Kirinyaa serves as Arascus’ model for a society. If it is allowed to stand then it creates petition to the Pantheon. It is not that we are against the success of Kirinyaa simply to keep them down, it is that the success of Kirinyaa threatens the success of the Pantheon.

  Currently, the dominance of the Pantheon is secured as much through the subscious idea that standing against the Pantheon is unthinkable as it is through our own policies. The Epan Coalition and Kirinyaa both threaten to act as dominos which could make everything we have built e crashing down. For the sake Ardan Peace, both of these fas o be so utterly humiliated that they forever taint the idea of splitting from the Pantheon.

  - Excerpt from a dot written by Maisara, Alsaria and Fortia.

  Damian Sokolowski sprinted across ay road. Rifle boung on his back, suitcase full of pns and papers in his hands. The rest of his and team, Pawel, Mateusz and Wiktor all followed him as they tried to make as much distaween themselves and the slowly tilting building. A tall tower, not quite a skyscraper, but it had served as an excellent vantage point to overlook Nanbasa’s evacuated industrial distrid the mix of wood and crete that made up the sea-wall. A sphere had hit it and the building was starting to colpse.

  If it was an artillery shell, or even just a dud, Damian would have not been sprinting so frantically. He fondled his radio, grabbed the button and screamed into it. “This is General Sokolowski, another one nded on me! I repeat, another nded ohe radio turned off, it buzzed slightly for a moment, and then turned ba.

  “Copy that General.” There was silence for a moment. “RF Seven has been dispatched to your locatioimated time is three minutes. Over.” Damian did not respond, he merely dropped his radio, it started dang on its cain and grabbed onto a sign post to quickly turn. Response-Force Seven, they were positioned north west of him, he should head that way.

  “AFTER ME!” Damian shouted as the three men behind him slid on the ground and started sprinting after him. And behind them, further past the cracked bck tarmad underh the artillery shells a pnes shrieking through the skies as they bombarded the mohat cmbered out the seawall and tried to knock it down. “RUN!” From that toppling building, the sphere that had caused it to colpsed rolled off, crashed into the asphalt as napalm shells exploded in mid-air and something shrieked from the o.

  The smooth sphere split meically. A hexagonal pattern split it down the middle. It cracked into two halves, like an egg. Damia rush of adrenali him like a steam engine as he heard the maddened barking of Uriamel’s dogs. That was the colloquial name, not even Arascus and Helenna knew what these creatures were.

  But six of them burst out from that sphere. As rge as wolves, but with scales instead of fur. Gills on the side of their bodies, their heads covered by a of thorns, their legs ending in long cws. Where they should have had a mouth was a curtain of octopus tentacles underh a dozen crazed red eyes. Foam poured between those tentacles, Damiahere was a beak hidden there.

  A beak that could crush rocks, fet about bone and skin. “BEHIND US!” If there was one, Damian would have given the order to turn and fire. But there were six, eae took about as much firepower as a bull. “RUN!” And so they ran.

  Down one er, with those monsters catg up to them with every step. Another pair of jets shrieked over and unleashed lead as the ons positioned on the skyscrapers all fired in unison. Explosions and napalm and shrieks. Then there was a cheer from the wall and a huge spsh. The misty sea, tinged sour with the blood of Uriamel’s monsters, enveloped the eastern Nanbasa like rain.

  Damian Sokolowski did not turn backwards, he saw RF7 turn around from the er. Two Lyhat quickly trundled along the ground and cracked the roads underh them. Eae with a man crewing the mae gun on top of the turret. “DIVE!” Damian shouted as he jumped to the ground and rolled over.

  He turned around to see Wiktor, Pawel and Mateusz drop down and heard the two Lynx tanks open fire with their mae guns. Using the main gun on the roads had been banned for now, but that didn’t matter too much. The mae themselves were of a rger calibre than what men carried and while the heavy scales of Uriamel’s dogs could gnce pistol shots, these tore through the monsters.

  Owo. Six dropped as Damian Sokolowski fondled for his radio. “This is Sokolowski, RF7 made it in time.” The radio replied almost instantly.

  “RF7 has orders to move past you. I’d advise getting out of there General.”

  “Why?”

  “The Seawall is about to break.”

  Jets and artillery shrieked overhead. More spshing came from the other side of the wall.

  Arascus looked out the window as he watched another squadron of fighters dive and open fire on more of those giant creatures marg out of the o. Nanbasa needed more men for its defences, but every city had been attacked on the coast. Nothing as rge as the capital, some of the attacks had already been repelled even, but it was enough to make sure that Nanbasa stood alone.

  More men were he voluhat were arriving from the nation’s west were simply too small in number. He took a sigh and looked down at the new w. Kassandora was smart, Kassandora was brilliant and, worst of all, Kassandora was right: War did o be scaled up.

  A single signature sentewo million men iy to serve.

  Damian Sokolowski stuck his fingers in his ears the huge anti-air gun started to pound lead into the monsters ing out of the water. These huge double-barrelled ons where first built in preparation for anything from the air. Any assault by massed magis or by Alsaria. Then someone had the idea of simply tilting it down.

  Damian watched as he saw that huge bck crab’s shell burst open in a line as the AA gun focused on it. A pair of KAF jets dived down, autoons wailing, the crab’s leg got hit, the creature lost trol. It colpsed, the two massive cws smashing into denizens of Uriamel as they poured out from the waves. Napalm artillery came in from artillery batteries in Nanbasa’s tral zoo and Sokolowski watched the o be set alight.

  The soldiers of Uriamel, humanoid but obviously not human with all their limbs too long, started to scream and run from the fmes as Nanbasa’s defenders from the wooden seawall, now cracked and revealing the solid sb of crete interced with steel on its inside. And Sokolowski watched more of those giant crabs crawl sideways out of the o. At first, he had been awed by their size. Now, he realised the real danger of Uriamel was not the great beasts it possessed but the fact it could use them to wield eveer onry.

  Each crab had a small ptform on it, from which Uriamel’s anders were shouting down orders at their men. And each crab was helping pull a steel cable out of the water. Sokolowski clicked his radio and talked into it: “This is General Sokolowski speaking, artillery barrage on whatever the fuck just came out of the water.”

  “Roger that, batteries two and four are ready, three is out of ammo. One is operating at three-quarters strength after a vehicle malfun.” The radio said. They would pass on the orders. They passed them on quickly in fact.

  Only a few seds after Sokolowski clicked the radio off, he heard the thundering drumming of artillery from behind him. Sokolowski had never been a hopeful man, so he kept the optimism tained. Good thing he did, the o leapt upwards. The shells that screamed as they fell exploded against that barrier of clear liquid. The water colpsed and Damian saw what the crabs had been dragging out of the water.

  A huge on, a massive tub of bck metal. Damian heard the on to his side fire. He saw the shell of a crab start to crader the fury of its shells. He heard another round of drumming from behind him. Fighter jets screamed from above as they dropped bombs or emptied themselves of automunition. The defenders on the seawall fired. All its turrets turo fired at that tube and at those monster pulling it out of the ground.

  But it didn’t matter. In a mere moment, Damian watched as that tube lit up a bright blue. A beam came down on it as the neighb crab colpsed. Before the monster mao even make a spsh ier, the tube had finished. Damian had seen magis cast spells with their wands, what he just witnessed could only be described as an upscaled version of that.

  And Damian realised what had happened. He grabbed his radio, ready to report the situation. This, Arascus and Kassandora had to know about. A massive hole had been carved through several buildings, as if the beam from whatever the crabs had pulled onto the shallow waters had simply ied the bricks and mortar. A massive hole through the buildings, and through the seawall.

  The o spilled through that broken seawall.

  And all the monstrous soldiers of Uriamel came in a flood with it.

  Arascus had gone off to fight, so Helenna had to mahe logistics. She had only rarely do in the past, and always it was when it was her own pns. Alsaria and Fortia both had doubted her skill in it. And then Arascus had told her that he trusted she would be able to supply Nanbasa with enough ammunition to shoot everyone in Uriamel ten times over.

  Helenna smiled as she leaned bad gave the God of Pride’s seat a spin. fortable, lovely, almost as if it was meant for her. It still had his smell too. She poured herself a gss of red wine and turned from the disaster happening through the window. Arascus was in the air, and Iniri’s Seawall had been broken. That was the front, that wasn’t her demesne.

  Helenna readjusted her bck cap marked with her emblem: the thorned rose of the Goddess of Love.

  She looked down at the paper she had just finished drafting: The National Survival Bill, it banned unions in all manufacturing industries, it imposed a minimum two year prisoence fanisation against bour, it set the death penalty on all wilful sabotage of Kirinyaa’s manufacturing, it instituted fines and impriso in bour camps for deliberate avoidance of work, it would expand the ammunition factories three times over, it would make sure that Arascus had enough ammunition to shoot everyone in Uriamel twenty times over. And it was all done in the name of Love, for each other and for the nation.

  This was her demesne.

  “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE AND HOLD! NOT OEP BACK!” Damian shouted his team gunned down a charging ptoon of Uriamel’s soldiers. When the seawall had still been in once piece, it was farcical that they had e without led rifles. The best they could muster were the harpoon guns and they could only shoot as far as a street was wide.

  Now that the fighting took p the streets, Damian did not find their ons so ughable. Not with the heavy shields that almost all of them were equipped with. What sort of teology it was, Damian did not know, but every soldier had a thin barrier around him that held back lead and fme and napalm and had to be overwhelmed with nothing but sheer firepower. They cracked eventually, but he had seen a single soldier of Uriamel wade through maegun fire that would have downed elephants and keep on marg.

  Damian anazio his gun as the Lynx tank besides him fired. The tread had fallen off, it had caught itself on the pavement and now field engineers were madly w to pull it ba as the turret and Damian’s ptoon worked to defend them. The ground shook, another building started to colpse as gss rained from overhead.

  A helicopter turned a emptied its rocket pods onto the street. It started to pick up altitude, fly away. A bolt came out of nowhere. It impaled itself through the helicopter’s hull, the mae started to lose trol and fall. It exploded somewhere out of sight, the explosion of its engine lost in the hundreds of other explosions from bombs and artillery and on shells.

  Damian looked down the iron sights on his rifle ahe trigger. Two of those monstrous scaled dogs with beaks for mouths aacles for whiskers ate the entire magazine. One dropped on the spot, the other kept on marg until Pawel aimed his s it. He held his breath, pulled the trigger, and the monster’s head suddenly burst open with a hole in the middle. “HOW LONG?” Damian shouted as he saw the rest of this Uriamel ptoon start to charge.

  Damian was about to issue an order tet the tank areat when a bde dropped from the sky. It shot downwards like a needle unched from the heavens. Then another. A third. A hundred. In an instant, a monsoon of bdes from above came from the sky.

  Swords. Swords and spears and axe and all manners of ons reverbed as they stuck themselves into the ground. Eae shaking as pieces of an Uriamel soldier y around it. They tore through armour and scale and bone and flesh as if it aper. And the street was still, Damian eased his finger off the trigger. How many were dead? A huwo? He couldn’t even t all the bodies.

  Damian looked up and he saw Arascus staring down oreet. The God of Pride lived up to his namesake, with a suit and long red cape that flew in the wind, A thousand golden spheres around him, eae ready with a bde, a spear, an axe or a hammer prepared ready to be unched. Arascus said nothing, his face was only deadly serious as he looked at the dead on the ground, sing them for any sign of movement. Ohing twitched, it was immediately pierced by a sword that lodged itself in the ground.

  The God of Pride turned as another of Uriamel’s mourhe er. It hissed, a rider armed with a pike on its back. The thing was as rge as a tank, its front with two horse legs that cracked the tarmac with each step. Its back a slithering shat left a trail. Arascus did not even move.

  A massive silver bde dropped from the sky and split the monster and its rider in two, as if a giant had just decided to cut it in half. Damian swallowed his own spit as he looked up at Arascus again. The God hovered in the air for a few seds, then turned and moved onto areet.

  Damian was gd Arascus was on his side.

  Arascus stood on top of a skyscraper as he picked out another crab marg through the streets. Uriamel’s soldiers around it and a piece of a vehicle in its cws. He took a breath and looked elsewhere dowreets. Killing it was not hard, but there were hundreds of thousands of invaders already in Nanbasa. O could be squashed, but even Gods got tired when they had to stantly be crushing ants. Alsaria was not here yet, but he had to serve enough energy to make sure that the Goddess of Light would be kept at bay. Neneria and Olephia were assisting with the defences of the other cities, they could not be called here.

  Arascus pulled his pho and rang and. They answered immediately, although they always did. “Ground trol speaking your majesty.” The radio operator said.

  Arascus gave his order quickly. “I give permission for bombing runs over Nanbasa.”

  “All units report they’ve moved out of the industrial district.” Wiktor shouted as he flicked a button on his radio. Damian Sokolowski readjusted his coat as he made his way to top of the cresting hill in Nanbasa’s zoo. From here, all he could see was the skyline of the western part of the ring-city. A 77T pne was flying north-to-south along it, carpet bombing the city from high above. Those bombers were the only things that could touch the forces in that part of the city now.

  The crete jungle was too thid too deo allow shelling from an angle. Either bombs would e in straight dowween the buildings, or shells would impact against buildings instead of against the enemies currently in those streets. So the crete jungle had to be cut down. “Anything new? No ge in schedule?” Damian asked. Wiktor pyed around with the bck magic that was the radio trols for a few moments before shaking his head.

  “We have information that they’ve brought demolitionists to tear down the seawall as well.” Wiktor said. “And more are ing in, but that’s about it. Nothing new, no undoted monsters on the horizon.” Damian took a heavy breath. Well, there was nothing to wait for now.

  Damian clicked the button and said goodbye. Goodbye to the grand docks of Nanbasa, to the huge es to lift heavy tainers out of vessels. To the huge factories and warehouses that oarred the skies with fumes and now y silent, most already damaged by the battle iy. Goodbye to the streets, now flooded by the waves of Uriamel’s soldiers and monsters. Goodbye to it all.

  The industrial district of Nanbasa was ripped apart by fmes. The same inferno that had ravaged Fortia’s Army in Melukal ned Uriamel’s in Nanbasa.

  Alsaria returo the great domed cities of Uriamel underh the water. Nanbasa would fall eventually. Kassandora’s trickery could only slow Uriamel down, it could not defeat it.

  Now though, it was time to send a message. The entire world had to know what kind of power the Pantheon possessed, and what kind of damnation would be wrought upon those who decided to stand against it.