Chapter 826 – Catching A Grip

There is one rule, ultimate and holy, and above all others. That is that you can only act as long as you are alive. It is an objective, self evident truth that needs no reasoning. The moment you die is the moment that what you can do reaches its peak and your life’s efforts are carried forward either by their own momentum or by others, but it will never be by you again.

And through that self-evident truth, we can point to the single step that one has to take, and that has served as a lesson forever on this world: A cause that fails to protect its believers fails as a cause. It matters not how pure they are, or how righteous, if their righteousness breeds material inefficiency in the forms administrative or other. The term moralist is a pejorative precisely it implies the lack of a material vision.

Fundamentally, the existence of Divinity prevents monopolies of violence from forming, save when they are instituted by even greater Divinity. There is no slowing down on Arda because those of us who remain from eras ancient, no matter where we differ, still agree on the same fundamental truth of needing to protect our followers.

And whereas there were some that only protected reactively, and returned an eye for an eye, the choice for humanity was simple: will you worship the Divine that avenges you? Or will you the worship the Divine whose very existence ensures your safety? Ciria has no followers precisely because what worth is there in following Ciria? What can she offer that others cannot?

Over the years, the bar has grown. Currently, the bar rests at untouchability. That is the sheer minimum a Divine needs to provide to be worth worship.

- Excerpt from “On Divine Doctrine”, written by Goddess Maisara, of Order

Fortia leapt forward, this distance was just slightly too close for her spear to be worth throwing, and slightly too far to be within reach of a standard jab. They were smart, she had to give them that. The ground where she had stood burst upwards as an angel from above swung a sword through the air. She had taken to Aris, the city was large enough to demand a Divine, and Kassandora with Kavaa had also come here.

Three may have been too many, but saving one more city through splitting up was not going to be winning them any wars. They needed a plan, and Arascus had given the nukes to Fortia, not to Kassandora. And naturally, the Goddess of War was adamant that nuclear bombs needed to be used, after the battle of Aris was over, of course. The ground underneath Fortia swelled as she felt the force of a blow just slide past her. What were they even doing? Did they really think that just a standard would make run away or retreat?

Fortia twisted downwards, bent her legs and let the shockwave carry her. A human slamming into an angel would have knocked it out of the sky. Fortia, in her battle armour, with her scales skirt and cuirass was heavy enough to knock down a wall. She slammed through the angelic body, crumpling it armour, catching its sword arm with her own and twisting it back, and grabbing the entire creature around herself, and then slamming into one of the city blocks’ golden brick walls.

The invader was squashed between an immovable object and an unstoppable force. Fortia heard bones crush, not her own. The final gasp of a dying breath and then… silence throughout Aris. Silence and the roll of vehicles, the march of footsteps, the sprints of running, but silence after that. The Goddess of War was here, the Imperial Army was fully in tune to her music, and not a word needed to be said throughout the entire city.

Fortia had refused to take part in that dance and now, as she looked around, it was just as terrifying as the times she had seen the silent Imperial Army during the Great War. The defence of Aris was no trap at Rhomaion, they were not sitting ducks on open fields, testing to see what worked and waiting for the angels to smite them down. Soldiers sprinted silently across open doors and dove or slid behind cover as others stormed into houses, guided by the omniscient hivemind. They shot through glass windows, suppressive fire from organised teams on towers kept the final teams of angels down after Kassandora had forced them out of the sky with the anti-air guns of Aris’ armoured corps.

And on the street, where the angels could barely move, where the moment that one soldier caught sight of one of them, the entire army knew, they were nothing more than dogs to be chased, exhausted, and then hunted. Fortia took a step away from the corpse and stopped just short of what she immediately recognised to be a platoon positioning for an ambush. Six men on either side of the road, checking their ammunition and then arranging themselves perfect as to all dive out at once.

It was not an army of individual, it was not even an army as a collective, everyone in War’s Orchestra behaved as if they shared a single body. In the same way that Fortia knew were her fingers always were even if her eyes were closed, so did the troops. When the ambush was sprung, two men dove, two men rolled, two knelt down. Two leaned out, and the rest ran out into the middle of the street as they filled the entire road with gunfire. Fortia leaned out as the troops made room for the Goddess of Peace.

A broken body, a checkerboard of bullet holes over its body. A tank leading infantry was already driving down the other side of the road, in the utter certain knowledge that this road was safe because these men had cleared it. In a city, Kassandora did not even need the airforce, the birds had been sent to reinforce other areas under attack in the same region.

And all Fortia could was wait as the battle carried. With the amount of men around here, Kassandora would always know where the Goddess of Peace was, it was impossible for her not to. So Fortia stood, and waited, and Fortia walked as she tried to search for targets. At one point, she saw a six-winged angel burst out, above the roofs of buildings. The second it took her to ready her spear was a second too long, soldiers in windows already knew where to aim, they even had the pressing of the triggers pre-emptively timed so that the bullets would be in air by the time the angel had even taken off.

It was worse than fighting Kassandora in the Great War, when whatever Legion she led would turn silent and suddenly men would twist and turn and block for each other. Maybe some Divines got less powerful as humanity caught up, Kassandora was in her element. The Goddess of War found her eventually, followed by Kavaa, both in black uniforms lined with scale armour. Her sword wasn’t even pulled out, and she walked in a stilted fashion, as if taking pauses every seconds. “Kass.”

“Fortia.” Kassandora said. “Hallin got the Skysplitter.” Fortia fell silent, her lips working. She had not thought that they would deploy the great blade so early. And how did Kassandora even know that? Was she actually using War’s Orchestra on the radio corps as well?

“What got hit?”

“Most of the industrial sector.” Kassandora said. “They know what they’re doing.”

“Is the blade still there?”

“It got pulled back up and the portal closed.” Kassandora said. “I’m expecting it to reappear soon. I’ve sent Elassa a message about it.” Of War pulled out her phone as Of Health silently turned, her eyes working through the sky to see whether anything else was coming through to Aris. “Anassa too of course.”

“What about Irinika?”

“Currently busy.” Kassandora said, Kavaa turned, raised her gun. Somewhere behind a city block, there was gunfire. Fortia had no clue how Kassandora was managing to have a conversation at the same time as she manipulated War’s Orchestra. Some people were made of different stuff, she supposed.

“Now?”

“I have men in communication with her local garrisons. She’s covering four cities.” Kassandora replied flatly, then raised her hand, her eyes got slightly wider. From the other side of Aris, Fortia heard a rocket, an explosion, gunfire, then sudden cessation after the thunderous strikes. Another find and another kill. Fortia did not even need to ask what had just happened. “Four cities.” Kassandora repeated herself. “Hallin’s portal is disappeared and Tasaidien has successfully repelled Tull.”

Fortia could barely believe that the woman was somehow simultaneously managing this battle’s tactics as she thought about the entire war strategy of the Empire. “It’s closed?”

“It’s closed.” Kassandora said. “Although they damaged a good amount of the dockyards. They’re after the industry, it’s similar…” Kassandora trailed off. More gunfire throughout silent Aris. Further away, then the boom of a tank shell. Fortia actually saw it, arcing over the city and then landing near the gunfire. Kassandora had actually just managed to calculate that trajectory into a hit. “It’s similar here. They concentrated around the factories and the ones throughout the city were just spotters, I think.”

“You think?”

“They weren’t smashing random homes.” Kassandora said, then blinked at Fortia. “Which I would do, obviously.” Fortia actually appreciated the honesty. Frankly, she even agreed. There was something to say of galvanizing the opponent, but the Empire was already as united as it could be. At this point, there was no reason not to just cause as much damage as possible. The Empire was an organism and every cut hurt.

“How noble of them.” Fortia said dryly. “Are you here to discuss the nuking plans?”

“Have you got a plan?” Kassandora asked. “I do.”

“I have one too.” Fortia said. “It’s current and time-sensitive, but we don’t want to give them another shot at this.” Kassandora nodded, the smile growing on her face. Fortia was about to speak when the Goddess of War raised a hand. “You found some? Four of them.” In the distance, almost faint, the thundering blasts of artillery firing went off from outside the silent city. Fortia looked up, seeing if she could track the shells as drones buzzed just above the city’s roofs. Mechanical wasps that stung through spotting an opponent, and then directing the hivemind of Kassandora’s Orchestra towards it. A moment later, before Fortia could say anything, the rapid firing of machine guns sounded from the west of the city.

That suppressive fire was textbook to an ideal degree. Fortia couldn’t even track the handovers from one soldier to the next, although she could tell the handovers were happening through the sudden changes in the gunfire’s pitch. It lasted, perfectly, for more than half a minute. And ended perfectly again, cutting off right before the impacts of high-explosive shells shook the city and knocked out yet more glass windows. The Goddess of Peace had to admit, she just about stopped herself from dematerializing her spear to drive the point even further home. “I wasn’t needed here.”

“I didn’t think a city would make such a large difference.” Kassandora replied. “You learn something new everyday.” Fortia somehow doubted that Kassandora did much learning these days, although what did she know? “Continue.”

“I would hit them now, instead of waiting for the next assault. We don’t want to give false confidence. They never had that in the past. I assume it will slow down the next assault. Hold a portal, expand it if possible, and then launch a missile through.” These were obviously going to be happening now. Rhomaion had been the taster test, now, a full simultaneous strike on every city in the Empire was just news that they had prepared. The next strike could be worse.

“Have you ever been to their world?”

“No.” Fortia replied.

“Oh. Do you think there’s one room? Or are they separate staging areas?”

“I have no idea Kass.” Fortia said. “I assume you’ve been thinking on where to hit?”

“No.” Kassandora said. “I’ve not been thinking, I know, there’s one location that is acceptable.”

“Where?”

“The only place where we have a mage who can actually forcefully hold a portal open.” Kassandora said and Fortia nodded. She had ran through the cities in her mind too, on which one would be the best spot to hit, until she released this exact same problem. There was only one person in the world who could do that.

“Arcadia.”

“It has to be.”