The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 390 – On the Back Foot

Neneria has never taken part in politics. I wish I was older, so that I would know what happened in her early life to make her turn out this way or whether the woman has always been such a timid soul. The woman sat out the Age of Heroes, only appearing infrequently whenever enough sacrifice was given. I strongly suspect that Neneria simply destroyed the sacrifices given to her and that the ridiculous price she asked was one to stop beggars calling upon her.

The woman sat out the Era of Worldbreaking too. Neneria’s land, as the patch of land she had settled down on, became one of the spots of refuge on Arda. The few mages that approached the Goddess of Death were struck down immediately by her touch. We knew that the woman had a prized winged horse, the animal was a ghost before I even incarnated, but there was no such thing as Neneria’s Dead Legion, even up to the Era of Worldbreaking.

Maybe we left her alone too long. Ultimately though, if the woman lonely then was it not her own fault for inflicting such banal isolation upon herself? Of all the different Divines to exist, then there is Elassa and there is Neneria who simply don’t care for sharing their power. Yet the Goddess of Magic at least takes joy in teaching. What does the Goddess of Death take joy in? The few times I have met Neneria, she has been so adamant that she has hobbies and finds enjoyment in life that I left not believing her. The woman once told me she liked training horses, at the time, she lived on a mountain. Another time, she admitted to liking cooking, this was as she lived alone without so much as a pot to her name.

Whatever the case was, it was Arascus and Irinika who approached Neneria. That was before this whole mess we are in now. What they said to the woman, I do not know. But I know that it is after that meeting with the God of Pride of and the Goddess of Darkness that Neneria actually started to collect souls for some grand reason. Before, she would assist souls in passing and dispel particularly troublesome ghosts.

Neneria started soul collection then, but it is after Malam and Kassandora joined that we realised that we realised what sort of terror was actually silently being brewed by the woman. It stopped being soul collection and it became a conscription of the dead. Everyone has always known about Arascus’ plans for the Eternal Empire. All of us have great dreams, Fortia dreams of World Peace, I dream of order in humanity. Allasaria must dream of something too. Elassa, I know, wants to learn all there is to learn.

Normally, dreams are not taken seriously. They are dreams because they are passive thoughts within one’s mind. Yet Arascus’ dream of eternal Empire no longer seem so far-fetched when he had a Goddess who could conscript for eternity.

- Excerpt from “The History of Arascus’ Family”, from the section “Death.” Written by Goddess Maisara, of Order.

Iliyal sighed as he leaned back. Another phone-call. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate already. What was he anyway? Some sort of animal wrangler? He had a whole army to delegate orders to. The elves he was training tried their hand at assisting him at least. But that meant he simply had someone to delegate logistics to. And logistics were all they were good at right now anyway. That and drafting battles plans which would get thrown out the moment they learned more information on how Anarchia worked and her blessing operated.

Then Iliyal had these robots that he was supposed to propagandize with. Goddess Kassandora would know. Iliyal was sure she would. She’d have an idea immediately and immediately she would be able to conjure up a whole new world for the public to believe in. But Iliyal was not Goddess Kassandora, so when he looked at the little machines, he only saw boxes with rotors and wings. Helenna herself was not bad. The woman knew what she was doing for one and she didn’t ask many questions. The only annoying thing was how many compliments she handed out. Iliyal didn’t know if the woman was really this nice, or if it was just performative. His instinct said the latter and his mind didn’t appreciate the former. Her film crew was a whole other matter though. Civilians on the frontline line were always a disaster and these were no different. Where Helenna managed to drag these fools from, Iliyal did not know, but he hoped that the first thing they did after this job was done would be to crawl back into their pit of uselessness.

And now Iliyal looked at his phone buzzing. He always kept it on silent, the sound of the vibration itself was enough for his elven ears to pick up. He looked at the phone slide on map Iliyal had on his desk. What a mess of a table, it wasn’t even organized. A stack of papers were documents to be sent to Helenna. Then there was a request form from the camera crew for access to a helicopter and trained pilots. Three forms for fuel. Yet another angry letter from Paida that Iliyal had only glanced at. Two maps, one of the front and one of Rancais as a whole, with the important things marked out: Anarchia’s location was always tracked and updated. On it a report Helenna had written of the prisoner who had been captured by Anassa: nothing much generally, nothing that Iliyal had not prepared for. The rest of the tent here wasn’t much better. Papers and cheap cupboards were strewn about the place. And then Iliyal’s buzzing phone: Edmonton Weaver.

Iliyal sighed as he answered and left the phone on the table, his ears could pick it up after all even without the loudspeaker. “Sorcerer Weaver speaking.” Iliyal contained his sigh. He knew sending these fools off under Anassa’s nose was a bad choice. And if they were ringing, that meant they were in trouble. He started formulating how to phrase to Anassa that he had allowed her best to kill themselves.

Who was Iliyal lying? Anassa wouldn’t care either way. If they died then they bit off more than they could chew and weren’t cut out to be sorcerers in the first place. That is what she would say. “This is Field Marshal Tremali, what do you want Weaver?”

“We’re in trouble, sir.” Edmonton replied through the phone. Iliyal gave no reaction, he wasn’t surprised at this point. Why else would someone ring him? Of course the boy was in trouble. They wouldn’t be talking if he wasn’t.

“Explain the issue.” Iliyal replied. No reason to be angry at this lad. He shouldn’t be off in Rancais in the first place, but then he had wanted to go and a group of sorcerers were perfect scouts. Anyone else probably wouldn’t return alive.

“We got to Fleur’s home.” Edmonton said through heavy breathes. The footsteps made it sound like he was running. Did they lose someone then? Iliyal had memorized all the sorcerer’s files, he was glad he did. Chateau Renee, south-west Rancais, but more west than it south. Iliyal remained silent and let the boy continue. “Her family wasn’t there, but it got taken over by Anarchia’s followers. They called it a People’s Council.”

Immediately Iliyal got a piece of paper and wrote it down. In one line, the boy had revealed more information all prisoners that had been captured. Whatever Anarchia did to her followers made them so fanatically unbreakable that Iliyal could just about believe they had genuine faith in her cause. “And?” Iliyal asked. “What else? Did you learn anything?” Now that Edmonton had revealed a morsel of information, Iliyal had latched on. The man was useful indeed.

“They organise in People’s Councils.” Edmonton said, then came to a stop. “Sorry, one sec.” Edmonton suddenly shouted, not into the phone but towards someone else. “Eliza! Break the wall.” What sounded to be a rumbling earthquake followed by crashing. Edmonton jumped over something, then got back to Iliyal. “Sorry, we just had to break through a wall.”

“Where are you now?” Iliyal asked.

“We’re heading west.” Iliyal looked over the map of Rancais and realised they were heading to Ordeaux. They had to be. It was on the coast and it was the closest city to Chateau Renee. “Tell me what happened?”

“We got to the Chateau Renee, it got turned, sorry!” There was another crash and a burst of flame.

“Are you under attack?” Iliyal asked. Of course a sorcerer would be the sort to call during a fight.

“Not anymore.” Edmonton replied. Iliyal started pulled away from the map now that he realised the situation He stepped outside his tent and smelled the dirty air. It even tasted like sulphur, soot and fuel. A pair of helicopters were hovering high in the south. A team of men were doing their daily laps. The guards to Iliyal’s saluted as their general left.

“Keep talking Weaver.” Iliyal said. “What happened when you got Chateau Renee?”

“It got made into a People’s Council, filled with Anarchia’s men.” Edmonton took a pause. “We killed them.” Iliyal raised an eyebrow. Then why were they in trouble? He had assumed sorcerers wouldn’t have trouble with even physically up-jumped men. That was partly why they had been allowed to go in the first place. “But the… I don’t know, he didn’t say anything, but the boss? The captain of that whole region.” Iliyal caught the important word: region. So Anarchia did divvy up her authority somehow. Funnily enough, it wasn’t complete anarchy. “He was on the phone, with Anarchia.”

Iliyal immediately saw the problem. The problem for them. And the opportunity for him. If Anarchia was moving away, Aris was open. Videos could be taken of drones flying over the capital of Rancais. He turned to the right and started walking to the radio tent. “Anything else Weaver? Did you find anything out about them?”

“Unconfirmed.” Edmonton said. “Well, we believe it, but we’ve not seen it happen. We fought against a blessed man who said he never saw Anarchia. The assumption we have is she delegates her power.” That was a good catch too. Iliyal blinked as he thought of the possibilities. It meant that if one person with the ability to delegate could get through the lines, then that could be akin to a whole squad sneaking past.

Security would have to be tightened and communications would start needing to be intercepted. “Anything else?” Iliyal asked.

“There’s not much else. We’ve not revealed our sorcery yet.”

“So how have you been fighting?”

“Just with pure magic.” Edmonton said. Iliyal, with his fast footsteps, stepped through the cloth of a black tent. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge the two guards on either side that saluted him. This command tent was a chaotic stew of wires and cables and monitors hung up, with a large generator humming from the back as it provided electricity to all the equipment.

A man slammed into Iliyal. In dark green shorts and with a white shirt, he was part of the administration units. He looked up at the elf, squeaked, and then saluted. Those green eyes shone with panic from underneath his short brown hair. “Apologies Marshal! Apologies! Private Young reporting with information. I was just about to run to your tent Marshal. Apologies again.”

“Report Private.” Iliyal replied as he dismissed the man’s salute with his own.

“It’s on the screen sir.” Private Young pointed to the largest monitor. “Right there, Anarchia has set off. We have satellite imagery, men from Aris reported it too. We’re tracking the plane, it hasn’t turned off its transponder.” The first thought Iliyal had was the she was an amateur, the second was to tell Edmonton.

“Lad.” Iliyal took a deep breath. “Anarchia has been spotted moving to your position. We’re tracking her plane.”

There was no reply for a good few seconds. “Her plane?” Edmonton clarified.

“Her plane.” Iliyal replied. “How quickly can you get to Ordeaux?”

“We…” Edmonton thought for a moment. “Two days? Three? How far is Ordeaux?” Someone shouted through the phone. “Three days at our marching pace.”

“Fly.” Iliyal said. “Fly and get to Ordeaux, you’re not going to stand a chance a against Anarchia in an open field.”

“Okay.” Edmonton replied. Iliyal stared at the arrows moving on that screen. Anarchia was heading south. The north was open. A strike could be done. Helenna’s camera crews could be pushed in deep, since it was confirmed they wouldn’t be attack by Anarchia. Paida could potentially be moved to the frontlines to finally shut her the fuck up. “Iliyal?” And finally, Iliyal was caught by surprise. Did the boy actually call him by his first name? They weren’t friends.

“What?” Iliyal replied.

Rarely did he ever hear such scared and timid voices actually talk to him. It simply didn’t happen in this line of work. “Will you help us?”

“Of course.” Iliyal replied. He held the silence for a few seconds and then turned the phone off. Edmonton could call again if he wanted, but that didn’t matter. He roared across the control room. “Send word to Allia, prepare the fleet!”