The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 323 – Out With the Old

(For readability, this chapter has one Anassa's perspectives in italics, the other Anassa's perspective normal.)

Iniri drew up a salute before Kassandora. There was something in her that questioned if she was doing it correctly or not. At the end of the day, it was the certainty that mattered. Kassandora returned one that Iniri thought looked much cleaner and more professional. “Iniri ready to report!” That was fun to say, Iniri had never thought she would be reporting to Kassandora like this.

“Go on.” Kassandora said.

“I’ve breached the remains of the roots underground and come into the clear. We’re finally through into the underground.”

Anassa appeared before Agrita and Aliana. The Goddesses of Rilia and Allia were both looking over a map of the frontline, discussing the situation. Around them was a swarm of commanders, captains and generals or whatever ranks the men held. No one here was a sorcerer, which meant that to Anassa, they were all the equivalent of middle-managers. Middle-managers in denial, who dressed in camo with shorts and shirts and coats for practicality rather than suits for aesthetics, but middle-managers all the same. An electric light hung from the tent’s scaffolding and illuminated a map of all Rilia. Anassa didn’t particularly care about the intricacies of what was going on, she had never cared. She was given jobs to do, she did those jobs, she found things to do in her own time.  

And right now, there was the job of all jobs to do. Another Anassa appeared several miles away from the camp and took a step towards her own tent, where Elassa’s shipment was being stored. It was a small thing, and she left it in a locked chest, although she doubted that any idiot was actually stupid enough to try and steal from the Goddess of Sorcery. She had a reputation after all.

Agrita and Aliana both looked up, as did the various commanders of the Rilian Front. “Goddess Anassa!” One man said, immediately saluting. The rest of the humans did too. Anassa gave them a half-wave to get them to calm down, they didn’t, so she let them keep standing still. How long would they be able to hold a posture like that for anyway? “Elassa is on the news.” Anassa said. The two Goddesses looked at each other.

“Excuse me?” Agrita said.

“I’m just saying, Elassa is on the news.” Anassa said. Did she want to watch? Not really. Even in the past, she would rather go and have a conversation with the Goddess of Magic rather than watch some propaganda speech. But Malam had told Anassa to inform the two girls on her front that Elassa was going to be giving a speech. Apparently it was something about plausible deniability. That was all the reasoning that Anassa had asked for, and even then it was simply because Malam had a reputation of making people do random trite simply because she herself was too lazy to.

Agrita looked around the room at the men. All of them tanned from the constant trekking in the Rilian sun, and all of them still holding the salute. She saluted them and the men finally dropped the stance. “Do you want to watch it?”

“I was just curious.” Anassa lied. “And I thought you’d want to know.”

“I assume we would have been told then if it was important.” Aliana said and Anassa chuckled a low rumble of a laugh.

“I don’t get information immediately unless it concerns me.” The Goddess of Sorcery said as she tilted her head back to look down her nose at Aliana. It was theatrical, true, but sometimes, little girls like this needed to be put in their place. “I don’t see how you would get it before me.”

Anassa pulled the gemstone from Elassa out of the box. She juggled it with one hand as her sorcery inspected the enchantment. Very obviously made by mages. She rolled her eyes and smiled at the mistakes within it. It was so obviously fashioned to leak energy that Elassa must have been there to micromanage the creation of this gem, even if she didn’t do it herself. She threw it one last time, grabbed it. And then Anassa took a step towards the sky.

Anassa finally got Aliana and Agrita to put the feed on. One of the mortals had brought out a laptop and they were watching a livestream of the broadcast. She sat down and she sighed. Elassa was giving some grand speech and Arascus was there. The Goddess was in a great noble dress of blue and white, with the dressing curling outwards from the neck and slowly becoming white. It was the sort of thing that Elassa would wear. And Arascus was in a black, red, white and gold garb, a short cape on his shoulders that was lined with fur. Anassa smiled to herself, her eyes twinkled as she looked at Arascus, and then she pulled away to see the looks the two other Goddesses were giving him. And the mortals in the tent. All of them were in awe.

Anassa smiled with pride. That was exactly the sort of reaction a person should have when gazing up at her father. She wouldn’t have accepted him as a patriarch if he didn’t inspire these sorts of gazes, and she knew that her own selectiveness was a reason that Arascus had chosen her. Her father was silent as he stared past the camera, the Imperial tricolour of black, white red was hanging behind them, interspersed between Elassa’s warbanner: the three red lightning bolts cracking a world on a sheet of purple. And the Goddess of Magic started to talk. “Arcadia declares that will start a new school in the Imperial Province of Arika. Whereas we fully intend to keep Arcadia as the hotspot of magic, it is not a country, it is a school. I, as the Goddess of Magic, am a scholar and a teacher, I have never once wanted to be a politician.”

“So we have Elassa openly now?” Aliana asked.

“I can’t believe you questioned whether she would join us in the first place.” Anassa had mentioned it only once and she wouldn’t repeat herself. Especially not to girls such as these.

Elassa continued speaking. “Arcadia formally announces that it is now under the protection of the Empire. Arcadia will support the Empire in its wars. The Empire will come to support Arcadia if it gets attacked.” And Elassa lowered her tone as she stared into the camera directly. “I will now state the obvious to the Divines of the White Pantheon and to anyone who wishes for my downfall: Arcadia and Olympiada are half a day’s flight away from each other. Anyone who thinks that this puts Arcadia at risk is wrong.” Elassa held the silence for a moment. “If continents can be cracked, then what is toppling a mountain?”

The other Anassa took a step towards the north. She blinked across a distance of several miles in a single step. It wasn’t difficult after-all. This was the simplest use of perspective there. If an ant could look up at a human and see a giant traverse an impossible distance, and if the distance from an ant to a human was the same as a human to a Divine, why shouldn’t a Divine be able to inspire the same? It was delusional, Anassa knew it was delusional. It didn’t make logical sense the moment one gave it any thought, did that matter? Did it make any sense that every snowflake was unique? No. It didn’t need to make sense, Anassa knew that a human to her was an ant, and thus, she knew what she should be able to inspire.

Half of the nation of Rilia was crossed in an hour.

“Oh.” The Anassa watching Elassa’s stream said as she took a step back and felt the buzzing in her phone. Her head was starting to hurt from the sheer distance between the two consciousnesses. It was a slow pain, but she knew it would quickly spiral into incapacitating her if she tried to maintain this state for any longer period of time.

“You have a phone call.” Agrita said gently and Anassa blinked. She knew she recognized the buzzing, but it had just left her mind. She had been thinking of her other conscious that was currently taking steps through snowy mountain valleys. Anassa shook her head and pulled out her vibrating phone. It was Malam.

Anassa took a deep breath and took a step backwards, out of the tent and into the air. The other Anassa had to stop moving as the Anassa above the Rilian base camp answered the phone. Soldiers walking about or working on great tanks and artillery looked up, but everyone here was used to the Goddess of Sorcery appearing suddenly in the air. “Anassa speaking.”

“Marigold Hotel, Achafen. How long?” Anassa blinked as she pulled the phone away and opened the maps. Achafen… Anassa sighed heavily. It was near the north of Doschia. That would be difficult to hold. With a shaky hand, Anassa brought the phone close to her mouth.

“An hour.” She whispered. There was silence for a moment before Malam answered.

“Can you make it?” Anassa did not have a lot to snap in her. Certainly it wasn’t any major part of her character, but Anassa knew she had a thin barrier between being calm and burning rage. And being asked in that worried tone whether she could make something? What was she? The Goddess of fucking Sticks? No! She was the Goddess of Sorcery! Of course she could make! Who but her could make it?

“I can.”

“He’ll be on the roof.” Malam said and switched off. Anassa stuffed her phone back into her pocket and stepped back into the crowded tent. She knew she wouldn’t hit anyone, it simply wouldn’t happen. But she did knock three of the mortals over with her size as she appeared. Agrita and Aliana both jumped up, and several of the mortals reached for their weapons on instinct. Anassa did not even bother looking at them.

“My sister just called. She was asking if I was watching the stream. Did I miss anything?”

The Anassa in Southern Doschia grabbed hold of the gemstone in her pocket as she took a step. She crossed a mile just like that. Going from one thicket of trees to another. Then she took a step, her head starting to hurt now. She took a step north, then another. And she started to run; her breathing got heavier. There was no reason to try and delay this and frankly, taking things slow would only exhaust her. Sometimes a slow march was a mistake and you simply needed to make a leap of faith powered almost entirely by momentum.

And so Anassa ran. As the Anassa in Rilia watched Elassa’s speech, the Anassa in Doschia blinked from thicket to thicket, under bridges and into shadows. She was sure she had been spotted a few times by farmers and hikers but that didn’t matter. Her alibi was stood in the command tent of the Rilian frontline right now. She passed around a town, then around another.

And the pain in her head got harder and harder. The further away she was, the worse it was. There was no amount of shifting perspective that could delude into thinking that beings should not exist this far apart. She was a Goddess, but Goddesses weren’t omnipotent. She made sure not to look up at the sky, it always made her feel sick when she was far away enough from herself to see the sun from two different angles.

And finally, with her head spinning, Anassa found a sign that said Achafen, ten miles. The other Anassa took a step back again and opened the maps on her phone as the Anassa in northern Doschia once again stopped. The Goddess of Sorcery searched for the Marigold Hotel, it was in a rich section of town. Tall buildings of sandstone were around it, there were cars driving about. Anassa saw a blur of people walking, although she had to squint to make everyone out.

Her eyes went to the roof of the Marigold Hotel. She narrowed her gaze, she could pick out a black shape that was most likely a person. It had the silhouette of one at least. Anassa felt her stomach gurgle and wanted to throw up. She kept it in, she took one final step before the distance overwhelmed her.

“Are you alright?” Agrita asked the Anassa in the tent. Anassa knew her cheeks were flushing, she had wobbled as if about to collapse, and she felt the Goddess of Rilia’s arm around her.

“Just drank too much.” Anassa said the first reason that came to her mind. Malam knew how to push her, that much was certain.

Anassa stepped onto the roof of the Marigold Hotel and fell over. She saw Wissel Ellenheim, King of Doschia, jump up at the sound of her collapsing and turn around. The man wore a black suit, no cape, with a band of silver around his arm shaped like a crown. Two black boots, and with a rather handsome face. That face tilted to the side and the man almost dropped the phone. “Anassa?” He asked.

Anassa did not answer. Instead, she pulled out the gemstone and undid the weave of magic holding the beam together. She would be able to do it whether she was sick or dying, things like this, she didn’t even need to think about frankly. Her sorceries undid the enchantment around the catalyst on instinct. Wissel opened his mouth, but he didn’t get time to close it.

With the weave undone, the magic released. There was enough power in that gemstone to pierce Kaczaw Dam. It released a blue beam that would have incinerated Wissel whole where he stood. Anassa missed, but not badly. The man lost half of his body. His arm fell down, the phone bounced on the ground. One leg fell forwards, the other fell to the right.

Anassa looked down at the phone, the screen cracked, or maybe it was her own vision. But it still was on. For a moment, the Goddess of Sorcery actually panicked that someone knew of this. And then she squinted and managed to put the letters together: Helenna. The Goddess of Love spoke through the speaker. “Is it done?”

“It is done.” Anassa answered. Helenna dropped the call and Anassa disappeared. The gemstone fell from her hands, just as had been planned.

The Anassa in Rilia sighed with relief as the tension of keeping two consciousnesses over a thousand mile apart faded away.