The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 352 – The Endless Well of Life

There are too many factors to list. Was it the war? Or was it the fact we needed help from Tartarus or Paradeisius? Already we see them circling like vultures over our little Arda. Yet to answer the question, I cannot point to a single point where everyone changed, yet everyone did change indeed.

Kavaa, Goddess of Health, hates healing so much that she rejects the title of healer and calls herself a doctor. The woman snaps when others are enjoying themselves and seemingly makes it her life goal to wipe smiles off other people’s faces. Iniri, Goddess of Nature, has closed herself off utterly. Gone is the laughter, to be replaced with a shy seriousness now makes you forget she can even speak. Fortia, humiliated endlessly by Kassandora, has second thoughts about the Pantheon and spouts treacherous thoughts. Elassa has become paranoid and terrified, although I can sympathize with her. It is obvious that the militarization of magic that made her demesne so powerful will have to be replaced by something else. Zerus and Sceo have retreated from the world at large, they seem to have relegated themselves entirely to being abstractions of physicality and nothing else.

Yet Maisara is the oddest. The woman has not changed at all. When I say that she is exactly the same as she once was, I mean it truly and wholeheartedly. Maisara has managed to live through the bloodiest century in the existence of Arda, even worse than the Age of Worldbreaking, and she has come out of it no different save for the material knowledge she has learned. Her views have not changed and she still holds onto that ridiculous oath of honesty. It utterly baffles my mind and I can give no explanation.

We will either grow to be as strong as Arascus’ family, or we will grow to hate each other. There will be no in-between.

- Excerpt from the autobiography: “Roses, Blades & Blood”, by Goddess Helenna, of Love.

Deep under the surface lay Arda’s great veins, the huge tunnels that the Dwarves had claimed as their own highways. Stuffed with a darkness so thick it could serve as the planet’s blood, today, a tiny section of those stony veins had clotted up with light and fire and sound. Heavy APCs, purposefully covered with a coat of flame, groaned as they were submerged by the flood of tiny wings and black carapaces. Miniscule jaws bit and scraped as their hulls, barely managing to do more than a scratch. Yet just because one scratched could be withstood did not mean that the vehicles could withstand a million.

Men held the shutters and doors closed as the swarm angrily buzzed outside. Rubber wheels, supposedly impossible to pop and able to drive even through sharp-edged urban rubble, was ripped around. The treads of tanks gave way as bugs climbed into every and any opening. Flies burst open in tiny explosions of green-brown blood from the heat of the burning vehicles, flies cooked themselves as they raced up the exhaust pipe, flies crushed themselves under the mass of their swarm as they tried to claw through the hastily stuffed gun barrels.

Yet not a word was said, not an order was given. No soldier in their dark garb panicked. Instead, the men all hastily inspected their tight cabins as they prepped grenades and readied fuel canisters that had not been emptied: better to be killed instantly by one’s own explosion and swallowed by fire than to be ripped apart, fibre-by-fibre by Be’elzebub’s swarm. And even if they were to suddenly give up, the soldiers submerged in the ocean of flies with their armoured vehicles for submarines were silently guided by War’s Orchestra. No man needed to radio orders, no man needed to say a word when they heard the terrible, frantic orchestra.

No man needed to even say a word as they listened to their Goddess being torn apart.

Iniri sensed the acorn first, then she heard the scream. “INIRI!” A branch had already outwards moved towards the nut. Up above, Iniri would have not paid it any mind, down here, where the seed of any plant may as well be myth, it was impossible not to notice. The lack of nature down here made the acorn so clear that Iniri could even tell it was being broken by virulent acid. “HEL-pfff.” Kavaa’s scream was cut off as the branches caught her and protectively wrapped around Iniri’s friend.

Iniri looked towards the front of the Legion and felt her breath catch. She had seen the monster that was Be’elzebub during the Great War. She had always been against bring other worlds into the Great War, in her mind, it had been better to lose and become prisoners of Arascus to let monsters like that run rampant across Arda. But she had been outvoted and outmanoeuvred back then, so she had to witness the swarm as it ate and she had to witness the deathly-clean cities that the swarm left behind. The living wood crawling about Iniri’s green-black clothes sprang into the ground and launched the Goddess into the air to catch her friend.

“I’ve got you Kav.” Iniri said as her arms wrapped around Kavaa. Then she noticed something else, her eyes flicked from the swarm to Kavaa, to her stomach, then back to her face. Why was there an acorn within the woman? Whatever, she let it be, that obviously wasn’t important right now.

Kavaa spoke quickly then pointed towards the front. “Kass! Is in there! We have to! Help! Now!” Iniri faltered for a moment.

“In there?” She hated that she faltered, and she hated that she asked. She shouldn’t ask or be afraid or falter. Divines did nothing of those things.

“Yes! Please Iniri! Kass said you can do it too and-“ Iniri interrupted Kavaa’s frantic words.

“I will.” Iniri said before she let her doubts spark up again. She knew herself, and she knew that if she started to think, she would stop herself. “Hold on.” The first job was to get herself close and force her own instincts to take over her body so that the spiteful mind controlling it wouldn’t try to stop her.

But even if there was hesitation, Iniri did not let it affect her for a second. She had lived the Great War where she had been a feared member of the Pantheon. She had countless battles under her belt but those battles paled under the second reason: Kassandora had saved her from the Jungle. Kassandora and Kavaa and Fer had selflessly trekked hundreds of miles as they followed her through that cursed wood. When Iniri had finally gotten out and learned what happened, she realised that not a moment had been wasted by any of them. If the Goddess of War did not lose even a second in her rescue, then she would not lose a second when she returned the favour.

The swarm rolled over the army like a wave as Iniri’s dress formed an airtight shield of wood around Iniri and Kavaa. “Heal me if I get hurt.” Iniri said quietly.

“Of course.” Kavaa answered. Almost on cue, Iniri heard a branch snap and felt wood shoot outwards. Great branches, each as wide as a door moved to snap at the buzzing insects like flytrap plants. A few bugs still got through, Iniri closed her eyes instinctively and swatted at them with her hand. One, she squashed on her arm as her barrier repaired itself. Another she had to slap her own cheek for. The bug exploded with its vile green-brown blood and not before it managed to scratch her face.

Kavaa came in by herself. She didn’t need to be told. Iniri held her breath as she prepared to handle the pain that came with healing. She sent her mind away, into the wood and trees around and focused on that. A moment of losing focus now could spell death.

But death did not come. No focus was lost. Kavaa’s healing did hurt, but it wasn’t the searing, branding pain that Iniri had always associated with healing. It was a searing inferno that burned through the Goddess of Nature, into her body and then outwards into the plants. In a moment, Iniri realised what was happening, the plants here were not tied to any earth or any roots. They all existed as extensions of their Goddess, each one shared its health with her because each one, to some extent or another, was her down here. They could not latch onto stone or bathe in the light of the sun, so they had to cling to the patron of their demesne.

If Be’elzebub’s swarm was a flood coming through these tunnels, then Kavaa’s healing was the end of days for Iniri’s body. Yet it did not hurt in the slightest. The Goddess of Nature was merely a conduit for the sheer life force Kavaa was expelling without even straining herself. Kavaa was fertilizer in a barren field, water in drought, sunlight breaking through a century-long night. Kavaa was it all. Other beings would suffer as their bodies rejected the amount of life within the Goddess.

But Iniri? Who was ready to share that life with a whole forest? She could take it. In fact, it wasn’t enough. Iniri cast her hands into the air as the branches from her dress spiralled outwards once again. Seedlings once again sprouted on them, shoots once again plunged into stone. They sprang upwards immediately, bark as hard and as strong as steel quickly covered the roots as it expanded to make a sphere around the acorns. Iniri closed her eyes and saw through the trees and the barks. She smelled through them and she heard through them.

And Iniri felt a thousand flies bite into the bark that was hers. She felt bile be spat upon her. She felt her leaves be torn to shreds as soon as they started to grow. She felt something bite her cheek and she shared the pain of healing out to all the branches. “More Kavaa. Do not be afraid.” Iniri said absentmindedly, her mind blocked out the gunshots and the swarm-sound. The screams and the explosions. Be’elzebub’s cries.

Iniri stood alone, surrounded by it all.

A thousand nerves, each one a tiny piece of plant fibre that tore apart stone as thin as a piece of grass yet tougher than iron, crawled up the gigantic walls of the tunnel. Arms and legs, branches and roots spread out as they claimed land for themselves. Bark and skin hardened to protect itself from the ravenous swarm. Leaves coated themselves in poison to defend themselves and they became the hair. And within the centre of it all, a single heartbeat, the Goddess in the centre in the of it all, beat with energy that brought it all to life.

Iniri stood alone, surrounding it all.

Iniri felt strength she had not tapped into for a thousand years. And Iniri felt sick. A branch snapped. A tree fell. A leaf turned brown. A pair of warm hands touched her shoulder. “INIRI!” Kavaa fed her burning power that awakened her. “DON’T GIVE UP NOW! INIRI! PLEASE!” Iniri swallowed her own vomit as she felt her chest start to burn. For every step that the resignation of her title, from of Nature to of Food & Bounty, was forced upon her, she took another to resign from it herself. At the end of the day, it was impossible to separate a Divine from their demesne. It could be reframed and rephrased, but of Nature would always remain of Nature. No matter whether Nature flowered or whether it wilted.

Iniri felt Kavaa’s healing power burn within her. It re-stitched muscles and trees that snapped under their own weight. It fixed skin and bark torn apart by tiny biters. It gave strength to bones that had long since grown exhausted. And it re-ignited a burning furnace within Iniri’s heart. “More Kavaa. More.” Iniri’s physical body said flatly, it was flat and hollow, but Iniri did not care. She saw the Goddess of Health embrace her from behind and nuzzle her face into Iniri’s neck.

“I’ve got you Iniri. Please help me save her.” Kavaa whispered.

“Not just for you.” Iniri whispered back in awe. Iniri extended her arm forwards. Her body did not move. An oak tree sprouted from the ceiling. “Give me more.” Iniri said and her friend obliged. More power poured into the Goddess of Nature. A tear of joy slid down Iniri’s cheek. The oak wept a sap as vile as Baalka’s blood and as thick as honey. Any fly that touched it immediately plunged to the ground, taking down a hundred of its compatriots with it.

“You.” Iniri had to force the words out at Kavaa’s strength. It wasn’t healing, it was a cleansing inferno ripping through the Goddess. Leaves sprouted from the walls as they turned and twisted into the size of barns, their membranes started to swell with sap.

“Are.” And to think that the Goddess of Health still shook and cried and didn’t even think on controlling her power. Unlike Iniri, who knew that her strength had reached its zenith before the Great War even ended. The leaves burst and immediately regrew as Iniri directed the raw life Kavaa poured into her. A flood of sap came down, so sticky and thick that it did not even make a single splash, yet with it came half of Be’elzebub’s swarm in the immediate area.

“Amazing.” For a thousand years, Iniri had been trying to dip her toes into the luscious life that Kavaa was now bathing her in. She moved forwards and she sought out the acorns Kavaa told her about. With the awareness in her mind, those acorns were bonfire beacons. The branches from Iniri’s green dress shot outwards into the ground around them. They made a cocoon of bark. A snap of Iniri’s fingers resulted in a thousand branches snapping. They coalesced into a fist. They slammed forwards towards where Kassandora was.

The wood tasted warm blood. It crawled forwards, it found heavy metal, too jagged and too small to be the heavily armoured vehicles of the Legion. That was Kassandora, it had to be. Bark enclosed the Goddess of War’s armour in a second skin and then ruptured outwards in a spurt of growth.

Kassandora did not move. Kassandora did not groan. Kassandora only bled.

Iniri had never heard Kavaa shriek like that. “KASSIE!”

Kavaa let go of Iniri and raced to her friend and Iniri dropped to her knees. “Ka…” She said. “Ka-Ka-Kavaa…” She collapsed as Kavaa raced down the tunnel. In one moment, the lively Iniri of the past wilted away and was once again replaced with the Iniri of the pleasant. The Goddess of Nature’s breathing returned to normal, the air was once again thick and heavy. Her body returned to what she was used to, slow and meandering. Even her senses became the same as they always were in these times: dull and uninspired.

Iniri dropped to her knees as she tried to feed life into the flora around her. She heard the trees moan as bugs bit into their bark. She saw Kavaa dive onto Kassandora.

Iniri’s vision grew dark as Kavaa screamed out Kassandora’s name.

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