In the Imperial Palace of the Light Empire, Asher was furious.
The core executives in the hall stayed quiet. They were angry too, but it wasn't the Intermediate God's death that had done it. The Light Empire had hundreds of thousands of True Gods. Losing one wasn't worth this. It wasn't even the battlefield losses themselves, the fleet or the airships. Those were painful, but the strength gap was real and everyone had understood it going in.
What nobody could accept was simpler: the Great Aetherium's Gods were permitted to bless the Castle Faction's army on the battlefield, and the Light Empire's Gods were not permitted to do the same for their own army.
It wasn't technically a violation of rules. Gods couldn't directly slaughter mortals, both sides had quietly agreed on that. But adding buffs to the allied troops was a different matter, and the Angel Race's Supreme Gods had made clear, through Angelia's demonstration, that any Light Empire God who approached the battlefield would be treated as a combatant. One Intermediate God had already tested this and had been killed instantly. Nobody else was willing to find out what happened next.
The result was a battle where the Castle Faction, already nearly ten trillion against two trillion, already blessed with the Castle Lord growth mechanics and daily recruitment, were also receiving continuous divine buffs, while the Light Empire's two trillion fought entirely without divine support.
Even Asher himself couldn't go. Four Supreme God Tier Angels had deployed to the battlefield. Three remained after one returned to the capital. He was a powerful Supreme God, his strength comparable to the Dark Empire's ruler Webster, both well-known across the Truth Faction. Still, against three Supreme God Tier Angels, he would die. And if he died, the empire would collapse immediately.
He sat on his throne and felt the particular humiliation of being suppressed without recourse.
…
"Your Majesty." One of the core ministers said, his voice strained, "Are we to simply watch our warriors die on the distant battlefield? The river fleet is gone. The airships, 1.7 million of them, crushed. Next comes the ground army. Nearly two trillion supernaturals, up against ten trillion enemy troops with divine buffs. What do they even use to resist?"
Asher rubbed his forehead. He had already deployed everything available at the mortal level. Regular legions, civilian supernaturals, alchemic puppets, every airship and battleship in the imperial inventory, every weapon and Power Stone and magic scroll from the strategic warehouses.
There was nothing left to add. The war had been committed, ten trillion enemy troops and two trillion imperial soldiers locked in a melee across a battlefield millions of kilometers in diameter. Retreat orders at this stage would only accelerate the dying, and would contradict everything his delay strategy required.
He had done the strategic math clearly. To stably suppress the Great Aetherium and Castle Faction on the battlefield, a minimum of three empire-level local forces would need to unite. That was the actual power gap. And the central region's other native empires wouldn't come.
One by one, they had claimed that the upcoming Battle of Planets required them to avoid conflict with the Great Aetherium for the sake of the entire Endless Continent. Asher knew the truth: they were afraid. If the Great Aetherium had fewer Supreme Gods, if it had only one, those same empires would have helped him without hesitation.
The Ice and Snow Kingdom's ruler Eira called herself Haru's friend and would not oppose the Great Aetherium. The Dark Empire had actively joined the attack. There were two other human empires on the continent, and none would stand with him.
The bitter irony of the human race's situation came to him clearly. The Elf Empire was the strongest native empire in the central region, and yet in terms of raw racial strength, the human race should dominate.
Three of the nine continental empires were human. If those three united, no power in the central region could challenge them, but they didn't unite. They stabbed each other, stood aside, or worse. How could such a race remain glorious?
Then the second irony arrived: the Castle Lords and Rangers dismantling his empire city by city, billions of them, were also all humans. Humans from another planet, but human nonetheless. Which meant the human race wasn't losing its glory. It was simply changing who carried it.
He was briefly speechless.
"We cannot save them." He said finally, "We no longer have the strength to intervene in that battlefield. They can only rely on themselves. I can only hope they hold long enough to keep the imperial capital out of the flames."
"The True Gods of the empire must stay here." He continued, "If I lead them to the battlefield and we're destroyed, and the Imperial Heart falls with us, then every sacrifice those warriors made will have meant nothing. We guard the capital. Prohibit all Gods from approaching the battlefield, there must be no unnecessary sacrifices."
The executives went quiet. Two trillion supernaturals. The future of the empire. If all of them died, the Light Empire would need tens of thousands of years to recover.
------------------
Become A Member At My Patreon For Access To Bonus Chapters Or Even Multiple Chapters A Day!
» Patreon.com/LordArchduke