August 4th, 1926 – Moskva Outskirts
Uger is flying above the battlefield. His many-faceted eyes see far more than human eyes would in his place, even with the assistance of optic spells or mundane binoculars.
His thermal vision is all but useless. Being K's enormous body is like a furnace, giving off so much heat it's affecting the wind currents, which his hyper-sensitive wings picked up on immediately. Trying to use his echolocation at this range would only return the vaguest of information at the best of time, but when he tried, all he got was nonsensical readings, which the occultists believe is due to the Class Ten entity distorting space around its incarnation in ways that aren't immediately obvious.
His ordinary senses show him an equally grandiose sight. The engineering corps have been hard at work since their arrival, requisitioning thousands of soldiers to build fortifications as fast as possible. Kilometers of barbed wire have been placed, using aerial mages to deploy them quickly. Through the use of spell formulas learned from the Nazzadi refugees, the wire has been made stronger than it should be, capable of harming even the toughened flesh of Being K's monsters. The earth has been seeded with thousands of mines, placed in densities far above any ever used on the Western Front.
Rows of Frisian horses have been laid down near the bottom of the incline, their metal magically reinforced as well. Behind them stand the non-flying supersoldiers of the Allied Forces, to deal with the Progeny that make it through the killing ground. Werwölfe, Puppen, and American soldiers in power armor all stand side by side – but the line is long, and even together, there are only so many of them.. The Hünen and the Titan are standing further up the slope, behind the first line where hundreds of machine guns, flamethrowers and M-912s lie ready within hastily-constructed defensive positions.
Without a significant artillery contingent of its own, Uger is confident there is no human army in the world who could break this perimeter. But, as his gaze turns northward, he is reminded that it is no human enemy they face, but the Progeny of Being K.
There are so many of them. It is not an army, nor a horde or a legion. It is a tide, a solid mass of flesh pouring over the landscape that could drown the entire world – and that will, if they don't stop it here. The sight of it, combined with the ceaseless bleating of the Dark Mother, which hasn't stopped since it began and the Progeny began to move out of the corpse of Moskva, is enough to fill him with dread. Even the skies aren't safe, full as they are of the Locust swarms – which, mercifully, have yet to leave the dead capital.
There is no way the Allied Forces can hold forever against such a host, let alone defeat it. The Kinder are still immobile, but the Lycans and Satyrs alone outnumber them by a margin that is impossible to calculate. And while scouting the fallen capital was impossible, the commanders are assuming Being K has been creating some new, never seen before abominations within the ruins. They cannot kill them all : they do not have the numbers, or the ammunition.
But that's not the point, Uger reminds himself. The Allied Forces' objective isn't to kill all the Progeny, because that would still leave Being K in play, and it is the real threat to the entire world. No, their mission is to hold the Progeny back long enough for the arcano-engineers of Division Y, working alongside a handful of American experts who've been cleared to assist, to finish setting up Projekt M and fire the Wunderwaffe at the Class Ten Mythos entity.
Having seen what the M-912s can do, Uger has no doubt the immense eldritch cannon can destroy pretty much anything it is aimed at, and hopefully Being K is no exception. If it is … no. He mustn't think about it. Defeatism is a poison, which can causes a battle to be lost before it has even begun.
To banish his fear and his doubts, Uger thinks back to what he saw during the march to Moskva, when he went scouting ahead of the main force. He remembers broken doors and claw marks on the walls of family homes. He remembers small bones, gnawed and broken by bestial jaws to get at the marrow within, left behind in empty villages.
Slowly, fear recedes. It doesn't disappear completely, because that would be a madness all its own, but it is pushed back by cold rage.
He knows the fear is only partially natural. Simply by existing, Being K is slowly driving everyone close to it insane, its presence warping the very laws of reality on which all biology is built. To those without the advantages of his dual nature, the effect is even worse : thanks to his supernatural senses, Uger can hear the dismayed screams of the soldiers below as they, too, behold the true scope of the foe they are to face this day.
But, just like Uger won't let fear overwhelm him, so too do the soldiers hold their ground. Uger can hear the radio transmissions of the Allied Forces, a hundred exchanges at once as the final checks are made. Beyond that, if he pushes his senses just a little, he can hear the soldiers whisper to themselves and one another, repeating prayers and promises, doing everything they can to steel their resolves. Colonel Lergen's words are echoed a thousand times and more, stiffening the spines of the troops in the face of the Progeny's horror.
The Whisper watches as the horde advances across the landscape. When their vanguard crosses the line marked by the scouts which indicates the extreme range of the Allied Forces' artillery, he emits a shriek in a certain frequency – a signal to the forces below, which is echoed by the other watchers, for now more than ever, redundancy is crucial.
At once, the artillery of the Eastern Imperial Army, reinforced by every piece which could be dragged to the new (and hopefully final) front of the Great War in time opens fire. Hundreds of shells rise through the air, and Uger and the other fliers watch as their parabolic arcs start their descent, accelerating faster and faster until – impact.
The ground quakes, the air vibrates, and tons of earth and gore are sent flying. As far as Uger knows, it is the largest artillery barrage in the history of Mankind, and despite all the eldritch wonders and horrors he has witnessed, despite the half-remembered images of infinity from the Rite of Union that still haunt his dreams, the spectacle still gives him pause, perhaps precisely because of its mundane origins. This devastation was made without any input from the Denkmaschine, without any whisper from the Beyond to guide the hand of the scientists who designed its funding principles and the engineers who perfected their craft over a hundred iterations.
The world trembles under the fury of man-made iron gods, unleashing their fiery wrath upon the horrors that pour from Moskva in an unending tide. Uger remembers the projections made in the command room as the final details of Operation Gottesmörder were finalized : even without the lingering influence of the Dark Mother, the region will be uninhabitable for years to come from unexploded ordinance and amount of metal left in the soil alone.
With that first volley, hundreds, thousands of Progeny are obliterated. The healing factor which makes them such a nightmare to fight with conventional weaponry is woefully insufficient to pull them together from such explosive firepower, and they lack the sheer toughness of the most resilient Werwölfe which let them cross the Rhine's no-man's-land and reach the Francois trenches (though not even that particular hellscape has ever suffered such concentrated violence).
Any human army would be given pause by such hideous slaughter. Most would rout outright, any officer trying to force them to go on swiftly shot by their own men, no matter the threats and level of propaganda they'd been subjected to. Uger has never seen it himself, but he heard about such things happening during his time on the Western Front, in both the Francois and Imperial armies.
But the Progeny doesn't even slow down. They keep charging right into the area of saturated bombardment, which the best artillerists in the Reich have carefully calculated to be as close to constant as possible. The infernal bleating of Being K should be drowned out by the cacophony, and in a way it is, but Uger can still hear it, just like everyone else. He suspects that those who live past this day will hear it for the rest of their lives, just like what happened to so many of the Dacian survivors.
This goes on for several minutes, without a single beast making it through the deathly rain of iron and fire. But, inevitably, the barrage falters. Barrels overheat, parts break down; despite all the advances and wonders of Imperial engineering, entropy takes its toll on the iron gods. Of course, this has been planned for, and the artillery shifts to the second bombardment pattern. Now, the goal is to inflict maximum casualties on the Progeny, not stop them from advancing.
More beasts die, and more come, running through the rain of death with as much care for their lives as an Imperial General might feel for a single bullet. Eventually, the first Lycans make it through and reach the minefield, which have been laid down in concentrations never seen before (and which would probably violate several clauses of the Treaty of Worms if used against humans). There are more explosions, and then, moments later, the machine gun emplacements open fire, adding new notes to the symphony of destruction that is Mankind's response to the horrors Being K has unleashed.
Unlike some of the Werwolf sub-types, the Whispers cannot smile. But if Uger could at the moment, he definitely would – and it wouldn't be a pretty sight. The joy he feels may be grim, but it is joy all the same.
This is our world, he thinks, as strongly as he can, just in case the entity which destroyed the Russy Federation can hear him – which, for all he knows, it can. Not yours.
Then he plunges down onto the battlefield, ready to add his firepower to the slaughter. It won't be much, in the grand scheme of things, but every bit adds up.
That, perhaps, he reflects before turning himself into a living drill to take out a Satyr which is getting worryingly close to the firing line, is how Mankind will triumph over gods.
Once, the beast had a name.
Then he (and it was a he then) ate the food that was freely offered by the Party to all citizens in Moskva. He was suspicious, of course, but figured this was just another propaganda coup. The food must have been taken from elsewhere in the Federation which had probably needed it just as much as the folks in the capital did, but there was nothing he could do about it. In any case, the distribution was certain to cease soon, so best make the most of it while it lasted.
Out of everyone in his habitation, he ate the most of the free food, due to his size and how hard he worked in the factories. That didn't matter at the time : there was plenty for everyone, for the first time in longer than he could remember.
And so, when the Dark Mother came, he was the first inside his small apartment to change, to succumb to her call and transform – the first to be destroyed, the first to die, the first to be remade, and then the first to kill.
Yes, once, the beast had a name. Once, it had loved ones (his wife and two children), hopes (to not draw the attention of the Commissars) and dreams (to get a good enough job in the capital that he and his family wouldn't have to go hungry some days, maybe something directly in the Party, which would have granted them some small measure of protection from the Commissariat).
Now, it has none of these things, and cannot remember ever having them. It is simply part of the horde, and the hunger it once feared consumes its every moment, never satiated, no matter how much it feeds on the unearthly flesh that grows within the ruins of the city. It exists to eat and it eats to exist; a vicious Ouroboros sustained by the eldritch power of the Dark Mother.
The feasting has stopped, but the beast doesn't miss it. The beast has no notion of time, of past or future : to it, there is only the now. It smells steel and gunpowder, and the soft flesh of prey underneath, carried through the air by a wind whose coldness it doesn't feel anymore. Saliva flows between its jaws, burning into the bare earth beneath its paws. Fresh meat. New meat.
It does not hear a voice, does not receive orders from the entity which turned him into it when it entered the world and murdered his city. Its ears pick up the bleating of Being K, and it moves in accord to its will, because it can do naught else, like a white cell in a human body moving to fight an infection – or, more aptly, a single cancerous cell devouring and multiplying without regard for the damage it is doing to its host. In every way that matters, it is part of the Dark Mother now, and it is the sole mercy of its condition that nothing remains of who it was to realize what has become of him.
It is one in the horde which leaves the city-made-lair, one more Lycan in a sea of tens of thousands that pours out of streets overgrown with twisted life. Fire rains from the sky, and its kin die by the hundreds around it, but the beast doesn't care. There is only the hunger, only the compulsion to move forward, toward the fresh, living prey.
It passes through the deluge of death, the host of its kindred thinned but still numerous. The ground explodes, and the air fills with projectiles which tear into the horde. Still, the beast charges. It can see the prey now, cowering atop a hill, behind false thorns and piles of dirt. The hunger grows even stronger at the sight – not stronger than it thought possible, because it does not think, but stronger all the same.
The false thorns bite through the flesh of the beasts in front of it, ripping off their limbs and sending them stumbling to the ground, howling in thwarted hunger, before more flying metal kills them. The beast keeps moving, climbing atop its fallen kin to pass the metal thorns. One of them digs into its left front limb, ripping a gash into its fur, skin and muscle, but it ignores the pain and keeps moving, and soon the wound disappears, the flesh knitting itself together – which causes its hunger to spike again.
There should be a limit to how hungry a living thing can be and still live. But with the alien will of the Dark Mother pushing it forward, the beast is beyond such limitations. It accelerates, its physiology releasing new hormones into its bloodstream to push it beyond its limits, causing muscle to tear and bone to fissure. With this much momentum, it will be able to leap over the metal obstacles left in its way and reach the prey, to rip and tear and feast on their soft flesh. Its legs contract –
A ghostly figure bursts out of the ground and plunges its claw into the beast's chest. It feels cold, briefly, the shock of it violent enough to completely block out the pain of its new injury. Then the Spectre-type Werwolf tears out its heart in a geyser of rapidly-cooling blood and viscera before throwing the pulsating organ away.
It takes several seconds for the beast's brain to realize it is dead. Its jaws are still biting pointlessly, trying and failing to satisfy a hunger it still feels, even in its state.
Meanwhile, the Spectre has already moved on by the time the last of the beast's unnatural life finally fades. On this battlefield, less than ten minutes since the start of Operation Gottesmörder, its demise goes unremarked and unmourned. And, with the records of Moskva destroyed during the Solstice Event, no one will ever know the name of the man it once was.
Within ten minutes of the battle starting, Andrew realizes that his hearing probably won't ever recover from this without some serious magical healing. Which wouldn't be so bad, his commission from this job can probably cover the fee if he makes it out alive, but he has a feeling no amount of magical healing will help with getting the damnable bleating out of his head.
That's a problem for the future, though, and right now, Andrew finds it very hard to believe that there is any future waiting for him. As a foreign observer who isn't part of any of the Allied Forces, the journalist has been relegated to standing on the fortified hills, close to the artillery. He has to stay well clear of the immense Wunderwaffe they've brought all the way from the Empire on what passes for the Federation's railway system : not only doesn't he have clearance to know about it, but from what he's heard, mere proximity to it is dangerous as hell, even when it hasn't been turned on yet.
There is a voice in Andrew's head (well, several, but he's pretty sure this one is his and not one of the ones they were instructed not to listen to at the briefing) telling him he should be down in the trenches below, with a rifle in hands, to die side by side with the soldiers there if need be.
It would be the honorable thing to do, he supposes, but while he has spent time in the trenches of the Rhine and seen more than his fair share of warfare (figuratively speaking, of course, as there is no such thing as 'fair' in war, and he's firmly convinced that the only acceptable share of warfare is none), he isn't a trained soldier. He would only get in the way of the troops, and do more harm than good.
And so Andrew watches, taking pictures with his camera and writing down everything he sees in a thick notebook, trying very hard to force his hands not to shake so much that it makes it all useless. It is all he can do, but it is important. If there is a future beyond the hideous, teeming nightmare the Dark Mother intends to create (and the voice which tells him there won't be is definitely one he mustn't listen to, regardless of where it comes from), the world must remember what happens here today.
He still doesn't know for certain how the Solstice Event came to pass, but he is a journalist, and a damn good one if he says so himself. He knows when to talk, when to ask questions, and when to shut up and listen. With these skills, and the fact the Reich isn't so much trying to hide what happened as still figuring out the details themselves, Andrew has managed to piece together a vague picture of what led to this whole mess. The Federation's leadership was worried about the Wunderwaffen (understandable), and figured out that the best way to counter them was to get their own magical superweapons (also understandable, given the Empire's militaristic reputation).
Unfortunately for the Federation's leaders, they had killed or imprisoned all their mages during their bloody revolution, and their remaining scientists were too scared of being executed for making 'anti-revolutionary' discoveries. So they had decided they should steal Division Y's homework instead of doing their own research like the Americans, or going into a foreign country and steal priceless cultural relics to use as magical weapons instead like the esteemed worthies of the Allied Kingdom.
Somehow, their spies managed to steal something from Division Y, and then whoever the Federation's higher-ups put in charge promptly fucked up and brought forth the apocalypse, in a way that makes Albion's mishap in Kemet look like a school's science experiment gone wrong.
Which is why it's important that this is all recorded. The world needs to know what happens when you mess around with Elder (or, as some of the Imperial occultists called, Mythos) Magic without whatever precautions it is Division Y uses to avoid blowing up the Empire. People must realize how dangerous this stuff is, to avoid another Solstice Event.
So Andrew brings up his binoculars, fights off the urge to vomit at the images it shows him, and keeps writing – so that this particular section of History doesn't end up repeating. And maybe, just maybe, there is some defiance in the fact that he assumes there will be a History to remember.
Hans is afraid. He isn't ashamed of it : he doesn't think anyone in the entire Allied Forces isn't afraid right now, except maybe for the supersoldiers of Division Y and Colonel Lergen.
But Hans isn't one of the shape-shifting champions of the Reich who stand on the frontline against the Progeny, ready to match their bestial ferocity with their own. Nor he is a hero of the Reich like Colonel Lergen, the man who broke the Fiends of Kemet's advance and conquered Ildoa faster than any warlord in history. He is just one more soldier of the Imperial Eastern Army, just an ordinary Imperial Citizen who was doing his military service when the Great War erupted, and who didn't see any action even as the rest of the Imperial Army fought for the Reich elsewhere.
Before the start of Operation Gottesmörder, he was stupid enough to be jealous of the Northern and Western Armies for getting all the glory (not the Southern Army, obviously), and complain about it with his comrades at the mess hall. He wasn't the only one, of course : complaining about stuff like this was a common past-time in the Eastern Army, which spent its time in a staring contest with the Federation, keeping the enormous country in check.
Now he knows better. If this is what war is, then he would have been perfectly happy with spending his entire service metaphorically standing guard on the Empire's walls to keep the Eastern barbarians at bay. Of course, he knows that's not the case : this battle is unlike any other of the Great War, of any war ever fought by men on this world.
But he'd still much rather be bored in the barracks than here, with the thunder of a thousand guns barely drowning out the hideous howls of the Progeny (and completely failing to cover the bleating of the greater horror).
The only thing distinguishing Hans from his brothers-in-arm is that, thanks to the large build he's inherited from his father, he's qualified to operate one of the new machine guns. Which is why he is aiming the heavy weapon at the horde of Progeny, fingers pulling the trigger. Per the brass' instructions, there isn't any ammunition conservation : he and every other gunner fires at will into the mass, pausing only when the ammo belt needs to be changed, at which point he has to pry his fingers loose from the trigger.
There is little aiming involved in the affair : the horde is so compact it would be hard to miss, but Hans is big and strong enough to take the gun's recoil and keep it trained on the enemy as he fires, alongside dozens of other machine guns on this section of the defenses alone.
If they were once men, like the wizards of Division Y say, then there is nothing left of their former selves visible in their behavior. They charge straight at the line, jumping over the corpses of their dead without even slowing down. It feels like shooting at the tide, rather than an enemy army.
Part of Hans (a very small part, compared to the rest of him which is busy keeping the machine gun aimed and trying not to scream in terror) is obscurely grateful. Before today, he didn't really understand the kind of damage a machine gun can do to flesh, and the thought that, if he weren't shooting at the Progeny, he would be firing at other human beings, people like him whose only difference was being born elsewhere, sickens him. Maybe that means he isn't a good soldier.
He doesn't really care, which is somewhat surprising.
Time ceases to have meaning to Hans. He aims, fires, waits for the click that indicates the gun has run out. There is a brief pause, then one of his companions slaps him on the arm (his hearing is too shot to pick out one specific shout in this cacophony) to indicate that he can shoot again.
Then, suddenly, the gun stops firing way ahead of schedule. Hans blinks, and looks down at the weapon, puzzled. His mind is fogged by the sheer horror of his situation, but he still realizes that the gun has jammed. This can be repaired : already the rest of his squad are working on it. But he knows from long hours of training that it will take time – for what that particular breakage looks like, a couple of minutes, Hans would say.
And, as he looks back up at the horde, he knows that's time they don't have. With the gun inoperable, the squad cannot cover their section of the line. Sure, each heavy weapon emplacement's field of fire overlaps with several others, but it still means a decrease in the firepower of this particular section of the line.
The Progeny lack the tactical sense to realize this, or so Hans dearly hopes. But simple weight of number means that more and more start passing through the area of lessened danger, and they are coming straight for Hans' position. The other soldiers realize what's going on immediately and try to redirect as much of their fire as they can to compensate, but it isn't enough. It cannot be enough, not against the horde.
Hans is going to die, he realizes. So are his squad mates. They are all going to die, and their death will make the hole in their defensive line permanent, which will put the rest of the soldiers in danger. This might be the opening which the horde needs to break the spine of the Allied Forces.
It seems wrong, that such a little thing as their machine gun breaking down could result in so great a catastrophe.
Hans wants to turn and run, to abandon his post and try to save his skin. But he knows all that will achieve is make him die tired and a coward. There are just too many monsters, and they are too fast. So he takes a deep breath and reaches for his pistol. He isn't sure whether he intends to shoot the beasts or himself, but either is better than simply standing here frozen –
A shadow passes over him, and he hears the beating of great wings. From the skies, a figure in black armor descends, a spear of gleaming silver in hand, carried on wings of moonlight. Hans recognizes it : it's one of the Eikons which turned against their makers at Bovariastadt, when whatever caused the city to be quarantined happened. Right now, though, Hans doesn't care about that : all he cares about is that he might just survive after all.
The winged warrior plunges into the approaching Progeny like the wrath of the Lord, and Hans shouts at his comrades to hurry up and fix the damn gun.
"Lunarch Nala, deploy to section 19-B."
The Lunarch hears the General's words, sent through a communication spell by one of the aerial mages helping overseeing the battle. She and the other former Eikons are held in reserve, waiting to plug in the holes in the Allied Forces' lines. In the time since the battle started, most of her brethren have already been deployed, and now it is her turn.
She flies with all the speed she is capable of, only slowing down at the very last instant to avoid injuring the Imperial soldiers with the shockwave. It is a very tight manoeuvre : one mistake and she would crash down with enough speed to turn half her body to pulp, even with her enhancements, and she doubts she'd have the time to regenerate from that before the Progeny tore her to shreds.
But her training at Castle Schwartzstein was extensive, and she manages it perfectly, coming down atop a group of Lycans who are obliterated by the flash of energy she lets loose as she lands. Those at the edge of the affected area are sent flying, but they don't pause, don't hesitate : instead, they immediately start converging on Nala, rushing at her without fear.
Good. The more focused on her they are, the less chances of them slipping by and breaking through. Nala raises her spear, and begins to fight in earnest.
It is the first time she truly, completely lets loose. As an Eikon, she only faced the Imperial Southern Army, already broken by the awesome power of the Trinity's Tear, and she was freed from her shackles before having to actually engage Division Y's fliers at the Battle of Bovariastadt. And while her training under Director Degurechaff was closer to the real thing than anyone else would dare, there is still a very clear difference.
For one thing, she doesn't expect to survive this, and she's at peace with that fact.
Nala is an angel with black armor and moonlight wings as she battles the spawn of Being K. Her spear cuts through Progeny flesh, and between its sharpness and her strength, it barely slows down with each strike. She pivots on her left foot, dodging a Lycan leaping at her and smashing her left elbow into its head with enough force to cave in its bestial skull, before beheading another with her spear.
She draws upon the wellspring of power within her. Before her transformation in the Holy See, she already had enough mana to be an aerial mage (if the Francois allowed their colonial subjects such opportunities, which they most definitely didn't before their defeat on the Rhine). Becoming an Eikon increased her reserves considerably, and breaking free of Being X's control hasn't weakened her in any way.
Bolts of energy burst from the tip of her spear to incinerate whole packs of beasts at a time. Arcs of raw mana jump across her armor before earthing themselves into the ground, burning holes into the carpet of dead Progeny that swiftly surrounds her, and crunches under her boots.
She is strong, unstoppable. She is wrath made manifest. Far above, she senses the Director's presence, the Lady of Stars watching the battle unfold in her human form, waiting for the correct time to join the fray herself. Nala fights harder, knowing that she is watching, remembering sermons from meetings of the Path of Stars in Castle Schwartzstein.
The Lady will lead and help them, but she will not save them. She cannot. She is powerful, but not almighty – and that is well, for salvation unearned is no salvation at all. Only together can they deliver the world from the evil the Federation has unleashed.
This is Nala's purpose, she knows deep within her heart. This is her atonement for the lives she took under the control of the Congregation of Michael, the price she willingly pays for the innocent minds she tainted with Being X's indoctrination.
More beasts come, howling and snarling as they climb over the dismembered corpses of their brethren without hesitation to hurl themselves at her. She meets their charge head-on, blazing with silver light. A Satyr's claws reach her left forearm before she cuts the creature in two – the first injury she's sustained since joining the fight.
It is not the last. A Lycan's teeth bite at her ankle, before she breaks its skull with the haft of her spear – but the jaws remain closed in death. She fights through the pain, but cannot avoid the slight decrease in her speed this causes. Nine beasts jump on her at once, and while she obliterates the first eight with a blast of moonlit fire, the last one rams her with enough strength to briefly make her lose her balance. She rips it off herself and throw it at another group, but cannot block several claw strikes at her back, one of which, performed by a Satyr with goat features, damages the connection between her armor and her right wing, causing the appendage to flicker and twist madly.
Now this hurts, truly and deeply. Nala actually stumbles, her vision blacking out for the briefest of moments before she shakes herself and turn to cut her attacker from throat to groin. But she can feel the disruption in her mana, and can no longer use her magic to reinforce herself as easily.
She keeps fighting regardless. With a wordless shout, she lets loose a pulse of energy to push back the beasts which have taken advantage of her blackout, despite the spike of pain this sends throughout her body.
In total, it takes seven minutes and forty-three seconds for Nala to die, and she takes four hundred and sixty-eight Lycans and nine Satyrs down with her. Her last stand buys enough time for Hans's squad to repair their machine gun, and for reinforcements to arrive from the reserves, bolstering the line and preventing the collapse of this section of the front.
She dies happy.
AN : Hello, everyone ! I am back !
Sorry about the long wait, but I'm sure you can see why it took me a while to shift from Darth Cain to this. The tone difference is quite jarring, after all. Also, this is the largest battle of the story so far, and keeping tracks of everything to create a proper outline is quite the task.
The first draft of this chapter was longer, but I ended up cutting it apart for pacing reasons (meaning there's already 5k words already written for what comes next). Writing this entirely in the present tense was a bit of a chore, given how used I am to writing the narration in past tense, but I think it was worth it. The entire battle will be like this, for reasons I'm sure you can figure out on your own, and should take around four or five chapters, depending on the Muse's whims. In any case, there will be many more POVs before this ends, one way or another.
Many thanks to everyone who helped me come up with the Allied Forces' defenses by suggesting stuff like barbed wire and landmines. My primary goal was to avoid making Lergen and co. look like whoever was in charge of Winterfell's defenses in GoT, and I think I managed it while remaining vague enough at the same time.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this first part of Operation Gottesmörder. I look forward to your thoughts, comments, and theories as to how this will all play out.
Zahariel out.