Greater than any difference caused by Divinity’s presence or tactical acumen, greater than the skill of the leadership at the top and greater than the training methods or logistic support which fuelled the war efforts, there was one difference between the White Pantheon armies and the Imperial Military. I have just stated it and yet it is still that is missed by most people. White Pantheon armies, plural, vs Imperial Military, singular.

The White Pantheon armies were composed of: Cleric, Paladin, Guardian and Seeker Holy Orders, the Sect Armies of Guguo, the independent brigades led by single lords, the mercenary bands. Alanktydan and Uriamel undersea militaries with their own factional politics. That is nothing to say of the Choirs of Paraideisius and the Legions of Tartarus. One may call Fortia’s role as leader of the White Pantheon armies somewhat lacking, with her struggling to initiate any grand plans due to needing the cooperation of so many semi-independent actors. The woman can be faulted for many mistakes, as can all of us, but her greatest was a lack of humility. She should have realised she could not handle it.

On the other hand, the Imperial Military was compromised of the Legions themselves, and auxiliaries. We had no differentiation between dragonrider, between dwarven golem bands, between lone titans or between squads of sorcerers. They were all auxiliaries, they were all attached and detached to Legions when necessary. I was the ultimate authority. My generals were second in the chain. Ranks were kept to. Generals knew not to overstep their bounds, Divines and elite auxiliaries knew not to abuse the common troops.

This difference of organisation was crucial and it stemmed not from White Pantheon inefficiency or the fact Arascus was working with a clean-slate of a nation. Anassa brought sorcerers, Irinika brought her own Order of Shadows, Fer brought Beastmen, I myself had plenty of soldiers loyal to me and not to any flag. The nations loyal to the Imperium had to give up their armies, else they were simply not allowed to participate in the Imperial Military.

Arascus had managed to instil humility in us.

He made Irinika submit her Orders. He Fer and her Beastmen bow their heads to human hierarchy. He managed to get self-centred sorcerers to join a collective. He even convinced me that I should hand over my armies into the Empire. This is what the White Pantheon never could do and it was why they had their issues. Allasaria was too prideful to truly let her forces be commanded by Fortia, as was Maisara, as was Kavaa. Fortia, Grand Marshal of White Pantheon armies, instead of leading a war, spent the war trying to strangle the pride out of her compatriots until two worlds with their own militaries turned up to provide them with such a flood of bodies that the only plan needed was “Forwards Charge!”

Looking back, if I had known about and was able to exploit this problem of theirs, we would have won the Great War.  

– Excerpt from “The Modern War”, by Goddess Kassandora, of War.

Kassandora, or rather Kassandora’s body, took a step over the tall grass. The Goddess of War marched in her dark uniform without even donning her armour. Her red hair was a cape that made her figure a silhouette from the front. A pair of mages behind kept up a shield of hardened air although it didn’t matter. She knew her own worth. Men believed her presence to win battles, they fought twice as hard, twice as fast and thrice as long, and they ended up beating odds that no one would ever put them up against. In a way, she supposed her presence really did win battles.

Kassandora’s body took another step as it operated purely on the Goddess of War’s subconscious. Her mind was there, but her mind was everywhere. She saw through the could smell the grass of men who were kneeling in the dirt with their rifles raised. The lip of their helms slid into vision as they put one eye to their rifle scopes and inspected windows. And Kassandora saw through the eyes of tank commanders looking through high resolution cameras. Other were gazing into heat-detecting infrared screens. One man was in his tank, inspecting what the driver was doing. There was no need. Kassandora saw through his eyes too, the shoelace on his brown-black boot had gotten stuck on one of the pedals.

Kassandora saw her men input coordinates into screens. She saw men look up at great cannons in the back as artillery was calibrated. She looked saw others push look only at brass shells as they pushed rounds into cannons. She saw a man inspect his magazine. She saw a sniper aim down his scope into a window. She saw anti-air track the so-called heroes in the air above Aris. She saw Grande Aris in all its grand glory from her reconnaissance squads on the surrounding hills. She saw tarmac and concrete and dust from up close.

Kassandora saw through the eyes of her Godwielders, who held onto the weapon Divines. Aslana’s man had entered into the city, swords hovered around him as he held the Goddess of the Blade in his hand. Kassandora saw Labrys’ man charge into a wall and break right through it. Kassandora saw through Paida’s eyes, as the Goddess of this very nation looked down the main road which led to the very centre of the city and its triumphant Arch. Tall sandstone buildings that seemed to retreat from the street as the Imperial Army entered Aris. And Kassandora saw it all from above, through the eyes of men in helicopters who stayed far away enough to keep watch over the entire city yet be out of anti-air fire.

War’s Orchestra started to pick up volume. No one needed to say a word. No one needed to give an order. No signal was required. All commands existed in the tune conducted by Kassandora. There would be no retreat. There would be no fault in morale. There would be no quarter given and no mercy spared. As the saying went: when Kassandora set foot on the field, the battle was already won. All her men marched to the beat of War’s Orchestra. There was no reason to panic.

Everything was under control.

The violins tune victory.

Private Muller heard the flute whistle a high note in his head. The calming piano gently playing a marching song of long, slow notes told him it was safe, the drums suddenly overwhelming the piano got him into a sprint. He lowered his head and heard his squad members open fire. Gunshots rang out to the squeaking of a violin. Muller did not need to look, or speak, or say anything. He simply knew that to the side of him, one of Anarchia’s men had ran from one side of the street to the other and was gunned down by another men of second squad, second platoon.

He did not look ahead of himself, he simply kept his head down. The piano suddenly playing a higher note told him to jump high. He soared over a small wall, entered a roll, held onto his rifle and came to a stop directly next to a wall. All that was required to take cover against it was a slight lean to the left. Private Muller raised his rifle, inched forwards, although the careful tune in his head told him that there would nothing there. He raised his gun and found the window that the choir of clarinets picked out. Their notes got higher and higher and then cut out when his scope hovered over the window.

Another man was covering the window to the right. A gunner on armoured vehicle had the window to the left. A sniper had the door. The entire street was covered and no one needed to say a single word.

The organs howl defeat.

Drums. Angry drums. Ferocious drums. Drums called Paida to change directions suddenly and accelerate into a rapid, urgent sprint. She had crossed four streets into Aris. Sporadic gunfire was punctuated by the fast paced flutes that signalled someone was about to meet their end. A helicopter entered a dive, anti-air fire shot right past it and one of Anarchia’s superheroes in the air was turned into mist by a coordinate hail of bullets. Paida entered a narrow alleyway, her sprint got faster, the frantic piano told her to go faster and faster. Shadows loomed from either side as Paida deviated to avoid the bin bags and rats on the ground.

At the very final moment, just before Paida emerged from the alleyway, the piano turned from its highest notes to its lowest. Paida dropped onto the ground, legs first and slid across the sleek and dusty tarmac. Over her head a tank shell flew by. And yet the Goddess did not pause to look, she did not turn to see what was being fired at, she did not even bother lowering her head. The crew in the tank was within the Orchestra, as were the infantry by its side. Anarchia’s warriors on the left were suppressed. Men opened fire the very instant Paida got out of there scopes. She slid half way across the road, jumped into a pirouette, the gunner of the tank opened fire past her. And then the Goddess dived into the narrow alleyway filled with rats on the other side of the road. It was safe here, an entire platoon was covering the next road. That was safe too. The piano returned to up her pace.

And Paida ran. She turned a corner, she saw the wall of sandstone. She held her blade steady and twisted her body. Her shoulder slammed into the golden bricks first. Then the rest of her body. Glass crashed, pipes burst, steel twisted, bricks cracked. The Goddess of Rancais burst through the wall. She didn’t even need to aim her blade, the Orchestra told her how to hold her sword. She simply burst through the fog of dust and swung her arm as the music dictated. One of Anarchia’s men dressed in all purple and with a ridiculous mask topped off with fox ears happened to be right there. He was taking cover from a sniper who kept him pinned down.

The swing split him in two.

The harps string annihilation.

Corporal Elrik pressed his trigger to the beat of the drum. One of Anarchia’s men was climbing out from the burning wreckage of a tank. He had suddenly burst out from the road, most likely from a manhole in the sewers and flipped the entire machine into the air and then upside down. The ammunition exploded, black smoke.

The Orchestra reacted instantly. The marching drums and flutes took over, the fast paced piano in Elrik’s head immediately got him moving. The drums followed to initiate suppressing fire. The corporal barely aimed his rifle, the first round missed, the second hit, Elrik’s hands were steadied by the Orchestra’s piano. He pressed the once, twice, then flicked his gun to fully automatic. He couldn’t see but he knew that half of his team were supporting him. Men leaned out from out of door frames and out of alleys to lay fire into Anarchia’s man.

And the lead simply ricocheted from that man. His green shirt, shorts and cape were shredded by the sudden storm of metal inbound off him, yet his pale skin did not even go pink wink impact. Bullets that could go straight through a man crushed themselves with their own velocity and then fell onto the black asphalt of this Arisian street. Elrik heard his gun click. He didn’t have to click it again out of surprise. A clarinet’s squeak got him to drop his gun, a flute’s whistle got him to pull out his side arm and open fire into the man who had just thrown a tank into the air. He should run. He knew he should run. The organs in the Orchestra told him to stay. The organs in the Orchestra told him it would be alright.

The wall from one of the nearby buildings suddenly exploded in a cloud of dust. A human stepped forward. He had an axe in his hand. Elrik knew what he was looking at even though he had never encountered the Divine that had just come into his vision. Labrys of the Axe hovered behind her Godwielder. Short, with her hair tied back and in scaled armour that looked like a dress. Grey and green and opaque, a mere soul. The man swung the axe. The Divine behind swung her arm. A tremendous copy of the weapon the soldier had in his hand materialized. Countless smaller blades followed.

The man swung. Labrys swung with him. Her army followed. The whole building went down. There was nothing left of the madman Anarchia had created. The organs in the Orchestra signalled to get moving.

Corporal Elrik picked his rifle back up.

The sax signal charge.

Captain Renauld rubbed the back of his neck to get the blood flowing again. Tank Commander duty when the Orchestra was playing was simply a series of monitoring cameras and so that the music could see through his eyes. Renauld turned the little knob by his side to move the infrared camera on top of the turret to the side. The gunner was actually turning the turret left, the main chassis of the tank was pointed in another direction too. None of the viewing revealed anything useful. The tank itself was hiding behind a huge steel wastebin as an infantry squad inspected the nearby buildings.

That was Renauld’s job. Most of these were civilians. They were easy to spot. Entire families would cover in corners of rooms. Fathers would grab their children to protect them. A few would run out towards the troops and thank them for coming to liberate the city from Anarchia’s grasp. It was tedious work and it wasn’t engaging, but it was precisely because Renauld saw the moving shapes on his screen that the men in those buildings would know what angle to turn towards and when to hold fire. When civilians were suddenly going to burst out from behind a doorway and when it would be Anarchia’s warriors. Renauld was not here to make the judgement calls or tell them to shoot, he merely reported to the pipe organs that played in his mind.

And outside of his mind, the engine of the tank roared. The gunner broke protocol by not calling out his shot. No one cared, everyone already knew he was about to fire. And the tank’s barre was as loud as the drums that suddenly sounded in everyone’s mind. It fired straight into a cloud of dust but a man on the sixth floor of a nearby block had been there to do the aiming of the tank. Down the road, a small barrier hastily fashioned by the defenders of Aris suddenly disappeared as the explosion of a tank shell simply removed it from existence.

Renauld saw movement in his cameras. The flutes immediately told him it was important. A red dot separated into two as Imperial soldiers moved below. And those two figures started stalking the men from the floor above. A soft note of the clarinet asked the question. A piano answered; all its keys were suddenly slammed down in one great burst of noise. And the soldiers on the floor below got their command. They raised rifles, they fired into the ceiling straight above them.

Those two figures collapsed.

The clarinets sing hold.

Sergeant Mayacombe dived out of a corner and straight onto the cracked pavement on the ground. He knew were to aim, it was the location that the flutes were had picked out. Second floor. Third window. The block at the end of the street. One of Anarchia’s men had secured a gun and was suppressing this entire road. Mayacombe aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. The rapid drumming was perfectly in match to the firing of his rifle. A helicopter flew overhead, it was being chased by a man who could fly seemingly out of his own volition.

A black jet tipped with a yellow beak suddenly appeared from the grey grounds and knocked him out of the sky. A high piano note signalled the threat was over, immediately, the helicopter stopped its escape and started to fly higher into the air. Another man jumped past Mayacombe just as the Sergeant’s magazine ran out. He opened fire as Mayacombe stood up, closed as much distance as his legs would allow him, reloaded, and then dived into an alleyway. Another soldier was laying down the fire now.

An explosion came from a nearby district and another city block started to collapse. Sergeant Mayacombe leaned out from behind his alley. The dismal flute told him it was still too far, the drums got him running, he dived behind a black trash bag, pulled his rifle up, aimed at the window and immediately the suppressing fire coming from behind ceased. The rest of the squad started to run forwards, completely assured that they were safe by the Orchestra. Mayacombe saw a shift in curtains. The organ’s continuous drone said to avoid pulling the trigger yet. A barrel appeared in the window. The note held. The edge of a round shape followed. The note held. A mask came into view, colourful and of some animal that didn’t matter. The organ was cut off.

Mayacombe pulled the trigger. A high note on the piano again told him the street was safe.

Without taking a pause, Mayacombe’s platoon continued their advance through Aris. The helicopter above confirmed that there was a target behind the next right turn.

The piano plays hope.

Corporal Hart of the Third Battery inputted another series of numbers into his artillery computer. It was a marvellous machine of blinking lights and screens and graphs and dials in the cramped quarters of his wagon. He didn’t even know what numbers he was inputting, it was all the trumpets in his head that called them out and got his hand moving. The trumpets got their own coordinates immediately from the men in the city. Any rank from private to major and even the Divines in the city would call them out and the twelve guns outside the capital of Rancais would put a hole in a city block with every shot.

A drum beat and the gun to Hart’s left fired at the park. A single shell of high-explosive to support the squad of men who had spotted Anarchia’s men hiding in the trees in some attempt to ambush. Another drum beat and another gun fired. Same location. It didn’t matter to Hart. The trumpets had given him his own coordinates. The men in the rear loaded a shell. The computer automatically calibrated the cannon.

Major Rikard pressed firing button to the piano slamming its notes down. And again the drums served as the backing echo of artillery firing. The entire chassis of the truck lurched back as it absorbed the recoil. Loaders back away as a huge brass casing was ejected from the rear. And then they were tasked with loading yet another round. Confirmation would not come, the bombastic Orchestra itself would report the damage, yet before the shells even hit, Corporal Hart was listening to the trumpets again and inputting new coordinates. He did not know what these were either.

The trumpet signals annihilation.

Corporal Ilkon held his breath as he changed position. He had climbed onto an old tower from a fire station in Aris and lay down. Trying to find targets in this chaos should and was by all means impossible. The Imperial Army kept up too fast of an advance. Streets were being occupied as quickly as tanks could drive through them. Small fogs of dust were rising into the air from artillery and tank shells. Civilians were running towards and past the Imperial forces in mass. Helicopters droned from overhead. Gunfire sounded from everywhere and anywhere in the city. From streets and parts to within buildings and out of windows. And men far too fast to snipe were flying in the distance. The flutes said that they needed to be removed.

Ilkon fired once. Twice. Thrice. He fired all seven rounds in his magazine, each time pulling back the bolt and letting the brass casing eject. It was inaccurate shots. It was the sort of targets that Ilkon would be paranoid about if he didn’t hear the music. But he did. And he knew that there was nothing to worry about. The piano triumphantly playing a quick series of a high notes signalled that the bait had worked.

One of those flying men was heading straight at Ilkon. It was a dark dot in the grey sky topped off with a yellow cape that was rapidly getting closer whilst still staying close enough to the roofs of the buildings as to be able to dive into a structure to seek cover from air support. The low piano told him to remain calm and not move. A moment later a burst of gunfire from a heavy machine swatted him out of the sky. It was a burst that lasted half a second. A gunner on a nearby APC had been alerted of the threat, Ilkon’s own eyes and the eyes of another man on the street had been used to track the flight path. The Orchestra calculated the aim itself and the Orchestra was never wrong.

Ilkon was about to bait another of those flying men towards him when a clarinet changed plans. He looked down a street, his body moving to the notes. The sniper’s scope went past Imperial troops that were firing into windows and past civilians that were taking cover in an alley. Past a body of a man that was far too large to be unblessed. And then the scope stopped moving. It settled upon steel.

It settled upon a bin. A dark green bin with no way to see through it. A bin that should have provided perfect cover. Ilkon’s eyes did not see the fellow in light blue on the other side of that bin, but someone else’s who was also part of the Orchestra did. All that was needed was the music to relay the information. Ilkon fired.

Blood splattered across the pavement tiles.

The drums beat liberation.

Kassandora walked down the main road heading towards the Grand Arch of Aris. The red-white-black tricolour of Empire was being unfurled. The Orchestra noted that Paida was already there. Helenna’s camera crew were taking pictures. Kassandora’s smile grew. In the past, when men danced with blade and sword and shield and arrow, the Orchestra would command huge movements of armies. Entire divisions would be thrown at enemies with perfect unison and the music’s greatest ability was the capability to issue orders that troops would actually hear in the cacophony of melee.

Many Divines fear the endless march of technological progress. They thought they would become obsolete. Kassandora’s smile grew as a pair of tanks and a squad of soldiers executed three of Anarchia’s soldiers before the men could even react. A helicopter had spotted them. The tanks had knocked down the walls. The men had opened fire. On the other side, Aslana was weaving a path through enemy ranks, she was supported by gunfire onto her location. The bullets flew close but none of them hit her Godwielder, the music made sure they wouldn’t. Further towards the centre, another artillery shell was coming down. A city block was apparently being used by Anarchia’s men to take over. There was no reason to throw away the lives of her own men.

Kassandora took another step as her eyes saw through the eyes of the thousands of men who were part of the assault on Rancais’ capital. Modern combat had reached the tipping point, a single man could use an automatic rifle to mow down a dozen men in a second. Offensive capability had simply outpaced the physical limitations of man. The weak point now was organisation and relaying information. The music filled that gap like no one else.

This battle had been a training run to see what she was capable of. The music did not disappoint. As Imperial flags were raised throughout the city, all the instruments started to crescendo in satisfaction. All within War’s Orchestra. All in tune to War’s Orchestra. None against War’s Orchestra.

And those who did not listen were made silent forever.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep