Wissel looked at the various diagrams that had just arrived at his desk. Maybe an Allian or a Rancais man would think up of a name for them, but not here. Frankly, he did not mind, it was satisfying to know all Epa would be using Doschian armoured combat vehicles, or as the name went: Panzerkampfwagen I

Iliyal turned around and left immediately. It was hard to be noticed in these tunnels, the ocean of darkness was good cover, better yet was the fact all the demons stood about in the warm glows of the fires. They preferred the heat, but the lights would blind them against the darkness. Still though, Fer’s hair was bright gold and Kavaa wore her steel armour. It was hard to be noticed, but he would wait around for one of them to catch a glint against the light.

He took a breath and looked at the five Goddesses some thirty steps behind them. They were utterly terrified. Legs were shaking, hands clutched onto weaponry so hard they may as well have been clinging onto their final lifeline off a cliff. Eyes jumped about, maybe they’d want a reason, but he wasn’t to inform here. The worst case was one of them would scream. Even with Fer, they wouldn’t be able to escape against an entire army. He put his finger to his lips, saw Olonia and Paida nod as they understood. Then he flicked his hand forwards to indicate they were returning.

So the long march back began. The first hour was spent with barely any light, the torches set on their lowest setting. If they had any luck, then the demons would not venture into the almost freezing temperatures of these tunnels. They were more pleasant in the past, the World Core actually warmed these up.

Two hours later, they saw flames ahead of them.

Jozef took a rifle and hefted it. He held it as he as assumed it should be held. Butt pressed just before the arm, and he looked down the sights. Two simple iron railings, the one closer to him adjustable. “Is this good or not?” He asked, he was a politician, not an engineer. The men designing them did not too happy.

“We’ve not managed to design Kassandora’s rapid fire guns, however she makes them, but these are close.” He showed off the bolt on the side. “It shoots quickly. Depends how trained the men will be, but we’re easily looking at ten, maybe twenty shots a minute. The magazines are thirty bullets, like Kassandora’s.” He took a sigh. “Apart from the rapid-fire, it matches Kassandora’s specifications exactly. We’re even better on range in fact.” Jozef put the gun back down. This was Epa’s key to freedom from Divinity.

“How we got a name for it?”

“Karabin Wersja Jeden, just K1 for short.”

Iliyal drew his sword and swung it to stop Fer from advancing. It was a small expeditionary party from the looks of it, with fifty or so soldiers. Those would make for good training, the biggest issue the five Nationals had was in their mentality. They had never killed before, so they didn’t how it was easy it actually was to go into a fight. He would have already told them to charge frankly, if not for whatever that massive thing behind the demons was.

Huge and made of steel. Not blacksteel, it looked to be some common alloy. With legs and an array of spotlights facing in all direction and illuminating the tunnels. It had two arms, each arm ending off in a cannon same fashion that Fer had stupidly strapped flashlights to her hands. That would have to be inspected, it’s a good thing he had brought Fer. “Olonia, Saksma, Agrita, Aliana. Paida. These are your kills. Fer, you take that big thing in the back. Kavaa and I will stay in the back.”

Olonia jaw dropped, but she maintained her posture. Paida though did not have that sort of eagerness to prove her own worth. “You’re sending us in?” She asked.

“If it’s not now, it’s never.” Iliyal said. He supposed they would need some pragmatic reasoning to get them moving, people usually did. “I’m just a mortal, Kavaa needs to defend me. Only Fer can get around them. If you five don’t do it, then we’re either dealing with this group, or we’re marching back to that army back there.”

No counterargument came.

Artois looked at the plane take off. It twisted in a sharp angle. The jet engines blasted, it boomed, the grass and trees around the airfield shook as it broke the sound barrier and the jet fighter disappeared into the clouds. It lived up to its name: The Mirage.

Kassandora thought she could enter Epa just like that? Maybe in a hundred years, after Kirinyaa had built up expertise and if she ended up conquering all of Arika. Maybe then. But now? What was she even plotting? This was the continent were the Great War had been set on. And the White Pantheon? An entire collection of Gods defeated by a single nation? Did they really think they could go up against an entire continent?

Olonia was suddenly glad that Iliyal had dressed them all up armour. He had said it was merely endurance training, but she would do it a thousand times again to keep this suit of steel around her. Iliyal had given them no choice on it, although he did explain himself well. If there was an army there, and these tunnels did not have the resting rooms, then there was no way to avoid the horde ahead of them.

She ran into the spotlights without a word. It would be just like fighting Fer and Kavaa. Just another practice session against them. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. She held her breath, kept her eyes open. Saw the demons in their blacksteel. Each one taller than a man, only slightly shorter than Iliyal. In their heavy plates.

They moved immediately. There was no screams, no roars, no orders given. Black pikes started to drop. Some of the demons spread out to the side. Olonia felt the wind shoot past her as Fer launched from behind and onto that massive thing. Iliyal had said not to even worry about it, so she would not. She pushed that steel machination out of her mind and found the first target.

A demon, just a demon with a heavy cleaver. Nothing her longsword, but rather a thick piece of steel, sharpened on one side. She closed the gap as she would close the gap on Kavaa, she made sure to focus on the armour, the creature as a whole, rather than just the weapon. It had spikes on its gauntlets and two red eyes angrily looking at her through the visor.

Maybe three months ago, she would have said there was no weaknesses in that heavy blacksteel. But she had listened when Iliyal explained, she had watched when Kavaa demonstrated. And now she saw them herself. At the wrists, the cuffs had a piece of skin showing, the helmet didn’t sit perfectly on the shoulders, the inside of the elbows, the gap by the shoulders, the back of the knees, inside the thighs too.

She saw them all. The demon closed the gap, his cleaver coming down in an overhead blow. Just as Iliyal had explained, if you can dodge, then dodge. The parry was the second line of defence, a dodge was much easier. Olonia twisted her foot, let the blade build up speed, her legs ached as they begged to jump, then she stepped to the side at the last moment. That…

That was much slower than Kavaa. That wasn’t even in the same realm as Fer. That… She blinked as the demon’s cleaver made a crack in the stone floor. Why would he do that? Her arm responded before her mind did, it had learned that with the battles with Fer. A moment to think was a moment too long, she needed to work like the Goddess of Beasthood. On pure instinct and nothing else.

Olonia’s sword swept through the demon’s arm. It found that weak, it was easy. It did not even compare to that stupid log exercise. And the demon’s arm was separated from the body at the elbow. Olonia gave no spin, no twirl, nothing flashy. She merely carried the blow, twisted the momentum back up, and then to the side.

And once again, the slight opening between the chest-piece and the helmet was easy to find. There was no crash of metal, no angry sparks brought on by steel arguing against steel, no feedback as when Fer would catch her blade with a blade, or when Kavaa would angle a piece of armour to catch it at the moment. The blade went through the demon’s skin, muscle, veins and bones like a hot knife cutting through butter. It rolled off after a second.

Olonia blinked. That was it. She had just killed.

Poof. And something was gone.

Richard VI looked through the ships that were docked. Hulls which had been taken over at his government’s behest. Cargo ships that operated mainly to Arika and back. The various embargos on those nations had destroyed their routes, and now SeaTrekker, one of Allia’s great trading companies, wanted to be rid of them. There was no reason to pay leasing costs on docking rights for what looked to be permanently, especially now that Arascus had formally taken over Kirinyaa and the embargos were spreading to other Arikan nations too. Those too friendly with Kirinyaa.

They had practically given them away too, just ecstatic that finally someone would take them off their hands. So SeaTrekker would be made happy, and Richard would have the ships that would serve as the backbone of transporting from Allia onto the continent and back. He loved win-win scenarios.

Saksma looked at the line of pikes before her as her eyes jumped to Fer crashing into that massive behind her. That Goddess wasn’t a woman, it was a monster. It slammed into the steel like a cannonball and knocked the entire construct back. It had to quickly move one leg to catch itself, gears grinded and pistons hissed as it did. Fer kicked off and disappeared into the darkness around them as the machine tried to with its cannons at her.

Saksma took her eyes off the show above her and instead concentrated on the line of pikes before her. Iliyal had told her a greatsword excelled in these situation, that pike formations were not dangerous whatsoever and how to fight them. So she did. She took a step forwards, just out of reach of the tips and swung her blade low.

She put as much strength and speed into it as the training with Fer demanded. A second would be too long for that Goddess, half a second would only make Fer do a theatrical stretch and a yawn. A whistle if she was lucky. But she had just spent months fighting like that, so what else was she supposed to do?

Her sword went through those pikes with the speed she would to hit Fer. Those pikes did not dodge, did not move, did not even react. They were there one moment, the next, all of them were simply sticks in the hands of demons. Maybe a Saksma of a few months back would have taken a step away to inspect the damage, but the Saksma of today did not. The Saksma of today saw the open, she came in with a spin, drawing the greatsword around herself to build up momentum and sending it crashing into the demons. Kavaa would have blocked it. Fer would have caught it.

The demons did not. The demons were split in half at the waist, four of them in one clean blow.

Saksma blinked as she looked up at Fer again. The Goddess of Beasthood shot down from the ceiling, she appeared from the darkness like a meteor bursting out of clouds. And that meteor penetrated through the steel cockpit, glass shattered, and she roared from inside. That was an opponent she could look up. Not…

She looked at the next set of demon pikemen. These weren’t looking so confident now.

Aimone looked up at the mountaineers. They would hold the mountains south of Erdely first, so mountaineers would be good. It was hikers and rock climbers here, one of Iliyal’s letters had said that men would need to be trained for endurance, rather than for skill. Whether the elf could be trusted in politics was one thing, but the man had lived through the Great War. He was one of Kassandora’s generals for Divines’ sake.

If he said that men needed endurance, then Aimone would make sure that these mountaineers would be able to march in full kit for twenty miles.

Agrita watched that massive machine tumble as Fer shot out of it again. This time, there was an arm stuck in her teeth. She disappeared into the darkness again as Agrita dodged another blow. She had been scared before, but she had been scared because she assumed she would be going up against someone like Fer or Kavaa. They still did not match the Goddess of Health in a duel, and trying to do more than get a hit on Fer was completely out of the question.

But even then… This was almost… Agrita didn’t know what to say about it. She danced her feet, a feint here, a sidestep there. A step forwards to close the gap. The blows of cleavers and pikes fell lethargically around her. It was as if she fighting children. But then she was a Divine, maybe all mortals were simply this slow. Now that she thought about it, Iliyal had never sparred with them.

But Fer did. Fer had ground them into the dirt. And from the dirt Agrita rose, dancing and prancing, swiftly ducking and turning around blows that she knew she would have never even dreamed of dodging in the past. There were too many, they were too violent, too brutal. Yet she did not need to dream, because she did it anyway.

And as Agrita danced, so did her spear. A poke there. Light, only enough to cut one of the major arteries in the thigh. A poke there, to catch the eyes. A poke there, underneath the arm and into the chest. She poked and pranced, she poked and twirled.

And everyone around her started to drop.

“This is the main gun. It’s not artillery, it’s for the PKF1. The gun won’t shoot upwards, it’s direct fire.” One of the engineers said to Wissel of Doschia as he inspected a manufacturing. The system had been set up sneakily. One factory was creating pipes for industrial power plants. Another factory was making sheet metal to be exported. Another was making caterpillar tracks for construction vehicles. Yet another was simply assembling radios. Large engines were being shipped in from Allia.

And they would all come here, to Stukk Manufacturing. The pipes would be barrels, the sheet metal would be armour, the tracks would not go into construction vehicles, the radios would be mounted. He stared at the factory, and he felt his heart beat to tune of the Doschian anthem. If he ever needed a reason for why this country was the industrial powerhouse of the continent, this was it.

Aliana stayed back, in the darkness as she stalked. She watched that massive steel abomination fall backwards as Fer escaped back to where Iliyal and Kavaa were stood and watching. This was their grand examination, Aliana would not disappoint.

She ran, she saw a demon come at Saksma from behind. An arrow left her quiver, it left her bow, it flew through the air, and the demon fell to the side as it penetrated his helmet. She saw another one, a team of pikemen trying to encircle Olonia and Paida, they had partnered up and were fighting side-by-side. Just like they had trained against Fer.

And Aliana ran as she shot, these were easy targets. True, they did move, but it was nothing like that exercise Iliyal had put her through with the logs on strings. There, she had to be sprinting, and the logs would make erratic jumps with every bump in the ground. Here, the demons merely walked, maybe they swayed. Their heads and chests made for easy targets.

Two arrows left her bow as she stayed within the darkness. Demons were starting to realise an archer was about. What could they do? Would they rush into this flood that blinded? No. They weren’t rushing anywhere anyway, already two of them had fallen, an arrow sticking out from their helmets. Aliana’s fingers left her bowstring, the third one dropped.

She saw Agrita keeping demons at bay with her spear. The poor Goddess of Rilia had gotten separated. Two arrows. Two dropped dead. Two more arrows, and another pair fell. And Agrita closed the distance and finished off the final three.

Aliana stopped and aimed her bow. A thought crossed her mind. One she smiled at herself to.

Was it bad that she was enjoying this?

Jozef looked at the dozen men all armed with rifles. Scopes had been secured by Artois, Rancais always had a good film industry, and it wasn’t hard to turn the lenses that went into cameras into the lenses that would be mounted on rifles. Jozef looked past them at the woods. Eastern Lubska this was, the closest village was miles away. “FIRE!” The sergeant shouted. The men fired, the guns drumming into the windless night. And the twelve targets on the other side of the range fell over.

The engineers had been correct. These guns may not shoot as fast as Kassandora’s, but they were more accurate and they had a better range. And besides, Kassandora would come later. First was the White Pantheon.

Paida blocked a blow with her shield. Not like in the past, where she would try to knock it away or absorb it with her strength. Iliyal and Kavaa both had shown her how to use it, the trick was to angle it, let the blade slide along, the push back at the last moment to throw the blade away. And so she did.

The opening was created, her sword jumped on it, it bit through the demon’s blacksteel. Sparks exploded from where metal tore on metal. But the endurance of a demon would simply not stand up against the strength of a Divine. The blade penetrated, it sliced half way through the demon’s chest. She drew the sword out. She saw the demon next to the one she just killed freeze up in fear.

That was almost nostalgic, nostalgic because Paida knew she had done that the first few times when sparring with Kavaa, and then again when brawling with Fer. And the demon’s head came off, through that gap where the helmet didn’t just quite meet the armour. And Paida stopped as she listened. No more footsteps around them. She straightened, her eyes readjusted and she gasped.

Paida stopped as she looked around the scene. Dead bodies lay everywhere, some beheaded, some with arrows stick out of armour’s weak points. Others simply had been poked and now leaked blood. She saw Olonia, her blade wet. Saksma was breathing steadily, taking deep breathes through her nose as stabbed the tip of her greatsword onto the ground. Aliana walked out from the darkness, her quiver still half full, she held onto her bow, an arrow hooked around the string. Agrita stood there, in disbelief, as scanned her armour. That reminded Paida to do the same.

The Goddess of Rancais looked down at herself. Gleaming steel, somewhat dirtied by blood, but she knew it wasn’t her own. The steel itself… Not a scratch.

Had they just done that?

And she heard Iliyal’s slow clap.

Still though, I have my reservations. As has been proven through the trials of history: Epans make very good subjects. Until they don’t.

– Excerpts from ‘Thoughts on the Post-War World’ in the White Pantheon’s Closed Library, written by Goddess Maisara.

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