The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 354 – Mortal No More

Smug. Superior. Patronizing. Direct. Aggressive. Prickly. Crass.

Now which member of the White Pantheon am I talking about?

- A common joke amongst followers of Anarchia. Variations exist, typically with more colourful language.

Blessings gave strength and blessings gave power. Blessings allowed mortals to communicate in mutual, spiritual communion. Blessings gave mortals immunity to flames and to disease. Blessings gave strength. Blessings gave power. Blessings healed and blessings constructed and blessings made man greater than the mere sum of his parts. Yet the greatest of all blessings, only written about in fable, gave nothing. Nothing was strengthened, nothing was amplified. All it did was draw a line in the sand. On one side death and on the other man, no longer together but separate. A blessing that did not have to be explained, because it made even Divines blush with jealousy.

Immortality.

Kavaa swung her sword into the air and then reached up with her hand as Be’elzebub’s wretched swarm came crashing down upon her like a wave. Kavaa did not even close her eyes as she cursed the tiny little bugs with her overwhelming life. Their tiny little organs, each one no larger than a minute drop of water, kicked into a frenzied overdrive as all the biological gears in the flies were pushed far past breaking point. Stomachs overflowed and exploded with acid. Lungs tore themselves through their own expansion. Hearts gave a final, screaming beat as they burst from their own strength. Wings ripped themselves out from the carapace shells as jaws suddenly locked and broke at the joints. In an instant, a thousand of the tiny little monsters collapsed.

And as Be’elzebub plunged onto Kavaa, the Goddess listened to War’s Orchestra. She heard the drums, now repowered and beating with a completely new energy and life to them. She heard the organs being played by vigorous fingers full of vigour. She heard the flutes and clarinets in the background, being played by huge lungs that could not get enough air. She heard the Orchestra in all its glory, just as she always imagined it. And she saw through the eyes of the men.

She saw through the eyes of a man holding a grenade in his hand, his body burning in pain and his teeth gritting as he opened the sliding slit of a firing port and threw the grenade out. Immediately, Be’elzebub’s insects flooded inside. A moment later, the APC the man was in shook from the explosion a thousand more flies were torn apart by the shockwave of that grenade. The man shut the slot, a hundred flies inside the cabin, and his team started to swat at them with their hands. The flies bit through his dark clothes and into his flesh, and then his muscle and immediately started to heal. Jaws and claws were held tight by overlapping muscle, and the man started swatting down at the bugs that now were not biting into him, but rather held onto him by rapidly regrowing flesh.

Kavaa saw a man who stopped running outside and turned to face the swarm. She saw a grenade from deeper in the Legion’s vanguard fly into his vision and explode right by his side. She saw the man lose vision, and then felt eyes regrowing Kavaa’s blessing worked its magic. And another man, stamping on the ground and rolling around. He was deep in the swarm, his vehicle had been overwhelmed, he had run out to escape, and Kavaa’s healing caught him just before he could perish. Each time his chest or his back pressed against the stony ground, another hundred of Be’elzebub’s flies perished. And Kavaa saw a man unable to die, his limbs gone and fighting to regrow man-eating bugs waged a war against the Goddess’ blessing. They bit and tore and chewed, but eventually even the ravenous horde could not eat anymore.

And then Kavaa watched a battle she had never even thought was possible to fight, much less win. Kassandora’s War Orchestra provided the connection for the soul that was needed, and Kavaa’s power of raw life found a sliver of bone or a fragment of a skull. The souls latched on. The body regrew from nothing. Kavaa regrew flesh and bone, she regrew lung and stomach, she kickstarted the heart and repowered the brain. She regrew everything, from the hair and the skin to the very marrow within the bone.

Kassandora’s voice came through, the sound of a flute playing in Kavaa’s mind transferred the words. “Iniri’s sap burns.” There was no need to say anything else, Kavaa understood what the woman was trying to tell her. She saw men pull out their lighters through the power of War’s Orchestra and she pulled out the one that Kassandora had given her just before this battle started.

A hundred flames were lit. A hundred flames were held by hands constantly being torn apart by bugs. A hundred flames were put to the sticky sap that Iniri’s trees had splattered all over the highway. And a hundred flames became a tiny inferno. The sap was a fuse, its payoff a massive inferno of flame that roared from the floor to the very ceiling of the tunnel, and then outwards. Vehicles were knocked over and men died once again, their bodies and bones breaking only for Kavaa’s immortality to keep them here. They hissed and cursed in pain, and then they rose to their feet once again.

And finally, Kavaa heard Be’elzebub scream. The swarm’s buzzing abated for a moment and then returned as flies gathered into huge balls, the outer layers sacrificing themselves and peeling as the surviving flies raced away from Iniri’s burning sap. The swarm had smashed itself upon the Underground Expeditionary Legion like a man running into a wall, and the wall had stood still as the man was bounced back by his own momentum. Kavaa wished she could finish off Be’elzebub here and now, a few of the tanks in the rear opened fire with timed fuses, but it simply wasn’t overpowering enough. There were no mages that could scour the air with fires and there were no Divines who could simply decide to kill all the beings in a particular area. A fly got away. Then another one. And another.

Kavaa watched the swarm that was Be’elzebub retreat. And she saw that demons of Tartarus were already upon them. She should have expected a follow-up assault after the demon descended upon them. It was basic Great War tactics. Be’elzebub was a monster, but Be’elzebub was vulnerable to sorcerers and Divines like Anassa or Irinika. Rarely did the demon ever actually move alone, although that was true of every major player back then.

A mass of red bodies in black armour swinging heavy cleavers crashed upon the Legion. From the air, winged demons and succubi rushed overhead like diving hawks as they aimed for men’s heads with their halberds and spears or tossed fire onto the ground. And the Goddess of Life stood there as Iniri’s wooden barrier burned away. Kavaa swung her sword and wiped off the ash and brown-green muck left behind by the insects. She saw the demons of Tartarus take a step back as they realised that what should have been easy scraps left behind by Be’elzebub suddenly turned out to be men more than ready and more than willing to engage back.

The demons roared, fires once again burst out around Kavaa’s army. Another man fell and once again he rose. A demon was shot dead by a barrage of fire. A huge Lynx tank turned its turret and opened fire. Husks of bugs shot from its barrel, and then an explosive shell that took out an entire squad of demons in a single blast. A cleaver cut off a man’s arm, and the man did not even collapse as his wound closed, his lost limb reformed as his uninjured arm pulled out a huge dagger from his belt and stabbed it under the demon’s shoulder. A succubus flew overhead, a trail of flames falling down on the ground behind them. A hail of bullets from deeper in the Legion put holes into the succubus’ chest and, unlike the Legionnaires, the demon fell from the sky.

In melee, a demon could kill five or six of the men before someone turned their rifle and opened fire. Even with holes in their chest, they could score another kill or two. Only the huge vehicles served as any sort of roadblock, but even if they weren’t, it didn’t matter. Kavaa’s power was there for every man that died to make sure that they could not pass on. Each time they got to the gates of the next world, their bodies ripped them back down to the depths of Arda.

The demons crashed like a wave upon sea-cliffs as they charged into a force of men who could be killed but who were incapable of dying. And like a waving breaking upon a cliff, they bounced back and they realised what they were facing. Gunfire lashed out into them. Unlike the men, the demons were not easy to kill, but they were very, very capable of dying. They started dropping, they saw corpses rise with a renewed life in them, and they retreated. Kavaa watched them fall back as Kassandora’s forces opened fire. The Goddess of Life raised her blade and prepared to issue a command.

Kavaa felt a hand on her, she looked down and she saw the Goddess of War rise to her feet. Kassandora was once again in her heavy full plate, through the vision slits in her helm, only her glowing eyes were visible. But Kassandora did not need to say a single word, those burning, determined eyes were all that Kavaa needed to see in order to figure out what Kassandora wanted her to communicate.

The Goddess of Life raised her silver sword into the air and aimed it forwards, at that terrified shieldwall of demons. The Legionnaires started to stalk out from behind vehicles and rise from the ground once again, bodies regrowing lost limbs as men pulled huge arbalest bolts out of their heads and stomachs and shoulders. Some still burned, their skin refusing to be even charred by the flames even though their bodies were slathered in fuel.

Kavaa felt minds break and give up, unable to bear the pain she was putting them through. “Those of you who can still think!” Kavaa shouted and built up the men’s spirits as War’s Orchestra raged in the background. Organs and drums and trumpets and violins, all playing a terrible tune of burning rage. “Listen to me! Those of you who have lost your minds, follow your comrades!”

Kavaa gazed down upon the shieldwall of demons once again. Never had she thought she would have to stand against that terrible black armour, spiked and crying out to be smeared with blood, nor against those burning eyes or the massive cleavers made to separate bone and steel rather than pierce flesh. Or rather, that was how Kavaa had always imagined it. Now, she saw black armour made a dirty grey by the overwhelming light of the pair of Torchbearer tanks with their massive spotlights. She saw eyes that merely smouldered with disciplined fear rather than burned with frenzied rage. She saw cleavers that could sever a horse’s head in a single swing, and she knew they would be woefully inept at separating the men she had blessed from this living world.

Kavaa’s terribly slow violin carried her words through War’s Orchestra. “I will not apologize for what I’ve done to you! I will not beg for forgiveness and I will not seek redemption in your souls! Curse me all you wish but before you do, finish this

“Drive them back! Drive them back from this world and drive them back from the living world, I do not care which but remove these invaders from our precious Arda!” If they charged and engaged in hand-to-hand, then maybe some of the demons would have escaped. But the Legionnaires did not charge. Kassandora’s steady rhythm inserted itself into the Orchestra, a tremendous organ and a delicate piano. Both of them played.

A line of men dove down to the ground. Fire cast by magicians burst out around them. It made an unsuccessful attempt at incineration. A second line of men took a knee. A volley of arbalest bolts and steel arrows pierced into the men. The Legionnaires pulled it out.

They opened fire. Man and vehicle, rifle and cannon. The tunnel lit up and thundered with a barrage of gunfire so great it deafened. Kavaa waited, unable to hear anything, because of her destroyed eardrums. Kassandora gave the signal through the Orchestra. Kavaa healed everyone’s ears. And Kavaa stood there, in stunned silence once again as she saw demons fall backwards and down.

Deeper in the highway, she saw more demons, these ones utterly shocked by what they had just witnessed. She saw them don armour, she saw some run. She saw others pick up their weapons. This time, it was Kassandora who gave the order. “Drive them into annihilation.”