The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 281 – Feet-first into the UNN

They all have reputations of course, but reputations are usually grander than the person. Fer is one example, she fights in a brutal and barbaric manner, but it is not unheard of for survivors to be left in her wake. Kassandora is another, undefeatable on the battlefield, but the Goddess herself is nowhere near the top ranks in terms of individual strength. Olephia is very pleasant in her character too, even if her power is the zenith of Divine abilities, it is even possible to hide from her too.

But then there’s Neneria. Every story about Neneria is true. Every word said does not say enough. Neneria is to be avoided at all costs. Even individually, she poses a threat to armies or lone Divines, only Elassa and Allasaria should engage her, and even then only with heavy support.

Neneria does not talk, does not squabble. Neneria does not show mercy, nor gratitude. Neneria leaves in her wake only graveyards and tombs. The only survivors we have of her Legion are from moments when she recalled from a battle, not because we managed to defeat her.

Excerpt from the secrets texts in the White Pantheon’s closed library. Written by Goddess Maisara, of Order: ‘Documenting the Daughters.’

Fer felt wind flow past her tufted ears as if it was a great scarf of delicate silk trying to burn her with friction. Her golden mane of hair tumbled through the air behind her as she fell from Raptor One. She saw Neneria to her right, all the sickness had left the woman and now she was back to being cold and droll Nene. Her pale face bored, her hands extended, her looking down at the ground as tiny ghosts of fairies swarmed around her. They cushioned her black boots, letting themselves be trod upon to stop their Goddess from falling. More grabbed hold of her dress, and even more of her arms as they’re wings madly whirred and they cried out in exertion. A swarm of pale-green glow-bugs.

Fer had thrown Neneria out first, and then jumped out herself to race her sister down to the ground. She had no such ghastly fairies to assist her fall, so she shot past Neneria like a meteorite cascading down to the ground. And Fer turned her head right. Anassa was above her, hands extended, red blades of sorcery around her. She stood on the air, her perfect black hair and striking crimson dress untouched by the wind that was trying to throw Fer around. Behind Anassa stood another Anassa, facing the other direction, with the exact same set of red blades around her.

Fer looked down and once again took in the sight of an entire coastline wiped away. There was something in it that put her heart at unease. She had seen villages and towns, cities even, razed to the ground. She had seen Kassandora’s Legionnaires put every man, woman and child to the sword when they conquered a fanatical town of an Order whose crime was that it followed a White Pantheon Divine. She had seen the damage her own warherds would do when the beastmen were let off the leash and tasked to do what beastmen do best. She had witnessed walking through one of Baalka’s deadzones, after the Goddess’ diseases put everyone in the countryside to a sleep permanent. She had been there to protect cartographers who were tasked with redrawing maps after Olephia had been allowed to sing across an entire nation. She had lived through the Age of Worldbreaking.

And even Worldbreaking did not compare to the utter annihilation that Elassa’s cracking of Arika had done. There was no grass, no trees, no buildings, no roads. The only mark that there had ever been building here was a massive patch of concrete that looked like an unarranged puzzle. The foundations of some town that had once been here. Everything else had been washed away by the ocean’s rage that it had to give up space to a continent being shifted.

All the way to the horizon, up until the snow capped mountains in the distance. Even they were wearing pants of brown, their lower halves were dirtied by the waters, and the trees that had once lined them were ripped straight off. The mud only gave way to debris. Everything and anything that could be found in a town was here, from beds to cars to small boats. Doors and huge rocks. Rooftiles and cutlery. Shattered glass and wooden struts.

Fer took a deep breath as she aimed towards a spot on the ground that didn’t look like a freshly-made swamp. Her eyes quickly found one, hard ground overflowing with roots, half of which looked as if they had just been ripped straight out of the ground. Yet another Anassa was there, floating above the ground and looking annoyed. Fer held her breath, she twisted her hands and legs, she extended one, bent the other at the knee and felt her direction angle towards that piece of dry land.

The trick was in loosening your muscles. The natural reaction to such a drop was to tighten up your body and freeze but that’s how mortals died and how Fer broke bones. Instead, loose muscles were like jelly that would absorb, vibrate, shake and safely release the shock. The Anassa on the ground looked up at the last moment before Fer slammed down next to her, and that Anassa vanished to reappear a dozen steps off to the side.

Fer’s boot touched the ground. Immediately she felt her hair whip downwards as she swung her arms and up to catch the momentum. Her other leg extended as her first leg bent, almost pulling the ground up with it. And then her second boot touched the ground. One kick was only a blast of force, then second, a blast into that blast, created an explosion that threw up ground and soil from around her.

And Fer took a step forwards and walked out of that cloud of dirt and dust as if she could not even see it. She made sure to have a stern expression as she did, her eyes downcast, her fangs bared. Anassa saw her, cracked a smile and burst out in laughter. And Fer did too. It usually had a better effect on weaker Goddesses and mortals rather than someone who was a sister.

The laughter died down when the jets above that were chasing Raptor One and Raptor Two started to open fire. Their rapid-fire autocannons sounding like drums being furiously beat as fast as possible. Both Fer and Anassa looked up. “She’ll take an hour.” Anassa complained when her eyes passed over Neneria.

“You should speed her up.” Fer said and Anassa cracked a smile.

“I thought you’d tell me off if I suggested it.”

“Let’s not take the piss and stand around for three hours waiting for Queen Death to waltz on down to us.” Fer said and Anassa looked up.

“What about the planes?” Anassa asked. High above Neneria, two black arrowheads had reappeared from out of the clouds. Fer’s eyes allowed her to see their yellow beaks, the angry red eyes painted underneath the captain’s cabin, the four engines. The great bursts of fire expelled from them and the way the wings set alight as they shot forwards. Fer saw that and her ears dropped flat onto the top of the head to avoid the tremendous sound of the sound barrier shattering twice.

“Can you reach them?” Fer said. Twelve white planes dove out of the clouds as they gave chase to the Raptors. It was obvious from the first second that they wouldn’t be able to catch up. Like a pack of wolves chasing a pair of huge deer. The deer raced away.

“Won’t they ignore us?” Anassa asked. Fer smiled to herself. Anassa was smart on one hand, yet also terribly cautious funnily enough. The woman acted as if caution was a concept foreign to her, yet that was mere pretence. Anassa was actually terribly cautious.

“What happens when the first prey gets away?” Fer watched those dozen wolves give up on chasing the pair of Raptor aircraft.

“Can you speak normally?” Anassa asked.

“You should drop them because they’ll turn on us.” Fer said quickly as she watched. If they were the size of Neneria’s ghastly fairies, or maybe if they were in a box or something like that, then she would instead rely on caution. But there was no way that three of the tallest Goddesses in existence were not seen dropping from the plane. Fer simply would not believe that her luck was that good.

“There we go.” The Anassa down here said as the two Anassa’s up above moved. They both took a step. It almost amazed Fer how Anassa was able to move faster than even her smell like that, that sweet fragrance of perfume vanished for a moment, and then re-appeared fainter and from the new direction now.

One of the planes started to angle itself to the side. A sleek machine, Fer had to give it that, whereas the Raptor were huge and boxy and bulky, with all sharp angles, these UNN jets were sleek and white. With two fins behind them and engines built directly into the chassis, as if the entire vehicle was one weapon. Fer saw a pair of cannons sticking out from it as it turned. At one point it focused on Neneria, and then it turned to Anassa.

“Can you handle them?” Fer asked.

“Sister, I gatekeep Godhood.” The Anassa down here said and snapped her fingers. The two red blades from the Anassa’s in the air shot out. “What is gatekeeping the sky?” That sorcerous energies did not move like magic, they did not even shoot like bullets. Instead, they struck like lightning, cascading across the sky above in perfectly straight lines, each one aiming for one of the jets.

Twelve silent red strings across the sky. Twelve white jets exploding with thunderous booms. Twelve roars of flame and fire from above. Twelve dark streaks of bellowing smoke fell towards the surface and twelve wreckages was all that was left.

“You should get Neneria too.” Fer said.

“With pleasure.” Anassa replied. One of the two Anassa’s in the air disappeared, simply vanished from reality, the other reappeared next to Neneria. Fer saw the two sisters shout at each other. Then the Anassa in air the swung her hands, a red coil wrapped itself around Neneria’s stomach, and the Goddess of Death was swung downwards as if she was a little doll.

Anassa stopped Neneria from slamming into the ground. Kassandora would have screamed or cursed. Malam would have made some terrible compliment about how violent Anassa was. And Neneria? Neneria let her arms and legs fall loose. She sighed, she looked up at Anassa, made a sorry look for herself, and vomited once again, just as she had done on the plane. “I did not expect you to take it that badly Nene.” Anassa cooed an apology.

“I hate you.” Neneria said dryly. “Why? Is it so bad if I go at my own pace?”

“We have a job to do!” Fer said before they started arguing. These two always got on each other’s nerves. She picked Neneria up by the arms, gave her a hug, Anassa recalled that red band across Neneria’s chest and Fer propped her sister up onto her feet. “Can you stand?”

“I can.” Neneria said glumly. She was just slightly shorter than Fer, and she leaned back into her taller sister to catch her breath. “Heavens above I do not like flying.” She whispered to herself.

“Well I can’t help you with that.”

“And I don’t like being thrown around.” Neneria said.

“You were utterly joking with that slow of a descent.” Anassa said.

“Because I’m a slow girl and I don’t like fast things.” Neneria replied as she took a deep breath and pushed off Fer.

“What?” Anassa asked.

“Nothing. Shut up.” Neneria’s tone returned to her usual as she took a step forwards. That slow, low, rolling monotone of death that printed each word out at the exact same, steady pace. “This is a good place.”

“You can feel them already?” Fer asked. That was excellent! If Neneria collected enough right now, then they could be back home within the week.

“Oh I can.” Neneria said, her monotone breaking to give way to an excited pitch that rarely came out.

“How many souls?” Fer asked excitedly. She had seen Neneria excited before, Of Death liked little things, she liked sweets, she like flavoured alcohols, she liked cakes and cute animals. But those had been innocent smiles of small pleasures.

The Neneria that was stood before Fer and Anassa now was not the Neneria that liked little trivialities, it was the Neneria that had brought to fear to the term of pocket-army. There were other deities who could summon in mass, but there was no one but Neneria who could flood the countryside in ghosts. And Neneria spoke, her hand going to one part of the coast where there was a patch of concrete in the ground, that was all which had remained of the town. “Six thousand, eight-hundred, forty-three.”

That alone was a great find. The Dead Legion on a good day would bring ten thousand into its ranks, even the greatest battles in the Great War left, at the most, a few hundred thousand. And those had happened once a decade. And Neneria pointed south. “There, past the hill, I can’t count them at this distance exactly, but there’s about fifty-thousand.”

Now that was a reason to be excited about. Fer met Anassa’s eyes, the two Goddesses exchanged a flat look and a nod. Already, that would amount to a good year for Neneria’s Dead Legion. Honestly, Fer had not thought too much of coming here in the first place. Feeding Neneria souls was important, but she had always thought of it a “come as they go” scenario. The Legion was large enough for most situations anyway.

But Neneria was not done yet. She moaned in pleasure and licked her lips. Her dark eyes were glowing green as she extended her hand. It was leaking grey-green magic, that meant she was busy swallowing the souls in the nearby area. “Over there.” Neneria said. “Ten miles.” She sounded out of breath and that pale skin of hers was starting to have some colour finally. “That…”

“String some words together Neneria.” Anassa said sarcastically. “Come on, you can do it.”

“Two million.”