[KoJ] Chapter 89: Warfront

War is nothing like what I had imagined. I thought as we travelled east, we would come across battles. Hundreds of small fights, or maybe a

War is nothing like what I had imagined.

I thought as we travelled east, we would come across battles. Hundreds of small fights, or maybe a big one with thousands of sapients. But all too quickly is my misplaced prediction disproven.

Instead, the first sign is the vast network of trenches dug through the otherwise untouched plains.

I’d originally assumed that it was just another type of nest. Most sapients I’ve met so far like to build up, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any that dug burrows. But that’s not what this is. Ceph’s concerned gaze clued me in, and looking closer, it was certainly odd that the only people around seemed to be the occasional mage or soldier digging through rock and soil. No one lived here. It was just the tunnels and open-air divots being made in preparation for… something.

Considering they appeared nowhere else in the pact nations, it isn’t much of a stretch to assume they have something to do with this war… but no matter what I do, I can’t piece together exactly how some pits will help. Maybe some sort of trap?

“What are these for?” I ask as Ceph leaps over the fourth cluster in so many minutes.

“Emergency measures,” she says, following my gaze. When I tilt my head, she elaborates. “You’ve seen the guns that have become so widespread. The trenches help the unenhanced hold a position without finding themselves shredded alive.”

Oh! So they are just used as protection? But it seems strange that they would dig them where there were no warriors, and the enemy faction was nowhere to be seen. How did they know they would be useful at all? What stopped those they fought from just… ignoring the trenches?

Deciding that Ceph’s description is lacking something fundamental — another of those things that seems obvious to her, but I’ve not yet picked up on — I throw forward a dozen stacked distortions ahead of us. Ceph’s had us running in a straight line for a full cycle now, so there’s a chance I will intersect the war, even with the land as vast as it is.

My eyes take in dozens more empty networks of earthworks, connected only by train rails, and the trench dug for them, until finally, I find soldiers. They start infrequent. Some stationed in completely random — to my eyes — areas. But very quickly those numbers amplify massively. A boring stone box houses almost a hundred sapients all trudging through motions. To their sides, far in each direction, are weapons similar to those cannons that shot at me the first time I rose above the surface. Ten warrior castes surround each.

The weapons fire frequently, flinging small slabs of steel far into the distance and out of sight. Following their path, I find a landscape of devastation. For many kilometres, the land is lifeless. Craters are common, but so are the vestiges of hyle marring the earth’s natural structure. Barricades of rock spikes. A single, deep gorge that cleanly splits the land, too straight and far to be from anything weaker than that Inner Circle mage I’d fought. And lakes at odd intervals.

There are many soldiers here. Some run through the wide network of trenches, but most slump in the mud; those numerous lakes did not always retain their water, and it leaked into the ditches.

The picture only grows worse the further I push my sight. It feels like I am seeing the transition between the normal world and the Other Side. I consider the thought for only a moment before discarding it. If this battlefield was at all linked to the Other Side, none of these sapients would have survived long enough to fight each other.

Eventually, I find the rain of steel. Both the one’s fired from the pact nation, and that of their enemy. It is constant. An explosion cracks through the air each second. If I’d thought what I had seen until now was bad, this blows it out of the water.

Instead of water and earth, blood and corpses dominated the land. Soldiers poke their heads out of their trenches to fire at the enemy as explosions shift the winds around them. I watch one have their legs collapse out from under them. The khirig drops face-first into the wet earth, coating their antlers in another layer of blood-soaked mud. They roll over, just to watch their neighbour disintegrate into a cloud of dirt. No reaction comes. They simply stare and blink and hug the weapon in their hands.

A strange pulls my attention to one of the water mages. As one of the stronger warriors, I would assume they would be at the forefront of battle. Instead, they linger back near one of the larger gatherings of sapients on the shore of a lake, and using the water, they create a series of protective domes. Most of them cover nothing at all.

When one of the explosive projectiles crashes through one of the watery shells, I notice that it does nothing to stop, or even slow it down. The explosion goes off on one unfortunate dohrni sleeping in the mud, but nobody else. Before I can even question the purpose if they don’t stop the enemy’s strikes, the mage makes a line connecting the hole in the dome, with the impact site.

Curious, I listen in as the mage shouts a series of numbers and no other words. Only a second later, the volan nearby flies back a few hundred metres from the worst of the explosions. They reach a crew around an artillery piece, repeat the numbers, and I watch as the cannon’s angle is adjusted. In a dozen seconds, they have fired a slab of metal of their own.

My chain of distortions already spreads quite far, so it is a challenge to keep up with the shell, but I manage. It crashes into the earth only a dozen metres short of an almost identical weapon, throwing it back. The weapon topples on two, and the blast itself kills three, but more albanics rush in to pull the long cylinder away. Ten seconds later, another explosion destroys the now abandoned dug-in.

Now viewing Henosis’ side of the battlefield, I find a lot of things stand in vast contrast to the pact nations’. For one, their warriors are almost exclusively albanic. A few khirig intersperse the ranks, but only one in a hundred compared to the ape-like species. The second thing of note, is just how much more structured they are. Instead of relying on trenches, the attacking army of Henosis has a earth mages shifting the earth forward to capture territory. Its slow and steady, but with the guns firing a hundred rounds a minute spread at even intervals across the moving wall, the pact nations have no option but to retreat or die as the land folds over them.

Only when some of the stronger warrior caste show themselves — the mercenaries like Ceph — is the offensive wall halted.

War is nothing like I expected. Instead of countless individual fights to declare supremacy, it’s a dreary slog where most of the sapients don’t even get to stare down their opponent before their life is gone. I was right about the how numbers stretch the battle’s length, but not the way it expresses itself.

Is there even anything to learn?

As I watch, the defences of the pact nation are crumbling to enemy numbers almost three times their own. Not only that, Henosis’ weapons are clearly superior. Their guns fire faster, and for longer. Their artillery reloading is almost non-existent compared to Ceph’s side. None of these matter much for the battles between stronger warriors, but whenever the pact nations throw another mercenary out to counter an elite, Henosis matches that with specialist strikes.

I’m suddenly pulled back from my observations as Ceph enters an old building a fair distance from what I imagine is the artillery cannon’s maximum range, given the lack of craters.

“I need to speak with the regional commander,” Ceph demands. “Where can I find them?”

“Both Commander and Second were killed in the last strike,” an official responds. Surprisingly, the man looks like he recognised Ceph at first sight. “An injured Beith, unable to fight, has taken over. Albin. He’s in the old temple a klick south.”

“Albin?” she mutters, but it isn’t a question. With me still on her head, Ceph sprints towards her next destination.

“Orm, I’ll leave you to explore the town for a few minutes. I know it pales compared to the other places we’ve been, but maybe you’ll find some interest in how some buildings have been altered to suite a different purpose,” she says. “I need to speak with a teammate.”

With a nod, I slide off her head to the brickwork road. It’s a small town, and the only people I see are the warrior castes running around and making themselves busy. Many of the small buildings are abandoned, and many more have been retrofitted to suit these soldiers purposes now that they are the ones operating here. I have to wonder what the old residents think about that? I certainly wouldn’t be happy to know my home was being altered just because I left for a little while.

But that’s hardly something to focus on right now.

Another strand of spatial distortions follows Ceph, and when she barges through the heavy stone doors of the largest structure in the town, I am watching. She approaches an albanic sitting at a desk with a dozen people standing around, shouting at one another. It’s somewhat difficult to recognise the faces of albanics, as I’ve only seen a few so far, but this is the same one that was part of the Ceph’s team that I had to help escape the warped tunnels.

Albin is not so whole any longer. A leg, an arm, and his spear are nowhere to be seen, and much of the same side as his missing limbs is scarred and burnt. Despite the obvious injuries, he flicks through pages and speaks to those around him as if they don’t bother him the least.

“Fuck me Albin,” Ceph exclaimed, seeing the same as I do. “What happened?”

“A Titan Killer. I was a little too close,” he says flatly. “Or better to think of it as just far enough away.”

“And the others?” Ceph asks, her voice wavering ever so slightly.

He stands up with the help of a crutch and leads Ceph to talk in private, away from the arguing soldiers. Even with only a leg and an arm, moving around doesn’t seem as difficult as some of the other sapients I’ve already seen with similar injuries out in the battlefield. Benefits of greater strength and enhancement, no doubt.

While they talk, I return my gaze back out to the encroaching line of Henosis soldiers. To my surprise, they’ve pushed far further than their earlier pace had indicated. Pulling my gaze back to the pact nations defence, I find bodies everywhere. Groups of above-average enhancement dash through the trenches slaughtering the unenhanced wherever they go. Some of the stronger warrior castes try to stop them. Slow them down. But their numbers and power are overwhelming.

The wall of earth is no longer needed. The army of Henosis drive over the already cleared land without opposition.

“…makes them use the Titan Killers?” I catch the tail end of Ceph’s question as I pull away from the losing battle.

Albin stares at her for a good long moment. “Are you sure that is a good idea?”

“What other option do we have?”

He still looks unconvinced, but before he can answer, a volan flies in through an open window and shouts for everyone to hear. “They’ve broken the line! Henosis have launched a major assault!”

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Update for Cipactlteteo members: I'm going away for a couple of weeks, so don't expect chaps in that time (sorry.)

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