GATE: the clash of the titans V2

by Qun Nguyn1

Mostly AUs. A Gate has opened in Tokyo by a Roman-esque Empire, familiar scenario with familiar faces but the people marched through the Gate is from a vastly more powerful magic world. The stage is set. Earth Alliance vs The Holy Empire. Science vs Magic. The power of the thousand sun vs The Beast of the Apocalypse. Let the clash of Titans begin. Let the worlds have War.

20. Chapter 20: the end of the beginning

Chapter 20 : The end of the beginning

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Winston Churchill - Prime Minister of United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945

Note:

- The energy to create a mini black hole is so large that the Empire will invent nuke Long before they can create one.

- The Gods in my setting are politically savvy, so does the Empire. They are basically having symbiotic relationships. The Church provides the State legitimacy and in return the State will indoctrinate its citizens the church ideology. The Emperor is the Son of Heaven is an useful belief to justify the rule of the Empire after all.

- The Empire is a totalitarian state, so of course they not allow independence researchers running around study dangerous subjects. However they have very wealthy state-funded research communities under the Church control. The Technical Monastery ( chapter 13 ).

- The Earth leaders are not stupid, they built the most powerful army the Earth has ever seen. If this army attacked Falmart in 2019 or 2020, they would easily win the war. The Empire just decided to play on the defensive and avoid most of the direct confrontations. They just wait too long to attack, allowing the Holy Empire time to build their defensive fortifications.

- The power of the Founding Titan in AOT even more ridiculous than mine. I haven't give the Empire time travel ability like in AOT. The reason everyone can turn to Titan now, is due to interbreeding between the native Falmartian population and Eldian in the past 50,000 years. ( Chapter 1)

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Observation Room, D.I.M.O.N, Arlington, VA

"Do you believe her?"

"If I'm in the same room as her, probably."

Randi chuckled. There had been some discrete experiments going on. Put a subject in the same room as demon queen Daelmara, measure their initial reaction to the succubus queen and then watch as that changed. Their prejudice started to soften within five minutes and by 30 minutes at most, they were friendly. "What do you think? Mind control?"

"Can't be. We know roughly why their mind control works, they have the ability to quantum entangle pathways in our brains using a bio-generated psion field as a carrier wave.

Your work with Prioress Mizari and Sister Tyuwaru from the Darwinian Orthodox Church shows that the Falmartians can do the same, unfortunate for us, human can't generate the bio-psion field as a carrier. We also now know that mithril headgear, which is capable of emitting psion noise, can blocks out the signal.

So to be careful, we've all been wearing our mithril-foil beanies yet Daelmara gets the same reactions every time. Must be something else. We'll keep trying until we get there."

"Nicely switched away from the subject Robert. Now, do you believe her?"

Robert O'Shea thought for a second.

"No. That stuff about breeding with male individuals from different species in various worlds can't be true. They're different species and different species can't breed together, that's a basic definition.

Only the Homo Titanien can have interspecies breeding and they are a very special case. Their cells capable of horizontal gene transfer. Their sperm cells act like a virus rewritting the entire genetic code of the their mate's egg cells, resulting in their offsprings are 100% Homo Titanien.

That is why after 50,000 years of assimilation there isn't a single non-titanien species left in Falmart. They basically be out breeded to extinction.

The question is why is she lying? And if she is, why don't we just hand her over to Doctor Surlethe and let him get some real information from her."

"She might not be lying Robert. Just because she isn't telling us the truth doesn't mean that she's lying. She may honestly believe that what she is telling us is true. It may be true, its just that we don't understand what she is saying."

Randi paused. "I've had that with people who honestly believed they had psychic abilities. They were so convinced they were telling the truth that they just couldn't believe there were other explanations.

Parents were the worst. They got the idea their child was 'special' in some way, and which parents don't believe that, and couldn't accept that there were rational reasons why the kids were getting the results they were.

We had one little girl whose parents honestly believed she had X-ray vision, even when we filmed her moving her head as she read a book 'blindfolded'. Once we had sealed off her normal vision, her 'ability' stopped dead. And don't get me started on dowsers.

"Look, I'm a conjuror, not a scientist but I'll say this. Dael's given us something to work with. It may be true, it may not be, but its something we can test. We have a theory from her, we can test that theory against reality and come up with the disconnects.

Then we can learn by explaining those disconnects. And the first disconnect is how everybody feels warm and fuzzy towards Daelmara when she is, quite literally, a demon from The Eye of Terror."

Randi stopped and knocked on a door. There was a mumbled 'Come-in' from inside.

"Norman, how are you settling in? And how do your cats like the Pentagon?"

"They're getting overfed already. And I didn't know the Secretary of State likes cats."

"That's a well-kept Washington secret. Did all your stuff get here safely?"

"Sure did, I'm getting it set up now. Any chance of meeting Daelmara?"

"Not at the moment, you can watch her but we're trying to keep a limit on who actually sees her. She seems to have an uncanny effect on people around her."

"I don't see why; I've seen her pictures. She looks like something out of a nightmare. But then given the habits of the Succubi, I suppose she should look gross."

"What do you mean Norman?"

"Succubi are supposed to mate with other species to collect their male sperm. Then mate with their male equivalents, the Incubi and transfer that sperm to them. Incubi then mate with other species females and impregnate them with that sperm. I guess that's about as close to a dictionary definition of yukkiness as we're ever going to get."

Randi turned to O'Shea who was standing in the door with his mouth hanging open. "Well, it is a different dimension from ours, Robert. But that might explain how the Psyker, Daelmara was talking about could arise. They're not hybrid-demons, they're corrupted other species somehow. Score one for the Succubus."

"I'd rather not. The thought of waking up next to that thing is just about the most horrible thought I can imagine." O'Shea paused for a second. "Except waking up next to my ex-wife I guess. Thank's Norman, those were mental pictures I could have done without. My next week's sleep is likely to be permanently ruined."

"I aim to please. Doctor Randi…"

"It's James, Norman. And I've never been any sort of Doctor. You want to be formal, you could call me The Amazing Randi if you like, but James will do just fine." Randi gave Baines a gentle grandfatherly smile.

"James, where are we going from here?"

"Daelmara and the Holy Order gave us some clues on how to open a portal to The Eye of Terror. I'm going to get my people together and we're going to try it. If it works, score two for the Succubus queen, if it doesn't we'll learn from finding out why.

By the way, spread the word, Doctor Surlethe is on his way to Lemuria. The Army is collecting corpses of chaos demons for him but the Air Force won't fly them over here. Dead demons decompose pretty fast and the smell is dreadful.

Even through a body bag so the Air Force boys won't have their nice clean transports fouled up by them. So, if dead demons won't come to Surlethe, Surlethe will have to go to the dead demons."

Randi left and went down to the corridor. Outside the conference room his team was using as a laboratory, four armed Marines were on guard. That was new but when Randi went inside, he could see why.

The room was stacked with packages wrapped in green plastic. Small packages, rectangular in shape, about two pounds each Randi guessed.

He had a sudden premonition that had nothing whatsoever to do with pseudo-science that smoking in this room would be a very bad idea. There was other equipment around, boxes, odd shapes and two vicious looking rifles.

"Sir, General Vo Quoc Trung will be with us immediately Sir." Randi nodded. In the background, he could hear music playing, and a liturgical song sounding incongruous amongst the electronics, weapons and piles of high explosive.

"I hope you don't mind Sir." Tyuwaru was stretched out on a couch, her boyfriend sitting beside her. "Some music helps me relax.

"No problem Tyuwaru. You know what's going to happen here?" The feather headed serine shook her head.

"This room is shielded against electromagnetic radiation so anything we pick up is you linking to abyss." The scientist spoke carefully. When he'd got his PhD (a highly classified one as it happened, in electromagnetic propagation which was a euphemism for some of the more spectacular aspects of electronic warfare), he'd never envisaged working on anything like this.

"We're running those signals through a massive amplifier and blasting them out. According to our information, we push enough power into the transmission and the visions you can experience will be converted to a real portal that we can step though into The Eye of Terror itself. And step out of to get back here."

He was interrupted by the military members of the group snapping to attention. General Vo Quoc Trung had entered with an Army Major in tow. He returned the salutes and looked around at the room with satisfaction.

"I see the Cambodians came through with the Nexgenbinaslex then. This is Major Heng Samrin, he'll be training the A-teams who'll be organizing the insurgency in the Land of Darkness. Major, this is the team trying to get through for your people."

"Thank you general." The expression on Heng Samrin's face was one of stunned disbelief.

"If I may summarize my mission, I and my people are going to use an inter-dimensional rift created by a blue feather headed serine nun acting on information received from a turncoat succubus queen to invade the demonic dimension, start an insurgency with the aim of destabilizing the whole set-up there, subverting the rule of Abaddon and eventually organizing an internal coup to overthrow him."

"That's it in a nutshell Major." Quoc Trung's voice was amused by the horrified expression on the Major's countenance.

"When I selected Special Forces at the 'Point, they told me there would be days like this."

"What did they recommend Major?"

"Cyanide Sir.' A laugh ran around the room.

"People, we're ready to get started." The scientist was trying desperately to get back into control. "Once the portal is open, we don't know how long we can keep it open so we have to move fast. General?"

"Yeah, when it opens, everybody start throwing stuff through as fast as you can.

Just throw it through, leave the people the other side to catch and store it.

One question Randi, why can't we keep the portal open? The demons don't seem to have any trouble."

"Imagine it like this General, a very fast flowing stream with a pair of old saloon doors, the kind that swing both ways in it. The chaos demons upstream, us downstream.

They can push the doors open easily enough but to close them they have to pull the doors against the flow.

To open them we have to push against the flow but that same flow will be constantly trying to push them shut again.

Tyuwaru, I think there's going to an incredible strain on you once the portal opens, even with electronic booster and mana stone, you're fighting forces we have no way of understanding.

Don't worry about how long you can hold on for, just do the best you can. If you can give any warning when you're going to lose it, please try but if you can't, don't worry.

Remember, you're a unique resource at this time, you're worth more than pretty much anything else we have."

Tyuwaru nodded. "Right people, let's get going."

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror

The six members of Recon Team Tango-one-five crouched behind a large rock outcropping beside high walls that separated the Sixth Ring from the Fifth.

On the other side of the rocks was the gate, no less than fifty feet high, and probably much higher. It was open, and a steady stream of Demons was pouring out of the Sixth Ring, and setting off across the Fifth to where a distant set of gates offered access to the Fourth Ring.. Kim Ngan looked over to Thai Hung and hissed, "What's your count, Hung?"

"I'm at seven thousand two hundred twenty, Ninja. Twenty-nine. Thirty-eight…"

"Aye. Forty-seven now. How many command units?"

Tran "Oppa" Hạo Nam chimed in. "That's a little more than seven battalion-sized units, and we've seen eight big guys on huge-ass rhinolobsters. I think they're battalion commanders, Ninja"

Kim Ngan nodded. That made sense. And they were still pouring out from the city in ranks of nine abreast, with no end in sight. It was like being caught at a crossing by a two hundred car train… her gaze softened as she started to think about the wide skies and waving paddy rice field of her hometown- Bến Tre

She slapped herself softly. No thoughts of home now; she was in The Eye of Terror, and she had a job to do. Fifty-seven sixty, fifty-seven sixty-nine– "Hùng ? How many?"

"Nine thousand seven hundred seventy eight and counting, Ninja."

"Oppa ?"

"Here comes the ninth big rhinolobster; this'll be nine battalions of 99 eleven-demon platoons."

They kept counting for another couple of minutes, and then there were no more demons. As the tramping feet died off into the mists of the Styx, Kim Ngan looked over at Thai Hung.

"You have 9,999 demons, including the command groups?"

"Aye, Ninja. Right in line with what Oppa has got."

"Damn. That's a big ass brigade or maybe a small division."

There was silence for a minute, then Oppa asked, "So, Ninja, what are we doing now?"

"Now, we move away from the city, stay in the region, and find a relatively safe place to get some rest and wait for more contact."

"Aye, sir." They darted one-by-one from boulder to boulder, heading away from the city across the coffin-dotted plain. Around them, the groans and cries of the damned rose into a haunting chorus as the unquenchable flames – What powers them? wondered Kim Ngan idly for a moment before pulling herself back to the present – balanced by the supernatural healing powers of their new bodies.

Nearly an hour later, they were again at the shore of the Styx. The soft mud oozing gently through their toes belied the roar of the waterfall ahead, and the thick pea-soup fog was getting heavier as it mingled with the mist thrown up by the falling water. There was a horrible stench in the air, and the mist tasted of sulfur.

Kim Ngan led Tango-one-five toward the cliff. The mud thinned at last and gave way to rock; the land rose into a jagged, twisted badland around the river basin as the river gained speed heading toward the gorge. They clambered over the slick rocks and around monolithic boulders, until Kim Ngan stopped.

They were standing on a low peak with a commanding view of the surrounding terrain, at least as far as the mist let them see. Ahead of them, the broken terrain dived down into dimness; to the right, the Styx plunged down the gorge; to the left, the cliff edge stretched off into the mist, with a subtle curve that just evaded the eye; and behind them, the badlands stretched for what must have been several miles. They were surrounded by a ring of low, jagged boulders.

Kim Ngan nodded. "Here is where we make the base of operations. We're staying here until command contacts – " Her eyes defocused, and she relaxed visibly.

Thai Hung was next to her, and grabbed her muddy shoulder. "Ninja? Ninja?"

She tensed up again with a start. "That was the brass in Washington. They're going to try to get us some equipment."

Lieutenant Kim Ngan ? It was Tyuwaru again.

Kim Ngan tried her best not to fade out and lose the contact. Yes?" Hung, I'm still talking to them. Hold on a second."

General Vo Quoc Trung is wondering if where you are is a safe place right now?

Yes, we're safe enough.

Okay, good. We're going to try an experiment here. If it works, I'll see you in a moment. Or something will be happening." Kim Ngan felt a giggle in Tyuwaru's voice. Nobody is quite sure what.

"I'm through, Sir." Tyuwaru spoke with an unaccustomed level of authority in her voice. "Lieutenant Kim Ngan says they are in a safe place right now."

The attending scientist nodded. "Are you ready?"

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes tightly, Tyuwaru nodded.

"We have Tyuwaru's signal recorded and digitalized?" The question was a rhetorical one only. Nevertheless, one of the electronic techs checked the files in the signals analysis computer.

"Confirmed, we have it. Like nothing we've ever seen before but we do have it."

From his pocket, the scientist pulled what looked like a TV remote and hit a couple of buttons.

Across the room, the digitalized version of Tyuwaru's bio-psion signal was being fed into an magic amplifying system that had been modified from a magic jammer. The result as the technologists started to increase the output power was immediate.

Tyuwaru began to shake visibly, rattling the chair she was lounged on.

The tendons in her neck were standing out in strain. Her boyfriend held her tightly, and was about to say something when everyone in the room jumped.

A black ellipse was staring to form in the room. It was hard to say where it was, it seemed to be at once parallel with the floor and perpendicular to it. It was also hard to say what it was, it seemed black and almost infinitely absorptive yet it also glared and irritated the eyes. A shining shadow didn't make sense yet that was what they had created.

"What is that?"

"Must be a projection of something our senses can't cope with so they're doing the best they can."

"Hurry up can't you?" Tyuwaru's boyfriend almost snarled out the words. "Can't you see how much you're hurting her?"

Still not quite believing his eyes, Randi picked up the paper airplane he'd brought and threw it; it traveled through the portal and vanished. A split second later it came back out, stained and smelling of sulfur.

General Vo Quoc Trung didn't hesitate. He grabbed a his M82B5 sniper's rifle from the pile of military shiny toys, a bag of electronic equipment, then tossed a "Heng Samrin, grab some more and follow me" over his shoulder before stepping into the shadowy circle and vanishing.

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror

Kim Ngan suddenly felt awake again, but the daydream wasn't gone. In fact, it seemed to be superimposed on her vision. She passed a dirty hand over her eyes and squinted, trying to get it to go away; her mind was playing tricks on her, she got the sense that something was forcing its way through to her. Then, a black ellipse started to form, one that defied easy description.

"Hold on still, guys. I think I'm still hallucinating."

"You too?" asked Oppa, who was blinking rapidly.

Kim Ngan spun around and looked at her surroundings. All normal, and she was feeling fine. Then she turned back again, and there was the tunnel.

"You guys see it too?"

"Yes," said the others at once. As they did so, a paper dart flew through the ellipse and hit Kim Ngan on the forehead before fluttering to the ground. Perplexed, she stooped and picked it up: a paper airplane? Then the anvil dropped and she threw it back through the ellipse. After a few seconds, a man stepped through, an M82B5 sniper rifle over one shoulder, a large bag in one hand. Kim Ngan and her companions snapped to attention.

"Lieutenant, you're out of uniform." General Vo Quoc Trung looked around, a foul, stinking swamp covered with a yellowish mist that stunk of sulfur and fouler things. He was standing on a rocky outcrop amid an atmosphere of desolation and misery that told him, more clearly than anything else could, that he was truly in The Eye of Terror.

"Sorry Sir, that joke was old the first time I heard it. Anyway, this is the uniform of the day around here. Skin and mud."

"You need uniforms? We've got a lot to get through to you and we're not sure how long we can hold the portal open for at any one time." Another figure emerged. "This is Major Heng Samrin, Special Forces. He'll be liaising with you and providing technical and operational assistance."

"Welcome to The Eye of Terror Sirs. First thing, intelligence, we've counted five brigade-sized units moving out of the lower reaches of The Eye of Terror, heading upwards. There's a lot more demons coming your way Sir. How's thing going out there?"

"Liam Nuttall is doing a number on the invasion force. He's literally shredding them with artillery and armor. The demons are losing in nine-digit numbers." Vo Quoc Trung paused for a brief second. "Their command structure is shot to hell, you and your team mates did a damned fine job."

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

Major Heng Samrin was already on the other side of the portal, and the military personnel were forming a line and starting to hand off crates of ammunition and explosives, piling it through the portal as fast as discipline and urgency could make possible.

"All hands to the pumps. Get this stuff through as quickly. Maximum urgency." Randi looked at where Tyuwaru was shivering on her couch, obviously in great distress.

"Everybody, this isn't just a military business. Throw stuff through if you can't hand it." He paused for a second. "Is it safe to throw Nexgenbinaslex ?"

"Sure is. Thank's for the help." The stream of equipment being passed through picked up speed.

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror

"All of you, stand to, and help us unload these supplies," Vo Quoc Trung snapped, then turned and passed his rifle to Kim Ngan . "It's an M82B5 23mm caseless sniper rifle, hot from the production line.

We got you Nexgenbinaslex (next generation binary stabilized liquid explosive) instead of Binaslex, its 30 percent more powerful than the old generation Binaslex and 650 percent more powerful than C-4. She, in turn, handed the rifle to Thai Hung, who leaned it against a boulder.

The stack of equipment grew until they had received six webbings to carry things in, two slightly modified 0.80 calibre assault rifles, 30 crates of mithril ammunition, 180 kilograms of Nexgenbinaslex with all the requisite electronic fusing, two dozen modified M36 claymore mines, the same number of AT-5 anti-tank rockets, six pairs of night-vision goggles, and twelve outfits of dark combat fatigues.

Behind them, the portal started to shimmer, Vo Quoc Trung guessed that Tyuwaru was finally losing her grip. "Anything else you need Lieutenant?"

"Yes Sir. We need to change our allocations so our dependents get all of our salary. We don't need money here."

"But you're dead."

"With respect Sir, the contract with the Army says nothing about 'til death us do part' and obviously it hasn't. Sir, this is The Eye of Terror, we are not short of lawyers down here." Kim Ngan grinned broadly, perfectly well aware of the size of the demolition charge she'd just thrown into the Army bureaucracy.

Vo Quoc Trung returned her grin. "Lieutenant, you've enabled me to fulfill a life's ambition. When I hand your – perfectly reasonable – instructions over to the proper authority, I can finally make those REMFs at Finance Corps suffer as much as the troops on the front line. Good luck Lieutenant and kick some ass down here." Then he and Heng Samrin stepped back through the portal and were gone.

Kim Ngan surveyed the equipment and smiled. "Okay, guys. We don't have to eat. We don't have to sleep. We heal ten times faster than ordinary humans. We're the Indochina military." Her smile widened into a full-toothed grin. "Let's go blow up some chaos demons."

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

"I'm losing it!" Tyuwaru's wail cut across the room. The elliptical portal started to shiver as General Vo Quoc Trung and Major Heng Samrin stepped out. A second or so later, it collapsed completely. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be my dear." Vo Quoc Trung 's voice was comforting and quiet.

"Look, we got all the stuff they needed through to them, they passed some intelligence that was very important back to us and, above all, we've made solid contact. You did better than we had any right to expect, so you go and have a rest. You deserve a medal for what you did today."

"Sir, you should have let me go through first." Heng Samrin's comment came as Tyuwaru and her boyfriend left the room.

"Major, sometimes a commander has to lead the way. Try it with noodles one day. Try to push a cooked noodle across a plate, then try and pull it across. See which one is easier. We're going to be literally asking men to go into hell itself. Now, when we do ask, they'll know that we went first."

Vo Quoc Trung brushed at his uniform, it was covered with foul smelling mud and a disgusting greenish slime.

"I'm going to wash and change. If this smells as bad as it looks."

"It does." Said Randi reassuringly.

"Then that's an early order of priority. I guess the Lab boys will want to analyze this stuff as well."

"I brought some samples Sir." Heng Samrin held up what looked suspiciously like a jam jar filled with the mud from The Eye of Terror.

"Well done. And that applies to everybody here. We're in a position to strike back at last. Let finish this side quest."

Headquarters, Army of Abigor, Lemuria.

Abigor watched the human sky chariots pouring fire into his troops. Some of them were simply saturating the area with fire lances, others were using a magic fire lance that would turn in the air to follow its prey. Seeker lances he thought, what else could they be?

"Sire, our demons are falling back."

"What?" Abigor contained his urge to destroy the messenger. He had learned how futile that could be.

"They have lost eight in ten of their number Sire and the humans will not retreat from us. They cannot hold and now the sky chariots have arrived, the iron chariots will not be far behind. It is over."

The messenger bowed his head and waited for death.

Abigor looked across the roofs of Hit where the sky chariots were attacking the remnants of the legions deployed here. He had had such hopes of this outflanking move but in his heart he guessed the humans had been ahead of him all the time.

"Yes, it is over. Spread the word, order the legions to fall back and regroup."

Regroup with what? the messenger was tempted to ask but he held his tongue. Surviving this message was good fortune enough for one day, no need to tempt fate.

Operation Trinity Headquarters, Alnus, Lemuria.

The demon attack was collapsing, Supreme Commander Nuttall could see the truth now, unfolding on the giant screen before him. He had raw video up, it showed the black line that had pressed up against his defenses melting away, beginning to stream to the rear as it collapsed.

Up at Helm's Deep Valley the issue had been close for some hours and the 11th Army holding the valley had a tough fight but they had held and now the enemy was destroyed there as well. Nuttall switched over from raw to synthetic video, the pictures of the battle replaced by blue and red military symbols moving slowly as the demons retreated and the human formations started their advance.

Not that there was anywhere for the demons to retreat to. The armored spearheads had already linked up behind their lines and blocked the retreat to the hellgate. The back door had slammed shut, there was nowhere for the demons to run to.

Wadial Khirra Village, Southern Lemuria, in the morning.

Memnon hissed softly and sniffed the remains of his companions. Groztith and Hezbitari had been flying next to him, soaring on the very ethers of this world savoring the panic and the fear. It was like the sweetest nectar to their refined senses. These monkeys were clever little things, they always had been but who would have imagined they would have come so far as to fly themselves in chariots of steel and polysteel? Polysteel. Memnon snorted in confusion. What was it? It was harder than metal yet he could divine nothing of the earth from it. No metal, no ore. It had no elemental song within itself, it did not sing, it did not even hum. It was a dead thing this polysteel that only told him its name and nothing more.

Yet these chariots of steel and polysteel had been so very deadly, yes. Unleashing arrows of fire and mithirl that tore through ethereal flesh with rude abruptness and unerring accuracy his wing mates were overcome. Groztith barely had time to chant its challenge to the once-born. The arrows tore him into this pool of viscera and smoking bone. Memnon groaned slightly as his ruined left shoulder began throbbing again, ephemeral essence gelling and congealing over the gaping wound where his massive leathery wings had been. The chariots had eyes and they were not fooled.

It had taken all of his will to overcome the pain and panic as another human arrow of mithirl and fire had pinned him between his once proud wings. Hezbitari was dead as well, the leering face plastered against the cracked tree trunk to his left. The rest of the demonic form was sprayed in a smoldering mess splashed among the tree tops and underbrush. "You're a fool Hezbitari." Memnon growled as he made it up to his cloven hooves and steadied himself. Above him he still heard the chariots roaring triumphantly as they raced away after having circled over his clearing these last few minutes.

His senses smelled the approaching monkeys before he heard them and he licked his lips. He smelled more polysteel and mithril and he knew they were armed with weapons that wounded far worse than simple mthirl swords and spears. It did not matter. Briefly, it was like the old days, he had the advantage. He had their minds before they even knew he was there. These ones were not like the others, the ones whose minds seemed shielded by something he couldn't explain. These ones, the ones in the long robes, were vulnerable still. He held their minds in his hands and carefully formed the image of himself, transparent, invisible in his own. They would see what he wanted them to and that was nothing. He let loose a deep throaty laugh like some predator from this world's bygone days. Memnon liked to play with his food. It was time for his pound of flesh.

Wadial Khirra Village, Southern Lemuria, at noon.

The first monkey peered over some underbrush, carefully keeping his crafted spear of polysteel and steel before him like a talisman. Memnon stood imperiously, arms crossed and quietly waited as more of them approached, tentative and fearful. Some whispered curses as they saw the charred remains of his wing mates blasted all over the clearing. Several were easily within an arm's length of the never-born as it watched them with cold satisfaction. Twelve of them in all moved in tight formation into the clearing. What an auspicious number, Memnon mused.

Arabic. The language was Arabic. His gift of tongues was perfect as he listened to the monkeys musing and whispering as they examined the remains of his wing brothers. By the time the clouds overhead lifted and the sun shown down on these fields the ephemeral flesh and bone would boil and hiss away. One of them lifted a box to his ears and spoke into it. He could feel the ether sparking around him and trilling with voices. They were communicating over distances without seeing their audience. He had heard of this phenomenon from those who dared venture into this plain. He did not believe it until now.

"Clever little monkeys, you have come far." He finally spoke breaking the silence in perfect flawless Arabic save for the omnipresent low growl that undercut every syllable. Some of the Saudi men whirled around and began firing wildly. They could not see him.

No matter. It was time for his pound of flesh. One of the humans stared dumbly down at his chest as a taloned claw erupted from his chest in a gruesome spray of crimson gore and bone. The soldier's eyes focused on the still beating heart held in the claws like an obscene flower before dimming forever. Memnon shuddered in near orgasmic joy as he felt the passage of the Essence through him and into the depths of his realm. The fallen soldier's fellows screamed incomprehensibly in a panic, some fumbling for grenades and others were firing into the smoky form dancing along the edges of their perceptions.

They heard the guttural chant of challenge from their unseen attacker and some of them found their bowels turned to water and fear gripped them as surely as the talon gripped the hapless soldier's heart. They had come to set up another roadside bomb, to strike another blow at the Abaddon who had invaded the mortal realm but it was they who had been ambushed.

Memnon's eyes rolled into the back of his head like a Great White Sharks' revealingblack within black eyes, lifeless, like a doll's eyes, and he descended upon the children of Seth and ravaged them as only the never-born could with divine fury and hunger. Their screams could be heard for kilometers and then there was only a sudden still silence.

Wadial Khirra Village, Southern Lemuria, late afternoon

Memnon snorted in disgust as he watched the young human die. He stared into those cow-like eyes as they fluttered and the hands feebly clawed at his infernal flesh. He could feel the soul within stirring now as the meat caging it finally ceased its life functions. He casually allowed the corpse the slide out of his grip and he was quiet for a long moment, listening. The humans were about in large numbers and he was no fool. His wings would take time to regenerate and his flesh was still aching from his wounds. Their spears of polysteel and metal spat hot burning bolts that could wound even his great personage. This was not the way it was to be. Go find them and challenge them, he was told. They will cower before you. He had found the humans but their chariots of steel and plastic were far too powerful for him. He had lost two wing mates already and he was in no condition to meet them again. Not yet, anyway.

Memnon smiled cruelly. When he did, there would be blood. Enough to drown a thousand human infants, and then the pain would come. Sweet melodic pain. Memnon's eyes fluttered and the never born knew that it was time to rest. His prey had been bested and he had claimed a lair for himself. At least long enough to heal the wounds and allow his spirit flesh to sing to the domain he called home. This wretched place of cloying life and limited matter was not to his liking. He was his own being and he needed rest.

"Just for a little while." Memnon growled and curled down onto the floor next to the corpse of the boy. He looked with contentment at the place that surrounded him for sprawled out across the couch was an older woman, head turned completely around and leering at him while a younger woman was impaled on a broken piece of furniture, scream frozen on her face. All were small offerings to the Chaos Gods and his Prince to watch over him in this moment of weakness. He would repay them with more flesh and blood when he was whole again.

Wadial Khirra Village, Southern Lemuria, just before dawn

A single eye snapped open at the sound of the tea pot whistle and Memnon spoke."For disturbing me in this moment of respite, you shall know such wonders of pain, I will make a cathedral of your bones and sinew and your agony will be my choir, pathetic human." He snarled coldly at the young Arabic man who now shared the high-roofed barn that was now his den. A man dressed in plain khakis and a billowy white shirt opened at his chest who nodded politely to Memnon and knelt cross legged across from him as he delicately poured himself a cup of tea. The steam rose lazily from the ancient chipped porcelain. It had been brewing on the stove and the smell wafted over to thegroggy demon.

"Peace and blessing be upon you, Unborn One. Your absence still saddens my patron."

Memnon paused. He stirred more now, unfurling like some obscene spider, long leathery limbs reaching out as he rose with eyes like cold embers pinning the young man with a predatory gaze. "Slave of The Prince of Pleasure." Memnon inclined his head with bitter sarcastic politeness as he smelled the clean scent of the Fallen Angel.

"Care for a cup?" the Fallen Angel asked with a child like innocence as he sipped his own, for a brief moment he closed his eyes and seemed to savor the tea like one savored the sensation of forced intercourse.

"You're all whores to your sensation and desire, you know that, don't you?"

Memnon chuckled darkly, his cloven hooves clomping on the packed earth floor like a caged bull as he paced back and forth before the kneeling man.

"This world is delight and rapture. It is the fulfillment of all and the joy of bliss." The young man sighed as he inhaled the aroma from the tea cup.

Memnon said nothing. They liked to talk, they liked to taste, they liked to savor, these slaves of The Prince of Pleasure.

"What is the purpose of this world if not to delight in its wonders? You must remember, surely, how wonderful it is in Palace of Pleasure in the Immaterium. Find pleasure in every moment, indulge in every whim. Let mortal races feel the burden of their crude lives. We are beyond such concerns or worries. Every power is ours to use, every sensation ours to experience. We are truly masters of the universe, and all others exist only to satisfy our desires." He continued in a soft whisper like leaves on silk.

"What manner of slave are you, eh? Daemonette, perhaps?" Memnon asked silkily. How frail he looked just sitting there, it stirred his predatory urges like a woman's breast called to a male. Memnon clomped forward a bit, talons gleaming dangerously.

The Fallen Angel inclined his head and closed his eyes and listened to intently for a moment, he looked absolutely beautiful, like a most meticulously sculpted statue, there was not a blemish on his skin and his body moved with a sublime grace that would have made a human weep. Was it a wonder that these bastards had their way with the women of this wretched place while his kin had to forcibly take what they wanted? Was it any wonder they were always the ones the Lord of Excess sent in his stead to speak for him.

"It is so…quiet here." The Fallen Angel announced with tears welling in its eyes. "No maddening chorus always haunting your every thought, no cries of endless pleasure, no shrieks of joyous pain. Just. Silence." There was a sadness there, deep and abiding.

Memnon could stand it no longer, it maddened him to see this abject weakness paraded before him."Slave!" he roared.

There was a rip and whirl of taloned hands and leathery limbs flashing forward and the angelic merely raised his head as if offering his throat to his attacker but it gestured with its hand and Memnon was catapulted off his feet and landed in a heap against the far wall of the shack, shaking the entire frame to its core.

The Fallen Angel was off his feet and had crossed the room in a single stride in between heart beats and he had a flawless alabaster hand wrapped around Memnon's throat. Without a grunt of effort, the Angelic hoisted the still stunned Harpy off his feet and held him high above him. The eyes were no longer human but white within white and there was a low sound growing around him like a chorus of women slowly building up tempo.

"I am Appoloin, servant to Cthonia-Lan, Daemonette of the Hosts of Horus Lupercal, Devout Servant and Herald of "She Who Thirsts". You will listen to my words and heed them."

"I…listen." Memnon managed to choke out.

"Are you certain?" Appoloin asked tightly and there was a cold smile on his face. Oh, yes they were beautiful, but they were also terrible in their wrath. "Maiden of Ecstasy," "Bringers of Joyous Degradation," "Harbingers of Endless Delights," and "Seekers of Decadence," Daemonettes are all these things and more.

Daemonettes could gift their victims with a mixture of excruciatingly painful caresses and the most delicate and tender of killing strokes. Even in the most gruesome of conflicts, the Daemonettes smile in secret ecstasy as they go about their deadly work, delighting in the waves of emotion emanating from their enemies.

"Yes, Appoloin. I attend your words." Memnon stammered.

"We are watching. Tell your prince that. The Lord of Excess has spoken yet he sees vile repugnant defiance from the mortal realm. The Great Chorus must not be disturbed. The Endless Pleasure must not cease. Your ilk were given this world and we see nothing but abhorrent failure. We do not want to take a more active role. Zarakynel awaits on the ether realm like a sword of Damocles."

"Zarakynel?!" Memnon exclaimed.

"Last he moved upon man, the Land of Wakanda wept bitter tears. Do not force our hand. Cow them. Stop the defiance. Should they find a way to disrupt the Chorus we will end this charade once and for all." Appoloin jerked Memnon down to face him, tusk to nose.

"Clear, foul one?" Appoloin replied like ice and hurled the Never Born back through the wall of the shack. Corrugated tin and sheet rock gave way and Memnon found himself running before he even realized he was touching ground again.

"Peace be with you." Appoloin whispered into the dawn wind and calmly sat back down to enjoy his tea.

He was disturbed in his tranquility by a roar and a clattering noise that shook dust from the ceiling of the hut and spoiled his tea. Dawn had still only half arrived but standing at the door, he could see a hulking brute made of square boxes sitting in the road. Two more of the same were behind it and three smaller brutes. Appoloin looked more carefully, there were twenty thin black rings painted around the long tube that stuck out of the upper box. The there was a squeaking noise and something opened from the top. At first Appoloin thought it was one of the foul ones but then he saw it was a human in weird armor. With his eye for beauty, he saw her as comely, and buxom even by the standards of the whore of Babylon.

Lieutenant Keisha"Hooters" Stevenson didn't feel comely. She was gray with exhaustion, her hair under her communications helmet was matted and her scalp stinging with sweat. She and the crew of Alpha-One-One had been on the move all night, at first chasing down the fleeing remnants of the western army.

Later, they'd split away and were now swinging east and south across the rear of the Demon army. If it had been a human force, there would have been supply columns to devastate and rear area units to destroy but here there was nothing. Until they'd come to this tiny village. Here, they had to waituntil the great ships of the desert, the Oshkosh Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, could catch up with them and bring them new supplies of fuel for the greedy gas turbines and ammunition for their guns.

Although Stevenson thought, they didn't need ammunition for all their kills. The roadwheels and bellies of the TYPE-92s and Black Knights were stained green and yellow with baldrick blood. It was a dirty little secret of armored warfare that tanks killed infantry with their tracks just as often as they did with their guns. There were other dirty little secrets as well of course. One of them, she had found, was that her physique wasn't perfectly suited to the inside of a cramped armored vehicle. Put quite bluntly her breasts got in the way. Back in her first unit, their impressive size had got her the nickname of 'hooters'. Woman in the Army reacted to things like that one of two ways, they either got offended, kicked upa fuss and were eased out or they sucked it up, gave back as good as they got and were accepted.

Stevenson had been one of the second group but that didn't help her now. After being thrown around inside a fast-moving tank all night, she was sore, tired, bruised and battered. And she had seen so much killing over the last twenty hours that she was a veteran with a veterans lack of patience for stupidity.

Still the dawn chill felt good after being sealed down for so long. She looked around the village, saw people slowly coming out of the buildings to look at the great American super heavy tanks. She checked them over carefully, noting the glitter of silver from their covered heads. The word was spreading fast, cover your head with mithril foil if you don't want a baldrick stealing your mind. Even out here in the back of beyond. The breeze sure did feel good though, even though it gave her a shrewd idea of just how bad she must smell. She slipped the shoulder straps of her top off to get full benefit from the cool air. That caused a stir of disapproval from some of the men in the village, although she did note they kept staring at her to remind themselves how offended they felt.

In his doorway, Appoloin saw the gesture and felt perturbed. She might be comely but such brazen behavior was immodest. He stepped away from his doorway into the street, projecting an image of love and friendliness with all his might."Cover yourself woman," and his kindly voice echoed across the street.

"Screw you!" Stevenson's voice was harsh for she was a veteran and didn't suffer fools gladly. "And the horse you…. SHIT! Demon 20 degrees left! 30mm!" She dropped back into the turret of her tank, by long practice ending the fall in her commander's position. The turret was already swinging to bear on her mark.

"Up."

"Shoot."

The gunner saw the cross-hairs merge with the figure standing silhouetted against the rising sun."On the way." The bursts of 30mm rounds from GAU-8/A Avenger took Appoloin full in the chest, hurling him backwards and tearing at his body. Incredibly, it didn't kill him although there was no way he would have survived wounds that terrible. It was the blast from the 152mm main gun on the TYPE-92s that finished him off. Confused by the sudden, vicious attack and in agony from the wounds, Appoloin died in a spreading pool of white blood.

A few minutes later, Stevenson and her crew were looking down at the body, now revealed in its true form, a white humanoid with wings."Not the same as the ones we've killed so far ell-tee." Stevenson's crew were punctilious about addressing her correctly when others were around. Inside their tank she was 'hooters' just as the gunner was 'baldy', the loader 'crab' and the driver 'biker' but, for them, usingher nickname where outsiders could hear would be disrespectful.

"Not the same at all. I guess this is one of them fallen angels. Doesn't matter, we declared war on them as well." She raised her voice slightly. "Did anybody see where this one came from?"

One of the village women pointed at a barn-like building. Crab went over and looked inside, then came back, his face grim and as white as the body stretched out on the ground. "You'd better take a look at this ell-tee."

Stevenson went into the hut and looked for what seemed a long, long time. When she came back, her eyes were blank. "We need a camera crew up here to film that." Suddenly, she shook with rage. "Damn that animal. He sat there drinking tea surrounded by that horror show. Slaughtered an entire family and then drank a cup of tea. May God burn that bastard for all eternity."

Far away, in the rocky wasteland, Memnon heard the crash of the gun and crackle of gunfire and decided he'd better vacate the area. Very quickly.

Emroy Temple, New Coda City, Lemuria

Rory Mercury looked into the magic telecom and gave a careful, friendly smile. She was addressing the Holy Darwinian Empire to inform them about the great victory the Earth-Falmart Coalition.

The truth was that she was actually feeling reasonably happy at this point, the war was progressed in the right direction, if she played her card right she could even end this Great War before it destroyed both worlds .

"My fellow Falmartians." Rory paused, then shook her head. "No, my fellow children of light, for today we all stand shoulder to shoulder against a darkness that promised to engulf us all. Truly, in these dark days, if we do not hang together, we will all hang separately.

Today, there are no Falmart or Earth, no Terran or Falmartian.

We are all "children of light" together and it is to each other that we must look for to ensure our survival. As the children of gods we must pray to our creator, look after each other as brother and sister and use the tools of our joint ingenuity to protect us.

"You have all been following the events in Lemuria where coalition forces have engaged a demon invasion army estimated at over 600 million strong. Much of the fighting has been obscure due to the area it has covered but now, I am able to give you some accurate information on what has taken place.

"The demon army has been defeated, not just defeated but destroyed. Our troops and those of our allies, most notably the Earth Army under General Liam Nuttall and the Zeroth Division under Cardinal Augusta Henry Highland have beaten back the enemy and inflicted enormous losses upon them.

We believe that the total of their dead is in excess of 500 million a number that is rising hourly as our forces pursue the defeated enemy back to the very gate of the underworld." Rory looked down at her desk briefly, the retreating enemy hadn't yet encountered the blocking force that was between them and safety. That was a nice surprise that was waiting for them.

"Our own losses so far are just over 300,000 men. Most of these were suffered in the battle for the city of Hit. Rory paused, "May Emroy bless their souls. "

"Some of our most glorious victory are in the Helm's Deep Valley. There, the East Asian 11th Expeditionary Army held the line against an overwhelmingly powerful force of demons and drove them back, fighting three days straight in the process. In doing so they proved that not only do our armed forces have superior equipment to our enemy but our men are better trained, braver and more resourceful than their demon counterparts.

"Now, however, we must look to the future. We have learned that the force that struck us represents only a small portion of the forces that the enemy has available to him. Our forces have achieved wonders, General Nuttall has won a victory that will forever place him amongst the Great Hero, but this is not enough.

"We must mobilize for the holy war. The coalition armed forces depend on armored vehicles for their mobility and magic rockets for defense against harpies attacks. Those magic rockets need fuel and the battles over the last few days have shown how much they require. We must give them priority for supplies of gasoline and highly concentrated wine for rocket fuel. Accordingly, I have given orders for alcohol rationing to be instituted in all territories of the Holy Darwinian Empire. Each person over 60 in a family will be allowed to buy no more that twenty liters of wine per month.

"In the last ten days, 300,000 of our men and their allies have sacrificed everything they had for us. They gave their lives, knowing what awaited them beyond death. Now, we must match their sacrifice and bend every will, every nerve, every muscle in a great global crusade that will see our enemies driven into the dust and humbled. Thank you all, and good night."

Rory Mecury turned off the microphones and stared at the temple wall. She'd just told the Falmartian people that they couldn't drink any more the way they used to. Ah well, it had been nice being the most beloved apostle in The 13 Apostles again for a while.

"What the hell is the coalition forces, she said as if we didn't do most of the heavy work for them. The UEADF made up more than 99% of the total force of this so-called coalition." said Kuribayashi, expressing her displeasure with Rory's speech. A sentiment shared widely among many frontline units.

Itami tapped Kuribayashi on the shoulder to ease her anger. "Now, now Kuribayashi, you know all this is just for imperial propaganda. She is a Grand Master of the Holy Order, she need to appeal to her people. The heart and mind strategy, remember?!"

The idea behind this strategy wasn't entirely altruistic; the UEA needed to build their legitimacy if they want to rule Falmart. The people of Falmart were very religious, if they could some how turn The 13 Apostles to their side, Earth could build a puppet goverment and save themself from the real pain in the ass of governing the whole planet.

The left-wing faction in the High Command insisted that promising the 13 Apostles's continued status as grandmasters was both essential to obtain the surrender of Falmart and to secure the compliance with that surrender by Falmart's armed forces. They could further stabilize postwar Falmart and legitimize Falmartian officials working with the UEA. They also warned that deposing the apostles of the gods might embitter the fanatical public and open the way later to a revanchist regime.

"General, have you read Lelei's new book, Political Economy of the Holy Empire," Kuribayashi changed her subject.

"Yes," said Itami. "I believe, that book scared the shit out of some top brass in the Allied High Command upon it released."

The Empire heartland was a monstrously huge behemoth of 3,5 billion people, with more land than all of Earth and hundreds of major urban areas. The Imperial infrastructure, societal practices, and civil systems in place was a complex web, changing from province to province and often city to city.

There were 3,084 cities with more than 100,000 people, and 275 cities with more than 1,000,000. The Empire was an incredibly complex beast.

Put simply, the economy of the Empire heartland was monstrous.

With a GDP of 358 Trillion Suwani, the Empire would possess roughly 72% of the world's nominal GDP with the entire rest of the world combined would be around 142 trillion Suwani.

This total stranglehold on the world economy would essentially make the entire world, aside from extremely isolated rogue states, vassals of Empire capital interests. The vast majority of companies and corporations in the world would either be completely crushed by the impossibly massive resources of imperial competitors, or be completely owned subsidiaries of imperial conglomerations.

A vast portion of the world's agricultural land would be owned by Imperial agricultural companies, and churn out crops and meat to feed the Imperial populace.

This would lead to, by Lelei estimation, 70% of the working urban population of the world outside of the Empire core territories working, directly or indirectly, for an Imperial company or foreign subsidiary of an imperial company, and around 15% of the working rural population of the world doing the same. This would mean that around 44.8% of the world outside the Empire would be employed in some way by imperial companies. Combined with virtually all the imperial citizens being employed by other imperials, and that makes 67.1% of the world's working population.

This would, combined with the military might of the Empire, have enormous diplomatic repercussions. Essentially, an embargo from the Empire would be economically equivalent to getting nuked repeatedly.

Lelei said that as only a slight exaggeration. You'd either submit to total Imperial economic dominance or remain a desperately poor nation, left further in the dust daily.

In summary, the Empire would completely dominate the world's economy, vastly outstripping all other countries on the planet combined in every conceivable measure of strength.

As ridiculous and exaggerated as that sentence might sound, it would be true- in manufacturing, agriculture, construction, financing, and every other field aside from perhaps raw resource extraction, the Empire would be completely untouchable. The rest of the vassals would barely be blips on the radar. Essentially, there would be no rival to the Empire economy- no upcoming threat, that would change in the Great War, no remote international competitor, and nothing standing in the way of total world economic domination.

The Banks of the Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror

Chondrakerntolis rode his Beast carefully along the banks of the Styx. Something worried him about this area, not so very long before, his Beast had been alarmed by something along just this stretch of road. And then there was the mysterious death of Jarakeflaxis. They'd found his mangled body, studded with stab wounds and inverse crucified on one of the rocky outcrops. The letters DEUS VULT had been scrawled over his head, in his own blood. Nobody could make sense of it, or them come to think of it. DEUS VULT ? No sense at all.

Somebody was up to no good that was certain. Reverse Crucifixion pointed to Satan and his people but they rarely came down this way. He had heard that a delegation from Satan was on its way to visit Abaddon but who knew what for. Wise demons did not involve themselves in the affairs of those so high up for when giants fought, midgets got trampled. The most likely bet was that one of the Dukes was making a power-play, trying to expand his influence over the netherworld at the expense of Chondrakerntolis's Duke. Now that would make sense.

Something weird had been happening recently. The number of souls that had been arriving in The Eye of Terror had suddenly accelerated, rising by orders of magnitude. They'd been dispatched to the various regions of The Eye of Terror of course but at every level the numbers were being hidden so that their essence could be used by the lower-level demons instead of restricted to those of higher caste. Was that why Jarakeflaxis had been killed? Had one of the Dukes or Greater Demons found out that human life essence was being diverted and settled for that public punishment. But if it was an example, why was there no indication of what it was an example of?

That question so Chondrakerntolis that he never noticed the thin wire stretched across the pathway. His Beast saw it but the threat it represented didn't register. The prime characteristic of a Beast was its unthinking ferocity, caution was not a desired attribute. As a result of their inattention, neither was quite aware of what happened next or the skill with which it had been planned.

The wires were attached to push-pull detonators fixed to four anti -demon claymore mines with about seven hundred 1⁄8-inch-diameter (3.2 mm) sunforged mithril balls each, placed so that their victim was the center of an X defined by the cones of cubical metal shrapnel they generated. The wires also tripped a timer switch on four M83 Pincer Grenade (heavy canister charge arrayed anti-tank mine) that had been buried under the path's surface.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The M83 utilized the next generation advanced binary stabilized liquid explosive (NEXGENBINASLEX) device combining two inherently stable liquid high explosive mediums, stored under high pressure, into a single volatile solution. The device measured half a meter in length and a quarter meter in diameter, weighing exactly 5 kilos. A web harness constructed of nylon allowed a soldier to carry two of the M83HCCs slung over their shoulder in a quick release mount.

The two liquids, though stable in each separate holding tank, become electrically volatile when mixed. A full 4 kilos of liquid high explosive is produced (2 kilos of each material, LiqEx A and LiqEx B) in the central mixing chamber. Each kilo of NEXGENBINASLEX, when properly mixed, is the equivalent of 6.5 kilos of C-4 plastique.

The M83HCC was a common demolition device used by the military during the Great War. it was usually placed against a structure that was to be demolished and then activated for maximum fusing, allowing the human operator a wide margin of safety in order to clear the blast radius. A special cone-shaped filter could be attached to the device to tamp the charge and direct the energy of the explosive into a shaped ("Monroe") effect suitable for demolition work.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Chondrakerntolis tried to make his brain work, he was surrounded by flying mud and dust, his body ripped by wounds that sprayed his green blood around. His Beast was down, its front legs and one of its claws torn off, it's body broken and bleeding. Even as he watched, the path surface erupted, shredding the already-dying Beast and throwing its parts around. The connection was inevitable, whatever the reason for the death of Jarakeflaxis, he was also to be its victim.

The mud and mist stirred and three figures emerged. Mortal !. Chondrakerntolis cudgeled his dying brain into absorbing this data. Mortals had done this? How? They were cattle, prey to be milked of their life essence, nothing more. They had killed him? How?

A human female knelt beside him and he heard her voice. "Somebody told us you couldn't be killed. Guess they were wrong huh?"

Chondrakerntolis tried to reply but couldn't. As his vision faded out, one question tormented him. Why him?

Watch Tower, Banks of the Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror.

The thunder, strange and mysterious had echoed around the Fifth Ring. Naxalavorsetys looked over the rim of his tower, there wasn't much to see, just the seething of the mud in which the mortal races spend eternity on the edge of drowning. Just to be sure, he fired off a flare, lighting the area around the tower a bit better. Still nothing.

He shrugged, strange noises were not unknown in The Eye of Terror.

It was nothing to worry about. His shift would be over soon and he could go back to his normal life. The regular legions were all being called away and the jobs of the guards were being taken over by civilians such as him. This was something that he did not like at all.

The second blast was very definitely something to worry about.

It was stunningly close, Naxalavorsetys felt the superheated air blast at his skin, felt the shock-wave pummel him.

More importantly, he felt his watch-tower lurch as a major portion of the stonework on one side was blown away. His tower was collapsing and he realized what that meant even though he couldn't comprehend how it had been done.

It wasn't the fall that killed Naxalavorsetys nor the wreckage of the watch-tower landing on top of him, it was the holy missile that flew toward him, second later, that did the job.

A few minutes later the two three-human strike teams joined up and set off for the next target.

The Division Wall of the Sixth Ring, The Eye of Terror

Kerflumpus always enjoyed stretching his legs, even if just to torture a few mortals here and there. Now, he was marching out of the Sixth Ring into the Fifth he proudly threw out his chest and swung his arms. News had been all over about the crushing defeats inflicted on the insurgent humans, and his legion was mobilizing to move out and continue the pursuit of the shattered mortal nations, to spread out and batter their world into submission.

The prospect excited him. They said that the sky in the mortal world was different, that it was light and dark, instead of the dull orange-and-brown striation. Well, now he would get to see it– and to experience crushing the mortals and driving them before him, to taste their panic, blood, and flesh, as a member of the second army to pour from the portal into the mortal' plane.

Kerflumpus was in the second platoon of his legion; ahead and to his left, the commander, a Greater Demon, was swaying with the gait of his Great Beast as it stepped off the Styx bridge. Its arched tail curled over his head, and he was sitting in the saddle with a bored look on his face when, with a sigh, his head exploded. Kerflumpus caught it out of the corner of his eye, and swung around with horror, as every other demon in the unit did.

Suddenly, something similar happened to the demon next to him: there was a whistling sound, and then they were both staring in horror at the fist-sized hole that had opened up in his chest. Spattering green blood all over Kerflumpus, he staggered a few steps and fell over the parapet of the bridge into the slow-moving, murky Styx below.

All across the bridge, it seemed that demons were falling at random every ten seconds or so, and the situation was proceeding nicely toward absolute pandemonium: the head of the legion was held up at the forward edge of the bridge by the dead commander, milling about with no idea what to do; the tail of the legion was crowding into the bridge with no idea what was going on. Meanwhile, the legion ahead of them was marching off along the road into the mists of the fifth ring, with no idea what was happening behind them.

There was obviously some wizardry at work here, heretofore unknown in The Eye of Terror. In sheer, undiluted panic, Kerflumpus charged his trident and loosed it off the bridge. He was watching the head-sized ball of magic zip across the river toward the far side when the air punched him, blanking out all sound as he was thrown up, spinning in midair. All around him, he saw other demons thrown up, some weakly flapping their vestigial wings; it was almost comical, and it was the last thing he saw before the masonry fragments and shrapnel shredded him.

Across the river, Lieutenant Kim Ngan whistled as the bridge blew. It was more spectacular than she'd expected; the initial flash of detonation was impossibly fast, and the blast wave ripped apart the bridge as though it were made of sand, sending Demons flying. She nodded back at Thai Hung and Hạo Nam."Good work placing the M83HCC, Hùng and Oppa." The two were grinning ear-to-ear.

Behind them, two of the other three members of Tango-one-five were setting down the M82B5s."Good shooting to you guys, too," said Kim Ngan. It hadn't really taken much; the Demons had been tightly packed on the bridge, and all they'd had to do is fire into the crowd. The 23mm caliber Mk666 caseless bullets had done a fabulous job. As usual.

After surveying the scene for few minutes and letting the two pilots– both avid big-game hunters before their units were called to Lemuria– pick off a couple of more bad guys and the commander of the next brigade-sized unit, Kim Ngan hoisted a satchel of webbing onto her shoulder. It had about two dozen more liters of nexgenbinaslex and tonnes of holy shrapnel, the detonators, and several boxes of ammunition. "Okay, boys. We're done here. Let's head out and get the next ambush set up."

Adjusting her webbing straps so they didn't chafe her through the mud caking her body, Kim Ngan led Tango-one-five back down the Styx toward their supply cache and the rope bridge they'd strung across the river. Once on the other side, they would set about making the Dis-Dysprosium road a hell within The Eye of Terror, one that Demons would fear more than they feared Abaddon himself. Kim Ngan already had a name for it. Cuu Tuyen Dao.

Palace of Abaddon, Infernal City of Dis, Sixth Ring of The Eye of Terror

The banners of kingdoms long conquered swirled in the red mist as the Akropoulopos approached the diamond throne of Abaddon.

He had always known being a messenger was a bad idea, and now he knew that his life was a couple of minutes from ending."Oh mighty prince," he began, "overlord of the innumerable legions of – "

"Get on with it," snapped Abaddon irritably, clicking his claws against the hewn gem. "What news have you brought me of Abigor's brilliant success?"

"Sire, the messengers from Abigor are silent. I bring news not of Abigor, but of terrible happenings much closer to your throne."

"Well, what is it? Hurry up; my time is not your kidling's plaything."

The messenger swallowed and groveled. "My lord – I do not know how to say this. The bridge leading to the road to Dysprosium has been destroyed."

Abaddon stopped clicking his fingers. "What?" His voice was quiet, which was even more terrifying than the hysterical fits. "Repeat yourself."

Akropoulos was shivering uncontrollably. "Your invincible eminence, the bridge across the Styx has been destroyed. Those legionaries who were there report that it burst into many pieces with the roar of ten thousand demons. Flying stones killed many, and -"

"What," asked Abaddon, cutting him off with a word, "do my advisors think to be the cause of this… outrage?" Still silkily smooth and quiet.

The court was silent, save for the shuffling of feet as some of the more perspicacious demons positioned themselves so that the inevitable rage would not claim their lives.

"Speak!" roared Abaddon. "I COMMAND you all, SPEAK!"

One demon timidly cleared his throat."Um, Sire, none of us can think of any explanation, save…" He trailed off, but not in time to save himself.

"Save what?" screamed Abaddon, balling his hand into a fist and pounding it on his throne.

"Save… uh… save, perhaps, most improbably, a bit of stray human magic?"

Abaddon's glare squashed him into an unimaginably horrible pulp. "You will all find us the cause of this outrage! You will ensure that it does not happen again! This is our domain; our immortal, invincible will decrees that no human mage shall ever work his magic once more in this infernal pit!"

As the court demons hastened to obey, scrambling around the wide hall, Akropoulos took the opportunity to scuttle unnoticed away. As he hurriedly left the palace, he promised himself to try again to join the legions; messengering was too hazardous a job.

The Banks of the Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror

Rahaby looked at the dead Beast and its rider in horror. The Beasts and the demons who rode them were invulnerable, everybody knew that. Those few who had tried to kill them had died deaths that were terrible even by the standards of The Eye of Terror. Yet those new arrivals had killed this pair. She knew who had done it all right, nobody else would have the gall to even try. And if that wasn't enough, the letters Deus Vult written n the Beast's side in its own blood were enough.

Were they insane? Rahaby's stomach clenched with fear at what was likely to happen. Once these deaths became known, there would be revenge, reprisals. The demons would come down here by the legion, searching every inch of ground for those who had done the deed. In the process, they would find all those who had escaped from the pits over the millennia and, at best, return them to torment.

Thousands of souls doomed to return to their agony because these six decided to upset the natural order of things. When she had left them in the underground room, Rahaby had been sorely tempted to 'arrange' for them to be found by the guards and returned to the pits. She had dismissed the idea, believing that their comments and stories had been just wild boasting. Now, she guessed they were not and she bitterly wished she had betrayed them. Condemning six souls was better than dooming the tens of thousands of escapees.

She'd been searching for them for days, trying to catch up with them and bring them into shelter. Now she had found this. She agonized over the decision, what to do? At that point another fact penetrated her bewildered mind. She had seen no flares from the watchtower that lay close at hand. Fearfully she made her way to where it had stood, only to be appalled by the sight that loomed through the mist. The watch tower was a blasted stump, its wreckage spread all over the paths, some of it sinking into the mud. And on the stump were the letters Deus Vult. Written in the blood of the watch-demon.

What else had these mad earthlings got in mind? And what to do about them? In Rahaby's mind was another question as well. Was it time to join them? And did she have any choice in the matter?

Somewhere In The Desert, Southern Lemuria, late afternoon

The sand collapsed underneath his clawed feet, sending him tumbling downwards into a ravine he had never seen. Memnon had been staggering through the desert, at first with purpose, trying to make his way back to the Hellgate and deliver his message but all plan or intent had long since been burned out of his brain. The sun had seared him, brutally, without mercy, sending his body temperature soaring and fogging his brain with mists that owed as much to hallucination as the shimmering heat haze. The bitter cold of the nights had been worse, if anything, than the roasting heat of the sun. There were parts of The Eye of Terror where the souls of humans were roasted in coffins or blasted around on super-heated winds. Now Memnon knew the sufferings they endured

He'd also had a plan, to keep going until his wings regenerated and he could fly the rest of the way. That plan too had died, his wings were regenerating although slowly. They were growing back twisted, malformed, useless. Memnon guessed that the fragments of mithril that he could feel in his back, the legacy of the fire-lance that had torn his original pair off, were interfering with the growth patterns and leaving him with these poor apologies for wings. Whatever the reason, he knew that he would never fly again. Never soar through the comforting skies of the dark realm, looking down on the great city of Dis that surrounded the pit where mortal souls were forever condemned to suffer.

Nor were his mutated wings the only parts of his body causing him grief. His stomach was an empty pit, chewing at the very center of his being. His last meal of mortal flesh was long forgotten in his screaming need for raw meat, yet in this endless expanse of sand there was no sign of food. Nor was their water and his throat was closed tight, swollen with the thirst that was adding its measure of suffering to the madness that was slowly but surely taking him over.

He rolled down the sandbank, seeing the sky rotate above him, the hated yellow sun glaring down as it laughed at his suffering. His body stopped its role, impacting on a strange irregular mass that yielded on his impact. Memnon looked harder at where he had ended up, it was a gully through the sand, perhaps one carved by flood water and not yet erased by the wind. It was not the sand that had stopped his roll though, it was the bodies of dead demons, perhaps half a dozen of them, piled in the bottom of the crevice. Had they crawled here for shelter and died? Or had their wounds overcome them?

Memnon pushed at the bodies, feeling one firmer than the rest. That is what kicked his mind into action, here was meat. He ripped off a large chunk from the firmest corpse, the others were already far advanced in decay and sank his teeth into it. His throat was too swollen to swallow at first but a thin stream of fresh blood from the meat eased it enough. Then, the implication of that thought struck Memnon at the same time as there was a faint, racking groan from the body he was eating. The demon was still alive. It took only a second for Memnon to fix that, his claws lashed across its throat, killing it. It was, probably, a merciful act.

Memnon filled his stomach with fresh meat and the blood eased his thirst a little. It was then he heard a strange sound, a thumping from the sky that reminded him of clawed feet marching down the road from Dysprosium. There was a great bridge on that road, one over the River Styx, where a demon could stand and drink in the sufferings of the humans below. He would like to stand on that bridge again.

The thumping grew worse and to Memnon's horror a human sky-chariot flew over a hill, obviously searching the ground. It was not one of the sleek ones, the ones that had mutilated and maimed him, it was an uglier, more ungainly monster that had a strange rotating structure over its head. As if its wings spun around instead of flapping.

The sky-chariot slowed down abruptly and its nose started to swing backwards and forwards, searching the ground ahead of it. Memnon knew what it had spotted, the pile of bodies in the ravine and it was checking to see if they were dead. He paused, then froze. Perhaps if he played dead, it would go away. The shame of that thought made him want to weep but he remained motionless anyway.

There were a series of explosions, very fast, and streaks of fire from under the sky-chariot's nose. They ended in the ravine and walked a long it in a series of small blasts. Memnon willed himself to remain still, if he got up and ran, the sky-chariot would kill him for certain. If he stayed still and silent, he might survive, and he did have the message to deliver. The blasts stopped well short of him, it had only been a very short burst. Memnon realized that it had been intended to scare any living creature in the mound into moving so that it could be killed. He congratulated himself on defeating the cunning plan, and again when the sky-chariot turned and flew away.

Soon the desert was silent again and Memnon could start moving. He left his ravine, it took much longer to climb up the sandy banks than it had taken to descend, and started off again, heading west towards the setting sun. He didn't even have a clear idea of where he was any more, only that the portal home was somewhere to the west. He wanted home so badly he could taste it, anything to get away from this hideous planet and the humans with their deadly chariots.

Some time later, he had no idea whether it was minutes, hours or days for his whole world now concentrated on the effort needed to pick his feet up and lay them down again, to keep up his slow journey west, he saw a strip of black. A human thing that they laid across the desert so that their chariots could move faster. Memnon's heart stirred for on it were familiar figures, infantry demons.

Also heading west. From a rocky outcrop on top of a hill overlooking the blackstrip, he summoned up his energy and focused his far-seeing vision on them.

The sight of a defeated army was a pitiful one, it always was, always would be. Memnon had seen a defeated army before, in the skirmishes that constantly went on in The Eye of Terror as the Great Dukes jockeyed for position there were defeated armies often enough. This was something else, something that went so far beyond pitiful that Memnon had no words to describe it. The infantry had thrown their tridents away and were staggering as they walked west. Some supported others, helping them along and that amazed Memnon for in hellish armies the demons lived or died by their own strength. Even as he watched, he saw one fall to its knees and try to collapse in exhaustion but the two nearest helped it to its feet and half-carried it onwards. He had never seen anything like that before. Nor had he heard anything like it, a moaning, half-wailing sound of demons in dire distress.

Then he heard the same dull thudding noise only this time he knew what it was. The Sky-Chariot was coming back. He looked and saw it, black against the sky and with three more of its kind in company. They were heading in fast, obviously knowing precisely where to go and, as Memnon saw, what to do. Two fire-lances erupted from each of them, swinging out towards the column of misery he had been watching.

The fire-lances streaked in, too fast to see properly and terminated in explosions, all eight equally spaced along the column on the blackstrip. He could hear the explosions from where he lay and heard the screams they caused.

The Sky-Chariots didn't leave it there, they were closing on the column and Memnon saw them rake it with the same weapon he had experienced earlier, the same rapid series of explosions the same red streaks ending in smaller bursts on the ground. Only these ones were in the mass of living demons and he saw them flayedby the bursts, chopped down. Two of the sky-chariots flew parallel with the column, peppering it with the explosions, tearing at it. Some demons tried to escape by running sideways but the sky-chariots followed them and chased them down. Each attempted escape ended the same way, the demon vanishingin the dust of the blasts, to be seen torn and dead when it cleared. It didn't take long for Memnon to understand that the sky-chariots were playing a game, competing between themselves to see who could kill the largest number of escapees.

What sort of people were these earthlings? Memnon was bewildered by what he was seeing, the army was defeated. Anybody could see that. What was to be gained by this slaughter? In The Eye of Terror battles were fought until one side had lost then stopped. Sometimes a battle would never start, one commander would see he was clearly outmatched and stand no chance of winning so he would concede the issue. He had never seen this before, this relentless pursuit and destruction of a beaten enemy. The sight made him shift with rage, boiling anger at human cowardice seething within him. Even destroying the retreating foe, they stood off and killed from a distance, they never closed and fought their enemy honorably. He controlled himself, he had no desire to be a target of the sky chariot's games.

Finally, when all on the blackstrip was still, the four sky chariots made a final pass over the scene of carnage and left. Memnon was about to leave his cover in the rocks that topped his hill when he saw dust on the horizon. He shrank back into his rocky shelter and watched. The cloud materialized and Memnon saw something that chilled his heart still further. A long column of Iron Chariots, some big, some smaller, with a sky-chariot flying on each side. He watched, appalled as they drove over the demon corpses stretched out on the blackstrip, grinding them into green and yellow smears on the black surface. Then, once clear of the remnants of the column Memnon had watched, they peeled off the blackstrip and spread out in a circle the long tubes pointing outwards.

He was fascinated by the sight. As far as he knew, nobody had ever watched the humans in their iron chariots when they weren't killing. He saw humans climb out of the iron chariots, oddly the smaller ones seemed to have more humans than the big ones. They walked around, he could see them unloading things from the chariot and pass them around. Then more chariots arrived, great ones that dwarfed even the bigger iron chariot. Some had tents on the back, others great cylinders.

The tented ones started to unload boxes, the humans breaking them open and passing the contents to each other. Strange things, pointed cylinders that gleamed in the sun. They put the cylinders inside the iron chariots and seemed to be happy at the labor. Others were passing around other things from the boxes. But it was the great cylinders that confused Memnon. The chariots carrying them pulled alongside the iron chariots and somehow the humans connected the two with a long snake. Were the two chariots mating? Memnon shook his head in disbelief and continued to watch what happened beneath.

Somewhere In The Desert, Southern Lemuria, night

Abigor huddled in the rocks, looking out across the desert. If his instincts were right, the Hellgate was very close. The last few days had been a horror, the human sky-chariots had hounded his force as it had disintegrated. They'd never let up, their curious rotating wings beating the air, the thumping of their weapons always so deadly.

His Army had started retreating, what was left of it, then the retreat had become a rout. Still the earthlings hadn't let up, they'd pursued him until the rout had become a panic stricken flight for the rear and the defeated army had become a helpless mob that had been slashed into ever-smaller pieces. Then, when he thought he had finally escaped, he'd seen more of the human iron chariots in front of them, blocking the retreat.

That was when he had understood at last. The earthlings didn't fight their battles to make a point, they fought them to destroy their enemies. He'd noted something else. In The Eye of Terror, armies fought their battles bottom-up. The foot infantry would get killed but rarely any of higher rank. Commanders had better things to do that kill each other. Anyway, how could one negotiate a deal with somebody one had just killed? But the humans fought their battles top-down. They started by killing the enemy commanders and then slaughtered the decapitated mass that was left. There was a corollary to that, they fought that way because they didn't intend to negotiate with the losers.

How could they have understood these earthlings so little?

Abigor shook himself, and cautiously looked around. The humans could see in the dark, shots could come out of nowhere. Still, it looked safe enough and there wasn't far to go. The Hellgate was so close now, just a few more hours away.