One fual differeween Kassandora and Fortia’s leadership styles is their perspectives on warfare. Fortia treats war as a means to an end. From a grander perspective, there is a cold, pragmatic, business mind about her. Just as a business will try to avoid cutting jobs, Fortia will avoid going to war, but when the need calls for it, both will go against their short-term is for long-term profits.

  Kassandora oher hand is an artist. War is the end goal for her, much like the act of painting fulfils those truly passionate in the subject. Kassandora will disagree with me of course, but she is merely a musi stuck pying the same tune for millennia. It is only natural that Kassandora would appear in Epa, where other nds treat war as a matter of settling disputes, Epa treats war as a crucible which fes new legends and ideals.

  I do not agree with Fortia, Maisara or Alsaria that Epa has somehow been subdued. The tyrannical magocracies are always held over my head in some attempt to remind me why I should be satisfied with just Arcadia, yet where mages the first tyrants? The Age of Heroes stemmed for those a Empires, which were just as pragmatic as mine. What of Alsaria’s Purgings? Fortia’s forceful peaforts? Maisara struggles to uand this, yet the ao why her factory-towns only fun in Epa is quite simple.

  Epan simply have tyranny in their blood. The White Pantheon is fulfilling that need currently, with our benevolent tyranny, but Alsaria’s ideals will never work. If they are given an inch, they will walk the entire mile aurn to their famed artistry that paihe Goddess of War.

  - Excerpt from “Mere Musings on the Post War Order”, written by Goddess Essa, of Magic. Kept within the Divine Library of Arcadia.

  Agrita, in her heavy pte armour, armed with spear and shield, jumped off the roof of the train as she looked out over a bea eastern Rilia. Her nd, no matter what anyone else said, was the most beautiful in all Epa. The tall cliff immediately behind the beach, the multitude of stairs carved out into the roen to walk down, the benches and vils pced high on the cliffs, y. The lorees that peered over the cliff to gaze out onto the o. The magnifit Sun above was only rising in the dawn, casting long shadows onto the o and the sea beyond the beaches. If there wasn’t an invasion going on, Agrita would have taken a moment to enjoy the view.

  But there was an invasion going on, and Agrita had beeo this location. The nd here was mountainous and grassy, Agrita could not even begin to sider how the White Pahought moving onto Rilia from the eastern coast would be feasible. But frankly, she assumed Fortia knew better thahere was no reason to have an ego here, maybe if it was some minor iion from Olympiada, Agrita could argue, but against the Goddess of Peace? The woman who led the White Pantheon’s forces against Kassandora’s Legions? No. Agrita was not going to start pretending she was a better strategist than Fortia. Not today.

  “STOP!” She shouted to her unit. Each Epan army was fielded in a different way. Rancais and Doschia had both amassed their troops into overwhelming forces, but Rilia had too long of a coastlio defend. If one of the major Divines came, then a retreat would be called. Saksma and Olonia had both growupidity to somehow think they could match Fortia in bat, but Agrita khat wouldn’t happen. They couldn’t defeat Kavaa yet, and she saw how Fer had handled Kavaa.

  Fortia and Maisara were simply in different leagues. If Agrita saw them, she would order a retreat immediately. But what was the ce of that? Sonar from ships and stations said that there were more than forty different armies approag Rilia uhe o. It was a short walk across the sea from Gracya. News said that Allian ships were being intercepted by mermen and sea-monsters. That wasn’t surprising frankly, the White Pantheon had plenty of friends. “AIM! AT THE BEACH!”

  Two forces had already nded elsewhere in Rilia, both had been small scouting forces of a few hundred bronze-cd Guardians. Both had been quickly routed by men armed with the on Divihat had been rescued from Drayim. Both had been recorded by drones. Agrita could have watched those videos a thousand times, and she still would struggle to believe what she saw.

  But now, the same se was unfolding before her. The o was retreating in an unnatural manner, as if it reparing to unleash a tidal wave on that thin beach. And theer stopped, it started to swirl and spin like a carousel. And it spun itself until a tunnel ened in the o. As if it had just been dug out of a stone mountain. A tunnel formed in the o, as if a giant snake had just burrowed out of the water a a giant opening.

  Ihrough that opening, men with fshlights were slowly marg towards the beach. It would be good if Agrita could find whoever it was that was creating these uer tunnels, she was sure that some magi could be shot to colpse them, but that was a question that would not be answered today. The first mahe tuurned off his fshlight and looked up at the beach, the cliffs that immediately followed it. There was a set of stairs for civilians here, most had been evacuated or chased away by Agrita’s forces to make sure they would not be hurt in the crossfire of the battle.

  The men behiarted to take position, lying on the ground, rifles in front of them as they crawled towards the edge of the cliff. They were only here to mop up the survivors, Agrita turo look at the train that had brought her here. Rilia had an exparaiwork, it was easier to y rail around cliffs than it was to excavate a wide se of ro order to clear enough space for a road. And those rails gave Rilia the unique opportunity to use these.

  A steel monster so grand it was almost farcical, it was a train. This one came with the main engine and three wagons. Two armed with massive ons, the calibres were rge enough frita to stick her entire leg into the barrel. The third wagon, sandwiched between those two gun-carts, sat one filled with ammunition. Pistons were hissing as arms were extending out from the base of the cart, the rails themselves groaned as the guns turned. Men ran out, some fixed steel supports to the wagon, others were running oructure of the train, on those thin ptforms, most without even a railing, and small es were ferrying the shells from the ammunition wagon to the guns themselves, with each shell being as rge as a maire torso.

  This was the first time Agrita had seen them in a. The one di Leonardo, named after the engineer who had desighe monster. Agrita took a step back as the engineers started pulling leavers, more pistons hissed, the two railway guns slowly crept upwards. Their barrels casting long shadows as they started their calibrations. When Agrita had seen them, she was sure they would not work. Now, seeing the rails strain as the on’s moved, seeing the supports being driven into the ground, she still doubted it. Even as the metallig of oil and that smell steel always, the engihat were mere ants scurrying owo metal colossi, even as it all worked so beautifully together, Agrita could do not see how something se could ever work.

  “FIRING IN TEN!” One of the engineers shouted from the highest pointed of the ammunition wagon. Other men were signalling to him, and Agrita took a step back, towards the cliff. She drove her spear into the ground and made sure to hold on, just in case. She turned back to look off the cliff. In the distance, oher side of the beach, more Rilian soldiers had positiohemselves to block off the route south. “he engiarted ting down.

  “EIGHT!” The set-up had taken so long that the Guardians had all made it onto the beach, and that uer tunnel which had allowed them to step onto Rilian soil had closed.

  “SEVEN!” Agrita felt her fiighten around her spear.

  “SIX!” She saw the around her put earplugs into their ears.

  “FIVE!” Most of the followed up the earplugs by stig their entire fingers in.

  “FOUR!” Agrita supposed she should do the same.

  “THREE!” The sound of the engineer’s t-down was somewhat muffled now.

  “TWO!” Agrita squinted, half of her still in disbelief and half of her excited.

  “ONE!” Here it went.

  “FIRE!”

  The explosion came first. Then the wind. Agrita was almost knocked off her feet as her ears started ts. Her nose fot how to breath, her mouth fot how to close. Her ears started t as she fell down onto her knees. Her visio dull for a moment, and she had to blink that stunned feeling away.

  Agrita’s eyes re-focused on the Guardians on the beach. If she were a human, she would have missed it. But she was Divine, and she saw the twe shells crashing down upohey came from almost straight above, as if the Heavens themselves had decided to smite that part of Rilian sand on this day.

  For one moment, there was a beach, the rolling seaside, Fortia’s Guardians in their bronze-gold armanizing themselves into parties. Some had noticed the sound and were quiough to read look up. Others were still reag, looking around at the cliffs in fusion. Agrita was sure a few of them had seen her.

  And the moment, there was two massive eruptions. She had expected fireballs but somehow, these two defeaniions were more impressive. Agrita watched as those men in that gold-bronze armour scattered on the beach. She watched as they were flung upwards by the huge explosions from her artillery, it was just two, and they had just singlehandedly stopped aire invading force. She had thought she’d o go down and assist them, to duel with the leading Divine, but no. Nothing like that, Fortia had not eve a Divio support these men. Was that why the White Pantheon had lost in Kirinyaa? Because this is how they fought? That was no surprise then that Kassandora could defeat them even when her nation ut under a global embargo. Frankly, Epa should be free rather than uhe boot of people who threw lives away so carelessly as Fortia had just done.

  Agrita allowed herself a smile. This war was going to be easier thahought.

  Fortia looked over her maps and at the various feeds ing from the drones in the air. This was one immediate differeween fighting Epa and fighting Arascus. Arascus had enough petent members, enough sorcerers and enough Divio shoot down spy drohese Rilians probably did not even know the spy drones were h overhead.

  The other was that btant show of force. Kassandora would have answered these small probing attacks with Fer, with Anassa, or if there was this many, she would have sent small teams to iigate hunt Fortia’s men down from the mountains. These had been mere probing attacks, to see how Rilia would react. It did cost lives, but it was all in the service of crafting a peace that would outst even Pantheon Peace. She would ehe battlefield herself on the assault, that would be a push of two waves, with o of small teams once again pulling the attention of Rilia’s artillery, and then Fortia would e in with the main force.

  That artillery would be a problem, but Alkom or Zerus or Sceo could be pulled to serve in the immediate seg of a beachhead. It was more destructive than Kassandora’s artillery, easily. The Lemurs and Binturongs did not pare, but Fortia would rather face a hundred of these Epan trains thatery under Kassandora. Why even mount artillery on tracks? Fortia started fetg railway maps of Rilia, it would be impossible for the try to have a rail work spanning down the whole coast. Fortia’s smile curled upwards as she found the spot.

  Holy, she missed Kassandora. Putting down these mortals and their silly little mascot Goddesses was going to be too easy.