The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 405 – Crimson Farm

And so they came on ships of gold.

The sky was the ocean for them.

With a blade that split the sky.

And not with bow or cannon but voice.

Choirs sung songs that marked the end of days.

It was not something Arda could ever hope to withstand.

It cannot be allowed to think that it could stand against such power.

It will not be a great weapon that destroys us.

It will be the shield that deludes us to think we can stand against them.

- Excerpt from “My Time at War”, written by Isaiah Arhling. A White Pantheon soldier turned chronicler after the Great War.

Lyca slowly opened his eyes, then shut them again when instinct kicked in. He thought of flexing his fingers and then contained himself as he stopped moving and feigned the slow, deep, breathes of sleep. He felt his shirt on his chest and gently tested his arms, innocently rolling them as if it was just the twisting and turning of sleep that made him move during a deep dream. No resistance. He wasn’t bound.

A thousand questions entered his mind. Where was he? Why wasn’t he dead? Did Iliyal rescue him? Did Anassa? Was Eliza safe? Were Fleur and Edmonton? Lyca pushed them all away. They were pressing and urgent but at the end of the day, problems were solved, not thought out of. Lyca gently and carefully opened one eye.

It was a clean room. Large. Very large. Warning alarms went off in his head immediately. It was large enough for a Divine. He was asleep on a couch on his side. Ahead of him, two men in casual clothes were sitting and playing a game of cards. One in a white button-up shirt and with long hair, the other in some t-shirt with some stupid cartoon character on the front, he was clean-shaven. They hadn’t noticed he was awake.

Lyca wished he could look around the room but the only reason the men hadn’t noticed him was because they were focused on their game. Could he run? As gently as if he was nudging a kitten, Lyca moved his leg. No resistance there either. He wasn’t tied up or anything. His legs weren’t even bound together. They must be confident then.

Superheroes.

The word came to Lyca’s mind and immediately he realised why there were no bindings. It was the same in Kirinyaa, when sorcerers took prisoners then there would be no handcuffs or chains. Men would stay put because the rope that was fear bound far stronger and far tighter than any material could ever hope to achieve. So he couldn’t run.

Sorcery and magic then. But could he use it? He had to rescue to Eliza. If she was still in here. The warning alarm went off in his mind again. If his friends were here he would have to get them out. That decided on whether he would try to escape now or later. It had to be now, he wouldn’t let Eliza or Edmonton or Fleur sit and rot wherever they were.

It would have to be magic. These were obviously Anarchia’s blessed men. They obviously had to die. If he tried now, he could pretend he was doing something else. There would be a way to get away with it. At the end of the day, he had to try. And he needed to see whether his magic was still there. It was an odd thing, like knowing one could run or walk. You knew you could, but wasn’t the only way to really test out if your legs still worked in the morning just a hard attempt at using them?

He had to test it out, didn’t he? He had to see if it was still there.

Lyca threw his hand forwards as he snapped his fingers. Doubt and confusion immediately left his mind as a string of red sorcery was drawn in the air by his movement and then launched forwards. Red and opaque and brilliant. Anassa had once described it as drawing onto reality whilst using one’s mind as the paintbrush and the paint. That was the truest way to describe it. The wave was sharp yet formless, defined yet without an edge, obviously there yet opaque. It launched forwards ready to behead those men. They didn’t even have time to move, one was mid-way through drawing a card. The other was laughing at some joke.

Lyca’s sorcery disappeared.

Just like that.

It disappeared out of thin air as if he was unable to use it in the first place. As if fatigue had hit him again. But it couldn’t have, he had only just woken up. If Anarchia had permanently stolen his power then he shouldn’t have been able to use it in the first place. A heavy breath from behind him answered everything. A breath too loud to be from human lips. And then a woman’s deep voice: Anarchia’s. “And here I hoped you would be different.” The two men realised what had happened and shot up immediately.

Lyca thought for a moment on what to do. Well, he had been caught. No point in pretending he could still hide. So he may as well take the liberties he could now before ground rules were set down. It was the same as when he dealt with Anassa. Lyca sat up and slowly looked around as if confused. “Don’t pretend now.” Anarchia growled from behind as the men stared at him. Anarchia said something in Rancais and Lyca wished that could understand the language. Whatever it was, it seemed to calm them down. One man sat down, the other said something back. Anarchia replied, the intonation of her words making it seem like the verbiage itself was dancing. The man chuckled. He sat back down.

Lyca felt a pang of annoyance tinged with pride. He had never laughed with Anassa. What sort of Divine told jokes? “You can turn around.” Anarchia said. “Unless you plan on me speaking to the back of your head. That’s acceptable too.”

Lyca realised he had been sat there, unmoving, because that’s what Anassa would have expected him to do. Sometimes, Divines simply needed to be waited on and mortals did not hurry Divinity. He turned around on the couch and saw Anarchia. She had been sitting on a large chair next to a table. Still dressed in the same red shirt and black skirt. Straight dark hair framed her face and her dark eyes seemed to chisel their way into Lyca’s soul. “You just tried to kill my men.” Anarchia said flatly, obviously unimpressed. Yet she didn’t look too annoyed either.

“I did.” Lyca replied flatly. Maybe it was simply what Anassa had instilled into him but there was no point lying to a Divine. Anassa herself had a nose for sniffing out mistakes so Lyca assumed all of them did. It would make sense if all them did.

Anarchia raised an eyebrow, the corners of her lips curling up in a smile. “Well I appreciate the honesty.” She replied. Lyca kept the smarmy reply to himself. “But I did expect you to try and pull something. That’s why I sat here.” Lyca said nothing. The more the woman talked, the higher there was a chance for him to get something out of her. Anarchia sat, twisted her head to a side and continued. “Not much of a talker, are we?”

Was there anything to discuss? He was a prisoner. She had captured him. She had stolen his strength. It had happened before, it had happened now. Lyca touched his chin. One day’s growth. So he wasn’t even out for too long. There would be more attempts. “Apologies.” Lyca replied.

Anarchia laughed at him and mimed the movement of Lyca touching his chin. “How professional!” She said in delight. “They really train you different in the Empire!”

Lyca didn’t know exactly what to say. Was she actually happy? Didn’t ever soldier act this way? He tested his luck and crossed his arms. The Goddess didn’t seem to notice the disrespect, or maybe she didn’t care. Anassa would both notice and care. Anarchia didn’t so Lyca asked the most important question there was. “Why didn’t you kill me?” There was no reason not to and surely the woman didn’t think he would spill military secrets? Even if he did, the reason he knew so little in the first place was precisely because the Empire had procedures to make sure that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t.

“Why do you think?” Anarchia asked dryly. “Surely you would realise by now?”

Lyca stood there for a moment and shrugged. “Because you have a heart of gold?”

Anarchia chuckled. “Why thank you.” She accepted the sarcasm like a real compliment. “That I do! But it’s not just that.”

Surely the woman would tell him? She had to, right? Anassa would never tell, but Anassa wasn’t a child who would gloat in her victory. Anassa was the main character in her own head, and she played her part to an audience made up of her own delusions. “If you want me to-“ Lyca trailed off when he realised. His mind had gone to trying to attack Anarchia and then he realised it had been stolen when he woke up. Stolen again. That last word was the most important: again. “I see.”

“Do you?” Anarchia asked.

“You’re farming us.” Lyca said.

“Very smart to work it out.” Anarchia said. “But yes I am, I do not know how your power regenerates or why it does, but that doesn’t change the fact it does.” The Goddess stopped and smiled at Lyca. “Are you not going to ask about your friends?”

“I assume they’re alive.”

“Well aren’t you brave to talk in a tone like that?” Anarchia asked playfully. Lyca didn’t know if the woman was hoping to tear down his will or to make him terrified, but he supposed she didn’t know of Anassa. “They are though, you don’t have to worry, I’m not you, I don’t kill people when I don’t have to. Especially ones who are useful.”

“Neither do we.” Lyca answered back.

Anarchia didn’t take the bait. “I awoke you to say thank you.”

“Oh?” Lyca asked.

“It’s a guilty conscious I suppose, but your friend saved twenty-lives in Ordeaux. It doesn’t repay for the ones you’ve killed back at Chateau Renee, but it is twenty-three lives nonetheless.” Anarchia extended a hand and a ball of red sorcery, Lyca’s own sorcery, appeared within it. It hovered for a moment and then disappeared. “This is how you atone for your crimes.”

“By stealing my power?” Lyca asked.

“Is it stealing if it comes back?” Anarchia asked.

“Is it hurting if it gets healed?”

“Touche.” Anarchia replied. That was another difference. Anassa would never admit to a mistake. Lyca wondered how far he could push it.

“And if I stop calling it back to myself?”

“It regenerated when you were asleep.” Anarchia said. “I’ll just knock you out again.” Lyca sighed.

“What if I burn out?”

“You won’t.” Anarchia said. “And if you do then consider it a sentencing for the people you murdered.”

“And if I kill myself?” Lyca asked flatly.

Anarchia replied with a knowing smile. “Are you the type to die for an ideal?” Lyca couldn’t help but smile. Well she fucking got him there, didn’t she? The Goddess smiled back. “You’re not a hard man to read.”

“I’m only human.”

“I don’t look down on humans.” Anarchia said. “That’s why people fight for me.”

Lyca replied with a flat stare at the woman. He had seen and heard that talk before. Back at Arcadia, where he had to stand side-by-side and be equal to children who struggled to light a candle at distance. The others were the same, they had all been good enough to survive the Invasion of Kirinyaa. And Arcadia was what? Apparently there were reforms going on under Elassa now, but Lyca had left the school behind long before he met Anassa.

Anassa had simply shown him what he was capable of. Working under Anassa was working under someone better undeniably better than him and Lyca wouldn’t have it any other way. “And people fight for Arascus because they want to win.”

Anarchia smiled back. “I have crippled Fer. I will cripple any of the others who come close.” Was the woman lying? Iliyal hadn’t said that… but then would he? “I don’t even need your sorcery for the power. It simply removed my largest weakness.”

Immediately Lyca had to calm himself down. Did he actually manage to steal a piece of information? He hoped so. “What was that?”

“Speed.” Anarchia replied and Lyca wanted to punch himself. That wasn’t a weakness whatsoever. That was like saying Lyca was weak to bullets.

“And what if I work out how to stop you?”

“You’re welcome to try.” Anarchia replied confidently. “But everyone in this building is blessed. I am here too. I’m curious to see how far you’d get.”

Lyca tried one last attempt. “I meant what if I manage to stop you from stealing my power?”

“I steal power from humanity Lyca.” Anarchia said flatly. “And Divinity too. Are you human?”

“I try to be.”

“We both know you’re more human than her.” Anarchia said and sighed. “This conversation has gone on long enough. I give credit where credit is due. You have credit, you and your friend saved twenty-three lives. I will tell him too, don’t worry.” Anarchia flicked one of her fingers at Lyca. “But for now, goodnight.” Lyca felt the darkness of exhaustion overtake him as he passed out.