V12: Chapter 12

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  Word count: 2000 added by Chaosbrain

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  “Jackie, I’ve missed you!”

  “Khalai.” I raised a hand towards the former High Justiciar while his minders stopped him from pouncing on me. We were in a coastal Forger city. I was taking a look at how much corruption the Sahuagin managed to push, while Morgan helped Celia take the former Warden capital. Our findings were less than ideal. “Cast a holy attack on this caged creature here.”

  “Oh my, the horrors of the depths are as malign as I feared.” To Khalai’s credit, he wasn’t at all perturbed by the sight of the creature we captured. The towering fishman had multiple eyes all over its body and was covered in barnacles with snapping mouths. Even chained and in a cell, its eyes stared at everyone with a baleful stare. Its malice was clear. “This specimen is of those who dwell in the depths?”

  “One of many phenotypes. They have a caste system. This is their common infantry. They have specialized vanguard and shock infantry.” Giant lobsters that sprayed acid cannons and skittering swarms of creatures with claws capable of carving through steel. The latter had another variant that was capable of laying eggs in kills that rapidly gestated into two or three of the smaller type. “Their ruler caste has some form of mind-based magic. The Forgers hunted them with half-machine troops as they proved more resistant.”

  They were obviously based off the eldritch alien race stereotype. Mind control, psionic blasts, plasma, infesting hosts to spread, etc. The fact that they focused on the Forgers was a pretty big loss on their part. They were the most physically and mentally resilient. The Conquerors were fairly strong, but they had a lot more points towards speed and damage. The best defense was just killing your enemies. They can’t deal damage if they’re dead, after all.

  But back to testing weapons on prisoners via a genocidal former pope.

  Ayah came forward along with a few other Iterants, and they placed themselves between me and Khalai while he gathered magic in one hand. A single moment passed, and in that moment an orb of pure gold light formed in his hand that radiated a faint warmth through the clearing of the small fishing village. Holy magic was the counter for all remaining threats left by the Ancients. The foundation was left behind for us to work on and iterate to create weapons and tools for the war to retake the planet.

  One of many aces that we should’ve all had but ended up sequestered to specific factions.

  Whatever, I can’t keep crying about things that I had no control over.

  “Shall I begin with a basic attack?”

  “No, with a middling one. That eliminates anything below.” I told him simply, and Khalai obliged. The orb rippled and grew twice as large before turning into a floating arrow, which sped into the cage. The shambling mutant didn’t have time to scream as a chunk of its torso was torn out and a tunnel formed straight through its center. It stayed upright for a moment before slumping down and dying. “Looks like the average priest will be very useful against these creatures.”

  “If you have a few powerful warriors, they’ll be able to carve through them with ease.”

  “Sounds good, I’ll talk to the remnants.” Khalia pouted at my statement. He wasn’t exactly pleased about the state of his former religion. Most of it was dead and buried now. The remainder were worshipping their ancestors under the itinerant’s watchful eye. They had their uses for training people in holy magic and producing blessed weapons for my special forces. There weren’t enough of them to supply and support entire holy armies. “Now, I want you to try and heal these people.”

  We walked to a field hospital, and inside there were people in a half-alive state.

  Khalai actually paused at the door.

  “What manner of foulness is this?” Something close to a snarl left the former High Justiciar’s lips. Despite being disguised as a nun, with side slits up to the waist, Khalai pulled off a look of absolute hatred incredibly well. “I sense dozens of lives within these people, and they yet live despite their current state!”

  He turned to me.

  “Why do you not send them to Paradise! Release them from this horrific state!”

  I answered him with care.

  “I need information from them. If you can heal them, I will take what I can before doing as they wish.” I didn’t blame Khalai for his reaction and waved the Iterants to stand down after his outburst. They lowered their blades from his body, and the small cuts on him leaked blood before he healed them with an idle thought. “I must admit, my first thought was to spare them any more suffering myself, but if they can tell us what happened to them… then I can prevent it from happening to others.”

  Khalai calmed down at my words, but he didn’t look pleased.

  Still, he turned towards the nearest of the living breeding nests and held out his hands.

  “The creatures from within may decide to act against you.” I told him simply.

  “They will not. They will perish first.” He stated, and a burst of light came from the champion leader. The flesh he held his hands towards wriggled and burst. Purple ooze came out from wounds where bulbous bulges on the skin the size of softballs were. The living victim and immobile host to dozens of implanted eggs cried out in pain, but soon it stopped and turned into sobbing. The foul parasites were expunged, the wounds were mended, and the living tumor wrapped up in bloated flesh and pustules became a Forger once again. Khalai was quick to kneel by her side and take her hand as she sobbed and wept. “Blessings be upon you, child. The monsters within you are gone. The rest of their ilk will follow even if we must pursue them into the deepest depths.”

  I motioned for the child to be taken away from the fetid flesh that sloughed off, and Iterants took her aside, while Khalai stood up.

  Something close to absolute hatred was clear on his face.

  Idly, I considered the possibility of doing more with him than keeping him a secret healer and holy magic expert, but I tossed the thought aside.

  If he escapes even once, I’ll have a death cult crusade on my lap that I don’t want to deal with.

  He’s living through a political and military crisis waiting to happen.

  Yes, even if he is dressed up in a fetish nun outfit that shows off the sides of his ass and has lace stockings and a garter belt on.

  “That child is better off in paradise than here.” And there’s the zealotry that I just couldn’t allow out of my sight. Not even a mote of belief that the kid was now whole and hale and could have a normal life. “Do you truly wish for her to persist in this world after she has endured that?”

  He didn’t call me ‘Jackie,’ and that hard-edged glare remained on his face.

  This tanned twink was a ticking time bomb that I could only work to delay.

  “Morgan’s made some inroads. I have mages available that can get rid of her memories after she tells us all that she can. After that, I’ll have her stationed in the same village as the Goddess of Life. The same goes for everyone else here.” Wiping memories and chunks of someone's life and experience away was pretty close to killing them. In my opinion, people are made up of their experiences and memories, which form how they react in the present and in the future. Taking memories away from someone, not even leaving a sensation behind, was pretty much erasing a current person and replacing them with their past self. “I will give her that if she chooses it. If she wishes to die, I will render her onto you, Khalai.”

  Khalai was silent for a bit before clasping his hands together and giving a prim bow.

  When he raised his head, he looked upon the rest of the people suffering and muttered a prayer.

  “Forgive me, my fellows bound to paradise, for the suffering you must continue to endure.” I grimaced at the genuine belief and faith Khalai had in his words. That was the whole core of the death cult that he would lead. Every death was sending people to eternal paradise. A paradise that he had every reason to believe would persist forever. I couldn’t disprove that fact.

  Nor could I even try without alienating him, as I didn’t have proof.

  Eminent might have a chance, but I didn’t trust her to not make the situation worse. Her telling him the truth just had too many outcomes. He could give up completely. He could call her a liar and double down. He could pretend to believe her and just work behind the scenes after I lower my guard. Was it possible that he’d just believe her and work with me, perhaps even working towards securing paradise permanently by securing the planet, before he went and started a death cult?

  Yeah, it was possible, but I thought the chances of that were low.

  If I could save and reload, I’d take the risk and initiate the dialogue, but with everything on the line?

  No.

  I’ll keep him trapped and under my control in exchange for allowing him to conduct euthanasia for the willing.

  I didn’t have the luxury of being the first to offer him trust.

  …

  More than half of the survivors chose Khalai after they gave us the information that we needed.

  Information that I needed to verify how far the current invasion was.

  I was surprised to find that it was impressively stymied by the Forgers.

  The Sahuagin had a lot of early game events. They bordered us on the oceans and could get through in small numbers by diving deep enough and sacrificing enough to get through the underwater defenses. Most of their underwater kingdoms kept cattle on islands. Splinters sent by those who didn’t have enough tried to raid the shorelines of the other crises or our own. They looked for bodies to corrupt and turn into organic tanks to house their children or people to mutate and add to their existing stock of beasts so that they won’t die from inbreeding.

  Unlike the other crises, the Sahuagin were dying out. They were competing and killing each other for limited resources, working against a genetic time bomb that was already bringing them to their knees, and they died without stealing enough population from the continent. The Citadels are their end goal, the same as the other crises, but they didn’t have an endless swarm unless you ceded population to them by being idiots.

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  I expected to find the invasion underway, swathes of territory in Forger lands working as breeding farms, and the Sahuagin working through traitors and quislings. Maybe the Forgers would also have some sort of slave trade going on, selling their people for Sahuagin artifacts, tech, and units, which were always shitty deals in-game. I was ready to call on my troops, burn everything I found, and apologize to Celia for ravaging the fringes of her new lands later.

  Instead?

  Well, the Forgers apparently kicked the Sahuagin’s teeth and had been actively hunting any incursion down with steampunk cyborgs.

  Almost made me regret hitting them with a viral strategic weapon, until I remembered their endgame was to turn the planet into a volcanic death world.

  “Gather all the records and information left behind. Make sure everything is taken into account for the Guardians to take over. I want Iterants here to intercept as well.” The Sahuagin underwater maps were a pain to prepare for. A lot of technology and magic needed to be researched to fight them at full strength. It was better to starve them and build defensive wonders on the coastlines while making sure any raiding parties died. If they found this coastline impossible to breach, they’ll turn back upon one another. “Ayah, I want volunteers for a coastal watch and rapid response force.”

  “It shall be done, my lord.”

  There were a lot of things left to do.

  Hm.

  Riegert and the expeditionary force should be with Morgan, Ilych, and Rita by now.

  I’ll send a letter to ask for an update on the Wardens after this.

  After all, I wanted to know how strong Pinnacle and Eminent were together, as well as how the new army could perform.

  This was probably the last chance I could experiment before things went to shit.

  …

  Interlude: Celia

  …

  Catherine and Zenith stood with me as we watched another flying bastion settle down and begin to disgorge another army.

  Many of our soldiers, resting at our former base away from the siege lines, watched with bated breath as an army unlike any other marched out.

  They wore little to no armor with uniforms covered in vests and jackets. Their boots were of fine make, and they marched forth from the cavernous hold in good order. The faint sound of trumpets resounded as they filed out, every man armed with a new rifle, some with smaller firearms, and others carrying large, automatic guns with tins filled with ammunition.

  Cannons with wagons full of artillery came with them, along with grizzled conquerors and groups of mages. The cornerstone of many of Jack’s campaigns, his flying cavalry, was not with them. Instead, over seven tenths of the army was composed of unarmored infantry.

  It would have been easy to underestimate them, but Zenith’s sudden hiss of surprise told me that would be foolish.

  “There’s no winning a fight against that. Not even Iterants. We’ll be smashed apart, their champions will come in, and whatever reinforcements come in will be blown to bits while they make an orderly retreat.” Zenith shook her head and pointed at the new army. “That army you see there? It’s two or three centuries behind the Ancient’s best. Ours is six. Five centuries, if I’m generous.”

  “How is that possible?” Three centuries. A shiver went down my spine, and fear crept up my throat. That amount of time was incredibly small. Several people under my employ were older than that. Some of the nobility where thrice that old. “How could he be so close to what the ancients had?”

  Zenith must have taken note of my sudden alarm. Her eyes opened with surprise, and then she moved to correct herself.

  “I misspoke. It’s difficult to explain, but technology improves at an exponential rate. The true gap is immense, but time represents it poorly.” Zenith calmed me, and I listened with care. Catherine’s gaze was upon me in the corner of my vision, but I took steadying breaths and made sure that I did not give away my surprise. My hands were not shaking, and I stood tall. Good. “What I meant to convey is that they’re two or three generations away from us. We can fight back with some ingenuity and reach parity with numbers and work, but we cannot fight them here and now.”

  I managed to nod, not trusting my voice, and Zenith continued as I calmed myself down.

  “What you see is an army that overwhelms through mobility and firepower. Those larger firearms are called machine guns. They invalidate line formations by sending hundreds of bullets into the battlefield to savage infantry.” I focused on those whom she pointed out, hoping to find few of them, but instead there was a pair carrying one for every grouping of ten men. Five carried rifles. Three carried shorter guns. Zenith took note of my analyses. “The three with shorter guns have the duty of keeping any charges away from the rest of the group. The five that remain take aim and fire with accuracy. Catherine, how fast can they move when pressed?”

  Catherine took a moment to recall her journey with those men, and a faint frown formed on her lips.

  “They move quickly. Each one is enhanced just like all of the King of Wisdom’s soldiers. I would say that they can move steadily at half the charging speed of their pikemen.”

  “Then, they’ll move into a position, engage, fire, and move before artillery can be called upon them. He knows to counter his own techniques.” The flying bastion resounded with war horns, declaring that it would soon close the massive frontal gate at its prow. The confluence of soldiers that came forth marched into formations before moving forward. I blinked as I realized they were heading for the siege lines, and the three other bastions went forward. They were freshly disembarked, but they were going to join the latest attack? “The original armies under Morgan will be the anvil, while they’ll be the hammer. The fortresses will act as flying artillery… wait.”

  Zenith’s eyes suddenly widened, and her mouth split apart into a grin filled with fanged teeth.

  Her entire body shook, and I recognized it as her holding herself back from throwing herself into the fray against a powerful foe.

  A sense of terrible calm washed over me as I realized what Jack did.

  Zenith’s presence all this time must have reached his nation when she joined months ago while fighting the Forgers. His own soldiers must have recounted her feats in battle, how she saved many lives and hastened our victory with her presence, and told their families back home.

  So, before they could even think to question why their own Divine Engines were not present to do the same for them, he planned, he prepared, and now his labor bore fruit.

  Life and Death were both here and exiting the flying bastion.

  Life was resplendent and clad in flowing white silks and pure white branches. She wore a crown of glittering gems made of white vines, and her features made my eyes water in wonder. Physical perfection barely hidden by near-transparent silks. A radiant shine glimmered from her mere existence. Motes of golden, flickering light fell from her and floated in her wake. Merely being in her presence soothed aches that I didn’t know that I had. Eight immense blades, great swords even for her towering stature, were sheathed in stained glass that hovered around her. Each of the stained glass sheathes emitted light cast by the magical blades held within; thus, she also wore a robe of light that scourged all shadow in her mere presence.

  Her blonde handmaidens were Children of the Elm clad in glittering silver armor with living vines girding their limbs. Each one held a sword at their backs, smaller versions of what their goddess carried, and they each had flowing white capes of flowers. They marched with reverence; some sang, others carried harps, and more chanted prayers. In lockstep they moved with their goddess, who floated on a throne of flowers and vines off the air, and the ground that they trod filled with grass and flowers. Each one was clearly blessed, nearly matching a Conqueror in height, and there were hundreds of them in attendance. Guards of the divine who will never falter nor break.

  Death walked in parallel with life. The grass beneath her heeled and ribboned boots died, and the soil was stripped of life. The shadows around her deepened, and she was clad in a cloak of it beneath a black lace parasol. A veil of pure shadow obscured her features from all save for one. Deep scarlet and bright eyes pierced through the shadow. Simply seeing them made it clear that one should not match her gaze directly, so I did not. My eyes instead strained at the impossibly long, shifting, and warping shadow that she cast. It clung to the ground, solid and liquid at the same time, bubbling with grasping hands and faint figures within. It was like a scar upon the world that she dragged behind her. If I strained my ears, I could hear the gnashing of teeth and groaning for blood. Great and terrible weapons covered in rust and dried blood rose and fell from her shadow, cursed and malign things that yearned to be unleashed by her will.

  Her retinue was that of hulking titans. Refined versions of the amalgams that we made. Each one was covered in bone-white armor and was three stories tall. Despite their hulking size and mass, they moved with uncanny grace. Each footfall was measured and in lockstep with their dozen kin. To my horror they did not carry simple guns or cannons but instead wielded great swords, axes, shields, lances, and even hammers. The way they walked and carried themselves told me that they were masterful warriors, each in the body of a hulking behemoth covered in armor. There were no more than a hundred of them, but I knew that they were enough to lay waste to anything their mistress desired for them to destroy.

  Suddenly, both looked my way.

  No.

  They looked towards Zenith.

  Zenith, who was barely beyond the reach of a champion.

  Zenith, who used weapons and armor handed down through my bloodline for countless centuries.

  Zenith, who did not have a force to call her own when she went to battle.

  The lone Divine Engine that did not stand with the King of Wisdom.

  Life gave a small smile and inclined her head softly our way before turning her gaze back to the Warden Citadel.

  Death, meanwhile, allowed the veil of shadow to cease obscuring her lower face to aim a wide smile filled with fangs towards Zenith before giving a dismissive wave with a hand covered in black lace.

  I had wondered if Zenith could ever face and defeat a Divine Engine with all the aid that I could muster.

  Perhaps, with time and training, she could.

  But the cruel truth was presented to us now.

  Jack would not permit it.

  Zenith will always need to consider facing both life and death. They will always have armies of their own guarding them alongside whatever force he could send their way.

  “Damn, I have a lot of work ahead of me.” Zenith was thankfully indomitable. Once her two fellows ‘greeted’ her, she allowed herself to breathe. That was more than I can do. I felt my nerves fraying at the ends at the sight of them. He must know how to strengthen them. There was a reason why Life was found but never shown. For Death, he had risked so much to take her, but now it was obvious why. Her strength was unquestionable even with her recent revival. If she fell into the hands of the Wardens, with their zeal and ferocity, two swarms of undying warriors would have swept across the land. “I thought that Death would be the biggest problem, but Life looks absolutely unstoppable.”

  Zenith’s words and concern drew me away from my thoughts.

  “Why do you say that?” Zenith shared with me that her primary concern had been death. She could marshal great armies and inspire them, but that meant little against the endless tide Death could present. Life’s blessings, however, were something she put aside. As much as life could strengthen and heal her soldiers, they could still be defeated in combat. “You were confident in your ability to defeat her.”

  “She’s at full strength, and the soldiers she’ll be empowering are strong. Not to mention the fact that where she goes, there won’t be a lack of food or materials.” Zenith gestured at Life’s wake. Trees laden with fruit were growing. Tall grass rustled and disgorged metals from the earth. Flowers took on a gemlike sheen. Supporting staff was quick to harvest it all. Food, raw materials, and wealth. All formed in her wake. “And, again, she’s just… at her full potential and learning still. She’s had time to grow, to learn, and to study.”

  Zenith turned her head and looked at the Divine Engine of Life.

  Then, she spoke with a whisper.

  “If I cut off her head, I’d be worried that she’ll have two bodies instead of one.” Zenith shook in place; for the first time her trembling seemed like fear instead of excitement, and she looked at me with a wry grin. “I can’t ask for a better foe to grow against. As long as we stay alive, as long as we keep fighting, I’m sure that I’ll be able to fight the two of them to a draw. Most likely by threatening places if they’re not there to respond. But that’s… if it were only the three of us.”

  I understood what she implied and looked to Catherine.

  “Find anyone of talent who is willing to devote themselves to Zenith. At least two thousand soldiers under her command supported by a full army group.” It was too much to entrust to an individual who I just met. Barely a few months have passed since Zenith met me. However, I saw no path forward without her help. Time was not on our side. I had to take immense risks such as this, even if it cost me influence in the council. In the end, however, they’ll get the influence that they desire. I needed many administrators, generals, and officers to manage all my new holdings and fight back against the coming tide. They’ll be given what they desire and shoulder some of my burden in the process.” Now—

  My next words faded away as a wave of almighty power washed over me and dragged my attention towards the siege line.

  No.

  Towards the Divine Engine of Life.

  For a second, there was complete darkness.

  Then, suddenly, there was a pillar of light taller than any tower I’d ever seen save for the Citadel. It was there for only a moment, until it contorted, reshaped itself, and turned into a lance of light many leagues long. I blearily recognized it as a lance of light, one of the newer spells composed in Jack’s universities, but it was made far larger by the Divine Engine’s power.

  It flew towards the towering walls guarding the Warden’s Citadel and obliterated it. The miracles and shields conjured by the Wardens did nothing to stop it. It was a whirling tempest of light that annihilated all in its path. What was not annihilated turned into glass and blew apart. I saw faint mortal figures sent flying, disintegrating in the sky, while several more were just turned into charred remnants.

  Then, again, all light faded for an instant, and another lance of light came into being and surged forward again into the Warden capital.

  I understood what Zenith meant when she said life had time to learn, grow, and train at that moment.

  While I had called Zenith forth to fight for me the moment she reached me, he had nurtured his Divine Engine until…

  Until it could give him the entire world.