I read a little, and I know the basics.
It seems this is a competition, and I am at a severe disadvantage by starting late lol.
Dying is fun & progress is quite fast at first. When you get to stage 3, most bases would be covered and it is pretty smooth sailing from there. With occasional mortal danger, ofc (see Squishy in first game; Stormslayer also kinda applies, but most monsters won’t be bound to defend a place)
Oh well, maybe I can find my own yandere demon to give me a arm. Lmao
Do note that while Ulkas cheated like, constantly, he was one bad roll from death on multiple occasions (including meeting Astrosa, Tinzakena ritual, crazed Astrosa, twin Heroes (in cinematic battle, so does not really count), pre-meeting Xatares, Ambition). Currently he might seem OP, but surroundings are swarmed with higher staged monsters (that are _much_ stronger, mainly in Attributes).
So is going it alone the option, then, if I don't want to kill my buddies? Does that mean that I'll have to kill everyone who can absorb essence if I decide to set up a community like that?
Or would doing that even work? It sounds like the world may be able to make those who couldn't absorb essence into those who can absorb essence, making even that not a solution.
As for causing a Cataclysm, is that possible to do in such a way that it depowers myself in addition to everything else?
World is waking up and more monsters start to absorb essence. Players are an example of recently-awakened ones. I guess your quest is bound to proceed in slaughter.
Next Cataclysm will 70% kill everything and 30% repeat past one (all monsters going crazy from Essence loss, civilization collapsing, nothing getting done for thousands of years). Also, we had Ancient vaults to plunder this time. Next time, there would be nothing, so it is another variation of “kill everything”.
Plus, to start Cataclysm, you need to reach stage 10 to get into island of Ey. Read several of my last turns with Last talking (silver text), he explains it better and seems likely to be truth (or an elaborate plan to break into Ey, but same results)
There are alternatives, like Corruption, but with Dahak disappearance, we don’t know much about it and it seemed less of a danger compared to “Outer Gods”