V13: Chapter 2

  …

  A lot of people on the forums joked that when you enabled all the crises, the game went from a turn-based strategy game to a turn-based survival game. Another favored meme was making the continent out like a ship being approached on all sides by problems, with the crew ready to kill each other, even while leaks spring up.

  Anyway, on Ironman mode at the hardest difficulty setting, the forums pretty much agreed that anyone trying to win needed to at least have a ceasefire with the AI for the initial waves while also having Citadels upgraded 3/4ths of the way. Having the correct build order, equipped and leveled champions, and veteran armies at the start also mattered, but that was such a basic requirement no one even talked about it. Not having to deal with continental factions while handling the first wave of each crisis meant that it was feasible to kill them in the outer regions and not compromise industrial regions.

  Or, you know, civilian population centers.

  The dedicated city fortress was the cornerstone of my defense. There was one in each region, and they acted as supply points and command centers. Food and reinforcements came into the cities through rail lines above and below ground. We were still getting a handle on the ancient transportation system, but test runs with the space-manipulating tunnels showed great promise. Still, I wasn’t going to start using it until all the kinks were worked out. The primary kink being the possibility that it was how the demons got in and destroyed the academy in the game.

  Past the city fortress were networks of supply warehouses and fortresses with overlapping fields of fire. Agricultural projects and mining efforts in those locations were supported by ‘frontier’ villages. Agriculture came in the form of wet rice fields, mining was above-ground as much as possible, and generally the projects from both were intended to shape the lands around the fortresses into terrain that could be turned into quagmires for invading forces. The above-ground mines and rice fields could both be flooded and turn the region into large moats presided over by fortresses with artillery batteries.

  After that network came the mountain passes. Mountain sides were rigged to blow up and cause landslides. Prototype mines were deployed. The first batches of troops armed with automatic and semiautomatic guns were sent there to get blooded, rotated out, and replaced by new troops who needed to learn as well. The mountain passes were natural chokepoints, the best place to rain down fire, and in-game they were impossible to hold.

  The crises would send overwhelming armies to take them, fortify them, and turn them into bases. Leveraging their immense population, they’ll sacrifice all that they need to sacrifice to ensure that they have a foothold into the continent. Like a predator exerting itself to corner its prey, they expend a lot of power at the start so that they can hunt at their leisure later. They make their own fortresses, which should only be assailable with immense numbers of Citadel Guardians, and send their forces through them into the continent as they wish.

  I wanted to make them bleed in those passes, withstand the casualties, and pull the troops back into the fortresses. I already spread the viral plague across the world and had Iterants on the other side ready to replicate and undermine the enemy, so after being cut off, it was all about holding fast. Getting enough airlift capacity to go over the mountains and strike back was the reason why I made flying fortresses in the first place, so I was fine with the crisis’s gates getting built.

  So, naturally, I was surprised when the first armies that tried to take the passes got obliterated.

  …

  Reading the results on reports was entirely different from seeing the results myself.

  I decided to go to the Demonic front’s mountain pass and watch the latest approaching army. The Stymphalians getting massacred and the Ascendant being smashed with their attempt made me willing enough to get on a transport and take the risk. Pinnacle and Eminent were on standby and ready to intercede, but from the look of it… it wasn’t going to be necessary.

  After seeing the field cannon not do very well against walls and hearing about Forger mortars, which had AA capability, I had prototypes made and set up at the mountain passes. The Forger mortars used a mechanical system to elevate and turn the barrel precisely through just a pair of cranks. It was superior to our own version, so I was planning to adopt it for all my canons as soon as we were sure there wasn’t anything about it that we missed.

  I didn’t want a Forger dissident to spread information about a shortfall with the mechanism after I mounted all my cannons on them.

  Anyway, the prototype mortars looked to be promising as well.

  The Forgers developed a separate powder and shell system. The mortar shell has a primer at the base, which was struck by a pin once it hit the base. The primer set off the separate powder bags that wrapped around the long base of the shell. The powder bags were potent and designed to send the shell certain ranges. One sent it the minimum range of two hundred meters, and with a full powder load, wind, and the lightest payload, we’ve had crews send them ten kilometers. Testing showed that it wore down the barrel a lot, and that after a hundred or so shots at maximum powder load, its accuracy plummeted.

  It needed a lot of improvement, since I expected the guns to just keep firing nonstop once battles started.

  Like now.

  The valley was lit up by illuminating shells, and the enemy army was engulfed by mortar fire. Fifty mortars were thumping out shells constantly. They had the whole pass ranged in. Explosive payloads exploded at head level to scatter fragments and rattle heads while ignoring armor. Field cannons looked for mages and concentrations of armored units to put accurate direct fire into. Machine guns chattered and slung out bullets into the enemy army that was still advancing despite all that we were putting against them. The first air wings that I had flew overhead and shot heat rays into the endless mass of life encroaching through the mountain pass, and whatever they hit was immolated.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Still, the army advanced.

  “Ayah, how are the ammunition stores?” I was in the command tower that was coordinating the defense. Messengers came and went. While we were getting rid of all aerial cavalry based off flying horses, they were still our most effective method of getting out information during night battles. The message slates provided by the Citadels were out of range in the mountains, and at night signals were impossible without setting off lights above our own fortifications. The cover of darkness provided too much concealment against magical attacks for us to lose when we had plenty of experienced horse riders; we could give some enchanted goggles to see in the night. “Everything holding up?”

  “The first ammunition warehouse is now depleted, but the second has been opened and its contents already divided.” There were five ammunition warehouses located here. In each one were hundreds of tons of shells and bullets stored in standard crates designed to easily be carried by one soldier or stacked onto carts and pushed around. If the place was overrun, each warehouse could be set off by those managing it to create a massive explosion to hopefully bloody the army that forced their hand. From what I was seeing, though, it wasn’t going to be necessary. “I estimate that over a third of the enemy has been destroyed. The third warehouse will need to be opened, but no more than that.”

  “Good to hear.” I was understating it. It felt impossible. This was supposed to be a desperate defense against immense odds. The demonic swarm was large, but it wasn’t impossible to contest. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Were the crisis gates impossible to assail in-game only due to developer fiat? We haven’t even activated the Guardians and made them bog down the enemy yet. I could have a moat of living, hyper-alloy knives swarm across this mountain pass to deal tremendous amounts of damage and secure it before any of my soldiers are threatened. But it looked like that wasn’t going to be necessary. “Eminent. Your thoughts on these demons?”

  I turned to her, and she spoke.

  …

  Interlude: Eminent Void Blade: She Who Glides Between Sunbeams

  …

  “My creator’s efforts were not in vain, but my dear master, it is your efforts that bring them low.” I gazed upon the battlefield. It was filled with fire and fury. The echo of artillery and machine gun fire was constant, while the despicable creatures fell in droves. They were pale imitations of the abominations of flesh that I once fought, but still they were strong. That strength faltered and failed ingloriously before me. “They perish, and their souls shall wander forevermore. Lost and forgotten to eternity’s whims.”

  My master turned my way.

  Thirty years of age, most of that time spent waging war and ruling a nation, yet he remained youthful. His hair was cut close to his face, and the formalwear he adopted was that of a military uniform. It was a stark black with blue trim, and a heavy coat rested on his shoulders. Without the band of gold upon his head and the hand that held my seal and four Citadel rings, he would look like any other healthy young man of the continent.

  His gaze, however, was incomparable.

  When his gaze settled on me, it was like all other features did not matter. No. They faded away to nothingness. The confidence with which he stood, the easy smile he had on his face that kept the officers in the room calm, and even the calm he exuded that kept the zealous Iterants docile… all that ebbed away to meaninglessness. The room and everything else may as well have been an abyss, as he gazed upon me with innumerable thoughts, designs, and plans that considered all my words, broke them apart, and fitted them into his grand strategy.

  My praise for his work, for handily defeating a force that would have broken through a nation without all that he prepared, was accepted without comment.

  A point of data that validated what he now saw, but with which he was still not satisfied.

  “Ayah, I want more information. Prepare a second wave of Iterants to infiltrate the lands we have access to.” With just those words, he gave the nation a new focus that preceded all others. Every Iterant who now worked, who was loved by their communities, and who perhaps found love… will volunteer to do as he commanded. Theirs was no longer simple respect and admiration, but devotion and faith that outshone even Pinnacle’s most zealous. “Instead of spreading, they will form a perimeter around the continent. An active network at our disposal who will feed us intelligence on our foes.”

  The first wave was already sent out. Volunteers who will form cells of Iterants who will not know him or the true peoples of the world. They will raise their offspring with copies of their memories. Even that alone would be enough to galvanize them to become our hidden knife. Though they could have boosted the population of the continent immensely, a majority of Iterants had been sent out with orders to spread in secret across the world.

  When the call comes, there will be an uprising unlike any other. Hundreds of thousands of Iterants will reveal themselves at once in a grand emergence, seizing weapons, crippling industries, and utterly crippling the descendants of the crises across the world. In a reversal of the blow that brought down my creators, the Iterants will redeem themselves through this act of great sacrifice and violence. It will take years and care, and they will die, but once the crises are brought low, that is when we will lash out.

  A world filled with death will be at my beck and call, while Pinnacle and Zenith spearhead the armies of the continent to truly win the world back.

  Will, perhaps Pinnacle will be a spearhead.

  Zenith may very well usurp the Guardians of the Moon.

  “Alta, relay his majesty’s commands through priority channels.” Ayah relayed my dear master’s orders to the Iterants, but it was nothing but following routine. The Iterants will do as he willed down to the last. “Your majesty, will they be under Eminent’s command? She will be sent out, correct?”

  “No. They’ll be operating as independent cells. Eminent avoidance of certain locations will only invite suspicion. She must be unleashed completely.” He asked of them to go forth without allies to a land unknown to them, yet there was not an ounce of concern in the eyes of the Iterants present. They almost seemed proud of the suicidal task placed upon their fellows. They must avoid my wrath as well as that of the demons, but they almost seemed envious that they would not be able to volunteer. “Their primary objective will be observation and relaying information, but once they’re able, they’ll infiltrate and get more critical information. Priority is getting access to their language, written and spoken, and their libraries.”

  He turned his gaze towards the battlefield below, and I almost felt pity for the dregs of those who tried to steal the world to simply call themselves the apex of life.

  They will be weighed, measured, and found wanting by my beloved master.

  “Eminent, Pinnacle. I have a task for you both.” He spoke softly and calmly, yet all my senses focused on him. Pinnacle, in her throne, always had her eyes upon him in his presence. Never once wavering or paying any other any heed. The death of thousands and the thunder of guns mattered not. Only the command of her master. It was no wonder so many Iterants spoke fondly of her. “Put the will of the demons to the test. They have endured my guns. Now, let us see if they will remain so spirited against the two of you.”

  He looked my way and then at Pinnacle’s.

  I bowed without thinking, while Pinnacle held her hands together and smiled when their eyes met.

  “Break them.”

  He commanded us, thus it was to be done.