V12: Chapter 13

  …

  Interlude: Rita

  …

  The Warden Citadel resisted after its walls were broken, but their efforts bore little fruit.

  “The western district has some holdouts. Eminent, deal with it.” Morgan was in command of the theater even with Riegert’s arrival. He fought with Ilych at the front with the expeditionary forces. Wherever they went the Wardens broke, but the majority of current forces were not all armed or trained as they were, so Morgan’s apprentices led them in careful fighting from street to street. Meanwhile, we took to the high walls and waged war from above with the two Divine Engines. “Pinnacle, ensure the center continues to enjoy their speedy advance.”

  Eminent complied with Morgan's words, while Undead crows flowed forth from her, bearing commands.

  In city fighting, our normal couriers were at a disadvantage, but her constructs were small, swift, and capable of delivering messages to the battlefield in their place. Morgan had multiple telescopes and maps of the Warden capital made and gave out orders to the Divine Engines and our mage companies.

  But Eminent’s true strength was not in the utility her lesser Undead provided.

  It was the Undead Titans that she commanded with thoughts alone.

  They waded through buildings and broke them in mere passing. Oftentimes merely walking broke apart defensive lines. Flashes of magic and holy miracles crashed against their armor of bone, but it reformed over the pallid grey muscle beneath. When they struck with their weapons, their targets were obliterated, and singular swings of broad blades egregiously swept apart dozens of soldiers in an instant. The Wardens had no answer to the silent creatures wading through their temples and homes, bringing death wherever they wished.

  But Pinnacle outshone Eminent in every way.

  Her personal guard was with us. They manned every approach towards us and ensured the security of our forward position. Their holy barriers were beyond the ability of the Warden’s to overwhelm, and skirmishers that snuck through the inner sections of the wall were struck down by the guardian maidens. A mere thousand in number, yet they ensured our security, that of the mages, and that of their goddess.

  A goddess who swept through our king’s foes without hesitation and with overwhelming force.

  The path to the Citadel was meticulously crafted by the Wardens. Temples that revived warriors ceaselessly worked with massive stockpiles of weapons. Weapons that included vests filled with explosives made in the Citadel. Not only was the average Warden warrior a whirling dervish unconcerned with living, armed with weapons that can tear through steel with ease, but they also exploded upon death. They even leapt from hidden alcoves and attics of residential homes with their sole intent to kill one with their knives before martyring themselves. Armies that would have walked that path faced the prospect of being turned into nothing more than memories.

  Now that path was naught but rubble.

  Archmages could not compare to her strength. Her strikes with the most basic of magics shattered buildings. Beams of light designed to cause damage equal to a cannon shot demolished entire buildings. They came apart at their very foundations, unable to contain the power shot into them, and became nothing more than rubble. When she gathered air or water to throw as projectiles, she instead forged hurricane gales and riptide currents into immense blades that shattered buildings or swept them aside. Even temples of resurrection broke the moment they received her attention.

  Our main column waded through ruins. Her initial strikes turned it all to rubble. The defenders tried to mount a defense. Hidden places of resurrection beneath the city were slowly being scoured by the Guardian’s masses of Undead. The Wardens tried to spill forth from them and reach our people, but the rubble provided little cover, especially as mages flattened anything that could provide it. The crack of gunfire was constant, and the streets ran red with blood as the defenders were ground down. Our own healers were pulling the Wardens aside to incarcerate them and heal them of wounds so that they could not be resurrected.

  The Divine Engine of War and the Guardians created another corridor towards the Citadel that flanked our right side, but it was clear that their support was mostly symbolic. They slew and brought low enemy auxiliary forces, but their main contribution to this battle was undoubtedly the scouring of the hidden underground facilities.

  Still, despite the efficacy of those facilities in providing a constant stream of warriors against us, it was evident that we would reach the Citadel soon.

  “Sirena, get ready. You too, Rita.” Morgan called to us both. My gaze was drawn to the base of the Citadel. It was continuously spawning Citadel Guardians from its walls. A tide of flensing machines made of ancient alloys countered only by our own ally’s constant stream. A moat of constant destruction surrounded the Citadel. Heaps and heaps of pure white metal parts piled up only to be consumed by the Citadel to be reprocessed back into more artificial troops. It would take sustained bombardment of the Citadel’s base to lower the numbers of enemy constructs it outputs, leading to our own constructs being able to secure the base for siege work. That is, if not for the Divine Engine of Life. “Pinnacle, break through the gate and make a path.”

  Pinnacle nodded, there was darkness, and then a sudden flash of light.

  A great gouge appeared where there was once an ongoing battle between Citadel Guardians. Our own were sacrificed in the attack, but the results were obvious. Where there was once a fierce melee that even champions would hesitate to wade into, there was now a path of glass that led to a broken gate. The white walls of the Citadel were also scorched black, incapable of pushing Citadel Guardians out from where it was damaged; thus, a path was cleared for our army.

  And, as we expected, a deluge of zealots rushed out with a rallying cry from within the Citadel.

  But Morgan had already moved.

  Sirena, I, and she clung to the floating throne created by Pinnacle. We glided through the city on waves of wind that held aloft wings made of the thinnest wood, and in mere moments we were above the glass path and over the enemy’s final, fanatical charge.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Eminent landed first, and the charge immediately broke. From her shadow, the dead spilled forth with grasping hands and held fast innumerable would-be martyrs. They grasped at their explosives and pulled pins. The lesser Undead perished, while she stood amidst the explosions unbothered, as she was charged by zealots. They came apart as they neared her. Tendrils of flesh and bone erupted from her shadow and sliced apart anything that dared approach her.

  Sirena arrived a moment later, and became a continuous sword stroke that tore through the staggered enemy line.

  Morgan and Pinnacle’s descent decisively ended the charge, even as Ilych and Riegert arrived to further end the final charge.

  Leaving me to search for and kill the one who held the Citadel’s control ring.

  As important as the task was, I accomplished it speedily and put an arrow through his skull the moment I found him, slipping my projectile through a gap in projections provided by a dozen paladins. A moment later another arrow slammed into his body and sent it flying towards a wall, making it flop and spread. In that singular moment, I found the ring on the left hand, and with my prepared arrow, I shot the hand before pulling back the arrow via the rope attached to it.

  There was a moment of resistance, but it abated, and the Citadel Ring was in my grasp, attached to a still bleeding hand.

  Under my control, the Citadel Guardians in the Warden capital turned on their former masters, and the battle all but ended.

  It was as our king said.

  We should never simply rely on force, even when we have it in abundance.

  His simple suggestion on how I should be deployed ended the entire battle in an instant.

  …

  Maximum output Citadels were a thing of beauty.

  In raw output of goods and food alone, the eight Citadels working in concert put out an equal output to the rest of the world combined. Every single living soul on the continent can have three meals a day provided by the Citadel without endangering our long-term survival. Every single person can enjoy fine clothes, amazing beds, and other modern amenities, and the Citadel’s overall output won’t even be dented.

  And, of course, the number of Guardians that they could produce went from thousands a turn each to tens of thousands a turn.

  Eighty thousand Guardians every three months.

  That’s 320,000 a year.

  But that’s if you committed everything a Citadel could do to just Guardian production. That means no industrial machines for my scientists to reverse engineer. No perfectly refined chemicals for alchemists to replicate. No civilian manufacturing capacity. And, finally, no medical suite support.

  In exchange for all that, there’s the domination victory. After conquering all the Citadels, the rest of the world, even if held by the Crisis, can do nothing against the winner. They have an inexorable tide of automated death machines, and the crises were nowhere close to the level of strength that they used to have. Whatever they planned, whatever they wanted to do, they were going to die since the Citadel Guardians were coming out in immense numbers and had a global range.

  The ultimate military hammer.

  But that’s in the game.

  The domination victory just didn’t work. All four of the endgame crisis factions were established nations with a combined population in the billions. They had light industry and could do research, and if presented with such a massive threat, they’re liable to work together. At the hardest difficulty, when all enemy crises are bearing down on the continent, people on the forums believed that the domination victory was cheap, because even with Citadels pumping out Guardians nonstop, there shouldn’t be a way to take over the rest of the planet.

  Hold and defend the continent?

  Sure.

  Take over multiple other continents through swarms of automated drones?

  It wasn’t possible. The amount of land a planet has is immense. The size and scope of each enemy nation is a barrier itself. They can cede land, find or make chokepoints, harvest materials from the armies that we send out, build up, and eventually push back. 320,000 troops spread across four different fronts, with long travel times, also meant that they’ll be spread thin and won’t be easily reinforced. They can be defeated in detail with the right strategies, and our opponents weren’t lacking in lives to throw away. Once our enemies start pushing back, that means that the Guardian armies can’t accomplish the mission and that they’ll be at our doorstep.

  Without the use of atomic or fusion weapons made with the Citadel’s help, which would result in a bad ending, a Citadel Guardian offensive wasn’t going to take the planet for us. But Guardians could make taking the continent impossible, especially if we used the Citadels to supercharge our technology base and industry. Guardian swarms supported by modern-ish armies and Champions should be able to tear apart anything the crises throw at us. 320,000 death machines spread across the borders of one country, easily reinforced by Citadels just a day or so away by rail, was a potent barrier that would take concentrated efforts to break through.

  As crazy as it sounded, the best move was to use the endless robot army as ablative armor.

  Especially when staying put won’t unite our enemies.

  Yeah, as complicated as it was to get all the Citadels together, what came next was going to be even more complicated. Primarily thanks to my lack of giant robots that can make more giant robots and inability to just use canned sunshine to solve all my problems. After repelling the first crisis events and after seeding their population with the majority of Iterants, I needed to see what happened next before making a decision.

  Can we stay in our corner of the world and just be accosted by fringe elements and wait the situation out like with the Sahuagin? After all, with the Ascendant, Demons, and Stymphalians fighting each other, if they took forces away from their frontlines, they risked exposing their flank to enemies with closer population and logistical centers. They were in knife-fighting range as nations, while we were very far away. True, our Citadels held the key to their ancient powers and abilities, but if we weren’t a threat and they had problems at the front door… would they throw everything at us and abandon the rest of their civilization?

  In the end, even with all that I already knew, I needed to know more.

  Thankfully, they were about to start sending a lot of people our way.

  “Tell Morgan to begin rebuilding the Academy and start scouring the ancient underground supply routes. It’s about time we reactivate the control center we seized.” I put away the notice of our victory and turned to Ayah. It was the dead of night, and only Iterants were present. “Offer her the services of your people to ensure their industrial base is built up for the coming war. Also, begin execution of our infiltration campaign against the Ascendant, Devils, and Stymphalians.”

  Ayah gave a nod and motioned towards the others, and people shifted out of the room to relay my orders.

  She waited a fair amount of time before I continued.

  “The Guardians of the Moon may become too confident in their recent victories and question our coming alliance. Tell Khanrow to focus on them and to keep us informed.” The Guardians of the Moon weren’t the type to break alliances without good reason. As far as I knew, I was an atrocity away from seeing our alliance break, but I had no plans on committing one on anyone on the continent anytime soon. “And, if a major threat arises, I leave handling it to him.”

  Ayah bowed, and another pair of Iterants left the room, while I considered the next moves.

  “I want any new output from the Citadels to manufacture any new technology that it freely provides. Multiples of everything for our scholars to understand and replicate. After all those are created, I want half of the new output to be dedicated to producing Guardians and the remaining to long-term rations, until we reach half a decade of stored food.”

  Ayah again nodded, noted down my words, and more Iterants filed into the room to replace the ones who left.

  It was going to be a long couple of hours covering everything that I’d normally just have to click through or access some menus for, but it’ll be worth it.

  Tomorrow is a new day.

  A day where victory was no longer out of reach.