The Dark Elves celebrated their victory that night. Some were too busy mourning their fallen comrades but overall, morale had risen to its peak. The streets of the Underground City were active and it became something close to a small festival. Even though the war wasn’t over yet, it couldn’t be helped as the enemy was far bigger than the Dark Elves yet they managed to win. And while other factors played a part, the Dark Elf Army were still the winners. The battle was something out of a legend for them and many praises were given to Ira during the ensuing celebration.

Ira, on the other hand, didn’t have time to wallow in the victory. Lauren’s arrival and the addition of more Valkyries took his main focus.

“So, you had to fight for a month straight in order to lead them here?” Ira sat at the war room table and sipped a glass of wine. It had no effect on him but he had grown to like the taste.

“Correct.” Lauren smiled with satisfaction. “My Great Grandchildren have grown in my time away I’ve noticed.”

“They surprise me every day with how much they grow,” Ira said with a chuckle.

“Ah, I’ve heard that your youngest, Valeryn, has quite the talent with the sword.”

“While I would love to speak more about Ira and Avery’s children, we have more urgent matters to get to, Mother,” Casey said.

“Yes, yes,” Lauren replied nonchalantly. It was clear that her time away gave her a slightly more relaxed demeanor but that didn’t mean she failed to see the urgency of the situation.

“Avery, would you like to start? You’ve been the one in charge of the attack plan since the start, right? I see no reason for that to change.” Casey nodded to her daughter.

“The next attack will be the strongest one and I doubt we will be able to prevent massive losses without Ira summoning the Red Moon. Even then, the total number of the army is in the millions. They’ve only shown us such low numbers because of their confidence and the difficulty of leading a massive army. Since they will no longer be sure of a win it would be smarter to take the guaranteed route and overwhelm us with sheer number. If they do so, the number of Valkyries wouldn’t matter and there is the fact that we still have to deal with more than one thousand Angels. We’ll have to rely on Ira this time, the tactics we used so far won’t work again.” Avery’s summary of the situation struck at the core of the matter.

There was no way around what would happen. The Angels would come in full force, no longer attacking passively but directly engaging with the Valkyries and the Dark Elf Army. It may have been pride or some other meaningless reason, but the Angels had shown extreme restraint.

“Sounds easy enough.” Ira shrugged. He still hadn’t been upfront with his intentions of attacking the Gods and that’s because there was no way to convince Avery to agree to it. So he decided to save it for later, hoping that she would see his side of things.

“It won’t be easy. They’ll be waiting to trap you and we have no way of knowing how to prevent. If you don’t fight our side will be destroyed and if you do they will definitely be waiting.”

“Could the Tartarus really hold me?” Ira asked curiously. It may have sounded arrogant but it was an honest question from him.

“Are you willing to test it?”

“I might not have a choice.” Ira sighed. Gavreel’s memories gave him no insight into destroying it or countering it so he could only hope he was strong enough to resist it.

Everyone remained silent at Ira’s exchange with Avery.

“If I may speak, Keeper,” Sylun started. “It seems like the fight cannot be avoided so perhaps we should plan for what comes after?”

“Like?” Ira waited for her to go on.

“If you’re captured we’ll be forced to retreat back to the Underground City and hold there. If we focus solely on defense we can hold out for a week while defending the city.”

Ira thought about it for a few moments and then finally replied. “Make sure my children don’t get hurt.”

…

Clark wandered around the army’s encampment aimlessly. Things just seemed to go wrong at every turn for those who had the support of the Gods. Two botched attacks and division with the ranks of those who should’ve been allies was hardly a sign of favor from the heavens. No one would dare say it aloud, but questions were beginning to arise. Especially from the Parvians who had no real reason to involve themselves with Ira. He hadn’t personally attacked them and they saw him as no real danger to their well being even if he ate cities. Of course, the losses they suffered during the battle started to change that opinion, the majority still felt that they were fighting someone else’s war.

Suddenly, Clark stopped at a quiet corner of the camp. There was literally no one around which he found odd but he decided to rest there anyway. It felt like a momentary respite from the events of the past few days. He closed his eyes and basked in the moonlight among a few empty crates, recalling memories that were a few years old.

“Benjamin.” His brother’s name came to his mind in an instant. He opened his eyes but was startled by the approach of Angels.

For fear of being reprimanded, he hid amongst the crates and held his breath but they didn’t even look his way. They instead went to an empty tent and vanished inside of it.

“What?” Clark looked genuinely surprised. After all, what business could the Angels possibly have with an empty section of the encampment?

He waited for a few moments, and when they finally reemerged it was with large boxes in hand. He was bewildered but couldn’t take his eyes away. The Angels carried the boxes off and for some reason, he followed them while doing his best not to be noticed.

Eventually, they stopped far away from the camp and opened the boxes before dumping the contents into a large pit. After that, they used their divine power to move the ground underneath and covered the pit entirely, making it seem as it was never there, to begin with.

The low-ranked Angels flew away leaving Clark to finally relax. He approached the site of the pit from far off and began digging. Immediately, a putrid smell filled his nose and his heart nearly stopped. He had been around it long enough to know exactly what the smell was. His hands slowed but he continued digging, desperate to know the truth. And he found it, a half-rotten corpse with insects crawling through it.

“Ah!” Clark held back his scream as best he could and scrambled backward. His breathing grew erratic and he even doubted his eyes. He crawled for and dug in a different spot and the result was the same.

“No.” Clark went to another spot and another corpse greeted him. “It can’t be.”

He thought of the missing staff that he asked Randolph about and he knew that they wouldn’t be found. They weren’t moved to another camp but instead killed by the very beings they worshipped.

Clark gripped his stomach and retched loudly, spilling the contents of his breakfast into the soil.

He stumbled away from the shabby gravesite in a far different mood than the one he arrived in.

…

Ira was sunken into a chair with an intense gaze. His thoughts were unknown but anyone could see he was deeply concentrating on something.

“Father?” Valeryn’s voice pulled Ira from his absent-minded state.

“Hmm?” Ira responded warmly. “Why aren’t you asleep, Ryn?”

“I want to fight with you. Outside and on the battlefield.” Valeryn stated his desires in a blunt matter.

“No.” Ira’s reply was almost immediate.

“Why not? You took Raveria to fight with you before. I can defend myself well too. Even mother says I’m stronger than most people.” Valeryn didn’t give up and made his case.

“What happened with Raveria was different, Ryn. You’re not going to try and go out there, promise me.”

“But–”

“Promise me.” Ira stared into his son’s eyes searching for any falsehood.

“...I promise I won’t try to go out without your permission.” Valeryn seemingly gave up.

“Good.” Ira grinned. “Now go to bed.”

Valeryn nodded and walked away with defeated steps, but if one were to look closer, they’d see a crafty look in his eyes.