It is only from my vantage point that I can see how truly overwhelming the Empire is. Kassandora has once written about the true extent to which she can visualize war, in ‘The Modern War’, she talks of how although armies have shrunk in size, participation in the war has been extended. She talks of how every member of a society, from the factory worker who produces ammunition, to the farmer who feeds the military, to the civilian trucker who runs logistics can now be considered a member of the military. Kassandora purposefully keeps her writing simple and easy to understand, although the application of her knowledge is still difficult to follow without an example. That trailblazing trendsetting is the true genius of the Goddess of War.

Now, I sit and watch the Empire mobilize. I see decree after decree being handed out on the same day. I see laws being re-written in real time. I see the power that comes from just two continents that have been united. I see a mobilization unlike anything ever seen before in the history of Arda. Whereas the White Pantheon buried the lessons of the Great War, the Empire that had once been defeated has instead chose to refine the prototype. The slumbering giant that Arascus has been forging rises from its sleep.

And I am in awe.

A new standard has been set. There is Paraideisius. There is Tartarus. There is the Empire. Everyone else is second-rate.

There is no question anymore, the White Pantheon cannot stand against Arascus’ Empire.

The matter has been settled.

– Excerpt from “Spectator of the Surface War”, written by Goddess Fortia, of Peace.

Pawel lifted canister of coffee and drank the final dregs of what he had brought with him to the cockpit of his digger. Demolition ran back from the borehole he had stabbed into the earth and Pawel quickly screwed the cap back onto the bottle. The pace had been doubled yesterday, it had doubled today. It would continue to double until they dug in a day what had previously been achieved in a whole week. Huge spotlights, pointed into the crater made sure that the starless night would not touch this quarry though. Pawel had made sure to avoid looking at those lamps, his eyes had long since begin to hurt. The first shift of the night crew marched in long throngs down the roads on which trucks carried iron ore to Doschia. What happened to it, he did not care though. As long as earth was moving, then the job was being done.

Pawel quickly plugged his ears and closed his eyes as the men by his side yelled out a countdown. “Three!” Men dove into trenches and dragged heavy steel shirts over them. “Two!” Others ran into the steel containers that made up the canteens and lavatories. “One!” The man behind Pawel’s digger crouched down, his hands wrapped around a handle. “Blow!”

The earth erupted before Pawel as if an artillery shell had just landed before them. It was no artillery shell though, it was dynamite to loosen the earth. A cloud of dust rose from the centre, rocks hit and bounced off the hardened glass of his cockpit. Rains of pebbles and rocks began to fall and yet even as they did, the great cranes and other diggers began to turn and twist and drive forwards to drag the loosen stone out from its eternal rest.

Pawel’s radio came on a moment later. “Pawel, your shift is done.”

“Give me one more.” Pawel replied.

“Copy that.” A picture of his family sat in his cabin as he pushed forward on one of his handles. As difficult as this was, it mattered little. His little Piotrek was being sent off to defend the Arcadian coastline and his little Magda would save lives in the nursing corps. He hoped neither of them would see the war, he would have eagerly cut him in two to make sure he could take both their places.

But these bones were old and weary and even Clerical healing could not bring back life that had faded away from time. Pawel pushed the red button on his control stick and the drill started to spin up as the ground crew pulled up masks and lowered goggles to protect themselves from the fog of dust that came every time he stabbed into the earth.

Glory be damned. It was not for glory. It had never been for glory, not since the beginning. Pawel glanced at that picture again as he sped his drill up.

From the beginning, one voice.

Mark wiped the sweat off his brow as he hooked his welding torch onto his belt and stepped back from the hull of the finished destroyer. It was a small one, nothing like the Kassandora that had set sail last week, but it was a ship nonetheless. Another vessel to carry a few hundred souls away from North Arika and another vessel which could hurl more firepower when Tartarus tried to cross the ocean into Epa. He had family over there, in Rilia and in Rancais. And if they got through them, they would not let Allia go. That much was for certain.

An alarm sounded, a red lamp flared. There was no announcement, everyone knew what it meant. Mark quickly climbed up the ladder as the alarm kept ringing from within the enclosed drydock. There was no light coming in through the huge glass windows, so it was night outside. This shift was finished. Mark forced one foot above the over and kept his fingers tight and he made his arms move from nothing but sheer will. Another crew would come to work until midday. Another would hold down the fort, then another, and then these gruelling hours would restart.

Mark’s foreman patted him on the back as he counted. “Twenty-seven.” Some of the men had lit up cigarettes, weary eyes all, weary eyes full of achievement and too exhausted to do anything but stare in admiration at their own handiwork. “Twenty-eight.” The foreman patted yet another man on the back as he got dragged forwards off the ladder and onto the cold ground. “Twenty-nine.” Mark leaned over so that he could light his cigarette of another man’s lighter.

“Thirty.” The foreman reached for his radio and gave the signal. “Team three is out.”

“Copy. Begin flooding.”

Valves opened and seawater began to flood into the drydock. This would take about fifteen minutes, another fifteen for the swarm of inspectors that would check for leaks, fifteen for boarding of the sailors that had were already lined up in their pristine, Imperial Navy uniforms, then another fifteen for the ship to be turned on and leave. Then the doors to the ocean would be opened. Normally, Mark would stay to watch these huge steel beasts sail out into the sea. Not today though, he had seen it already. He gave the ship one more passing glance. A turret on the front. A missile bay in the back. Small boats on the top. Railings. A bridge. The Imperial flag on top of it. He had seen it all already.

Grand it was not. But grand it did not have to be. This was the second one from Tull Drydock Seventeen. Two days. Two ships.

They were aiming for two a day.

Then two. Then eight. A kingdom bound into an orchestra. A kingdom that became nation. A nation that became Empire. An Empire whose destiny lays across a world. And then across worlds.

“Three.” Johann began the dreaded countdown. “Two.” His team of three assistants all knelt down next to the huge crate that had managed to slide off the conveyor belt. “One.” The sharp edge of wooden planks dug into their fingers. “Lift!” Four men groaned as they managed to haul the heavy box into the air. “Go! Go! Go! One! Two!” Johann kept up the momentum. Clerics would be coming in the morning, the backpain would be washed away then. “One! Two!” He kept up the chant like a military march to ensure they kept on stepping. It wasn’t a long distance. Just to the back of a truck. The cretin who was operating the conveyer was already nursing a bruise on his head in the ammunition factory’s infirmary.

“Up! Up! Up-Up!” Johann shouted in a booming voice as everyone groaned and stood on their tiptoes. The back of the open-top truck was just too high to allow comfortable loading. It was an old model, more than half a million miles on it already and operating for as long as Johann had been alive. By his luck, this monstrosity of steel would be around to curse his children once they returned from the Rilian front. One final Hurrah! Yelled outby the men was quickly cut out by a cry of pain from the man on the other side, Erik. The men pushed, and the box slid over his hand into the back off the truck as Erik tried to drag his hand out. By the time he did, every finger was bent in a way fingers were not supposed to bend.

“Get ice! Get ice!” Johann shouted and put his hand on Erik’s shoulder. “Clerics in the morning.” His own back felt as if it had snapped from the effort, but that didn’t matter. A Cleric had arrived today to heal the workers. A Cleric would arrive tomorrow. And then the day after that. The entirety of Hallin Stahlwerks, with its thousands of workers, had a half dozen of Kavaa’s blessed healers transferred to it to make sure that the men could be working.

Erik nodded as he nursed his fingers. He mumbled something as Armin passed him the first cigarette of the fresh pack. Those at least were being handed in mass. Johann had smoked as many in the past few days as he had in his entire life before it, but his breathing had never been thanks to the touch of the Clerics.

The truck honked and Johann rolled his eyes. He groaned as he turned the heavy rear flap and closed the right lock. Armin took the left. A clap on the side and a thumbs-up to the side mirror signalled it was closed and the truck’s engine roared as it began to twist off. The group of workers all took deep breathes as they looked as the belt. It was so tightly packed with ammunition crates for the Second Expedition and the Epan Front that they were less belt visible than crate.

Heavy work but Johann’s children had heavier work. He was too old to be running around with the young bucks now, he’d only get in their way. But whether bones hurt or whether muscles grew tired would not stop him from making sure they had something to feed their rifles with.

And besides. He had served in the Epan War. He knew what it was like when a hand grabbed for ammunition and found nothing but air. The experience of that terror fuelled him. He would break every bone in his body a dozen times over to make sure his children did not.

Greater than the Pantheon. Greater than any Pantheon. Already a mountain has been built whose peak soars over any other. Already a mountain exists whose ever-growing shadow cleanses away all of Arda’s failures.

A green light flicked on in the laboratories of ContraLab. Luca looked at his team and saw Ana nod, saw Matteo give a grim thumbs up, saw Gianna turn eyes away from their test subject. The white panels of the toxins department all turned a sickly shade of grass as the rest of the lamps switched off. Luca turned back around so that he wouldn’t have to look at the faces of his compatriots. Ahead of him was a small viewing window. That viewing window would stop a bullet, it could have been mounted onto a submarine and been overkill. And through the viewing window was a box of glass with tubes strapped to either side.

Inside the box was a rat, shaved bald and trapped in the middle of a wall with suction pads that made sure air the air from one side should not get into the other. Luca pressed the letter button that someone had stuck a picture of a skull on. A turbine turned on. Dials began to turn. Luca’s eyes looked at them as he hovered his hand over the emergency lockdown. Everything was within normal operating levels though, of course it was.

Through the side that lead to the rat’s rear, a deadly yellow mist began to flow out of an opening and settle on the ground. Heavier than air then. But it could be dispersed from above and the request had been for it to be relatively controllable. It was one thing to send a flood of poison mist which settled onto the ground, it was another entirely to spread a toxin that could be carried across entire provinces just by the nature’s winds. The rat’s tail fell into the mist first. Luca pressed the off switch. Iliyal had wanted something that killed by just touch rather than by inhalation.

And so the team of four scientists waited. The experiment lasted the grand total of ten seconds.

The rat squealed for a moment. And the rat died.

It was done. Unstable though it was, with a short half-life, but it was cheap to produce. Cheaper even than the request had been. After all, breaking something apart was far easier than putting it back together.

One flag to wave over them all. One loyalty to pledge to. One unity through which we stand.

General Sokolowski sat down around the table as he unfurled Iliyal’s letter for General Zalewski and General Ekkerson to read. Ekkerson brought out a pack of expensive cigars he had managed to acquire from Nanbasa. Those were rare in the Ashlands, Sokolowski and Zalewski both took one as they lit up and stared down at the map of Arika. “So we meet again Gentlemen.” Sokolowski began the planning meeting. “To defend Arika once again.”

“Who better.” Ekkerson said sarcastically as he took Iliyal letters. The faint lights of the tent that made up Sokolowski’s command quarters were nothing extravagant, but Sokolowski’s force had been between Ekkerson’s and Zalewski’s and so it was natural that they come to him. Every minute wasted on travel was a minute less to prepare and they had been through too many wars at this point to be able to pretend that even minutes did not matter.

As Arascus himself said, ‘the wait was the worst part’, but Sokolowski liked to add his own ending to the saying: ‘Yet waiting was luxury.’ “Iliyal has a good plan.” Ekkerson said and passed the letter to Zalewski. The man blew out a cloud of smoke and began to read.

“Indeed.” Sokolowski said as he stared at the map. “Kirinyaa’s central mountains are yours Ekkerson.” It would be a quick meeting. “The real problem is here.” He pointed to the port-towns that were being built along the coastline of Elassa’s Sea that were built to control the north of the Ashlands after the Goddess of Magic had cracked the continent. “The question is not one of retreat. They’ll bleed themselves out on the Ashlands.”

Zalewski put his paper down. “The Sassaran Ash-cover is expanding faster to the north than the south. Expectations are they’re sending a greater force to Epa than to us.”

“We take what blessings we can get.” Sokolowski said as he inhaled the cigar again. It had been a long time since he tasted something this good. “Northpoint.” That was the most northern town in the Ashlands. “We’re going to evacuate and abandon. I’ve already ordered the Imperial West Arikan fleet to begin on that. The question is not what. Is the question is how much are we giving up?”

Zalewski shook his head. “The Ausan ships are how many? The main fleet took the rest for the North Arika operations.”

“I have twelve.”

“So your question is not of land but of blood.” He took a pencil and placed it on the map of Arika, close to the south. There were more than forty port-towns there north of that line. “This is the shortest frontline.” Sokolowski stared at the map. Twelve ships and forty port-towns did not add up. He knew it did not add up. He had been staring at this map all day, trying to somehow make twelve ships and forty port-towns add. Very simply, the maths did not work out.

But he had known that from the start. The meeting had been called primarily for that reason and to share combat knowledge and tactics. Zalewski had control of the Western Ashlands, Sokolowski took thrice as much in the Eastern portion. In sections, they stretched all the way to the Central Mountains. Ekkerson would need to be primed.

They weren’t here to discuss how to make the maths work out. They were here to work the remainder down.

One unity to through which we take strength. One unity through which we say ‘No.’

Adrien sat up in his dorm-room. A student of gastronomy, he had been training on how to be chef from the masters of Aris. It had been a difficult school to get into and now he looked at the letter and felt his entire life dashed against the wall. The issue with Marianna from next door scratching his pan suddenly did not seem as grand as it did an hour ago. Nor the fact that his father had been placed on the waiting list for the man’s asthma. At the end of the day, it was just annoyance. A Cleric would see to him eventually, the fact he had to wait a month for the next visit into Rancais really just meant a month more of living the same life he had managed to life for forty-five years already. Even the issue of what present to get for his sister Colette suddenly stopped mattering.

As the did the exams that he had started preparing for. They were six months from now, but that seemed to matter little. Adrien smiled to himself. He had never studied before this, there was some humour in the fact that the universe had come down to smite him like this. This was his lesson for trying to prepare for the future. Sometimes, the universe just did not care.

He read through the first line of the letter again and felt his stomach turn: Notice of Mandatory Attendance to IMRO, Arisian Department. Dated to be two days from now. Everyone knew what that meant: Imperial Military Recruit Office. Conscription in other words.  

Adrien was about to fall back onto his bed and contemplate all life when there was a knock on his door. It was his best friend, Oskar. Frankly, when Adrien had heard Iliyal Tremali’s speech two days ago, he had prepared somewhat. The moment that the word ‘student’ was mentioned and how they were not exempt, Adrien knew he was on the chopping block. There was no way in this world that anyone could argue his job was essential when it was something humanity had been doing for all its existence.

But Oskar? The man was an engineering student. Mechanical engineering at that. And Oskar stood with a grim face holding a mirror copy of what Adrien had received. “They got you?” Adrien didn’t even know why he asked.

“I’m being sent to Dassault.” Oskar said. One of the largest industrial complexes in Rancais. It was said that there wasn’t a vehicle in the entire military without at least a lens from Dassault. Oskar looked down at the sheet of paper in Adrien’s hand. “And you?”

“Southern Rancais Front.”

Together, a giant taller than any before. A beast deadlier than any before. A fortress that shall stand for a thousand millennia.

The Holdmaster of Rhedos, Arkas held his axe as the human engineers that had come from the surface worked tirelessly to fortify his sacred hold. It had been separated from the underkingdom at large and the Core Holds when the continent cracked. Goddess Kassandora had forged a path back to Epa through the first Expedition. And now they were fortifying again. Arkas had lived for far too long to pretend to be ignorant of why fortifications were being set up. Cranes were mounting turrets on the parapets of Hold Rhedos’ grand greats as the dark men of Arika sung a sombre tune together.

Arkas had no intention of telling them to shut up even though he could not understand the words. Each note of the song was a heartbeat that pushed defensives forward. Sandbags were being thrown down, machine gun emplacements were prepared. The noise of the modern drills that dug moats and trenches into the highway almost overwhelmed the tune. The animated skeletons of the Dead Legion of the dwarves, pulled huge explosives deeper into the tunnel. They had been told to hold off on the Onyx Decree of poisoning the hold unless they were being chased out of the hold. Trucks brought in more soldiers from Arika. There should be ten thousand fresh souls sent to the cold underground. A meagre amount but the surface was not in any place to spare blood anytime soon.

But there was no point to complain. There were only four-thousand, five hundred dwarves left in Rhedos. Ten thousand fresh souls had already tripled their number. Modern Imperial arms would be another boon in terms of strength. And then dwarven hardiness would be tested. And if anything, he appreciated the newcomers. He appreciators their electricity and he appreciated their lights. Not once in his life would he thought that light would ever lay defeat the permanent darkness of Rhedos but the massive spotlights, set up on every intersection and every bridge, that hung from ceiling or where affixed to walls, lit up the Hold brilliantly.

Arkas looked over his demesne and smiled. Suns under the surface they certainly were not but did it matter? His eyes still strained under the light, but this sight he would tell his father about when they met in the afterlife. The man had never seen it. Nor had his grandfather. Nor his grandfather’s father nor the man before that. A thousand years of darkness. A thousand years of standing. The Empire would stand whilst Arkas still lived. They would have to kill him before he bent the knee.

The ancestors would have to watch and wait before they met. Arkas had no plan on reunion anytime soon.

Arkas his hand and began to walk to the grand gates. He would help out however he could. A thousand years of standing had passed, to a thousand years more.

From a single voice, to the whole world, their cry is heard: ‘Outlast end times. Tear down ashen skies. Break the world that comes to seize our precious Arda.’

Anton gazed at the lake and at the staff of ancient Epan oak in his hand. He had joined Arcadia when it had been The Arcadia, the sole home of magic under the dominion of Pantheon Peace. He had how the land of magic had fared when what had to be no more than two hundred beastmen descended upon it. How this land, once a fortress so unassailable it did not need walls had been humiliated. Anton spun the staff in his hand and took a deep breath. The sapphire in the tip began to glow a bright blue. The waters began to swirl.

He had heard how Arcadian mages had been defeated in the Invasion of Kirinyaa. He had seen Elassa declare Arcadia as the War College of Arcadia. Apart from a new regimen, not much had changed then. He had fought in the Epan War on the side of the White Pantheon and he had faced Imperial Sorcerers. An arm had been lost then. It was only through sheer luck that the dash of crimson energies had missed his heart. The waters swirled faster as Anton cast his hands into the air. His blue clothes began to lift up.

And now, it was still the War College of Arcadia, as it had been. The red and purple flag of Worldbreaking still hung on every school. As did the red-white-black of the Empire. The regimen had changed again. The classes had stopped doing exercises entirely, they entirely consisted of philosophy now. Of what made a mage, of what made an archmage, of what it meant to wield the elements, of the power bestowed upon, of what it meant to take lives, of what it meant to wield true power. Anton poured more of his essence into the staff and the waters began to shift.

Arcadia humiliated, Arcadia defeated, Arcadia reborn. It had shrunk down to the size it once was. Anton had been lucky enough to pass the examinations and not be assigned to a National School. He would never leave this subject like the rest of the cowards in this land. Empire or not, it did not matter. The loyalty lay to magic. Whoever facilitated that facilitated him.

Anton watched the waters rise into the air. The switch in lessons had been taken him aghast but he realised how wrong his thinking had been before. He finally understood what the Goddess had meant in her many rants against show-magic. How his thinking had been wrong, did not matter. Nor did he care much. His thinking had been wrong and the proof was in front of him.

Arcadia, home of Magic had failed it. Arcadia, War College had failed it. Imperial Arcadia had managed it. Ten years ago, this feat alone would have made him the top of the ranks. Now, he was still in the middle.

The entire lake hovered above Anton. Every single damn drop.

Do not beg for a lighter burden. Beg for strength.

“The broadcast is starting! Quick! Quick!”

The face of Iliyal Tremali took over the screens of EIE, of Doschia Today, of Czas, of All in Arika, of every Imperial News station to exist. And in the UNN. In Guguo. In Khmet. Throughout all Arda. A message flashed at the bottom that the broadcast was going to be translated in real time slowly rolled at the bottom of the screen. “Firstly, I would like to announce the opening of the Imperial Foreign Legion. Applications are now open on Empire dot Gov, we are rolling the openings across different time-zones to avoid overload of the servers. If it the site does not load for you, we advise seeking an Imperial Embassy or waiting for a later time.” He took a deep breath as the cameras slowly pulled away to reveal Imperial flags behind him, with all the regalia. The flags of aligned nations hung next on the wall of golden sandstone.

“Nevertheless, time is something we are short of. This address may be Imperial although it is not solely intended for the Empire. It is intended for all humanity and for all beings that can comprehend these words. I, Iliyal Tremali, Hand of the Emperor and representative of the Empire, General of Eighth Legion in the Great War, now call upon the strength of all mankind.”

“For the war we shall fight will not decide the fate of Empire but the fate of Arda as a whole. Tartarus burns across the sands of the Sassara right now. Tartarus burns through the long-lost highways that once inhabited the Dwarves. Any who think that they shall stop at us is mistaken. If there is any taste they have a craven for, it is the blood within our veins. I call upon the strength of all mankind. Any who within them carry a single drop of the old noble blood, any who think they feel the righteous rage of your ancestors, any who have a shred of honour, a trace of bravery, a speck of love to all that makes up Arda, we call upon you.”

“For it will not be the guns of the Empire that shall win this war, it will not be the grand refineries that hum tirelessly, it will be not be our unfatiguing dockyards nor will it be the factories that turn throughout the night. It will not be the relentless advancement of science nor will it be the holy strength bestowed by Divinity.” Iliyal raised his voice and pointed to the screen. “It will be You! You who has the blood all nobility within themselves. You within who the fires of humanity burn hot enough to blaze against apocalypse. Your fathers are looking down upon you from their seats, your mothers weep for what you shall do. You, whose ancestors once broke the world, are now called upon to break another world. All who hear this broadcast, consider yourselves lucky for being alive in these times of end.”

“For these times of end shall make you the greatest of humanity. Let your sons and daughters curse you, for you shall know glory like no other. Never again will there be a call to action so just, nor shall another challenge so great gaze upon this world. For today, the Empire stands not for itself but for all of Arda itself. You ancestors shall weep for their fruitless wars when they hear that blood was given for the salvation of all mankind.”

Iliyal stopped and held a silence. He made his tone colder. “Or you will kneel before creatures unworthy of you. You will watch your loved ones be stolen to cruelty unimaginable, you will see your homes, your possessions, your companions, your cultures, your dreams and your very histories reduced to nought but ash. You will witness this world be put to a sleep from which it will never wake. There will be no second chances. Let it be declared that it is on this day that we say no. End Times turn their gaze upon our Arda, and they shall see nothing but the silhouette of the giant that shall crush them.”

Iliyal stared at the hard gazes before him. He gave the final cry. “I have made my choice. Now I ask you to make yours: march with us, march forwards and undo times of end or bow to lesser Gods!”

For all who are willing shall be given the strength to carry the weight of the world alone.

– ‘Undoing Apocalypse.’ Published in every Imperial Paper, author unknown.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep