solve the situation, it accounted for a solid 60% to 70% of her strategy. That was why she had made that earlier demonstration.

She’d been simply been waiting for the right moment, the right provocation, and one of the dragons had served it to her on a silver platter.

Miranda knew some of them had begun to underestimate her. Time had passed, and they had grown stronger in their own ways.

Some had assumed that since Miranda remained capped at the Quasi-Supreme Realm, she no longer posed the same level of threat to their current selves. That was why she reminded them that they weren’t the only ones who had grown, and that despite her limitations, they still weren’t her equals.

As the proceedings continued, that thought lingered in her mind. Miranda sighed softly, glanced at her palm, and slowly curled her fingers into a loose fist.

’Cosmic Superiority, huh?’

Miranda’s greatest strength was her Hybrid nature—her immortality, her monstrous regeneration, and the absurd growth rate it granted her.

But that same Hybrid nature was the reason she had been stuck at the Quasi-Supreme Realm for hundreds of millions of years.

Just like Jamie over a billion years ago, whose Perfect Hybrid nature had nearly forced his existence to skip the Sub Cosmic stage entirely and push him to full Cosmic Superiority before he was ready, Miranda’s Hybrid makeup interfered with her as well.

The Cosmos viewed her existence as too similar to that of an actual Cosmic Being—hence why she had earlier been described as a bootleg, mutated cosmic being. That similarity blocked her advancement.

So, rather than trying to push past a ceiling that refused to budge, Miranda had turned her focus elsewhere, pursuing avenues of strength not strictly tied to Existence Realm progression.

One such avenue was the Concretizations.

The Fourth Concretization, Aspect Dominion, allowed her to overwrite the reality around her through her understanding of the universal laws that constituted it.

If she had the means, she would have aimed for the Fifth Concretization, but it demanded energy levels far beyond what she currently possessed.

Even though she had used her Hybrid nature to cheat her way into possessing power equal to that of a Grand Supreme, that wasn’t enough for the Fifth.

Only one among the Six Hybrids had achieved that final stage—Jamie. And even then, he hadn’t held onto it. After perfecting it, he chose to dismantle it himself, believing the path he had taken was flawed.

Miranda recalled the last time Jamie had suffered a major power regression, before the most recent one, and how he had intentionally dismantled something others would have killed to gain.

She was still lost in that thought when a booming voice from one of the dragons snapped her back to the present.

She blinked once, eyes narrowing slightly as she tuned into the present moment again, casually accessing the records of the planetoid to catch up on what she had missed in the seconds she’d drifted, and then resumed focus on the meeting in front of her.

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Eventually, the Supremes had to admit it. Miranda had come far more prepared for them than they had for her.

She handled the meeting so efficiently that every time she addressed an issue involving a particular race or someone affiliated with them, she had at least two other races that would be forced, by interest or circumstance, to support her stance.

Take the dragons, for instance. She framed things in such a way that left the vampires no choice but to put pressure on them. She even pulled the dwarves into the issue by revealing how Ikerth’s monopolisation of Ruindeum had negatively impacted their industries, effects that the dwarf Supremes themselves weren’t even aware of.

When it came to the giants, especially the issue involving Eldros, she brought in the humans by referencing Malecor’s attempt to stop Eldros and Eldros’ violent retaliation. Naturally, the werewolves, who were the ones with the most to lose in the territories Eldros was attempting to usurp, were already aligned with her. Several other races allied with the werewolves were also in her corner on that matter.

Miranda even managed to pit certain races against one another where needed. No race was exempt from her strategy, not even the lesser-known ones.

In her eyes, all were treated equally.

She showed no bias, not even toward her beloved werewolves, and that made it all the more difficult for anyone to oppose her or accuse her of favouritism.

In fact, one of the unseated Main Entities had been a werewolf, an Estean werewolf at that, and she had unseated him without hesitation, just as she had done with the vampires, elves, spirits, and others.

That alone should have made it clear, that even if her actions cost the werewolves something, Miranda would still get her way.

Fights nearly broke out many times, so many, in fact, that everyone present eventually lost count.

There were arguments, shouting matches, insults thrown, and threats exchanged. The meeting teetered on the edge of chaos repeatedly, and it reached a point where even the spirits and elves, who had been trying to keep order, began to grow frustrated.

Some of the Spirit Supremes even came close to joining the fray themselves, if only to vent their mounting irritation at the constant tension.

And yet, in spite of all this, decisions were made.

They had to be.

Without them, the entire gathering would have amounted to a complete waste of time, energy, and effort.

So final decisions were reached, and some races were forced to concede.

The dragons, without question, lost the most, followed closely by the giants, both of whom were required to pay reparations to the others.

Surprisingly, by the end of the meeting, when all final decisions had been made and the new set of Main Entities, or rather, the races that would be allowed to nominate candidates for evaluation, were selected, it was the humans who benefited the most.

They were granted the priority of nomination, since Malecor, the previous Main Entity who had represented the humans, had surpassed the Monarch Realm midway through his tenure, rendering him ineligible.

The humans took advantage of that opening, and with significant help from Miranda, managed to secure two spots on the nomination list for their race. Naturally, this left them indebted to Miranda for the support she had given to make it possible.

The remaining slots were distributed among the other races.

As she and Jamie had discussed beforehand, Miranda put forth Seren as the nominee for the vampires. While some of the Vampire Supremes voiced objections, Miranda responded bluntly, telling them that if they had someone better, they should present that person.

Until then, Seren was the nominee. Some among them, who had descendants they wanted to put forward, stated that they would need time to review their options.

In the case of the werewolves, Miranda nominated Denise. Though most werewolves accepted the nomination without issue, a few still voiced their dissatisfaction, and Miranda gave them the same reply she had given the vampires: if they had someone better, they should bring that person forward.

With the races decided, it was now time for them to return to their domains and select their official representatives.

It also marked the beginning of the countdown agreed upon by all the Supremes, to return to their respective domains and apprehend the Race Rulers and other figures whom Miranda had exposed for collaborating with the Neo-Extinction Legion, so they could be brought before the council for judgment.