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.

29. Chapter 30 : Pandemonium pt2

Chapter 30: Pandemonium pt2

Minith Academy, New Miraculum, Falmart's Moon Oisin, 2069

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to achieve victory. Tactics without strategy is just a longer route to your inevitable defeat."

- Vincentia McElffe, the Greatest Elven Strategist in Falmart history.

Said Professor Lelei in an unusually delighted voice. Lelei was in a good mood today, last night party was one of the most shamelessly drunken bacchanals she's ever attended. And those Earthlings dared to say the Falmartian don't know how to party just because they don't have electronic music or VR glass.

"Today's lesson will be about the importance of adequate Grand Strategy in global warfare."

Crossing her legs like a seductress, Lelei pointed her hand to a student in the final row. "Alisaiel, can you differentiate between strategy and tactic in military sense ?"

The girl frowned, annoyed at being called but still answered politely. "Broadly stated, strategy is the planning, coordination, and general direction of military operations to meet overall political and military objectives. Tactics implement strategy by short-term decisions on the movement of troops and employment of weapons on the field of battle."

Correct — But we can also added.

"Strategy defines your long-term goals and how you're planning to achieve them. In other words, your strategy gives you the path you need toward achieving your organization's mission.

Tactics are much more concrete and are often oriented toward smaller steps and a shorter time frame along the way. They involve best practices, specific plans, resources, etc. They're also called initiatives.

The great military theorist Coldstone Beard Awestone put it another way: "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war."

Strategy and tactics, however, have been viewed differently in almost every era of history.

The change in the meaning of these terms over time has been basically one of scope as the nature of war and the shape of society have changed and as technology has developed.

Strategy, for example, literally means "the art of the general" and originally signified the purely military planning of a campaign. Thus until the 17th millennium strategy included to varying degrees such problems as fortification, maneuver, and supply.

Since the 19th millennium, however, with the rise of mass ideologies, vast conscript armies, global alliances, and rapid magical and technological change, military strategy became difficult to distinguish from "grand strategy," that is, the proper planning and utilization of the entire resources of a society — military, technological, economic, and political.

The change in the scope and meaning of tactics over time has been largely due to enormous changes in technology. Tactics have always been difficult — and have become increasingly difficult — to distinguish in reality from strategy because the two are so interdependent. (Indeed, since the 20th millennium, tactics have been termed operational strategy.)

Strategy is limited by what tactics are possible; given the size, training, and morale of forces, type and number of weapons available, terrain, weather, and quality and location of enemy forces, the tactics to be used are dependent on strategic considerations."

We will learn about the importance of having a correct Grand Strategy by taking a close look at the Great Earth-Falmart War."

"Miriam, can you please tell me the win-lose ratio between the Holy Empire and UEADF ?"

At face value, it might have seemed odd to ask the one person that didn't live through the Great War. Then again, of the students present, Miriam Ro Itami probably was the most likely to actually know what the ratio was, since she was the granddaughter of the Prime Minister of the Unified Kingdom of Japan, Yōji Itami.

"The UEADF won about 80 percentage of all engagements during the Great War." the girl answered.

Most of the students in the class were in shock, in their perception, the Great War was a brutal struggle but it was more or less a stalemate between two unconquerable forces. The unstoppable force of the UEADF met the immovable will of the Holy Empire. Hearing the Empire lost up to 80 percentage of all engagements was just unbelievable.

"The win-lose ratio illustrates the big organizational difference between the Imperial Army and UEADF. The Imperial Army are more centralized than their Earth counterpart thus they have less tactical flexibility.

The true is, on average, an Imperial commander is less creative than an UEADF commander.

That is to be expected, our species is conservative and unimaginative by nature, and although not actually stupider than humans, tend to follow chains of logic with a ponderous determination that most humans tend to find excruciating.

By human standards, we as a species has a bad trait of over-accepting accepted views and precedents. But we are also less likely to be carried off by new ideological will-o-the-whims, cults, and fads.

While it is almost impossible to convince a citizen of the Empire of something contrary to experience without actual evidence, we are less likely to stubbornly double down on an accepted belief in the face of solid evidence than most humans. We are ultimately a pragmatic race.

Due to the nature of the State, Imperial training also promotes obedience and collectivism while UEADF's promotes outside-the-box thinking and individualism. That further exacerbated the disparity in tactical flexibility at the battalion level.

On the other hand, our capacities for learning and steady, plodding work are substantial. That meant that while the Empire's military commanders weren't adept at coming up with new tactics and more often than not, fighting by the books, they were experts at strategic planning and never fell into the same traps twice. Long-term planning is our forte. In contrast, although the UEADF possesses many outstanding tactical minds, the number of good strategists is much less.

The end result was some staggering losses at the divisional level. However, the results begin to reverse at the regional level and above as centuries of experience and education begin to triumph over human ingenuity.

Now, look back at the number at the beginning. It is true that the UEADF won about 80 percent of all skirmishes, but half of those victories yielded no strategic value to them.

Meaning they squander their precious resources on short-term wins, thereby undermining themselves in the process. They kept winning battles, but their victories were getting closer and closer to home. "

A few muffled chuckles sounded at that bit.

"In short, the UEADF are excellent soldiers, good generals but terrible nation builders. They simply don't know how to pacify a territory after conquering it and even when they know what to do, their electorate are not patient enough.

This is nothing new if you read about their modern intervention wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, ... just to name a few.

After pulling their force back to Lemuria, their puppet governments in Afrykania fell faster than the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during the 2019 Taliban offensive."

Even more chuckles sounded at that final part.

"UEADF's problems are actually systemic and rooted in their physiology. Their short life span means while humanity are excellent in innovating to face immediate challenge, they are terrible at planning longer than a decade forward.

Actual, large-scale, effective human planning tend to focus on the short-term: variations on the fight-or-flight reflex.

Humanity as a species is notorious for their inability to significantly affect the long-term, man-made crises of population growth or climate change, not to mention the wars and crises that devolve from their effects. And the reason they are so poor at long-range planning might well lie in how their brains work.

One reason might lie in the way the perception centers of their brains are structured. The fact is, they seem to spend at least as much time and effort looking for patterns they recognize as they do scanning for the unexpected and new.

Another reason for their reluctance to plan long-term has to do with "hyperbolic discounting," a truism of behavioral economics associated in particular with psychologist George Ainslie.

What researchers found was that humans consistently will tend to opt for immediate rewards instead of rewards down the pike, even if the later rewards are greater. For example, when offered $50 now instead of $100 in a month, most people will choose the fifty bucks.

Examples of human shortcoming are countless: World War 1, The Wall Street Crash of 1929, World War 2, Great Leap Forward, Decolonization, Neoliberalism, Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Great Earth-Falmart War. And all of that crazy stuff happened in less than 150 years.

We, Falmartians, on the contrary cannot be so reckless because we will live to see the consequences. If we act like humans, society will collapse in a generation.

Instead, we must plan centuries in advance. A house must be built in such a way that it can last for millennia. An imperial city must be a well-designed machine built for regular repairs and maintenance: such things as road, sewage, water, etc. are designed to be easily accessible for expansion if the city grows, and if it does not, to last with minimal maintenance for centuries.

No Falmart company would try to sell a product on the basis of it being new : rather on the base of its comfort, or utility, or soothing color or smell, and on the basis of testimonials from high-ranked members of society, and, not least, a laundry list of approvals granted by the Government Product Safety Board, the Social Utility Board, the Economic Disruption Rating Agency, the Office of Technology Assessment and so on and so forth.

(Product cycles tend to be…long, but some Imperial corporations have been around longer than humanity has been living in cities).

Thanks to our careful approach, throughout history, with the exception of major wars or catastrophic disaster, the Empire have never suffered an economic collapse.

The Great War was the great testament for the need for a realistic Grand Strategy before starting a Global War. The UEADF might have a realistic chance to win the War if they had tackled climate change first. If they did that, they wouldn't have to fight a two-front war.

The UEA naively thought that just because they have nuclear weapons they could subdue a planet of 10 billion souls. Even if by some devil doing, they won the War.

And then what !?

What is the endgame !?

Who will fund the rebuilding effort !?

How will they reorganize the newly conquered territories !?

What are enforcement mechanisms to enforce any treaty on planetary scale !?

Most importantly, what is the mechanism for distributing the spoils of war !? That is the most rookie mistake in the War of Conquest.

One must answer all these questions before starting a War of Conquest. The surprisingly lack of any concrete post-war plan by the UEADF is best summed up by Princess Pina's famous speech.

"Mr President, members of the Global Security Council. I stand before you as a POW.

Over the past few weeks, I have learned many interesting things about your world. I have also considered your offer carefully.

Here is my answer: I appreciate the offer, but I have to refuse.

Due to your hospitality, I will give you some advice: Abandon that ridiculous surrender request because you will never be able to force us to submit to Earth rule. Not with your current strength.

My people are willing to pay compensation for the Rumbling but we won't surrender. We will resist to the bitter end, to the last drop of Darwinian blood.

Your civilization is unquestionably strong, maybe even more powerful than mine. Your people have achieved miracles: In just the last two centuries your people have gone from riding a horse to landing on the moon. At the beginning of the 20th century, the haber-bosch process gave you the ability to capture atmospheric nitrogen, allowing you to produce food in much greater quantities. Thus you escaped the malthusian trap and managed to increase in numbers. Your scientists craft incredibly powerful weapons and ultimately fuse atoms without the help of magic.

But then what !?

The chaos and calamities of the 20th century took a more insidious shape. Your endless desire for more is your greatest strength but it is also your greatest weakness.

You went too far, you advanced too fast without considering the long term consequences. Humanity was divided. You have two world war just in less than fifty years. You crashed your world economy. Twice, in less than a mere century.

Your world is on the verge of a mass extinction right now and instead of fixing your world first, you are here, fighting us.

Your corporations are greedy and short-sighted. Your elected leaders are prone to populist sentiment and can't seem to think further than the next election. Much of your population are financially irresponsible. Extreme inequality is becoming a permanent fixture of your society. Individual misery and suffering continue to rise unchecked.

How could my people allow such incompetence and destabilizing factors having a hegemony over our beloved world Falmart. Your people will ruin it in less than a century.

We may be a bunch of "Backward people" but we will fight, no matter how long. Ten, twenty or a hundred years. Time is on our side. We have the will to fight and all the patience in the world. And my people will definitely win in the end.

Because if the most powerful nation in this world can't defeat a bunch of suicidal zealotry wielding AK-47s and living in caves then there is no way in Hell you can beat us, an entire planet worth of suicidal Titan zealotry wielding cannon and living deep underground."

---

Eternal Capital Saderea, Falmart, 52030

Desperate times required desperate measures. A nation must stand together in times of national crisis. Even in the glorious light of the Eternal Empire and the Holy Church there still exists dark corners in society and in these dark times the line between light and darkness was often blurred.

Prince Ainsworth entered the Church of Hardy, and crossed himself before the altar before he turned to the men gathered there, about ten in all: the heads of the Falmart's largest crime syndicate. He spoke first, taking charge, as always, in an adolescent voice. "Gentlemen. You are not stupid; you know why I've gathered you here today."

They all nodded with varying degrees of alacrity. Ainsworth continued. "Now, our way of life faces a threat greater than anything it has ever faced in its past. We – I and all of you – face not just foreign invasion, but also heresy-infestation. This is now our reality."

He paused to evaluate what he saw in their faces. Blank, hard, determined – they share the vision, he reminded himself, just like every living falmartian now. "Therefore, in return for amnesty from prosecution for any crimes which may have been committed prior to the Great War, I would like to request that all of you cease from any illegal activities in which you may now be engaged that isn't requested by the state."

There was a small stir in the room. One, a fat man with an unlit cigar drooping from his lips, spoke. "Your Highness, with all due respect, why do you take us for criminals."

As he spoke, Ainsworth fixed him with a lidless stare until the other man dropped his gaze. "We are not stupid, you nor I. You know that I called you here today; you know that I am aware of who you all are in actuality and where you may be found. These things are not unknown to the government."

"Then why are we guaranteed amnesty?" They grimaced.

Ainsworth crossed his leg, looking amused. "Because the fabric of society must not buckle during this war. All of you are hard men; we need such men to help prepare our society for the terrors of a war on the forces of the Terran heretic. Your "goods" and "services" will be needed to ensure the stability of society. And we will need such men to administer Terra's territories once it has been conquered. "

"Prince Ainsworth...Your want the State... to sponsor smuggling activities and potions production ?" A thin smile began to spread on their faces.

Return them with a smug expression, Ainsworth replied. "I'm asking you all to be a respectable patriot, but I'm not asking you to lose profits."

That seemed to seal it for most of them. As he walked away, Ainsworth allowed himself a thin smile. Ainsworth would show the world what he was capable of, and the criminals would play their part in fighting against the terran's heretic corrupting influence.

---

Command HQ, Camp Hell-One, Hellgate

"Okay, so what's the plan?" Giselle asked. Fighting the Beast of Apocalypse without a prudent battle plan is suicide and she planned to attend the Hardy Festival this winter.

Flicking back at Giselle, Rory replied succinctly. "Aleister and I will gang up on that four-eye-fucker as a tag team while you'll use your aerial advantage to assist us with your ranged attack and if necessary pull us out of harm's way with your portals."

"Big Sis!" Giselle shouted in displeasure. "Are you sure you two alone can handle that Beast in close range !? I'm the most agile among the the 13 Apostles, let's me help. We can call Mabel Fornm for ranged support, her trump card is unequal in range and speed."

"No!" Rory objected. "Mabel needs to be on the front lines in case the situation goes south." The demons were more cunning than they expected. Who knew what tricks they've got up their sleeves. She then added. "Beside, while your long range speed is indeed the fastest, your attacks are predictable, he will see through in minutes. It's best for you to support us from a distance while laying traps."

But I —

Aleister cut her mid-sentence. "Big Sis Rory is right. Your skills are inadequate for melee combat. You don't need to worry about us, when we are in our ascendant form, in short burst, our speed excess your. Furthermore, we need an eye on the sky and someone to coordinate UEADF's attacks when the time is right. You are the most suitable person for the job."

Rolling her eyes in annoyance but convinced by the sound logic, Giselle finally agreed to the plan.

"So... I guess we should get this out of the way first." Aleister muttered as he began to take off his already very revealing outfit.

Sighing, Rory began to follow suit, began with her dress, revealing the pearly complexion of her flawless slender thighs.

The serious atmosphere in the room turned 180 degrees as the two human generals were shocked by Rory and Aleister's sudden and inappropriate actions.

"What is happening !?

Why are they striping !?

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING ?" Itami yelled as he covered his red face while peeping at the demi-gods through the slight gap between his fingers.

Smirked.

Itami looked really cute when he was embarrassed.

"Ahh...What's the problem, dear !? Haven't you seen everything already?" Letting out a silent moan, Rory teased him.

"That...that's not the problem," recovered from the shock, he exclaimed. "Why are you two casually stripping in the middle of a battle?"

"What the hell is wrong with those demigods, are they all crazies?" Tommy wondered.

Seeing the generals' shocked reactions. Aleister sighed and pinched his nose. "We're not crazy or exhibitionist, General." Throw his dress at Itami, he continued. "We're going to battle the Beast of Apocalypse, this clothes won't last a minute under his attack."

"Yeah...It will be a miracle if that thing doesn't tear us apart at least three times during the upcoming battle." Rory added.

"But you have a lot of clothes?" Dissatisfied, Itami questioned.

"Sure!" Rory rolled her eyes. "But these clothes are quite expensive. We aren't staying rich by being extravagant. It would be a waste of good garments. So, can you take care of these clothes for us?" Rory said with pleading eyes.

Not knowing what else to say in this weird situation, the two generals awkwardly agreed. Due to their youthful appearance, sometime Itami forgot that the demi-gods were thousands of years old. Just as a human wouldn't be embarrassed if a pet sees them naked, so do the demigods.

"All right, with that out of the way, now let's get down to business."

The battle would be tough, they needed every possible advantage. Raising his hand in the air in a graceful motion, Aleister summoned three luxurious red elixir bottle. "First things first, we must buff our healing factor."

"Is that —!"

"That's right! These are supreme healing potions made from unicorn's blood, sea dragon sperm and thousand-year-old orchid essence. One drop of this can bring a newly decapitated head back to life. I've been saving them for years," Aleister chucked. "I guess now is the right time."

The healing factor of the Apostles was the best in this world, however if they depleted their energy by constantly using forbidden spells then even their absolute regeneration would be weaken. So it's better to be safe than sorry, the three apostles emptied the entire healing elixir bottles in one go.

"Now, for mana," Giselle said cheerfully. "I have some great presents for you two."

Draw a magic circle in the air, Giselle summoned 3 mystical crystals, one cherry red and two sky blue.

Raising an eyebrow, eyes widen, Rory asked. "These are —"

"Yes, Dear Sister. They are Altana crystals, mana crystals of the highest quality, one piece here is enough to cast 3 strategic class spells," turned around to Aleister, Giselle said with a smug expression. "And for you, Little Aleister, I have a special gift that's just right for you."

The Blood Stone, an extremely powerful artifact in the form of a crimson crystal. It is created from countless desires, accumulated over a long period of time. Combined with Aleister's Blood Affinity, would increase the vampire apostle power immensely.

"Where did you get this ?" Aleister curiously asked, Blood Stones were really rare.

"Let's say big sister has her secret." winked Giselle.

"OK, now lets do some basic buffing."

"Sacred Victory." allows the caster to turn the tide of flow towards an enemy's chances of victory and create a result that works in the caster's favor. (It works 70 percent of the time)

"Enhance Fly." lets the caster maneuver well in the air, whether by aerobatics or leaping or other forms of aerial movement while being unharmed by the various effects of rapid acceleration.

"Sacred Sensor." drastically increase the sharpness of the caster senses to beyond what is naturally possible.

"Precognitive Sight." allows the caster to see into a short-term future if usually only seconds or minutes worth. While useless for long predictions, it does give several practical advantages.

"Danger Intuition." allows the caster to see into the immediate future, user has no direct control over the power and is only triggered when there is immediate danger.

"Illusion Negation." allows the caster to negate illusions placed on themselves or others.

"Greater Magic Boost." allows the caster to increases magic damage at least eight times.

"Soul Link." allows the casters to share their powers and develop mental links with other person.

"Triple Maximize Holy Shield." three magic barrier that can repel any ghosts, undead, demons, and monsters. (however, extremely powerful demons can still break through).

"Greater Chaos Resistance." increases casters magic defense against demon magic.

"Sacred Dispel." allows the caster to lift any curse made by demon except for the highest level curse.

"Holy Indominability." prevents caster from being influence with mind magics or any mind altering effects.

"Greater Absorption." allows the caster to absorb magical energy into their body and use it to fuel either their own magic or some other enhancement.

"Sacred Magic Reflection." allows the caster to reflect magical attacks back against users.

"Sacred Soul Anchoring." makes the caster immune to all soul-based powers, meaning their souls cannot be manipulated in any way, including being absorbed, destroyed, trapped/sealed, or converted into another type of soul. (Unless the enemy is god )

"Maximize Elemental Immunity." allows the caster to be completely unharmed by direct and indirect effects of elements and elemental magic.

"Triple Greater Magic Seal." a spell that let a caster store another spell that can be activated anytime. As its tripled, you can stored 3 cast of spells. As its greater spell, it allows spells higher than the spell level limit.

"Time Reduction." allows the caster to slow down opponents several times to avoid attacks and dampen their movements. Require a lot of mana and preparation.

"Time Acceleration." allows the caster to speed up time for themselves or others several times to simulate Enhanced Agility, Enhanced Reflexes, Enhanced Speed, etc. Require a lot of mana and preparation.

"Temporal Rewind." allows the caster to rewind time for a few seconds into the past and alter it temporarily. Extremely high level spell, technically it was a form of mental time travel.

What the hell was that—!?

Did they just cast dozens of buffs !?

Well, I guessed they were experts in this matter.

"Boys, we apostles couldn't keep our job this long by growing complacent." Said Rory, noticing the generals' astonishment.

Smiling at the generals, Giselle elaborated. "The imperial high court is full of ambitious backstabbers or men with delusions of grandeur, you need to recognize one to get rid of one. Remember to sleep with one eye open."

Let out a small laugh, Itami muttered. "Politic— I guess it is the same everywhere."

Itami stood up and walked over to his petite lover, who was standing there naked, placing his hand on her unblemished shoulder then looked straight into her ruby eyes before speaking in a concerned tone. "Be careful out there."

Surprised —

Rory's eyes widened before escaping Itami's gentle touch. She placed her hand on his face and kissed his lip gently. "We will win." She said assuredly.

"It's time to go, Sister." said Aleister.

A black eclipse bored into the fabric of space, allowed the apostles to step through.

Left behind, Tommy asked. "So, what now?"

"Warm up the Type J CPAW High Amperage Charged Particle Accelerator Cannons prepare for THEDOT (Tactical High Energy Destruction of Target) and get the hyper velocity (HYVELOC) electromagnetic railguns ready for epic-force scale blunt trauma shock waves." Itami ordered.

3rd Divison, 2rd Corp, 1st Army, 4th Army Group, The Incomparable Army of Light, Phlegethon River Front, The Eye of Terror.

The newly assigned commander of the 3rd Divison, Knight Captain Dietfried awaited the enemy army with his chest boldly puffed up while giving an eloquent speech to his soldiers.

"Brothers in arms of the Holy Order, many times we have said that the spirits of our ancestors look down upon us but this time, it is true.

They are there, Brothers, there beyond that damned river.

There, the knife-ear elven heroes who defended the Forest of Bagratial, the blood-bearded dwarves who fought to hold Mount Yehimal, the mighty green hordes of the noble Orc king Skarsnik that defended the Black Fire Gate against the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, they wait for us.

There, our gallant comrades who held the ruins of Orman, who broke the Children of Chaos on the fields of Reikland and who chased Abaddon's army all the way back to their shit hole here.

They are here, they are waiting for us.

For twelve times, our ancestors have held the line against the heretics, for twelve times the innumerable waves of foul creatures, vile sorceries, and the ruinous powers of Chaos itself were broken under their immovable righteous shields.

Everything we have we owe to them, everything we are, is because they sacrificed everything for us.

Now, it our turn to fight and make whatever sacrifices we must in order to repay our debt to them.

Now, it is our turn to break the armies of darkness on our armor and send them scurrying away under the slash of our divine blades.

Now, it is our turn to smite the wicked demons, fulfill the sacred oath with the 13 gods and purge the unclean.

Brothers, the Terran army won a great victory in the field of Lemuria fighting these same enemies.

Can we show ourselves to be less than them? I say absolutely not! I say we should show the Terran how the Great Army of Light fights!

I say we should score such a great victory today that the sunless realm will be in awe of our power and the enemy shall tremble at the thought of fighting us again!"

Knight Captain Dietfried, standing on the harden crystal roof of his armored command bunker, looked down at the cheering men under his command. Three archer regiments, one priest regiment, one heavy infantry regiment. Normally they also had an artillery regiment but they had to send all their ammunition to their human allies.

What a shame!

Due to shortage in AAA guns, their mission was to provide additional air defense for the human army and mopped up any surviving demons came close.

Further behind them on the sky were legions of Night Fury of the Golden Order of the Dragon Knight. The fastest and most fearsome in the sky. For every dragon knight is armored as much in Orichalcum as in faith. Their holy flame would deliver justice to all vermin enemy.

There were also regiments of chivalrous cavalry from the Kingdom of Bretonnia. Against foul creatures, vile sorceries, and the ruinous powers of Chaos itself, there was no sight more striking than the thundering charge of the Holy Knights from Bretonnia.

These Knights are exceptional warriors and guardians, surpassing even the Knightly Orders of the Empire as the greatest armored cavalry in the world and likely beyond.

All brought together to do one thing. To turn this stretch of the river into a killing ground the like of which the world had never been seen before.

Artillery Battalion, Rear Echelon, Phlegethon River Front

This particular battalion had guns that were an odd hybrid, the new D-37 203mm guns mounted on an old truck chassis. A product of the emergency mobilization that had all of Russia in ferment.

The guns had come fresh from the factory, the trucks had once been intended for the civilian market, although why civilians would nee trucks had never been quite clear. It was rumored Americans wanted them for conversion into SUVs.

But, the design for the self-propelled guns had been drawn up for the export market where wheeled, self-propelled artillery had been a big growth sector. Those plans had been modified quickly for the Great War of Justice and the truck-mounted guns had poured off the lines as fast as the factories could be converted. Artillery was the God of War, a God that had never let the Russian Army down.

Lieutenant Sergei Aleksandrovich Ehlakov commanded this battery of six guns and he had his assigned fire-plan. It was laid down, strictly, severely, the targets clearly designated for destruction on a finely judged schedule. It was not his place to select targets or to swing his guns from one place to another.

He was not an American officer who would swing his guns from one point target to the next, his place in the scheme of things was as a part of a machine that delivered massive, total destruction. His task was to keep his guns firing, to drench the battlefield with high explosive so that the enemy could not move forward to attack the defense lines.

He had his support of course, the big trucks carrying ammunition and all around him, the heavy jeeps with their anti-aircraft guns welded on to the beds. His D-37s had come from Russia while the anti-aircraft guns come from China.

Quadruple 23 mm machine guns, twin 35 mm cannon, whatever had been in storage was here, to protect the guns from air attack.

"Battalion Control Tovarish Lieutenant. The enemy is moving. Commence fire plan in six-zero seconds."

The gunners were waiting, the first shells already in the breeches of the guns. Who would have the honor of firing the first shell against the enemy horde descending upon them?

The first of the millions that would descend like rain on the vile demon army and grind their innumerable forces into the mud. Would his guns, here on the northern flank, succeed in opening this great battle? Or would the guns further south have that honor?

Ehlakov watched the figures on his clock changing as they reached the appointed second. Then, the strained silence turned into a mighty roar that crushed his eardrums and seemed to drive him into the ground.

The ground that was already shaking in a rolling sea-like motion as the long lines of guns recoiled, their spades digging deep into the ground, before they returned to their position and their gunners could stuff more shells into their chambers and send another 'package' to its recipients.

Now, all that Ehlakov could see were his men in power armor dropping into the methodical, routine motions as the shells were brought forward and fired. He looked down to his next target, in two minutes he would have to shift to the next aiming point.

Third Platoon, Second Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Regiment, 247th Motor Rifle Division, Phlegethon River Front, The Eye of Terror

"Here it comes Brothers. The army of the unclean advances and our gunners make their reply. Soon it will be our turn to vanquish the evil."

Lieutenant Anatolii Ivanovich Pas'kov dropped into the turret of his BMP-3 and fastened it in place. There was nothing to be gained by staying outside now. The word passed down from the higher up was that the troops would be more or less safe inside their heavy armored vehicles.

They should fight from them, not outside them. Pas'kov felt agreeably comfortable with that advice. Overhead, he could hear the express-train roar of the heavy artillery shells overhead, heard it even through the tight metal shell of his BMP-3.

"Outbound" he yelled, instinct taking over. For a quick second he wondered what it would be like to be outside, under the thousands of tons of descending metal that was aimed at the demons, then he decided he didn't care and certainly didn't want to find out. Being inside his faithful BMP-3 suited him just fine.

Outside, seen through the electronic vision blocks of the BMP-3, Pas'kov could see an endless mass of black/red covering the opposite banks of the river Phlegethon. A terrifying sight, he'd heard the numbers of the enemy were counted in the billions but he'd never quite imagined what "billions" looked like. Now he knew. The heavy artillery had its work cut out.

Camp Hell-One, Hellgate, Lemuria, Falmart

Looking across the battlefield Pandemonium felt three exceptionally powerful magical signals. A wicked smile spread across his face.

"Finally something worth to slay."

As soon as he said that, the dark bluish-black aura draped over the beast's entire body intensified its wriggling.

Even the apostles felt a breeze blowing from behind them. The air… no, the information comprising this world was being sucked into the darkness.

As the energy was building up on both side, a rare and unnatural phenomenon that consists of an untouchable vortex formed on the atmosphere of Lemuria. The Emperor Vortex, signified the the legendary status of both side.

"Let's see how do you handle this," Rory was the first one to act.

"Aqueous — Aerial — Cryogenic — Electro —Terra — Luminous —Metallic — Thermal — Umbral — Crystalline Released: Fury of the Heavenly Dragons!"

High in the sky, 10 multi-colors elemental dragons wriggling toward Rory. Raising her right arm to the sky, Rory concentrated the dragon's energy into ten spinning balls of energy before launching them at the beast.

Fiery arrows, icy spears, blades of wind, and various other elemental colors tore across the heavens.

Beast of the apocalypse showed absolutely no sign of evading. Still smiling thinly, he simply opened his arms wide. Ten colors of light pierced into his bluish darkness-wrapped body.

What the apostles eyes ended up capturing was—

Pandemonium slowly drawing the spilled, amorphous darkness back towards him, and turning around as if nothing had happened, his massive body was unscathed.

Exactly like in their future vision.

That Beast's attribute was the ability to absorb electric shock, boulder, flames, freezing, whirlwinds, steel arrows, water streams, crystal blades, rays of light, and dark curses.

"So it doesn't look like any normal elemental attack can damage him," Rory said in a nonchalant voice before changing to a more aggressive tone. "I guess we have to try something that he can't absorb."

"Answer me, Dark Spear!"

In response to Rory's summon, a double-bladed spear with an extremely dark and toxic aura materialized from the air. As she hold the spear handle it's darkness covered her entire naked body like an armor.

"I need to be careful or this 'crazy lover' will kill me before Beast does."

Rory summoned a ball of dark energy and turns it into an immensely powerful energy beam to blast the Beast. Realized the unatural nature of Rory's attack, the Beast used both of his hand to block the attack.

A huge explosion shook the base, the dark energy beam were blocked but Beast was slightly injured.

Smirked.

"I guess he can't absorb that!" A painful smile spread across Rory's face, the use of this weapon also caused her great pain.

The Dark Spear was very dangerous, countless lives lost in war were used to create it thus it was extremely unstable and too powerful for anyone except the demi-god to control, hence the unnatural dark aura it gives off and its craving for blood.

The distinctively vile and loathsome dark aura was the manifestation of mortal negativity. The weapon endlessly craved for more souls (including its owner's).

The Spear would corrupt the mind and body of anyone and everyone it comes in close contact with, even its user in order to consume more souls.

Angered by the attack, Pandemonium launched himself toward the apostles at hypersonic speed. Anticipating his action, Rory blasted the Beast with two massive energy beams pushing him off balance.

Working in perfect coordination with Rory. Aleister, went into his Blood Angel form to enhance his powers to the maximum at the cost of putting an immense burden on himself, leaped toward the Beast at a low angle in hypersonic speed. Closing-up to the monster from below, Aleister struck the monster with an tremendously powerful uppercut punch to the chest.

"Killer Move Palapon Style: Infinite Punch."

Using his ability to govern blood, Aleister strength grew to preposterous levels, his speed and power went beyond normal limits for an apostle. His killer punch contained a force equivalent to an atomic bomb.

A deafening explosion resounded as Aleister's killer punch broke through Pandemonium's magic shields.

"Heavy — !"

"This thing's inertia is like a fucking mountain!"

Not giving up, Aleister kept pressing on, breaking his radius and ulna bones in the process. Finally, he gained enough momentum to knock the Beast kilometers away.

J-100 Fighter Bomber, 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force.

"You know, it's great that we put the old JP-233 submunition delivery system back to service."

"You can say that, you never used one." Squadron Leader Desmond Young had been one of the pilots who had used the JP-233 in a mission 9 years ago in the Syria.

He wasn't quite certain which had been worse, the light displays as the submunition dispenser had fired its cargo, the violent changes in pitch as the weight distribution had changed or the Syria anti-aircraft fire that had been all around them.

"Targets dead ahead." In the back seat, Flight Lieutenant Wyngarde had the target area marked on the rolling map in front of him. Navigating in the Eye of Terror was weird, nothing seemed to work quite right, an aircraft couldn't just retrace its route to get home.

A crew that relied on instinct to navigate could get hopelessly lost. Still, the navigation systems people were working on that, they had the beacons set up and, with them, a modernized version of the old Gee navigation equipment first used by Bomber Command in World War Two. It might be an old system but it worked, even in the Eye of Terror.

"Clear of the prohibited zone."

That was crucial, the last thing the J-100 needed was to get caught in the mass of descending Russian shells. So, the bombers had flown a looped route, one that took them parallel to the Phlegethon River and over the area where the drones had said the enemy harpies had gathered.

Young didn't need navigation systems to see where his target lay, it was directly ahead, marked by the beginnings of a cloud of harpies taking to the air. The strike was a few second late but that didn't matter too much.

The 24 J-100 swept over the harpy's assembly area, raining all their payload on the creatures below. Each JP233F as fitted to the J-100 was divided into a rear section with 120 SG-357 runway cratering submunitions, while the front section carried 860 HB-876 anti-personnel mines.

The SG-357, which weighed 26 kilogrammes (57 pounds), was a two-stage munition. The longer, smaller-diameter forward section consists of a cylindrical high-explosive charge with a hole down the centre. The shorter, larger-diameter rear section held a shaped charge. At the front of the munition was a telescopic stand-off fusing system that created the correct detonation distance for the shaped charge. On impact, the extended fuse initiated the shaped charge, creating a molten metal jet which travelled through the centre of the forward charge element and then penetrated the concrete runway surface to create an underground chamber. The momentum of the cylindrical charge was enough for it to follow down through the hole created by the shaped charge before exploding some distance under the runway surface. This second explosion was intended to produce a crater with significant "heave" at the edge, making repairs much more difficult and time-consuming.

The HB-876 mines, which weighed 2,4 kilogrammes each, would lie scattered on the surface, making rapid repair of the runway very hazardous. The outside of the munition was surrounded by a "coronet" of spring steel strips that were held flat against the sides of the mine. After landing on the surface a small explosive device would fire and release the coronet springs such that the mine would become "erect" on the surface, with their self-forging fragment warhead pointing vertically upwards. The cylindrical case of the mine was made from dimpled steel and on detonation would spread small mithril anti-personnel fragments, rather like a hand-grenade, in all radial directions. They would explode at preset intervals or if disturbed. Standing above the surface on the coronet of spring steel legs, they would tilt toward a bulldozer blade when pushed before detonating and firing the forged fragments toward the vehicle.

Both types of submunitions were retarded by small parachutes. The ground vanished under a rippling wave of explosions as the J-100s swept over the scene and turned for the run home, the airborne harpies floundering in their wake.

Long before the J-100 crossed the Harpy grounds, they had pulled back into a steep climb, releasing their bombs as they did, so the bombs were tossed into the mass of harpies, rather than dropped on them. By the time the bombers reached the center of the target area, they were already clear of the harpy cloud and climbing steeply.

"We're clear Peter, Dragon-one to all dragon elements, weapons delivered, time to go home and get some more."

Wyngarde looked over his shoulder at the explosions still rolling over the ground now far below them. "Drop confirmed Boss. And to think they wanted to take our cluster bombs away."

Command Post, Northern Front, Phlegethon River 1st Bulge, The Eye of Terror

The flickering lightning seemed never to stop, it was rolling backwards and forwards along the horizon. Overhead, Beelzebub heard a dreadful screaming noise, obviously the battle-cry of the human mages.

It was squeezing his mind, causing his vision to blur, and as it peaked, he saw the whole of the river bank under his army erupt into volcanoes that spewed mud, water and bits of demon skywards. A rippling surge of explosions that blanketed the whole area.

That was when Beelzebub felt something very strange, a wind, a warm wind that picked up force as the human mage bolts pounded into his Army.

Overhead the same winds rippled the clouds of dust that saturated the atmosphere, forming them into strange patterns that swirled and changed even as he watched them. Like the blood of a human kidling stirred into a cup of wine.

"My Lord, the magery, it is causing winds to blow and storms to form."

So the humans could control the weather as well as their other accomplishments. That thought did not make Beelzebub any happier.

The descriptions he'd heard of the human mage-bolts had been bad enough, although he'd dismissed Abigor's more colorful descriptions as being part of his alibi for defeat.

But he'd never mentioned strange winds and patterns in the sky. The idea hardly had time to form in his mind before the explosions that were shattering his army along the banks of the Phlegethon shifted back to engulf a new zone and spread their death toll amongst another portion of his Army.

Beelzebub looked at the carnage forming on the ground in front of him and knew that Abigor hadn't lied, if anything he had understated the truth.

He'd mentioned the human mage bolts that struck from afar and devastated the ground but he'd never said anything about a concentration of magery like this. He prayed that Pandemonium would stop the flow of enemy magery flowed here.

Combat Group, Northern Front, Phlegethon River 1st Bulge, The Eye of Terror

Hertonymarkess felt himself staggering under the sheer impact of noise and the crushing power the explosions that were all around him. He couldn't think straight, every time a thought tried to form in his mind, the terrible screams and explosions drove it away or entered his head and shredded it.

Screams, they dominated even the explosions, the battle cry of the human mages as their mage-bolts slammed into the army, the screams of the demons and Beasts as they were torn apart and died. He couldn't hold his trident properly either, the shaking was too much.

The ground was heaving and rolling under his feet, in ways the Eye of Terror had not experienced since the great earthquakes a few millennia ago. The little quakes, the ones the Eye of Terror experienced every day had nothing on the destruction the human magery was causing.

Yet Hertonymarkess knew that the human magery was only part of the shaking that was causing his problems. The rest was his own muscles, shivering with fear of the mage-bolts.

An enemy, even a magican, was not something he feared. If there was a magican in front of him now, he could have fought and, win or lose, fought ferociously. It wasn't the prospect of fighting that was terrifying him at all. It was the human's ability to deliver remote-controlled death.

For, there was nothing to fight here, the humans were still far away and their mage bolts just pounded the target, administering death and destruction at random. There was nothing Hertonymarkess could do about it, his skills, his courage, his training, his spirit mattered nothing.

All that mattered was the pure blind chance of whether he and his combat team would be standing where the next mage bolt, or dozen, landed. It was that utter helplessness in the face of random, pitiless fate that was so terrifying.

Without being aware of it, Hertonymarkess had entered the Phlegethon River and it was with utter astonishment he realized he was in water up to his waist. The wading was slowing him down but he realized it mattered little.

The human mage-fire was concentrated on the banks of the river behind him, some of the bolts were landing in the water but they were few in number. Most of the bursts were behind them and he got the feeling the ones in the river were mistakes, bolts that were landing short.

Ahead, he could see a target, the first of the little forts that the humans had set up. Now that was odd. Why had the humans set up lots of little forts rather than one big one? Everybody knew that the bigger the fortress, the harder it would be to take?

There were Iron Chariots in the fortress, Hertonymarkess felt his stomach cringe at the thought of iron, then he set his grip firmly on his trident and closed the grip, discharging a bolt at the defenses ahead. It was immensely satisfying to strike back at last, after the helpless terror of the mage-bolts, now there was some way he could fight.

Overhead, the vast cloud of harpies was closing in, with luck they would suppress the defenses long enough for his group to get close to that little fort.

Harpy Group, Northern Front, Phlegethon River 1st Bulge, The Eye of Terror

Uxaligantivaris screamed out her battle cry and tried to launch a jet of flame at the Sky Chariot but it was too fast for her and it rolled away and zoomed upwards.

The humans were cowards, they refused to fight, they just stood off and let fly with their fire-lances and seeker-lances, cutting her comrades out of the sky.

She knew the losses already suffered by the harpies were almost beyond comprehension, the first strike by the Sky Chariots had killed hundreds before they had even taken off.

Then, there were the great seeker lances that had torn into the formation from afar, their explosions killing hundreds more. Then, after that, the Sky Chariots had returned and were slashing at the harpy cloud.

Her skin was on fire, a mass of mad itching that threatened to drive her mad. If the voices in her head didn't do that first. There were so many of them, some were human speech that made little sense, others were a weird, intense beating noise, as if somebody was pounding her with a giant hammer.

Yet others were a gentle hiss that simply filled every corner of her mind and drowned out all that went on inside. The mass of high-energy pison noise was hardly surprising, Uxaligantivaris had no means of knowing it and would not have understood the implications even if she had, but she was being painted by more than 2,000 elorp (magical radar) sets freshly from the Holy Order's armory.

Those alone were doing damage to her, quite distinct from the missiles and guns that they targeted. Uxaligantivaris knew that something was wrong but she couldn't know how wrong for the truth was she was being slowly cooked to death in mid-air. Already her body temperature was slowly rising as the high-energy pison was exciting the molecules that formed the liquids in her body.

Below her, she could see the human forts that formed their defensive position. It made little sense to her, but her job wasn't to understand, just to do as she was told. Even though that meant something she had never done before. Harpies were scouts and raiders, intended to observe enemy formations and report on their movement.

Sometimes they would attack undefended positions by night to spread fear and terror. Never before had the harpies been told to attack defensive positions that were fully-equipped and putting up resistance.

Harpies traded protection and firepower for speed and flight. Not enough of either of course, not compared with the human Sky Chariots, but a good trade for their proper role. Now, they were being pitched against a serious defense.

There was one advantage in doing that. Uxaligantivaris had noted that the human Sky Chariots were staying high, not dropping close to the ground. Perhaps they couldn't, she'd noticed that their wings didn't flap like any proper flying creature.

Oh, a couple had had wings that seemed to flap forward and backwards but none flapped properly. Still, the message was clear, close to the ground and the Sky Chariots would leave them alone. Cheered at the thought, she folded her wings, expelled gas, and dropped like a stone on the defense position beneath.

They would rain down their secret weapons of death on the enemy: Pyromancer Urine, a flammable liquid created and controlled by the Dark Alchemists' Guild.

Pyromancer Urine was a highly volatile material; when ignited, it would explode with huge force and the resulting fire burns so hot that water cannot extinguish it (similar to napalm or Greek fire).

A bonus point, the flame also created a black toxic cloud that obscured the sight of enemies.

Each harpy carried 25 liters of Pyromancer Urine in an oil flask and there were hundreds of millions of them. The human defense army would be burned to death.

About 3km Outside of Camp Hell-One, Hellgate

Furious with being pushed back, Pandemonium slapped his hand to the ground. "Thousand son of Ramaku, come to me!"

Immediately afterward, the ground was trembled as thousand of demon beasts bursting out. They look absolutely hideous.

"Kill them!"

Obeying their master, the thousand demon beasts charged the apostles head on. But before they could come close to Rory and Aleister, a rain of light arrows descend upon them.

The monsters tried to evade but to no avail because the arrows were actually Hardy's Arrows that had the ability to reverse causality in a technique called 'the arrow of impaling barbed death' which could be explained by saying the cause is that "the heart is pierced" and the effect is that "the arrow is fired".

Thus, the arrow had already hit the heart before it was shot, and the actual action is merely a formality that occurs due to the piercing of the enemy's heart. Each arrow carried the energy equal to a Harpoon missile thus no demon beast was left alive as they were blown up into hundreds of pieces.

"Good job, Giselle!" Rory gave her a thumbs up.

At the limit of Falmart's stratosphere, at an altitude of 100km, Giselle snorted, smiling proudly. "Those lowlife demon are no match for my Badara — The Bow of Divine Punishment."

Sitting on the enormous twinbow crossbow Badara. Adding more magical energy to it, Giselle pointed her index finger at the Beast below and shouted. "Eat this, you POS!"

"— Caladbolg."

Caladbolg is not actually an arrow but a magic sword but Giselle modified it to improve its function as an arrow.

The blade of the sword coiled into a spiral that can penetrate any target by creating a twisting distortion in space when fired, even if the target tried to teleport away from the attack, he would simply been twisted along with the space as well.

Caladbolg rushed towards the target like a shooting star, dispersing part of a cloud.

"Your dare!?"

Enraged, Pandemonium slashes the coming arrow with his claws at blistering speed, creating an aura infused kinetic shock wave.

Although a third of its energy was neutralized by the destroyed arrow, the pure force from Pandemonium's aura-infused claws cleave a large mountain in half and obliterate an entire grassland, causing earthquakes throughout the area.

Pandemonium then swung his arm to send a massive energy wave towards Rory and Aleister.

"Oh, Fuck!"

Jumping back several hundred feet, combining their energies, they summoned five Rashōmon gates to block an oncoming attack.

The defenses were quite formidable, and with the five gates, they were able to block the mountain-destroying aura infused kinetic shock wave.

Aleister was the first to launch a counterattack with a powerful ability used exclusively by those who govern blood. "Blood Vortex!"

A giant vortex of blood surrounded the Beast immediately. The blood vortex also shredded apart the surrounding area and every thing within at a molecular level.

The true power of a blood vortex was that within it, the caster had absolute command over all creatures with blood and vastly dwarfed their abilities.

But the Demon King of the Nine Hell was no ordinary being.

"RAWHHH"

With an earth-shattering roar, the Beast of the Apocalypse tore through Aleister's vortex of blood.

"That son of a bitch!" Cursed Aleister, immediately entered a battle stance to prepare for the upcoming counterattack.

Not waiting long, before the dust settled, a powerful beam of energy flew toward him.

"Blood Dome!"

The blood dome was able to block the beam of destructive energy, albeit just barely. The explosion could be felt from miles away.

"This mother fucker is strong!"

Aleister was panting, sweating profusely. His unblemished white skin was glistened with wetness. "I need to use my energy more efficiently— ring, drink my blood!"

Command HQ, Camp Hell-Alpha, The Eye of Terror

"The battle is joined Tovarish General." Marshal Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov was standing in front of his screen, the facilities here in netherworld were nowhere near as good as those Commander Liam Nuttall had left behind in Alnus but they would serve.

"Very good, Ivan Semenovich. How goes the day?"

"Well, Liam Nutavich." Both men grinned at the mangled Russification of Nuttall's middle name. "Our artillery and air strikes are hurting the Chaos demons badly. We estimate their casualties already must be approaching ten percent of their total assault forces."

"A word of advice Grazhdanin Ivan, divide your estimates by three. We learned this the hard way in Iraq and before that in Vietnam and the Balkans."

"And we learned that same lesson in Afghanistan and fighting the Hitlerites. But Commander Nutavich, we have hit Beelzebub's army hard. His casualties on the northern flank are mounting and they are only now moving into our main zone of resistance.

The southern flank is moving more slowly, the situation had not developed there yet. There appears to be no movement at all in the center."

"Hmm. The Chaos demons are learning. Not slowly either. Whatever you need, just call. We're lining up the support for you here." As far as Commander Nuttall was concerned, that was his role in this battle.

Let the Russian Army do its thing and just make sure they have every tool they needed, and some that they didn't know they needed, not yet anyway. "For your information, the C-177 ULTRA have arrived. They flew through the hellgate a few hours ago and are circling to gain height. They'll be ready when you need them."

Dorokhov laughed. "The sight of those flying through the Hellgate must have been impressive. Is there an intact eardrum left back there?"

"Not a one. Not a one. But tell your men, the FOAB is coming."

"How is the situation in Hellgate?" Asked Commander Nuttall.

"Not very good, but a few minute ago the apostles have succeeded in pushing Beast out of the perimeter of the base. Their gigantic clash is destroying the surroundings."

"Will they win?" looking at Mabel Fornm, he asked. There was a hint of worry in his voice and understandably so, if there was any disruption in their supply lines, they would be in serious trouble.

Tilting her head, Mabel replied. "I have faith in their abilities," she paused for a second, her eyes narrowing. "But I recommend using ammunition more sparingly."

Camp Hell-Alpha, Martial Field of Dysprosium, North of the Phlegethon, The Eye of Terror

Abigor's room was pretty spartan, but someone had apparently taken the notion that he might like some plants for decoration. Ordinarily, he'd be offended at the notion that he enjoyed decorations– everyone knew that he used wealth only as a display of status and not because he was soft and decadent – but these plants were green, and had flowers on the end, rarities in the Eye of Terror. They let off a sickly sweet smell, which Abigor actually liked.

He sniffed them once more, and then sat back, taking a few minutes to try to digest everything he'd learned since his surrender. On his left was a towering pile of Blu-rays and books on the history of human militaries. It was rich and fascinating, full of change– nothing like the static, unchanging nature of the civilized warfare he was used to in the Eye of Terror.

For centuries– he was becoming used to the human way of telling time – for centuries, humans had fought in mostly the same way. Infantry would line up and charge each other – sometimes with spears, sometimes with swords.

Auxiliaries would harass the enemy lines with projectiles; arrows, stones. Cavalry would protect the flanks, swoop in and charge the enemies. There were similarities to what Abigor knew, of course; infantry and auxiliaries would be combined in Hell, since all infantry could fire projectiles. Cavalry were more important; in Hell, they made or broke battles.

And in the Eye of Terror, flies were anintegral part of the battlefield; perhaps they were analogous to auxiliaries? Something to ponder. Humans had not taken to the air before a hundred years ago. The short human timescale still surprised Abigor; a century ago was yesterday.

But with the humans of Earth, the themes of infantry-auxiliary-cavalry interplay were repeated in so many variations. In some parts of their world, huge hordes of men armed with sticks and swords had swarmed each other; in others, disciplined infantry formed the core of armies; while in others, men had shot their arrows from horseback.

One book claimed that an army was made up of horsemen who could hit a teacup a hundred yards away from a galloping horse. Abigor hadn't heard of any demon who could match that feat from a galloping Beast.

And then, three centuries ago, the human inquisitiveness, curiosity– the human tendency to treat the world as a problem to be solved, rather than a place to live, their almost desperate need to know why – had apparently begun to reward humans. Three centuries ago seemed like last week, when humans from Earth were nothing but cattle, to be tortured for benefit and eaten as delicacies. Yet it seemed that no matter what question they asked, the answers that they found were immediately turned into weapons of destruction.

Abigor considered the benefits they had reaped. The ability to throw projectiles further, faster, more frequently, and more accurately seemed to be the chief benefit; it had reshaped the battlefield.

Humans could now throw projectiles over the horizon, on long arching curves that impacted precisely where the humans wanted them. It seemed that their entire ground combat doctrine, Abigor now saw, was shaped around using these 'guns'– what he had called fire-spears – as effectively as possible.

The accuracy with which humans could throw projectiles explained why they fought like cowards. Their goal was to win the battles; so instead of presenting themselves entirely and honorably, they presented as small a target as possible while still permitting themselves to throw back.

And then there was the question of flying chariots, which were known to humans as 'aircraft'. They flew higher and faster than demon flies and their firepower was far beyond the flies, rivaled that of the Holy Order mighty dragon. The same magic– Abigor caught himself; there was no magic here.

There were only skills he did not understand. The same ability that let humans throw projectiles such long distances and with such accuracy also permitted them to create 'bombs', which could be dropped with great accuracy.

The seeker lances – 'missiles' humans called them though why was an odd thing that Abigor had yet to fathom out since they never missed – were another manifestation of the same abilities: projectiles that flew like aircraft and sought out their target.

Before the destruction of his Army, he had seen how the human aircraft had decimated his flies and he had thought that was the end of it.

Now, he knew differently, human aircraft could do many things, they could wipe out flies with contemptuous ease but they could also raid death and destruction on the ground forces.

He had seen a little of that but only a thin shadow of what human aircraft could do when unleashed to use their full power. He had seen how the humans themselves and the Empire had been forced to invest huge sums in the development of anti-aircraft weapons to defend themselves against aircraft.

That was something Abaddon didn't have to worry about deploying, there wasn't an anti-aircraft gun in all of the Eye of Terror. The were some anti-air spells but no anti-aircraft gun.

And then there were the human boats. They were larger than any boat he'd ever seen; anywhere you needed to go in the Eye of Terror, there were roads, or Belial's wyverns if the place was inaccessible. The human boats had guns on them, and could also throw missiles.

Some even had aircraft on them, and some could actually swim under the water to throw missiles or hunt other boats. Abigor thought of the seas that surrounded the Eye of Terror's one great continent and imagined the human boats loose in them. All of the Eye of Terror would be at their mercy with only Dagon's few thousand legions of Kraken to defend it.

So much to absorb. Abigor shook his head. Most bombs, missiles, and artillery shells exploded like injured flies, while other projectiles were solid mithril. Some were thrown from guns, and others were dropped or thrown from aircraft.

These new things were all so confusing in the details, but in general he was starting to absorb the picture of how humans did things. They fought to win– that much he'd already seen. But they didn't fight to win by outmaneuvering… Abigor stopped himself, that wasn't true, human armies could maneuver in ways a demonic army couldn't even dream of.

To humans though, maneuver was a way to bring overwhelming firepower to bear on their enemy with the aim of annihilating either his desire or his ability to fight – or, in some cases, both.

The Blu-rays he'd seen had been particularly illuminating. He'd had no idea how ferocious humans were to each other, and the scale of the battles that had raged across the human world even in the last century– the last few days, to him – stunned him.

How had they come so far in so little time? He'd seen lines of chariots – trucks – stretching for miles, throwing their projectiles into the air all at once. The sound was familiar to him, the thumping of artillery and the scream of inbound shells and rockets. They still took him back to the battlefield in the human world, where he'd watched his army disintegrate around him; he still had nightmares about that.

He'd seen lines of trenches, with humans running about in them– and in between them, a charred, muddy, churned-up wasteland that was as bad as anything in the Pit. Coils of razor wire criss-crossed that little hell, and guns crashed and chattered across while artillery lobbed back and forth. Once, he saw a flood of humans boil up out of one trench and charge into the hell, only to be scythed down. One had made it back to the trench.

He'd seen a coastline lined by razor wire and huge guns, and the dawn bring with it a sea of iron– boats as far as the eye could see, all firing at once, as people once more charged bravely into the crossfire from small boats that scuttled like beetles up to the beach.

He'd seen the view from above of a jungle wasteland with craters evenly spaced as far as the eye could see, as a line of explosions marched up the screen. The trees looked like grass, and the people running about looked like ants.

Abigor shook his head again. The myriad, creative ways humans had found to destroy their enemies were mind-boggling. Then a strange thought came to his mind, based around the way the humans had suddenly changed from a primitive mob that was just walking meat to a demonic army to the pitiless killers against whom no demonic army could stand.

Oh, Abigor had heard the guns thundering, tens of leagues away as a human army stood against the sledgehammer blows of the combined armies of Asmodeus, Dagon and Beelzebub, and in his mind's eye he could see what was already happening, the demonic horde screaming and dying under the pounding of the human guns. One of his books had expressed it so well, 'Artillery is the King of War, Infantry is the Queen of the Battlefield. And it is well known what the King does to the Queen.'

Abigor shook his head, it had all happened so suddenly. Three centuries from helpless victims to the Lords of War. Unnaturally quickly. Had there been another hand here? The way the humans had fought each other, each set of wars driving their weapons technology further forward and setting the conditions for the next set. As if humans were being trained to fight, bred to destroy both their enemies and themselves.

Humans couldn't have done it by themselves could they? Surely they must have had help. Were there others whose hands were involved here, perhaps the others who had once held sway on Earth but had left long time ago?

This was worth further thought, but one thing was bothering him. This artistic destruction, he had all experienced. All save the use of aircraft, but that did not create much more destruction than the pounding artillery had. What had the Colonel meant when he'd said that Abigor had not even begun to see what humans could do when they put their minds to it? On his right lay a single Blu-ray case.

He picked it up, delicately opening it with his claws, and popped the Blu-ray into the player. The large screen in front of him went from off to blue to black with white letters: THE MANHATTEN PROJECT.

The first part of the video, Abigor didn't understand. It was about things called "Adams" – wasn't Adam the first human to come to exist? He was in heaven, if Abigor remembered correctly.

Then came the first pictures of what humans did with these Adams, and Abigor became very interested. He became very interested indeed.

An hour later, Abigor was sitting on his couch, mouth agape, staring at the screen as the credits rolled by. What sort of gods were the humans, to be able to destroy a city with a single bomb? He closed his mouth, then shook his head.

A single hydrogen bomb, capable of annihilating an entire city. Combine that with a divine relic from the Holy Order, an entire army of demon would be nothing. They had played with him, when they could have destroyed him and everyone with him with ease.

Suddenly, the part of his mind that had been bothering him since his defection, the part that continually accused him of treason, became quieter and smaller. A lot quieter, and a lot smaller. There was no doubt that the mortals were going to win this, no doubt at all.

He saw it now: the humans were deploying just enough firepower to utterly destroy whatever was sent at them, waiting, keeping their cards in reserve, watching their enemies to see how they reacted. So simple, so logical, so utterly unconventional.

There was a knock at the door, and Abigor looked up. It opened, and a languid man and a women walked in, flanked by two soldiers carrying nasty-looking guns– plasma rifles, Abigor recognized now. The lights in the ceiling seemed to flicker a little bit, casting a slightly dimmer glow.

The man looked familiar, then Abigor placed him: he'd come a few days earlier to interrogate Abigor about the city of Dis and possible military targets.

"General Abigor, I'm pleased to see you again." The voice was flat, uninflected, almost disinterested.

"Likewise."

The visitor took a thick piece of rolled parchment from under his arm and spread it out on the table."General, would you mind coming here to look at this?" Phrased as a request, there was no doubt it was a command.

Abigor rose and stepped over to the table, looked down. It was a copy of the map of Dis he'd looked at earlier, but now there was a set of red concentric shapes drawn on it, basically circles but strangely distorted.

The shapes were colored successively darker toward the center but the relationship was strange, distorted, darkening quickly where they overlapped, sometimes dramatically so. Some of the shapes were arranged in neat triangles. And in the center of those formations, the area of darkest red was horribly large and terrifyingly dark.

His hair was standing on end as he looked down at the map. The shapes and patterns went on and on, so that the city was completely covered by the circles. Abaddon's palace, on the fortified spur that stuck out into the Pit, was invisible under the triangles of overlapping circles.

What could the circles mean? There was only one explanation– and it came from the Blu-ray he had just watched and Abigor suddenly knew why it had been given to him. It made all the pieces began to fall into place.

The humans could destroy whole cities with single bombs, and they had shown they could do so without any compunction. Dis wasn't the only city in Netherworld, but it was the largest and it was the administrative center for the whole of Netherworld.

Why would a city be a target? Hadn't Belial just destroyed a dozen of human city with his party tricks? Was this to be the human revenge? With a rising wave of bile in his throat, Abigor began to suspect what the shapes and colors meant.

"General Abigor, what do you make of this map?" asked the Targeteer.

"It seems that… that this is a map of the destruction caused by the explosion of atomic bombs to the city of Dis."

The visitor raised one eyebrow. "Very good, General, though we call them 'devices', not 'bombs' and they 'initiate' not 'explode'. Technically, a nuclear initiation isn't an explosion. These circles represent the overpressure radii of each individual initiation, they'll all be taking place at once by the way.

As I'm sure you learned, one way our devices bring about the destruction of their targets is shockwave caused by the initiation; the shockwave is measured by over-pressure. Where patterns overlap, the over-pressure increases dramatically. Terrain is critically important as well, the shockwave will be channeled by some features, reflected by others.

Where it is channeled, it will extend further in one direction at the expense of others. Where it is reflected, it will cause no damage beyond the point of reflection but destruction before that point will be multiplied many times over.

"As is our way, we targeted only military installations – the barracks, production centers, command and control points, administrative buildings and so on – but you can see that the installations are so densely concentrated in the city, the city would be destroyed by such an attack.

No part of the city is subject to a shockwave of less than 5 psi overpressure; such strength guarantees the destruction of all but the most hardened targets. Most of the city, more than 90 percent of that will suffer from overpressures an order of magnitude greater.

"We did need to use very high-yield devices in ground bursts to destroy the most hardened targets. These are the earthworks and the walls which surround the city. We suspect that the construction of the buildings is so poor that the ground wave caused by the destruction of the walls would destroythe city anyway. Of course, blast is just one way a nuclear device destroys its target. There is also light flash which will blind every unprepared person for tens of miles, and fire."

Mabel suddenly interupted. "Hey, general doggy. Do you realize this?"

A mystical blue flame appeared in her hand illuminated the room with a warm light.

"Eternal Flame." Abigor howled, almost peeing his pants in fear.

"So, you know it!," Mabel said with a sadistic smile. "Do you know what will happen if we put this in the core of a hydrogen bomb."

Seeing Abigo's frightened expression, her tone turned cold as ice. "If you take, say, fifty H-bombs in the hundred megaton range and jacket them with ultrapure mana crytal, while putting the Eternal Flame at the cores, when they are exploded they will produce a world-ending firestorm. A holy firestorm, which will encircle the Eye of Terror for ninety-three years!"

"Another map for you, this one shows the anticipated firestorms. You've seen those films of what a firestorm in a city can be like? You can expect winds approaching 1200 miles per hour, heat levels so high that it will vaporize tungsten, let alone bronze, the holy fires will suck all the chaos energy out of the air and the demons trapped in the wreckage of Netherworld will asphyxiate.

Finally, there's direct radiation as well, but that isn't a factor, after somebody has been reduced to the size, shape and appearance of a McDonald's hamburger by blast, fire and debris, irradiating them as well is a mere technicality.

Of course, that doesn't cover sun-crystal fallout as the ash from the holy fire crystalized. The ground bursts will create horrible levels of sun-crystal contamination. Normally we wouldn't worry too much about fallout from air bursts but the atmosphere here is so dusty, even air bursts are going to generate a lot of fallout as well."

"So," said Abigor fearfully, "you will destroy the Eye of Terror."

"No, we needed to create a plan to destroy the Eye of Terror, but it is just a contingency plan."

"Then why are you showing this to me?"

"Because, General, you need to know what we can do – what we are willing to do. The destruction of the Eye of Terror would take the lives of every soul living here, demon or mortal alike. It would leave no building standing, and in its wake there would be global radioactive firestorms.

After the fires died, there would be nothing of the Eye of Terror left, save the craters; what was once a (living !?) world would become a charred, radioactive wasteland. Nobody, mortal or demon, would live there for ten thousand years.

"We can do that, General. And we would be right to do that, after how your people have treated us in the past. Demons have enslaved humans, treated them as cattle, eaten them, and tortured them for thousands of years.

As a professional, its not my job to make moral judgments on the people whose destruction I plan. But, just for once, I'm going to indulge myself. A quick death in nuclear fire is the least that your race deserves.

"But we are magnanimous in victory, General, as you know. We fight to win, but once we have won we strive for peace. If there are other options that make this plan as superfluous as all the others I have drawn up over the years, then we will prefer to use them.

But I warn you, we can be pushed too far for that. This map." He tapped it with a finger. "Is still not the worst we can do. General, if you really anger us, we will try and bring democracy to your country."

Mabel startled, looking quite uncomfortable by the last sentence.

"I see." Abigor frowned down at the map, trying to picture the bustling city he'd known for dozens of thousands of years as a charred, smoking wasteland, trying to picture the city vanishing in a series of impossibly bright flashes.

And if that was so, what was this other hideous threat?

Yet hehad a strange feeling there was something he didn't quite understand because the last remark had made the two soldiers in the room grin broadly.

"Who are you. What are you."

"People call us many things. Targeteers, Contractors, The Business, The Wizards of Armageddon. The last was intended as an insult but we rather like it. And, of course, it has turned out to be a much more accurate description than its author realized."

Abigor sighed. "You must be a great General then."

"Actually, I'm not in the armed forces at all, in fact I never have been. I'm a civilian who is employed by a consultancy company, something we call a think-tank, to do analytical work. I've been doing this sort of thing for more than 25 years."

"To do this for years. Then I can assume your plans are…. complete."

"Then you understand." A statement, not a question. The Targeteer began to roll up the map. "Thank you for your time, General Abigor. I am sure we will meet again."

The two soldiers escorted him and the apostle from the room, and Abigor's hair began to lay down. Outside the room, the thunder of artillery had never ceased but now Abigor put it into its true perspective.

It was indeed just a pale shadow of what mortals could do when they wanted to. He glanced at the door after them, then looked again.

He could have sworn those plants were green and flowering before they had come in.