The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]

I lack originality. I simply don’t bother to even challenge myself to be original. In fact, I would call myself so tired and old that I am baffled people approach me in the first place. I am not like Kassandora, who constantly wishes to strive towards her ultimate goal of final victory. I am not like Fer, who is so mischievous and joyful in all her life. I am not like Anassa, who lives for herself and no one else.

That final sister also calls herself an artist. I won’t deny her the title. Anassa can paint as beautifully as Olephia, although she rarely does. But I would also call myself an artist. I have a tapestry: humanity, and I have a brush: emotion. Originality is not needed. In fact, I would argue far against it. A master at their craft is able to weave the same picture a thousand times just slightly different enough that the audience does not get bored.

And in this context, who can profess to be better at painting fear and lust and greed, at drawing division and sacrifice and anger, at slathering sloth and gluttony and humiliation into men’s hearts than me? I have done it a million times, the playbook is well known at this point. My reputation precedes me wherever I go. And yet when I talk, every single time, somehow I am able to catch that little drop of hope in another’s mind.

They will be different. They will be the one. They will finally out-trick and out-manoeuvre and out-wit the Goddess of Hatred. They will do it. They will beat me and they will fix me and they be the one to make fall. With me, it is all business and yet it is all personal. I am not here to test your bravery and neither I am here to negotiate your military support. I am here to ask you whether you are brave enough to provide military support. It is that ego-stroking that makes all the difference. It makes men go mad. They are suddenly not fighting against me, they are fighting against themselves. That is why I am so confident in even writing this down because the simple act of willingly coming to negotiate with me is an admittance of defeat. The sort of person who would not fall for my sweet whispers is the sort of person who would avoid me in the first place. The sort that comes to negotiate with me is the sort that thinks they are the one who will fix me, themselves and the whole world at the same time.

Of course they can… As if I’ve never heard it before.

- Excerpt from “Malam, Goddess of Hatred”, the pre-Great War autobiography of Malam, Goddess of Hatred.

Kassandora put her arm around Kavaa when she felt the Goddess of Health rest that silver-haired head on her shoulder. “Are you alright?” Kassandora asked as they kept on trekking forwards. The UEL must have come across an entire Tartarian army. The past five days, since they had managed to throw Be’elzebub off themselves had been spent wading through guts and bathing in blood. Kassandora had not taken her armour off once, she kept War’s Orchestra rolling the entire time in the background. Right now, even the drums and organs were fatigued as they meandered their way into something resembling the remains of a tune.

It was Kavaa’s violin had changed the most though. Now, it was singing its own notes, still loudly, yet it was starting to fade. Every now and then, Kavaa yawned and her violin got a tiny burst of energy it used up within minutes. “Just tired.” Kavaa said slowly. Ahead, a light tank turned its barrel and opened fire. Kassandora only engaged when there was a major demon or some other monster to slay. The men were immortal. They could handle themselves.

“How long can you hold it for?” Kassandora asked. The demons were becoming thinner true, but that was because Kassandora’s UEL had fully routed them. Be’elzebub and Mammon must have both sent word of what was coming down the tunnels, so now it was only small squads here and there that were no doubt here to scout out whether the Legionnaires still rose even after being decapitated.

“A week to a month.” Kavaa said slyly as she put her hand around Kassandora’s back. “You’re soft.”

“Don’t fall asleep on me.” Kassandora as Kavaa yawned again. A series of drums sounded through War’s Orchestra in everyone’s heads and a choir of voices echoed through the tunnel. Kassandora looked through the eyes of her men as she watched a series of her soldiers rush forwards. With Kavaa’s blessing, they had enough strength to wield the heavy cleavers that had been dropped by the demons. Those who forsook them rushed forwards with great knives. The reason for the melee brawls was simple: ammunition for the men had ran out two days ago. The guns had become batons and blades beat out batons.

A man jumped into the air and a demon soldier, a quarter again his height, lunged forwards with a pike, impaling the Legionnaire. Kassandora heard Kavaa’s violin ramp up its pace as she felt the Goddess on her shoulder squeeze her tight. The man died, his heart failed, his organs were ruptured by the barbed pike, and then his heart started to beat once again. Muscle and organ reformed around the pike, the man slid down the shaft, screaming madly and then stabbed his knife into the opening between the shoulder-plate and the helmet. The demon had no such regeneration, once it died, it died for good.

He died two more times before two other men finally pulled him off the pike.

A squad of thirty demons cut down ninety-three legionnaires a hundred and seventy-one times. And then, the thirty demons were killed eventually. By men who in their dying breaths knocked them down onto the ground, then awoke to life again to plunge blades through armour, by sheer mass of soldiers or by tank shells that were carelessly launched into melee. After all, did friendly fire really matter when the men shredded by shells only needed to take a break of a few seconds for their wounds to close? The soldiers were getting better in melee too. At the start, a single demon could easily tear through ten of the soldiers before being brought down.

Now, a demon would be lucky to score three kills.

It was still a bad trade, and it was nothing like the Legionnaires of the past, who would go one man for two demon against Tartarians, but it certainly was getting better. Then again, those men had shields and armour and longswords. These men had been killed so many times that the majority of them had torn clothes wrapped around their belts simply for the sake of modesty in front of the Goddesses. “You’re not going to drop on me, are you?” Kassandora asked.

“I’m not, I’m not.” Kavaa replied dreamily. “I’m just tired.”

“You were tired with Fer.”

“Fer was drinking my blood the entire time.” Kavaa said, her voice suddenly becoming stern. Kassandora felt something she had not felt in a long time. Even most of her sisters wouldn’t bring about this emotion: Apology. It wasn’t regret or annoyance. The Goddess of War stared quizzically at the back of a Lynx tank as she analysed that feeling in herself. Why did she want to apologize? For what purpose.

“Oh.” Kassandora ignored that feeling in the same way she would ignore fear. What an odd little feeling.

“And do you know how much life Fer has?” Kavaa asked.

“More than me.” Kassandora replied as her eyes scanned the ceiling once again. Illuminated by the massive torchbearer tanks in the centre of the UEL, the ceiling was a marvellous display of geometric patterns that had never heard of a curve, it was all harsh angles and straight lines instead. And every now and then, there was a twinkling of gold.

“She’s a hundred times what you are Kass.” Kavaa said. Maybe someone else would be annoyed, Kassandora had expected a number roughly that. Fer was one of the few Divines who were so powerful they simply could not be hurt by falling. And Fer was one of the largest Divines too, it wasn’t simply that she was as light as a feather. No, she was the opposite in fact, as heavy as a tank and yet still able to out-strength her own terminal velocity. She could wield Joyeuse with a finger. Kassandora struggled to graze her. A hundred times?

“Only that?” Kassandora asked. “I’m impressed with myself then.”

Kavaa laughed, then stifled it with a yawn. “You should be. She’s more than Fortia and Maisara easily and they’re number two and three.”

“What about dad?” Kassandora asked and got no reply. “Hello?”

“I’ve never healed him.” Kavaa said.

“Actually?”

“Actually.” Kavaa sounded as shocked as Kassandora. “Never, he’s never once asked me for help.” The Goddess of War smiled at that, was there anyone else like that? And who better to be adopted by than the God who had never once needed to rely on Kavaa’s healing. “I…”

“What?”

“Nevermind.” Kavaa said. “Later.”

“What for later?”

“We’ll discuss it later.” Kavaa said once again. “Just keep walking, I’m tired. Let me lean on you and be quiet.” Kassandora said nothing, she just put her arm around Kavaa as she kept on walking. She looked at the patterns in the walls, she felt the slow bend that the Legion was traversing across. She knew they should go straight at this junction. And then Kassandora pulled away from Kavaa when she saw the pillars that where half-submerged into the walls.

It was… Kassandora did the maths in her head. Today’s map of the tunnels was overlaid with an ancient she remembered from the Ages past. If she was correct, then… That damage in the tunnels had set her off, she knew she remembered it. But now… Kassandora’s eyes widened when she saw markings and craters on the ground and then slashes in the walls. It was as if a monster had made scratches in the walls. Some of the men looked at them, but War’s Orchestra told them not to take notice so they simply kept on marching. But Kassandora did not. She saw it. “Look at this!” Kassandora pointed at one of the gashes in the wall. “LOOK!”

“What am I looking at here?” Kavaa asked.

“Do you not see that?!”

“The damage?” Kavaa asked the Goddess of Health looked around and shivered as she yawned again. “Are we going to be attacked or what?”

“No! Look!” Joyeuse appeared in Kassandora’s hand. Kavaa watched the Goddess of War easily handle the huge greatsword. Kass spun it in a pirouette, red-hair trailing behind her. She leapt into the air and then smashed the sword into the crevice. The blade slide into like a hand would slide into a glove. Kassandora beamed at it with a smile, sometimes, nostalgia hit just right.

“You made that?” Kavaa asked.

“I know where we are.” Kassandora took out the map and passed it off to the Goddess of Health. “Don’t need that anymore, you have it.” She proudly pointed to Joyeuse, now lodged in the stone. “That is where the retreat began. Where Tartarus finally broke our lines. The eighty-third winter of the Great War, Legion overwhelmed us, broke straight through the lines as easily as you would bite through an apple.” Another demon on the level of Be’elzebub, although no way had ever been devised to stop him apart from simply deploying Olephia to the area.

“This is it?” Kavaa looked at the sword with sudden respect in her tone.

“This is it.” Kassandora said, she turned and pointed down the tunnel. “One week forced march that way is the first Epan Hold: Fazba.”

“It’s not held, is it?” Kavaa asked as she looked down at the map. Kassandora knew what it looked like. Most of the eastern Epan Holds had fallen. It was not until they managed to get past the conglomerate of ancient cities that were in Erdely until civilization would be met again. From there though, they could re-excavate back to the surface.

Kassandora already knew why Kavaa was asking. “The map marks it as a dead-zone. Not to enter under any means. If we cut through it, then we meet the Epan Holds in two weeks.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Kavaa said, her tone confident and smug. “As much as I pretend otherwise, I’ve never been one for warnings though.”

“That’s crazy Kavaa.” Kassandora said, with just as much distilled satisfaction in her tone. “You know, neither have I.”

“So are we going?” Kavaa said as Kassandora finally dematerialized Joyeuse from that gash in the wall.

“We’re going.”

And so they went. Into Epa, underground, but into Epa none the less. Not into steps new, but into steps being retraced. Kassandora took a deep breath as she felt eyes on her. From above and from behind. Hopefully Neneria would return before they reached Fazba, Kassandora didn’t have high hopes of assaulting a Hold without the Goddess of Death.

But even if Neneria did not return, she would not slow down.