The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]

“What do you think they’re doing?” One of Ekkerson’s men asked the General as the command team of Army West stood on a rooftop in New-Nanbasa. The city had been devastated, then re-grown, then re-built. It was a huge ring of trees that interlocked around building blocks, with branches woven together like climbing rope to make bridge after bridge.

On those branches sat the modern skyrail. Built using Rancais bullet-train technology, a person could get round the entire city in the span of thirty minutes. Before, it had been a long four hour drive. The Grand Wood Docks had become a tourist landmark even with the sporadic skirmishing forces sent out by Uriamel although the enemy rarely managed to get close to shore, let alone onto it. Battery after battery of massive guns had been installed throughout the city, the city had two entire regiments stationed within it and the Vulture of Kirinyaa would frequently soar across the coast. Ekkerson did not know if the bird understood him or not, but one thing he was very well aware was that the bird did not take kindly to whatever monsters wandered from the waters and onto its continent.

General Ekkerson looked through his binoculars and at the opposing force. A Reggie, the name that the soldiers had given to the giant crabs. This one was a Loud Reggie, meaning it had a cannon strapped to its back. Quiet Reggies had the bunkers filled with troops. Normally, they keep up the march. A few times, Uriamel’s soldiers would actually try to set up heavy artillery in the oceans. The waters would cover them from counter-battery fire. The waters would not cover them from new torpedo bombs issued to the local air force bases. The crab had managed to clamber half-way onto Mound One-Two-Three. That was simply a colloquial name amongst the name to a spot where the waters were especially shallow. Its shell glistened on its back, it stopped. There was splashing around it.

The crab started to shrink back under the waters. Ekkerson put the binoculars down in stunned awe as he watched... Impossible. That only happened when his army had managed to exhaust whatever attack had come to its last man. Uriamel did not simply… Yet it did.. “They’re retreating.” General Ekkerson said flatly, then understood what he said. “They’re retreating!” More excitement this time. “By the Gods they’re retreating!” A cheer sounded amongst the men. They had won. Kirinyaa had won. The Empire had won. Uriamel had given up. Uriamel was retreating.

“Are you actually incapable of talking?” Elassa asked. She knew it was a prickly question, but it simply needed to be voiced. “Actually actually? This isn’t something you just do.” The Goddess of Magic soured over the ocean as they followed a squad of drones. Neither Elassa nor Olephia could navigate during day-time on this open ocean. It was obvious that south was towards the sun, revealed the other three cardinal directions, but that was were Elassa’s geographic skill ended. Below them was an endless plain of dark blue waves, above them was an endless plain of light blue smoothness. So they had taken to follow the V shape in the air, when the drones started circling, that meant they were above yet another city in the depths and the Divines got to work.

Elassa, Goddess of Magic, fully armed and equipped for battle. In a blue battledress that all but overflowed with enchantments and signs of power, and then with platinum rings and silver necklaces and jewellery of all sorts, all fixed with glowing blue and clear catalysts. The Goddess of Magic hummed slowly through the air as she carefully carried Olephia. It wasn’t even that the woman was adopted as a daughter by Arascus. It was that Olephia had come in nothing but her purple dress.

Elassa had asked the question several times before. Olephia would always skirt around the answer, replying that she spoke when she needed to speak. The answers were always direct, but they always felt as if they had something hidden within them. And now, it looked to Elassa as if the she had pushed her luck just a moment too far.

“No. I speak when I need to.” Olephia said dryly. In the distance, an atomic explosion went off. Then another. And another. Seven in total for the seven words said. All around them, the blue sky suddenly turned into an scarred, burning orange. Clouds of steam and water started to rise into the air and then boiling rain started to fall back down. Elassa lifted up her hand, hardened the air around them into an invisible barrier and then felt the wind and heat impact upon it from all directions simultaneously. One of the drones fell out of the air and the others started to fly higher to escape the radiation left behind by Olephia’s words.

Elassa looked around at the seven mushrooms clouds around her. She saw Olephia once again eyeing her angrily. The woman brought out her notebook and pen from pockets hidden within her dress and she started to write: ‘Don’t ask again. I purposefully kept it to single syllablers.’

Elassa stared at the paper, then back at Olephia. Single syllabers? As in words? The woman actually operated through sheer speech? And that was it? There was no control over it save for the amount of syllables the woman said? “You actually can’t stop it?”

Olephia made a silent sigh and purposefully over-exaggerated her eye roll. She wrote without even looking at the piece of paper in her hands. And her hand-writing was still pretty and legible. ‘No. I actually can’t stop it, it’s even here when I hum Elassa. Do I pester you about magic how magic works?’

Oh. So that was it. Elassa saw the problem: Olephia was just prickly about the fact Elassa was trying to figure out the woman’s power without explaining the mechanics behind her own. “Well magic is just the will drawn onto reality. Most assume it really conscious thought it really is the opposite, the more subconsciously confident you are of yourself then…” Elassa trailed off when she saw Olephia write something.

‘I didn’t ask you to explain yours either.’ Olephia had written.

“Oh…” Elassa said, her eyes once again went to the explosions in the distance, the clouds were devilishly clean, although they would be since there was no ground to call up into dust. Instead, it was great pillars of steaming water that had reached their peak and were now coming.

Olephia gave Elassa another piece of paper. ‘There is no “oh”.’ The fact the letters were slightly less curvy and wavy revealed that the Goddess was angry. Elassa didn’t know what she did frankly. But Olephia kept on writing. ‘Anything you’re going to say about my power, I’ve heard before. So don’t say anything.’ The Goddess of Chaos practically stuffed the piece of paper into Elassa’s hand.

“I wasn’t…” Elassa said. “I’m not scouting you out, if that’s what you mean.” Olephia’s anger dissipated and the Goddess merely rolled her eyes in disappointment.

‘Your questions right now are why I joined Arascus. You know that, right?’ Elassa read the piece of paper twice to make sure she could understand the words.

“We didn’t talk before the Great War.” Elassa said. How could her questions have anything to do with Olephia joining Arascus? “We didn’t talk much during it either.” Olephia actually put her finger to Elassa’s lips to shut the woman up. Elassa thought who else she would allow to do that to her. Not even Allasaria would, all things considered. Yet before Elassa could even think of reacting, her eyes went to the steaming pools of ocean. Olephia, with a single word, had caused the ocean to boil. If someone with that amount of power wished to silence her, then Elassa would stay silent.

‘No.’ Olephia wrote, she looked up and pointed at the drones.

“Follow them?” Elassa asked and wished she said nothing. Olephia’s look actually questioned her sanity and intelligence. “Right, I’ll follow them.” The Goddess of Chaos quickly waved a piece of paper in front of Elassa’s eyes.

‘We’re losing them so keep moving. I’ll write and move. I assume you can talk and fly at the same time, right?’

“Of course.” Elassa replied. Olephia kept on writing at the two women followed the four drones now across the ocean to the next spot. They were going at one city a day, now it was day six so city six was going soon. It most likely had some name, it probably had history and culture and everything else that every city had. Yet to Elassa and Olephia, it was merely another spot in the ocean. Another job to do.

Elassa followed the drones, every now and then, her eyes passed over to Olephia. And each time, she was impressed by how much text the woman had written. And then eventually, Olephia tapped Elassa’s arm and passed her the paper:

‘Elassa, let me be clear because you obviously struggle to understand me. You should be ashamed of yourself but I understand that you have the mental stability of a child and the social skills of a magician, so already you’re two steps behind compared to most other people.’ Elassa paused and then looked at Olephia. This Goddess in the purple wasn’t even looking at her, instead she was staring down at the water! She had this to say and then she had the gall to ignore Elassa? Excuse me!? ‘Point three against you is that you’re a major Divine, that may be the worst of all, so I understand. In the same way that a child should be ashamed for stealing from their parents, you should be ashamed. Yet in the same way that the parent should not hold it against the child the first time around, I will not hold it against you.’

Elassa didn’t know whether to graciously go down to her knees and start thanking Olephia or whether she should be ashamed of this scolding. One thing that she certainly wasn’t was angry, because it was the same as being angry at Allasaria. At the end of the day, what would that anger help? ‘I have come to you with a smile and with an open mind and you, as I unfortunately predicted, have merely used the fact I did not tell you to shut up to pester me about my power. ‘

‘No. I cannot speak. I am aware of how my power works. You and everyone else knows I personally resigned myself to northern Epa specifically to avoid contact with civilization. I know its intricacies only insofar as the general rules. I have shared them with you because I do not care for secrets. They are beyond me.’ Elassa looked to Olephia again, those purple eyes turned to coldly meet Elassa’s blue. ‘I know this sounds arrogant, yet it is not because of my power. I simply know myself, I know what I am and I do not change for other people. I lay myself bare for other people. If you do not like me, then so be it. That is not particularly offensive to me, I am sure I am hated by a great many people. But there is something else you need to know.’

‘I hate you. I utterly despise and hate you and your mentality. Elassa suddenly wished she could just fly away. To leave Olephia here, yet if the woman had not done anything to her yet, she didn’t want to do anything drastic. Yet this does not mean I will hate you forever. Do not think I am incapable of offering redemption. My good graces are not a fortress, they’re an open garden. Nothing I wrote is a lie or has some double meaning. ‘

“Oh.” Elassa said. She didn’t know how to reply exactly. Had she hurt Olephia? Annoyed her? Didn’t the woman realise how major she was exactly? Of course everyone would be interested in her. It was the same as Elassa talking about magic. “Sorry.”

Olephia shook her head and got to writing again. And half a minute later, Elassa got another reply. It was extremely short for how short it was. ‘Is that all?’

“Excuse me?”

‘Do you not have anything else to say?’

“I’m apologizing for insulting you.”

‘You are stupid.’ Elassa stared at the paper and bit her tongue. It was Olephia at the end of the day. And then she got another piece of paper. ‘This is why I hate you. Because you think you can apologize to me. No Elassa. Do you even understand why I’m annoyed?’

Elassa had to think for a moment, but it was more to pick her words out correctly rather than choose the reasoning. “Because I asked about your power.”

And this time, the reply came quickly. ‘Because all you asked about was my power. That’s why. I don’t really care much about it, I’ve said what I needed to say to you about it and I won’t say anymore. Like I said, it’s not because I’m hiding anything, but I have other things going on in my life that aren’t related to the fact I’m the Goddess of Uncreation.’

Elassa read it and then looked back at Olephia. Was this woman actually being serious? “Talk about the elephant in the room.” Elassa said. “Am I supposed to ignore the fact you’re the Goddess of Chaos?”

‘I manage to ignore your station.’

“Let’s not pretend we’re equal here.” Elassa could not believe she was actually arguing against herself. The Goddess of Magic sighed and shook her head. “Apologies then. It’s not… Well, it was interesting to me.”

‘I don’t mind that.’ Olephia replied before passing another slip of paper. ‘In fact, I appreciate that. That’s honesty at least.’

Elassa thought of what Olephia would like to hear, before finally settling down on something that wasn’t a complete lie. “I know you like to paint, but I’m not really a painter or an artist. Your power is just interesting to me.”

‘Alright.’ Olephia said. ‘Whatever, ask away then.’ The drones came to a stop above them and started circling around. Elassa saw them and got to work, she wanted today to be over with. They would return back to the container ship that served as a resting spot and Elassa could hide from Olephia until the rest of the day.

“When you speak, like just before, do you control the explosions?”

‘I guide them here and there. It’s a general area.’

Elassa blinked in surprise. “So you can’t narrow it down?”

‘I’ve never needed to.’

“But it won’t go off underneath me?”

‘I can guide it enough for that not to be an issue.’

“Well I have one last question.” Elassa said. She felt as if she was testing her luck and now, she needed to scream because of the howling winds. It was the same as always, winds picked up and began to howl as the waters below them grew darker and started to turn around a single point. A massive whirlpool, the size of an island slowly began to excavate itself.

‘Go on’

“And what if there was an explosion here?” Elassa asked.

The reply sent a chill down her spine. ‘Do you want to test it out?’ No. Elassa did not want to test it out. She shook her head and Olephia smiled smugly at the sheer concern across the face of the Goddess of Magic. ‘Good, then don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.’ Elassa said nothing, she kept on amplifying the whirlwind around her. This had been done five times already. It was practically ingrained memory.

Elassa would pull up the waters, Olephia would sentence a city with a word, and they would leave. Yet this time, Elassa slowed down as she looked at the water. There was something in them, a huge black snake that circled around. She looked to Olephia and the woman responded with a shrug.

Elassa stopped the whirlwind when she saw a figure emerge from the waters. She knew who it was immediately, the man had an unmistakable look about him that Elassa had hated since the very first moment her eyes had touched the monstrosity of a man. He was taller than Elassa and Olephia, with all his limbs being too long. His neck was the size of his head, his fingers longer than his palms, his arms hung too low down his thighs. With skin that was paled and hued blue like ocean-water and eyes that couldn’t decide whether they were green or red. Mur. Ruler of Uriamel and lord of this ocean.

Mur rose through the air on the back of a huge ocean snake. With multitudes of fins and gills, it looked like a series of fish that had been sewn together. Yet there was only one head and one pair of huge black eyes that blinked every few seconds now that they were out of the water. If it was just Elassa here, then the Goddess would have already started backing away. Mur was an excellent fighter, he could move quickly underwater, in air, he easily competed with the best of them.

Yet Elassa was not alone. Elassa was with Olephia. And whereas Olephia was annoyed and mad at her, there was a certain confidence by being besides Olephia. This was the dreaded Divine that all other Divines feared. This was the Goddess of Chaos. This was the woman who break a city with a whisper. Olephia had never even engaged in a battle, she simply brought the chaos of uncreation with her, wherever she went.

And Olephia was by her side. It was an almost incomprehensibly comforting feeling. Who could touch her now? Certainly not Mur. And certainly not with only that that massive sea-snake or whatever it was. The monster came to a stop from the water as Elassa’s winds gave up. Rain came down, but it did nothing to obscure Mur’s booming voice. “Stop! Stop! I wish to negotiate!”

“We are merely representatives of Arascus. What do you want to tell him?!” Elassa shouted down.

“I’ll sign it. All of it. I don’t care what or how. I’m signing it Elassa. Tell him that. The retreat order has been issued already. You’ve won. You’ve beaten me. It’s over!” Mur’s voice became slightly more pleading. “Uriamel has been defeated. It’s the end of the war!”