Chương 242: Chapter 315 - Slaughter

Liuan found herself in the Ominian's dream, standing before that dark throne. The Ominian sat there, looming silently. Though They seemed dead, Their flesh churned, wings rustling, the stone flesh swirling like slow-stirred molasses. The body still had those five empty wounds. Rage and fear gripped her in equal parts. She wasn't a fool; diviners checked her every meal for poison, and no one with a soul disguise should have been on board.

Somehow, Gabriel had infiltrated the airship, though she didn't even have the slightest idea how. The currents of her soul had slowed, as they did when one slept. The soul mirrors the body. The body, the soul. Killing her wouldn't make sense, because then she'd just know to fight Gabriel in the next cycle. It must be a sedative. Gabriel had been as patient as her. However, what he had in guile, he lacked in discipline.

Of all the Prophets, the only weaker one was Celen, and none were less knowledgeable in soul magic. Liuan examined her soulform, then felt her connection to the Mask in her soul, and more importantly, the focus embedded in it. Next, she reached for her soul repository—but couldn't sense it. Not a complete fool, then. He's removed it. She focused inward, locating where the poison was mirrored in her soul. It was a subtle thing. Hard to detect, and harder to stamp out.

If it had been some sort of lethal poison rampaging around her insides, it would have been easier. With no soul repository, this was going to be painful. Liuan braced herself and drew from her own soul, scouring the corrupted currents within her. She had few relevant runes to work with in the Mask, so some of her uncontrolled soul energy splintered off and lances of pain shot through her. Here, her expertise in precision bindings within the head could come into play.

She moved through as quickly but carefully as she could. Then she interwove several bindings that would purify blood moving up her carotid arteries. She felt a tug at the center of her heart. Her temporal anchor. One of the blades had just been folded in. He'd removed her adamantium breastplate, then. She had little time. The violet focus had also been torn from her grasp, so controlling her own sleep was a challenge.

Instead, she spiked her own adrenaline by stimulating the soul currents that reflected the endocrine glands. It wasn't enough. Liuan steeled herself, peeling pieces of her soul off and forming a blade with them. Then she brought the blade of wild energies plunging down into her own leg. She woke with a gasp.

"…healing her. It's a powerful poison, so he needs not to be distracted," one of the priests was saying. Liar, she tried to say, but a spell was paralyzing her. She felt another blade of the temporal anchor folding in. Liuan manifested the Mask of the Fifth Prophet, then poured all the soul energy she could muster into severing his spell. Though her body was bound, it still shook in pain. Gabriel's eyes widened.

"Shit. She's—" The celestial spell was severed. Liuan used raw force magic to hurl her adamantium cuirass that had been torn off her and set aside right at Gabriel. He swore again as the resonant spell resistance brought their auras into contact, sending waves of disruption through his aura. The binding spell vanished.

"GUARDS!" she screamed. But they were already there, having been held at bay only by doubt and the lies of one of the traitors Gabriel had recruited. The Sorcerer Elite tasked with protecting her burst down the door, spells pouring out of them in a barrage. Liuan hesitated for a moment. She could remove Gabriel's anchor now, but that would only assist Mirian. Mirian and her allies were by far the bigger threat; she could always deal with Gabriel later.

"Kill them," she ordered. Gabriel only had a moment to give an exasperated sigh, and then his head was severed, the blood neatly contained by a gather liquid spell.

"Sacred One… are you alright?" someone asked. Liuan realized she was shaking. Her soul had spallations in several places, and she felt weak—possible internal hemorrhaging from how she'd needed to cleanse the poison while still in the dreamscape.

"I will need… a moment," she said.

"That was one of the Saints. Mind controlled by the heretic prophet, no doubt." The lie came easily to her lips. Accusing her enemies of her own tactics had served her well, and she saw no reason to change that.

"Fetch me a team of real priests and their sacred instruments. Withdraw the airship to the deep rear of the lines and perform a full search for traps, poisons, or anyone in a soul disguise." There was a chorus of acknowledgment. Most of her guard spread out to relay orders, with several of the Sorcerer Elite remaining behind to keep watch. Liuan tried to stop her hands from trembling, but the fear she'd felt from what had just happened had no more stopped coursing through her than the poison had.

While her woven bindings were keeping the poison from reaching her mind, she had no such way to prevent the remnants of the terror that had seized her. She had forgotten how terrifying death was. You were right not to trust, she thought. You just should have taken it further. It was always a competition. Humanity is incapable of sharing power.

Even the dream didn't feel restful. There was this pressure on Mirian—so much to do. So many lives at stake. Even when she needed to rest, she couldn't. Even beneath Ceiba Yan's boughs, there was no peace. War did more than steal lives away. As the cycle progressed, finding the connection to the Omnian's dream was getting harder and harder. Not a cycle, she had to remind herself. The final path through the flames. She saw Zhuan's form struggle to manifest. At last, she did.

Ceiba Yan's form was still strong at least. She felt Zhuan's smile as her spirit connection stabilized and she saw Mirian.

"Construction is nearly done. There's more runework, and then we await your final check on the device. Construction on the fortifications has already begun, and the primary shield engines and the defensive gardens are well under way." Mirian smiled back, though hers was forced. Not for anything that Zhuan had done, but because while her lover had been building, she had been watching lives cut apart.

"The Akanan advance continues to move at a crawl. At this rate, we'll see moonfall well before the Akanan army reaches the regulator, but only if we maintain this rate. The east Setarab and Alatishad have both been nearly evacuated of civilians. Of course, there's always those who stay behind. Any word from our seekers?" Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"No. There's movement in Akana, but I haven't heard from any of our contacts, nor have I located Jherica or Celen in the dream. And Gabriel's been a shadow." As was to be expected.

"We'll need more reinforcements along the west fork of the Setarab. More work is needed to strengthen the defenses on our side of the river. Be ready to close the supply route and send our… wait. Someone's trying to contact me." Zhuan sent the feeling of a quick hug.

"Then go." Mirian replied in kind, then woke herself. A new group had formed after the attacks on the Gates, calling themselves the Prophet's Guard. One of them stood before Mirian now, wearing a mythril amulet and orichalcum bracers over a red robe.

"Sacred One, there's strange movement in the Akanan lines. Assaults have tapered off across the central front, and all dreadnoughts have been withdrawn well to the rear of their usual position. We thought you should be alerted." Mirian rose. There was no need to manifest her armor; Equinox was always on her these days. The discomfort had already saved her from disaster once.

As soon as she was outside, she cloaked herself in total camouflage and cast her anti-divination scheme, then sent a remote voice spell to the team of mages maintaining the illusion of her in the sky.

"I'm coming in to replace you. Do we suspect an ambush?" One of the sorcerers cast her communication spell back.

"Unsure, Sacred One. We believe the Sorcerer Elite are still mostly aboard the airships. There's been no mass repositioning of artillery one might expect. However we can't rule out there's been movements we haven't detected. There's a lot of… a lot." That was an understatement. There was far too much for any one group to track.

"Affirmative. Keep your illusion in place for another minute. When you see my assault begin, withdraw and rest up." To the nearby Prophet's Guard and Praetorians, she sent, "Assemble in the forward positions. Relay information to rear artillery units to be prepared to hit aerial targets. I'm going to push in and see what damage I can do. We may have an opportunity to cull some of their elite forces." A cacophony of remote voice spells came in acknowledging her orders.

By then, Mirian was well above the battlefield, using divination to watch her arcanists who were veiled in their own camouflage spells withdrawing. The last few were staying behind for just a bit longer. Mirian streamed forward with supreme levitation. Her divination defenses remained effective against the long range spells, then they were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detection present across the battlefield. Artillery began to crank their barrels skyward.

However, she was a hard target to pin and hit—only sheer saturation of the air would force her to retreat, unless they could get their Sorcerer Elite in place. She sent several divination spells out, checking for levitation glyphs, checking one last time to see if they really had withdrawn that far to the rear. When there was no return, she sent the signal to her mages. Their illusion vanished, and she dismissed her invisibility, giving the appearance that she'd just teleported several miles.

Then she began to rain death upon the battlefield. The Akanans had already learned not to keep their forces as concentrated after her last attack. Their priests did what they could to fortify the souls. Orichalcum jewelry and armor had been spread out among the officers and infantry enough to prevent her most potent mass death spells from simply culling soldiers as quickly as she had before. Yet, there was no one on the battlefield who had the sheer breadth of experience in magical combat.

Even the most veteran battlemage had fought a fraction of the battles she had. Mirian's spells came crashing down on the Akanan lines. Lightning crackled down into trenches, filling them with white light and thunder. Magnetic explosions ripped through the artillery, while searing rays ignited ammunition, causing smoke and toxic plumes of mana to burst from the degrading glyphs and foss. As she flew over the battlefield, the sounds of war drowning out the screams of the dying, she felt a deep pain surfacing.

They'd had a long time to discuss the philosophy of the final loop. Almost anything might be permitted in the ones before it—everyone was doomed anyways—but what about the final one? In every society on Enteria, murder was a crime, and premeditated murder was treated as far worse. How could society function if it weren't? A single murderer was despised, and any time one made the broadsheets, people would shake their heads at the monstrousness of the crime.

When convicted, they watch their execution with no small sense of satisfaction. Yet anyone who held the nations of Enteria to the same standard would be branded a fool. Infantry were trained in efficient murder. Workers constructed the instruments of death on assembly lines. Entire industries existed purely to make more effective killing machines.

Researchers like Professor Endresen could only dream of the budgets and materials dedicated to developing better offensive magic, and what funds they did get were largely because their discoveries might benefit the efficiency of spell carts and artillery. Intelligence agencies carefully collected information of the would-be victims.

Generals premeditated murder on a scale that the most depraved criminal could only dream of, not restrained by the state, but paid well for their work and assisted by thousands of staff so that the plan of slaughter could be improved, streamlined, and perfected. In their chambers of governance, representatives and prime ministers figured out how they might divide up the spoils of these mass atrocities, or perhaps use the threat of one the same way a highwayman might make his salary with the gesture of a pistol.

The same people condemning the death of a single person would gleefully read about these pre-planned slaughters, and even shout down those that voiced concerns. No court would punish the killers for their crimes. Farms burned, entire towns were razed, and cities smoldered. There was a transcendent criminality at work, and for years, Mirian had been the one condemned to be killed. She had, in a literal sense, experienced the terror of those she now eviscerated from the sky.

As Prophets, they joined the ranks of these murderous exceptions. They held life and death in their hands in a way that no ordinary person could. Knowing who would die and how, what responsibility did they have to save lives?

The normal standards simply couldn't be applied, and by the end of the Second Prophet's reign, societies had begun to carve out Prophet's Dictum, hoping that the next time a Prophet showed up, that much less blood could be shed through assassinations and wars as the Prophet ascended to the heights of power and bent the world in their chosen direction. Prophets were less people and more a nation in miniature. It had been easy to plan these deaths when Mirian had constructed the defense of Torrviol.

It had been easy when she'd only needed to have a few mercenaries and Praetorians die for her to face down Apophagorga. Then she had needed to plan for the fate of the very world. She had tried to bend the path away from the mass death. Perhaps, she had thought, the conquest of the Second Prophet had been necessary because he had been alone in his timeline. Perhaps the religious wars of the Third and Fourth Prophets had been because of poor planning, or unexpected events that came from longer loops.

Now she was here, above a battlefield, contemplating the nature of humanity. She still wondered: was it always inevitable? Would the wars have come without Liuan? After all, most wars had come without any intervention from a Prophet. There was a lesson that humanity needed to learn, one that needed to cut across the fields of time and reveal itself not just to a single generation that had gained wisdom from the experiences of their own time, but to the generations of distant futures.

Mirian knew the social systems of Enteria, both present and historical, were insufficient. Kingdoms, Triarchies, and Empires had all proven inadequate, as had the Baracueli and Akanan Republics. Zhuan had helped open her eyes to the structural aspect of it: that the flaws of governance were not from individuals, but from the environmental pressures around them, including received wisdom, including the tools of destruction they were handed. It had taken decades for Mirian to understand the true shape of things.

For all that she had planned for this war, she'd hoped to avoid it. And yet, her hand had been forced. Once given inertia, armies could no longer be turned by words. The forces pushing them forward were too overwhelming. It took this—it took a rain of death and destruction to break apart the social chains that bound them, to shatter the veils of lies that blinded them. It was this regret, this pain, that Mirian felt as her spells ripped through the Akanan army.

Like her, the people below had all had hopes and dreams of some other life. Once, she had been as blind as they were to the strings of manufactured fate dragging them into slaughter. But she could see no other way. She felt for them—but she couldn't relent. As a Prophet, she was more a state than a person, and had to see farther, had to operate using a different ethical code. She had to be the blade that cut through the old and rotten systems, piercing stagnation and corruption and letting in a new light of wisdom.

For a better future, she told the souls as her bindings funneled them up to her and she used them to fuel her slaughter. It felt like a pitiful consolation now. She only hoped what they were able to build afterward was a better monument to honor their deaths. The minutes dragged by as Mirian rained fire and lightning down on the Akanan army. She kept mobile, sweeping through the air, casting rough illusions that flew in every direction as the Akanan guns tried desperately to hit her position.

At last, she saw the airships repositioning, skiffs and dreadnoughts creeping towards her as formations of mages levitated from their decks.

"Be ready," she sent to her Prophet's Guard. In the distance, the dreadnought cannons opened up on her position.