Chapter 63: Three Way War

Several days passed and then a month and then finally on the twenty-third day of September, notable changes began to swell to the surface.

At that time the monsters that resided in Trinity mountain had made several peace treaties with one another with the Kingdom Of Monsters as their mediator. Hera had personally gone to help with the relations there, the most difficult to deal with where the Medusa and Lamia who were in a blood feud. Though they despised one another, the god of monsters provided benefits they simply couldn't ignore. The farms in the kingdom of monsters were slowly taking shape and although heavy hunting and gathering were still necessary, they were able to maintain their food resource with divine spells which aided in the rapid growth of many wild fruits and vegetables, though not once did Scitus use this ability on the farm crops. Scitus was only temporarily supplementing their need for food but he didn't want to continually do that month by month.

The lamia and Medusa entered the alliance because of the food resources provided to them, they were abundant and plentiful, with the god at their side they did not fear food shortages. Even monsters as powerful as they had faced harsh periods of starvation, they grew their own crops but it was not always sufficient for they did not know human techniques. the two races also had ulterior motives that were not made public but Scitus already knew that the two races wanted to seduce him for their own gain.

The Harpies were the most simple to appease, their bodies were incredibly light and they were not very big compared to the other powerful monsters but most importantly they hunted for food all throughout the oasis and so they did not need food. However, the queen requested that every now and again, her people would be allowed to bathe in the mana that dwelled in his territory. The queen hoped that the transformation the goblins had undergone would also happen to her people.

The last race in the trinity mountain territory was the Duergars. They resided within the mountain and continuously excavated it as if looking for some lost treasure. They too were tempted by food, even more so than the others but more than anything they desired magic ores. All magic ores were once ordinary ores but after hundreds of years of being bathed in large mana deposits, they would transform into something more wondrous than before. Although Scitus at that time could not provide this wondrous ore, they knew very well that other gods could easily create magic ore for their nation.

While the trinity mountain territory was in glee after all the benefits they would be provided, the other territories were growing more and more wary. The Minotaur territory, the Vampire and lycanthrope territory, the dryad territory, the troll, and gnoll territory and the dark elf and svirfneblin territory, all these places were eyeing the kingdom of monsters. Scitus's territory was rapidly expanding, a little under half of the Minotaur territory was now under his power, while this provided benefits to those living there, many minotaurs had still decided to move out of Scitus's domain for fear of future repercussions.

The Guardia now encompassed a little under a square mile, several houses were spread throughout the city, forming several small courts and a few larger courts, these courts were free areas in which people could freely enjoy themselves. Several stone circular walls protected the city; from above, it was almost like a maze. The once wooden outer walls were now constructed from Stone and reached several meters into the air.

From a top view their didn't appear to be a main-road, something incomprehensible to other architects but not to Scitus, the city was purposefully built like maze with many small alleyways; in the case of an invasion on the city, the soldiers would have a distinct advantage but Scitus's foresight did not end there, just under the many homes, streets and business dwelled one of the worlds most complex foundations ever known.

Beneath even the foundation was an even more incredible wonder, another part of the city. Scitus had built not only a surface city but an underground city and beneath that one was another two underground cities. These cities were at the moment simply large caves with heavenly pillars supporting the earth above it however, even without the pillars, the cave could easily sustain its own weight.

The three caves ceilings were one thousand feet tall and each cave was separated by several thousands of feet of earth. Each cave had twelve chambers, each chamber was separated by one-hundred-foot of earth, and each chamber had sixteen pillars and these pillars were then reinforced by an outer metal shell.

All of this was the culmination of several months help from the Duergars, their incredible talent for stonework had allowed Scitus to gain divine blueprints which then allowed him to speed the process up of construction. It was not only Scitus that aided in the construction, however, several hundred goblins and kobolds and even some minotaur's aided in the construction; they were taught very simple stone magic which allowed them to move heavy stone debris and even build some parts of certain stone walls.

All this stone came from the Duergar mines, the Duergar had very little use for stone and were more than happy to provide the abundance of stone they had. Their only interest was metal ores. Even so, when the bare bones work on the three chambers was finished, the Duergar couldn't help but be breath taken by the sight before them, it was their most wondrous creation, the ultimate cave home. The third cave city was special, this city was at the lowest point at the time of creation only Scitus and Sia could withstand the temperature but Scitus planned for the city to be the final bastion for the monsters in his city, if all went wrong, if his armies were to fail or some other terrible calamity was to fall them then that place would be their final bastion. The Last City, as Sia called it, was a little deeper than two miles deep and the temperature was unimaginable but Sia knew of a method to make it livable although at the time of creation that system was still beyond Scitus's means.

"We need weather artifacts to make this place bearable to ordinary people." Scitus nodded, a normal person would die from the immense heat and lack of oxygen. The cost of building the entire place took a heavy toll on Scitus's mana, for the last several months he maintained only half of his mana and used all his god energy on construction and food production.

After he finished the bare bones of his grand work, only the first underground city was available to the public. It was crude and a lingering smell of earth smothered its visitors' nostrils but no matter who saw it, they were awed by the grand creation.

Sia had once been a high member of a large kingdom and even she had never seen such a grand undertaking. No god had ever attempted such a large scale project and even with Scitus's help, she was certain it would take years, perhaps decades before it could fully take shape. Although the bigger parts were finished, it was the fine details and little problems that would take ages to complete. Sia estimated that the first city would require at minimum fifty years to be completed, though Scitus disagreed and thought that it would take a little more than a hundred years though it would be livable within ten. All those estimations were only regarding the first city.

On that day, several thousand kobolds and goblins were taking in the sights many of them were awed before the majesty of the first city. the few minotaurs and ogres that worshiped Scitus were also inspired by the glorious place beneath their city. at the end of the line were a few hundred lizard men who held their children in their arms as they walked underneath the darkness, every now and again a small flicker would brightly illuminate the city before darkening once more. Then they hard their god's voice, "Light!!" and suddenly a bright sun made purely of lightly illuminated above them. This ball of light slowly rose and expanded and then divided itself into more balls of light, slowly encompassing small stone pockets which seemed to be made to hold those balls of light. The vast and empty city was know easily seen by all the races, the city was bigger than they could have imagined, all of them could live there without feeling the least bit crowded.

Their god spoke and beside him were three figures. To his left was Sia, the proud and powerful Red Witch of the Oasis, to his right was a hobgoblin, one everyone knew well, "Seresa." Many citizens murmured amongst themselves, for a goblin to stand next to a god it was unimaginable and yet it was right before their eyes, beside Seresa was Robin, yet again another goblin.

"Today, the Godless have decided to move against us!!!" Scitus announced to his citizens, "Mern has also decided to move against!!!" he announced again with his booming voice.

Both the godless and the Mern army had decided to strike at his kingdom, the godless attacking was to be expected but Merns army suddenly appearing incredibly close to the kingdom, very deep into the forbidden territory took Scitus by surprise. Scitus was aware that some spies were eyeing the kingdom but he wanted to appear unprepared for war and so had allowed those spies to quickly look and flee, he had never expected the army to appear at his doorstep.

The godless had also taken him by surprise. He had been expecting them for some time but it should have taken them a couple of days to reach the Kingdom and allowed him a few days to properly prepare but they suddenly appeared only a day's distance from the kingdom.

"it seems Mern is taking you more seriously, he probably used a gate." Gates were teleportation devices but the mana cost was quite heavy, only gods could send entire armies to another's domain. [The Rules Of War] forbade using gates to directly attack a god's capital city but Scitus only had his capital city and so the rules didn't apply to him.

Mern had used his spies to distract Scitus from the fact that Korin was laying down the foundation to create a gate large enough for an army to burst through and attack his capital. The sudden change was startling but Scitus did not waver.

The gate would have been finished earlier but after the incident, Mern had recalled Korin and sent lesser mages to finish the gate and so it took longer than expected to form the gate.

Scitus proclaimed to the citizens of his soon-to-be victory. "Our armies will protect our nation!!" he proclaimed and was soon met with cheers and proud smiles as if it was only a matter of fact.

The harpies that Scitus sent to spy on the two armies were easily killed but it did not stop Scitus from getting a glimpse of the enemy armies, five thousand godless soldiers marched towards his border, while Mern's army held an overwhelming ten thousand strong army. That was in contrast to Scitus who only had one thousand soldiers. however, although the godless likely knew already, merns army would be caught completely unawares once they face a desperate and furious minotaur army. There would also be assistance from the harpies, lamia, and medusa who had reached the Kingdom several weeks prior, alongside the fairies who would arrive in the morning and the wyverns who would arrive around the same time. There was, of course, Scitus's most powerful allies, Sia, Hera, and Eveline. In total Scitus had managed to amass a total fighting force of seven thousand.

His army was separated into several cores, the Moon knights, the shield knights, the assassin knights, the spartan knights, and the star knights. The enemy armies were only a day away and soon they would be met with the sounds of war.

"RA RA RA!!!" the godless shouted as they marched forward, all the while the Mern army shouted, "DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY!!!"

"show me what you can do, Scitus," Mern muttered to himself as he watched the battle through Korin and Slayn who hid far away from the massive army. Mern had no intention to sacrifice any of his forces, all of it would be on Siion.