Chapter 202: Clash of Armies Part 1

[3rd Person POV]

In throne room of the dictator of time, Eris, a torrent of black winds swirled beneath the platform of her seat of power, converging into the figure of her brother, Loki Darkbringer, and just like before the king of devils used wind magic to deliver the letter upwards her sister, and as Eris caught is, she saw the like emoticon drawn by Sophia, as if barely wanting to go to war, yet being forced by the circumstances.

This is a new response for Eris, as all her letters are accompanied by the prospect that Eleanor is abducted, and thus needed to be saved, so all of the responses of the other Sophias at this juncture of the time loop are taunts and aggressive threats.

But for Eris, it doesn't matter. Sophia is still too weak to confront time; everyone is weak against time, so Eris is acknowledged as the strongest of the ancient calamities... at least by her own people.

Such is what Eris believes, like how all of the ones branded as "calamity" believe they are the strongest.

_This is the last one... and I will finally wipe out the existence of that bastard's descendants._

Eris' eyes seemed to flash with a tinge of blue; in there, a sense of sadness and unrestrained hatred emanated.

The dictator of time is looking at her brother, however, her eyes reflected the man, the god she hates the most.

_... Siginarugan will finally die._

Thinking of this, Eris stood up abruptly, her gown's hems fluttering alongside her long black hair. Loki looked at this scene, a scene he had witnessed over and over again on this planet encased in a time-repeating tesseract.

The crimson red eyes of the queen of vampires standing on top of the throne's platform turned blue, in her pupils slowly emerged tiny pocket watches that seems too cramped to co-exist in those two eyes, causing them to squeeze against each other as if they were cells of a human, alongside such a change, in the whole body of the queen of Valentine erupted clusters of small pocket watches that are glowing in blue, ethereal glow, these "grains" of pocket watches flowed out of the body of Eris and then out of her throne room, and ultimately, her palace, then traversed the capital of Valentine, causing their light to make all the hustle and bustle of the streets of the City named after Eris to stop for a while as all vampires, devils and the handful of humans and elves that are inside the city saw the beautiful spectacle of glimmering sand of watches.

Yet, for the vampires and devils, such occurrence is not a cause for celebration, for in their entire lives, they have only seen the sand of time created by their queen two times, one, in the war of gods when they are fighting for the undeads, and second, during the continental wars when they are fighting against undeads... It's a symbol of war, a symbol of diminishment from their already dwindling numbers.

The vampires and devils started to pray, but unfortunately, the deity they have the deepest connection with has abandoned them, deeming all of their kind as failures, thus, they can only nervously return to their endeavors, as normal vampires with only their lifespan to brag about.

The vampires and devils can only hope that this time, the war will not cause a lot of death in their ranks.

__________

Eastern Valentine Kingdom and Western Kamatayan, these two places, respectively owned by two different countries, have the same purpose and direction of development, that is, to use them as a military stronghold for the whole navy of the two nations.

Eastern Valentine shore extends as roughly as the same size as the Western Kamatayan shore if one counted the newly acquired (from the ownership of Stardust) strip of beach that borders the lower western part of the giant gulf that has the territorial waters of Valentine, Mayari, Gjallarhorn and Kamatayan, though Gjallarhorn is focusing their military presence to their waters facing Leviticus and Mayari doesn't have any interest in agitating Valentine, so they were looking outside as well.

This gulf, of course, have witnessed the continental wars, however, during that time, the unnamed gulf's role is to be the waters that will let the vampires and devils with the help of the Darkbringer siblings escape the war against Siginarugan and the undeads and not be the main spill point of bloodshed, thus it remained a virgin and pristine waters, devoid of any corpse and blood from the wars of the past.

Unfortunately, anything that is pure will always be defiled, and anything virgin and green will always get deflowered by the harshness of reality.

In the shores of the side of Valentine facing the gulf, the grains of time made out of small pocket watches flowed out, the admirals and other sailors that are told to get ready for deployment saw how these grains danced around despite the winds that are supposed to carry small particles of their size, it's evident that they are being controlled, and indeed, they were, the grains of time, upon reaching the headquarters of the navy and the ones that are in the field, started to scatter as if to seep into the minds of all the personnel present, these grains of time has the "time" when Eris ordered them frozen within them, and thus, in the minds of all the navy soldiers, a single order appeared.

"Advance."

As usual, the devils and vampires only need to obey and not question, thus the not-so-energetic state a little while earlier.

Hearing this, the whole navy turned into cogs of automated and lubricated war machine, formations were made, task deployment was employed, and soon 15 fleets in triangle formation emerged from the once defensive ships of Valentine.

The soldiers doesn't need any pep talk as they are actually quite eager to wreck havoc against the undeads, with a momentum that of a tsunami, the vampires maneuvering the ship made a signal to move forward, in the middle is a mother ship with marksmen and melee soldiers, there are also devils with flight based devil form that serves as the aerial support and will also be the scout and the compass of the captain if illusion based interference were cast.

One should be reminded that, unlike Loki and Hebi, devil forms are normally just 5 inches taller or even the same height as the normal form.

This formation is the one that let the topsy turvy navy of the undeads unable to chase them, and thus, with full confidence, the part of the army of the kingdom of heaven that almost doesn't have a chance to go into conflict, except for the attempted entry of the Leviticus and Numbers continents towards the end of the continental wars when the Darkbringer siblings have yet to seize full control of the patch of land, yet despite that, they are not ill equipped, they have sufficient training, strong personnel and the backing of the two strongest siblings on the planet, in short, if anything is immanent, that would be their victory.

Though, they never realized that such a notion will be put to the test earlier than they have anticipated, for just when the fleets bypassed the 5 kilometer mark of their voyage for a chance to gain the upper hand, a distance by which some stronger devils still can perceive the other end of, time itself seem to dilate, this is not an enemy attack but a one time "blessing" of the queen of Valentine that will instinctively halt the ships, or their time, and because of this, the expression of the admirals became grim.

The condition of this one-time blessing means that there is an enemy attack! And there was no one in front, besides, or at their back!

"Defensive Formation!"

Through the comm crystals, the main commander in the respective motherships of the fleets decisively created an order to remain defensive, they just wanted to seize the initiative, that doesn't mean that they want to get ambushed and stupidly shout "for honor" as they pierce through an attack most likely laced with potent illusions, they are not built like that, all of them are old here, and in oldness came experience and based on it, their first response is to be ready for any potential ambush.

And indeed, an ambush came, directly to their true north, 15 slits of blue-colored light simultaneously appeared in the air, unlike an illusion, the devils, natural resistance to it knew that the slits was real, they seem to expand from the tropopause up to the bottom of the ocean, and not only that, those slits didn't look like they will drain the ocean (that is already an absurd proposition) but rather they intended to rip the length, width and depth of the very space that contains matter itself.

"This is..."

One of the admirals can't help but mutter, for in the report of Hebi Tsukaiza, the cause of her defeat is the uncanny 2 pronged strategy that uses daggers to inject a direct illusions and store a more potent than the first sublimely to her body, and such a strategy is employed by the one who dared to say space is simple, the one who proclaimed the difficulty of the concept of darkness yet was able to master it the next day she have declared such a notion.

And as if on cue, just when the report of Hebi was broadcasted in the devil and vampires' minds simultaneously, the slit pried open the 3rd dimension itself, and in their are fleets of steel armored warships, in their front are cannons that are emitting blue colored light whilst generals and admirals of each warships are present in the very front, surrounded by mages and marksmen that seem to protect them from harm, as if desiring to participate in the main fight itself, but who can really ridicule them if it was [Guide] that will command their side of this whole naval war? Or at least it was he who created their formation before disappearing again from the whole war.

They emerged out of the 4th dimension and as if the fleets of the same size and girth as the navy of Valentine were not spat out of it, their formation, posture and discipline is all the same as when they were inside the 4th dimension, obviously, despite their young age and this one being their impending maiden battle, they are still a force to be reckoned with, specially the fact that they have Yamato Mamorite, the sister of the deceased ancient calamity Mizukuni Mamorite as well as the generals of the land that desired to participate in this battle as well as the admirals specifically trained to fight in water.

"Prepare to engage!"

All of the main commanders in the mothership of each fleet of the devils shouted, as such all the marksmen, trebuchet operators, mages and the melee guards readied themselves, they either pointed their arrows upwards, made the harpoon of the trebuchet locked and loaded, or made balls of fire or blades of water float in front of them, some mages circled in the middle of the bridge of the warships and conjured barriers for the interception of the projectiles of the enemy.

Finally, meeting the air force of Kamatayan eye to eye, the winged devils flew upwards, way out of their ships' barrier.

At this moment, the two armies of the children of Siginarugan will face off for the first time since the continental wars.

[Sophia's POV]

_Oh... so it has begun, huh?_

Contrary to my expectation, the destined time for me and Eris to meet is still a long way to go. I thought I was going late with my self-imposed schedule, but apparently, I have 4 hours slack off differentials, but oh well, it's not like having some free time.

Now, I have to properly do my role as I get out of my way to confront the dictator of time.

Thinking of this, I can't help but remember all of my endeavors, that time when I was still properly controlled by the time loop, the hero's test, the fight against Hebi and the devils, the second elven-undead war...

These experiences are most certainly experienced by the other Sophias and are not entirely unique, but still, those people were not able to interpret time properly, still seeing it as a god despite someone literally controlling it, well, I won't imply that this battle will be easy, given all my haul-assing this past few hours and how I am, quite honestly weaker than Eris despite being able to move at the same rate as time, because she can control time...

_Damn... no matter how I look at it, Sophia Demiurge is always built to fail at the last moment of her attempt... this is annoying._

I stood up at such a thought, though I'm still annoyed, it was a good thing that Eris Darkbringer is one hell of a hot stuff, so I will be enjoying myself with my sweet revenge later on...

If I succeeded in destroying the time loop, that is.

_... Time is stupid, but it's still scary._

I can't help but sigh, no matter, this natural mortal repulsion of going against time itself will dissipate when I am able to control it the moment Paraluman gives me divinity... again, if I am successful.

I stopped thinking about all that stuff and walked out of my office at a leisurely pace.

In the morning, I have to be able to reach the destined place our confrontation will happen.