"Do you think the Spirit of Endless Continent's Laws is a woman?" A Castle Lord joked, sparking a wave of nervous laughter.
"Who cares?" Another one responded with a grin, "Let the women be as strong as they want. As long as His Majesty stands at the apex, we male Castle Lords can still walk with our chests out. All the luck the GM withheld from us was clearly concentrated entirely into him."
"Careful with the jealousy." A Ranger warned, though his tone was light, "If Lady Lysandra or Lady Eveline hears you disrespecting their Lord, they'll send you to the reincarnation cycle themselves."
"How could I hate His Majesty?" The Castle Lord replied quickly, his expression turning solemn, "If not for him, the Castle Faction would have been wiped out weeks ago. During the opening skirmish, a single High God of the Dark Empire killed me as easily as eating and drinking. It was a Guardian Angel who descended into the underworld and brought my soul back. I owe him an infinite debt of gratitude. If he wishes to unify the Castle Faction under a single banner, I will be the first to swear fealty as a subsidiary god of the Great Aetherium."
Many nodded in silent agreement. The experience of death was a cold, harrowing terror, and the gift of resurrection had forged an unbreakable bond of loyalty between the players and the Great Aetherium.
…
With the Dark Empire's divine vanguard eradicated and their mortal armies facing total encirclement, the players' attention naturally shifted toward the next grand objective: Brightford, the Imperial Capital of the Light Empire.
"More than three hundred thousand Gods of Truth have entrenched themselves within the capital." A Ranger muttered, his eyes flashing with anticipation, "And many of them are ancient, High Gods. This next battle will make the Dark Empire look like a small skirmish."
"Good. The Abyss' invasion is breathing down our necks. If we don't use the Light Empire to fuel our growth, we won't even survive the first wave of the demon onslaught."
Suddenly, a Castle Lord leaned into the circle, his voice dropping to a sharp whisper, "Brothers, I just received some intel. The Light Empire doesn't just have one Supreme God. They have two."
The group went rigid, "Two? Aside from the Holy Lord Asher, who else could possibly be backing them?"
"Pandora." The guy whispered, "The Goddess of Light herself."
A wave of profound confusion rippled through the players, "That makes no sense. Pandora is Elunara's sworn-sister. The Nature Pantheon has already signed an alliance with Haru. Why would Pandora throw her weight behind the Light Empire to oppose the Great Aetherium?"
"The motives are unclear." the informant shook his head, "But she has arrived at Brightford, the Light Empire's Capital. She's drawing a line in the sand against us."
The Ranger who had spoken earlier let out a soft, pitying sigh, "Then she is a fool. If she insists on standing in the Great Aetherium's path, her fate will be no different from Micteya, the Goddess of Death, or Mordra, the Goddess of Darkness. Everyone knows His Majesty has never been one to show mercy to a beauty just because of her face. He will suppress her without a second thought."
None of them doubted the outcome. The Great Aetherium had deployed four Supreme Gods to this campaign. Moreover with the recent addition of Christine and Sylvana, their leadership boasted six Supreme Gods on this battlefield alone.
If the battle stalled, Haru and the Pseudo God Monarch Celestia would simply descend and erase the capital from the map. Pandora was leaping into a meat grinder.
Of course, none of these players could have guessed that this "hostility" was merely a carefully orchestrated shadow-play between Haru and the Goddess of Light.
…
Two hundred thousand kilometers away, the twin mortal battlefields were reaching their brutal conclusions under the setting Blood Moon.
On the first battlefield, the Dark Empire's mortal army of alchemy puppets and undead servants had been systematically ground down to less than three hundred billion. They were mindless, fearless constructs, executing their masters' final parameters with cold efficiency but they were hopelessly outmatched.
As the moon dipped below the western horizon and the first rays of dawn touched the landscape, a new day dawned, and with it, the Castle Lords exercised their daily right to summon fresh reinforcements.
Trillions of new, eager troops flooded the vanguard, shattering the remaining puppet lines within two hours. Not a single construct was left standing, the entire mechanical host was reduced to scrap and ash.
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