There are many qualms to raise about the Goddess of Magic. Maisara and Allasaria are both fans of endless analysis of ourselves, and both of them can go at length regarding her. I simply see it as sophistry, to an extent, it is intellectual self-pleasurement. Elassa does not need endless texts to realise what sort of person she is, nor does she deserve them, if I’m going to be quite honest. Elassa’s character can simply be gauged on her relationships.

The only person that Anassa, Goddess of Sorcery, likes the company of, is Elassa.

That alone should raise enough questions about her ideals and what sort of person she is to disqualify her from the White Pantheon.

– Excerpt from “Peacekeeping in the Pantheon”, written by Goddess Fortia, of Peace, and kept within her own quarters.

Helenna gave one look to Arascus’ office in the Imperial Governance Centre. The plush red carpets, the swivelling chair, the desk made of Kirinyaan red-woods. The empty bottle of wine she was leaving behind. All sized for Divines. She would miss it she supposed. But not greatly. She hadn’t had time to settle in yet, and Love was always fond of adventure after all. Stagnation simply made things boring.

Seeing Ktulu through the windowpane kick-started her back into action. Helenna let the door slam itself shut as she ran through the building that once stood as Nanbasa’s National Assembly. She ran through the halls, ignoring the pictures of Divines on the walls and the various signs of Arascus’ Empire. Helenna stopped at a series of stairs and jumped them all in one smooth movement. Soldiers were down here, evacuating the last of the important documents she had chosen to save. It was largely the administrative papers, the treaties and deals, whereas Kassandora’s war plans and Helenna’s own promises in writing were being thrown on fires in the middle of the grand hall that once housed the parliament. Those didn’t have to be saved, but it would be annoying if they were captured and then had to be explained.

Helenna ignored the soldiers as she smoothed out her black HAUPT coat. Her black heels clicked against the ground and she made sure to keep up the pace. Sokolowski had already given evacuation orders and she had stayed here long enough. The man was doing a good job in preserving what remained of the army defending Nanbasa, but they were being worn down. Arascus had removed himself and Allasaria from the battle, was the trade worth it? Helenna didn’t think so, but then the odds were stacked against from the start.

Kassandora better come back soon, and she better bring Anassa and Fer here, because the city had held for as long as it possibly could. Helenna stepped outside as she looked at the grand roads of Nanbasa’s governmental district. The buildings here were lower than the residential areas, more ornamental. More yellow sandstone and less glass. And the streets were full.

Soldiers were guiding the remaining the civilians that remained in the city out of it. Trucks filled with men, women and children, all with sullen faces, were escaping in organised fashion to the west. Tanks were parked on the pavements, every few moments, they fired off a shell or two towards the general area of the park. On one of the huge junctions was a pull battery of eight Lemurs that were firing. Two ammunition trucks were parked in the middle of them, and soldiers were hurrying with shells as loaders threw the empty casings after each volley onto the road. Another set of bombers came from above, two this time, that dropped long lines of falling black dots from the sky. It all played together in a thunderous cacophony, each gun and explosion like a drum fighting for its own place in the musical and trying to drown the others out. The slow wind brought in the smell of fire and tire and burning chemicals from the East. Napalm smell that overpowered whatever else was caught up in the fires.

Helenna looked down the stairs leading up to the Governance Centre and saw her transport waiting. A flatbed truck, painted dark green with spots of grey to fit in with Sokolowski’s colour scheme. The animal reserve in the centre of the city had more than enough greenery for forest camouflage to be used. Helenna ran down as a row of four APCS, each one’s turret facing backwards, slowly followed the rear of the civilian column. A group of soldiers was in the truck meant for Helenna, a few of them were smoking as they waited. Helenna smiled to herself as she jumped up, the vehicle creaked and shifted as the suspension dealt with the weight of a Divine. How long was it since she had a guard of honour? One of the men, his arm bandaged was sat with a radio in his hands. He clicked it on as Helenna settled at the front of the men, just behind the cabin. “Team Red reporting, Goddess Helenna is aboard, we are evacuating Nanbasa. Over.”

Helenna was about to question the man when the vehicle set off sharply and the radio turned on. “Copy that, take the military route out of the city. The civilians routes are congested. Over.”

“Understood. Over.” The radio man said, he nodded over to one of the men, who held onto the truck’s side as he leaned around to the cabin and knocked on the window to deliver the information.

“How are evacuations going?” Helenna asked. The truck started to pick up speed and her hair started to get thrown about in the wind. It was black today. It had been since the siege of Nanbasa started.

“Most of the city was empty before the invasion started.” The radioman said. “These are just the stragglers.” He nodded to the glum faces they passed by as the truck turned away and headed down a different road.

“It’s a lot of stragglers.” Helenna said and the man shrugged.

“I just execute orders, not my place to worry about them.” He said. “I’d hold on, the military route isn’t…” The truck sped up and made a sharp turn. Helenna slid on her seat and almost crushed the man on her left, then she slid the other way and almost crushed the man on her right. Both moaned in pain, she probably had broken a bone or two with her sheer size.

A team of tanks rolled past, towards the front lines, as Helenna’s truck barrelled forth. The Goddess of Love already knew she wouldn’t see any fighting. Even in the Great War, after she had proven herself more than once in combat, she wasn’t allowed anywhere near the front lines. Now, there was absolutely no chance that general Damian Sokolowski would even give Helenna the chance to risk to her life. Helenna could only imagine what the man thought of needing to explain to Kassandora about how he lost the Goddess of Love. It was a short drive out of the city, although that was mainly due to the organisation of the governmental district, the wide roads and the lack of speed limits. The truck barrelled down the roads that had been cleared out, only swerving a few times to avoid the slower tanks and artillery.

Helenna turned her head and watched two jets dive behind her, autocannons firing although at what, Helenna did not know. Their targets were hidden behind the sandstone buildings, all their windows shattered already by Ktulu’s shrieking. The monster itself was closing the distance on them, seemingly ignoring the fact that its upper torso was wearing a shirt of burning napalm. It took another step and the radio got another alert. It was Sokolowski giving another order in his cold monotone. “Carpet bombing zone is reaching the inner government district. All troops, you have two minutes to get out from zones sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. Proceed west, not north or south.”

Helenna did not know how a voice like that could inspire, but this battle had exhausted the men already. It was only a short way drive down the motorway to the first trench line. Partly dug, partly still being dug, with the heavy Lynx tanks and Skysweeper AA guns positioned about. In the distances, batteries of Lemur artillery was being calibrated. A few were already shelling the city, their huge cannons shaking about the carriages of the vehicles. Ammunition trucks were still coming in from the west, but everything else was fleeing. There was a line of civilian vehicles being sent to the residential blocks that had been quickly put up after the evacuation of Nanbasa’s industry at the start of the war.

“Where is Sokolowski?” Helenna asked her men. They looked around, no one seemed to know. The soldier with the injured arm and the radio rang.

“General, Goddess Helenna is asking after your location. Over.” A reply came quickly.

“North side. I’m in an offroad. Over.” Helenna looked at the men, did they really need to be told what to do? The man who leaned over the side of the truck to speak to the driver did so again. He held onto a railing, swung, and slammed into the door. And then swung back. The truck turned suddenly and went onto the arid outskirts of Nanbasa. It kicked up dust and ride wasn’t smooth, but that was mainly due to the driver. He did not ease up on the gas once.

Helenna’s truck came to a stop before Damian Sokolowski. The man, shaved bald and wearing half his uniform. He had the white shirt and the trousers, but the shirt was unbuttoned and the coat was missing. At least the tall cap was still there. “What is it Helenna?” Damian asked.

“I just came to watch.”

“I’d rather you get out of here.”

“Oh?”

“Explaining my death to Kassandora will be easy. Explaining yours, I don’t think I can do.” Helenna smiled in satisfaction, she had been correct.

“Well you can try to move me General.” Helenna said. She was only being difficult because that’s how she was. Frankly, she wanted the man to shout at her and tell her to flee.

Damian Sokolowski, ever a soldier chosen by Kassandora, stayed calm. His cold eyes looked at her for a moment, and then he sighed. “Very well, stay close to the car.” And immediately, Sokolowski went back to organising the retreat. He called in artillery strikes on locations, he directed the retreat line-by-line, the man even made sure that there was always a plane or helicopter in the air to keep track of Uriamel’s forces.

It almost got monotonous. Helenna was in disbelief as to how a mortal like that was able to keep such focus for so long. Even when she trained her spies, they would be able to go maybe half as hard as this man went. She tried to not look too impressed with the mortal, although she doubted that the man would care even in the slightest. The Sun slowly crawled across the sky as Ktulu slowly closed on the governance district. The evacuees from Nanbasa shrunk from a torrent to a river, then to a stream, a trickle, and then no one came out of Nanbasa. When the last Lynx tank raced out of there, a pack of sea-wolves chasing it, Sokolowski ordered the rest of the city shelled and blown. And even the remains of Nanbasa’s garrison shredded the city, artillery and bombers and tanks simply smashing through the buildings, Ktulu kept moving forwards.

A meteor fell from the sky. Not a meteor, but an arrow shot into the ground. It crashed into a cloud of dust. For a moment, Helenna put her hand on her knife, and then she remembered who had a habit of coming in like that. “Fer?” Helenna asked, she came to a stop. Sokolowski’s car slowly trundled to a halt too, although the general was still shouting orders into his radio.

“I have come.” Fer said as she walked out of the cloud of dust. Her glowing eyes shot around the escaping convoy. It was an orderly retreat, as orderly as a retreat could be when they fleeing from a titan and being chased by the mad swarms of Uriamel. Slowly, the tanks and AA and artillery were pulling back as they covered the civilians from Nanbasa’s governmental centre and infantry before them.

“We’re retreating.” Helenna shouted in panic and saw Fer stand tall. Not the Fer of today, not the laughing kitten that played jokes and slouched over tables. This was the Fer that sent chill’s down Helenna’s spine, the Goddess of Beasthood that had led the warherds during the Great War, the maneater who devoured after a battle. Helenna saw Fer’s eyes settle on her and shivered. They were red now, filled with bloodlust. The woman was constantly shedding and growing fur all over her body, and her nails had curled into claws.

“This is Sokolowski’s army.” Fer said it as a statement, but Helenna still mumbled a reply.

“It is.” Fer was already pulling out her phone as her eyes went to the monster and her lips curled upwards. She sniffed the air and looked to through Helenna at Damian Sokolowski sitting in his jeep. He was still giving orders. Helenna turned as she watched Fer saunter past her and towards the man. The General gave one final order before finally putting the radio down. The man was about to introduce himself, but Fer skipped the pleasantries.

“General, this is as far as you go. Dig in, hold and cancel your retreat.” Cold and commanding. The sort of tone that would order a massacre and not give it a second thought.

Damian Sokolowski somehow looked shocked and unfazed. As if he was merely surprised that the Goddess had chosen to show herself now, and not that she had just usurped his army out from underneath him. He pulled a clean salute. “Dig in and hold.” He said flatly, staring at Fer without a hint of fear or discomfort, even though it was obvious he was not satisfied with what had just been said. “And the monster behind me?” Fer’s eyes went to the giant currently treading through the many buildings of Nanbasa’s western section of the ring. The woman actually smiled.

“I’ve brought my own.” Fer said and a roar from the west silenced everyone. A roar so loud and thunderous it was as if all the lightnings in the skies were had descended down to the sky. A roar so loud that the world shook and trembled.

And then, a roaring mountain crested the hill in the west. A roaring mountain with a mane of gold and legs and fur. A roaring mountain that had sins to atone for and a debt of gratitude to settle.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep