It was quite the relief for General Peridot to lead an army whose leadership trusted him.

Part of him would never let go of the guilt of allowing Fire Sultan Onyx and his daughter Bloodstone to walk straight to their doom, or failing to call the goddess Pele out before her foolish strategy led to the near-complete destruction of Lavaland's military. Stepping down into dishonorable retirement should have been the most merciful fate for him, and only Sultana Alexandrite's orders kept Peridot in the fight.

Nonetheless, Wepwawet's approach to warfare differed much from that of his predecessor. Peridot had been given a rather large margin of action to elaborate battle plans and given a clear overview of what Lavaland's new divine patron could or couldn't do for them. This had allowed him and the Fire Sultana to plan a good strategy with their Verglanian allies.

As general of Lavaland, Peridot had extensively studied all armed forces capable of threatening his country; Timberan included. While the elven dryads who led the nation wielded powerful magic, they were bound to their homeland's trees. Most of Timberan's conventional land armed forces specialized in hit-and-run guerrilla warfare that exploited their native forests to the fullest. The core of their troops was made of swordsmen, spearsmen, and archers, talented at ambushing intruders from afar and then retreating into the shadows of their native woods, with the occasional unicorn rider providing light cavalry support. Though their bowmen and navy were among the best in the world, they had little to no heavy infantry or cavalry.

Hence, the plan to retake Orestown had been simple enough: send heavily armored magmorians and expendable fiends summoned by Lady Wintresse to pulverize the barricades, providing suppression fire with incendiary spells from afar, and keep conventional forces in reserve until their saboteurs found their way in. The elves pelted the Lavaland vanguard with arrows that simply bounced off their armor and pavises shields reinforced by Verglane's crafters, while Her Majesty Alexandrite and Lady Wintresse happily retaliated with magma bombs and ice spells.

Their leadership fails to leverage their strengths, Peridot observed. Timberan's forces were at a clear disadvantage trying to hold a single town surrounded by an open field. But then again… their god is a dragon.

The mere idea sent shivers down Peridot's spine—an achievement in itself, since it was made of magma. He pitied those poor elves.

Though they may simply be expected to hold the line until their god completes his preparations… Peridot theorized. The stream of water slowly filling up the canyon separating the elven god's Altar from Orestown bothered him. It was already half-full, and the water should reach the top in a few minutes. Peridot wondered if the elves intended to summon some kind of navy there; if Lord Wepwawet could teleport a castle from countless miles away, then another god should be able to summon ships or some sort of equivalent. This is only the real battle's prelude.

He had to trust Lady Victoire would prevail in this fight.

An explosion rocking Orestown caught Peridot's attention. Smoke arose from the city center in great dark plumes ascending to the sky,

"Complete success," Wintresse boasted with a smile. "It seems Rapoleon's sappers found their way in."

"The defenders are retreating," Alexandrite noted. Elven archers and spearsmen abandoned the barricades around the city before the magmorian vanguard pulverized them. "This is our chance, General."

Peridot nodded and turned to their last 'Commander.' Princess Treasure and the mimic carriages—filled to the brim with infantry forces ready to be deployed—waited for the signal to charge into Orestown and take it over. "Are you ready to charge, Milady?"

"I am Princess Treasure!" Princess Treasure replied, waving her tentacles at her troops. "And I tax the commoners!"

Peridot had heard better rallying cries, but it motivated her mimics all the same. The carriages drove forward with the troops and slipped through the holes the vanguard had opened in the enemy defenses. The elven defenders offered little resistance and quickly regrouped towards the city center rather than fight.

"Orestown is as good as taken," Peridot said. Short of a divine surprise, it was only a matter of time before the elves inside were cornered with nowhere to go. "The defenders will no doubt try to evacuate to the Altar across the bridge. We must seize it first."

"I wish we had an easy way to do that…" Wintresse said as she turned her gaze to their army's weak link. "I truly wish we had one…"

Peridot sighed as he glanced at the dragon Insupportable. He had been overjoyed when he heard Lord Wepwawet would deploy a dragon with them, since the creatures were more or less living siege engines, but… well…

"No!" the reptile shrieked so loud that half the troops present winced. "I am not leaving my princess-hoard without supervision!"

"But Your Glorious Imperial Majesty, the only way to prevent this overweight, obnoxious sea dragon from abducting more princesses is to destroy his statue!" his poor apeling servant tried to argue. "He will be so broken by his own image's destruction from your show of divine power that his spirit will shatter like a tide of lead on a rock of gold!"

The wereling's words, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears. "Wereling Bernard, for all of your loyalty, you lack a superior dragonian intellect's ability to project itself into the future. Princess Victoire and her…" Insupportable coughed as if the mere word hurt to say. "Dragon keeper has already been lured astray by his statue! I am certain the dragon in the sky will throw a fishnet at us the moment we approach it!"

That… that's not unlikely, Peridot conceded in his mind. He would expect a god like this Watatsumi to unleash his fury once his Altar was threatened the same way Lady Pele grew desperate to protect her own during the Titan Incursion. But still, this dragon is wasting our time sitting on his tail.

"I suggest we move without the dragon," Lady Wintresse said while Lord Bernard struggled to convince his master to do anything. "The rising water opens new opportunities. I can freeze–"

A malevolent pulse of energy traveled across the earth and sky, interrupting Lady Wintresse and striking her dead.

Peridot knew she had perished the moment he sensed the power travel through his body, reaching into his soul and failing to take hold of it. The light left Lady Wintresse's eyes in an instant, her body collapsing to the ground without a sound alongside a good chunk of Sultana Alexandrite's bodyguards. A foul magic seemed to have slain them all on the spot in the blink of an eye. Even the dragon's servant collapsed in their wake.

"What the…" Sultana Alexandrite stared at Lady Wintresse in disbelief. "What…"

"I am sorry…" Lord Wepwawet's apologetic voice echoed inside Peridot's head. "I couldn't stop that Miracle…"

"Wereling Bernard?" Insupportable asked his dead minion with a frown and a hint of concern in his voice. It seemed his servant's sudden demise hadn't yet registered in the flying reptile's mind. "Wereling Bernard, are you well? Now is not the time for a nap?"

Peridot immediately moved to check on his wereling ally while Alexandrite did the same with Lady Wintresse and others who had just dropped dead. Princess Treasure had begun to kiss a few of her fallen troops, perhaps in the hope of healing them, but Peridot only had to check Bernard's pulse to understand that all their efforts were in vain.

"Wereling Bernard, rise up!" Insupportable shouted at the corpse, as if expecting him to wake up from a nap. "This is not funny!"

"Lord Dragon, he's… dead," General Peridot told him. He had seen much grander and spectacular displays of divine power, but this one shook him to his core deeper than any giant statue or tidal wave. It was simply so sudden, so unexpected, and instantaneous. "They are dead..."

"He cannot be dead!" Insupportable snapped back in anger. "I didn't allow him to die yet!"

"I am sorry," Lord Wepwawet said. "I have salvaged his soul, but..."

"Then raise my chief of staff, Minion Wepwawet!" Insupportable snapped, his foot hitting the ground in impatience. He must have heard the same message. "That is why I allow you to serve me in the first place!"

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"I… I cannot revive him. Not yet." Lord Wepwawet didn't even contest the dragon's attempt at calling him a minion, which surprised Peridot. "I'm sorry, Insupportable."

Insupportable opened his mouth to argue, only to stop midway through the motion. Peridot could almost see the moment when the realization that his subordinate had indeed died reached his brain in real time, with the dragon choking in shock and outrage. He returned to staring at Lord Bernard's body in utter disbelief.

More than that… It sounded like Lord Wepwawet actually cared. The general detected no hint of insincerity in his god's voice, unlike with Lady Pele. Victoire had told him he had been willing to fight for Verglane, and though Peridot had dismissed it as a mere publicity stunt at first, he was steadily growing convinced of their new patron's goodwill.

He had to believe in Lord Wepwawet's promise to raise the dead in time, for the sake of his troops… and his own.

"Gather the dead," Peridot ordered his surviving soldiers upon steeling his resolve. He assumed that Lord Wepwawet probably required their bodies intact to raise them later. "We must pursue the operation for the sake of those who perished!"

"What of my sister?" Alexandrite asked Lord Wepwawet with a hint of genuine worry breaking through her composure. "Is she–"

"She is alive, but Jasper–"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Insupportable's shriek sent dust flying in the air and nearly threw Peridot back a step. A stream of icy mist erupted from the beast's nostrils, his reptilian eyes filled with fury.

The dragon exploded in a roar of absolute rage and took flight with murder on his mind.

Rapoleon, Rodent Emperor, deceased; Bernard, Loyal Chief of Staff, deceased; Wintresse, Diabolic Witch, deceased; Jasper, Shield of Topaz, deceased.

Four.

Wepwawet watched helplessly as no less than four of his twelve fielded Champions—two of them Commanders—kicked the bucket all at once. Wintresse, Rapoleon, Bernard, and Jasper all suffered from Hel's curse and were slain where they stood, alongside a few of his soldiers unfortunate enough to have a Rank of 5.

The effect was devastating. Rapoleon—whose tunnelers had opened a new front by digging into Orestown's mines and taking the elves from behind—had collapsed in the middle of an assault, leaving his wererats leaderless at a critical moment. The losses of Wintresse and Bernard were both terrible blows, while poor Topaz was now shrieking in surprise and grief over her deceased newlywed husband. A few of Jarlack's wyverns had also fallen out of the sky and dragged their riders off to an early grave. Some of Ishtar's troops were also affected, and though none of her Champions had fallen, her gaze turned into a cold glare of anger.

The only silver lining was that their deaths had been instantaneous enough that they didn't feel a thing.

"Bullseye," Hel boasted with an unbearable smirk.

"Sasuga, Hel-chan," Watatsumi replied happily.

Wepwawet wanted to strangle them both. "You think killing mortals is funny?"

"No, but killing enemies is always a joy," Hel replied dismissively. "I would expect a god of war, of all beings, to understand that."

"But we aren't enemies!" Wepwawet shouted back in frustration. "We are all on the same side against the Titans!"

While Watatsumi at least seemed a bit uneasy at the retort, Hel clearly couldn't care less. "Pfft, I can always revive your mortals later if we really need them. You're lucky they died out of my Influence's range, or I would have already raised them as zombies."

"You are wasting your divine breath on that one, Wepwawet," Ishtar said, her tone frostier all of a sudden. "She's a cold fish in and out."

Ishtar's right, Wepwawet thought. He was starting to realize why Hel had no close friends in their class. She's certainly her father's daughter, an asshole through and through.

Wepwawet guessed that Hel's Miracle was balanced around the fact that it was limited to B&C battles and affected all sides equally—Watatsumi wouldn't have needed to pull back his Rank 5 forces otherwise—but the condition was easy enough to plan around. At least it only affected a limited category of soldiers rather than a broader one.

"I activate my Rank 8 Prophecy The Dark Return," Ishtar said without skipping a beat. "It allows me to revive a Champion by sacrificing the life of one of my followers."

Wepwawet choked in surprise as the same demon boy Champion who had perished once before, crushed by Ishtar's Molek, joined Princess Topaz's side, put his hand on the late Jasper with a bored expression, and then sliced his own throat. The sight of a fountain of blood showering her husband startled Topaz, but not as much as the sight of her beloved coughing back to life.

"Oh my gods…" Princess Topaz immediately embraced her husband, briefly forgetting the dead demon in her joy. "Jasper!"

Wepwawet couldn't believe his eyes. "You… sacrificed your Champion to save mine?"

"We are allies, are we not? Did you expect anything else?" Ishtar sighed with a thin smile, as if amused by Wepwawet's distrust. "Alas, I cannot revive more Champions for now."

"What good would it do?" Hel taunted her. "Commanders cannot be revived in battles where their demise is a victory condition… speaking of which…"

She pulled another card from her hand and quickly confirmed Wepwawet's fears. A single Miracle, however strong, couldn't determine an entire strategy. There was no way Hel could have expected Five Fingers Reaping to decimate all their armies when she specifically changed their losing condition, which could only mean one thing.

She had more than one instant death Miracle.

"I cast the Rank 8 Miracle Doomsday Sentence," Hel said. "If I correctly guess the name of a living creature whose face I know, I can afflict it with the Doom Ailment regardless of distance. Now, if Epona's information is correct, your dragonrider Commander's name is–"

Wepwawet froze in horror and frantically checked his Miracles to see if any of them could save Victoire, but he had none. He was about to send a telepathic message to warn her when his salvation came from an unlikely source.

"Teme!" Watatsumi all but shouted in Hel's ear, startling her. "Hime-sama o korosu nante tondemonai!"

"I have no choice, the dragons are immune to Instadeath, and most of the Commanders are princesses! I am trying to protect your Altar!" Hel protested, only for Watatsumi to insistently point a claw at another Commander who fit the bill. "Ugh, fine, I pick the giant Jarlack then."

Wepwawet gritted his teeth as a phantom number five appeared above Jarlack's head, which he immediately noticed. "What's that, Boss? A pay raise?"

"The number of minutes you have left to live," Wepwawet confessed through telepathy.

Of all Ailments, few were crueler than Doom. It applied a counter to a mortal, immediately followed by an Instadeath effect once it hit zero. The dread and anticipation felt worse than a quick end for most of its victims.

"So that was the source of the countdowns plaguing my people last month," Ishtar said with a snort. "A pity I can revive the dead. You must have wasted a lot of mana for nothing."

"Just wait, Whore of Babylon," Hel replied with an annoyed expression. "I set a Rank 5 Prophecy and conclude my turn here."

Jarlack's counter had gone down to four, which meant he would perish before Wepwawet concluded his turn. The god drew a card and hoped for something that could somehow save his Champion, only to receive Fire & Ice.

Nothing I have can break the effect, Wepwawet thought in alarm. He glanced at Ishtar, who quietly shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jarlack. There's nothing I can do to save you."

The giant took it way better than expected. "It's fine, I would have probably refused anyway."

His nonchalance took Wepwawet by surprise. "You are going to die."

"I know, I'm very happy!" Jarlack cleared his throat. "To be sure, you are going to raise me and my wife from the dead, right?"

"Yes, eventually," Wepwawet confirmed. He had rarely seen someone so eager to die, so it didn't take him long before quickly putting two and two together. "You both purchased life insurance, didn't you?"

"Yup! All according to our financial plan!"

Figures, Wepwawet thought as he checked the board. The situation was still mostly in their favor in spite of Hel's killing spree. Watatsumi's elven ground troops were frantically evacuating Orestown across the bridge connecting the city to his Altar rather than engage Wepwawet's army, so this part of the board would fall under their control soon. Ishtar's troops continued to bombard Pitsfire from afar with boulders and trebuchets in an effort to bring them down prior to storming the location, and Victoire's flyers would reach the coral barrier very soon.

However, Watatsumi's water had now filled the canyon and stopped short of the bridge, with no sign of the kraken hidden underwater. The rainstorm had begun to subside too, and would allow his elven flyers to intercept Victoire's crew soon.

A notification suddenly hit Wepwawet's screen, followed by a roar in the back of his mind.

Insupportable has gone Berserk!

A white blur flew above Orestown and turned half of it to ice with a roar of fury.

Much to Wepwawet's surprise, Insupportable hadn't taken Bernard's death well at all. The dragon thundered across the heavens with blood-rimmed eyes and rained ice down on the stragglers unfortunate enough to be caught beneath him. Not content with bombarding Orestown, he moved above the bridge and swiftly began to attack it. The evacuating elves, with little to no space to escape the onslaught, were promptly frozen solid by the aerial bombardment, with the luckiest of them barely managing to jump into the water to avoid this fate.

"Kisama!" Watatsumi roared in anger, having no Prophecies or options to save his troops.

This turn of events was only the result of the dragon's rage rather than a tactical plan, but Wepwawet would happily exploit the opportunity anyway. More than that, it gave him an idea.

"Jarlack, rush to the manor near the Altar at full speed!" Wepwawet ordered his giant commander. "Drive your wyvern to the limit of exhaustion if you must! Full throttle!"

"I've no idea what that means, but sure!" Jarlack kicked his wyvern and had it fly ahead of Victoire's group. The poor flying reptile quickly began to cough from the effort, but swiftly covered miles in minutes even as his rider's Doom Count began to descend from five to four to three.

Wepwawet cast his Fire & Ice Doctrine to reinforce his troops against Fire and Frost—mostly to shield against Insupportable's friendly fire and elemental effects—then waited for Jarlack to reach the coral barrier. Watatsumi's Rainstorm had subsided by now, with the elven griffin riders having taken refuge inside the nearby manor, moving to take flight again.

Alas for them, this meant they were concentrated in one spot.

"I'm sure that as a Shinto god, you will probably appreciate this, Watatsumi," Wepwawet said before unleashing his masterstroke. "I cast Ice Barrier on Jarlack!"

Griffin riders moved out of the manor to intercept the doomed Jarlack's final charge, only for a colossal amount of ice to envelop the giant and his wyvern.

An iceberg dropped on Watatsumi's troops and splattered their blood all over the coral.

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